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Molly and Betsy hurried along out of the gate into the main street of the town and down to the station. Molly was eating doughnuts as she went. They were both quite hungry by this time, but Betsy could not think of eating till she had those tickets in her hand.
She pushed her quarter and a nickel into the ticket-seller's window and said "Hillsboro" in as confident a tone as she could; but when the precious bits of paper were pushed out at her and she actually held them, her knees shook under her and she had to go and sit down on the bench.
"My! Aren't these doughnuts good?" said Molly. "I never in my life had enough doughnuts before!"
Betsy drew a long breath and began rather languidly to eat one herself; she felt, all of a sudden, very, very tired.
She was tireder still when they got out of the train at Hillsboro Station and started wearily up the road toward Putney Farm. Two miles lay before them, two miles which they had often walked before, but never after such a day as now lay back of them. Molly dragged her feet as she walked and hung heavily on Betsy's hand. Betsy plodded along, her head hanging, her eyes all gritty with fatigue and sleepiness. A light buggy spun round the turn of the road behind them, the single horse trotting fast as though the driver were in a hurry, the wheels rattling smartly on the hard road. The little girls drew out to one side and stood waiting till the road should be free again. When he saw them the driver pulled the horse back so quickly it stood almost straight up. He peered at them through the twilight and then with a loud shout sprang over the side of the buggy.
It was Uncle Henry—oh, goody, it was Uncle Henry come to meet them! They wouldn't have to walk any further!
But what was the matter with Uncle Henry? He ran up to them, exclaiming, "Are ye all right? Are ye all right?" He stooped over and felt of them desperately as though he expected them to be broken somewhere. And Betsy could feel that his old hands were shaking, that he was trembling all over. When she said, "Why, yes, Uncle Henry, we're all right. We came home on the cars," Uncle Henry leaned up against the fence as though he couldn't stand up. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead and he said—it didn't seem as though it could be Uncle Henry talking, he sounded so excited—"Well, well—well, by gosh! My! Well, by thunder! Now! And so here ye are! And you're all right! Well!"
He couldn't seem to stop exclaiming, and you can't imagine anything stranger than an Uncle Henry who couldn't stop exclaiming.
After they all got into
the buggy he quieted down a little and said, "Thunderation!
But
we've had a scare! When the Wendells
come back with their cousins early this afternoon, they said
you were coming with the Vaughans. And then when you
didn't come and didn't come, we telephoned to the Vaughans,
and they said they hadn't seen hide nor hair of
ye, and didn't even know you were to the Fair
at all. I tell you, your Aunt Abigail and I
had an awful turn! Ann and I hitched up quicker'n
scat and she put right out with Prince up toward
Woodford and I took Jessie down this way; thought maybe
I'd get trace of ye somewhere here. Well, land!" He
wiped his forehead again. "Wa'n't I glad to see you
standin' there
"Now tell me what in thunder did happen to you!"
Betsy began at the beginning and told straight through, interrupted at first by indignant comments from Uncle Henry, who was outraged by the Wendells' loose wearing of their responsibility for the children. But as she went on he quieted down to a closely attentive silence, interrupting only to keep Jess at her top speed.
Now that it was all safely over, Betsy thought her story quite an interesting one, and she omitted no detail, although she wondered once or twice if perhaps Uncle Henry were listening to her, he kept so still. "And so I bought the tickets and we got home," she ended, adding, "Oh, Uncle Henry, you ought to have seen the prize pig! He was too funny!"
They turned into the Putney yard now and saw Aunt Abigail's bulky form on the porch.
"Got 'em, Abby! All right! No harm done!" shouted Uncle Henry.
Aunt Abigail turned without a word and went back into the house. When the little girls dragged their weary legs in they found her quietly setting out some supper for them on the table, but she was wiping away with her apron the joyful tears which ran down her cheeks, such white cheeks! It seemed so strange to see rosy Aunt Abigail with a face like paper.
"Well, I'm glad to see ye," she told them soberly. "Sit right down and have some hot milk. I had some all ready."
The telephone rang, she went into the next room, and they heard her saying, in an unsteady voice: "All right, Ann. They're here. Your father just brought them in. I haven't had time to hear about what happened yet. But they're all right. You'd better come home."
"That's your Cousin Ann telephoning from the Marshalls'."
She herself went and sat down heavily, and when Uncle Henry came in a few minutes later she asked him in a rather weak voice for the ammonia bottle. He rushed for it, got her a fan and a drink of cold water, and hung over her anxiously till the color began to come back into her pale face. "I know just how you feel, Mother," he said sympathetically. "When I saw 'em standin' there by the roadside I felt as though somebody had hit me a clip right in the pit of the stomach."
The little girls ate their supper in a tired daze, not paying any attention to what the grown-ups were saying, until rapid hoofs clicked on the stones outside and Cousin Ann came in quickly, her black eyes snapping.
"Now, for mercy's sake, tell me what happened," she said, adding hotly, "and if I don't give that Maria Wendell a piece of my mind!"
Uncle Henry broke in: "I'm going to tell what happened. I want to do it. You and Mother just listen, just sit right down and listen." His voice was shaking with feeling, and as he went on and told of Betsy's afternoon, her fright, her confusion, her forming the plan of coming home on the train and of earning the money for the tickets, he made, for once, no Putney pretense of casual coolness. His old eyes flashed fire as he talked.
Betsy, watching him, felt her heart swell and beat fast in incredulous joy. Why, he was proud of her! She had done something to make the Putney cousins proud of her!
When Uncle Henry came to the part where she went on asking for employment after one and then another refusal, Cousin Ann reached out her long arms and quickly, almost roughly, gathered Betsy up on her lap, holding her close as she listened. Betsy had never before sat on Cousin Ann's lap.
And when Uncle Henry finished—he had not
forgotten a single thing Betsy had told him—and asked, "What
do you think of that for a little girl ten
years old today?" Cousin Ann opened the flood-gates wide and
burst out, "I think I never heard of a child's
doing a smarter, grittier thing
It was a great, a momentous, an historic moment!
Betsy, enthroned on those strong knees, wondered if any little girl had ever had such a beautiful birthday.