Betty Gordon in Washington; Or, Strange Adventures in a Great City

								


Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Charles Franks and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON
OR
Strange Adventures in a Great City
BY
ALICE B. EMERSON

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I     THE GORED COW
II    HOSPITALITY UNDER DIFFICULTIES
III   BOB HAS GREAT NEWS
IV    AT THE VENDUE
V     CONSEQUENCES
VI    THE RUNAWAY MISSED
VII   A BELATED LETTER
VIII  GOOD-BY TO BRAMBLE FARM
IX    NEW FRIENDS
X     FELLOW TRAVELERS
XI    A SERIOUS MIX-UP
XII   STRAIGHTENING THINGS OUT
XIII  WASHINGTON MONUMENT
XIV   LIBBIE IS ROMANTIC
XV    OFF TO INVESTIGATE
XVI   WHAT HALE HAD TO TELL
XVII  MORE SIGHTSEEING
XVIII BETTY UNDERSTANDS
XIX   AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
XX    MUTUAL CONFIDENCES
XXI   THE ACCIDENT
XXII  BEING RESCUED
XXIII ANOTHER RESCUE
XXIV  BOB IS CLEARED
XXV   FUTURE PLANS

BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON

CHAPTER I
THE GORED COW

For lack of a better listener, Betty Gordon addressed the saucy
little chipmunk that sat on the top rail of the old worn fence and
stared at her with bright, unwinking eyes.
"It is the loveliest vase you ever saw," said Betty, busily sorting
the tangled mass of grasses and flowers in her lap. "Heavy old
colonial glass, you know, plain, but with beautiful lines."
The chipmunk continued to regard her gravely.
"I found it this morning when I was helping Mrs. Peabody clean the
kitchen closet shelves," the girl went on, her slim fingers selecting
and discarding slender stems with fascinating quickness. "It was on
the very last shelf, and was covered with dust. I washed it, and
we're going to have it on the supper table to-night with this bouquet
in it. There! don't you think that's pretty?"
She held out the flowers deftly arranged and surveyed them proudly.
The chipmunk cocked his brown head and seemed to be withholding his
opinion.
Betty put the bouquet carefully down on the grass beside her and
stretched the length of her trim, graceful self on the turf, burying
her face luxuriously in the warm dry "second crop" of hay that had
been raked into a thin pile under the pin oak and left there
forgotten. Presently she rolled over and lay flat on her back,
studying the lazy clouds that drifted across the very blue sky.
"I'd like to be up in an airplane," she murmured drowsily, her
eyelids drooping. "I'd sail right into a cloud and see--What was that?"
She sat up with a jerk that sent the hitherto motionless chipmunk
scurrying indignantly up the nearest tree, there to sit and shake his
head angrily at her.
"Sounds like Bob!" said Betty to herself. "My goodness, that was Mr.
Peabody--they must be having an awful quarrel!"
The voices and shouts came from the next field, separated from her
by a brook, almost dry now, and a border of crooked young willow
trees grown together in an effective windbreak.
"Anybody who'll gore a cow like that isn't fit to own a single dumb