Chapter 9

"Mary Beck, Aunt Barbara. I thought that I liked her ever and ever so much, but I have days when I want to shake her. It's my fault, because I wake up and think about her and feel cross before I even look at her, and then I can't get on all day. Then some days I can hardly wait to get over to see her, and we have such a good time. But you can't change her mind about anything."

"I thought that you wouldn't be so unreasonable all summer," said Aunt Barbara, picking very fast. "You see that you expect Mary Beck to be perfect, and the poor child isn't. You made up a Mary Beck in your own mind, who was perfect at all points and just the kind of a girl you would like best to spend all your time with. Be thankful for all you do like in her; that's the best way."

"I just fell in love with a girl in the Isle of Wight, last summer," said Betty sorrowfully. "We wished to be together all the time, and we wrote notes and always went about together. She was older than I. But one day she said things that made me forget I ever liked her a bit. She wanted to make up afterward, but I _couldn't_; and she writes and writes me letters, but I never wish to see her again. I am sorry I ever liked her." Betty's eyes flashed, and her cheeks were very red.

"I suppose it has been hard for her too," said Aunt Barbara; "but we must like different friends for different reasons. Just try to remember that you cannot find perfection. I used to know a great many girls when I was growing up, and some of them are my friends still, the few who are left. To find one true-hearted friend is worth living through a great many disappointments."

* * * * *

Two or three weeks went over before Betty ceased to have the feeling that she was a stranger and foreigner in Tideshead. At first she said "you" and "I" when she was talking with the girls, but soon it became easier to say "we." She took great pleasure in doing whatever the rest did, from joining a class in Sunday-school to carrying round one of the subscription-papers to pay for some Fourth of July fireworks, which went up in a blaze of splendor on the evening of that glorious day.

After the garden tea-party, nothing happened, of a social nature, for some time, although several of the boys and girls gave fine hints that something might be expected to happen at their own houses. There was a cheerful running to and fro about the Leicester house, and the high white gate next the street was heard to creak and clack at least once in every half-hour. Nelly Foster came seldom, but she was the brightest and merriest of all the girls when she grew a little excited, and lost the frightened look that had made lines on her forehead much too soon. Harry was not seen very often, but Betty wondered a great deal about him, and fancied him hunting and fishing in all sorts of dangerous places. The Picknell girls came into the village on Sundays always, and often once or twice in the week; but it was haying time now, and they were very busy at the farm. Betty liked them dearly, and so did Mary Beck, who did not get on with the minister's daughters at all, and had a prejudice, as we know, against Nelly Foster. These made the little company which seemed most closely allied, especially after the Sin Book Club became a thing of the past as an active society. Betty had proposed the out-of-door club, and had started a tennis-court, and devoted much time to it; but nobody knew how to play very well yet, except Harry Foster and Julia Picknell, and they were the most difficult ones to catch for an idle afternoon. George Max could play, and one or two others could stumble through a game and like it pretty well; but as for Mary Beck, her shoes were too small for much agility, and she liked to wear her clothes so tight that she was very clumsy with a racket. Betty's light little gowns looked prim and plain to the Tideshead girls, who thought their colors very strange, to begin with, and had not the sense to be envious when their wearer went by, as light-footed and graceful as they were awkward. They could not understand the simplicity that was natural to Betty, but everybody liked her, and felt as much interested as if she were an altogether new variety of human being. Perhaps we shall understand the situation better if we read a letter which our heroine wrote just then:--

MY DEAR PAPA,--This is from your Betty, who intended to take a long walk with Mary Beck this afternoon, but is now prevented by a thunder-shower. It makes me wonder what you do when you get wet, and who sees that you take off your wet clothes and tries not to let you have a cold. Isn't it almost time for you to come home now, papa? I do miss taking care of you so very much. You will be tired hearing about Mary Beck, and you can't stop it, can you? as if you laughed and then talked about something else when we were walking together. You must remember that you said we must be always fighting an enemy in ourselves, and my enemy just now is making little funs of Mary, and seeing that she doesn't know so much as she thinks she does. I like too well to show her that she is mistaken when she tells about things; but it makes me sorry afterward, because, in spite of myself, I like her better than I do anybody. I truly love her, papa; indeed, I do, but I like to tease her better than to help her, when she puts on airs about the very places where I have been and things I have done. Aunt Barbara speaks of her manners, and wishes I would "play with" Nelly Foster and the minister's girls: but Nelly is like anybody grown up,--I suppose it is because she has seen trouble, as people say here; and the minister's girls are _little 'fraid cats_. That is what Serena says, and is sure to make you laugh. "Try and make 'em hop 'round," Serena told me at the party, and I did try; but they aren't good hoppers, and that's all there is to say. I sent down to Riverport and bought Seth a book of violin airs, and he practiced until two o'clock one morning, so that Serena and Jonathan were saying dreadful things. Aunt Mary is about the same, and so is Aunt Barbara, and they send their love. Papa, you must never tell, but I hate the one and love the other. Mary Beck isn't half so bad as I am to say that, but now it is a black mark and must stay. There is one awful piece of news. The Fosters' father has broken out of jail and escaped, and they are offering a great reward, and it is in all the papers. I ought to go to see Nelly, but I dread it. I am writing this last page another day, for yesterday the sun came out after the shower and I went out with Aunt Barbara. She is letting Mrs. Foster do some sewing for me. She says that my clothes were in ruins; she did indeed, and that they had been badly washed. I hope that yours are not the same. Mrs. Foster looked terribly frightened and pale, and asked Aunt B. to come into the other room, and told her about Mr. Foster. Then it was in the paper last night. Papa, dear, I do remember what you said in one of your letters about being a Tideshead girl myself for this summer, and not standing off and finding fault. I feel more like a Tideshead girl lately, but I wish they wouldn't keep saying how slow it is and nothing going on. We might do so many nice things, but they make such great fusses first, instead of just going and doing them, the way you and I do. _They think of every reason why you can't do things that you can do._ The currants are all gone. You can't have a currant pie this year. I thought those by the fence, under the cherry-tree, might last until you came, because it is shady, but they all spoiled in the rain. Now I am going to read in "Walton's Lives" to Aunt Mary. She says it is a book everybody ought to know, and that I run wild more than I ought at my age. I like to read aloud, as you know, so good-by, but my age is _such_ a trouble. If you were here, we would have the best good time.

Your own child, BETTY.

XIII.

A GREAT EXCITEMENT.

THAT afternoon Betty's lively young voice grew droning and dull after a while, as she read the life of Dr. Donne, and at last she stopped altogether.

"Aunt Mary, I can't help thinking about the Fosters' father. Do you suppose he will come home and frighten them some night?"

"No, he would hardly dare to come where they are sure to be looking for him," said Aunt Mary. "Dear me, the thought makes me so nervous."

"When I have read to the end of this page I will just run down to see Nelly a few minutes, if you can spare me. I keep dreading to see her until I am almost afraid to go."

Miss Mary sighed and said yes. Somehow she didn't get hold of Betty's love,--only her duty.

Betty lingered in the garden and picked some mignonette before she started, and a bright carnation or two from Aunt Barbara's special plants. The Fosters' house was farther down the street on the same side, and Nelly's blinds were shut, but if Betty had only known it, poor Nelly was looking out wistfully through them, and wishing with all her heart that her young neighbor would come in. She dreaded the meeting, too, but there was such a simple, frank friendliness about Betty Leicester that it did not hurt as if one of the other girls had come.

There came the sound of the gate-latch, and Nelly went eagerly down. "Come up to my room; I was sitting there sewing," she said, blushing very red, and Betty felt her own cheeks burn. How dreadful it must be not to have such a comforting dear father as hers! She put her arms round Nelly's neck and kissed her, and Nelly could hardly keep from crying; but up-stairs they went to the bedroom, where Betty had never happened to go before. She felt suddenly, as she never had before, how pinched and poor the Fosters must be. Nelly was determined to be brave and cheerful, and took up her sewing again. It happened to be a little waist of Betty's own. Betty tried to talk gayly about being very tired of reading "Walton's Lives." She had come to a dull place in Dr. Donne's memoirs, though she thought them delightful at first. She was just reading "The Village on the Cliff," on her own account, with perfect delight.

"Harry reads 'Walton's Angler,'" said Nelly. "That's the same man, isn't he? It is a stupid-looking old brown book that belonged to my grandfather."

"Papa reads it, too," said Betty, nodding her head wisely. "I am in such a hurry to have him come, when I think of Harry. I am sure that he will help him to be a naturalist or something like that. Mr. Buckland would have just loved Harry. I knew him when I was a little bit of a thing. Papa used to take me to see him in London, and all his dreadful beasts and snakes used to frighten me, but I do so like to remember him now. Harry makes me think of Robinson Crusoe and Mayne Reid's books, and those story-book boys who used to do such wild things fishing and hunting."

"We used to think that Harry never would get on because he spent so much time in the woods, but somehow he always learned his lessons too," said Nelly proudly; "and now his fishing brings in so much money that I don't know how we shall live when winter comes. We are so anxious about winter. Oh, Betty, it is easy to tell you, but I can't bear to have other people even look at me;" and she burst into tears and hid her face in her hands.

"Let us go out-doors, just down through the garden and across into the woods a little while," pleaded Betty. "Do, Nelly, dear!" and presently they were on their way. The fresh summer air and the sunshine were much better than the close-shaded room, where Nelly was startled by every sound about the house, and they soon lost their first feeling of constraint as they sat under a pine-tree whipping two of Miss Barbara Leicester's new tea-napkins. Betty had many things to say about her English life and her friends. Mary Beck never cared to hear much about England, and it was always delightful to have an interested listener. At last the sewing was finished, and Nelly proposed that they should go a little way farther, and come out on the river bank. Harry would be coming up about this time with his fare of fish, if he had had good luck. It would be fun to shout to him as he went by.

They pushed on together through the open pasture, where the sweet-fern and bayberry bushes grew tall and thick; there was another strip of woods between them and the river, and just this side was a deserted house, which had not been lived in for many years and was gray and crumbling. The fields that belonged to it had been made part of a great sheep pasture, and two or three sheep were standing by the half-opened door, as if they were quite at home there in windy or wet weather. Betty had seen the old house before, and thought it was most picturesque. She now proposed that they should have a picnic party by and by, and make a fire in the old fireplace; but Nelly Foster thought there would be great danger of burning the house down.

"Suppose we go and look in?" pleaded Betty. "Mary Beck and I saw it not long after I came, but she thought it was going to rain, so that we didn't stop. I like to go into an empty old ruin, and make up stories about it, and wonder who used to live there. Don't stop to pick these blackberries; you know they aren't half ripe," she teased Nelly; and so they went over to the old house, frightening away the sheep as they crossed the doorstep boldly. It was all in ruins; the roof was broken about the chimney, so that the sun shone through upon the floor, and the light-red bricks were softened and sifting down. In one corner there was a heap of withes for mending fences, which had been pulled about by the sheep, and there were some mud nests of swallows high against the walls, but the birds seemed to have already left them. This room had been the kitchen, and behind it was a dark, small place which must have been a bedroom when people lived there, dismal as it looked now.

"I am going to look in here and all about the place," said Betty cheerfully, and stepped in to see what she could find.

"Oh, go back, Nelly!" she screamed, in a great fright, the next moment; and they fled out of the house into the warm sunshine. They had had time to see that a man was lying on the floor as if he were dead. Betty's heart was beating so that she could hardly speak.

"We must get somebody to come," she panted, trying to stop Nelly. "Was it somebody dead?"

But Nelly sank down as pale as ashes into the sweet-fern bushes, and looked at her strangely. "Oh, Betty Leicester, it will kill mother, it will kill her! I believe it was my father; what shall I do?"

"Your father," faltered Betty,--"your father? We must go and tell." Then she remembered that he was a hunted man, a fugitive from justice.

They looked fearfully at the house; the sheep had come back and stood again near the doorway. There was something more horrible than the two girls had ever known in the silence of the place. It would have been less awful if there had been a face at the broken door or windows.

"Henry--we must try to stop Henry," said poor pale Nelly, and they hurried toward the river shore. They could not help looking anxiously behind them as they passed the belt of pine; a terrible fear possessed them as they ran. "He is afraid that somebody will see him. I wonder if he will come home to-night."

"He must be ill there," said Betty, but she did not dare to say anything else. What an unendurable thing to be afraid and ashamed of one's own father!

They looked down the river with eager eyes. Yes, there was Harry Foster's boat coming up slowly, with the three-cornered sail spread to catch the light breeze. Nelly gave a long sigh and sank down on the turf, and covered her face as she cried bitterly. Betty thought, with cowardly longing, of the quiet and safety of Aunt Mary's room, and the brown-covered volume of "Walton's Lives." Then she summoned all her courage. These two might never have sorer need of a friend than in this summer afternoon.

Henry Foster's boat sailed but slowly. It was heavily laden, and the wind was so light that from time to time he urged it with the oars. He did not see the two girls waiting on the bank until he was close to them, for the sun was in his eyes and his thoughts were busy. His father's escape from jail was worse than any sorrow yet; nobody knew what might come of it. Harry felt very old and careworn for a boy of seventeen. He had determined to go to see Miss Barbara Leicester that evening, and to talk over his troubles with her. He had been able to save a little money, and he feared that it might be demanded. He had already paid off the smaller debts that were owed in the village; but he knew his father too well not to be afraid of getting some menacing letters presently. If his father had only fled the country! But how could that be done without money? He would not work his passage; Harry was certain enough of that. Would it not be better to let him have the money and go to the farthest limit to which it could carry him?

Something made the young man shade his eyes with his hand and look toward the shore; then he took the oars and pulled quickly in. That was surely his sister Nelly, and the girl beside her, who wore a grayish dress with a white blouse waist, was Betty Leicester. It was just like kind-hearted little Betty to have teased poor Nelly out into the woods. He would carry them home in his boat; he could rub it clean with some handfuls of hemlock twigs or river grass. Then he saw how strangely they looked, as he pushed the boat in and pulled it far ashore. What in the world had happened?

Nelly tried to speak again and again, but her voice could not make itself heard. "Oh, don't cry any more, Nelly, dear," said Betty, trembling from head to foot, and very pale. "We went into the old house up there by the pasture, and found--Nelly said it was your father, and we thought he was very ill."

"I'll take you both home, then," said Harry Foster, speaking quickly and with a hard voice. "Get in, both of you,--this is the shortest way,--then I'll come back by myself."

"Oh, no, no!" sobbed Nelly. "He looked as if he were dying, Harry; he was lying on the floor. We will go, too; he couldn't hurt us, could he?" And the three turned back into the woods. Betty's heart almost failed her. She felt like a soldier going into battle. Oh, could she muster bravery enough to go into that house again? Yet she loved her father so much that doing this for another girl's father was a great comfort, in all her fear.

The young man hurried ahead when they came near the house, and it was only a few minutes before he reappeared.

"You must go and tell mother to come as quick as she can, and hurry to find the doctor and tell him; he will know what to do. Father has been dreadfully hurt somehow. Perhaps Miss Leicester will let Jonathan come to help us get him home." Harry Foster's face looked old and strange; he never would seem like a boy any more, Betty thought, with a heart full of sympathy. She hurried away with Nelly; they could not bring help fast enough.

* * * * *

After the great excitement was over, Betty felt very tired and unhappy. That night she could be comforted only by Aunt Barbara's taking her into her own bed, and being more affectionate and sympathetic than ever before, even talking late, like a girl, about the Out-of-Door Club plans. In spite of this attempt to return to every-day thoughts, Betty waked next morning to much annoyance and trouble. She felt as if the sad affairs of yesterday related only to the poor Fosters and herself, but as she went down the street, early, she was stopped and questioned by eager groups of people who were trying to find out something more about the discovery of Mr. Foster in the old house. It proved that he had leaped from a high window, hurting himself badly by the fall, when he made his escape from prison, and that he had been wandering in the woods for days. The officers had come at once, and there was a group of men outside the Fosters' house. This had a terrible look to Betty. Everybody said that the doctor believed there was only a slight chance for Mr. Foster's life, and that they were not going to try to take him back to jail. He had been delirious all night. One or two kindly disposed persons said that they pitied his poor family more than ever, but most of the neighbors insisted that "it served Foster just right." Betty did her errand as quickly as possible, and hastily brushed by some curious friends who tried to detain her. She felt as if it were unkind and disloyal to speak of her neighbor's trouble to everybody, and the excitement and public concern of the little village astonished her very much. She did not know, until then, how the joy or trouble of one home could affect the town as if it were one household. Everybody spoke very kindly to her, and most people called her "Betty," and seemed to know her very well, whether they had ever spoken to her before or not. The women were standing at their front doors or their gates, to hear whatever could be told, and our friend looked down the long street and felt that it was like running the gauntlet to get home again. Just then she met the doctor, looking gray and troubled, as if he had been awake all night, but when he saw Betty his face brightened.

"Well done, my little lady," he said, in a cheerful voice, which made her feel steady again, and then he put his hand on Betty's shoulder and looked at her very kindly.

"Oh, doctor! may I walk along with you a little way?" she faltered. "Everybody asks me to tell"--

"Yes, yes, I know all about it," said the doctor; and he turned and took Betty's hand as if she were a child, and they walked away together. It was well known in Tideshead that Dr. Prince did not like to be questioned about his patients.

"I was wondering whether I ought to go to see Nelly," said Betty, as they came near the house. "I haven't seen her since I came home with her yesterday. I--didn't quite dare to go in as I came by."

"Wait until to-morrow, perhaps," said the doctor. "The poor man will be gone then, and you will be a greater comfort. Go over through the garden. You can climb the fences, I dare say," and he looked at Betty with a queer little smile. Perhaps he had seen her sometimes crossing the fields with Mary Beck.

"Do you mean that he is going to die to-day?" asked Betty, with great awe. "Ought I to go then?"

"Love may go where common kindness is shut out," said Dr. Prince. "You have done a great deal to make those poor children happy, this summer. They had been treated in a very narrow-minded way. It was not like Tideshead, I must say," he added, "but people are shy sometimes, and Mrs. Foster herself could not bear to see the pity in her neighbors' faces. It will be easier for her now."

"I keep thinking, what if it were my own papa?" said Betty softly. "He couldn't be so wicked, but he might be ill, and I not there."

"Dear me, no!" said the doctor heartily, and giving Betty's hand a tight grasp and a little swing to and fro. "I suppose he's having a capital good time up among his glaciers. I wish that I were with him for a month's holiday;" and at this Betty was quite cheerful again.