"Long as you're going over to Hagar's Corners you won't mind giving me a lift, will you?" he drawled. "I have an errand over at the station, and it won't take me a minute. I can come right back with you. Go on, Fred; I'll sit in here with the trunk and you and Betty needn't mind me."
Without waiting for an invitation, he swung himself up on top of the trunk, and smiled pleasantly. He was saving his own horse a long drive and getting a necessary errand done at the expense of a neighbor, always a desirable consummation in the Peabody mind.
Fred opened his mouth and closed it wordlessly. His father would have known what to do, but fifteen-year-old Fred did not know how to deal with such a display of assurance. There seemed nothing to do but to take this unwelcome passenger to Hagar's Corners and back.
Betty, for her part, could have cried with vexation. Gone was her chance of asking Fred to take her to Glenside, and with it the hope of getting to Washington. She knew that after the noon train at Hagar's Corners there were no more till four o'clock. She wanted to say good-by to the Guerins and to cash her uncle's check. No wonder she was assailed by a strong desire to tumble the satisfied Mr. Peabody out head over heels.
The drive was taken almost in silence, each of the three busy with his own thoughts. At the station Betty and her trunk were put down, and then she had a few minutes to speak to Fred while Mr. Peabody was talking to the freight agent, who was also the passenger agent, the telegraph clerk and the janitor.
"Don't you want some money?" whispered Fred hurriedly. "Mother told me to ask you. And she sent you this."
He thrust into her hands a box of lunch.
"I have a check I want to cash," said Betty nervously. "Will the station agent do it, do you suppose? It's for fifty dollars. And, Fred, Pineville is quarantined for smallpox and I want to go to Washington, but I didn't want Mr. Peabody to know. Hush! Here he comes now!"
Fred Keppler had what his fond mother called a "good head," and as Peabody and the agent stopped in the station doorway to continue their discussion he proceeded to bear out her theory by thrusting a wad of bills into Betty's hand.
"Money for the calves," he explained. "Just fifty there. Haven't seen Dad to turn it over to him. Give me the check and it will be all right. And you ask Dan Gowdy, the agent, about trains. I guess he can dope out a way to get you to Washington. You still have ten minutes."