Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE
OR
THE QUEER HOMESTEAD AT CHERRY CORNERS
BY JANET D. WHEELER
1920
BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. AN ACCIDENT.
II. THAT HUNDRED DOLLARS.
III. CHET HELPS.
IV. THE LAST HOPE.
V. WORSE AND WORSE.
VI. DEBBIE DESERTS.
VII. A STRANGE BURGLAR.
VIII. STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS.
IX. GHOSTS AND THINGS.
X. OLD FURNITURE.
XI. BILLIE WINS OUT.
XII. GREAT PLANS.
XIII. CHERRY CORNERS.
XIV. WEIRD TALES.
XV. A NOISE IN THE DARK.
XVI. SHADOWS AND MYSTERY.
XVII. ONLY A BAT.
XVIII. A FISH STORY.
XIX. IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT.
XX. THE MOTOR AGAIN.
XXI. BOTH AT ONCE.
XXII. A THRILLING DISCOVERY.
XXIII. THE WRECKED AEROPLANE.
XXIV. COINS AND POSTAGE STAMPS.
XXV. "LARGE FORTUNES."
BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE
CHAPTER I
AN ACCIDENT
"Aren't you glad that we are only going back to school for a littlewhile?" cried Billie Bradley, as she gave a little exultant skip."Suppose it were fall and we were beginning high—"
"Billie, stop it," commanded Laura Jordon, turning a pair of very blueand very indignant eyes upon her chum. "I thought we were going to forgetschool for a little while."
"Well, we're not going back for anything I forgot," Billie was assertingwhen Violet Farrington, the third of the trio, interposed:
"If you two are going to quarrel on a day like this, I'm going home."
"Who said we were quarreling?" cried Billie, adding with a chuckle:"We're just having what Miss Beggs" (Miss Beggs being their Englishteacher) "would call an 'amiable discussion.'"
"Listen to the bright child!" cried Laura mockingly. "I don't see howyou ever get that way, Billie."
"Neither do I," replied Billie, adding with a chuckle as they turned tostare at her: "Just natural talent, I guess."
The three chums—and three brighter, prettier girls it would be hard tofind—were on their way to the grammar school which had just closed theweek before. Laura had forgotten a book which she prized highly and wasin hope that the janitor, a good-natured old fellow, would let her inlong enough to get it. At the last minute she had asked the other girlsto go with her.
The three chums had lived in North Bend, a town of less than twentythousand people, practically all their lives. The girls loved it, for itwas a pretty place. Still, being only forty miles by rail from New YorkCity, they had been taken to the roaring