Bob, his face livid, his ears ringing, dropped into a chair at the table. Ethan continued to eat stolidly, and Betty kept her eyes resolutely fastened on her plate.
"Just for that, you stay home from the Faulkner sale!" announced Mr. Peabody who was more than ordinarily loquacious that morning. "I'll find something for you to do this afternoon that'll keep your hands busy, if not your tongue. Eat your breakfast. I'll have no mincing over food at my table."
Poor Bob, who had often been forbidden a meal as punishment, now mechanically tried to eat the unappetizing food placed before him. Betty was terribly disappointed about the sale, for she had set her heart on going. There were few pleasures open to her as a member of the household at Bramble Farm, and, with the exception of the Guerin girls in town, she had no girl friends her own age. Bob had proved himself a sympathetic, loyal chum, and he alone had made the summer endurable.
"Don't care!" she cried, to console the boy, as Peabody and his helper went out of the house to begin the field work for the day. "Don't care, Bob. I really don't mind not going to the sale."
Mrs. Peabody was in the pantry, straining the milk.
"We're going," whispered Bob. "You meet me right after dinner at the end of the lane. I'm sick of being knocked around, and I think Jim Turner will be at the sale. I want to see him. Anyway, we're going."
"But—but Mr. Peabody will be furious!" ventured Betty. "You know what a scene he will make, Bob. Do you think we had better go?"
"You needn't," said Bob ungraciously. "I am."
"Of course, if you go, so will I," replied Betty, swallowing a sharp retort. Bob was badgered enough without a contribution from her. "Perhaps he will not miss us—we can get back in time for supper."
Immediately after dinner at noon Mr. Peabody sent Bob out to the hay loft to pitch down hay for the balers who were expected to come and set up their machine that night, ready for work the next day. He could not have selected a meaner job, for the hay loft was stifling in the heat of the midday sun which beat down on the roof of the barn, and there were only two tiny windows to supply air. Mr. Peabody himself was going up in the woods to mark trees for some needed fence rails.