Betty Gordon is a sassy, impetuous 12 year old girl. She reminds me a lot of Trixie Belden. Like Trixie, Betty speaks before she thinks and is very hot-tempered, particularly when she witnesses injustice. Betty is sent to live with Mrs. Peabody, an old school friend of her uncle, and Mrs. Peabody's husband is a mean old miser. On page 87, Mr. Peabody scolds Bob, a poorhouse boy who works for him, for getting back a little late.
"You take that pail of whitewash and don't let me see you again till you get the pig house done, you miserable, sneaking poorhouse rat! You'll go without dinner to pay for wasting my time like this! Clear out now."
"How dare you!" Betty's voice was shaking, but she stood up in the wagon and looked down at Mr. Peabody bravely. "How dare you taunt a boy with what he isn't responsible for? It isn't his fault that he was born in the poorhouse, nor his fault that we're late. I made him stop and help put a buggy wheel on. Oh, how can you be so mean, and close and hateful?"
Betty later scolds herself for sinking to Mr. Peabody's level and tells herself that she is living in his house, even though she hates it, and she has no right to be disrespectful to him.
The first few books in the Betty Gordon series were written by Josephine Lawrence, who also wrote the Riddle Club books. The Riddle Club books are generously sprinkled with humor, and this first book in the Betty Gordon series has the same type of humor. On pages 100-101, Betty's impulsiveness creates a very funny tableau:
She woke in the dark to hear a noise directly under her bed!
She sat up, her eyes trying to pierce the darkness, wondering why she had not taken the precaution of looking under the bed before she locked herself into a room with a burglar.
"If I look now and see his legs, I'll faint away, I know I shall," she thought, her teeth chattering, though the night was warm. "I wish to goodness Uncle Dick had sent me a revolver."
That reminded her of the shotgun downstairs. With Betty to think was to act, and she sprang noiselessly out of bed and ran to the door. Thank goodness, the bolt slipped without squeaking. Downstairs ran Betty and lifted the heavy shotgun from its place over the mantel. She was no longer afraid, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. She was having a grand adventure. She had shot a gun a few times under Mr. Arnold's instructions and careful supervision when he was teaching his boys how to handle one, and she thought she knew all about it.
She gained her room, breathless, for the gun was heavy. At the threshold she stopped a moment to listen. Yes, there was a the noise again. The burglar was unaware of her flight.
Unaware herself of the absurdity of her deductions, Betty raised the heavy gun and pointed it toward the bed. As well as she could tell, she was aiming under the bed. She shut her eyes tight and fired.
The gun kicked unmercifully, and Betty ejaculated a loud "Ow!" which was lost in the babble of sound that immediately followed the shot. There was a the sound of breaking glass under the bed, a shrill scream from Mrs. Peabody, and the thunderous bellow of Mr. Peabody demanding: "What in Sam Hill are those varmints up to now?" Evidently he attributed the racket to Wapley and Lieson, who had been known to come home late from Glenside.
In a few minutes they were all gathered at Betty's door, Bob open-mouthed and speechless, the two men sleepily curious, the Peabodys loudly demanding to know what the matter was.
It turns out that there wasn't a burglar under Betty's bed, but I won't spoil it by revealing exactly what it was.
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