Bob departed with a significant backward glance at Betty, which sent her flying upstairs to get into a clean frock. Mrs. Peabody manifested so little interest in her activities that the girl anticipated no difficulty in getting safely out of the house. As it happened, her hostess made the way even easier.
"If you're going to Glenside, Betty," she remarked dully, stopping in the doorway of Betty's room as the girl pulled on her hat, "I wish you'd see if Grimshaw has any meat scraps. Joseph might get me a bit the next time he goes over. Just ask how much it is, an' all—the hens need something more than they're getting."
Betty knew that Joseph Peabody would never buy meat scraps for his wife's hens. Indeed, she had priced stuff several times at Mrs. Peabody's request and nothing had ever come of it. But she agreed to go to Grimshaw's if she got that far in her walk, and Mrs. Peabody turned aside into her own room without asking any questions.
"Gee! thought you never were coming," complained Bob, when the slim figure in the navy serge skirt and white middy met him at the end of the lane road. "The sale starts at one sharp, you know, and we'll miss the first of it. Lots of 'em will come in overalls, so I'll be in style."
Before they had walked very far they were overtaken by a rattling blackboard, drawn by a lean, raw-boned white horse and driven by a cheerful farmer's wife who invited them to "hop in," an invitation which they accepted gratefully. She was going to the Faulkner vendue, she informed them, and her heart was set on three wooden wash tubs and seven yards of ingrain carpet advertised in the list of household goods offered for sale.
"My daughter's going to set up for herself next fall," she said happily, "and that ingrain will be just the thing for her spare room."
When they reached the Faulkner farm, a rather commonplace group of buildings set slightly in a hollow, they found teams and automobiles of every description blocking the lane that led to the house.
Bob tied the white horse to an unoccupied post for the woman, and she hastened away, worried lest the ingrain carpet be sold before she could reach the crowd surrounding the auctioneer.
Betty, for whom all this was a brand-new experience, enjoyed the excitement keenly. She followed Bob up to the front porch of the house where the household effects were being put up for sale, Bob explaining that the live stock would be sold later.
"Well, look who's here!" cried a hearty voice, as a man, moving aside to give Betty room, allowed the person standing next to him to see the girl's face. "Betty Gordon! And Bob, too! Not thinking of going to farming, are you?"