CHAPTER II
THAT HUNDRED DOLLARS
Billie Bradley clambered down from her perch in awed silence.
"Girls," she said, her voice very low and solemn, "that 'Girl Reading aBook' statue was worth a hundred dollars."
The girls started, and Laura cried out:
"How do you know it cost that much?"
"I heard Miss Beggs say so," Billie replied dully. "Now I certainly havedone it. Girls, what shall I do?"
"It--it couldn't be put together again, could it?" suggested Violetweakly, leaning down to examine the pieces.
"Of course it couldn't," sniffed Laura, adding suddenly: "I suppose wecould run away and nobody would know the dif--"
"Look," cried Billie, excitedly pointing to one of the windows.
Following the direction of her glance the girls were just in time to seethe freckled face and mean little eyes of Amanda Peabody disappear fromthe window.
"Oh, that sneak!" cried Laura in a rage, rushing across to the windowwhile the other girls followed close at her heels. "I wish I were a boyand she were another one. I'd just show her!"
"Well, now she will tell and we couldn't run away even if we wanted to,"said Billie, sinking down on a bench and looking at them wistfully. "Ofcourse we wouldn't really have wanted to," she added, after a minute ofuncomfortable silence. "Only it makes me mad to _have_ to do the rightthing. Oh, I don't see why somebody doesn't run that Amanda person outof town," she went on, doubling up her fists and looking as if it mighthave been just as well for that "Amanda person" that she was not thereat the minute.
"Teddy says he calls her 'Nanny,'" said Violet, with a flash of humor,"because it 'gets her goat.'"
"Sounds just like Ted," said Billie, with a smile. Then her face soberedagain as she realized the gravity of the situation.
"Of course I'll have to make it good," she said, going over to the piecesagain and regarding them mournfully. "But how in the world am I evergoing to get together a hundred dollars? It might just as well be athousand as far as I'm concerned." The last was a wail.
"Won't your father give you the money?" asked Laura, for to Laura'sfather a hundred dollars was only a drop in the bucket.
But Billie only shook her head while her face became still more grave.
"He would if he could," she said, "but I heard him say only the other daythat times are hard and everything is terribly expensive, and I know heis worried. Oh, girls, I'm in a terrible fix!"
"I know you are, honey," said Violet, coming over and putting acomforting arm about her. "But there must be some way that we can fixthings all right."
"I'd like to know how," grumbled Laura, who had chosen to take the gloomyview. "We might," she added generously, after a moment's thought, "saythat I broke it--"
"Laura--dear!" cried Billie, not quite sure whether to be offended orgrateful for the generous suggestion. "It's wonderful of you, of course,but you know I couldn't do that."
"And there's Amanda Peabody," added Violet. "She wouldn't let us get awaywith anything like that."
At which Laura nodded again, still more gloomily.
"Well," cried Billie, straightening up suddenly and trying to lookhopeful, "I suppose it won't do any good to stand here and look at thepieces. Besides," she added with a start, "we've been here a terriblylong time, and we don't want the janitor to lock us in."
They started for the door on the run, but Billie suddenly turned, ranback and began gathering up the pieces of the broken statue.
"What are you going to do?" asked Violet, regarding her curiously.
"What does it look as if I were doing?" asked Billie, reaching for an oldnewspaper that lay in the forgotten paper basket. "I might as well havethe evidence of my crime. Anyway, I want to take them to Miss Beggs."
"Do you know where she lives?" asked Laura, stooping and helping Billieat her task.
"She sent me there one time to get some papers," Billie explained, as sherose to her feet, clutching the newspaper package. "It's a boarding houseon Main Street, only a few blocks from here."
"Shall we go there now?" asked Violet as they closed the door softlybehind them and started down the hall.
"We might as well," answered Billie, with a sigh. "The sooner I get itover with, the better I'll feel. But oh, that hundred dollars!"
"Never mind, we'll get it if we have to steal it," said Laura firmly, asthey came out into the flower-sweet air.
"That would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire," remarkedViolet, at which the girls had to laugh.
As they swung out through the gate they met Mr. Heegan coming in, and hesmiled at them from under his bushy brows.
"Did you get what you were after comin' for?" he asked them.
"Yes. And something we didn't come for," answered Billie, while the colorflooded her face and she felt like a criminal. She smiled a wry littlesmile and displayed the newspaper package.
"Meanin'--" Mr. Heegan began, puzzled.
"I--I broke a statue that was on the bookcase," explained Billie. "Wewere skylarking--"
"And many's the time I've done the same in my day," said Mr. Heegan, witha nod, looking not nearly as shocked as the girls thought he would. "Andsure, what are you made young for, if it wasn't that you was meant to beskylarkin' all the time?"
The girls looked at each other. This strange sentiment had never occurredto them before, but they found it very comforting, nevertheless.
"But--but," stammered Billie, "this statue cost a hundred dollars. And itwas given to Miss Beggs by a rich uncle."
"Well, all I have to say is, that any one who would spend ahundred dollars on a statue," said Mr. Heegan, "deserves to haveit broken on him."
And having delivered himself of this surprising comment, the janitorsaluted and ambled off into the school yard, leaving the girls to lookafter him with laughing eyes.
"You know I just love Irishmen," remarked Billie with emphasis, as theystarted on their way once more.
In thoughtful silence, they walked the remaining three blocks to theboarding house where Miss Beggs lived.
"This is it," said Billie, as she came to a stop before a three-storybrick building that had all the respectable and uncomfortable appearanceof a typical boarding house.
"Just like Miss Beggs," Billie was conscious of thinking.
"Well, let's go up," urged Laura, as Billie showed no inclination tomove. "We might as well get the agony over with."
"All right, come on," cried Billie, running ahead of them and taking twosteps at a time. "As Dad says: 'A coward dies a thousand deaths, thebrave man only one.'"
The end of this quotation brought them to the porch, and Billie lookedfor the bell.
"Now then," she said, and braced herself for the ordeal.
A stout, middle-aged person, without any of the outward characteristicsthat are so often bestowed upon landladies in general, opened the doorand looked at them inquiringly.
"Is there some one you wish to see?" she asked them.
"Yes," replied Billie in a weak little voice. "I would like to seeMiss--Miss Beggs if she is at home."
"She isn't," said the middle-aged person. "She went away for the summertwo days ago."
"Did she leave any address?" Billie managed to ask.
"No, she didn't; but I guess I could find out from one of the otherladies who is a friend of hers," the woman volunteered obligingly. "Thatis, if it's very particular," she added.
"Oh, yes it is," said Billie earnestly. "I would be very much obliged ifyou could get me her address."
"Well, I can't just now, because the lady that knows it isn't at home.But if you'll leave me your address I'll send it to you as soon's I findit out. Have you paper and pencil?"
The girls had not.
"Wait then, and I'll get something on which to write your address."
The landlady went inside, closing the door after her, and in spite ofherself Billie uttered a little sigh of relief. She felt very much like areprieved criminal.
> A moment later the woman reappeared with a pencil and paper andpainstakingly wrote down the address Billie gave her.
"Thank you so much," said the latter, as she turned away. "You won'tforget to send it just the first minute you can, will you?"
The woman nodded and closed the door with a little bang.
"I wonder why she didn't ask us in," said Laura, as they ran down thesteps. "It was queer to keep us waiting outside."
"Yes, it makes you feel like a book agent," chuckled Billie. "But oh,girls," she added, "I didn't know how much I dreaded facing MissBeggs till I found out I didn't have to. I don't mind writing to hernearly so much."
With somewhat lighter steps and lighter hearts they turned toward home.But Billie could not get the hundred-dollar statue which she had brokenout of her mind.
"I feel," said Laura, as they were turning the corner into her ownstreet, "as if I ought to pay for that horrid old statue, Billie."
"What do you mean?" queried Billie, while Violet regarded her with wideopen eyes.
"Well, if it hadn't been for me and my old book," she explained,"we wouldn't have gone back to school, and then you wouldn't havegotten yourself into all that trouble. I really do feel guilty,"she added earnestly. "I wish you would at least let me help youpay for it, Billie."
Billie put an arm about the girl and squeezed her lovingly.
"And I suppose you're to blame for my climbing the bookcase, too," shechided her fondly. "No, Laura dear, it's all my fault and you can't makeme put the blame on any one else. But, oh!" she wailed, "how in the worldam I ever going to raise that hundred dollars?"
Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance; Or, The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners Page 2