CHAPTER II
THE FRUITS OF TANTALUS
Betty Gordon had glanced hastily at her wrist watch as she went out of thelittle store. It was very near the minute appointed for her to meet Carterat the square. And she had forgotten to ask that girl, Ida Bellethorne(such an Englishy name!), how to find her rendezvous with the Littells'chauffeur.
She hesitated, tempted to run back. Had she done so she would have been intime to see Ida pick up the little locket that Uncle Dick had given Bettythat very Christmas and which she carried in her bag because it seemed thesafest place to treasure it while she was visiting. Her trunk was atShadyside.
So it is that the very strangest threads of romance are woven in thisworld. And Betty Gordon had found before this that her life, at least, waspatterned in a very wonderful way. Since she had been left an orphan andhad found her only living relative, Mr. Richard Gordon, her father'sbrother, such a really delightful guardian the girl had been to so manyplaces and her adventures had been so exciting that her head wassometimes quite in a whirl when she tried to think of all the happenings.
Uncle Dick's contracts with certain oil promotion companies made itimpossible as yet for him to have what Betty thought of as "a real,sure-enough home." He traveled here, there and everywhere. Betty loved totravel too; but Uncle Dick was forced to go to such rough and wild placesthat at first he could not see how Betty, a twelve year old, gently bredgirl, could go with him.
Therefore he had to find a home for his little ward for a few months, andremembering that an old school friend of his was married to the owner of abig and beautiful farm, he arranged for Betty to stay with the Peabodys atBramble Farm. Her adventures as a "paying guest" in the Peabody householdare fully related in the first book of the series, entitled "Betty Gordonat Bramble Farm," and a very exciting experience it was.
In spite, however, of the disagreeable and miserly Joseph Peabody, Bettywould not have missed her adventures at the farm for anything. In thefirst place, she met Bob Henderson there, and a better boy-chum a girlnever had than Bob. Although Bob had been born and brought up in apoorhouse, and at first knew very little about himself and his relatives,even a girl like Betty could see that this "poorhouse rat" as he wasslurringly called by Joseph Peabody, possessed natural refinement and avery bright mind.
Betty and Bob became loyal friends, and when Betty, in the second volume,called "Betty Gordon in Washington," had fairly to run away from BrambleFarm to meet her Uncle Dick in the national capital, badly treated Bob ranaway likewise, on the track of somebody who knew about his mother'srelatives. Betty's adventures in Washington began with a most astonishingconfusion of identities through which she met the Littells--a charmingfamily consisting of a Mr. Littell, who was likewise an "Uncle Dick"; amotherly Mrs. Littell, who never found young people--either boys orgirls--troublesome; three delightful sisters named Louise, Roberta, andEsther Littell; and a Cousin Elizabeth Littell, who good-naturedly becomes"Libbie" instead of "Betty" so as not to conflict in anybody's mind with"Betty" Gordon.
The fun they all had in Washington while Betty waited for the appearanceof her real Uncle Dick, especially after Bob Henderson turned up and waslikewise adopted for the time being by the Littell family, is detailed tothe full in that second story. And at last both Betty and Bob got newsfrom Oklahoma, where Mr. Richard Gordon was engaged, which set themtraveling westward in a great hurry--Betty to meet Uncle Dick at FlameCity and her boy chum hard on the trace of two elusive aunts of his, hismother's sisters, who appeared to be the only relatives he had in theworld.
Betty and Bob discovered the aunts just in time to save them from sellingtheir valuable but unsuspected oil holdings to sharpers, and in "BettyGordon in the Land of Oil" one of the most satisfactory results that Bettysaw accomplished was the selling of the old farm for Bob and his aunts forninety thousand dollars.
Uncle Dick decided that Betty must go to a good school in the fall, andthey chose Shadyside because the Littells and their friends were goingthere. Bob, now on a satisfactory financial plane, arranged to attend theSalsette Military Academy which was right across the lake from the girls'boarding school, Uncle Dick, who was now Bob's guardian, having advisedthis.
Hastening back from Oklahoma, while Uncle Dick was called to Canada toexamine a promising oil field there, Betty and Bob met the girls and boysthey previously got acquainted with in Washington and some other friends,and Betty at least began her boarding school experience with considerableconfidence as well as delight.
It was not all plain sailing as subsequent events prove; yet in "BettyGordon at Boarding School," the fourth volume of the series, Betty hadmany; pleasant adventures as well as school trials. She was particularlyinterested in the fortunes of Norma and Alice Guerin, who had been Betty'sfriends when she was living at Bramble Farm; and it was through Betty'sgood offices that great happiness came to the Guerin girls and theirparents.
The hospitable Littells had invited their daughters' school friends (and,to quote Bob, there was a raft of them!) to come to Fairfields for theChristmas holidays, and at the close of the first term they bade good-byeto Shadyside and Salsette and took the train for Washington.
Fairfields, which was over the river in Virginia, was one of the mostdelightful homes Betty Gordon had ever seen. It was closer to Georgetownthan to the nation's capital, and that is why Betty on this brisk morningwas shopping in the old-fashioned town and had come across the orange silkover-blouse in the window of the neighborhood shop.
It was really too bad that Betty did not run back to the shop to ask fordirections to the soldiers' monument square. She would have been just inseason to interrupt the scene between Ida Bellethorne and Mrs. Staples andbefore the latter had threatened Ida with dismissal if she told Bettyabout the tiny locket. When she came to find it out, this loss of UncleDick's present, was going to trouble Betty Gordon very much.
"Where in the world can that soldiers' monument be?" murmured Betty toherself as, after hurrying on for a distance and having turned twocorners, she found herself in a neighborhood that looked stranger thanever to her.
Not a soul was in sight at that moment, but presently she saw a smallnegro boy shuffling along, drawing a piece of chalk on the various housesand stoops as he passed.
"Boy, come here!" called Betty to the little fellow.
At once the colored boy stopped the use of his piece of chalk and staredat her with wide-open eyes.
"I ain't done nuffin, lady, 'deed I ain't," he mumbled, and then began toback away.
"I only want to know where the soldiers' monument is," she returned. "Doyou know?"
"Soldiers' monument am over that way," and the boy waved his hand to oneside, where there was a hilly street, and then hurried out of sight.
"Oh, dear! that's not very definite," sighed Betty.
But now she ran down the hilly street at a chance, turned a crooked cornerand came plump upon the square and the soldiers' monument. There was theLittells' big, closed car just turning into the square from anotherstreet.
"What luck! Fancy!" gasped Betty, running swiftly to the place where thebig car stopped.
"You're better than prompt, Miss Betty," said the driver of the car. "I amglad I hadn't to wait for you, for Mister Bob told me particular to getyou home for luncheon. You'll be wanted."
"What for? Do tell me what for, Carter!" Betty cried. "I thought BobHenderson was awfully mysterious this morning at breakfast. Do you knowwhat is in the wind, Carter?"
"Not me, Miss Betty," said the chauffeur, and having tucked the robesabout her he shut the door and got into his own place. But before hestarted the car he said through the open window: "I have to delay alittle, Miss. Must drive around by the bank and pick up Mr. Gordon. But Iwill hurry home after that."
"Oh! Uncle Dick did go to the bank here," murmured Betty, nestling backinto the cushions and robes. "I wonder if he is going to stop off atMountain Camp on his way back to Canada. Oh!" and she sighed more deeply,"if we could only go up there with him----"
"Oh, Uncle Dick!" she cried when he stepped into the car, "are you reallyand truly getting ready to go north again?"
"Must, my dear. Have still some work to do in spite of the ice and snow inCanada. And, as I told you, I mean to stop and see Jonathan Canary."
"That is what I mean, Uncle Dick," she cried. "Will you go to that lovelyMountain Camp all alo-o-one?"
"Mercy me, child, you never saw it--and in winter! You do not know whetherit is lovely or not."
"It must be," said Betty warmly, "You have explained it all so beautifullyto us. The lovely lake surrounded by hills, and the long toboggan slide,and the skating, and fishing for pickerel through the ice, and--Oh, dearme! if we can't go----"
"If who can't go?" demanded her uncle in considerable amazement.
"Why, me. And Bob. And Bobby Littell and Louise, and the Tuckertwins, and all the rest. We were talking about it last night.It--would--be--won--der--ful!"
"Well, of all the--Why, Betty!" exclaimed Mr. Gordon, "you know you mustgo right back to school."
"Yes, I know," sighed Betty. "It is like the fruits of Tantalus, isn't it?We read about him in Greek mythology--poor fellow! He stood up to his chinin water and over his head hung the loveliest fruits. But when he stoopedto get a drink the water receded, and when he stood on tiptoe to reach thefruit, they receded too. It was dreadful! And Mountain Camp, where yourfriend Mr. Canary lives, is just like that. Uncle Dick. For us it is thefruits of Tantalus."
Uncle Dick stared at her for a moment, then he burst out laughing. ButBetty Gordon remained perfectly serious until they arrived at Fairfields.
Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp; Or, The Mystery of Ida Bellethorne Page 2