CHAPTER II
THAT HUNDRED DOLLARS
Billie Bradley clambered down from her perch in awed silence.
"Girls," she said, her voice very low and solemn, "that 'Girl Reading a
Book' statue was worth a hundred dollars."
The girls started, and Laura cried out:
"How do you know it cost that much?"
"I heard Miss Beggs say so," Billie replied dully. "Now I certainly have done it. Girls, what shall I do?"
"It—it couldn't be put together again, could it?" suggested Violet weakly, leaning down to examine the pieces.
"Of course it couldn't," sniffed Laura, adding suddenly: "I suppose we could run away and nobody would know the dif—"
"Look," cried Billie, excitedly pointing to one of the windows.
Following the direction of her glance the girls were just in time to see the freckled face and mean little eyes of Amanda Peabody disappear from the window.
"Oh, that sneak!" cried Laura in a rage, rushing across to the window while the other girls followed close at her heels. "I wish I were a boy and she were another one. I'd just show her!"
"Well, now she will tell and we couldn't run away even if we wanted to," said Billie, sinking down on a bench and looking at them wistfully. "Of course we wouldn't really have wanted to," she added, after a minute of uncomfortable silence. "Only it makes me mad to have to do the right thing. Oh, I don't see why somebody doesn't run that Amanda person out of town," she went on, doubling up her fists and looking as if it might have been just as well for that "Amanda person" that she was not there at the minute.
"Teddy says he calls her 'Nanny,'" said Violet, with a flash of humor, "because it 'gets her goat.'"
"Sounds just like Ted," said Billie, with a smile. Then her face sobered again as she realized the gravity of the situation.
"Of course I'll have to make it good," she said, going over to the pieces again and regarding them mournfully. "But how in the world am I ever going to get together a hundred dollars? It might just as well be a thousand as far as I'm concerned." The last was a wail.
"Won't your father give you the money?" asked Laura, for to Laura's father a hundred dollars was only a drop in the bucket.
But Billie only shook her head while her face became still more grave.
"He would if he could," she said, "but I heard him say only the other day that times are hard and everything is terribly expensive, and I know he is worried. Oh, girls, I'm in a terrible fix!"
"I know you are, honey," said Violet, coming over and putting a comforting arm about her. "But there must be some way that we can fix things all right."
"I'd like to know how," grumbled Laura, who had chosen to take the gloomy view. "We might," she added generously, after a moment's thought, "say that I broke it—"
"Laura—dear!" cried Billie, not quite sure whether to be offended or grateful for the generous suggestion. "It's wonderful of you, of course, but you know I couldn't do that."
"And there's Amanda Peabody," added Violet. "She wouldn't let us get away with anything like that."
At which Laura nodded again, still more gloomily.
"Well," cried Billie, straightening up suddenly and trying to look hopeful, "I suppose it won't do any good to stand here and look at the pieces. Besides," she added with a start, "we've been here a terribly long time, and we don't want the janitor to lock us in."
They started for the door on the run, but Billie suddenly turned, ran back and began gathering up the pieces of the broken statue.
"What are you going to do?" asked Violet, regarding her curiously.
"What does it look as if I were doing?" asked Billie, reaching for an old newspaper that lay in the forgotten paper basket. "I might as well have the evidence of my crime. Anyway, I want to take them to Miss Beggs."
"Do you know where she lives?" asked Laura, stooping and helping Billie at her task.
"She sent me there one time to get some papers," Billie explained, as she rose to her feet, clutching the newspaper package. "It's a boarding house on Main Street, only a few blocks from here."
"Shall we go there now?" asked Violet as they closed the door softly behind them and started down the hall.
"We might as well," answered Billie, with a sigh. "The sooner I get it over with, the better I'll feel. But oh, that hundred dollars!"
"Never mind, we'll get it if we have to steal it," said Laura firmly, as they came out into the flower-sweet air.
"That would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire," remarked
Violet, at which the girls had to laugh.
As they swung out through the gate they met Mr. Heegan coming in, and he smiled at them from under his bushy brows.
"Did you get what you were after comin' for?" he asked them.
"Yes. And something we didn't come for," answered Billie, while the color flooded her face and she felt like a criminal. She smiled a wry little smile and displayed the newspaper package.
"Meanin'—" Mr. Heegan began, puzzled.
"I—I broke a statue that was on the bookcase," explained Billie. "We were skylarking—"
"And many's the time I've done the same in my day," said Mr. Heegan, with a nod, looking not nearly as shocked as the girls thought he would. "And sure, what are you made young for, if it wasn't that you was meant to be skylarkin' all the time?"
The girls looked at each other. This strange sentiment had never occurred to them before, but they found it very comforting, nevertheless.
"But—but," stammered Billie, "this statue cost a hundred dollars. And it was given to Miss Beggs by a rich uncle."
"Well, all I have to say is, that any one who would spend a hundred dollars on a statue," said Mr. Heegan, "deserves to have it broken on him."
And having delivered himself of this surprising comment, the janitor saluted and ambled off into the school yard, leaving the girls to look after him with laughing eyes.
"You know I just love Irishmen," remarked Billie with emphasis, as they started on their way once more.
In thoughtful silence, they walked the remaining three blocks to the boarding house where Miss Beggs lived.
"This is it," said Billie, as she came to a stop before a three-story brick building that had all the respectable and uncomfortable appearance of a typical boarding house.
"Just like Miss Beggs," Billie was conscious of thinking.
"Well, let's go up," urged Laura, as Billie showed no inclination to move. "We might as well get the agony over with."
"All right, come on," cried Billie, running ahead of them and taking two steps at a time. "As Dad says: 'A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one.'"
The end of this quotation brought them to the porch, and Billie looked for the bell.
"Now then," she said, and braced herself for the ordeal.
A stout, middle-aged person, without any of the outward characteristics that are so often bestowed upon landladies in general, opened the door and looked at them inquiringly.
"Is there some one you wish to see?" she asked them.
"Yes," replied Billie in a weak little voice. "I would like to see
Miss—Miss Beggs if she is at home."
"She isn't," said the middle-aged person. "She went away for the summer two days ago."
"Did she leave any address?" Billie managed to ask.
"No, she didn't; but I guess I could find out from one of the other ladies who is a friend of hers," the woman volunteered obligingly. "That is, if it's very particular," she added.
"Oh, yes it is," said Billie earnestly. "I would be very much obliged if you could get me her address."
"Well, I can't just now, because the lady that knows it isn't at home. But if you'll leave me your address I'll send it to you as soon's I find it out. Have you paper and pencil?"
The girls had not.
"Wait then, and I'll get something on which to write your address."
The landlady went inside, closing the door after her, and in spite of herself Billie uttered a little sigh of relief. She felt very much like a reprieved criminal.
A moment later the woman reappeared with a pencil and paper and painstakingly wrote down the address Billie gave her.
"Thank you so much," said the latter, as she turned away. "You won't forget to send it just the first minute you can, will you?"
The woman nodded and closed the door with a little bang.
"I wonder why she didn't ask us in," said Laura, as they ran down the steps. "It was queer to keep us waiting outside."
"Yes, it makes you feel like a book agent," chuckled Billie. "But oh, girls," she added, "I didn't know how much I dreaded facing Miss Beggs till I found out I didn't have to. I don't mind writing to her nearly so much."
With somewhat lighter steps and lighter hearts they turned toward home. But Billie could not get the hundred-dollar statue which she had broken out of her mind.
"I feel," said Laura, as they were turning the corner into her own street, "as if I ought to pay for that horrid old statue, Billie."
"What do you mean?" queried Billie, while Violet regarded her with wide open eyes.
"Well, if it hadn't been for me and my old book," she explained, "we wouldn't have gone back to school, and then you wouldn't have gotten yourself into all that trouble. I really do feel guilty," she added earnestly. "I wish you would at least let me help you pay for it, Billie."
Billie put an arm about the girl and squeezed her lovingly.
"And I suppose you're to blame for my climbing the bookcase, too," she chided her fondly. "No, Laura dear, it's all my fault and you can't make me put the blame on any one else. But, oh!" she wailed, "how in the world am I ever going to raise that hundred dollars?"