She beckoned Betty to one corner of the kitchen where a fly-specked calendar hung.
"Look here," said Mrs. Peabody. "Nobody knows what these pencil marks mean but me—I made 'em. Now's the second week in July—there's seventeen days of July left. Thirty-one days in August. And most generally you can count on the first week of September being hot—that makes fifty-five days. Three meals a day to get, or one hundred and sixty-five meals in all."
"Then what?" asked the hypnotized Betty.
"Oh, then it begins to get a little cooler," said Mrs. Peabody listlessly. "I've counted this way for three summers now. Somehow it makes the summer go faster if you can see the days marked off and know so many meals are behind you."
Inexperienced as Betty was, it seemed infinitely pathetic to her that any one should long for the summer days to be over, and she realized dimly that the loneliness and dullness of her hostess' daily life must be beginning to prey on her mind. She helped dry the dishes, went upstairs with Mrs. Peabody and bathed her forehead with cologne and closed the shutters of her room for her. Then, hoping she might sleep for a few hours as she resolutely refused to give up for the rest of the day, Betty hurried to put on her thinnest white frock and went back to the orchard. She found her patient awake and decidedly feeling aggrieved.
"I've been awake for ages," he greeted her. "Gee, isn't it hot! You look kind of pippin' too. Do you know, I've been thinking about that riding habit of yours, Betty. What are you going to do with it?"
"Keep it till I go somewhere else where there'll be a chance to learn to ride," answered Betty. "Why?"
"Oh, I was just thinking," and Bob turned over on his back to stare up through the branches. "You'll get away from here sooner than I shall, Betty. But, believe me, the first chance I get I'm going to streak out. Peabody's got no claim on me, and I've worked out all the food and clothes he's ever given me. The county won't care—they've got more kids to look after now than they can manage, and one missing won't create any uproar. I'd like to try to walk from here to the West. They say my mother had people out there somewhere."
"Tell me about her," urged Betty impulsively. "Do you remember her, Bob?"
"She died the night I was born," said Bob quietly. "My father was killed in a railroad wreck they figured out. You see my mother was a little out of her head with grief and shock when they found her walking along the road, singing to herself. All she had was the clothes on her back and a little black tin box with her marriage certificate in it and some papers that no one rightly could understand. They sent her to the alms-house, and a month later I was born. The old woman who nursed her said her mind was perfectly clear the few hours she lived after that, and she said that 'David,' my father, had been bringing her East to a hospital when their train was wrecked. She couldn't remember the date nor tell how long before it had happened, and after she died no one was interested enough to trace things up. I was brought up in the baby ward and went to school along with the others. Many is the boy I've punched for calling me 'Pauper!' And then, when I was ten, Peabody came over and said he wanted a boy to help him on his farm; I could go to school in the winters, and he'd see that I had clothes and everything I needed. I've never been to school a day since, and about all I needed, according to him, was lickings. But if I ever get away from here I mean to find out a few things for myself."