Exit Betty Part 7

"I'm awful glad you come! I think you're awful pretty!"

"Thank you!" said Betty, warmly squeezing the little confiding hand. It was the first time in her life that a little child had come close to her in this confiding way. Her life had not been among children.

Then Bob whirled up, bareheaded, freckled, whistling, efficient, and about twelve years old. He grabbed the suitcase, eyed the stranger with a pleasant grin, and stamped off into the darkness ahead of them.

It was a new experience to Betty to be walking down a village street with little houses on each side and lights and warmth and heads bobbing through the windows. It stirred some memory of long ago, before she could scarcely remember. She wondered, had her own mother ever lived in a small village?

"That's our church," confided Emily, as they pa.s.sed a large frame building with pointed steeple and belfry. "They're goin' to have a entertainment t'morra night, an' we're all goin' and Ma said you cud go too."

"Isn't that lovely!" said Betty, feeling a sudden lump like tears in her throat. It was just like living out a fairy story. She hadn't expected to be taken right in to family life this way.

"But how did you know I was coming on that train?" she asked the older girl suddenly. "Jane said she was going to telegraph, but I expected to have to hunt around to find the house."

"Oh, we just came down to every train after the telegram came. This is the last train to-night, and we were awful scared for fear you wouldn't come till morning, an' have to stay on the train all night. Ma says it isn't nice for a girl to have to travel alone at night. Ma always makes Jane and me go daytimes."

"It was just lovely of you," said Betty, wondering if she was talking "natural" enough to please Jane.

"Did you bob you hair 'cause you had a fever?" asked Nellie enviously.

"No," said Betty, "that is, I haven't been very well, and I thought it might be good for me," she finished, wondering how many questions like that it was going to be hard for her to answer without telling a lie. A lie was something that her father had made her feel would hurt him more deeply than anything else she could do.

"I just love it," said Nellie enthusiastically. "I wanted to cut mine, an' so did Jane, but Ma wouldn't let us. She says G.o.d gave us our hair, an' we oughtta take care of it."

"That's true, too," said Betty. "I never thought about that. But I guess mine will grow again after a while. I think it will be less trouble this way. But it's very dirty with traveling. I think I'll have to wash it before I put it on a pillow."

That had troubled Betty greatly. She didn't know how to get rid of that hair dye before Jane's family got used to having it dark.

"Sure, you can wash it, if you ain't 'fraid of takin' cold. There's lots of hot water. Ma thought you'd maybe want to take a bath. We've got a big tin bath-tub out in the back shed. Ma bought it off the Joneses when they got their porcelain one put into their house. We don't have no runnin' water but we have an awful good well. Here's our house. I guess Bob's got there first. See, Ma's out on the steps waitin' fer us."

The house was a square wooden affair, long wanting paint, and trimmed with little scrollwork around the diminutive front porch. The color was indescribable, blending well into the surroundings either day or night.

It had a cheerful, decent look, but very tiny. There was a small yard about it with a picket fence, and a leafless lilac bush. A cheerful barberry bush flanked the gate on either side. The front door was open into a tiny hall and beyond the light streamed forth from a gla.s.s lamp set on a pleasant dining-room table covered with a red cloth. Betty stepped inside the gate and found herself enveloped in two motherly arms, and then led into the light and warmth of the family dining-room.

CHAPTER VIII

THERE was a kettle of stew on the stove in the kitchen, kept hot from supper for Betty, with fresh dumplings just mixed before the train came in, and bread and b.u.t.ter with apple sauce and cookies. They made her sit right down and eat, before she even took her hat off, and they all sat around her and talked while she ate. It made her feel very much at home as if somehow she was a real relative.

It came over her once how different all this was from the house which she had called home all her life. The fine napery, the cut gla.s.s and silver, the stately butler! And here was she eating off a stone china plate thick enough for a table top, with a steel knife and fork and a spoon with the silver worn off the bowl. She could not help wondering what her stepmother would have said to the red and white tablecloth, and the green shades at the windows. There was an old sofa covered with carpet in the room, with a flannel patchwork pillow, and a cat cuddled up cosily beside it purring away like a tea-kettle boiling. Somehow, poor as it was, it seemed infinitely more attractive than any room she had ever seen before, and she was charmed with the whole family. Bobbie sat at the other end of the table with his elbows on the table and his round eyes on her. When she smiled at him he winked one eye and grinned and then wriggled down under the table out of sight.

The mother had tired kind eyes and a firm cheerful mouth like Jane's.

She took Betty right in as if she had been her sister's child.

"Come, now, get back there, Emily. Don't hang on Lizzie. She'll be tired to death of you right at the start. Give her a little peace while she eats her supper. How long have you and Jane been friends, Lizzie?" she asked, eager for news of her own daughter.

Betty's cheeks flushed and her eyes grew troubled. She was very much afraid that being Lizzie was going to be hard work:

"Why, not so very long," she said hesitatingly.

"Are you one of the girls in her factory?"

"Oh, no!" said Betty wildly, wondering what would come next. "We--just met--that is--why--_out one evening_!" she finished desperately.

"Oh, I see!" said the mother. "Yes, she wrote about going out sometimes, mostly to the movies. And to church. My children always make it a point to go to church wherever they are. I brought 'em up that way. I hope you go to church."

"I shall love to," said Betty eagerly.

"Is your mother living?" was the next question.

"No," answered Betty. "Mother and father are both dead and I've been having rather a hard time. Jane was kind to me when I was in trouble."

"I'll warrant you! That's Jane!" beamed her mother happily. "Jane always was a good girl, if I do say so. I knew Jane was at her tricks again when she sent me that telegram."

"Ma's got you a place already!" burst out Nellie eagerly.

"Now, Nellie, you said you'd let Ma tell that!" reproached Bob. "You never can keep your mouth shut."

"There! There! Bob, don't spoil the evening with anything unkind,"

warned the mother. "Yes, Lizzie, I got you a position. It just happened I had the chance, and I took it, though I don't really b'lieve that anythin' in this world just happens, of course. But it did seem providential. Mrs. Hathaway wanted somebody to look after her little girl. She's only three years old and she is possessed to run away every chance she gets. Course I s'pose she's spoiled. Most rich children are.

Now, my children wouldn't have run away. They always thought too much of what I said to make me trouble. But that's neither here nor there.

She does it, and besides her Ma is an invalid. She had an operation, so she has to lie still a good bit, and can't be bothered. She wants somebody just to take the little girl out walking and keep her happy in the house, an' all."

"How lovely!" exclaimed Betty. "I shall enjoy it, I know."

"She's awful pretty!" declared Emily eagerly. "Got gold curls and blue eyes just like you, and she has ever an' ever so many little dresses, and wears pink shoes and blue shoes, an' rides a tricycle."

"How interesting!" said Betty.

"You'll get good wages," said the mother. "She said she'd give you six dollars a week, an' mebbe more, an' you'd get some of your meals."

"Then I can pay my board to you," cried Betty.

"Don't worry about that, child. We'll fix that up somehow. We're awful glad to have you come, and I guess we shall like each other real well.

Now, children, it's awful late. Get to bed. Scat! Lizzie can have her bath an' get to bed, too. Come, mornin's half way here already!"

The children said good night and Betty was introduced to the tin bath tub and improvised bathroom--a neat little addition to the kitchen evidently intended originally for a laundry. She wanted to laugh when she saw the primitive makes.h.i.+fts, but instead the tears came into her eyes to think how many luxuries she had taken all her life as a matter of course and never realized how hard it was for people who had none. In fact it had never really entered her head before that there were people who had no bathrooms.

Betty was not exactly accustomed to was.h.i.+ng her own hair, and with the added problem of the dye it was quite a task; but she managed it at last, using all the hot water, to get it so that the rinsing water was clear, and her hair felt soft. Then, attired in the same warm nightgown she had worn the night before, which Jane had thoughtfully put in the suitcase--otherwise filled with old garments she wished to send home--Betty pattered upstairs to the little room with the sloping roof and the dormer window and crept into bed with Nellie. That young woman had purposely stayed awake, and kept Betty as long as she could talk, telling all the wonderful things she wanted to know about city life, and Betty found herself in deep water sometimes because the city life she knew about was so very different from the city life that Jane would know. But at last sleep won, and Nellie had to give up because her last question was answered with silence. The guest was deep in slumber.

The next morning the children took her over the house, out in the yard, showing her everything. Then they had to take her down to the village and explain all about the little town and its people. They were crazy about Betty's beautiful hair and much disappointed when she would insist on wearing her hat. It was a bright sunny morning, not very cold, and they told her that n.o.body wore a hat except to church or to go on the train, but Betty had a feeling that her hair might attract attention, and in her first waking hours a great shadow of horror had settled upon her when she realized that her people would leave no stone unturned to find her. It was most important that she should do or be nothing whereby she might be recognized. She even thought of getting a cap and ap.r.o.n to wear when attending her small charge, but Nellie told her they didn't do that in the country and she would be thought stuck up, so she desisted.

But she drew the blue serge skirt up as high above her waistband as possible when she dressed in the morning so that she might look like a little girl and no one would suspect her of being a runaway bride. Also she had a consultation with herself in the small hours of the morning while Nellie was still fast asleep, and settled with her conscience just what she would tell about her past and what she would keep to herself.

There was a certain reserve that any one might have, and if she was frank about a few facts no one would be likely to question further.

So next morning she told Mrs. Carson that since her parents' death she had lived with a woman who knew her father well, but lately things had been growing very unpleasant and she found she had to leave. She had left under such conditions that she could not bring away anything that belonged to her, so she would have to work and earn some more clothes.

Mrs. Carson looked into her sweet eyes and agreed that it was the best thing she could do; they might follow her up and make all sorts of trouble for her in her new home if she wrote for her things; and so the matter dropped. They were simple folks, who took things at their face value and were not over inquisitive.