"No, he wasn't," answered the hired man. "I thought he'd gone on out. Do you suppose something's happened to him?"
Mr. Peabody stepped to the porch and gave a quick glance at the bench where the milk pails were usually left to air and dry. They were there, just as they had been left the night before.
"I think he's cleared out!" he announced: grimly. "Betty, do you know what this young scoundrel is up to?"
Betty's eyes brimmed over, and she flung herself blindly into Mrs. Peabody's arms which closed around her, though that good woman was unaccustomed to demonstrations of affection.
"There, there." She tried to soothe the girl, for Betty's convulsive sobbing really alarmed her.
"Don't you go to feel bad, dearie. If Bob's gone, he's gone, and that's all there is to it."
Peabody, milk pail in hand, motioned to Ethan to go out and begin milking.
"That isn't all there is to it, not by a long shot!" he growled at his wife. "If I get my hands on that boy he'll rue the day he ever set foot off this farm. He'll go back to the poorhouse and there he'll stay till he's of age."
Betty sat up, pushing the tumbled hair from her hot forehead.
"I'm glad Bob ran away!" she cried recklessly. "He's gone where you won't catch him, either. You never treated him fairly, and you know it."