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diff --git a/14635-0.txt b/14635-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3aa1d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/14635-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5778 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14635 *** + +Ruth Fielding +In Moving Pictures + +OR + +HELPING THE DORMITORY FUND + +BY +ALICE B. EMERSON + +AUTHOR OF "RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL," "RUTH +FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND," ETC. + +_ILLUSTRATED_ + + +NEW YORK + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY + +PUBLISHERS + + +Books for Girls + +BY ALICE B. EMERSON + +RUTH FIELDING SERIES + +12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. + + + RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL + Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret. + + RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL + Or, Solving the Campus Mystery. + + RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP + Or, Lost in the Backwoods. + + RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT + Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway. + + RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH + Or, Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys. + + RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND + Or, The Old Hunter's Treasure Box. + + RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM + Or, What Became of the Baby Orphans. + + RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES + Or, The Missing Pearl Necklace. + + RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES + Or, Helping the Dormitory Fund + + RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE + Or, Great Times in the Land of Cotton. + + * * * * * + +CUPPLES & LEON CO., PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK. + +COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY + + * * * * * + +RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES + +Printed in U.S.A. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: IN THE ITALIAN GARDEN SCENES, THE SENIORS AND JUNIORS WERE +USED Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures] + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. NOT IN THE SCENARIO 1 + II. THE FILM HEROINE 9 + III. AT THE RED MILL 18 + IV. A TIME OF CHANGE 28 + V. "THAT'S A PROMISE" 36 + VI. WHAT IS AHEAD? 46 + VII. "SWEETBRIARS ALL" 52 + VIII. A NEW STAR 60 + IX. THE DEVOURING ELEMENT 67 + X. GAUNT RUINS 76 + XI. ONE THING THE OLD DOCTOR DID 84 + XII. "GREAT OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW" 90 + XIII. THE IDEA IS BORN 100 + XIV. AT MRS. SADOC SMITH'S 108 + XV. A DAWNING POSSIBILITY 117 + XVI. THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG 125 + XVII. ANOTHER OF CURLY'S TRICKS 134 +XVIII. THE FIVE-REEL DRAMA 141 + XIX. GREAT TIMES 153 + XX. A CLOUD ARISES 161 + XXI. HUNTING FOR AMY 168 + XXII. DISASTER THREATENS 176 +XXIII. PUTTING ONE'S BEST FOOT FORWARD 183 + XXIV. "SEEING OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US" 190 + XXV. AUNT ALVIRAH AT BRIARWOOD HALL 201 + + + + +RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES + + + + +CHAPTER I + +NOT IN THE SCENARIO + + +"What in the world are those people up to?" + +Ruth Fielding's clear voice asked the question of her chum, Helen Cameron, +and her chum's twin-brother, Tom. She turned from the barberry bush she +had just cleared of fruit and, standing on the high bank by the roadside, +gazed across the rolling fields to the Lumano River. + +"What people?" asked Helen, turning deliberately in the automobile seat to +look in the direction indicated by Ruth. + +"Where? People?" joined in Tom, who was tinkering with the mechanism of +the automobile and had a smudge of grease across his face. + +"Right over the fields yonder," Ruth explained, carefully balancing the +pail of berries. "Can't you see them, Helen?" + +"No-o," confessed her chum, who was not looking at all where Ruth pointed. + +"Where are your eyes?" Ruth cried sharply. + +"Nell is too lazy to stand up and look," laughed Tom. "I see them. Why! +there's quite a bunch--and they're running." + +"Where? Where?" Helen now demanded, rising to look. + +"Oh, goosy!" laughed Ruth, in some vexation. "Right ahead. Surely you can +see them now?" + +"Oh," drawled Tom, "sis wouldn't see a meteor if it fell into her lap." + +"I guess that's right, Tommy," responded his twin, in some scorn. "Neither +would you. Your knowledge of the heavenly bodies is very small indeed, I +fear. What do they teach you at Seven Oaks?" + +"Not much about anything celestial, I guarantee," said Ruth, slyly. "Oh! +there those folks go again." + +"Goodness me!" gasped Helen. "Where _are_ these wonderful persons? Oh! I +see them now." + +"Whom do you suppose they are chasing?" demanded Tom Cameron. "Or, who is +chasing _them_?" + +"That's it, Tommy," scoffed his sister. "I understand you have taken up +navigation with the other branches of higher mathematics at Seven Oaks; +and now you want to trouble Ruth and me with conundrums. + +"Are we soothsayers, that we should be able to explain, off-hand," pursued +Helen, "the actions of such a crazy crowd of people as those----Do look +there! that woman jumped right down that sandbank. Did you ever?" + +"And there goes another!" Ruth exclaimed. + +"Likewise a third," came from Tom, who was quite as much puzzled as were +the girls. + +"One after the other--just like Brown's cows," giggled Helen. "Isn't that +funny?" + +"It's like one of those chases in the moving pictures," suggested Tom. + +"Why, of course!" Ruth cried, relieved at once. "That's exactly what it +is," and she scrambled down the bank with the pail of barberries. + +"What is _what_?" asked her chum. + +"Moving pictures," Ruth said confidently. "That is, it will be a film in +time. They are making a picture over yonder. I can see the camera-man off +at one side, turning the crank." + +"Cracky!" exclaimed Tom, grinning, "I thought that was a fellow with a +hand-organ, and I was looking for the monkey." + +"Monkey, yourself," cried his sister, gaily. + +"Didn't know but that he was playing for those 'crazy creeters'--as your +Aunt Alvirah would call them, Ruthie--to dance by," went on Tom. "Come on! +I've got this thing fixed up so it will hobble along a little farther. +Let's take the lane there and go down by the river road, and see what it's +all about." + +"Good idea, Tommy-boy," agreed Ruth, as she got into the tonneau and sat +down beside Helen. + +"Fancy! taking moving pictures out in the open in mid-winter," Helen +remarked. "Although this is a warm day." + +"And no snow on the ground," chimed in Ruth. "Uncle Jabez was saying last +evening that he doesn't remember another such open winter along the +Lumano." + +"Say, Ruthie, how does your Uncle Jabez treat you, now that you are a +bloated capitalist?" asked Helen, pinching her chum's arm. + +"Oh, Helen! don't," objected Ruth. "I don't feel puffed up at all--only +vastly satisfied and content." + +"Hear her! who wouldn't?" demanded Tom. "Five thousand dollars in +bank--and all you did was to use your wits to get it. We had just as good +a chance as you did to discover that necklace and cause the arrest of the +old Gypsy," and the young fellow laughed, his black eyes twinkling. + +"I never shall feel as though the reward should all have been mine," Ruth +said, as Tom prepared to start the car. + +"Pooh! I'd never worry over the possession of so much money," said Helen. +"Not I! What does it matter how you got it? But you don't tell us what +your Uncle Jabez thinks about it." + +"I can't," responded Ruth, demurely. + +"Why not?" + +"Because Uncle Jabez has expressed no opinion--beyond his usual grunt. It +doesn't really matter how the dear man feels," pursued Ruth Fielding, +earnestly. "I know how _I_ feel about it. I am no longer a 'charity +child'----" + +"Oh, Ruthie! you never were _that_," Helen hastened to say. + +"Oh, yes I was. When I first came to the Red Mill you know Uncle Jabez +only took me in because I was a relative and he felt that he _had_ to." + +"But you helped save him a lot of money," cried Helen. "And there was that +Tintacker Mine business. If you hadn't chanced to find The Fox's brother +out there in the wilds of Montana, and nursed him back to health, your +uncle would never have made a penny in _that_ investment." + +Helen might have gone on with continued vehemence, had not Ruth stopped +her by saying: + +"That makes no difference in my feelings, my dear. Each quarter Uncle +Jabez has had to pay out a lot of money to Mrs. Tellingham for my tuition. +And he has clothed me, and let me spend money going about with you 'richer +folks,'" and Ruth laughed rather ruefully. "I feel that I should not have +allowed him to do it. I should have remained at the Red Mill and helped +Aunt Alvirah----" + +"Pooh! Nonsense!" ejaculated Tom, as the spark ignited and the engine +began to rumble. + +"You shouldn't be so popular, Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill," chanted +Helen, leaning over to kiss her chum's flushed cheek. + +"Look out for the barberries!" cried Ruth. + +"I reckon you don't want to spill them, after working so hard to get +them," Tom said, as the automobile lurched forward. + +"I certainly do not," Ruth admitted. "I scratched my hands all up getting +the bucket full. Just fancy finding barberries still clinging to the +bushes in such quantities this time of the year." + +"What good are they?" queried Helen, selecting one gingerly and putting it +into her mouth. + +"Oh! Aunt Alvirah makes the loveliest pies of them--with huckleberries, +you know. Half and half." + +"Where'll you find huckleberries this time of year?" scoffed Tom. "On the +bushes too?" + +"In glass jars down cellar, sir," replied Ruth, smartly. "I did help pick +those and put them up last summer, in spite of all the running around we +did." + +"Beg pardon, Miss Fielding," said Tom. "Go on. Tell us some more recipes. +Makes my mouth water." + +"O-o-oh! so will these barberries!" exclaimed Helen, making a wry face. +"Just taste one, Tommy." + +"Many, many thanks! _Good_-night!" ejaculated her brother, "I know +better. But those barberries properly prepared with sugar make a mighty +nice drink in summer. Our Babette makes barberry syrup, you know." + +"Ugh! It doesn't taste like these," complained his sister. "Oh, folks! +there are those foolish actors again." + +"_Now_ what are they about?" demanded Ruth. + +"Look out that you don't bring the car into the focus of the camera, Tom," +his sister warned him. "It will make them awfully mad." + +"Don't fret. I have no desire to appear in a movie," laughed Tom. + +"But I think _I_ would like to," said his sister. "Wouldn't you, Ruth?" + +"I--I don't know. It must be awfully interesting----" + +"Pooh!" scoffed Tom. "What will you girls get into your heads next? And +they don't let girls like you play in movies, anyway." + +"Oh, yes, they do!" cried his sister. "Some of the greatest stars in the +film firmament are nothing more than schoolgirls. They have what they call +'film charm.'" + +"Think you've got any of that commodity?" demanded Tom, with cheerful +impudence. + +"I don't know----Oh, Ruth, look at that girl! Now, Tommy, see there! That +girl isn't a day older than we." + +"Too far away to make sure," said Tom, slowly. Then, the next moment, he +ejaculated: "What under the sun is she doing? Why! she'll fall off that +tree-trunk, the silly thing!" + +The slender girl who had attracted their attention had, at the command of +the director of the picture, scrambled up a leaning sycamore tree which +overhung the stream at a sharp angle. The girl swayed upon the bare trunk, +balancing herself prettily, and glanced back over her shoulder. + +Tom had brought the car to a stop. When the engine was shut off they could +hear the director's commands: + +"That's it, Hazel. Keep that pose. Got your focus, Carroll?" he called to +the camera man. "Now--ready! Register fear, Miss Hazel. Say! act as though +you _meant_ it! Register fear, I say--just as though you expected to fall +into the water the next moment. Oh, piffle! Not at all like it! not at +_all_ like it!" + +He was a dreadfully noisy, pugnacious man. Finally the girl said: + +"If you think I am not scared, Mr. Grimes, you are very much mistaken. I +_am_. I expect to slip off here any moment----Oh!" + +The last was a shriek of alarm. What she was afraid would happen came to +pass like a flash. Her foot slipped, she lost her balance, and the next +instant was precipitated into the river! + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE FILM HEROINE + + +When the motion picture girl fell from the sycamore tree into the water, +some of the members of the company, who sat or stood near by panting after +their hard chase cross-lots, actually laughed at their unfortunate +comrade's predicament. + +But that was because they had no idea of the strength and treacherous +nature of the Lumano. At this point the eddies and cross-currents made the +stream more perilous than any similar stretch of water in the State. + +"Oh, that silly girl!" shouted Mr. Grimes, the director. "There! she's +spoiled the scene again. I don't know what Hammond was thinking of to send +her up here to work with us. + +"Hey, one of you fellows! go and fish her out. And that spoils our chance +of getting the picture to-day. Miss Gray will have to be mollycoddled, and +grandmothered, and what-not. Huh!" + +While he scolded, the director scarcely gave a glance to the struggling +girl. The latter had struck out pluckily for the shore when she came up +from her involuntary plunge. After the cry she had uttered as she fell, +she had not made a sound. + +To swim with one's clothing all on is not an easy matter at the best of +times. To do this in mid-winter, when the water is icy, is well nigh an +impossibility. + +Several of the men of the company, more humane than the director, had +sprung to assist the unfortunate girl; but suddenly the current caught her +and she was swerved from the bank. She was out of reach. + +"And not a skiff in sight!" exclaimed Tom. + +"Oh, dear! The poor thing!" cried his sister. "She's being carried right +down the river. They'll never get her." + +"Oh, Tom!" implored Ruth. "Hurry and start. _We must get that girl_!" + +"Sure we will!" cried Tom Cameron. + +He was already out of the car and madly turning the crank. In a moment the +engine was throbbing. Tom leaped back behind the wheel and the automobile +darted ahead. + +The rough road led directly along the verge of the river bank. The +picture-play actors scattered as he bore down upon them. It gave Tom, as +well as the girls, considerable satisfaction to see the director, Grimes, +jump out of the way of the rapidly moving car. + +The friends in the car saw the actress, whom Grimes had called both +"Hazel" and "Miss Gray," swirled far out from the shore; but they knew the +current or an eddy would bring her back. She sank once; but she came up +again and fought the current like the plucky girl she was. + +"Oh, Helen! she's wonderful!" gasped Ruth, with clasped hands, as she +watched this fight for life which was more thrilling than anything she had +ever seen reproduced on the screen. + +Helen was too frightened to reply; but Ruth Fielding often before had +shown remarkable courage and self-possession in times of emergency. No +more than the excited Tom did she lose her head on this occasion. + +As has been previously told, Ruth had come to the banks of the Lumano +River and to her Uncle Jabez Potter's Red Mill some years before, when she +was a small girl. She was an orphan, and the crabbed and miserly miller +was her single living relative. + +The first volume of the series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill," +tells of the incidents which follow Ruth's coming to reside with her +uncle, and with Aunt Alvirah Boggs, who was "everybody's aunt" but +nobody's relative. + +The first and closest friends of her own age that Ruth made in her new +home were Helen and Tom Cameron, twin children of a wealthy merchant +whose all-year home was not far from the Red Mill. With Helen and Mercy +Curtis, a lame girl, Ruth is sent to Briarwood Hall, a delightfully +situated boarding school at some distance from the girls' homes, and +there, in the second volume of the series, Ruth is introduced to new +scenes, some new friends and a few enemies; but altogether has a +delightful time. + +Ensuing volumes tell of Ruth and her chums' adventures at Snow Camp; at +Lighthouse Point; on Silver Ranch, in Montana; on Cliff Island, where +occur a number of remarkable winter incidents; at Sunset Farm during the +previous summer; and finally, in the eighth volume, the one immediately +preceding this present story, Ruth achieves something that she has long, +long desired. + +This last volume, called "Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies; Or, The Missing +Pearl Necklace," tells of an automobile trip which Ruth and her present +companions, Helen and Tom Cameron, took through the hills some distance +beyond the Red Mill and Cheslow, their home town. + +They fall into the hands of Gypsies and the two girls are actually held +captive by the old and vindictive Gypsy Queen. Through Ruth's bravery +Helen escapes and takes the news of the capture back to Tom. Later the +grandson of the old Gypsy Queen releases Ruth. + +While at the camp Ruth sees a wonderful pearl necklace in the hands of +the covetous old Queen Zelaya. Later, when the girls return to Briarwood, +they learn that an aunt of one of their friends, Nettie Parsons, has been +robbed of just such a necklace. + +Ruth, through Mr. Cameron, puts the police on the trail of the Gypsies. +The Gypsy boy, Roberto, is rescued and in time becomes a protégé of Mr. +Cameron, while the stolen necklace is recovered from the Gypsy Queen, who +is deported by the Washington authorities. + +In the end, the five thousand dollars reward offered by Nettie's aunt +comes to Ruth. She is enriched beyond her wildest dreams, and above all, +is made independent of the niggardly charity of her Uncle Jabez who seems +to love his money more than he does his niece. + +Unselfishness was Ruth's chief virtue, though she had many. She could +never refuse a helping hand to the needy; nor did she fear to risk her own +convenience, sometimes even her own safety, to relieve or rescue another. + +In the present case, none knew better than Ruth the treacherous currents +of the Lumano. It had not been so many months since she and her uncle, +Jabez Potter, out upon the Lumano in a boat, had nearly lost their lives. +This present accident, that to the young moving-picture actress, was at a +point some distance above the Red Mill. + +"If she is carried down two hundred yards farther, Tom, she will be swept +out into mid-stream," declared Ruth, still master of herself, though her +voice was shaking. + +"And then--good-night!" answered Tom. "I know what you mean, Ruth." + +"She will sink for the last time before the current sweeps her in near the +shore again," Ruth added. + +"Oh, don't!" groaned Helen. "The poor girl." + +Tom had driven the automobile until it was ahead of the struggling Hazel +Gray. An eddy clutched her and drew her swiftly in toward the bank. +Immediately Tom shut off the power and he and Ruth both leaped out of the +car. + +A long branch from an adjacent tree had been torn off by the wind and lay +beside the road. Tom seized this and ran with Ruth to the edge of the +water; but he knew the branch was a poor substitute for a rope. + +"If she can cling to this, I'll get something better in a moment, Ruth!" +he exclaimed. + +Swinging the small and bushy end of the branch outward, Tom dropped it +into the water just ahead of the imperiled girl. Ruth seized the butt with +her strong and capable hands. + +"Cut off a length of that fence wire, Tommy," she ordered. "You have +wire-cutters in your auto kit, haven't you?" + +"Sure!" cried Tom. "Never travel without 'em since we were at Silver +Ranch, you know. There! She's got it." + +Hazel Gray had seized upon the branch. She was too exhausted to reach the +bank of the river without help, and just here the eddy began to swing her +around again, away from the shore. + +The men of the company came running now, giving lusty shouts of +encouragement, but--that was all! The director had allowed the girl to get +into a perilous position on the leaning tree without having a boat and +crew in readiness to pick her up if she fell into the river. It was an +unpardonable piece of neglect, and there might still serious consequences +arise from it. + +For the girl in the water was so exhausted that she could not long cling +to the limb. It was but a frail support between her and drowning. + +When the men arrived Ruth feared to have them even touch the branch she +held, and she motioned them back. She knew that the girl in the stream was +almost exhausted and that a very little would cause her to lose her hold +upon the branch altogether. + +"Don't touch it! I beg of you, don't touch it!" cried Ruth, as one excited +man undertook to take the butt of the branch. + +"You can't hold it, Miss! you'll be pulled into the water." + +"Never fear for me," the girl from the Red Mill returned. "I know what I +am about----Oh, goody! here comes Tom!" + +She depended on Tom--she knew that he would do something if anybody could. +She gazed upon the wet, white face of the girl in the water and knew that +whatever Tom did must be done at once. Hazel Gray was loosing her hold. + +"Oh! oh! oh!" screamed Helen, standing in the automobile with clasped +hands. "Don't let her drown, Tommy! Don't let her go down again--_don't_!" + +Tom came, with grimly set lips, dragging about twenty feet of fence wire +behind him. Luckily it was smooth wire--not barbed. He quickly made a loop +in one end of it and wriggled the other end toward Ruth and the excited +men. + +"Catch hold here!" he ordered. "Make a loop as I have, and don't let it +slip through your hands." + +"Oh, Tom! you're never going into that cold water?" Ruth gasped, suddenly +stricken with fear for her friend's safety. + +But that was exactly what Tom intended to do. There was no other way. He +had seen, too, the exhaustion of the girl in the water and knew that if +her hands slipped from the tree branch, she could never get a grip on the +wire. + +Without removing an article of clothing the boy leaped into the stream. +It was over his head right here below the bank, and the chill of the water +was tremendous. As Tom said afterward, he felt it "clear to the marrow of +his bones!" + +But he came up and struck out strongly for the face of the girl, which was +all that could be seen above the surface. + +Hazel Gray's hold was slipping from the branch. She was blue about the +lips and her eyes were almost closed. The current was tugging at her +strongly; she was losing consciousness. If she was carried away by the +suction of the stream, now dragging so strongly at her limbs, Tom Cameron +would be obliged to loose his own hold upon the wire and swim after her. +And the young fellow was not at all sure that he could save either her or +himself if this occurred. + +Yet, perilous as his own situation was, Tom thought only of that of the +actress. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +AT THE RED MILL + + +Helen, greatly excited, stood on the seat of the tonneau and cheered her +brother on at the top of her voice. That, in her excitement, she thought +she was "rooting" at a basket-ball game at Briarwood, was not to be +wondered at. Ruth heard her chum screaming: + + "S.B.--Ah-h-h! + S.B.--Ah-h-h + Sound our battle-cry + Near and far! + S.B.--All! + Briarwood Hall! + Sweetbriars, do or die---- + This be our battle-cry---- + Briarwood Hall! + _That's All!_" + +At the very moment the excited Helen brought out the "snapper" of the +rallying cry of their own particular Briarwood sorority, Ruth let the limb +go, for Tom had seized the sinking actress by the shoulder. + +"He's got her!" the men shouted in chorus. + +"And that's all those fellows were," Ruth said afterwards, in some +contempt. "Just a _chorus_! They were a lot of tabby-cats--afraid to wet +their precious feet. If it hadn't been for Tom, Miss Gray would have been +drowned before the eyes of that mean director and those other imitation +men. Ugh! I de-_test_ a coward!" + +This was said later, however. Until they drew Tom and his fainting burden +ashore, neither Ruth nor Helen had time for criticism. Then they bundled +Hazel Gray in the automobile rugs, while Tom struggled into an overcoat +and cranked up the machine. The director came to inquire: + +"What are you going to do with that girl?" + +"Take her to the Red Mill," snapped Ruth. "That's down the river, opposite +the road to Cheslow. And don't try to see her before to-morrow. No thanks +to _you_ that she isn't drowned." + +"You are a very impudent young lady," growled the director. + +"I may be a plain spoken one," said Ruth, not at all alarmed by the man's +manner. "I don't know how you would have felt had Miss Gray been drowned. +I should think you would think of _that_!" + +But the man seemed more disturbed about the delay to the picture that was +being taken. + +"I shall expect you to be ready bright and early in the morning, Miss +Gray!" he shouted as the automobile moved off. The young actress, half +fainting in the tonneau between the Briarwood Hall girls, did not hear +him. + +It was several miles to the Red Mill, and Ruth, worried, said: "I'm afraid +Tom will catch cold, Helen." + +"And--and this po--poor girl, too," stammered Tom's sister, as the car +jounced over a particularly rough piece of road. + +Hazel Gray opened her eyes languidly, murmuring: "I shall be all right, +thank you! Just drive to the hotel----" + +"What hotel?" asked Ruth, laughing. + +"In Cheslow. I don't know the name of it," whispered Hazel Gray. "Is there +more than one?" + +"There is; but you'll not go all the way to Cheslow in your condition," +declared Ruth. "We're taking you to the Red Mill. Now! no objections, +please. Hurry up, Tommy." + +"But I am all wet," protested the girl. + +"I should say you were," gasped Helen. + +"Nobody knows better than I," said Ruth, "that the water of the Lumano +river is at least _damp_, at all seasons." + +"I will make you a lot of trouble," objected Miss Gray. + +"No, you won't," the girl of the Red Mill repeated. "Aunt Alvirah will +snuggle you down between soft, fluffy blankets, and give you hot boneset +tea, or 'composition,' and otherwise coddle you. To-morrow morning you +will feel like a new girl." + +"Oh, dear!" groaned Miss Gray. "I wish I _were_ a new girl." + +A very few minutes later they came in sight of the Red Mill, with the +rambling, old, story-and-a-half dwelling beside it, in which Jabez +Potter's grandfather had been born. Although the leaves had long since +fallen from the trees, and the lawn was brown, the sloping front yard of +the Potter house was very attractive. The walks were swept, the last dead +leaf removed, and the big stones at the main gateway were dazzlingly +white-washed. + +The jar and rumble of the grist-mill, and the trickle of the water on the +wheel, made a murmurous accompaniment to all the other sounds of life +about the place. From the rear of the old house fowls cackled, a mule sent +his clarion call across the fields, and hungry pigs squealed their prayer +for supper. A cow lowed impatiently at the pasture bars in answer to the +querulous blatting of her calf. + +Tom was going on home to change his clothes; but when Ruth saw the fringe +of icicles around the bottoms of his trouser legs, she would not hear to +it. + +"You come right in with us, Tom. Helen will drive the car home and get you +a change of clothing. Meanwhile you can put on some of Uncle Jabez's old +clothes. Hurry on, now, children!" and she laughingly drove Tom and Hazel +Gray before her to the porch of the old house, where Aunt Alvirah, having +heard the automobile, met them in amazement. + +"What forever has happened, my pretty?" cried the little old lady, whose +bent back and rheumatic limbs made her seem even smaller than she +naturally was. "In the river? Do come in! Bring the young lady right into +the best room, Ruthie. You strip off right before the kitchen fire, Master +Tom. I'll bring you some things to put on. There's a huck towel on the +nail yonder. Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" + +Thus talking, Aunt Alvirah hobbled ahead into the sitting room. The girl +who had fallen into the river was now shivering. Ruth and the old lady +undressed her as quickly as possible, and Aunt Alvirah made ready the bed +with the "fluffy" blankets in the chamber right off the sitting room. + +"Do get one of your nighties for her, my pretty," directed Aunt Alvirah. +"She wouldn't feel right sleepin' in one o' _my_ old things, I know." + +Ruth was excited. In the first place, as to most girls of her age, a "real +live actress" was as much of a wonder as a Great Auk would have been; +only, of course, Hazel Gray was much more charming than the garfowl! + +Ruth Fielding was interested in moving pictures--and for a particular +reason. Long before she had gained the reward for the return of the pearl +necklace to Nettie Parsons' aunt, Ruth had thought of writing a scenario. +This was not a very original thought, for many, many thousand other people +have thought the same thing. + +Occasionally, when she had been to a film show, Ruth had wondered why she +could not write a playlet quite as good as many she saw, and get money for +it. But it had been only a thought; she knew nothing about the technique +of the scenario, or how to go about getting an opinion upon her work if +she should write one. + +Here chance had thrown her into the company of a girl who was working for +the films, and evidently was of some importance in the moving picture +companies, despite the treatment she had received from the unpleasant +director, Mr. Grimes. + +Ruth remembered now of having seen Hazel Gray upon the screen more than +once within the year. She was regarded as a coming star, although she had +not achieved the fame of many actresses for the silent drama who were no +older. + +So Ruth, feeling the importance of the occasion, selected from her store +the very prettiest night gown that she owned--one she had never even worn +herself--and brought it down stairs to the girl who had been in the river. +A little later Hazel Gray was between Aunt Alvirah's blankets, and was +sipping her hot tea. + +"My dear! you are very, very good to me," she said, clinging to Ruth's +hand. You and the dear little old lady. Are you as good to every stranger +who comes your way?" + +"Aunt Alvirah is, I'm sure," replied Ruth, laughing and blushing. Somehow, +despite the fact that the young actress was only two or three years older +than herself, the girl of the Red Mill felt much more immature than Miss +Gray. + +"You belittle your own kindness, I am sure," said Hazel. "And that _dear_ +boy who got me out of the river--Where is he?" + +"Unseeable at present," laughed Ruth. "He is dressed in some of Uncle +Jabez's clothing, a world too big for him. But Tom _is_ one of the dearest +fellows who ever lived." + +"You think a great deal of him, I fancy?" + +"Oh, yes, indeed!" cried Ruth, innocently. "His sister is my very dearest +friend. We go to Briarwood Hall together." + +"Briarwood Hall? I have heard of that. We go there soon, I understand. Mr. +Hammond is to take some pictures in and around Lumberton." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Ruth. 'That will be nice! I hope we shall see you up +there, Miss Gray, for Helen and I go back to school in a week." + +"Whether I see you there or not," said the young actress with a sigh, "I +hope that I shall be able some time to repay you for what you do for me +now. You are entirely too kind." + +"Perhaps you can pay me more easily than you think," said Ruth, bashfully, +but with dancing eyes. + +"How? Tell me at once," said Miss Gray. + +"I'm just _mad_ to try writing a scenario for a moving picture," confessed +Ruth. "But I don't know how to go about getting it read." + +Miss Gray smiled, but made no comment upon Ruth's desire. She merely said, +pleasantly: + +"If you write your scenario, my dear, I will get our manager to read it." + +"That awful Mr. Grimes?" cried Ruth. "Oh! I shouldn't want _him_ to read +it." + +Hazel Gray laughed heartily at that. "Don't judge, the taste of a baked +porcupine by his quills," she said. "Grimes is a very rough and unpleasant +man; but he gets there. He is one of the most successful directors Mr. +Hammond has working for him." + +"You have mentioned Mr. Hammond before?" said Ruth, questioningly. + +"He is the man I will show your scenario to." Then she added: "If I am +still working for him. Mr. Hammond is a very nice man; but Grimes does not +like me," and again the girl sighed, and a cloud came over her pretty +face. + +"I would not work under such a mean man as that Grimes!" declared Ruth. +"You might have been drowned because of his carelessness." + +"It is my misfortune--being an actress--often to work under unpleasant +conditions. I want to get ahead, and I would like to please Grimes; he +puts over his pictures, and he has made several film actresses quite +famous. Of course, although my first consideration must necessarily be my +bread and butter, I hope for a little fame on the side, too." + +"Oh! you have achieved that, have you not?" said Ruth, timidly. "I thought +you had already made a name for yourself." + +"Not as great a name as I hope to gain some day," declared Hazel Gray. +"But thank you for the compliment. I was carried on to the stage when I +was a baby in arms by my dear mother, who was an actress of some ability. +My father was an actor. He died of a fever in the South before I can +remember, and when I was seven my mother died. + +"Kind people trained me for the stage; they were kind enough to say I had +talent. And now I have tried to do my best in the movies. Mr. Hammond +thinks I am a good pantomimist; but Grimes declares I have no 'film +charm,'" and Miss Gray sighed again. "He has another girl he wants to push +forward, and is angry that Mr. Hammond did not send her to head this +company." + +"Then this Mr. Hammond is quite an important man?" asked Ruth. + +"Head of the Alectrion Film Corporation. He is immensely wealthy and a +really _good_ man. Of course," went on Miss Gray, "he is in the business +of making films for money; just the same, he makes a great many pictures +purely for art's sake, or for educational reasons. You would like Mr. +Hammond, I am sure," and the girl in bed sighed again. + +Ruth saw that talking troubled Miss Gray and kept her mind upon her +quarrel with the moving picture director; so it did not need Aunt +Alvirah's warning to make the girl of the Red Mill steal away and leave +the patient to such repose as she might get. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A TIME OF CHANGE + + +Tom Cameron looked funny enough in some of the miller's garments; but he +was none the worse for his bath in the river. He, too, had been dosed with +hot tea by Aunt Alvirah, though he made a wry face over it. + +"Never you mind, boy," Ruth told him, laughing. "It is better to have a +bad taste in your mouth for a little while than a sore throat for a week." + +"Hear! hear the philosopher!" cried Tom. "You'd think I was a tender +little blossom." + +"You know, you _might_ have the croup," suggested Ruth, wickedly. + +"Croup! What am I--a kid?" demanded Tom, half angry at this suggestion. He +had begun to notice that his sister and Ruth were inclined to set him down +as a "small boy" nowadays. + +"How is it," Tom asked his father one day, "that Helen is all grown up of +a sudden? _I'm_ not! Everybody treats me just as they always have; but +even Colonel Post takes off his hat to our Helen on the street with +overpowering politeness, and the other men speak to her as though she were +as old as Mrs. Murchiston. It gets _me_!" + +Mr. Cameron laughed; but he sighed thereafter, too. "Our little Helen _is_ +growing up, I expect. She's taken a long stride ahead of you, Tommy, while +you've been asleep." + +"Huh! I'm just as old as she is," growled Tom. "But _I_ don't feel grown +up." + +And here was Ruth Fielding holding the same attitude toward him that his +twin did! Tom did not like it a bit. He was a manly fellow and had always +observed a protective air with Ruth and his sister. And, all of a sudden, +they had become young ladies while he was still a boy. + +"I wish Nell would come back with my duds," he grumbled. "I have a good +mind to walk home in these things of the miller's." + +"And be taken for an animated scarecrow on the way?" laughed Ruth. "Better +'bide a wee,' Tommy. Sister will get here with your rompers pretty soon. +Have patience." + +"Now you talk just like Bobbins' sister. Behave, will you?" complained +Tom. + +Ruth tripped out of the room to peep at the guest, and Aunt Alvirah +hobbled in and, letting herself down into her low chair, with a groan of +"Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" smiled indulgently at Tom's gloomy face. + +"What is the matter, Mister Tom?" she asked. "Truly, you look as colicky +as Amos Dodge--an' they do say he lived on sour apples!" + +Tom had to laugh at this; but it was rather a rueful laugh. "I don't know +what is coming over these girls--Ruth and my sister," he said, "They're +beginning to put on airs like grown ladies. Cracky! they used to be some +fun." + +"Growin' up, Mister Tom--growin' up. So's my pretty. I hate to see it, but +ye can't fool Natur'--no, sir! Natur' says to these young things: +'Advance!' an' they've jest got to march, I reckon," and Aunt Alvirah +sighed, too. Then her little, bird-like eyes twinkled suddenly and she +chuckled. "Jest the same," she added, in a whisper, "Ruth got out all her +doll-babies the other day and played with 'em jest like she was ten years +old." + +"Ho, ho!" cried Tom, his face clearing up. "I guess she's only making +believe to be grown up, after all!" + +Helen came finally and they left Tom alone in the kitchen to change his +clothes. Then the Camerons hurried away, for it was close to supper time. +Both Helen and Tom were greatly interested in the moving picture actress; +but she had fallen into a doze and they could not bid her good-bye. + +"But I'm going to run down in the morning to see how she is," Tom +announced. "I'll see her before she goes away. She's a plucky one, all +right!" + +"Humph!" thought Ruth, when the automobile had gone, "Tom seems to have +been wonderfully taken with that Miss Gray's appearance." + +When Jabez Potter came in from the mill and found the strange girl in the +best bed he was inclined to criticize. He was a tall, dusty, old man, for +whom it seemed a hard task ever to speak pleasantly. Aunt Alvirah, when +she was much put out with him, said he "croaked like a raven!" + +"Gals, gals, gals!" he grumbled. "This house seems to be nigh full of 'em +when you air to home, Niece Ruth." + +"And empty enough of young life, for a fac', when my pretty is away," put +in Aunt Alvirah. + +Ruth, not minding her Uncle Jabez's strictures, went about setting the +supper table with puckered lips, whistling softly. This last was an +accomplishment she had picked up from Tom long ago. + +"And whistling gals is the wust of all!" snarled Jabez Potter, from the +sink, where he had just taken his face out of the soapsuds bath he always +gave it before sitting down to table. "I reckon ye ain't forgot what I +told ye: + + "'Whistlin' gals an' crowin' hens + Always come to some bad ends!'" + +"Now, Jabez!" remonstrated Aunt Alvirah. + +But Ruth only laughed. "You've got it wrong, Uncle Jabez," she declared. +"There is another version of that old doggerel. It is: + + "'Whistling girls and blatting sheep + Are the two best things a farmer can keep!'" + +Then she went straight to him and, as his irritated face came out of the +huck towel, she put both arms around his neck and kissed him on his +grizzled cheek. + +This sort of treatment always closed her Uncle Jabez's lips for a time. +There seemed no answer to be made to such an argument--and Ruth _did_ love +the crusty old man and was grateful to him. + +When the miller had retired to his own chamber to count and recount the +profits of the day, as he always did every evening, Aunt Alvirah +complained more than usual of the old man's niggardly ways. + +"It's gittin' awful, Ruthie, when you ain't to home. He's ashamed to have +me set so mean a table when you air here. For he _does_ kinder care about +what you think of him, my pretty, after all." + +"Oh, Aunt Alvirah! I thought he was cured of _little_ 'stingies.'" + +"No, he ain't! no, he ain't!" cried the old lady, sitting down with a +groan. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! I tell ye, my pretty, I have to +steal out things a'tween meals to Ben sometimes, or that boy wouldn't have +half enough to eat. Jabez has had a new padlock put on the meat-house +door, and I can't git a slice of bacon without his knowin' on it." + +"That is ridiculous!" exclaimed Ruth, who had less patience now than she +once had for her great uncle's penuriousness. She was positive that it was +not necessary. + +"Ree-dic'lous or not; it's _so_," Aunt Alvirah asserted. "Sometimes I feel +like I was a burden on him myself." + +"_You_ a burden, dear Aunt Alvirah!" cried Ruth, with tears in her eyes. +"You would be a blessing, not a burden, in anybody's house. Uncle Jabez +was very fortunate indeed to get you to come here to the Red Mill." + +"I dunno--I dunno," groaned the old lady. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! +I'm a poor, rheumaticky creeter--and nobody but Jabez would have taken me +out o' the poorhouse an' done for me as he has." + +"You mean, you have done for him!" cried Ruth, in some passion. "You have +kept his house for him, and mended for him, and made a home for him, for +years. And I doubt if he has ever thanked you--not _once_!" + +"But I have thanked him, deary," said Aunt Alvirah, sweetly. "And I do +thank him, same as I do our Father in Heaven, ev'ry day of my life, for +takin' me away from that poorfarm an' makin' an independent woman of me +a'gin. Oh, Jabez ain't all bad. Fur from it, my pretty--fur from it! + +"Now that you ain't no more beholden to him for your eddication, an' all, +he is more pennyurious than ever--yes he is! For Jabez's sake, I could +almost wish you hadn't got all that money you did, for gittin' back the +lady's necklace. Spendin' money breeds the itch for spendin' more. Since +you wrote him that you was goin' to pay all your school bills, Jabez +Potter is cured of the little itch of _that_ kind he ever had." + +"Oh, Aunt Alvirah! Think of me--I am glad to be independent, too." + +"I know--I know," admitted Aunt Alvirah. "But it's hard on Jabez. He was +givin' you the best eddication he could----" + +"Grumblingly enough, I am sure!" interposed Ruth, with a pout. She could +speak plainly to the little old woman, for Aunt Alvirah _knew_. + +"Surely--surely," agreed the old lady. "But it did him good, jest the +same. Even if he only spent money on ye for fear of what the neighbors +would say. Opening his pocket for _your_ needs, my pretty, was makin' a +new man of Jabez." + +"Dear me!" exclaimed Ruth, thinking it rather hard. "You want me to be +poor again, Aunt Alvirah." + +"Only for your uncle's sake--only for his sake," she reiterated. + +"But he can do more for Mercy Curtis," said Ruth. "He has helped her quite +a little. He likes Mercy--better than he does me, I think." + +"But he don't have to help Mercy no more," put in Aunt Alvirah, quickly. +"Haven't you heard? Mercy's mother has got a legacy from some distant +relative and now there ain't a soul on whom Jabez Potter thinks he's _got_ +to spend money. It's a terrible thing for Jabez--Meed an' it is, my +pretty. + +"Changes--changes, all the time! We were going on quite smooth and +pleasant for a fac'. And _now_----Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" and thus +groaningly Aunt Alvirah finished her quite unusual complaint, for with all +her aches and pains she was naturally a cheerful body. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"THAT'S A PROMISE" + + +The family at the Red Mill were early risers When the red, red sun threw +his first rays across the frosty waters of the Lumano, Ruth Fielding's +casement was wide open and she was busily tripping about the kitchen where +her Uncle Jabez had built the fire in the range before going to the mill. + +Ben, the hired man, was out doing the chores and soon brought two brimming +pails of milk into the milk-room. + +"Aunt Alviry will miss ye, Ruthie, when ye air gone back to school," Ben +said bashfully, when Ruth, with capable air, began to strain the milk and +pour it into the pans. + +"Poor Aunt Alvirah!" sighed Ruth. "I hope you help her all you can when +I'm not here, Ben?" + +"I jest _do_!" said the big fellow, heartily. "T'tell the truth, Ruthie, +sometimes I kin scarce a-bear Jabe Potter. I wouldn't work for him another +month, I vow! if 'twasn't for the old woman--and--and _you_." + +"Oh, thank you, Ben, for that compliment," cried Ruth, dimpling and +running into the kitchen to set back the coffee-pot in which the coffee +was threatening to boil over. + +The breakfast dishes were not dried when the raucous "honk! honk! honk!" +of an automobile horn sounded without. The machine stopped at the gate of +the Potter house. + +"My mercy! who kin that be?" demanded Aunt Alvirah, jerkily, and then +settled back into her chair again by the window with a murmured, "Oh, my +back! and oh, my bones!" + +"It can't be Tom, can it?" gasped Ruth, running to the door. "So +early--and to see Miss Gray?" for the thought that Tom Cameron was +interested in the actress still stuck in Ruth's mind. + +"It doesn't sound like Tom's horn," she added, as she struggled with the +outer door. "Oh, dear! I _do_ wish Uncle Jabez would fix this lock. +There!" + +The door flew open, and swung out, its weight carrying Ruth with it plump +into the arms of a big man in a big fur coat which he had thrown open as +he ascended the steps of the porch. + +Ruth was almost smothered in the coat. And she would have slipped and +fallen had not the stranger held her up, finally setting her squarely on +her feet at arm's length, steadying her there and laughing the while. + +"I declare, young lady," he said in a pleasant voice, "I did not expect +to be met with such cordiality. Is this the way you always meet visitors +at this beautiful, picturesque old place?" + +"Oh, oh, oh! I--I--I----" + +Ruth could only gasp at first, her cheeks ruddy with blushes, her eyes +timid. Her tongue actually refused to speak two consecutive, sensible +words. + +"I must say, my dear," said the gentleman who, Ruth now saw, was a man as +old as Mr. Cameron, "that you are as charming as the Red Mill itself. For, +of course, this _is_ the Red Mill? I was directed here from Cheslow." + +"Oh, yes!" stammered Ruth. "This is the Red Mill. Did--did you wish to see +Uncle Jabez?" + +"Perhaps. But that was not my particular reason for coming here," said the +stranger, laughing openly at her now. "I find his niece pleasanter to look +at, I have no doubt; though Uncle Jabez may be a very estimable man." + +Ruth was puzzled. She glanced past him to the big maroon automobile at the +gate. Therein she saw the squat, pugnacious looking Mr. Grimes, and she +jumped to a correct conclusion. + +"Oh!" she cried faintly. "_You_ are Mr. Hammond!" + +"Perfectly correct, my dear. And who are you, may I ask?" + +"Ruth Fielding. I live here, sir. We have Miss Gray with us." + +"Quite so," said Mr. Hammond, nodding. "I have come to see Miss Gray--and +to take her away if she is well enough to be moved." + +"Oh, she is all right, Mr. Hammond. Only she is still lying in bed. Aunt +Alvirah prevailed upon her to stay quiet for a while longer." + +"And your Aunt Alvirah is probably right. But--may I come in? I'd like to +ask you a few questions, even if Hazel is not to be seen as yet." + +"Oh, certainly, sir!" cried Ruth, thus reminded of her negligence. "Do +come in. Here, into the sitting room, please. It is warm in here, for +Uncle Jabez kept a fire all night, and I just put in a good-sized chunk +myself." + +"Ah! an old-fashioned wood-heater, is it?" asked Mr. Hammond, following +Ruth into the sitting room. "That looks like comfort. I remember stoking a +stove like that when I was a boy." + +Ruth liked this jolly, hearty, big man from the start. He was inclined to +joke and tease, she thought; but with it all he had the kindliest manner +and most humorous mouth in the world. + +He turned to Ruth when the door was shut, and asked seriously: "My dear, +is Miss Gray where she can hear us talk?" + +"Why, no, sir," replied Ruth, surprised. "The door is shut--and it is a +soundproof door, I am certain." + +"Very well. I have heard Grimes' edition of the affair yesterday. Will you +please give me _your_ version of the accident? Of course, it _was_ an +accident?" + +"Oh, yes, sir! Although that man ought not to have made her climb that +tree----" + +Mr. Hammond put up a warning hand, and smiled again. "I do not ask you for +an opinion. Just for an account of what actually happened." + +"But you intimated that perhaps Mr. Grimes was more at fault than he +actually _was_," said Ruth, boldly. "Surely he did not push her off that +tree!" + +"No," said Mr. Hammond, drily. "Did she jump?" + +"Jump! Goodness! do you think she is crazy?" demanded Ruth, so shocked +that she quite forgot to be polite. + +"Then she did not jump," the manager of the Alectrion Film Corporation +said, quite placidly. "Very well. Tell me what you saw. For, I suppose, +you were on the spot?" + +"Yes, sir," said Ruth, not quite sure just then that the gentleman was +altogether fair-minded. Later she understood that Mr. Hammond merely +desired to get the stories of the accident from the observers with neither +partiality nor prejudice. + +Ruth repeated just what happened from the time she and her friends arrived +in the Cameron car on the scene, till they reached the Red Mill and Miss +Gray had been put to bed. + +"Very clear and convincing. You are a good witness," declared Mr. Hammond, +lightly; but she saw that the story had left an unpleasant impression on +his mind. She did not see how he could blame the motion picture actress; +but she feared that he did. + +When Ruth tried to probe into that question, however, Mr. Hammond +skilfully turned the subject to the picturesqueness of the Red Mill and +its surroundings. + +"This would make a splendid background for a film," he said, with +enthusiasm. "We ought to have a story written around this beautiful old +place, with all the romance and human interest that must be connected with +the history of the house. + +"Do you mind if we go out and look around a little? I would not disturb +Miss Gray until she is perfectly rested and feels like rising." + +"Surely I will show you around, sir!" cried Ruth. "Let me get my coat and +hat." + +She ran for her sweater and tam-o'-shanter, and joined Mr. Hammond on the +porch. Mr. Hammond said nothing to Grimes, but allowed him to remain in +the limousine. + +Ruth took the moving picture magnate down to the shore of the river and +showed him the wheel and the mill-side. The old stone bridge over the +creek, too, was an object of interest. In fact, Ruth had thought so much +about the situation of the Red Mill as a picture herself, that she knew +just what would attract the gentleman's interest the most. + +"I declare! I declare!" he murmured, over and over again. "It is better +than I thought. A variety of scene, already for the action to be put into +it! Splendid!" + +"And I am sure," Ruth told him, "Uncle Jabez would not object to your +filming the old place. I could fix it for you. He is not so difficult when +once you know how to take him." + +"I may ask your good offices in that matter," said Mr. Hammond. "But not +now. Of course, Grimes could work up something in short order to fit these +scenes here. He's excellent at that. But I think the subject is worthy of +better treatment. I'd like a really big story, treated artistically, and +one that would fit perfectly into the background of the Red Mill--nothing +slapdash and carelessly written, or invented on the spur of the moment by +a busy director----" + +"Oh, Mr. Hammond!" cried Ruth, so excited now that she could no longer +keep silent. "I'd dearly love to write a moving picture scenario about the +old mill. And I've thought about it so much that I believe I could do +it." + +"Indeed?" said Mr. Hammond, with one of his queer smiles. "Did you ever +write a scenario?" + +"No, sir! but then, you know," said Ruth, naively, "one must always do a +thing for the first time." + +"Quite true--quite true. So Eve said when she bit into the apple," and Mr. +Hammond chuckled. + +"I would just _love_ to try it," the girl continued, taking her courage in +both hands. "I have a splendid plot--or, so I believe; and it is all about +the Red Mill. The pictures would _have_ to be taken here." + +"Not in the winter, I fancy?" said Mr. Hammond. + +"No, sir. When it is all green and leafy and beautiful," said Ruth, +eagerly. + +"Then," said Mr. Hammond, more seriously, "I'd try my 'prentice hand, if I +were you, on something else. Don't write the Red Mill scenario now. Write +some thrilling but simple story, and let me read it first----" + +"Oh, Mr. Hammond!" gasped Ruth, with clasped hands. "Will you really +_read_ it?" + +"Of course I will," laughed the gentleman. "No matter how bad it is. +That's a promise. Here is my card with my private address upon it. You +send it directly to me, and the first time I am at home I will get it and +give it my best attention. That's a promise," he repeated. + +"Oh, thank you, sir!" murmured Ruth delightedly, smiling and dimpling. + +He pinched her cheek and his eyes grew serious for a moment. "I once knew +a girl much like you, Miss Ruth," he said. "Just as full of life and +enthusiasm. You are a tonic for old fogies like me." + +"Old fogy!" repeated Ruth. "Why, I'm sure you are not old, Mr. Hammond." + +"Never mind flattering me," he broke in, with assumed sternness. "Haven't +I already promised to read your scenario?" + +"Yes, sir," said Ruth, demurely. "But you haven't promised to produce it." + +"Quite so," and he laughed. "But _that_ only goes by worth. We will see +what a schoolgirl like you can do in writing a scenario. It will give you +practice so that you may be able to handle something really big about this +beautiful old place. You know, now that the most popular writers of the +day are turning their hands to movies, the amateur production has to be +pretty good to 'get by,' as the saying is." + +"Oh! now you are trying to discourage me." + +"No. Only warning you," Mr. Hammond said, with another laugh. "I'll send +you a little pamphlet on scenario preparation--it may help. And I hope to +read your first attempt before long." + +"Thank you, sir," Ruth responded. "And if ever I write my Red Mill +scenario, I am going to write Miss Gray into it. She is just the one to +play the lead." + +"And she is a good little actress I believe," said Mr. Hammond. "I knew +that Grimes had a girl that he wanted to push forward as the lead in this +company he has up here. I never like to interfere with my directors if I +can help it. But I will see that Miss Gray gets a square deal. She has had +good training in the legitimate drama, she is pretty, and she has pluck +and good breeding." + +"That Mr. Grimes was horrid to her," repeated Ruth, casting a glance of +dislike at the man in the limousine. + +"Oh, well, my dear, we cannot make people over in this world. That is +impossible. But I will take care that Hazel Gray gets a square deal. +_That's_ a promise, too, Ruth Fielding," and the gentleman laughed again. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHAT IS AHEAD? + + +While Ruth and Mr. Hammond had been walking about, the Camerons had come. +Tom's automobile was parked just beyond the moving picture magnate's +handsome limousine; and Tom had given more than one covetous glance at the +big car before going into the house. + +When Ruth returned and entered the big and friendly kitchen after ushering +Mr. Hammond Into the sitting room again, she found the twins eagerly +listening to and talking to Miss Hazel Gray, who was leisurely eating a +late breakfast at the long table. + +"Good morning, Ruth Fielding!" cried the guest, drawing her down to kiss +her cheek. "You are a _dear_. I've been telling your friends so. I fancy +one of them at least thoroughly agrees with me," and she cast a roguish +glance at Tom. + +Tom blushed and Helen giggled. Ruth turned kind eyes away from Tom Cameron +and smiled upon Helen. "Yes," she said, demurely, "I am sure that Helen +has been singing my praises. The girls are beginning to call her 'Mr. +Boswell' at school. But I have heard complimentary words of you this +morning, Miss Gray." + +"Oh!" cried the young actress. "From Mr. Hammond?" + +"Yes." + +"He is a lovely man," declared Hazel Gray, enthusiastically. "I have +always said so. If he would only make Grimes give me a square deal----" + +"Those are the very words he used," interrupted Ruth, while Tom recovered +from his confusion and Helen from her enjoyment of her twin's +embarrassment. "He says you shall have a square deal." + +While the young actress ate--and Aunt Alvirah heaped her plate, "killing +me with kindness!" Hazel Gray declared--the young folk chattered. Ruth saw +that Tom could scarcely keep his eyes off Miss Gray, and it puzzled the +girl of the Red Mill. + +Afterward, when Miss Gray had gone out with Mr. Hammond, and Tom was out +of sight, Helen began to laugh. "Aren't boys funny?" she said to Ruth. +"Tom is terribly smitten with that lovely Hazel Gray." + +"Smitten?" murmured Ruth. + +"Of course. Don't say you didn't notice it. He hasn't had a 'crush' on any +girl before that I know of. But it's a sure-enough case of 'measles' +_this_ time. Busy Izzy tells me that most of the fellows in their class +at Seven Oaks have a 'crush' on some moving picture girl; and now Tom, I +suppose, will be cutting out of the papers every picture of Hazel Gray +that he sees, and sticking them up about his room. And she has promised to +send him a real cabinet photograph of herself in character in the +bargain," and Helen laughed again. + +But Ruth could not be amused about this. She was disturbed. + +"I didn't think Tom would be so silly," she finally said. + +"Pooh! it's nothing. Bobbins and Tom are getting old enough to cast +sheep's eyes at the girls. Heretofore, Tommy has been crazy about the +slapstick comedians of the movies; but I rather admire his taste if he +likes this Hazel Gray. I really think she's lovely." + +"So she is," Ruth said quite placidly. "But she is so much older than your +brother----" + +"Pooh! only two or three years. But, of course, Ruth, it's nothing +serious," said the more worldly-wise Helen. "And boys usually are smitten +with girls some years older than themselves--at first." + +"Dear me!" gasped Ruth. "How much you seem to know about such things, +Helen. _How did you find out?_" + +At that Helen burst into laughter again. "You dear little innocent!" she +exclaimed. "You're so blind--blind as a bat! You never see the boys at +all. You look on Tom to-day just as though he were the same Tom that you +helped find the time he fell off his bicycle and was hurt by the roadside. +You remember? Ages and ages ago!" + +But did Ruth look upon Tom Cameron in just that way? She said nothing in +reply to Tom's sister. + +They came out of the house together and joined Mr. Hammond and Miss Gray +just as they were about to step into the limousine. Aunt Alvirah waved her +hand from the window. + +"She's just lovely!" declared Miss Gray. "You should have met her, Mr. +Hammond." + +"That pleasure is in reserve," said the gentleman, smiling. "I hope to see +the Red Mill again." + +Tom came hurrying down to shake hands with Miss Gray. Ruth watched them +with some puzzlement of mind. Tom was undoubtedly embarrassed; but the +moving picture girl was too used to making an impression upon susceptible +minds to be much disturbed by Tom Cameron's worship. + +Mr. Hammond looked out of the door of the limousine before he closed it. + +"Remember, Ruth Fielding, I shall be on the lookout for what you promised +me." + +"Oh, yes, sir!" Ruth cried, all in a flutter, for the moment having +forgotten the scenario she proposed to write. + +"That's a promise!" he said again gaily, and closed the door. The big car +rolled away and left the three friends at the gateway. + +"_What's_ a promise, Ruth Fielding?" demanded her chum, with immense +curiosity. + +Ruth blushed and showed some confusion. "It's--it's a secret," she +stammered. + +"A secret from _me_?" cried Helen, in amazement. + +"I--I couldn't tell even you, dearie, just now," Ruth said, with sudden +seriousness. "But you shall know about it before anybody else." + +"That Mr. Hammond is in it." + +"Yes," admitted her chum. "That is just it. I don't feel that I can speak +to anybody about it yet." + +"Oh! then it's _his_ secret?" + +"Partly," Ruth said, her eyes dancing, for there and then, right at that +very moment, she fell upon the subject for the first scenario she intended +to submit to Mr. Hammond. It was "Curiosity"--a new version of Pandora's +Box. + +Helen was such a sweet-tempered girl that her chum's little mystery did +not cause her more than momentary vexation. + +Besides, their vacation time was now very short. Many things had to be +discussed about the coming semester. At its end, in June, Ruth and Helen +hoped to graduate from Briarwood Hall. + +The thought of graduating from the school they loved so much was one of +mingled pleasure and pain. Old Briarwood! where they had had so much +fun--so many girlish sorrows--friends, enemies, struggles, triumphs, +failures and successes! Neither chum could contemplate graduation lightly. + +"If we go to college together, it will never seem like Briarwood Hall," +Helen sighed. "College will be so _big_. We shall be lost among so many +girls--some of them grown women!" + +"Goodness!" laughed Ruth, suddenly, "we'll be almost 'grown women' +ourselves before we get through college." + +"Oh, don't!" exclaimed Helen. "I don't want to think of _that_." + +What was ahead of the chums did trouble them. Their future school life was +a mystery. There was no prophet to tell them of the exciting and really +wonderful things that were to happen to them at Briarwood during the +coming term. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +"SWEETBRIARS ALL" + + +"Oh, dear me!" complained Nettie Parsons, "I never can do it." + +"'In the bright Lexicon of Youth, there is no such word as "fail,"'" +quoted Mercy Curtis, grandiloquently. + +"That must be a pretty poor reference book to have in one's library, +then," said Helen, making fun of the old saying which the lame girl had +repeated. "How do we know--perhaps there are other important words left +out--_A bas le_ Lexicon of Youth!" + +"Perseverence is the winning game, Nettie," Ruth said to the Southern +girl, cheerfully. "Stick to it." + +"And if _then_ you can't make the sum come right, come to Aunt Ruthie and +_ask_. That's what _I_ do," confessed Ann Hicks, the ranch girl. + +"Perseverence wins," quoth Helen. + +"Oh, it does, does it?" cried Jennie Stone, called by the girls "Heavy," +in a smothered tone, for her mouth was full of caramels. "Let me tell you +that old 'saw' is a joke. My little kid cousin proved that the other day. +She came to grandfather--who is just as full of maxims and bits of wisdom +as Helen seems to be to-day, and the kid said: + +"'Grandpa, that's a joke about "If at first you don't succeed," isn't it?' + +"And her grandfather answered, 'Certainly not. "Try, try again." That's +right.' + +"'Huh!' said the kid, who is one of these Cynthia-of-the-minute' +youngsters, 'you're wrong, Grandpa. I've been working for an hour blowing +soapbubbles and trying to pin them on a clothes line in the nursery to +dry!' Perseverence didn't cut much of a figure in her case, did it?" +finished Heavy, with a chuckle. + +The crowd of girls was in the big "quartette" room in the West Dormitory +of Briarwood Hall. The school had reopened only a week before, but all the +friends were hard at work. All but Ann Hicks and Nettie Parsons hoped to +graduate the coming June. + +In the group, besides Ruth and Helen, were their room-mates, Mercy Curtis +and Ann Hicks; Jennie Stone; Mary Cox, the red-haired girl usually called +"The Fox;" and Nettie Parsons, "the sugar king's daughter," as she was +known to the school. She was the one really rich girl at Briarwood--and +one of the simplest in both manner and dress. + +Nettie was backward in her studies, as was Ann Hicks. Nettie was a +lovable, sweet-tempered girl, who had several reasons for being very fond +of Ruth Fielding. Indeed, if the truth were told, not a girl in the +quartette that afternoon but had some particular reason for loving Ruth. + +Ruth's life at the school had been a very active one; yet she had never +thrust herself forward. Although she had been the originator of the most +popular--now the only sorority in the school, the Sweetbriars, she had +refused to be its president for more than one term. All the older girls +were "Sweetbriars" now. + +Mercy Curtis, who had a sweet voice, now commenced to sing the marching +song of the school, which had been adopted by the Sweetbriars and made +over into a special sorority song. Sitting on her bed, with her arms +clasped around her knees, the lame girl weaved back and forth as she sang: + + "'At Briarwood Hall we have many a lark-- + But one wide river to cross! + The River of Knowledge--its current dark-- + Is the one wide river to cross! + Sweetbriars all-l! + One wide River of Knowledge! + Sweetbriars all-l! + One wide river to cross! + + "'Sweetbriars come here, one by one-- + But one wide river to cross! + There's lots of work, but plenty of fun, + With one wide river to cross!'" + +"Altogether!" cried Heavy. "All join in!" + +"The dear old chant!" said Helen, with a happy sigh. + +Ruth had already taken up the chorus again, and her rich, full-throated +tones filled the room: + + "'Sweetbriars all-l! + One wide River of Knowledge! + Sweetbriars all-l! + One wide river to cross!'" + +"Once more!" exclaimed the girl from Montana, who could not herself sing a +note in harmony, but liked to hear the others. The chant continued: + + "'Sweetbriars joining, two by two-- + There's one wide river to cross! + Some so scared they daren't say 'Booh!' + To the one wide river to cross!" + +"That was _us_, Ruthie!" broke off Helen, laughing. "Remember how scared +we were when we walked up the old Cedar Walk with The Fox, here, and +didn't know whether we were going to be met with a brass band or a ticket +to the guillotine?" + +The Fox, otherwise Mary Cox, suddenly turned red. Ruth hastened to smooth +over her chum's rather tactless speech, for Mary had been a different girl +at that time from what she was now, and the memory of the hazing she had +visited on Ruth and Helen annoyed her. + +"And what did meet us?" cried Ruth, dramatically. "Why, a poor, emaciated +creature standing at the steps of this old West Dormitory, complaining +that she would starve before supper if the bell did not sound soon. You +remember, Heavy?" + +"And I feel that way now," said Jennie Stone in a hollow tone. "I don't +know what makes me so, but I am continually hungry at least three times a +day--and at regular intervals. I must see a physician about it." + +"Aren't you afraid of the effect of eating so much, Jennie?" asked Helen, +gently. + +"What's that? Is there a new disease?" asked the fleshy girl, trying to +express fear--which she never could do successfully in any such case. +Jennie had probably never been ill in her life save as the immediate +result of over-indulgence in eating. + +"No, my dear," said Ruth Fielding's chum. "But they do tell me that eating +_too_ much may make one _fat_." + +"Horrors!" ejaculated Jennie. "I can't believe you. Then that is what is +the matter with me! I thought I looked funny in the mirror. I must be +getting a wee bit plump." + +"Plump!" + +"Hear her!" + +"She's the girl who went up in the balloon and came down 'plump!'" + +The shouts that greeted Heavy's seriously put remark did not disturb the +fleshy girl at all. "That is exactly the trouble," she went on, quite +placidly. "And it cost me half a dollar yesterday." + +"What's that?" asked somebody, curiously. + +"Where?" asked another girl. + +"In chapel. Didn't you see me trying to crawl through between the two rows +of seats? And I got stuck!" + +"Did you have to pay Foyle the fifty cents to pry you out, Heavy?" +demanded Ann Hicks. + +"No. I dropped the half dollar and tried to find it. I looked for it; +that's all I _could_ do. I was too fat to find it." + +"Did you look good, Jennie?" asked Ruth, sympathetically. + +"Did I look good?" repeated the fleshy girl, with scorn. "I looked as good +as a fat girl crawling around on all fours, ever _does_ look. What do you +think?" + +The laugh at Jennie Stone's sally really cleared the room, for the warning +bell for supper sounded almost immediately. Heavy and Nettie, and all who +did not belong in the quartette room, departed. Then Mercy went tap, tap, +tapping down the corridor with her canes--"just like a silly woodpecker!" +as she often said herself; and Ann strode away, trying to hum the marching +song, but ignominiously falling into the doleful strains of the "Cowboy's +Lament" before she reached the head of the stairway. + +"I really would like to know what that thing is you've been writing, +Ruth," remarked Helen, when they were alone. "All those sheets of +paper--Goodness! it's no composition. I believe you've been writing your +valedictory this early." + +"Don't be silly," laughed Ruth. "I shall never write the valedictory of +this class. Mercy will do that." + +"I don't care! Mrs. Tellingham considers you the captain of the graduating +class. So now!" cried loyal Helen. + +"That may be; but Mercy is our brilliant girl--you know that." + +"Yes--the poor dear! but how could she ever stand up before them all and +give an oration?" + +"She _shall_!" cried Ruth, with emphasis. "She shall _not_ be cheated out +of all the glory she wins--or of an atom of that glory. If she is our +first scholar, she must, somehow, have all the honors that go with the +position." + +"Oh, Ruthie! how can you overcome her natural dislike of 'making an +exhibition of herself,' as she calls it, and the fact that, really, a girl +as lame as she is, poor creature, could never make a pleasant appearance +upon the platform?" + +"I do not know," Ruth said seriously. "Not now. But I shall think it out, +if nobody else _can_. Mercy shall graduate with flying colors from +Briarwood Hall, whether I do myself, or not!" + +"Never mind," said Helen, laughing at her chum's emphasis. "At least the +valedictorian will hail from this dear old quartette room." + +"Yes," agreed Ruth, looking around the loved chamber with a tender smile. +"What will we do when we see it no longer, Helen?" + +"Oh, don't talk about it!" cried Helen, who had forgotten by this time +what she had started to question Ruth about. "Come on! We'll be late for +supper." + +When her chum's back was turned, Ruth slipped out of her table drawer the +very packet of papers Helen had spoken about. The sheets had been +typewritten and were now sealed in a manila envelope, which was addressed +and stamped. + +She hesitated all day about dropping the packet in the mailbag; but now +she took her courage in both hands and determined to send it to its +destination. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A NEW STAR + + +Ruth had actually been trying her "prentice hand," as Mr. Hammond had +called it, at the production of a moving picture scenario. It was the +first literary work she had ever achieved, although her taste in that +direction had been noted by Mrs. Tellingham and the under-instructors of +the school. + +Oh! she would not have had any of them know what she had done in secret +since arriving at the Hall at the beginning of this term. She would not +let even Helen know about it. + +"If it is a success--if Mr. Hammond produces it--_then_ I'll tell them," +Ruth said to herself. "But if he tells me it is no good, then nobody shall +ever know that I was so foolish as to attempt such a thing." + +Even after she had it all ready she hesitated some hours as to whether or +not she should send it to the address Mr. Hammond had given her. The +pamphlet he had promised to send her had not arrived, and Ruth had little +idea as to how a scenario should be prepared She had written much more +explanatory matter than was necessary; but she had achieved one thing at +least--she had been direct in the composition of her scenario and she had +the faculty of saying just what she meant, and that briefly. This concise +style was of immense value to her, as Ruth was later to learn. + +Ruth managed to slip the big envelope addressed to Mr. Hammond into the +mailbag in the hall without spurring Helen's curiosity again. She had to +chuckle to herself over it, for it really was a good joke on her chum. + +Unconsciously, Helen had given her the idea for this little allegorical +comedy which she had written. And how her friend would laugh if the +picture of "Curiosity" should be produced and they should see it on the +screen. + +The girls crowded into the big dining room in an orderly manner, but with +some suppressed whispering and laughter on the part of the more giggling +kind. There were always some of the girls so full of spirits that they +could not be entirely repressed. + +The long tables quickly filled up. There were few beginners at this time +of year, for most of the new scholars came to Briarwood Hall at the +commencement of the autumn semester. + +There was one new girl at the table where Ruth and her particular friends +sat, over which Miss Picolet the little teacher of French, had nominal +charge. Nowadays, Miss Picolet's life was an easy one. She had little +trouble with even the more boisterous girls of the West Dormitory, thanks +to the Sweetbriars. + +The new pupil beside the French teacher was Amy Gregg. She was a +colorless, flaxen-haired girl, with such light eyebrows and lashes that +Helen said her face looked like a blank wall. + +She was a nervous girl, too; she pouted a good deal and seemed +dissatisfied. Of course, being a stranger, she was lonely as yet; but +under the rules of the Sweetbriars she was not hazed. The S.B.'s word had +become law in all such matters at Briarwood Hall. + +After they were seated, Heavy Stone whispered to Ruth: "Isn't that Gregg +girl the most discontented looking thing you ever saw? Her face would sour +cream right now! I hope she doesn't overlook my supper and give me +indigestion." + +"Behave!" was Ruth's only comment. + +There was supposed to be silence until all were served and the teachers +began eating. The waitresses bustled about, light-footed and demure. Mrs. +Tellingham, who was present on this evening, overlooked all from the small +guest table, as it was called, placed at the head of the room on a +slightly raised platform. + +Mrs. Tellingham, Ruth thought, was the loveliest lady in the world. The +girl of the Red Mill had never lost the first impression the preceptress +had made upon her childish mind and heart when she had come to Briarwood +Hall. + +At last--just in time to save Heavy's life, it would seem--Miss Picolet +lifted her fork and the girls began to eat. A pleasant interchange of +conversation broke out: + +"Did you hear what that funny little Pease girl said to Miss Brokaw in +physiology class yesterday?" asked Lluella Fairfax, who was across the +table from Ruth. + +"No. What has the child said now? She's a queer little thing," Helen said, +before her chum could answer. + +"She's rather dense, don't you know," put in Lluella's chum, Belle +Tingley. + +"I'm not so sure of _that_," laughed Lluella. "Miss Brokaw became +impatient with little Pease and said: + +"'It seems you are never able to answer a question, Mary; why is it?' + +"'If I knew all the things you ask me, Miss Brokaw,' said Pease, 'my +mother wouldn't take the trouble to send me here.'" + +"I'm sure _that_ doesn't prove the poor little kiddie a dunce," laughed +Ruth. + +"Say! we have a dense one at this very table," hissed Heavy, a hand beside +her mouth so that the sound of her whisper would not travel to the head +of the table where Miss Picolet and the sullen looking new girl sat. + +"What do you mean?" asked Belle, curiously. + +"_Whom_ do you mean?" added Helen. + +"That infant yonder," hissed the fleshy girl. + +"What about her?" Ruth asked. "I'm rather sorry for that little Gregg. She +doesn't look happy." + +"Say!" chuckled Heavy. "She tried for an hour yesterday to coax +electricity into the bulb over her table, and then went to Miss Scrimp and +asked for a candle. She got the candle, and burned it until one of the +other girls looked in (you know she's not 'chummed' with anybody yet) and +showed her where the push-button was in the wall. And at that," finished +Heavy, grinning broadly, "I'm not sure that she understood how the 'juice' +was turned on. She must have come from the backwoods." + +"Hush!" begged Ruth. "Don't let her think we're laughing at her." + +"Miss Scrimp's very strict about candles and oil lamps," said Nettie. "We +use them a lot in the South." + +"That old house of yours in 'So'th Ca'lina' must be a funny old place, +Nettie," said Heavy. + +"It isn't ours," Nettie said. "The cotton plantation belongs to Aunt +Rachel. She was born on it--the Merredith Place. We usually go there for +the early summer, and then either come No'th, or into the mountains of +Virginia until cool weather. My own dear old Louisiana home isn't +considered healthy for us during the extreme hot weather. It is too damp +and marshy." + + "'Way down Souf in de land ob cotton-- + Cinnamon seed an' sandy bottom!'" + +hummed Heavy. "Oh! I wish I was in Dixie--right now." + +"Wait till my Aunt Rachel comes up here," Nettie promised. "I'm going to +beg an invitation for you girls to visit Merredith." + +"But it will be hot weather, then," said Heavy; "and I don't want to miss +Light-house Point." + +"And I'm just about crazy to get back to Silver Ranch," said Ann Hicks. + +"Me for Cliff Island," cried Belle Tingley. "No land of cotton for mine, +this summer." + +"When is your aunt coming, Nettie?" asked Ruth. + +"To see you graduate, my dear," replied the Southern girl, smiling. "And +wait till she meets you, Ruthie Fielding! She'll near about love you to +death!" + +"Oh, everybody loves Ruth. Why shouldn't they?" cried Belle. + +"But everybody doesn't give her a fortune, as Nettie's Aunt Rachel did," +laughed Heavy. + +Ruth wished they would not talk so much about that money; but, of course, +she could not stop them. She made no rejoinder, but looked across the room +and out at the upper pane of one of the long windows. It was deep dusk now +without. The evening was clear, with a rising wind moaning through the +trees on the campus. + +Tony Foyle, the old gardener and general handy man, was only now lighting +the lamps along the walks. + +"There's a funny red star," Ruth said to Helen. "It can't be that Mars is +rising _there_." + +"Where?" queried her chum, lazily, scarcely raising her eyes to look. +Helen was not interested in astronomy. + +Nobody else was attracted by the red spark Ruth saw. Against the dusky sky +it grew swiftly A new star---- + +"It is fire!" gasped Ruth, softly, rising on trembling limbs. "_And it is +in the West Dormitory_!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DEVOURING ELEMENT + + +Not even Helen heard Ruth's whispered words. She went on calmly with her +supper when her chum arose from her seat. + +Ruth quickly controlled herself. The word "fire" would start a panic on +the instant, although both dormitories were across the campus from the +main hall. + +The girl of the Red Mill erased from her countenance all expression of the +fear which gripped her; but about her heart she felt a pressure like that +of a tight band. Her knees actually knocked together; she was thankful +they were invisible just then. + +When she started up the room toward Mrs. Tellingham's table Ruth walked +steadily enough. Some of the girls looked after her in surprise; but it +was not an uncommon thing for a girl to leave her seat and approach the +preceptress. + +Mrs. Tellingham looked up with a smile when she saw Ruth coming. She +always had a smile for the girl of the Red Mill. + +The preceptress, however, was a sharp reader of faces. Her own expression +of countenance did not change, for other girls were looking; but she saw +that something serious had occurred. + +"What is it, Ruth?" she asked, the instant her low whisper could reach +Ruth's ear. + +The girl, looking straight at her, made the letters "F-I-R-E" with her +lips. But she uttered no sound. Mrs. Tellingham understood, however, and +demanded: + +"Where?" + +"West Dormitory, Mrs. Tellingham," said Ruth, coming closer. + +"Are you positive?" + +"I can see it from my seat. On the second floor. In one of the duo rooms +at this side." + +Ruth spoke these sentences in staccato; but her voice was low and she +preserved an air of calmness. + +"Good girl!" murmured Mrs. Tellingham. "Go out quietly and then run and +tell Tony. Do you know where he is?" + +"Lighting the lamps," whispered Ruth. + +"Good. Tell him to go right up there and see what can be done. Warn Miss +Scrimp. I will telephone to town, and Miss Brokaw will take charge and +march the pupils to the big hall to call the roll. I hope nobody is in the +dormitories." + +Mrs. Tellingham had pushed back her chair and dropped her napkin; but her +movements, though swift, were not alarming. She passed out by a rear door +which led to the kitchens, while Ruth walked composedly down the room to +the main exit. + +"Hey! what's the matter, Ruthie?" called Heavy, in a low tone. "Whose old +cat's in the well?" + +Ruth appeared not to hear her. Miss Brokaw, a very capable woman, came +into the dining hall as Ruth passed out. Miss Brokaw stepped to the +monitor's desk at one side and tapped on the bell. + +"Oh, mercy!" gasped Heavy, the incorrigible. "She's shut us off again. And +I haven't had half enough to eat." + +"Rise!" said Miss Brokaw, after a moment of waiting. "Immediately, girls. +Miss Stone, you will come, too." + +A murmur of laughter rose at Jennie Stone's evident intention to linger; +but Heavy always took admonition in good part, and she arose smiling. + +"Monitors to their places," commanded Miss Brokaw. "You will march to the +big hall. It is Mrs. Tellingham's request. She will have something of +importance to say to you." + +The big hall was on the other side of the building, and from its windows +nothing could be seen of either dormitory. + +Meanwhile, Ruth, once alone in the hall, had bounded to the chief +entrance of the building and opened one leaf of the heavy door. It was a +crisp night and the frost bit keenly. The wind fluttered her skirt about +her legs. + +She stopped for no outer apparel, however, but dashed out upon the stone +portico, drawing the door shut behind her. That act alone saved the school +from panic; for it she had left the door ajar, when the girls filed out +into the entrance hall from the dining room some of them would have been +sure to see the growing red glow on the second floor of the West +Dormitory. + +To Ruth the fire seemed to be filling the room in which it had apparently +started. There was no smoke as yet; but the flames leaped higher and +higher, while the illumination grew frightfully. + +A spark of light coming into being at the far end of the campus near the +East Dormitory, showed Ruth where Tony Foyle then was. He was not likely +to see the fire as yet, for in lighting the campus lamps he followed a +route that kept his back to the West Dormitory until he turned to come +back. + +Like an arrow from the bow the young girl ran toward the distant gardener. +She took the steps of the little Italian garden in the center of the +campus in two flying leaps, passed the marble maiden at the fountain, and +bounded up to the level of the campus path again without stopping. + +"Tony! Oh, Tony!" she called breathlessly. + +"Shure now, phat's the matter widyer?" returned the old Irishman, +querulously. "Phy! 'tis Miss Ruth, so ut is. Phativer do be the trouble, +me darlin'?" + +He was very fond of Ruth and would have done anything in his power for +her. So at once Tony was exercised by her appearance. + +"Phativer is the matter?" he repeated. + +"Fire!" blurted out Ruth, able at last to speak. The keen night air had +seemed for the moment fairly to congest her lungs and render her +speechless and breathless. + +"That's _that_?" cried Tony. "'Fire,' says you? An' where is there fire +save in the furnaces and the big range in the kitchen----" + +He had turned, and the red glare from the room on the second floor of the +West Dormitory came into his view. + +"There it is!" gasped Ruth, and just then the tinkle of breaking glass +betrayed the fact that the heat of the flames was bursting the panes of +the window. + +"Fur the love of----Begorra! I'll git the hose-cart, an' rouse herself an' +the gals in the kitchen----" + +Poor Tony, so wildly excited that he dropped the little "dhudeen" he was +smoking and did not notice that he stepped on it, galloped away on +rheumatic legs. At this hour there was no man on the premises but the +little old Irishman, who cared for the furnaces until the fireman and +engineer came on duty at seven in the morning. + +Ruth was quite sure that neither Tony nor "herself" (by this name he meant +Mrs. Foyle, the cook) or any of the kitchen girls, could do a thing +towards extinguishing the fire. But she remembered that Miss Scrimp, the +matron, must be in the threatened building, and the girl dashed across the +intervening space and in at the door. + +There was not a sound from upstairs--no crackling of flames. Ruth would +never have believed the dormitory was afire had she not seen the fire +outside. + +The girl ran down the corridor to Miss Scrimp's room, and burst in the +door like a young hurricane. The matron was at tea, and she leaped up in +utter amazement when she saw Ruth. + +"For the good land's sake, Ruthie Fielding!" she ejaculated. "Whatever is +the matter with you?" + +"Fire!" cried Ruth. "One of the rooms on the next floor--front--is all +afire! I saw it from the dining hall! Mrs. Tellingham has telephoned for +the department at Lumberton----" + +With a shriek of alarm, Miss Scrimp picked up the little old "brown Betty" +teapot off the hearth of her small stove, and started out of the room +with it--whether with the expectation of putting out the fire with the +contents of the pot, or not, Ruth never learned. + +But when the lady was half way up the first flight of stairs the flames +suddenly burst through the doorframe, and Miss Scrimp stopped. + +"That candle!" she shrieked. "I knew I had no business to give that girl +that candle." + +"Who?" asked Ruth. + +"That infant--Amy Gregg her name is. I'll tell Mrs. Tellingham----" + +"But please don't tell anybody else, Miss Scrimp," begged Ruth. "It will +be awful for Amy if it becomes generally known that she is at fault." + +"Well, now," said the matron more calmly, coming down the stairs again. +"You are right, Ruthie--you thoughtful child. We can't do a thing up +there," she added, as she reached the lower floor again. "All we can do is +to take such things out as we can off this floor," and she promptly +marched out with the little tea-pot and deposited it carefully on the +grassplot right where somebody would be sure to step on it when the +firemen arrived. + +Miss Scrimp prided herself upon having great presence of mind in an +emergency like this. A little later Ruth saw the good woman open her +window and toss out her best mirror upon the cement walk. + +Miss Picolet came flying toward the burning building, chattering about her +treasures she had brought from France. "Le Bon Dieu will not let to burn +up my mothair's picture--my harp--my confirmation veil--all, all I have of +my youth left!" chattered the excited little Frenchwoman, and because of +her distress and her weakness, Ruth helped remove the harp and likewise +the featherbed on which the French teacher always slept and which had come +with her from France years before. + +By the time these treasures were out of the house a crowd came running +from the main building--Mrs. Foyle, some of the kitchen girls and +waitresses, Tony dragging the hose cart, and last of all Dr. Tellingham +himself. + +The good old doctor was the most absent minded man in the world, and the +least useful in a practical way in any emergency. He never had anything of +importance to do with the government of the school; but he sometimes gave +the girls wonderfully interesting lectures on historical subjects. He +wrote histories that were seldom printed save in private editions; but +most of the girls thought the odd old gentleman a really wonderful +scholar. + +He was in dishabille just now. He had run out in his dressing-gown and +carpet slippers, and without his wig. That wig was always awry when he +was at work, and it was a different color from his little remaining hair, +anyway. But without the toupé at all he certainly looked naked. + +"Go back, that's a dear man!" gasped Mrs. Foyle, turning the doctor about +and heading him in the right direction. "Shure, ye air not dacently +dressed. Go back, Oi say. Phat will the young ladies be thinkin' of yez? +Ye kin do no good here, dear Dochter." + +This was quite true. He could do no good. And, as it turned out later, the +unfortunate, forgetful, short-sighted old gentleman had already done a +great deal of harm. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +GAUNT RUINS + + +Ruth Fielding felt a strong desire to return to the threatened building, +and to make her way upstairs to that old quartette room she and her chums +had occupied for so long. There were so many things she desired to save. + +Not alone were there treasures of her own, but Ruth knew of articles +belonging to her chums that they prized highly. It seemed actually wicked +to stand idle while the hot flames spread, creating a havoc that nobody +could stay. + +Why! if the firemen did not soon appear, the whole West Dormitory would be +destroyed. + +The burst of smoke and flame into the corridor at the top of the front +flight of stairs shut off any attempt to reach the upper stories from this +direction. And although the back door of the building was locked, Ruth +knew she could run down the hall, past Miss Scrimp's already gutted room, +and up the rear stairway. + +But when she started into the building again, Miss Scrimp screamed to +her: + +"Come out of that, you reckless girl! Don't dare go back for anything more +of mine or Miss Picolet's. If we lose them, we lose them; that's all." + +"But I might get some things of my own--and some belonging to the other +girls." + +"Don't _dare_ go into the building again," commanded Miss Scrimp. "If you +do, Ruthie Fielding, I'll report you to Mrs. Tellingham." + +"Shure, she won't go in and risk her swate life," said Mrs. Foyle. "Come +back, now, darlin'. 'Tis a happy chance that none o' the young leddies bes +up there in thim burnin' rooms, so ut is." + +"Oh, dear me! oh, dear me!" gasped Miss Picolet. "I presume it is +_posi-tive_ that there is nobody up there? Were all the mesdemoiselles at +supper this evening?" + +"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Tellingham's own voice. "Miss Brokaw has called the +roll and there is none missing but our Ruthie. And now _you_ would better +run back, my dear," she added to Ruth. "You have no wrap or hat. I fear +you will take cold." + +"I never noticed it," confessed Ruth. "I guess the excitement kept me +warm. But oh! how awful It is to see the old dormitory burn--and all our +things in it." + +"We cannot help it," sighed the principal. "Go up to the hall with the +other girls, my dear. Here come the firemen. You may be hurt here." + +The galloping of horses, blowing of horns, and shouting of excited men, +now became audible. The glare of the fire could probably be seen by this +time clear to Lumberton, and half the population of the suburbs on this +side of the town would soon be on the scene. + +Not until the firemen actually arrived did the girls in the big hall know +what had happened. There had been singing and music and a funny recitation +by one girl, to while away the time until Mrs. Tellingham appeared. Just +as Ruth came in, her chum had her violin under her chin and was drawing +sweet sounds from the strings, holding the other girls breathless. + +But the violin music broke off suddenly and several girls uttered startled +cries as the first of the fire trucks thundered past the windows. + +"Oh!" shrieked somebody, "there is a fire!" + +"Quite true, young ladies!" exclaimed Miss Brokaw, tartly. "And it is not +the first fire since the world began. Ruth has just come from it. She will +tell you what it is all about." + +"Oh, Ruth!" cried Helen. "Is it the dormitory?" + +"Give her time to speak," commanded the teacher. + +"Which dormitory?" cried Heavy Stone. + +"Now, be quiet--do," begged Ruth, stepping upon the platform, and +controlling herself admirably. "Don't scream. None of us can do a thing. +The firemen will do all that can be done" + +"They'll about save the cellar. They always do," groaned the irrepressible +Heavy. + +"It is our own old West Dormitory," said Ruth, her voice shaking. "Nothing +can be taken from the rooms upstairs. Only some of Miss Scrimp's and Miss +Picolet's things were saved." + +"Oh, dear me!" cried Helen. "We're orphans then. I'm glad I had my violin +over here!" + +"Is everything going to be really burned up?" demanded Heavy. "You don't +mean _that_, Ruth Fielding?" + +"I hope not. But the fire has made great head-way." + +"Oh! oh! oh!" were the murmured exclamations. + +"Won't our dormitory burn, too?" demanded one of the East Dormitory girls. + +But there was no danger of that. The wisdom of erecting the two +dormitories so far apart, and so far separated from the other buildings, +was now apparent. Despite the high wind that prevailed upon this evening, +there was no danger of any other building around the campus being ignited. + +Miss Brokaw had some difficulty in restoring order. Several of the girls +were in tears; their most valued possessions were even then, as Heavy +said, "going up in smoke." + +Very soon practical arrangements for the night were under way. Unable to +do anything to help save the burning structure, Mrs. Tellingham had +returned to the main building, and the maids from the kitchen were soon +bringing in cots and spare mattresses and arranging them about the big +hall for the use of the girls. + +The East Dormitory girls were asked to sit forward. ("The goats were +divided from the sheep," Helen said.) Then the houseless girls were +allowed to "pitch camp," as it were. + +"It _is_ just like camping out," cried Belle Tingley. + +"Only there's no scratchy and smelly balsam for beds, and our clothes +won't get all stuck up with chewing gum," said Lluella Fairfax. + +"Chewing gum! Hear the girl," scoffed Ann Hicks. "You mean spruce gum." + +"Isn't that about the same?" demanded Lluella, with some spirit. "You chew +it, don't you?" + +"I don't know. I wouldn't chew spruce gum unless it was first properly +prepared. I tried it once," replied Ann, "and got my jaws so gummed up +that I might as well have had the lockjaw." + +"It is according to what season you get the gum," explained Helen. "Now, +see here, girls: We ought to have a name for this camp." + +"Oh, oh!" + +"Quite so!" + +"'Why not?" were some of the responses to this suggestion. + +"Let's call it 'Sweet Dreams,'" said one girl. "That's an awfully pretty +name for a camp, I think. We called ours that, last summer on the banks of +the Vingie River." + +"Ya-as," drawled Heavy. "Over across from the soap factory. I know the +place. 'Sweet Dreams,' indeed! Ought to have called it 'Sweet Smells,'" + +"I think 'Camp Loquacity' will fit _this_ camp better," Ruth said bluntly. +"We all talk at once. Goodness! how does _one_ person ever get a sheet +smooth on a bed?" + +Helen came to help her, and just then Mrs. Tellingham herself appeared in +the hall. + +"I am glad to announce, girls," she said, with some cheerfulness, "that +the fire is under control." + +"Oh, goody!" cried Heavy. "Can we go over there to sleep to-night?" + +"No. Nor for many other nights, if at all," the preceptress said firmly. +"The West Dormitory is badly damaged. Of course, no girl need expect to +find much that belongs to her intact. I am sorry. What I can replace, I +will. We must be cheerful and thankful that no life was lost." + +"What did I tell you?" muttered the fleshy girl. "Those firemen from +Lumberton always save the cellar." + +"Now," said Mrs. Tellingham, "the girls belonging in the East Dormitory +will form and march to their rooms. It is late enough. We must all get +quiet for the night. The ruins will wait until morning to be looked at, so +I must request you to go directly to bed." + +Somebody started singing--and of course it was their favorite, "One Wide +River," that they sang, beginning with the very first verse. The words of +the last stanza floated back to the West Dormitory girls as the others +marched across the campus: + + "'Sweetbriars enter, ten by ten---- + That River of Knowledge to cross! + They never know what happens then, + With one wide river to cross! + One wide river! + One wide River of Knowledge! + One wide river! + One wide river to cross.'" + +"But just the same it's no singing matter for us," grumbled Belle. "Turned +out of our beds to sleep this way! And all we've lost!" She began to weep. +It was difficult for even Heavy to coax up a smile or to bring forth a new +joke. + +Ruth and her chums secured a corner of the great room, and they insisted +that Mercy Curtis have the single cot that had been secured. + +"I don't mind it much," Ann Hicks declared. "I've camped out so many times +on the plains without half the comforts of this camp. Oh! I could tell you +a lot about camping out that you Easterners have no idea of." + +"Postpone it till to-morrow, please, Miss Hicks," said Miss Brokaw, dryly. +"It is time for you all to undress." + +After they were between the sheets Helen crept over to Ruth and hid her +face upon her chum's shoulder, where she cried a few tears. + +"All my pretty frocks that Mrs. Murchiston allowed me to pick out! And my +books! And--and----" + +The tragic voice of Jennie Stone reached their ears: "Oh, girls! I've lost +in the dreadful fire the only belt I could wear. It's a forty-two." + +There was little laughter in the morning, however, when the girls went +out-of-doors and saw the gaunt ruins of the dear old West Dormitory. + +The roof had fallen in. Almost every pane of glass was broken. The walls +had crumbled in places, and over all was a sheet of ice where the cascades +from the firemen's hose had blanketed the ruins. + +It needed only a glance to show that to repair the building was out of the +question. The West Dormitory must be constructed as an entirely new +edifice. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ONE THING THE OLD DOCTOR DID + + +Every girl in Briarwood Hall was much troubled by the result of the fire. +The old rivalry between the East and the West Dormitories, that had been +quite fierce at times and in years before, had died out under Ruth +Fielding's influence. + +Indeed, since the inception of the Sweetbriars a better spirit had come +over the entire school. Mrs. Tellingham in secret spoke of this as the +direct result of Ruth's character and influence; for although Ruth +Fielding was not namby-pamby, she was opposed to every form of rude +behavior, or to the breaking of rules which everyone knew to be important. + +The old forms of hazing--even the "Masque of the Marble Harp," as it was +called--were now no longer honored, save in the breach. The initiations of +the Sweetbriars were novel inventions--usually of Ruth's active brain; but +they never put the candidate to unpleasant or risky tasks. + +There certainly were rivalries and individual quarrels and sometimes +clique was arrayed against clique in the school. This was a school of +upwards of two hundred girls--not angels. + +Nevertheless, Mrs. Tellingham and the instructors noted with satisfaction +how few disturbances they had to settle and quarrels to take under +advisement. This class of girls whom they hoped to graduate in June were +the most helpful girls that had ever attended Briarwood Hall. + +"The influence of Ruth and some of her friends has extended to our next +class as well," Mrs. Tellingham had said. "Nettie Parsons and Ann Hicks +will be of assistance, too, for another year. I wish, however, that Ruth +Fielding's example and influence might continue through _my_ time----I +certainly do." + +The girls of the East Dormitory held a meeting before breakfast and passed +resolutions requesting Mrs. Tellingham to rearrange their duo and +quartette rooms so that as many as possible of the West Dormitory girls +could be housed with them. + +"We're all willing to double up," said Sarah Fish, who had become leader +of the East Dormitory. "I'm perfectly willing to divide my bureau drawers, +book-shelves, table and bed with any of you orphans. Poor things! It must +be awful to be burned out." + +"Some of us haven't much to put in bureau drawers or on bookshelves," said +Helen, inclined to be lugubrious. "I--I haven't a decent thing to wear +but what I have on right now. I unpacked my trunk clear to the very bottom +layer." + +However, as a rule, selfish considerations did not enter into the girls' +discussion of the fire. When they looked at the ruined building, they saw +mainly the loss to the school. A loyalty is bred in the pupils of such an +institution as Briarwood Hall, which is only less strong than love of home +and country. + +A new structure to house a hundred girls would cost a deal of money. + +There was no studying done before breakfast the morning after the fire; +and at the tables the girls' tongues ran until Miss Brokaw declared the +room sounded like a great rookery she had once disturbed near an old +English rectory. + +"I positively cannot stand it, young ladies," declared the nervous +teacher, who had been up most of the night. "Such continuous chatter is +enough to crack one's eardrums." + +The girls really were too excited to be very considerate, although they +did not mean to offend Miss Brokaw. If the window or an outer door was +opened, the very tang of sour smoke on the air set their tongues off again +about the fire. + +Once in chapel, however, a rather solemn feeling fell upon them. The +teacher whose turn it was to read, selected a psalm of gratitude that +seemed to breathe just what was in all their hearts. It gave thanks for +deliverance from the terrors of the night and those of the noonday, for +the Power that encircles poor humanity and shelters it from harm. + +"We, too, have been sheltered," thought Ruth and her friends. "We have +been guarded from the evil that flyeth by night and from the terror that +stalketh at noonday. Surely God is our Keeper and Strength. We will not be +afraid." + +When Helen played one of the old, old hymns of the Church she brought such +sweet tones from the strings of the violin that Miss Picolet hushed her +accompaniment, surprised and delighted. And when they sang, Ruth +Fielding's rich and mellow voice carried the air in perfect harmony. + +When the hymn was finished the girls turned glowing faces upon Mrs. +Tellingham who, despite a sleepless night, looked fresh and sweet. + +"For the first time in the history of Briarwood Hall as a school," she +said, speaking so that all could hear her, "a really serious calamity has +fallen." + +"We are all determined upon one thing, I am sure," pursued Mrs. +Tellingham. "We will not worry about what is already done. Water that has +run by the mill will never drive the wheel, you know. We will look forward +to the rebuilding of the West Dormitory, and that as soon as it can +possibly be done." + +"Hoo-ray!" cried Jennie Stone, leading a hearty cheer. + +"We will have the ruin of the old structure torn away at once." + +The murmur of appreciation rose again from the girls assembled. + +"I do not recall at this moment just how much insurance was on the West +Dormitory; I leave those details to Doctor Tellingham, and he is now +looking up the papers in the office. But I am sure there is ample to +rebuild, and if all goes well, a new West Dormitory will rise in the place +of these smoking ruins before our patrons and our friends come to our +graduation exercises in June." + +"Oh, bully!" cried Ann Hicks, under her breath. "I want Uncle Bill to see +Briarwood at its very best." + +"But the dear old ivy never can be replaced," Mercy Curtis murmured to +Ruth. + +"We shall endeavor," went on Mrs. Tellingham, smiling, "to repeat in the +new building all the advantages of the old. We shall have everything +replaced, if possible, exactly as it was before the fire." + +"There was a big inkspot on my rug," muttered Jennie Stone. "Bet they +can't get _that_ just in the same place again." + +"You homeless girls must, in the meanwhile, possess your souls with +patience. The younger girls who had quarters in the West Dormitory will +be made comfortable in the East. But you older girls must be cared for in +a different way. + +"Some few I shall take into my own apartments, or otherwise find room for +in the main building here. Some, however, will have to occupy quarters +outside the school premises until the new building is constructed and +ready for occupancy. Arrangements for these quarters I have already made. +And now we can separate for our usual classes and work, with the feeling +that all will come out right and that the new dormitory will be built +within reasonable time." + +She ceased speaking. The door near the platform suddenly opened and "the +old doctor" as the girls called the absent-minded husband of their +preceptress, hastily entered. + +He stumbled up to the platform, waving a number of papers in his hand. He +stammered so that he could hardly speak at first, and he gave no attention +to the amazed girls in the audience. + +"Mrs. Tellingham! Mrs. Tellingham!" he ejaculated. "I have made a great +mistake--an unpardonable error! In renewing the insurance for the various +buildings I overlooked that for the West Dormitory and its contents. The +insurance on that ran out a week ago. There was not a dollar on it when it +burned last night!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +"GREAT OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW" + + +Mercy Curtis was one of the older girls quartered in Mrs. Tellingham's +suite. She told her close friends how Doctor Tellingham walked the floor +of the inner office and bemoaned his absent-mindedness that had brought +disaster upon Mrs. Tellingham and the whole school. + +"I know that Mrs. Tellingham is becoming more worried about the doctor +than about the lapsed insurance," said Mercy. "Of course, he's a foolish +old man without any more head than a pin! But why did she leave the +business of renewing the insurance in his charge, in the first place?" + +"Oh, Mercy!" protested Ruth. + +"No more head than a pin!" repeated Nettie Parsons, in horror. "Why! who +ever heard the like? He writes histories! He must be a very brainy man." + +"Who ever _reads_ them?" grumbled Mercy. + +"They look awfully solid," confessed Lluella Fairfax. "Did you ever look +at the whole row of them in the office bookcase?" + +Jennie Stone began to giggle. "I don't care," she said, "the doctor may be +a great historian; but his memory is just as short as it can be. Do you +know what happened only last half when he and Mrs. Tellingham were invited +to the Lumberton Association Ball?" + +"What was it?" asked Helen. + +"I suppose it is something perfectly ridiculous, or Heavy wouldn't have +remembered it," Ruth suggested. + +"Thank you!" returned the plump girl, making a face. "I have a better +memory than Dr. Tellingham, I should hope." + +"Come on! tell the joke, Heavy," urged Mary Cox. + +"Why, when he came into the office ready to escort Mrs. Tellingham to the +ball, Mrs. T. criticised his tie. 'Do go back, Doctor, and put on a black +tie,' she said. You know, he's the best natured old dear in the world," +Jennie pursued, "and he went right back into his bedroom to make the +change. They waited, and they waited, and then they waited some more," +chuckled Jennie. "The doctor did not reappear. So Mrs. Tellingham finally +went to his bedroom and opened the door. She saw that the old doctor, +having removed the tie she didn't like, had continued the process of +undressing, and just as Mrs. Tellingham looked in, he climbed placidly +into bed." + +"I can believe that," said Ann Hicks, when the laughter had subsided. + +"And I can believe that both he and Mrs. Tellingham are just as worried +about the destruction of the dormitory as they can be," Nettie added. "All +their money is invested in the school, is it not?" + +"Except that invested in the doctor's useless histories," said Mercy, who +was inclined to be most unmerciful of speech on occasion. + +"Is there nobody to help them rebuild?" asked Ann, tentatively. + +"Not a soul," declared Ruth. + +"I believe I'll write to Uncle Bill Hicks. He'll help, I know," said Ann. +"Next to Heavy's Aunt Kate, Uncle Bill thinks that the finest woman on +this footstool is Mrs. Tellingham." + +"And I'll ask papa for some money," Nettie said quickly. "I had that in +mind from the first." + +"My father will give some," Helen said. + +"We'll write to Madge Steele," said Belle. "Her father might help, too." + +"I guess all our folks will be willing to help," Lluella Fairfax added. + +"And," said Jennie, "here's Ruth, with a fortune in her own right." + +But Ruth did not make any rejoinder to Jennie's remark and that surprised +them all; for they knew Ruth Fielding was not stingy. + +"We are going about this thing in the wrong way, girls," she said quietly. +"At least, I think we are." + +"How are we?" demanded Helen. "Surely, we all want to help Mrs. +Tellingham." + +"And Old Briarwood," cried Belle Tingley. + +"And all the students of our Alma Mater will want to join in," maintained +Lluella. + +"Now you've said it!" cried Ruth, with a sudden smile. "Every girl who is +now attending the dear old Hall will want to help rebuild the West +Dormitory." + +"All can give their mites, can't they?" demanded Jennie. "And the rich can +give of their plenty." + +"That is just it," Ruth went on, still seriously. "Nettie's father will +give a good sum; so will Helen's; so will Mr. William Hicks, who is one of +the most liberal men in the world. Therefore, the little gifts of the +other girls' parents will look terribly small." + +"Oh, Ruth! don't say that our folks can't give," cried Jennie, whose +father likewise was rich. + +"It is not in my province to say who shall, or who shall not give," +declared Ruth, hastily. "I only want to point out to you girls that if the +rich give a great deal the poorer will almost be ashamed to give what they +can." + +"That's right," said Mary Cox, suddenly. "We haven't much; so we couldn't +give much." + +The girls looked rather troubled; but Ruth had not finished. "There is +another thing," she said. "If all your fathers give to the dormitory fund, +what will you girls personally give?" + +"Oh! how's that, Ruth?" cried Helen. + +"Say," drawled Jennie Stone, the plump girl, "we're not all fixed like +you, Ruth--with a bank account to draw on." + +Ruth blushed; but she did not lose her temper. "You don't understand what +I mean yet," she said. "Either I am particularly muddy in my suggestions, +or you girls are awfully dense to-day." + +"How polite! how polite!" murmured Jennie. + +"What I am trying to get at," Ruth continued earnestly, "is the fact that +the rebuilding of the West Dormitory should interest us girls more than +anybody else in the world, save Mrs. Tellingham." + +"Well--doesn't it?" demanded Mary Cox, rather sharply. + +"Does it interest us all enough for each girl to be willing to do +something personally, or sacrifice something, toward the new building?" +asked Ruth. + +"I getcha, Steve!" exclaimed the slangy Jennie. + +"Oh, dear me, Ruthie! we _are_ dense," said Nettie. "Of course! every girl +should be able to do as much as the next one. Otherwise there may be hard +feelings." + +"Secret heartburnings," added Helen. + +"Of course," Mercy said, "Ruth would see _that_ side of it. I don't expect +my folks could give ten dollars toward the fund; but I should want to do +as much as any girl here. Nobody loves Briarwood Hall more than I do," +added the lame girl, fiercely. + +"I believe you, dear," Ruth said. "And what we want to do is to invent +some way of earning money in which every girl will have her part, and do +her part, and feel that she has done her full share in rebuilding the West +Dormitory." + +"Hurrah!" cried Jennie. "That's the talk! I tell you, Ruth, you are the +only bright girl in this school!" + +"Thank you," said Ruth. "You cannot flatter me into believing that." + +"But what's the idea, dear?" demanded Helen, eagerly. "You have some nice +invention, I am sure. You always do have." + +"Another base flatterer!" cried Ruth, laughing gaily. "I believe you girls +say such things just to jolly me along, and so that you will not have to +exercise any gray matter yourselves." + +"Oh! oh!" groaned Jennie. "How ungrateful." + +"Of course you have something to suggest?" Nettie said. + +"No, not a thing. My idea is, merely, that we start something that every +girl in the school can have her share in. Of course, that does not cut +out contributions from those who have money to spare; but the new building +must be erected by the efforts of the girls of Briarwood Hall as----" + +"As a bunch of briars," chuckled Jennie. "Isn't that a sharp one?" + +"Just as sharp as you are, my dear," said Helen. + +"You know what that means, Heavy," said Mary Cox. "You're all curves." + +"Oh! ouch! I know that hurt me," declared the plump girl, altogether too +good-natured to be offended by anything her mates said to her. + +"So that's how it is," Ruth finished "Call the girls together. Put the +idea before them. Let's hear from everybody, and see which girl has the +best thought along this line. We want a way of making money in which +everyone can join." + +"I--don't--see," complained Nettie, "how you are going to do it." + +"Never mind. Don't worry," said Mercy. "'Great oaks from little acorns +grow,' and a fine idea will sprout from the germ of Ruth's suggestion, I +have no doubt." + +It did; but not at all in the way any of them expected. The whole school +was called together after recitations on this afternoon, which was several +days following the fire. The teachers had no part in the assembly, least +of all Mrs. Tellingham. + +But the older girls--all of them S.B.'s--were very much in earnest; and +from them the younger pupils, of course, took their cue. The West +Dormitory must be built--and within the time originally specified by Mrs. +Tellingham when she had thought the insurance would fully pay for the work +of reconstruction. + +Many girls, it seemed, had already written home begging contributions to +the fund which they expected would be raised for the new building. Some +even were ready to offer money of their very own toward the amount +necessary to start the work. + +Even Ruth agreed to this first effort to get money. She pledged a hundred +dollars herself and Nettie Parsons quietly put down the same sum as her +own personal offering. + +"Oh, gracious, goodness, me, girls!" gasped Jennie Stone, who had been +figuring desperately upon a sheet of paper. "Wait till I get this sum +done; then I can tell you what I will give. There! Can it be possible?" + +"What is it, Jennie?" asked Belle Tingley, looking over her shoulder. +"Why! look at all those figures. Are you weighing the sun or counting the +hairs of the sun-dogs?" + +"Don't laugh," begged the plump girl. "This is a serious matter. I've been +figuring up what I should probably have spent for candy from now till June +if I'd been left to my own will." + +"What is it, Heavy?" asked somebody. "I wager it would pay for erecting +the new dormitory without the rest of us putting up a cent." + +"No," said the plump girl, gravely. "But it figures up to a good round +sum. I never would have believed it! Girls, I'll give fifty dollars." + +"Oh, Heavy! you _never_ could eat so much sweets before graduation," +gasped one. + +"I could; but I sha'n't," declared Miss Stone, with continued gravity. +"I'll practise self-denial." + +With all the fun and joking, the girls of Briarwood Hall were very much in +earnest. They elected a committee of five--Ruth, Nettie, Lluella, Sarah +Fish and Mary Cox--to have charge of the collection of the fund, and to go +immediately to Mrs. Tellingham and show her what money was already +promised and how much more could be expected within ten days. + +There was enough, they knew, to warrant the preceptress in having the work +of tearing away the ruins begun. Meanwhile, the girls were each urged to +think up some new way of earning money, and as a committee of the whole to +try to invent a novel scheme of including the whole school in a plan +whereby much money might be raised. + +"How we're to do it, nobody knows," said Helen gloomily, walking along +beside Ruth after the meeting. "I expected _you_ would have just the thing +to suggest." + +"I wish I had," her chum returned thoughtfully. + +"Mercy says, 'Great oaks from little acorns grow'----" + +They turned into the hall and saw that the mail had been distributed. Ruth +was handed a letter with Mr. Hammond's name upon it. She had almost +forgotten the moving picture man and her own scenario, in these three or +four very busy days. + +Ruth eagerly tore the envelope open. A green slip of paper fluttered out. +It was a check for twenty-five dollars from the Alectrion Film +Corporation. With it was a note highly praising Ruth's first effort at +scenario writing for moving pictures. + +"What is it?" demanded Helen. "You look so funny. There's no--nobody +dead?" + +"Do I look like that?" asked Ruth. "Far from it! Just look at these, +dear," and she thrust both the note and the check into Helen's hands. "I +believe I've struck it!" + +"Struck what?" demanded her puzzled chum. + +"'Great oaks from little acorns grow' sure enough! Eureka! I have it," +Ruth cried. "I believe I know how we all--every girl in Briarwood--can +help earn the money to rebuild the West Dormitory." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE IDEA IS BORN + + +"What? What? _What_?" Helen cried, as she gazed, wide-eyed, at the check +and at Mr. Hammond's letter. + +The check for twenty-five dollars there could be no mistake about; and she +scanned the moving picture man's enthusiastic letter shortly, for it was +brief. But Helen quite misunderstood the well-spring of Ruth's sudden joy. + +"Oh, Ruthie Fielding!" she gasped. "What have you done now?" and she +hugged her chum delightedly. "How wonderful! _That_ was the secret between +you and that Mr. Hammond, was it?" + +"Yes," admitted Ruth. + +"And you've written a _real_ moving picture?" + +"That is it--exactly. A _one_ reel picture," and Ruth laughed. + +"And he says he will produce it at once," sighed Helen. + +"So Mr. Hammond says. It's very nice of him." + +"Oh, Ruth!" cried Helen, hugging her again. + +"Oh, Helen!" responded Ruth, in sheer delight. + +"You're famous--really famous!" said Ruth's chum, with sudden solemnity. + +Ruth's clear laughter rang out spontaneously. + +"Well, you are!" + +"Not yet." + +"But you've earned twenty-five dollars writing that play. Only think of +that! And you can give it to the dormitory fund. Is that what you are so +pleased about? Mercy, Ruth! you don't expect us all to set about writing +picture plays and selling them to Mr. Hammond?" + +"No," said Ruth, more seriously. "I guess that wouldn't do." + +"Then what do you mean about every girl at Briarwood helping in this way +toward the fund?" Helen asked, puzzled. "At any rate, twenty-five dollars +will help." + +"But I sha'n't do that!" cried Ruth. + +"Sha'n't do what?" + +"I shall not give this precious twenty-five dollars to any dormitory +fund--no, indeed!" and Ruth clasped the check to her bosom. "The first +money I ever earned with my pen? I guess not! That twenty-five dollars +goes into the bank, my dear." + +"Goodness! You needn't be so emphatic about it," protested Helen. + +"I am going to open a special account," said Ruth, proudly. "This will be +credited to the fact that R.F. can actually make something _with her +brains_, my lady. What do you think?" + +"But how is it going to help the dormitory fund, then?" demanded her chum. + +"Not by adding my poor little twenty-five dollars to it. We want +hundreds--_thousands_! Don't you understand, Helen, that my check would +only be a drop in the bucket? And, anyway, I would come near to starving +before I would use this check." + +"We--ell! I don't know that I blame you," sighed her friend. "I'd be as +pleased as Punch if it were mine. Just think of your writing a real moving +picture!" she repeated. "Won't the girls be surprised? And suppose it +comes to Lumberton and we can all go and see it? You _will_ be famous, +Ruth." + +"I don't know about that, dear," Ruth returned happily. "There is +something about it all that you don't see yet." + +"What's that?" + +"This success of mine, I tell you, has given me a great, big idea." + +"About what?" + +"For the dormitory fund," Ruth said. "Mercy is right. Great oaks _do_ grow +from little acorns." + +"Who's denying it?" demanded Helen. "Go on." + +"Out of this little idea of mine which I have sold to Mr. Hammond, comes a +thought, dear," said Ruth, solemnly, "that may get us all the money we +need to rebuild the West Dormitory." + +"I--don't--just--see----" + +"But you will," cried Ruth. "Let me explain. If I can write a one-reel +picture play, why not a long one--a real play--a five-reel drama? I have +just the idea for it--oh, a grand idea!" + +"Oh, Ruth!" murmured Helen, clasping her hands. + +"I will write the play, we will all act in it, and Mr. Hammond shall +produce it. It can be shown around in every city and town from which we +girls come--our home towns, you know. Folks will want to see us Briarwood +girls acting for the movies--won't they?" + +"I should say they would! Fancy our doing that?" + +"We can do it. Of course we can! And we'll get a royalty from the film and +that will all go into the dormitory fund," went on the enthusiastic Ruth. + +"Oh, my dear!" gasped Helen. "Would Mr. Hammond take such a play if you +wrote it?" + +"Of course I don't know. If not he, then some other producer. I _know_ I +have a novel idea," asserted Ruth. + +"What is it?" asked the curious Helen. + +"A schoolgirl picture, just as I say. Of course, there will have to be +some _real_ actors in it; we girls couldn't be funny enough, or serious +enough, perhaps, to take the most important parts. We could act out some +real scenes of boarding school life, just the same." + +"I should say we could!" cried Helen. "Who better? Stage one of our old +midnight sprees, and show Heavy gobbling everything in sight. That would +make 'em laugh." + +"But we want more than a comedy," Ruth said seriously. "I have the germ of +an idea in my mind. I'll write Mr. Hammond about it first of all. And we +must have Miss Gray in it." + +"He says here," said Helen, glancing through the moving picture man's +letter again, "that he wants you to try another. Oh! and he says that in a +few days he is coming to Lumberton with a company to take some films." + +"So he does! Oh, goody!" cried Ruth. "I'll see him, then, and talk right +to him. He is an awfully rich man--so Hazel Gray told me. We'll get him +interested in the dormitory fund, anyway, and then, whether I can write a +five-reel drama well enough or not, maybe he can find somebody who will +put it into shape," Ruth added. + +"Why, my dear!" exclaimed her chum, with scorn. "If you have written _one_ +moving picture, of course you can another." + +Which did not follow at all, Ruth was sure. + +"We'll have to ask Mrs. Tellingham," said Helen, with sudden doubt. "Maybe +she will not approve." + +"Oh! I hope she will," cried Ruth. "But we must put it up to the girls +themselves, first of all. They must all be in it. All must have an +interest--all must take part. Otherwise it will not accomplish the end we +are after." + +"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Helen, finally waking up. "Of course! this is the very +thing you wanted, Ruthie--to give every girl something to do that is +important toward earning the money for the building of the new dormitory." + +"That's it, my dear. We all must appear, and do our part. School scenes, +recreation scenes, athletic scenes in the gym; marching in our graduation +procession; initiating candidates into the S.B. sorority; Old Noah's Ark +with the infants arriving at the beginning of the year; the dance we +always have in the big hall at holiday time--just a great, big picture of +what boarding school girls do, and how they live, breathe and have their +being!" + +"Oh, jolly!" gasped Helen, taking fire from her friend's enthusiasm. "Say! +the girls are going to be just about crazy over this, Ruth. You will be +the most popular girl in the school." + +"I hope not!" gasped Ruth, in real panic. "I'm not doing this for any +such purpose. Don't be singing my praises all the time, Helen. The girls +will get sick and tired to death of hearing about 'wonderful me.' We all +want to do something to help Mrs. Tellingham and the school. That's all +there is to it. Now, _do_ be sensible." + +They were not long in taking the girls at large into their confidence. +When it was known that Ruth Fielding had actually written one scenario for +a film, which had been accepted, paid for, and would be produced, +naturally the enthusiasm over the idea of having a reproduction of school +life at Briarwood filmed, became much greater than it might otherwise have +been. As a whole, the girls of Briarwood Hall were in a mood to work +together for the fund. + +"No misunderstandings," said Jennie Stone, firmly. "We don't want to make +the sort of mistake the rural constable did when he came along by the +riverside and saw a face floating on the water. 'Come out o' that!' he +says. 'You know there ain't no bathing allowed around here.' And the face +in the water answered: 'Excuse me, officer; I'm not bathing--I'm only +drowning!' + +"We've all got to pull together," the plump girl continued, very much in +earnest. "No hanging back--no squabbling over little things. If Ruth +Fielding can write a picture play we must all do our prettiest in acting +in it. Why! I'd play understudy to a baby elephant in a circus for the +sake of helping build the new dormitory." + +Already Mrs. Tellingham and the doctor had been informed by the girls' +executive committee of the sums both actually raised by the girls, and +promised, toward the dormitory fund. It had warranted the good lady's +signing contracts for the removal of the wreckage of the burned building, +at least. The way would soon be cleared for beginning work on a new +structure. + +Offers of money came pouring in from the parents interested in the success +of Briarwood Hall; and some of the checks already received by Mrs. +Tellingham were for substantial sums. But this proposal of Ruth's for all +the girls to help in the increase of the fund, pleased Mrs. Tellingham +more than anything else. + +She read Ruth's brief sketch of the plot she had originated for the school +play, and approved it. "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" was forthwith put into +shape to show Mr. Hammond when he came to Lumberton, that event being +expected daily. + +About this time the girls of Briarwood Hall were so excited and interested +over the moving picture idea that they scarcely had time for their studies +and usual work. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AT MRS. SADOC SMITH'S + +Mrs Tellingham, wise in the ways of girls, had foreseen the excitement and +disturbance in the placid current of Briarwood life, and made plans +following the fire to counteract the evil influences of just this +disturbance. The girls who hoped to graduate from the school in the coming +June must have more quiet--must have time to study and to think. + +The younger girls, if they fell behind in their work, could make it up in +the coming terms. Not so Ruth Fielding and her friends, so the wise school +principal had distributed them, after the destruction of the West +Dormitory, in such manner that they would be free from the hurly-burly of +the general school life. + +A few, like Mercy Curtis (who could not easily walk back and forth from +any outside lodging), Mrs. Tellingham kept in her own apartment. But the +greater number of the graduating class was distributed among neighbors +who--in most cases--were not averse to accepting good pay for rooms which +could only be let to summer boarders and were, at this time of year, never +occupied. + +The Briarwood Hall preceptress allowed her girls to go only where she +could trust the land-ladies to have some oversight over their lodgers. And +the girls themselves were bound in honor to obey the rules of the school, +whether on the Briarwood premises or not. + +Visiting among the outside scholars was forbidden, and the girls studying +for graduation had their hours more to themselves than they would have had +in the school. + +Special chums were able to keep together in most instances. Ruth, Helen +and Ann Hicks went to live at Mrs. Sadoc Smith's; and there was room in +the huge front room on the second floor of her rambling old house, for +Mercy, too, had it been wise for the lame girl to lodge so far from the +school. + +Mrs. Smith got the girls up in season in the morning to reach the dining +hall at Briarwood by breakfast-time; and she saw to it, likewise, that +their light went out at ten o'clock in the evening. These were her +instructions from Mrs. Tellingham, and Mrs. Sadoc Smith was rather a grim +person, who did her duty and obeyed the law. + +There being an extra couch, Ruth persuaded her friends to agree to the +coming of a fourth girl into the lodging. And this fourth girl, oddly +enough, was not one of the graduating class, or even one of the girls +whom they had chummed with before. + +It was the new girl, Amy Gregg! Amy Gregg, whom nobody seemed to want, and +who seemed to be the loneliest figure and the most sullen girl who had +ever come to Briarwood Hall! + +"Of course, you'd pick up some sore-eyed kitten," complained Ann Hicks. +"That child has a fully-developed grouch against the whole world, I verily +believe. What do you want her for, Ruthie?" + +"I don't want her," said Ruth promptly. + +"Well! of all the girls!" gasped Helen. "Then _why_ ask Mrs. Tellingham to +let her come here?" + +"Because she ought to be with somebody who will look out for her," Ruth +said. + +She did not tell her mates about it, but Ruth had heard some whispers +regarding the origin of the fire that had burned down the West Dormitory, +and she was afraid Amy would be suspected. + +The older girl had reason to know that Mrs. Tellingham had questioned Amy +regarding the candle she had obtained from Miss Scrimp's store. The girl +had emphatically denied having left the candle burning on leaving her room +to go to supper on the fatal evening. + +The girls had begun, after a time, to ask questions about the origin of +the fire. They knew it had started on the side of the corridor where Amy +Gregg had roomed. They might soon suspect the truth. + +"If they do, good-bye to all little Gregg's peace of mind!" Ruth thought, +for she knew just how cruel girls can be, and Amy did not readily make +friends. + +Although Ruth and her room-mates tried to make the flaxen-haired girl feel +at home at Mrs. Sadoc Smith's, Amy remained sullen, and seemed afraid of +the older girls. She was particularly unpopular, too, because she was the +only girl who had refused to write home to tell of the fire and ask for a +contribution to the dormitory fund. + +Amy Gregg seemed to be afraid to talk of the fire and refused to give even +a dollar toward the rebuilding of the dormitory. "It isn't _my_ fault that +the old thing burned down. I lost all my clothes and books," she +announced. "I think the school ought to pay _me_ some money, instead." + +After saying this before her room-mates at Mrs. Smith's, all but Ruth +dropped her. + +"Sullen little thing," said Helen, with disgust. + +"Not worth bothering with," rejoined Ann. + +The only person to whom Amy Gregg seemed to take a fancy was Mrs. Smith's +scapegrace grandson, Henry. Henry was the wildest boy there was anywhere +about Briarwood Hall. He was always getting into trouble, and his +grandmother was forever chastising him in one way or another. + +Nobody in the neighborhood knew him as "Henry." He was called "that Smith +boy" by the grown folk; by his mates he was known as "Curly." + +Ruth felt that Curly never would have developed into such a mischievous +and wayward youth had it not been for his grandmother. + +When a little boy Henry had come to live with Mrs. Sadoc Smith. Mrs. Smith +did not like boys and she kept Henry in kilts until he was of an age when +most lads are looking forward to long trousers. She made him wear +Fauntleroy suits and kept his hair in curls down his back--molasses +colored curls that disgusted the boy mightily. Finally he hired another +boy for ten cents and a glass agate to cut the curls off close to his +head, and he stole a pair of long trousers, a world too wide for him, from +a neighbor's line. He then set out on his travels, going in an empty +freight car from the Lumberton railroad yards. + +But he was caught and brought back, literally "by the scruff of his neck;" +and his grandmother was never ending in her talk about the escapade. The +curls remained short, however. If she refused to give Curly twenty cents +occasionally to have his hair cut, he would stick burrs or molasses taffy +in the hair so that it had to be kept short. + +There seemed an affinity between this scapegrace lad and Amy Gregg. Not +that she possessed any abundance of spirit; but she would listen to Curly +romance about his adventures by the hour, and he could safely confide all +his secrets to Amy Gregg. Wild horses would not have drawn a word from her +as to his intentions, or what mischief he had already done. + +Curly was a tall, thin boy of fifteen, wiry and strong, and with a face as +smooth and pink-and-white as a girl's. That he was so girlish looking was +a sore subject with the boy, and whenever any unwise boy called him +"Girly" instead of "Curly" it started a fight, there and then. + +Henry was forbidden by his grandmother to bother the girls from Briarwood +Hall in any way, and to make sure that he played no tricks upon them, when +Ruth and her mates came to the house to lodge, Mrs. Smith housed Curly in +a little, steep-roofed room over the summer kitchen. + +It was a cold and uncomfortable place, he told Amy Gregg. Ruth heard him +tell her so, but judged that it would not be wise to beg Mrs. Smith for +other quarters for her grandson. She was not a woman to whom one could +easily give advice--especially one of Ruth's age and inexperience. + +Mrs. Smith was a very grim looking woman with a false front of little, +corkscrew curls, the color of which did not at all match the iron-gray of +her hair. That the curls were made of Mrs. Smith's own hair, cropped from +her head many years before, there could be no doubt. It Nature had erred +in turning her actual hair to iron-gray in these, her later years, that +was Nature's fault, not Mrs. Smith's! + +She grimly ignored the parti-colored hair as she did the natural +exuberance of her grandson's spirit. If Nature had given him an +unquenchable amount of mirth and jollity, that, too, was Nature's fault. +Still, Mrs. Sadoc Smith proposed to quell that mirth and suppress the joy +of Curly's nature if possible. + +The only question was: In the process of making Curly over to fit her +ideas of what a boy should be, was not Mrs. Smith running a grave chance +of ruining the boy entirely? + +And what boy, living in a house with four girls, could keep from trying to +play tricks upon them? If the shed-chamber had been a mile away over the +roofs of the Smith house, Curly would have been tempted to creep over the +shingles to one of the windows of the big front room, and---- + +Nine o'clock at night. All four of the girls quartered with Mrs. Smith +were busy with their books--even flaxen-haired Amy Gregg. The rustle of +turning leaves and a sigh of weariness now and then was all that had +broken the silence for half an hour. + +Outside, the wind moaned in the trees. It was cold and the sky was +overcast with the promise of a stormy morrow. Suddenly Helen started and +glanced hastily at the window behind her, where the shade was drawn. + +"What's that?" she whispered. + +"Huh?" said Ann. + +"I didn't hear anything," Ruth added. + +Not a word from Amy Gregg, who likewise appeared to be deeply immersed in +her book. + +Another silence; then both Ruth and Helen jumped. "I declare! Is that a +bird or a beast?" Helen demanded. + +"What is it?" cried Ann, starting up. + +"Somebody rapping on that window," Ruth declared. + +"This far up from the ground? Nonsense!" exclaimed the bold Ann, and +marched to the casement and ran up the shade. + +They could see nothing. There was no light in the roadway before the +house. Ann opened the window and leaned out. + +"Nobody down there throwing up gravel, that's sure," she declared, drawing +in her head again, and shutting the window. + +Just as they returned to their books the scratching, squeaking noise broke +out again. This time Ruth ran to see. + +"Nothing!" she confessed. + +"What do you suppose it can be?" asked Helen nervously. "I declare, I +can't study any more. That gets on my nerves." + +Mrs. Smith put in her head at that moment. "Of course you haven't seen +that boy, any of you?" she asked sharply. + +The three older girls looked at each other; Amy Gregg continued to pore +over her book. No; Ruth, Helen and Ann could honestly tell Mrs. Smith that +they had not seen Curly. + +"Well, the young rascal has slipped out. I went up to his door to take him +some clothes I had mended, and he didn't answer. So I opened the door, and +his bed hasn't been touched, and he went up an hour ago. He's slipped out +over the shed roof, for his window's open; though I don't see how he dared +drop to the ground. It's twenty feet if it's an inch," Mrs. Smith said +sternly. + +"I shall wait up for him and catch him when he comes back. I'll learn him +to go out nights without me knowin' of it." + +She went away, stepping wrathfully. "Goodness! I'm sorry for that boy," +said Ann, beginning leisurely to prepare for bed. + +But Ruth watched Amy Gregg curiously. She saw the smaller girl flush and +pale and glance now and then toward the window. Ruth jumped to a sudden +conclusion. Curly was somewhere outside that window on the roof! + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A DAWNING POSSIBILITY + + +"Well, the evening's spoiled anyway," yawned Helen, seeing Ann braiding +her hair. "I might as well stop, too," and she closed her books with +relief. + +"It's time small girls were on their way to the Land of Nod," said the +Western girl, taking the book from the resisting hand of Amy Gregg. +"Hullo! it's time _you_ were in bed, girlie, sure enough. Holding the book +upside down, no less! What do you know about that, ladies?" + +"Certainly she should go to bed," Helen said sharply. "We're all sleepy. +Do hurry, child." + +"Speak for yourself, Helen," snapped Amy. "I don't have to mind _you_, I +hope." + +"You do if you want to get anywhere in this school--and mind every other +senior who is kind enough to notice you," said Ann. "You've not learned +that lesson yet." + +"And I don't believe _you_ can teach me," responded the younger girl, +ready to quarrel with anybody. "Give me back my book!" + +Ruth went to her and put her arm around Amy's neck. "Don't, dear, be so +fractious," she begged. "We had all to go through a process of 'fagging' +when we first came to Briarwood. It is good for us--part of the +discipline. I asked Mrs. Tellingham to let you come over here with us so +that you really would not be put upon----" + +"I don't thank you!" snapped Amy, ungratefully. "I can look out for +myself, I guess. I always have." + +"You're like the self-made man," drawled Ann. "You've made an awfully poor +job of it! You need a little discipline, my dear." + +"Not from you!" cried the other girl, her eyes flashing. + +It took Ruth several minutes to quiet this sea of trouble. It was half an +hour before Amy cried herself to sleep on her couch. The other girls had +both crept into bed and called to Ruth sleepily to put out the light. Ruth +was not undressed; but she did as they requested. + +Then she went to the window and opened it. Nothing had been heard from +above since Mrs. Smith had looked in at the chamber door. But Ruth was +sure the grim old woman was waiting at her grandson's window, in the cold +shed bedroom, ready for Curly when he came in. + +And Ruth was sure, too, that the boy had not dropped to the ground. _He +was still on the roof_. + +"That was a tictac," Ruth told herself. She had heard Tom Cameron's too +many times to mistake the sound. "And Amy was expecting it. Curly had told +her what he was going to do. And now what will that reckless boy do, with +his grandmother waiting for him and every other window in the house +locked?" + +"What are you doing there, Ruthie?" grumbled Ann. "O-o-oh! it's cold," and +she drew her comforter up around her shoulders and the next moment she was +asleep. + +Helen never lay awake after her head touched the pillow, so Ruth did not +look for any questioning on her chum's part. And Amy had already wept +herself unhappily into dreamland. + +"Poor kiddie!" thought Ruth, casting a commiserating glance again at Amy. +"And now for this silly boy. If the girls knew what I was going to do +they'd have a spasm, I expect," and she chuckled. + +She leaned far out of the open window again, and, sitting on the +window-sill, turned her body so as to look up the slant of the steep roof. + +"Curly!" she called softly. No answer. "Curly Smith!" she raised her voice +decisively. "If you don't come here I'll call your grandmother." + +A figure appeared slowly from behind a chimney. Even at that distance Ruth +could see the figure shiver. + +"Wha--what do you want?" asked the boy, shakingly. + +"Come here, you silly boy!" commanded Ruth. "Do you want to get your death +of cold?" + +"I--I----" + +"Come down here at once! And don't fall, for pity's sake," was Ruth's +warning, as the boy's foot slipped. "My goodness! you haven't any shoes +on--and no cap--and just that thin coat. Curly Smith! you'll be down sick +after this." + +"I'll be sick if Gran' catches me," admitted the boy. "She's layin' for me +at my window." + +"I know," said Ruth, as the boy crept closer. + +"You telltale girls told her, of course," growled the boy. + +"We did not. Ann and Helen don't know. Amy is scared, but she's gone to +sleep. _She_ wouldn't tell." + +"How did Gran' know, then?" demanded Curly, coming closer. + +Ruth told him. The boy was both ashamed of his predicament and frightened. + +"How can I get in, Ruth? I'd like to sneak downstairs into the sitting +room and lie down by the sitting room fire and get warm." + +"You shall. Come in this way," commanded Ruth. "But, for pity's sake, +don't fall!" + +"She'll find it out and lick me worse," said Curly, doubtfully. + +"She won't. The girls are asleep, I tell you." + +"Well, _you_ know it, don't you?" demanded Curly, with desperation. + +"Curly Smith! If you think I'd tell on you, you deserve to stay out here +on this roof and freeze," declared Ruth, in anger. + +"Oh, say! don't get mad," said Curly, fearing that she would leave him as +she intimated. + +"Come on, then--and whisper. Not a sound when you get in the room. And for +pity's sake, Curly Smith--don't fall!" + +"Not going to," growled the boy. "Look out and let me swing down to that +window-sill. Ugh! I 'most slipped then. Look out!" + +Ruth wriggled back into the room and almost immediately Curly's unshod +feet appeared on the sill. She grasped his ankles firmly. + +"Come in!" she whispered. "That's the boy! Quick, now!" + +All this in low whispers. The girls did not stir, and Ruth had no light. +She could barely see the figure of the boy between her and the gray light +out-of-doors. + +Curly dropped softly into the room. Ruth led him by the hand to the door, +which she opened softly. The hall was pitch dark, too. + +"You're all right, Ruthie Fielding!" he muttered, as he passed her and +stepped into the hall. "I won't forget this." + +Ruth thought it might be a warning to him. In the morning his grandmother +admitted having found the boy curled up in a rug and asleep before the +sitting-room fire. + +"An' I thought he was out o' doors all the time," she said. "I ought to +punish him, anyway, I s'pose, for scaring me so." + +Ruth Fielding spent all her spare time (and that was not much, for her +studies were just then very engrossing) in planning and sketching out the +five-reel drama in which she hoped to interest Mr. Hammond, head of the +Alectrion Film Corporation. She called up the Lumberton Hotel every day to +learn if the film company had arrived. + +At length the clerk told her Mr. Hammond himself had come, and expected +his company the next day. Mr. Hammond was near and was soon speaking to +the girl of the Red Mill over the telephone. + +"Is this the famous authoress of 'Curiosity?'" asked Mr. Hammond, +laughing. "I have received your signed contract and acceptance, and the +scenario is already in rehearsal. I hope everything is perfectly +satisfactory, Miss Fielding?" + +"Oh, Mr. Hammond! I'm not joking. I want to see you very, very much." + +"About 'Curiosity?'" + +"Oh, no, sir! I'm very grateful to you for taking that and paying me for +it, as I told you," Ruth said. "But this is something different--and much +more important. _When_ can I see you?" + +"Any time after breakfast and before bedtime, my dear," Mr. Hammond +assured her. "Do you want to come to town, or shall I come to Briarwood +Hall?" + +"If you would come here you could see Mrs. Tellingham, too, and that would +be lots better," Ruth assured him. + +"The principal of your school?" he asked, in surprise. + +"Yes, Mr. Hammond. One of our buildings has burned down----" + +"Oh! I saw that in the paper," interposed the gentleman. "It is too bad." + +"It is tragic!" declared Ruth, earnestly. "There was no insurance, and all +us girls want to help build a new dormitory. I have a plan--and _you_ can +help----" + +"We--ell," said Mr. Hammond, doubtfully. "How much does this mean?" + +"I don't know. If the idea is as good as I think it is, Mr. Hammond," Ruth +told him, placidly, "you will make a lot of money, and so will Briarwood +Hall." + +"Hullo!" ejaculated the gentleman. "You expect to show me how to make some +money? I thought you wanted a contribution." + +"No. It is a bona fide scheme for making money," laughed Ruth. "Do run out +sometime to-day and let me talk you into it. You shall meet Mrs. +Tellingham, too." + +The gentleman promised, and kept the promise promptly. He heard Ruth's +idea, approved of it with enthusiasm, and went over with her the briefly +outlined sketch for "The Heart of a Schoolgirl." He was able to suggest a +number of important changes in Ruth's plan, and his ideas were all helpful +and put with tact. Mr. Hammond and Mrs. Tellingham came to an +understanding and made a written agreement, too. + +Many of the pictures were to be taken at Briarwood Hall. Mrs. Tellingham, +on behalf of the dormitory fund, was to have a certain interest in the +profits of the production. These legal and technical matters Ruth had +nothing to do with. She was able, with an untrammeled mind, to go on with +the actual work of writing the scenario. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG + + +Those were really strenuous days indeed for Ruth Fielding and her friends +at Briarwood Hall. The class that looked forward to graduating in June was +exceedingly busy. + +Had Mrs. Tellingham not made an equitable arrangement in regard to Ruth's +English studies, allowing her credits on her writing, the girl of the Red +Mill would never have found time for the writing of the scenario which all +hoped would ultimately bring a large sum into the dormitory fund. + +With faith in her pupil's ability as a writer for the screen, Mrs. +Tellingham had gone on with the work of clearing away the ruins of the +burned building, and had given out contracts for the construction of the +new dormitory on the site of the old one. + +The sums already gathered from voluntary contributions paid the bills as +the work went along; but in "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" must lie the +earning power to carry the work to completion. + +As each girl of the senior class had special work in English of an +original nature, Mrs. Tellingham announced that Ruth's scenario should +count as her special thesis. + +"We will let Mr. Hammond judge it, my dear," the principal said to Ruth. +She was already proud of the girl's achievement in writing "Curiosity," +for she had now read that first scenario. "If Mr. Hammond declares that +your drama is worthy of production, you shall be marked 'perfect' in your +original English work. That, I am sure, is fair." + +In spite of all the studying she had to do, and her work on the scenario +of the five-reel drama, Ruth found time to look after Amy Gregg. Not that +the latter thanked her--far from it! Ruth, however, did what she thought +to be her duty toward the younger girl. + +Once Jennie Stone hinted that she suspected Amy of starting the dormitory +fire, but Ruth stopped her with: + +"Be careful what you say, Jennie Stone. I am sure you would not want to +set the other girls against little Gregg. She's apt to have a hard time +enough here at Briarwood, at best." + +"Her own fault," declared the plump girl. + +"Her unfortunate nature, I grant you," said Ruth, shaking her head. "But +don't say anything to make it worse. You'd be sorry, you know." + +"Huh! If she deserves to have it known that the fire started in her +room----" + +"But you don't know that!" again interrupted Ruth. "And if it chanced to +be so, that's all the more reason why you should not suggest it to the +other girls." + +"Goodness, Ruth! you are so funny." + +"Then laugh at me," responded Ruth, smiling. "I don't mind." + +"Pshaw!" said Jennie. "There's no getting ahead of you. You're just like +the little kid I heard of who was entertaining some other little girls at +a nursery tea. 'My little sister is only five months old,' says one little +girl, 'and she has two teeth.' + +"'My little sister is only six months old,' spoke up another guest, 'and +she's got three teeth.' + +"The other kiddie was silent for a moment; she wanted to be polite, but +she couldn't let the others put it over her like that! So finally she +bursts out with: + +"'Well, my little sister hasn't any teef yet; but when she _does_ have +some, they're goin' to be gold ones!' Couldn't get ahead of her--and +nobody can get the best of _you_, Ruthie Fielding! You've always an answer +ready." + +At Mrs. Sadoc Smith's, Amy Gregg had just as little to do with the three +older girls as she possibly could; but she remained friends with Curly. +She was his confidant, and although Curly considered Ruth about the +finest girl "who ever walked down the pike," as he expressed it, he felt +in no awe of Amy Gregg and treated her more as he would another boy. + +All was not plain sailing for Ruth in either her studies or in the writing +of the scenario for "The Heart of a Schoolgirl." The coming examinations +in all branches would be difficult, and unless she obtained a certain +average in all, Ruth could not expect a diploma. + +A diploma from Briarwood Hall was an entrance certificate to the college +in which she and Helen hoped to continue their education the following +autumn. And Ruth did not want to spend her summer in making up conditions. +She wished to graduate in her class with a high grade. + +It was a foregone conclusion in her mind that Mercy Curtis was to bear off +the highest honor. Nor had she forgotten that she must invent (if nobody +else could) a way for Mercy to speak the principal oration on graduation +day. + +Her powers of invention, however, were taxed to their utmost just now as +she wrote the scenario of the picture drama. Before Mr. Hammond and the +Alectrion Company left Lumberton, Ruth was able to get into town with the +draft of the first part of the play, and read it to Mr. Hammond. + +Miss Hazel Gray was present at the reading, and Ruth had given that +pretty young girl a very good part indeed in the new film. + +"You _dear_!" whispered Hazel, her arms around Ruth, and speaking to her +softly, "I believe I have you to thank for much further consideration from +Mr. Hammond. And you have given me a delightful part in this play you are +writing. What a really wonderful child you are Ruth Fielding!" + +Ruth thought that she was scarcely a child. But she only said: "I am glad +you like the part. I meant it for you." + +"I know. Mr. Hammond told me that you insisted on my playing the part of +Eve Adair. And, oh! what about that nice boy, Thomas Cameron? Are he and +his sister well? I received a lovely box of sweets from Thomas after I +went back to the city that time." + +"He is well, I believe," said Ruth, gravely. "He is not far from here, you +know; he attends the Seven Oaks Military Academy." + +"Oh! so he does. Maybe we shall go that way," said Hazel Gray, carelessly. +"It would be lots of fun to see him again. Give my love to his sister." + +"Yes, Miss Gray," Ruth returned seriously. "I will tell Helen." + +She really liked Hazel Gray, and wished to see her get ahead. And it was +through her acquaintanceship with Hazel that Ruth had made a friend of +Mr. Hammond. But it annoyed Ruth that the actress should continue to be so +friendly with Tom Cameron. + +She thought no good could come of it Tom Cameron had always seemed such a +seriously inclined boy, in spite of his ready fun and cheerfulness. To +have him show such partiality for a girl so much older than himself, +really a grown woman, as Hazel Gray was, disturbed Ruth. + +She said nothing to her chum about it. If Helen was not worried about her +twin's predilection for the moving picture actress, it did not become Ruth +to worry. + +Ruth went back to Briarwood, encouraged to go on with the writing of the +drama. From Mr. Hammond's fertile mind had come several helpful +suggestions. The plot of the play was very intimately connected with the +history of Briarwood. There was included in its scenes a "Masque of the +Marble Harp," in which the whole school was to be grouped about the +fountain in the sunken garden. + +The marble figure of Harmony, or Poesy, or whatever it was supposed to +represent, was to come to life in the picture and strum the strings of the +lyre which it held. This was a trick picture and Mr. Hammond had explained +to Ruth just how it was to be made. + +The legend of the marble harp, which had been kept alive by succeeding +classes of Briarwood girls for the purpose of hazing "infants," came in +very nicely now in Ruth's story. And the arrangement of this trick picture +suggested another thing to Ruth Fielding, something which she had been +racking her brains about for some time. + +This idea had nothing to do with the present play; it had to do, instead, +with Mercy Curtis and the graduation exercises. One idea bred another in +Ruth Fielding's teeming brain. Her dramatic faculties, were being +sharpened. + +With all their regular studies and recitations, the seniors had to take +their usual turns as monitors, and Ruth could not escape this duty. +Besides, it was an honor not to be scorned, to be chosen to preside over +the "primes," or to take the head of a table at dinner. + +A teacher was ill on one day and Miss Brokaw asked Ruth to take certain +classes of the primary grade. The recitations were on subjects quite +familiar to Ruth and she felt no hesitancy in accepting the +responsibility; but there was more ahead of her than she supposed when she +entered on the task. + +As it chanced, the flaxen-haired Amy Gregg was in the class of which Ruth +was sent to take charge. Amy scowled at the senior when the latter took +the desk; but most of the other girls were glad to see Ruth Fielding. + +A little wrangle seemed to have begun before Ruth arrived, and the senior +thought to settle the difficulty and start the day with "clear decks," by +getting at the seat of the trouble. + +"What is the matter, Mary Pease?" she asked a flushed and indignant girl +who was angrily glaring at another. "Calm down, honey. Don't let your +anger rise." + +"If Amy Gregg says again that I took her gold pen, I'll tell something +about _her_ she won't like, now I warn her!" threatened Mary. + +"Well, it's gone!" stormed Amy, "and you're the nearest. I'd like to know +who took it if you didn't?" + +"Well! of all the nerve! I want you to understand that I don't have to +steal pens." + +"Hold on, girls," put in Ruth. "This must not go on. You know, I shall be +obliged to report you both." + +"Of course!" snarled Amy. "You big girls are always telling on us." + +"Oh!" and "Shame!" was the general murmur about the classroom; for most of +the girls loved Ruth. + +"Why, you nasty thing!" cried Mary Pease, glaring at Amy. "You ought to be +ashamed. I'll tell what I know about _you_!" + +"Mary!" exclaimed Ruth, with sudden fright. "Be still." + +"I guess you don't know what I know about Gregg, Ruth Fielding," cried the +excited Mary. + +"We do not want to know," Ruth said hastily. "Let us stop this wrangling +and turn to our work. Suppose Miss Brokaw should come in?" + +"And I guess Miss Brokaw or anybody would want to know what I saw that +night of the fire," declared Mary Pease, wildly. "_I_ know whose room the +fire started in, and _how_ it started." + +"Mary!" cried Ruth, rising from her seat, while the girls of the class +uttered wondering exclamations. + +But Mary was hysterical now. + +"I saw a light in _her_ room!" she cried, pointing an accusing finger at +the white-faced and shaking Amy. "I peeped through the keyhole, and it was +a candle burning on her table. She said she didn't have a candle. Bah!" + +"Be still, Mary!" commanded Ruth again. + +Amy Gregg was terror-stricken and shrank away from her accuser; but the +latter was too excited to heed Ruth. + +"I know all about it. So does Miss Scrimp. I told her. That Amy Gregg left +the candle burning when she went to supper and it fell off her table into +the waste basket. + +"And that," concluded Mary Pease, "was how the fire started that burned +down the West Dormitory, and I don't care who knows it, so there!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ANOTHER OF CURLY'S TRICKS + + +Miss Scrimp, the matron of the old West Dormitory, had bound Mary Pease to +secrecy. But, as Jennie put it, "the binding did not hold and _Pease_ +spilled the _beans_." + +The story flew over the school like wildfire. Miss Scrimp, actually in +tears, was inclined to blame Ruth Fielding for the outbreak of the story. + +"You ought to have taken Mary Pease and run her right into a closet!" +declared the matron. "Such behavior!" + +Ruth was a good deal chagrined that the story should have come out while +she was monitor; but she really did not see how she could have helped it. +The quarrel between Amy Gregg and Mary Pease had commenced before Ruth had +gone into the classroom. + +"And how could you help it?" cried the faithful Jennie. "I expect little +Pease has been aching to tell all these weeks. She should have been +quarantined, in the first place." + +But there was nothing to do about it now, save "to pick up the pieces." +And that was no light task. Feeling ran high in Briarwood Hall against Amy +Gregg. + +Some of the girls of her own age would not speak to her. Many of the older +girls made her feel by every glance and word they gave her that she was +taboo. And it was whispered on the campus that Amy would be sent home by +Mrs. Tellingham, if she could not be made to pay, or her folks be made to +pay, something toward the damage her carelessness had brought about. + +Ruth sheltered the unfortunate Amy all she could. She even influenced her +closest friends to be kind to the child. At Mrs. Sadoc Smith's Helen and +Ann did not speak of the discovery of the origin of the fire, and, of +course, good-natured Jennie Stone did just as Ruth asked, while even Mercy +Curtis kept her lips closed. + +Amy, however, not being an utterly callous girl, felt the condemnation of +the whole school. There was no escaping that. + +Amy had denied having a candle on the night of the fire, and it shocked +and grieved Mrs. Tellingham very much to learn that one of her girls was +not to be trusted to speak the truth at all times. + +Not because of the fire did the preceptress consider sending Amy Gregg +home, for the origin of the fire was plainly an accident, though bred in +carelessness. For prevarication, however, Mrs. Tellingham was tempted to +expel Amy Gregg. + +The girl had denied the fact that she had left a candle burning in her +room when she went to supper. Mary Pease had seen it, and both Miss Scrimp +and Ruth Fielding knew that the fire started in that particular room. + +Why the girl had left the candle burning was another mystery. Recklessly +denying the main fact, of course Amy would not explain the secondary +mystery. Nagged and heckled by some of the sophomores and juniors, Amy +declared she wished the whole school had burned down and then she would +not have had to stay at Briarwood another day! + +Ruth and Helen one day rescued the girl from the midst of a mob of larger +girls who were driving Amy Gregg almost mad by taunting her with being a +"fire bug." + +"What are you wild animals doing?" demanded Helen, who was much sharper +with the evil doers among the under classes than was Ruth. "So she's a +'fire-bug?' Oh, girls! what better are you than poor little Gregg, I'd +like to know? Every soul of you has done worse things than she has +done--only your acts did not have such appalling results. Behave +yourselves!" + +Ruth could not have talked that way to the girls; but many of them slunk +away under Helen's reprimand. Ruth took the crying Amy away--but neither +she nor Helen was thanked. + +"I wish you girls would mind your own business and let me alone," sobbed +the foolish child, hysterically. "I can fight my own battles, I'll tear +their hair out! I'll scratch their faces for them!" + +"Oh, dear me, Amy!" sighed Ruth. "Do you think that would be any real +satisfaction to you? Would it change things for the better, or in the +least?" + +What made the girls so unfeeling toward Amy was the fact that from the +beginning she had expressed no sorrow over the destruction of the +dormitory, and that she had refused to write home to ask for a +contribution to the fund being raised for the new building. + +When every other girl at Briarwood Hall was doing her best to get money to +help Mrs. Tellingham, Amy Gregg's callousness regarding the fire and its +results showed up, said Jennie, "just like a stubbed toe on a bare-footed +boy!" + +Really, Ruth began to think she would have to act as guard for Amy Gregg +to and from the school. The girl was not allowed to play with the other +girls of her age. Wherever she went a small riot started. + +It had become general knowledge that Amy Gregg's father was a wealthy man, +and that the family lived very sumptuously. Amy had a stepmother and +several half brothers and sisters; but she did not get along well with +them and, therefore, her father had sent her to Briarwood Hall. + +"I guess she was too mean at home for them to stand her," said Mary Pease, +who was the most vindictive of Amy's class, "and they sent her here to +trouble _us_. And see what she's done!" + +There was no stopping the younger girls from nagging. The fact that so +much was being done by others to help the dormitory fund kept the feud +against Amy Gregg alive. Her one partisan at this time (for Ruth could not +be called that, no matter how sorry she was for her) was Curly Smith. + +Once or twice Amy slipped away before Ruth was ready to go back to Mrs. +Smith's house for the evening, and started alone for the lodgings. The +Cedar Walk was the nearest way, and there were many hiding places along +the Cedar Walk. + +Mary Pease and her chums lay in wait for the unfortunate Amy on two +occasions, and chased her all the way to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's. What they +intended doing to the much disliked girl if they had caught her, nobody +seemed to know. They just seemed determined to plague her. + +Ruth did not want to report the culprits; but warning them did not seem to +do any good. On a third occasion Amy started home ahead, and Ruth and +Helen hurried after her to make sure that none of the other girls +troubled the victim. Half way down the walk, Helen exclaimed: + +"See there, Ruth! Amy isn't alone, after all." + +"Who's with her?" asked Ruth. "I can't see--Why! it can't be Ann?" + +"No. But she's tall like Ann." + +"And that girl walks queerly. Did you ever see the like? Strides along +just like a boy--Oh!" + +Out of a cedar clump appeared a crowd of shrieking girls, who began to +dance around Amy and her companion, shouting scornful phrases which were +bound to make Amy Gregg angry. But Mary and her friends this time received +a surprise. Amy ran. Not so the "girl" with her. + +This strange individual ran among Amy's tormentors, tripped two or three +of them up, tore down the hair of several, taking the ribbons as trophies, +and sent the whole crowd shrieking away, much alarmed and not a little +punished. + +"It isn't a girl!" gasped Helen. "It's Curly Smith. And as sure as you +live he's got on some of Ann's clothes. _Won't_ our Western friend be +furious at that?" + +But Ann Hicks was not troubled at all. She had lent Curly the frock and +hat, and when he behaved himself and walked properly he certainly made a +very pretty girl. + +He gave Amy's enemies a good fright, and they let her alone after that. + +"But, goodness me! what is Briarwood Hall coming to?" demanded Ruth, in +discussing this incident with her room-mates. "We are leaving a tribe of +young Indians here for Mrs. Tellingham to control. Helen! you know we +never acted this way when we were in the lower grades." + +"Well, we were pretty bad sometimes," Helen said slowly. "We did not +engage in free fights, however." + +"They all ought to have a good spanking," declared Ann, with conviction. + +"And I suppose you seniors ought to do it?" sneered Amy, who could not be +gentle even with her own friends. + +"I'm not convinced that I sha'n't begin with you, my lady," said the +Western girl, sharply. "I lent those old duds of mine to Curly to help you +out, and you are about as grateful as a poison snake! I never saw such a +girl in my life before." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE FIVE-REEL DRAMA + + +There was a spark of romance in old Mrs. Sadoc Smith, after all. Ruth read +to her the first part of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" and to further the +continuation and ultimate successful completion of that scenario, the old +lady would have done much. + +Curly looked upon Ruth with awe. He was a devotee of the moving pictures, +and every nickel he could spare went into the coffers of one or the other +of the "picture palaces" in Lumberton. Lumberton was a thriving city, with +both water-freight and railroad facilities besides its mills and lumber +interests; so it could well support several of the modern houses of +entertainment that have sprung up in such mushroom growth all over the +land. + +Mr. Hammond's films taken at Lumberton were of an educational nature and +the Board of Trade of the city expected much advertising of the industries +of the place when the films were released. + +However, to get back to Mrs. Sadoc Smith--Her instructions from Mrs. +Tellingham included the putting out of the lamp in the big room the four +Briarwood girls occupied by ten o'clock every night; but Mrs. Smith +allowed Ruth to come downstairs after the other girls were in bed and +write under the radiance of the reading lamp on her sitting-room table. It +was quiet there, for Mrs. Sadoc Smith either sent Curly to bed, or made +him keep as still as a mouse. And there was nobody else to disturb the +young author as she wrote, save the cat that delighted to jump up into her +lap and lie there purring, while the scenario was being written. + +Ruth did not avail herself of this privilege often; but she was desirous +for the scenario to be finished and in Mr. Hammond's hands. So sure had +that gentleman been of her success, and so pleased was he with the plan of +the entire play, that he had taken a copy of the first part with him when +he left Lumberton and now wrote that Mr. Grimes was already making a few +of the studio scenes. + +The young author rather shrank from letting the pugnacious Mr. Grimes have +anything to do with her story; but she knew that both Mr. Hammond and +Hazel Gray thought highly of the man's ability. Nor was she in a position +to insist upon any other director. She was working for Briarwood, not for +her own advantage. + +"If Grimes takes hold of it with his usual vigor, it will be a success," +Mr. Hammond assured Ruth in his letter. "Hurry along the rest of the play. +Spring is upon us, and we shall have some good open weather soon in which +to take the pictures at Briarwood Hall." + +Ruth hurried. Indeed, the story was finished so rapidly that the girl +scarcely realized what she had done. There was no time for her to go over +the scenario carefully for revision and polishing. The last scenes she +read to nobody; she scarcely knew herself how they sounded. + +Ruth Fielding had written an ingenious and very original scenario. Its +crudities were many and manifest; nevertheless, the true gold was there. +Mr. Hammond had recognized the originality of the girl's ideas in the +first part of the play. He was not going into the scheme, and risking his +money and reputation as a film producer, from any feeling of sentiment. It +was a business proposition, pure and simple, with him. + +In the first place, nobody had ever thought of just this kind of moving +picture. The producer would be in the field with a new idea. In addition, +the drama would be looked for all over the country by the friends of the +pupils, past and present, of Briarwood Hall. The girls themselves +appearing in some of the scenes would add to the interest their parents, +friends, and the graduates of the Hall, were bound to take in the +production. + +To Ruth, nervous and overworked after the finishing of the scenario, the +days of waiting until Mr. Hammond read and pronounced judgment on the +play, were hard indeed to endure. No matter how much confidence her +friends--even Mrs. Tellingham--had in her ability to succeed, Ruth was not +at all sure she had written up to the mark. + +Try as she might she began to fall behind in her recitation marks during +these days of waiting. Her nervousness was enhanced by the doubts she felt +regarding her general standing in her classes. + +Mrs. Tellingham talked cheerfully in chapel about "our graduating class;" +but some of the girls who were working with a view to receiving their +diplomas in June would never be able to reach the high mark necessary for +Mrs. Tellingham to allow them those certificates. + +There would be a fringe of girls standing at the back of the class who, +although never appearing at Briarwood Hall another term, could not win the +roll of parchment which would enter them in good standing in any of the +women's colleges. Ruth did not want to be among those who failed. + +She worried about this a good deal; she could not sleep at night; and her +cheeks grew pale. She worked hard, and yet sometimes when she reached the +classroom she felt as though her head were a hollow drum in which the +thoughts beat to and fro without either rhyme or reason. + +Ruth Fielding was a perfectly healthy girl, as well as an athletic one. +But in a time of stress like this the very healthiest person can easily +and quickly break down. "I feel as though I should fly!" is an expression +often heard from nervous and overwrought schoolgirls. Ruth wished that she +might fly--away from school and study and scenarios and sullen girls like +Amy Gregg. + +One evening when she came back to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's with a strapful of +books to study before bedtime, Ruth saw Curly Smith by the shed door busy +with some fishing tackle. Ruth's pulses leaped. Fishing! She had not +thrown a hook into the water for months and months! + +"Going fishing, Curly?" she said wistfully. + +"Yep." + +"Where are they biting now?" + +"There's carp and bream under the old mill-dam up in Norman's Woods. I saw +'em jumping there to-day." + +"Oh! when are you going?" gasped the girl, hungry for outdoor sport and +adventure. + +"In the morning--before _you're_ up," said the boy, rather sullenly. + +"I wager I'll be awake," said Ruth, sitting down beside him. "I wake +up--oh, just awfully early! and lie and think." + +Curly looked at her. "That don't get you nothin'," he said. + +"But I can't help it." + +"Gran says you're overworked," Curly said. "Why don't you run away from +school if they make you work so hard? _I_ would. Our teacher's sick so +there isn't any session at the district school to-morrow." + +"Oh, Curly! Play hooky?" gasped Ruth, clasping her hands. + +"Yep. Only you girls haven't any pluck." + +"If I played hooky would you let me go fishing with you to-morrow?" asked +Ruth, her eyes dancing. + +"You haven't the sand," scoffed Curly. + +"But can I go if I _dare_ run away?" urged Ruth. + +"Yep," said the boy, but with rather a sour grin. + +"What time are you going to start?" + +"Four." + +"If I'm not down in the kitchen by that time, throw some gravel up to the +window," commanded Ruth. "But don't break the window." + +"Oh, shucks! you won't go when you see how dark and damp it is," declared +Curly. + +When, just after four o'clock in the morning, Curly crept downstairs from +his shed chamber, knuckling his eyes to get the sleep out, there was a +light in the kitchen and Ruth was just pouring out two fragrant cups of +coffee which flanked a heaping plate of doughnuts. + +"Old Scratch!" gasped Curly. "Gran will have our hides and hair! You're +not _going_, Ruth Fielding?" + +"If you will let me," said Ruth, meekly. + +"Well--if you want. But you'll get wet and dirty and mussy----" + +Then he stopped. He saw that Ruth had on an old gymnasium suit, her rubber +boots lay on the chair, and a warm polo coat was at hand. She already wore +her tam-o-shanter. + +"Huh! I see you're ready," Curly said. "You might as well go. But +remember, if you want to come home before afternoon, you'll have to find +your way back alone. I'm not going to be bothered by a girl's fantods." + +"All right, Curly," said Ruth, cheerfully. + +Curly put his face under the spigot, brushed his hair before the little +mirror in the corner, and was ready to sample Ruth's coffee. + +"We want to hurry," he said, filling his pockets with the doughnuts, +"it'll be broad daylight before we know it, and then everybody we see will +want to come along. The other fellows aren't on to the old dam yet this +season. The fish are running early." + +He brought forth a basket with tackle and bait, dug over night. Ruth +burdened herself with a big, square box, neatly wrapped and tied. Curly +eyed this askance. + +"I s'pose you expect to tear your clo'es and want something to wear back +to town that's decent," he growled. + +"Well, I want to look half way respectable," laughed Ruth, as they set +forth. + +The damp smell of thawing earth greeted their nostrils as they left the +house. No plowing had been done, save in very warm corners; but the lush +buds on the trees and bushes, and the crocuses by the corner of the old +house, promised spring. + +A clape called at them raucously as he rapped out his warning on a dead +limb beside the road. A rabbit rose from its form and shot away into the +dripping woods. The sun poked a jolly red face above the wooded ridge +before the two runaways left the beaten track and took a narrow woodpath +that would cut off about a mile of their walk. + +It was a rough way and the pace Curly set was made to force Ruth to beg +for time. But the girl gritted her teeth, minded not the pain in her side, +and sturdily followed him. By and by the pain stopped, she got her second +wind, and then she began to tread close on Curly's heels. + +"Huh!" he grunted at last, "you needn't be in such a hurry. The dam will +stay there--and so will the fish." + +"All right," responded Ruth, still meekly, but with dancing eyes. + +The fishing place was reached and while yet the early rays of the sun +fell aslant the dimpling pools under the dam, the two threw in their +baited hooks. Curly evidently expected to see the girl balk at the bait, +but Ruth seized firmly the fat, squirmy worm and impaled it scientifically +upon her hook. + +She caught the first fish, too! In fact, as the morning drew leisurely +along, Ruth's string splashing in the cool water grew much faster than +Curly's. + +"I never saw the beat of your luck!" declared the boy. "You must have been +fishing before, Ruth Fielding." + +"Lots of times." + +"Where?" + +Ruth told him of the Red Mill on the bank of the Lumano, of her fishing +trips with Tom Cameron, and of all the fun that they had about Cheslow, +and up the river above the mill. + +Mid-forenoon came and Curly produced some crackers and a piece of bologna. +The doughnuts he had pocketed were gone long ago. + +"Have a bite, Ruth?" he said generously. "I wish it was better, but I +didn't have much money, and Gran won't ever let me carry any lunch. She +says the proper place for a boy to eat is at his own table. It's there for +me, and if I don't get home to get it, then I can do without." + +Ruth accepted a piece of the bologna and the crackers gravely. She baited +her hook with a piece of the bologna and caught a big, struggling carp. + +"What do you know about that?" cried Curly, in disgust. "You could bait +your hook with a marble and catch a whopper, I believe!" + +Meanwhile, Ruth was having a most delightful time. The roses had come back +into her cheeks at the first. Her eyes sparkled, and she "wriggled all +over," as she expressed it, "with just the _feel_ of spring." + +She did not spend all her time fishing, but ran about and examined the +early plants and sprouting bushes, and woke up the first violets and +searched for May flowers, which, of course, she did not find. Squirrels +chattered at them, and a blue jay hung about, squalling, evidently hoping +for crumbs from their lunch. Only there were no crumbs of Curly's frugal +bologna and crackers left. + +When the sun was in mid-heaven the boy confessed to being as hungry as +ever, and tightened his belt. "Crackers don't stick to your ribs much," he +grumbled. + +Ruth calmly began opening her box. Curly looked at her askance. + +"You aren't figgering on going home _now_, are you?" he asked. + +"Oh, no. I sha'n't go home till you do." + +Then she produced from the box sandwiches, deviled eggs, a jelly roll, a +jar of peanut butter, crackers, olives, and some more of Mrs. Smith's good +doughnuts. + +"Old Scratch!" Curly ejaculated. "You're the best fellow to go fishing +with, Ruth Fielding, that I ever saw. You can come to _my_ parties any +time you like." + +They spent the whole day delightfully and, tired, scratched, and not a +little wind-burned, Ruth tramped home behind Curly in good season for +supper at Mrs. Sadoc Smith's. + +She did not tell the boy that the whole outing had been arranged the night +before with his grandmother before Ruth herself went to bed. Curly +expected to be "called down," as he expressed it, by his grandmother when +they arrived home. To his amazement they were met cheerfully and ushered +in to a bounteous supper on which Mrs. Smith had expended no little +thought and time. + +Curly was stricken almost dumb by his grandmother's generosity and +good-nature. After supper he whispered to Ruth: + +"Say! you're a wonder, you are, Ruth Fielding. Never anybody got around +Gran the way you do, before. You're a wonder!" + +Helen and Ann met Ruth in great excitement. "Where under the sun have you +been--and in that ragged old gym suit?" gasped Helen. + +"You look as though your face was burnt. I believe you've been playing +hooky, Ruth Fielding!" cried Ann. + +"Right the first time," sighed Ruth, happily. "Oh, I feel _so_ much +better. And I know I shall sleep like a brick." + +"You mean, a railroad tie, don't you?" demanded Ann. "_That's_ a sleeper!" + +"Of course we found your note, and we told Miss Brokaw. But she's got it +in for you just the same," said Helen, slangily. "And only guess!" + +"Yes! Guess! Ruth! Fielding!" and Ann seized her and danced her about the +room. "You missed it by being absent to-day." + +"Oh, don't! Never mind all this! I'm tired enough. I've walked _miles_," +groaned Ruth. "What have I missed?" + +"Mr. Hammond is in Lumberton. He came to see you about the scenario," +Helen eagerly said. + +Ruth sat down and clasped her hands, while her cheeks paled. "It's a +failure!" she whispered. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +GREAT TIMES + + +That was not so, however, and Helen and Ann soon blurted out the good +news: + +"It's a great success!" + +"He's going to bring up the company next week and make the pictures at the +Hall!" + +"He's been with Mrs. Tellingham all the afternoon planning when the +pictures shall be taken, and how they shall be taken," Helen said. "I +guess it's _not_ a failure!" + +"I should say not!" joined in Ann Hicks. + +"Oh, girls!" + +If it had not been for Ruth's long day in the open and the fact that her +nerves had become much quieter, she could never have forced back the tears +of relief that answered so quickly these reassuring words. + +Then a great flood of thankfulness welled up in her heart. She had +accomplished something really worth while! Later, when she saw, on the +screen, the story she had written, she was to feel this gratitude and joy +again. + +She went to bed that night and slept, as she had promised, until Mrs. +Sadoc Smith knocked on the door for them all to rise. She got up with all +the oppression lifted from her mind, and wanted to race the other girls to +the Hall before breakfast. + +"It won't do for you, young lady, to go gallavanting into the woods with +Curly another day," said Helen, holding on to Ruth. "You're neither to +hold nor to bind after such an expedition. I say, girls, let's all go with +Curly next time." + +Amy had been very sullen ever since the evening before. Now she snapped: +"I guess Curly didn't want her--or any of us. Ruth just forced herself +upon him. He doesn't like girls." + +"Bless the infant!" said Ann. "What's got her _now_?" + +"Jealous of our Ruth, I declare!" laughed Helen. + +Amy burst out crying and ran ahead, nor did the older girls see her at the +breakfast table. Ruth was sorry about this. She had only then begun to win +Amy Gregg's confidence, and now she feared that the girl would be angry +with her. + +That day, however, Ruth was too happy to think much about Amy Gregg. + +Recitations went with a rush. Miss Brokaw even was disarmed, for all +Ruth's quickness and coolness seemed to have returned to her. She did not +fail once and the strict teacher praised her. + +Besides, there was a long conference with Mrs. Tellingham and Mr. Hammond. +The scenario of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" was to be filmed at once. + +"We will do our best to release it for first presentation in six weeks," +the producer said. "And I assure you that means some quick work. You +girls," he added, to Ruth, "must do your prettiest when we take the +pictures here. Your physical culture instructor will drill you in +marching, and forming the tableaux we require. Your exposition of the +legend of the Marble Harp is a clever bit of invention, Ruth, and in the +picture will make a hit, I am sure." + +Of course Ruth was proud; why should she not be? But her head was not +turned by all the flattering things that were said to her. + +The girls adored her. The fact that they were all working in unison toward +the rebuilding of the dormitory, removed from the daily life and +intercourse of the big boarding school one of its more unpleasant +features. + +It was only natural that there should be cliques among two hundred girls. +But now rivalries were put aside. All were striving for the same end. Some +of the girls interested various societies in their home towns to hold +fairs and bazaars for the benefit of Briarwood Hall. + +Personal appeals were made directly to every girl on the alumni list--and +some of those "girls" now had girls of their own almost old enough to +attend Briarwood. + +By these methods the dormitory fund was swelled. In the results from the +moving picture drama, however, was the possibility for the greatest help. +Mrs. Tellingham risked rebuilding the dormitory on the same scale as the +burned structure, because of Mr. Hammond's enthusiasm over Ruth's +achievement. + +The days of early spring passed in swift procession now. It seemed that +the longer the days grew, the faster they seemed to go. There were not +hours enough in which to accomplish all that the girls, who looked toward +graduation in June, wished. + +Even Jennie Stone worked harder and took her school tasks more seriously +than ever before. + +"But, see here!" she said to her mates one day, "here's some 'hot ones' +Miss Brokaw has been handing the primes, and I believe they'd puzzle some +of us big girls. Listen! 'What is longitude?' Sue Mellen came to me, +puzzled, about _that_," chuckled Jennie, "and I told her longitude is +those lengthwise stripes on a watermelon." + +"Oh, Heavy!" gasped Lluella. "How could you?" + +"Didn't hurt me at all," proclaimed Jennie, calmly. "And I told her that a +'ski' is what a Russian has on the end of his name. That quite +satisfiedski Miss Mellenski, whether it does Miss Brokawski or not!" + +Mrs. Tellingham gave the school a serious talk the day before the film +company arrived to take the first pictures for Ruth's play. She read and +explained that part of the scenario in which the Briarwood girls would +appear, and begged their serious co-operation with the director who would +have the making of the film in charge. + +Ruth still shrank from seeing Mr. Grimes again; but she found that, while +engaged in the work of making these pictures, he behaved quite differently +from the way he had acted the day she had first seen him on the bank of +the Lumano river. + +He was patient, but insistent. He knew just what effect he wanted and +always got it in the end. And Ruth and Helen told each other that, ugly as +he could be, Mr. Grimes was really a most wonderful director. They did not +wonder that Hazel Gray expressed her desire to work under Mr. Grimes, +harsh as he had been to her. + +It was difficult for the girls--even for Ruth who had written the +scenario--to follow the trend of the story of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" +by closely watching the taking of these scenes in and about Briarwood +Hall; for they were not taken in proper rotation. + +Mr. Grimes had his schedule before him and he skipped from one part of the +story's action to another in a most bewildering way, getting the scenes +about the school filmed in each "setting" in succession, rather than +following the thread of the story. + +Nor could Ruth judge the effect of the several pictures. She was too close +to them. There was no perspective. + +Sometimes when Mr. Grimes seemed the most satisfied, Ruth could see +nothing in that scene at all. Again he would make the participants go over +and over a scene that seemed perfectly clear the first time. + +Hazel Gray and several other professional performers were at Briarwood and +had their parts in the scenes with the schoolgirls. Hazel played the +heroine of Ruth's drama, but Mr. Hammond had insisted upon Ruth herself +acting the part of the heroine's chum--a not unimportant role. + +Ruth did not feel that she had histrionic ability; but she was so anxious +for the moving picture to be a success, that she would have tried her very +best to suit Mr. Grimes in any role. She was surprised, however, when he +warmly praised her work in her one scene which was at all emotional. + +"You naturally feel your part in this scene, Miss Fielding," he said. "Not +everybody could get the action before the camera so well." + +"'Praise from Sir Hubert!'" whispered Hazel Gray, smiling at her young +friend. "You should be proud." + +Ruth was not quite sure whether she was proud of this unsuspected talent +or not. She had written to Aunt Alvirah about her acting in the play, and +the good woman had warned her seriously against the folly of vanity and +the sin of frivolity. Aunt Alvirah had been brought up to doubt very much +the morality of those who performed upon the stage for the amusement of +the public. + +What Mr. Jabez Potter thought of his niece's acting for the screen, even +his opinion of her writing a play, was a sealed matter to Ruth; for the +old miller, as Aunt Alvirah informed her, grew grumpier and more morose +all the time. "He is a caution to get along with," wrote Aunt Alvirah +Boggs in her cramped handwriting. "I don't know what's going to become of +him. You'd think he was weaned on wormwood and drunk nothing but boneset +tea all his life long." + +However, it must be confessed that Ruth Fielding's thoughts were not much +upon her Uncle Jabez or the Red Mill these days. The work of making the +pictures occupied all her thought that was not taken up with study. + +Jennie Stone, Sarah Fish, Helen, Lluella and Belle, all appeared +prominently in the "close up" scenes Mr. Grimes took. In the classroom, +dining hall, the graduation march, and in the Italian garden scenes, most +of the seniors and juniors were used. + +A splendid gymnasium scene pleased the girls, and views of the hand-ball, +captain's-ball, tennis and basket-ball courts, with the girls in action, +were bound to be spectacular, too. + +These typical boarding school scenes closely followed the text of Ruth's +play. Hazel and Ruth were in them all; and on the tennis court Hazel and +Ruth played Helen and Sarah Fish a fast game, the former couple winning by +sheer skill and pluck. + +Ruth naturally had to neglect some duties. Discipline was more or less +relaxed, and she lost sight of Amy Gregg. + +One evening the smaller girl did not appear at Mrs. Sadoc Smith's after +supper. Of late the other girls had let Amy Gregg alone and Ruth had +ceased to watch her so carefully. But when darkness fell and Amy did not +appear, Ruth telephoned to the school. Miss Scrimp, who answered the call, +had not seen her. It was learned, too, that Amy had not been at the supper +table. Nobody had seen her depart, but it was a fact that she had +disappeared from Briarwood Hall sometime during the afternoon. Nor had she +been near Mrs. Sadoc Smith's since early morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A CLOUD ARISES + + +While Mrs. Smith and Helen and Ann Hicks were "running around in circles," +as Ann put it, wondering what had become of Amy Gregg, Ruth did the only +practical thing she could think of. + +She hunted up Curly. + +"Old Scratch!" ejaculated the boy. "I haven't seen Amy to-day. Sure I +haven't! No, Ma'am!" + +"Not at _all_?" asked Ruth. "And don't you know where to look for her?" + +"Oh, she'll take care of herself," said the boy, carelessly. "She isn't as +soft as most girls." + +"But Mrs. Tellingham will be awfully angry with me," Ruth cried. "I was +supposed to look out for her when she came over here." + +"Shucks!" exclaimed Curly. "Amy didn't want to be looked out for." + +"That doesn't absolve me from my duty," sighed Ruth. "Haven't you the +least idea where she's gone?" + +"No, Ruth, I haven't," the boy declared earnestly. "If I had I'd tell +you." + +"I believe you, Curly." + +"She and I haven't been so friendly," admitted the boy, in some +embarrassment, "since you went fishing with me that time." + +"Goodness me! she's not jealous?" cried Ruth. + +"I don't know what you call it," said Curly, hanging his head. "It's some +foolish girl stuff. Boys don't act that way. I told her I'd take her +fishing, too--if she'd get up early enough." Here Curly began to laugh. +"You can bet, Ruth, that wherever she is, she got there before dark and +won't come back until daylight." + +"What do you mean?" asked Ruth, sharply. + +"I know she's afraid as she can be of the dark. She's a regular baby about +that. Of course, she won't own up to it." + +"Why! I never knew it," Ruth exclaimed. + +"She wouldn't go fishing because I start so early--while it's still dark. +Catch _her_ out of the house before sun-up!" + +"Oh, Curly! I blame myself," gasped Ruth. "I never knew that about her. +Are you sure?" + +"'Course I am. She's scared of the dark. I can make her mad any time by +just hinting at it. So that proves it, don't it?" responded this young +philosopher. + +"Maybe she has gone somewhere and is afraid to come back till morning," +repeated Ruth. + +"She's been after me to take her up to that dam where we caught the fish, +in the afternoon; but I told her we couldn't get home before pitch dark. I +ought to have taken her along, I guess, and said nothing," Curly added +reflectively. + +"Last night she was talking about it. She said I should take her because I +took you there." + +"You don't suppose she's gone clear over there by herself, do you?" Ruth +cried, in alarm. + +"I don't believe she knows how to start, even," Curly said easily. "And I +told her last night she'd better not go anywhere till she got rid of that +sore throat." + +"Sore throat!" repeated Ruth, with added worriment. "I never knew her +throat was sore." + +"She told me, she did," Curly said. "It was pretty bad, I guess, too. I +guess maybe she was afraid to say anything about it. I don't like to tell +Gran when there's anything the matter with me. She mixes up such nasty +messes for me to take!" + +"The poor child!" murmured Ruth, thinking only of Amy Gregg. "What _shall_ +we do?" + +"I'll get a lantern and we'll go hunt around for her," suggested Curly, +ripe for any adventure. + +"But where will we hunt?" + +"Maybe she's gone with some other girl somewhere." + +"You know that can't be so," Ruth said. "There isn't a girl friendly +enough with her for her to say ten pleasant words to. The poor little +mite! I'm just as sorry as I can be for her, Curly." + +"Well!" returned Curly, "what did she want to tell a story for? I know +what she did. She left the candle burning in her room because she was +afraid to come back to it in the dark after supper. I made her own up to +that." + +"Oh! the poor child!" cried Ruth. + +"And she didn't understand the electric light. They don't have electricity +in the town where she comes from; natural gas, instead. So that's the +_why_ of the fire," Curly said. "I picked that out of her long ago." + +"And she was so close-mouthed with us!" exclaimed Ruth. + +"She doesn't like it at Briarwood. She doesn't like the girls. She doesn't +like the teachers. Old Scratch!" exclaimed the boy, "I don't blame +her--and I guess I'd run away myself." + +"You don't suppose she _has_ run away, Curly Smith? Not for _keeps_?" + +"I don't know," answered the boy. "Her folks don't treat her right, I +guess. They sent her to Briarwood to get her out the way. So she says. And +she's afraid of what her father will do to her if he ever hears about that +candle and about how the dormitory got afire." + +"That's why she wouldn't write to him for a contribution to the rebuilding +fund," cried Ruth. + +"I guess so," said Curly. "She never said much to me about it. I just +wormed it out of her, as you might say. She isn't so awful happy here, you +bet." + +"Oh, Curly! I blame myself," groaned Ruth. + +"What for?" + +"Because I ought to have learned more about her--got closer to her." + +"You might's well try to get close to a prickly porcupine," laughed the +boy. "She'd made up her mind to hate the rest of you girls and she's going +to keep on hating you till the end of time. That's the sort of a girl Amy +is." + +"And nothing to be proud about," declared Ruth, with some vexation. "Don't +you think it, Curly?" + +"Huh! I don't. You're silly, Ruth--but I like you a whole lot more than I +do Amy." + +"Goodness! what a polite boy," cried Ruth. "There's the telephone!" + +She ran back upstairs, hoping the message would be that Amy Gregg was +found. But that was not it. Over the wire Mrs. Tellingham herself was +speaking to Ann. + +"No, Ma'am. We don't know where to look for her," Ann said. + +"We haven't any idea." + +"Yes, Ma'am; Helen and I have looked. She hasn't taken any of her +clothes." + +"Oh, goodness! you don't really suppose she's run away?" + +"Do come here, Ruth, and hear what Mrs. Tellingham says!" + +Ruth went to the telephone and heard the principal of Briarwood Hall +talking. What Mrs. Tellingham said was certainly startling. + +It seemed that Amy Gregg had received a letter that afternoon. It was from +her father, and, of course, was not opened by the principal. But +afterward--after the child had disappeared from the premises, of +course--the letter came into Mrs. Tellingham's hands. It was found by Tony +Foyle down by the marble statue in the sunken garden. Evidently Amy had +run there, where she would be out of the way, to read it. + +It was a very stern letter and accused Amy of some past offense before she +had left home. It likewise said that Mr. Gregg had received an anonymous +letter from some girl at Briarwood, telling about the fire, and about +Amy's supposed part in starting the blaze, and complaining that Amy would +not ask for a contribution to the dormitory fund. + +Mr. Gregg was extremely angry, and he told his daughter that he would come +to Briarwood in a few days and investigate the whole matter. Why Amy Gregg +should run away was now clear. She was afraid to meet her father. + +"Make sure that the poor child is nowhere about Mrs. Smith's, Ruth," Mrs. +Tellingham begged her over the wire. "I am sure I should not know what to +say to Mr. Gregg if he comes and finds that his daughter has disappeared. +The poor child! I shall not sleep to-night, Ruth Fielding. Amy must be +found." + +Ruth felt just that way herself. No matter what her friends said in +contradiction, Ruth felt that she was partly to blame. She should have +kept a close watch over Amy Gregg. + +"I let that picture-making get in between us," she wailed. "I'm glad it's +all done and out of the way. I'd rather not have written the scenario at +all, than have anything happen to Amy." + +"You're a goose, Ruthie," declared her chum. "You're not to blame. Her +father's harshness with her has made the child run away. _If_ she has." + +"Her own unhappy disposition has caused all the trouble," said Ann, +bitterly. + +"Oh! don't speak so," begged Ruth. "Suppose something has happened to +her." + +"Nothing ever happens to kids like her," said Ann, bruskly. + +But that was not so. Something already had happened to Amy Gregg. She was +lost! + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +HUNTING FOR AMY + + +In spite of her seemingly heartless words, it was Ann Hicks who agreed to +go with Ruth to hunt for the lost girl. Helen frankly acknowledged that +she was afraid to tramp about the woods and fields at night, with only a +boy and a lantern for company. + +"Come along, Ruthie. I have helped find stray cattle on the range more +times than you could shake a stick at," declared good-natured Ann Hicks. +"Rouse out that lazy boy of Grandma Smith's." + +Mrs. Sadoc Smith had to give just so much advice, and see that the +expedition was properly equipped. A thermos bottle filled with coffee went +into Ruth's bag, while Curly was laden with a substantial lunch, a roll of +bandages, a bottle of arnica and some smelling-salts, beside the lantern. + +"Huh!" protested the boy to Ann, "if she was sending us out to find a lost +_boy_ all she'd send would be that cat-o'-nine-tails of hers that hangs in +the woodshed. I know Gran!" + +"And the cat-o'-nine-tails, too, eh?" chuckled the Western girl. + +"You bet!" agreed Curly, feelingly. + +They set forth with just one idea about the search. Amy Gregg, as far as +Curly could remember, had expressed a wish to go to but one place. That +was the old dam up in Norman's Woods, where he and Ruth had gone fishing. + +They were quite sure that it would be useless to hunt for the girl in any +neighbor's house. And Mrs. Sadoc Smith's premises had already been +searched. They had shouted for Amy till their throats were sore before the +news had come from Briarwood Hall. The fact that Amy had been suffering +from a physical ailment, as well as one of the mind, troubled Ruth +exceedingly. + +"Maybe she was just 'sickening for some disease,' as Aunt Alvirah says," +the girl of the Red Mill told Ann Hicks, as they went along. "A sore +throat is the forerunner of so many fevers and serious troubles. She might +be coming down with scarlet fever." + +"Goodness gracious! don't say _that_" begged Ann. + +Ruth feared it, nevertheless. The two girls followed Curly through the +narrow path, the dripping bushes wetting their skirts, and briers at times +scratching them. Ann was a good walker and could keep up quite as well as +Ruth. Beside, Curly was not setting a pace on this occasion, but stumbled +on with the lantern, rather blindly. + +"Tell you what," he grumbled. "I don't fancy this job a mite." + +"You're not 'afraid to go home in the dark,' are you, Curly?" asked Ann, +with scorn. + +"Not going home just now," responded the boy, grinning. "But the woods +aren't any place to be out in this time of night--unless you've got a dog +and a gun. There! see that?" + +"A cat, that's all," declared Ruth, who had seen the little black and +white animal run across their track in the flickering and uncertain light +of the lantern. "Here, kitty! kitty! Puss! puss! puss!" + +"Hold on!" cried the excited Curly. "You needn't be so particular about +calling that cat." + +"Why not? It must be somebody's cat that's strayed," said Ruth. + +"Ya-as. I guess it is. It's a pole-cat," growled Curly. "And if it came +when you called it, you wouldn't like it so much, I guess." + +"Oh, goodness!" gasped Ann. "Don't be so friendly with every strange +animal you see, Ruth Fielding. A pole-cat!" + +"Wish I had a gun!" exclaimed Curly. "I'd shoot that skunk." + +"Glad you didn't then," said Ruth, promptly. "Poor little thing." + +"Ya-as," drawled the boy. "'Poor little thing.' It was just aiming for +somebody's hencoop. One of 'em 'll eat chickens faster than Gran's hens +can hatch 'em out." + +Pushing on through the woods at this slow pace brought them to the ruined +grist mill and the old dam not before ten o'clock. There was a pale and +watery moon, the shine of which glistened on the falling water over the +old logs of the dam, but gave the searchers little light. The moon's rays +merely aided in making the surroundings of the mill more ghostly. + +Nobody lived within a mile of the mill site, Curly assured the girls, and +if Amy had found this place it was not likely that she had likewise found +the nearest human habitation, for that was beyond the mill and directly +opposite to Briarwood and the town of Lumberton. + +They shouted for Amy, and then searched the ghostly premises of the ruined +mill. Years before the roof had been burned away and some of the walls +fallen in. Owls made their nests in the upper part of the building, as the +party found, much to the girls' excitement when a huge, spread-winged +creature dived out of a window and went "whish! whish! whish!" off through +the long grass, to hunt for mice or other small, night-prowling creatures. + +"Goodness! that owl is as big as a turkey!" gasped Ruth, clinging to Ann +in her fright. + +"Bigger," announced Curly. "Old Scratch! I'd like to shoot him and have +him stuffed." + +"I'd rather have some of the turkey stuffing," chuckled Ann Hicks. "Owl +would be rather tough, I reckon." + +"Oh, not to eat!" scoffed Curly. "I'd put him in Gran's parlor. And that +reminds me of an owl story----" + +"Don't tell us any old stories; tell us new ones, if you must tell any," +Ann interrupted. + +"How do you know whether this is old or young till I've told it?" demanded +Curly, as they all three sat on the ruined doorstep of the mill to rest. + +"Quite right, Curly," sighed Ruth. "Go ahead. Make us laugh. I feel like +crying." + +"Then you can cry over it," retorted the boy. "There was a butcher who had +a stuffed owl in his shop and an old Irishman came in and asked him: 'How +mooch for the broad-faced bur-r-rd?' + +"'It's an owl,' said the butcher. + +"The old man repeated his question--'how mooch for the broad-faced +bur-r-rd?' + +"'It's an owl, I tell you!' exclaimed the butcher. + +"'I know it's _ould_,' says the Irishman. 'But what d'ye want for it? +It'll make soup for me boar-r-rders!'" + +"That's a good story," admitted Ruth, "but try to think up some way of +finding poor little Amy, instead of telling funny tales." + +"Oh, how can I help----" + +Curly stopped. Ann, who was sitting in the middle, grabbed both him and +Ruth. "Listen to that!" she whispered. "_That_ isn't another owl, is it?" + +"What is it?" gasped Ruth. + +Somewhere in the ruin of the mill there was a noise. It might have been +the voice of an animal or of a bird, but it sounded near enough like a +human being to scare all three of the young people on the doorstep. + +"Sa-ay," quavered Curly. "You don't suppose there are such things as +ghosts, do you, girls?" + +"No, I don't!" snapped Ruth. "Don't try to scare us either, Curly." + +"Honest, I'm not. I'm right here," cried the boy. "You know I never made +that noise----" + +"There it is again!" exclaimed Ann. + +The sound was like the cry of something in distress. Ruth got up suddenly +and tried to put on a brave front. "I can't sit here and listen to that," +she said. + +"Let's go," urged Ann. "I'm ready." + +"Oh, say----" began Curly, when Ruth interrupted him by seizing the +lantern. + +"Don't fret, Curly Smith," she said. "We're not going without finding out +what that sound means." + +"Maybe it's young owls, and the old one will come back and pick our eyes +out," suggested Ann. + +"Get a club, Curly," commanded Ruth. "We'll be ready, then, for man or +beast." + +This order gave Curly confidence, and made him pluck up his own waning +courage. These girls depended upon him, and he was not the boy to back +down before even a ghostly Unknown. + +He found a club and went side by side with Ruth into the mill. The sound +that had disturbed them was repeated. Ruth was sure, now, that it was +somebody sobbing. + +"Amy! Amy Gregg!" she called again. + +"Pshaw!" murmured Ann. "It isn't Amy. She'd have been out of here in a +hurry when we shouted for her before." + +Ruth was not so sure of that. They came to a break in the flooring. Once +there had been steps here leading down into the cellar of the mill, but +the steps had rotted away. + +"Amy!" called Ruth again. She knelt and held the lantern as far down the +well as she could reach. The sound of sobbing had ceased. + +"Amy, _dear_!" cried Ruth. "It's Ruth and Ann, And Curly is with us. Do +answer if you hear me!" + +There was a murmur from below. Ann cried out in alarm, but Curly +exclaimed: "I believe that's Amy, Ruth! She must be hurt--the silly thing. +She's tumbled down this old well." + +"How will we get to her?" cried Ruth. "Amy! how did you get down there? +Are you hurt, Amy?" + +"Go away!" said a faint voice from below. + +"Old Scratch! Isn't that just like her?" groaned Curly. "She was hiding +from us." + +"Here," said Ruth, drawing up the lantern and setting it on the floor. "It +can't be very deep. I'm going to drop down there, Curly, and then you pass +down the lantern to me." + +"You'll break your neck, Ruth!" cried Ann. + +"No. I'm not going to risk my neck at all," Ruth calmly affirmed. + +She set the lantern on the broken floor and swung herself down into the +black hole. She hung by her hands and her feet did not touch the bottom. +Suddenly she felt a qualm of terror. Perhaps the cellar was a good deal +deeper than she had supposed! + +She could not raise herself up again, and she almost feared to drop. "Let +down the light, Curly!" she whispered. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +DISASTER THREATENS + + +Before Curly could comply with Ruth's whispered request, her fingers +slipped on the edge of the flooring. "Oh!" she cried out, and--dropped as +much as three inches! + +"Goodness me, Ruth!" gasped Ann Hicks. "Are you killed?" + +"No--o. But I might as well have been as to be scared to death," declared +the girl of the Red Mill. "I never thought the cellar was so shallow." + +There was a rustling near by. Ruth thought of rats and almost screamed +aloud. "Give me the lantern--quick!" she called up to Curly Smith. + +"Here you are," said that youth. "And if Amy is down there she ought to be +ashamed of herself--making us so much trouble." + +Amy was there, as Ruth saw almost immediately when she could throw the +radiance of the lantern about her. But Ruth did not feel like scolding the +younger girl. + +Amy had crept away into a corner. Her movements made the rustling Ruth +had heard. She hid her face against her arm and sobbed with abandonment. +Her dress was torn and muddy, her shoes showed that she had waded in mire. +She had lost her hat and her flaxen hair was a tangle of briers and green +burrs. + +"My _dear_!" cried Ruth, kneeling down beside her. "What does it mean? Why +did you come here? Oh, you're sick!" + +A single glance at the flushed face and neck of the smaller girl, and a +tentative touch upon her wrist, assured Ruth of that last fact. Amy seemed +burning up with fever. Ruth had never seen a case of scarlet fever, but +she feared that might be Amy's trouble. + +"How long have you been here?" she asked Amy. + +"Si--since--since it got dark," choked the girl. + +"Is your throat sore?" asked Ruth, anxiously. + +"Yes, it is; aw--awful sore." + +"And you're feverish," said Ruth. + +"I--I'm aw--all shivery, too," wept Amy Gregg, quite given up to misery +now. + +Ruth was confident that the smaller girl had developed the fever that she +feared. Chill, fever, sore throat, and all, made the diagnosis seem quite +reasonable. + +"How did you get into this cellar?" she asked Amy. + +"There's a hole in the underpinning over yonder," said the culprit. + +"Come on, then; we'll get out that way. Can you walk?" + +"Oh--oh--yes," choked Amy. + +She proved this by immediately starting out of the cellar. Ruth lit the +way with the lantern. + +"Hi!" shouted Curly Smith, "where are you going with that light?" + +"Come back to the door," commanded Ruth's muffled voice in the cellar. +"You can find your way all right." + +"What do you know about that?" demanded Ann. "Leaves us in the lurch for +that miserable child, who ought to be walloped." + +"Oh, Ann, don't say that!" cried Ruth, as she and the sick girl appeared +at the mill door. "No! don't come near us. I'll carry the lantern myself +and lead Amy. She's not feeling well, but she can walk. We must get her to +Mrs. Smith's just as soon as possible and call a doctor." + +"What's the matter with her?" demanded Curly, curiously. + +"She feels bad. That's enough," said Ruth, shortly. "Come on, Amy." + +For once Amy Gregg was glad to accept Ruth Fielding's help. She had no +idea what Ruth thought was the matter with her, and she stumbled on beside +the older girl, sleepy and ill, given up to utter misery. Curly and Ann +began to be suspicious when Ruth forbade them to approach Amy and herself. + +"Old Scratch!" whispered the boy to the Western girl. "I bet Amy's got +small-pox or something. Ruth Fielding will catch it, too." + +"Hush!" exclaimed Ann, fiercely. "It's not as bad as that." + +It was a long walk to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's. At the last, Ruth almost carried +Amy, who was not a particularly small girl. Curly grabbed the lantern and +insisted upon walking close to them. + +"No matter if I _do_ catch the epizootic; guess I'll get over it," said +the boy. + +They finally came to the Smith house. Helen and Mrs. Sadoc Smith came out +on the porch when the dog barked. Ruth made Ann and Curly go ahead and +held back with the sick girl. + +"You go right upstairs with Helen, Ann," commanded Ruth. "I want to talk +to Mrs. Smith about Amy. She must be put in a warm room downstairs." + +Mrs. Sadoc Smith agreed to this proposal the instant she saw Amy's flushed +face and heard her muttering. + +"You telephone for Doctor Lambert, Henry," commanded Mrs. Smith. "We'll +have him give a look at her--though I could dose her myself, I reckon, and +bring her out all right." + +Ruth feared the worst. She secretly stuck to her first diagnosis that Amy +had scarlet fever, but she did not say this to Mrs. Smith. They put Amy to +bed between blankets, and Mrs. Smith succeeded in getting the girl to +drink a dose of hot tea. + +"That'll start her perspiring, which won't do a bit of harm," she said to +Ruth. "But I never saw anybody's face so red before--and her hands and +arms, too. She's breaking all out, I do declare." + +Ruth was thinking: "If they have to quarantine Amy, I'll be quarantined +with her. I'll have to nurse her instead of going to school. Poor little +thing! she will require somebody's constant attention. + +"But, oh dear!" added the girl of the Red Mill, "what will become of my +school work? I'll never be able to graduate in the world. Lucky those +moving pictures are taken--I won't be needed any more in those. Oh, dear!" + +Ruth did not allow a murmur to escape her lips, however. She insisted on +remaining by the patient all night, too. Mrs. Smith was not able to quiet +the sick girl as well as Ruth did when the delirium Amy developed became +wilder. + +It was almost daylight before Dr. Lambert came. He had been out of town on +a case, but came at once when he returned to Lumberton and found the call +from Mrs. Sadoc Smith's. + +"What is it, Doctor?" asked the old lady. "She's as red as a lobster. Is +it anything catching? This girl ought not to be here, if it is." + +"This girl had better remain here till we find out just what is the +matter," the doctor returned, scowling in a puzzled way at the patient. He +had seen at once that Ruth could control Amy. + +"But what is it?" + +"Fever. Delirium. You can see for yourself. What its name is, I'll tell +you when I come again. Keep on just as you are doing, and give her this +soothing medicine, and plenty of cracked ice--on her tongue, at least. +That is what is the matter; she is consumed with thirst. I'll have to see +that eruption again before I can say for sure what the matter is." + +He went, and left the house in a turmoil of excitement. Helen and Ann did +not wish to go to Briarwood and leave Ruth; but Mrs. Tellingham commanded +them to. Much to his delight, Curly was kept out of his school to run +errands. + +Ruth got a nap on the lounge in the sitting room, and felt better. The +doctor returned at nine o'clock in the forenoon and by that time the sick +girl's face was so swollen that she could scarcely see out of her eyes. +Her hands and wrists were puffed badly, too. + +"Where has she been?" demanded Dr. Lambert. + +Ruth told him what they supposed had happened to Amy the day before and +where she had been found late at night. + +"Humph!" grunted the medical practitioner. "That's what I thought. Effect +of the _Rhus Toxicodendron_. Bad case." + +This sounded very terrible to Ruth until she suddenly remembered something +she had read in her botany. A great feeling of relief came over her. + +"Oh! poison-ash!" she cried. + +"Good land! Nothin' but poison ivy?" demanded Mrs. Sadoc Smith. + +"Poison oak, or poison sumac--whatever you have a mind to call it. But a +bad case of it, I assure you. I'll leave more of the cooling draught; and +I'll send up a salve to put on her face and hands. Don't let it get into +the poor child's eyes--and don't let her tear off the mask which she will +have to wear." + +"Then there is no danger of scarlet fever," whispered Ruth, feeling +relieved. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +PUTTING ONE'S BEST FOOT FORWARD + + +Amy Gregg's escapade created a lot of excitement at Briarwood Hall. +Inasmuch as it affected Ruth, the whole school was in a flutter about it. + +Helen and Ann had come to the Hall, late for breakfast, and spread the +news in the dining hall. They were both sure, by Ruth's actions and the +doctor's first noncommittal report, that Amy had some contagious disease. +Curly had made a deal of the sore throat Amy had confessed to. + +"And if that's so," Helen said, almost in tears, "poor Ruth will be +quarantined for weeks." + +"Why, Helen, how will she graduate?" gasped Lluella. + +"She won't! She can't!" declared Ruth's chum. "It will be dreadful!" + +"I say!" cried Jennie, thoroughly alarmed. "We musn't let her stay there +and nurse that young one. Why! what ever would we do if Ruthie Fielding +didn't graduate?" + +"The class would be without a head," declared Mercy. + +"It would be without a heart, at least--and a great, big one overflowing +with love and tenderness," cried Nettie Parsons, wiping her eyes. + +"I don't want any more breakfast," said Jennie, pushing her plate away. +"Don't talk like that, Nettie. You'll get me to crying too. And that +always spoils my digestion." + +"If Ruth isn't with us when we get our diplomas, I'm sure I don't want +any!" exclaimed Mary Cox. And she meant it, too. Mary Cox believed that +she owed her brother's life to Ruth Fielding, and although she was not +naturally a demonstrative girl, there was nobody at Briarwood Hall who +admired the girl of the Red Mill more than Mary. + +In fact, the threat of disaster to Ruth's graduation plans cast a pall of +gloom over the school. The moving pictures were forgotten; Amy Gregg's +part in the destruction of the West Dormitory ceased to be a topic of +conversation. Was Ruth Fielding going to be held in quarantine? grew to be +a more momentous question than any other. + +Ruth, however, was only absent from her accustomed haunts for two days. +The second day she remained to attend the patient because Amy begged so +hard to have her stay. + +In her weakness and pain the sullen, secretive girl had turned +instinctively to the one person who had been uniformly gentle and kind to +her throughout all her trouble. Nothing that Amy had done or said, had +turned Ruth from her; and the barriers of girl's nature and of her evil +passions were broken down. + +It was not, perhaps, wholly Amy Gregg's fault that her disposition was so +warped. She had received bad advice from some aunts, who had likewise set +the child a bad example in their treatment of Mr. Gregg's second wife, +when he had brought her home to be a mother to Amy. + +The poor child suffered so much from the effect of the poison ivy that the +other girls, and not alone those of her own grade, "just _had_ to be sorry +for Amy," as Mary Pease said. + +"To think!" said that excitable young girl. "She might even lose her +eyesight if she's not careful. My! it must be dreadful to get poisoned +with that nasty ivy. I'll be afraid to go into the woods the whole +summer." + +Of course, it took time for these sentiments to circulate through the +school, and for a better feeling for Amy Gregg to come to the surface; but +the poor girl was laid up for two weeks in Mrs. Sadoc Smith's best +bedroom, and a fortnight is a long time in a girls' boarding school. At +least, it sometimes seems so to the pupils. + +What helped change the girls' opinion of Amy, too, was the fact that Mrs. +Tellingham announced in chapel one morning that Mr. Gregg had sent his +check for five hundred dollars toward the rebuilding of the dormitory, +the walls of which now were completed, and the roof on. + +She spoke, too, of the reason Amy had left her candle burning in her +lonely room in the old West Dormitory that fatal evening. "We failed in +our duty, both as teachers and fellow-pupils," Mrs. Tellingham said. "I +hope that no other girl who enters Briarwood Hall will ever be neglected +and left alone as Amy Gregg was, no matter what the new comer's +disposition or attitude toward us may be." + +To hear the principal take herself to task for lack of foresight and +kindness to a new pupil, made a deep impression upon the school at large, +and when Amy Gregg appeared on the campus again she was welcomed with +gentleness by the other girls. Although Amy Gregg still doubted and shrank +from them for some time, before the end of the term she had her chums, and +was one of a set whose bright, particular star was her one-time enemy, +Mary Pease. + +Meanwhile, the older girls--the seniors who were to graduate--had a new +problem. The films for "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" were reported almost +ready. Mr. Hammond was to release them as soon as he could, in order to +bring all the aid to the dormitory fund possible before the end of the +semester. + +Now the query was, "How is the picture to be advertised?" Merely the +ordinary billing in front of the picture playhouses and on the display +boards, was not enough. An interest must be stirred of a deeper and +broader nature than that which such a casual manner of advertising could +be expected to engender. + +"How'll we do it?" demanded Jennie, with as much solemnity as it was +possible for her rosy, round face to express. "We should invent some +catch-phrase to introduce the great film--something as effective as 'Good +evening! have you used Higgin's Toothpaste?' or, 'You-must-have-a +pound-cake.' You know, something catchy that will stick in people's +minds." + +"It has taken years and years to make some of those catchy trademarks +universal," objected Ruth, seriously. "Our advertising must be done in a +hurry." + +"Well, we've got to put our best foot forward, somehow," declared Helen. +"Everybody must be made to know that the Briarwood girls have a show of +their own--a five-reel film that is a corker----" + +"Hear! hear!" cried Belle. "Wait till the censor gets hold of _that_ +word." + +"Quite right," agreed Ruth. "Let us be lady-like, though the heavens +fall!" + +"And still be natural?" chuckled Jennie. "Impossible!" + +"Her best foot forward--one's best foot forward." Mary Cox kept repeating +Helen's remark while the other girls chattered. Mary had a talent for +drawing. "Say!" she suddenly exclaimed. "I could make a dandy poster with +that for a text." + +"With what for a text?" somebody asked. + +"'Putting One's Best Foot Forward,'" declared Mary Cox, and suddenly +seizing charcoal and paper, she sketched the idea quickly--a smartly +dressed up-to-date Briarwood girl with her right foot advanced--and that +foot, as in a foreshortened photograph--of enormous size. + +The poster took with the girls immensely. There was something chic about +the figure, and the face, while looking like nobody in particular, was a +composite of several of the girls. At least, it was an inspiration on the +part of Mary Cox, and when Mrs. Tellingham saw it, she approved. + +"We'll just send this 'Big Foot Girl' broadcast," cried Helen, who was +proud that her spoken word had been the inspiration for Mary's clever +cartoon. "Come on! we'll have it stamped on our stationery, and write to +everyone we know bespeaking their best attention when they see the poster +in their vicinity." + +"And we'll have new postcards made of Briarwood Hall, with Mary's figure +printed on the reverse," Sarah Fish said. + +They sent a proof of the poster to Mr. Hammond, and to his billing of +"The Heart of a Schoolgirl" he immediately added "The Briarwood Girl with +Her Best Foot Forward." Locally, during the next few weeks, this poster +became immensely popular. + +The campaign of advertising did not end with Mary's poster--no, indeed! In +every way they could think of the girls of Briarwood Hall spread the +tidings of the forthcoming release of the school play. + +Lumberton's advertising space was plastered with the Briarwood Girl and +with other billing weeks before the film could be seen. As every moving +picture theatre in the place clamored for the film, Mr. Hammond had +refused to book it with any. The Opera House was engaged for three days +and nights, a high price for tickets asked, and it was expected that a +goodly sum would be raised for the dormitory right at home. + +However, before the picture of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" came to town, +something else happened in the career of Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill +which greatly influenced her future. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +"SEEING OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US" + + +"I want to tell you girls one thing," said Jennie Stone, solemnly. "If I +get through these examinations without having so low a mark that Miss +Brokaw sends me down into the primary grade, I promise to be good +for--for--well, for the rest of my life--at Briarwood!" + +"Of course," Helen said. "Heavy would limit that vow to something easy." + +"Perhaps she had the same grave doubt about being able to be good that the +little boy felt who was saying his prayers," Belle said. "He prayed: 'Dear +God, please make me a good boy--and if You don't at first succeed, try, +try again!'" + +"But oh! some of the problems _are_ so hard," sighed Lluella. + +"'The Mournful Sisters' will now give their famous sketch," laughed Ruth, +as announcer. "Come, now! altogether, girls!" + + "'Knock, knock, knock! the girls are knocking----Bring the + hammers all this way!'" + +"Never mind, Ruthie Fielding," complained Lluella. "We don't all of us +have the luck you do. All your English made up for you in that +scenario----" + +"And who is _this_ made up, I'd be glad to have somebody tell me?" +interposed Jennie. "Oh, girls! tell me. Do you all see the same thing I +do?" + +The crowd were strolling slowly down the Cedar Walk and the individual the +plump girl had spied had just come into view, walking toward them. He was +a tall, lean man, "as narrow as a happy thought," Jennie muttered, and +dressed in a peculiar manner. + +Few visitors came to Briarwood save parents or friends of the girls. This +man did not even look like a pedler. At least, he carried no sample case, +and he was not walking from the direction of Lumberton. + +His black suit was very dusty and his yellow shoes proved by the dust they +bore, too, that he had walked a long way. + +"He wears a rolling collar and a flowing tie," muttered the irrepressible +Jennie. "Goodness! it almost makes me seasick to look at them. _What_ can +he be? A chaplain in the navy? An actor?" + +"Actor is right," thought Ruth, as the man strutted up the walk. + +The girls, who were attending Ruth and Ann and Amy Gregg a part of the way +to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's, gave the strange man plenty of room on the gravel +walk, but when he came near them he stopped and stared. And he stared at +Ruth. + +"Pardon me, young lady," he said, in a full, sonorous tone. "Are you Miss +Fielding?" + +The other girls drifted away and left Ruth to face the odd looking person. + +"I am Ruth Fielding," Ruth said, much puzzled. + +"Ah! you do not know me?" queried the man. + +"No, sir." + +"My card!" said the man, with a flourish. + +Jennie whispered to the others: "Look at him! He draws and presents that +card as though it were a sword at his enemy's throat! I hope he won't +impale her upon it." + +Ruth, much bewildered, and not a little troubled, accepted the card. On it +was printed: + + AMASA FARRINGTON + Criterion Films + +"Goodness!" thought Ruth. "More moving picture people?" + +"I had the happiness," stated Mr. Farrington, "of being present when the +censors saw the first run of your eminently successful picture, 'The Heart +of a Schoolgirl,' Miss Fielding, and through a mutual friend I learned +where you were to be found. I may say that from your appearance on the +screen I was enabled to recognize you just now." + +Ruth said nothing, but waited for him to explain. There really did not +seem to be anything she could say. + +"I see in that film, Miss Fielding," pursued Mr. Farrington, "the promise +of better work--in time, of course, in time. You are young yet. I believe +you attend this boarding school?" + +"Yes," said Ruth, simply. + +"From the maturity of your treatment of the scenario I fancied you might +be a teacher here at Briarwood," pursued the man, smirking. "But I find +you a young person--extremely young, if I may be allowed the observation, +to have written a scenario of the character of 'The Heart of a +Schoolgirl.'" + +"I wrote it," said Ruth, for she thought the remark was a question. "I had +written one before." + +"Yes, yes, yes!" exclaimed Mr. Farrington. "So I understand. In fact, I +have seen your 'Curiosity.' A very ingeniously thought out reel. And well +acted by the Alectrion Company. Rather good acting, indeed, for _them_." + +"I have not seen it myself," Ruth said, not knowing what the man wanted or +how she ought to speak to him. "Did you wish to talk to me on any matter +of importance?" + +"I may say, Yes, very important--to yourself, Miss Fielding," he said, +with a wide smile. "This is a most important matter. It affects your +entire career as--- I may say--one of our most ingenious young writers for +the screen." + +Ruth stared at him in amazement. Just because she had written two moving +picture scenarios she was quite sure that she was neither famous nor a +genius. Mr. Amasa Farrington's enthusiasm was more amazing than his +appearance. + +"I am sure I do not understand you," Ruth confessed. "Is it something that +you would better talk to Mrs. Tellingham about? I will introduce you to +her----" + +"No, no!" said Mr. Farrington, waving a black-gloved hand with the gesture +_Hamlet_ might have used in waving to his father's ghost. "The lady +preceptress of your school has naught to do with this matter. It is +personal with you." + +"But what _is_ it?" queried Ruth, rather exasperated now. + +"Be not hasty--be not hasty, I beg," said Amasa Farrington. "I know I may +surprise you. I, too, was unknown at one time, and never expected to be +anything more than a traveling Indian Bitters pedler. My latent talent was +developed and fostered by a kindly soul, and I come to you now, Miss +Fielding, in the remembrance of my own youth and inexperience----" + +"For mercy's sake!" gasped Ruth, finally. "What do you wish? I am not in +need of any Indian Bitters." + +"You mistake me--you mistake me," said the man, stiffly. "Amasa Farrington +has long since graduated from the ranks of such sordid toilers. See my +card." + +"I _do_ see your card," the impatient Ruth said, again glancing at the bit +of pasteboard. "I see that you represent something called the 'Criterion +Films.' What are they?" + +"Ah! now you ask a pointed question, young lady," declared Mr. Farrington. +"Rather you should ask, 'What will they be?' They will be the most widely +advertised films ever released for the entertainment of the public. They +will be written by the most famous writers of scenarios. They will be +produced by the greatest directors in the business. They will be acted by +our foremost Thespians." + +"I--I hope you will be successful, Mr. Farrington," said Ruth, faintly, +not knowing what else to say. + +"We shall be--we must be--I may say that we have _got_ to be!" ejaculated +the ex-Indian Bitters pedler. "And I come to you, Miss Fielding, for your +co-operation." + +"Mine?" gasped Ruth. + +"Yes, Miss Fielding. You are a coming writer of scenarios of a high +character. We geniuses must help each other--we must keep together and +refuse to further the ends of the sordid producers who would bleed us of +our best work." + +This was rather wild talk, and Ruth did not understand it. She said, +frankly: + +"Just what do you mean, Mr. Farrington? What do you want me to do?" + +"Ah! Practical! I like to see you so," said the man, with a flourish, +drawing forth a document of several typewritten pages. "I want you to read +and sign this, Miss Fielding. It is a contract with the Criterion Films--a +most liberal contract, I might say--in which you bind yourself to turn +over to us your scenarios for a term of years, we, meanwhile, agreeing to +push your work and make you known to the public." + +"Oh, dear me!" gasped Ruth. "I'm not sure I want to be so publicly known." + +"Nonsense!" cried the man, in amazement. "Why! in publicity is the breath +of life. Without it, we faint--we die--we, worse--we _vegetate_!" + +"I--I guess I don't mind vegetating--a--a little," stammered Ruth, weakly. + +At that moment Mary Pease came racing down the walk. She waved a letter in +her hand and was calling Ruth's name. + +"Oh, Ruthie Fielding!" she called, when she saw Ruth with the man. "Here's +a letter Mrs. Tellingham forgot to give you. She says it came enclosed in +one from Mr. Hammond to her." + +The excited girl stopped by Ruth, handed her the letter, and stared +frankly at Mr. Amasa Farrington. That person's face began to redden as +Ruth idly opened the unsealed missive. + +Again a green slip fell out. Mary darted toward it and picked it up. She +read the check loudly--excitedly--almost in a shriek! + +"Goodness, gracious me, Ruthie Fielding! Is Mr. Hammond giving you this +money--_all_ this money--for your very own?" + +But Ruth did not reply. She was scanning the letter from the president of +the Alectrion Film Corporation. Mr. Farrington was plainly nervous. + +"Come, Miss Fielding, I am waiting for your answer," he said stiffly. "If +you join the Criterion Films, your success is assured. You are famous from +the start----" + +Ruth was just reading a clause in Mr. Hammond's kind and friendly letter: + + "Don't let your head be turned by success, little girl. And I + don't think it will be. You have succeeded in inventing two very + original scenarios. We will hope you can do better work in time. + But don't force yourself. Above all have nothing to do with + agents of film people who may want you to write something that + they may rush into the market for the benefit of the advertising + your school play will give you." + +"No, Mr. Farrington," said Ruth, kindly. "I do not want to join your +forces. I am not even sure that I shall ever be able to write another +scenario. Circumstances seemed really to force me to write 'The Heart of a +Schoolgirl.' I am glad you think well of it. Good afternoon." + +"Can you beat her?" demanded Jennie, a minute later, when the long-legged +Mr. Farrington had strutted angrily away. "Ruthie is as calm as a summer +lake. She can turn an offer of fame and fortune down with the greatest +ease. Let's see that check, you miserable infant," she went on, grabbing +the slip of paper out of Mary's hand. "Oh, girls, it's really so!" + +Ruth was reading another paragraph in Mr. Hammond's letter. He said: + + "The check enclosed is for you, yourself. It has nothing to do + with the profits of the films we now release. It is a bribe. I + want to see whatever scenarios you may write during the next two + years. I want to see them first. That is all. We do not need a + contract, but if you keep the check I shall know that I am to + have first choice of anything you may write in this line." + +The check went into Ruth's bank account. + +That very week "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" was to be shown at the local +Opera House. Mrs. Tellingham gave a half holiday and engaged enough stages +besides Noah's old Ark, to take all the girls to the play. They went to +the matineé, and the center of enthusiasm was in the seats in the body of +the house reserved for the Briarwood girls. + +The house was well filled at this first showing of the picture in +Lumberton, and more than the girls themselves were enthusiastic over it. +To Ruth's surprise the manager of the house showed "Curiosity" first, and +when she saw her name emblazoned under the title of the one-reel film, +Ruth Fielding had a distinct shock. + +It was a joyful feeling that shook her, however. As never before she +realized that she had really accomplished something in the world. She had +earned money with her brains! And she had written something really worth +while, too. + +When the five-reel drama came on, she was as much absorbed in the story as +though she had not written it and acted in it. It gave her a strange +feeling indeed when she saw herself come on to the screen, and knew just +what she was saying in the picture by the movement of her lips--whether +she remembered the words spoken when the film was made or not. + +Everything went off smoothly. The girls cheered the picture to the echo, +and at the end went marching out, shouting: + + "S.B.--Ah-h-h! + S.B.--Ah-h-h! + Sound our battle-cry + Near and far! + S.B.--All! + Briarwood Hall! + Sweetbriars, do or die-- + This be our battle-cry-- + Briarwood Hall! + _That's all!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +AUNT ALVIRAH AT BRIARWOOD HALL + + +Mr. Cameron, Helen's father, and Mrs. Murchiston, who had acted as +governess for the twins until they were old enough to go to boarding +school, were motoring to Briarwood Hall for the graduation exercises. They +proposed to pick Tom up at Seven Oaks Military Academy, for he would spend +another year at that school, not graduating until the following June. + +They also had another guest in the big automobile who took up a deal of +the attention of the drygoods merchant and Mrs. Murchiston. A two-days' +trip was made of it, the party staying at a hotel for the night. Aunt +Alvirah was going farther from the Red Mill and the town of Cheslow than +she had ever been in her life before. + +First she said she could not possibly do it! What ever would Jabez do +without her? And he would not hear to it, anyway. And then--there was "her +back and her bones." + +"Best place for old folks like me is in the chimbly corner," declared Aunt +Alvirah. "Much as I would love to see my pretty graduate with all them +other gals, I don't see how I can do it. It's like uprooting a tree that's +growed all its life in one spot. I'm deep-rooted at the Red Mill." + +But Mr. Cameron knew it was the wish of the old woman's heart to see "her +pretty" graduate from Briarwood Hall. It had been Aunt Alvirah's word that +had made possible Ruth's first going to school with Helen Cameron. It was +she who had urged Mr. Jabez Potter on, term after term, to give the girl +the education she so craved. + +Indeed, Aunt Alvirah had been the good angel of Ruth's existence at the +Red Mill. Nobody in the world had so deep an interest in the young girl as +the little old woman who hobbled around the Red Mill kitchen. + +Therefore Mr. Cameron was determined that she should go to Briarwood. He +fairly shamed Mr. Potter into hiring a woman to come in to do for Ben and +himself while Aunt Alvirah was gone. + +"You ought to shut up your mill altogether and go yourself, Potter," +declared Mr. Cameron. "Think what your girl has done. I'm proud of my +daughter. You should be doubly proud of your niece." + +"Well, who says I'm not?" snarled Jabez Potter. "But I can't afford to +leave my work to run about to such didoes." + +"You'll be sorry some day," suggested Mr. Cameron. "But, at any rate, Aunt +Alvirah shall go." + +And the trip was one of wonder to Aunt Alvirah Boggs. First she was +alarmed, for she confessed to a fear of automobiles. But when she felt the +huge machine which carried them so swiftly over the roads running so +smoothly, Aunt Alvirah became a convert to the new method of locomotion. + +At the hotel where they halted for the night, there were more wonders. +Aunt Alvirah's knowledge of modern conveniences was from reading only. She +had never before been nearer to a telephone than to look up at the wires +that were strung from post to post before the Red Mill. Modern plumbing, +an elevator, heating by steam, and many other improvements, were like a +sealed book to her. + +She disliked to be waited upon and whispered to Mrs. Murchiston: + +"That air black man a-standin' behind my chair at dinner sort o' makes me +narvous. I'm expectin' of him to grab my plate away before I'm done +eatin'." + +The day set for the graduation exercises at Briarwood Hall was as lovely a +June day as was ever seen. The Cameron automobile rolled into the grounds +and was parked with several dozen machines, just as the girls were +marching into chapel. The fresh young voices chanting "One Wide River to +Cross" floated across to the ears of the party from the Red Mill, and Aunt +Alvirah began to hum the song in her cracked, sweet treble. + +The automobile party followed the smaller girls along the wide walk of the +campus. There was the new West Dormitory, quite completed on the outside, +and sufficiently so inside for the seniors to occupy rooms. Not the old +quartettes and duos of times past; but very beautiful rooms nevertheless, +in which they could later entertain their friends who had come to the +graduation exercises. + +The organist began to play softly on the great organ in the chapel, and +played until every girl was seated--the graduating class upon the +platform. Then the school orchestra played and Helen--very pretty in white +with cherry ribbons--stood forth with her violin and played a solo. + +Mrs. Tellingham welcomed the visitors in a short speech. Then there was a +little silence before the strains of an old, old song quivered through the +big chapel. Helen was playing again, with the soft tones of the organ as a +background. And, in a moment Ruth stood up, stepped forward, and began to +sing. + +The Cheslow party had all heard her before. She was almost always singing +about the old Red Mill when she was at home. But into this ballad she +seemed to put more feeling than ever before. The tears ran down Aunt +Alvirah's withered cheeks. Ruth did not know the dear old woman was +present, for it was to be a surprise to her; but she might have been +singing just for Aunt Alvirah alone. + +"This pays me for coming, Miz' Murchiston, if nothin' else would," +whispered Aunt Alvirah. "I can see my pretty often and often, I hope. But +I'll never hear her sing again like this." + +The exercises went smoothly. A learned man made a helpful speech. Then, +while there was more music, a curtain fell between the graduating class +and the audience. + +When it rose again the girls were grouped about a light throne, trimmed +with flowers, on which sat the girl who had proved herself to be the best +scholar of them all--the lame girl, Mercy Curtis. She was flushed, she was +excited and, if never before, Mercy Curtis looked actually pretty. + +Laughing and singing, her mates rolled the throne down to the edge of the +platform, and there, still sitting in her pretty, flowing white robes, +Mercy gave them the valedictory oration. It was Ruth's idea, filched from +the transformation scene in her moving picture scenario. + +Afterward the other girls had their turns. Ruth's own paper upon "The +Force of Character" and Jennie's funny "History of a Bunch of Briers" +received the most applause. + +Mrs. Tellingham came last. As was her custom she spoke briefly of the work +of the past year and her hopes for the next one; but mainly she lingered +upon the story of the rebuilding of the West Dormitory and the loyalty the +girls had shown in making the new building a possibility. + +There was a debt upon it yet; but the royalties from the picture play were +coming in most satisfactorily. The preceptress urged all her guests to do +what they could to advertise the film of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" in +their home towns, and especially urged them to see it. + +"You will be well repaid. Not alone because it is a true picture of our +boarding school life, but because the writer of the scenario has produced +a good and helpful story, and Mr. Hammond has put it on the screen with +taste and judgment." + +These were Mrs. Tellingham's words, and they made Ruth Fielding very +proud. + +The diplomas were given out after a touching address by the local +clergyman. The girls received the parchments with happy hearts. Their +faces shone and their eyes were bright. + +The graduating class held a sort of reception on the platform; but after a +time Helen urged Ruth away from the crowd. "Come on!" she said. "Let's go +up into the new-old-room. We'll not have many chances of being in it now." + +"That's right. Only to-night," sighed Ruth. "Away to-morrow for the Red +Mill. And next week we start for Dixie. I wonder if we shall have a good +time, Helen. Do you think we ought to have promised Nettie and her aunt +that we would come?" + +"Surely! Why, we'll have a dandy time," declared Helen, "just us girls +alone." + +This belief proved true in the end, as may be learned in the next volume +of this series, to be entitled "Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie; Or, Great +Days in the Land of Cotton." + +"I didn't see your father or Tom or Mrs. Murchiston," Ruth said, as she +and Helen walked across the campus. + +"They are here, just the same," said Helen, laughing. + +"Where?" + +"I shouldn't be surprised if we found them up in our old quartette. Ann is +with her Uncle Bill Hicks, and Mercy is with her father and mother. We +shall have the room to ourselves. We'll get out my new tea set and give +them tea. Come on!" + +Helen raced up the stairs, opened the door of the big room, and then got +behind it so that Ruth, coming hurriedly in, should first see the little, +quivering, eager figure which had risen out of the low chair by the +window. + +"My pretty! my pretty!" gasped Aunt Alvirah. "I seen you graduate, and I +heard you sing, and I listened to your fine readin'. But, oh, my pretty, +how hungry my arms are for ye!" + +She hobbled across the floor to meet Ruth and, for once, forgot her +usually intoned complaint: "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" Ruth caught +her in her strong young arms. Helen slipped out and joined her family in +the hall. + +In a little while Tom thundered on the door, and shouted: "Hey! we're +dying for that cup of tea Helen promised us, Ruthie Fielding. Aren't you +ever going to let us in?" + +Ruth's smiling face immediately appeared. Her eyes were still wet and her +lips trembled as she said: + +"Come in, all of you, do! We are sure to have a nice cup of tea. Aunt +Alvirah is making it herself." + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures, by Alice Emerson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14635 *** |