diff options
Diffstat (limited to '36747.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 36747.txt | 6374 |
1 files changed, 6374 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/36747.txt b/36747.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2c454d --- /dev/null +++ b/36747.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6374 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie, by Alice B. Emerson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie + Great Times in the Land of Cotton + +Author: Alice B. Emerson + +Release Date: July 16, 2011 [EBook #36747] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank, David Edwards and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + +[Illustration: RUTH SECURED A GRIP ON THE BLACK MAN'S SLEEVE.] + + + + + Ruth Fielding + Down In Dixie + + OR + + GREAT TIMES IN THE LAND OF COTTON + + BY + + ALICE B. EMERSON + + Author of "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill," "Ruth + Fielding and the Gypsies," 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 Raby 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 Homeward Bound + + Printed in U. S. A. + + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing 1 + II. The Worm Turns 12 + III. The Boy in the Moonlight 25 + IV. The Capes of Virginia 33 + V. The Newspaper Account 45 + VI. All in the Rain 56 + VII. Miss Catalpa 66 + VIII. Under the Umbrella 73 + IX. Sunshine at the Gatehouse 78 + X. An Adventure in Norfolk 86 + XI. At the Merredith Plantation 94 + XII. The Boy at the Warehouse 103 + XIII. Ruth Is Troubled 111 + XIV. Ruth Finds a Helper 118 + XV. The Ride to Holloways 123 + XVI. The "Hop" 135 + XVII. The Flood Rises 139 + XVIII. Across the River 145 + XIX. "If Aunt Rachel Were Only Here" 151 + XX. Curly Plays an Heroic Part 159 + XXI. The Next Morning 166 + XXII. Something for Curly 174 + XXIII. "Here's a State of Things!" 182 + XXIV. The Chamber Concert 189 + XXV. Back Home 202 + + + + +RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE + + + + +CHAPTER I--A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING + + +"Isn't that the oddest acting girl you ever saw, Ruth?" + +"Goodness! what a gawky thing!" agreed Ruth Fielding, who was just +getting out of the taxicab, following her chum, Helen Cameron. + +"And those white-stitched shoes!" gasped Helen. "Much too small for her, +I do believe!" + +"How that skirt does hang!" exclaimed Ruth. + +"She looks just as though she had slept in all her clothes," said Helen, +giggling. "What do you suppose is the matter with her, Ruth?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," Ruth Fielding said. "She's going on this boat +with us, I guess. Maybe we can get acquainted with her," and she +laughed. + +"Excuse _me_!" returned Helen. "I don't think I care to. Oh, look!" + +The girl in question--who was odd looking, indeed--had been paying the +cabman who had brought her to the head of the dock. The dock was on West +Street, New York City, and the chums from Cheslow and the Red Mill had +never been in the metropolis before. So they were naturally observant of +everything and everybody about them. + +The strange girl, after paying her fare, started to thrust her purse +into the shabby handbag she carried. Just then one of the colored +porters hurried forward and took up the suitcase that the girl had set +down on the ground at her feet when she stepped from the cab. + +"Right dis way, miss," said the porter politely, and started off with +the suitcase. + +"Hey! what are you doing?" demanded the girl in a sharp and shrill +voice; and she seized the handle of the bag before the porter had taken +more than a step. + +She grabbed it so savagely and gave it such a determined jerk, that the +porter was swung about and almost thrown to the ground before he could +let go of the handle. + +"I'll 'tend to my own bag," said this vigorous young person, and strode +away down the dock, leaving the porter amazed and the bystanders much +amused. + +"My goodness!" gasped the negro, when he got his breath. "Dat gal is as +strong as a ox--sho' is! I nebber seed her like. _She_ don't need no +he'p, _she_ don't." + +"Let him take our bags--poor fellow," said Helen, turning around after +paying their own driver. "Wasn't that girl rude?" + +"Here," said Ruth, laughing and extending her light traveling bag to the +disturbed porter, "you may carry _our_ bags to the boat. We're not as +strong as that girl." + +"She sho' was a strong one," said the negro, grinning. "I declar' for't, +missy! I ain' nebber seed no lady so strong befo'." + +"Isn't he delicious?" whispered Helen, pinching Ruth's arm as they +followed the man down the dock. "_He's_ no Northern negro. Why, he +sounds just as though we were as far as Virginia, at least, already! Oh, +my dear! our fun has begun." + +"I feel awfully important," admitted Ruth. "And I guess you do. +Traveling alone all the way from Cheslow to New York." + +"And this city _is_ so big," sighed Helen. "I hope we can stop and see +it when we come back from the Land of Cotton." + +They were going aboard the boat that would take them down the coast of +New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia to the Capes of Virginia and +Old Point Comfort. There they were to meet their Briarwood Hall +schoolmate, Nettie Parsons, and her aunt, Mrs. Rachel Parsons. + +The girls and their guide passed a gang of stevedores rushing the last +of the freight aboard the boat, their trucks making a prodigious +rumbling. + +They came to the passenger gangway along which the porter led them +aboard and to the purser's office. There he waited, clinging to the +bags, until the ship's officer had looked at their tickets and stateroom +reservation, and handed them the key. + +"Lemme see dat, missy," said the porter to Ruth. "I done know dis boat +like a book, I sho' does." + +"And, poor fellow, I don't suppose he ever looked inside a book," +whispered Helen. "Isn't he comical?" + +Ruth was afraid the porter would hear them talking about him, so she +fell back until the man with the bags was some distance ahead. He was +leading them to the upper saloon deck. Their reservation, which Tom +Cameron, Helen's twin brother, had telegraphed for, called for an +outside stateroom, forward, on this upper deck--a pleasantly situated +room. + +Tom could not come with his sister and her chum, for he was going into +the woods with some of his school friends; but he was determined that +the girls should have good accommodations on the steamboat to Old Point +Comfort and Norfolk. + +"And he's just the best boy!" Ruth declared, fumbling in her handbag as +they viewed the cozy stateroom. "Oh! here's Mrs. Sadoc Smith's letter." + +Helen had tipped the grinning darkey royally and he had shuffled out. +She sat down now on the edge of the lower berth. This was the first time +the chums had ever been aboard a boat for over night, and the "close +comforts" of a stateroom were quite new to Helen and Ruth. + +"What a dinky little washstand," Helen said. "Oh, my! Ruth, see the +ice-water pitcher and tumblers in the rack. Guess they expect the boat +to pitch a good deal. Do you suppose it will be rough?" + +"Don't know. Listen to this," Ruth said shortly, reading the letter +which she had opened. "I only had a chance to glance at Mrs. Smith's +letter before we started. Just listen here: She says Curly has got into +trouble." + +"Curly?" cried Helen, suddenly interested. "Never! What's he done now?" + +"I guess this isn't any fun," said Ruth, seriously. "His grandmother is +greatly disturbed. The constable has been to the house looking for Curly +and threatens to arrest him." + +"The poor boy!" exclaimed Helen. "I knew he was an awful cut-up----" + +"But there never was an ounce of meanness in Henry Smith!" Ruth +declared, quite excited. "I don't believe it can be as bad as she +thinks." + +"His grandmother has always been so strict with him," said Helen. "You +know how she treated him while we were lodging with her when the new +West Dormitory at Briarwood was being built." + +"I remember very clearly," agreed Ruth. "And, after all, Curly wasn't +such a bad fellow. Mrs. Smith says he threatens to run away. _That_ +would be awful." + +"Goodness! I believe I'd run away myself," said Helen, "if I had anybody +who nagged me as Mrs. Sadoc Smith does Henry." + +"And she doesn't mean to. Only she doesn't like boys--nor understand +them," Ruth said, as she folded the letter with a sigh. "Poor Curly!" + +"Come on! let's get out on deck and see them start. I do just long to +see the wonderful New York skyline that everybody talks about." + +"And the tall buildings that we couldn't see from the taxicab window," +added Ruth. + +"Who's going to keep the key?" demanded Helen, as Ruth locked the +stateroom door. + +"_I_ am. You're not to be trusted, young lady," laughed Ruth. "Where's +your handbag?" + +"Why--I left it inside." + +"With all that money in it? Smart girl! And the window blind is not +locked. The rules say never to leave the room without locking the window +or the blind." + +"I'll fix _that_," declared Helen, and reached in to slide the blind +shut. They heard the catch snap and were satisfied. + +As they went through the passage from the outer deck to the saloon they +saw a figure stalking ahead of them which made Helen all but cry out. + +"I see her," Ruth whispered. "It's the same girl." + +"And she's going into that stateroom," added Helen, as the person +unlocked the door of an inside room. + +"I'd like to see her face," Ruth said, smiling. "I see she has curly +hair, and I believe it's short." + +"We'll look her up after the steamboat gets off. Her room is number +forty-eight," Helen said. "Come on, dear! Feel the jar of the engines? +They must be casting off the hawsers." + +The girls went up another flight of broad, polished stairs and came out +upon the hurricane deck. They were above the roof of the dock and could +look down upon it and see the people bidding their friends on the boat +good-bye while the vessel backed out into the stream. The starting was +conducted with such precision that they heard few orders given, and only +once did the engine-room gong clang excitedly. + +The steamer soon swung its stern upstream, and the bow came around, +clearing the end of the pier next below, and so heading down the North +River. Certain tugboats and wide ferries tooted their defiance at the +ocean-going craft, for the vessel on which Ruth and Helen were traveling +was one of the largest coast-wise steamers sailing out of the port. + +It was a lovely afternoon toward the close of June. The city had been as +hot as a roasting pan, Helen said; but on the high deck the breeze, +breathed from the Jersey hills, lifted the damp locks from the girls' +brows. A soft mist crowned the Palisades. The sun, already descending, +drew another veil before his face as he dropped behind the Orange +Mountains, his red rays glistening splendidly upon the towers and domes +of lower Broadway. + +They passed the Battery in a few minutes, with the round, pot-bellied +aquarium and the immigration offices. The upper bay was crowded with +craft of all kind. The Staten Island ferries drummed back and forth, the +perky little ferryboat to Ellis Island and the tugboat to the Statue of +Liberty crossed their path. In their wake the small craft dipped in the +swell of the propeller's turmoil. + +The Statue of Liberty herself stood tall and stately in the afternoon +sunlight, holding her green, bronze torch aloft. The girls could not +look at this monument without being impressed by its stateliness and +noble features. + +"And we've read about it, and thought so much about this present of Miss +Picolet's nation to ours! It is very wonderful," Ruth said. + +"And that fort! See it?" cried Helen, pointing to Governor's Island on +the other bow. "Oh, and see, Ruth! that great, rusty, iron steamship +anchored out yonder. She must be a great, sea-going tramp." + +Every half minute there was something new for the chums to exclaim over. + +In fifteen minutes they were passing through the Narrows. The two girls +were staring back at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, when a petty +officer above on the lookout post hailed the bridge amidships. + +"Launch coming up, sir. Port, astern." + +There was a sudden rush of those passengers in the bows who heard to the +port side. "Oh, come on. Let's see!" cried Helen, and away the two girls +went with the crowd. + +The perky little launch shoved up close to the side of the tall steamer. +It flew a pennant which the girls did not understand; but some gentleman +near them said laughingly: + +"That is a police launch. I guess we're all arrested. See! they're +coming aboard." + +The steamer did not slow down at all; but one of the men in the bow of +the pitching launch threw a line with a hook on the end of it, and this +fastened itself over the rail of the lower deck. By leaning over the +rail above Ruth and Helen could see all that went on below. + +In a moment deckhands caught the line and hauled up with it a rope +ladder. This swung perilously--so the girls thought--over the +green-and-white leaping waves. + +A man started up the swinging ladder. The steamer dipped ever so little +and he scrambled faster to keep out of the water's reach. + +"The waves act just like hungry wolves, or like dogs, leaping after +their prey," said Ruth reflectively. "See them! They almost caught his +legs that time." + +Another man started up the ladder the moment the first one had swarmed +over the rail. Then another came, and a fourth. Four men in all boarded +the still fast-moving steamer. Everybody was talking eagerly about it, +and nobody knew what it meant. + +These men were surely not passengers who had been belated, for the +launch still remained attached to the steamer. + +Ruth and Helen went back into the saloon. There they saw their smiling +porter, now in the neat black dress of a waiter, bustling about. "Any +little t'ing I kin do fo' yo', missy?" he asked. + +"No, thank you," Ruth replied, smiling. But Helen burst out with: "Do +tell us what those men have come aboard for?" + +"Dem men from de _po_-lice launch?" inquired the black man. + +"Yes. What are they after? Are they police?" + +"Ya-as'm. Dem's _po_-lice," said the darkey, rolling his eyes. "Dey tell +me dey is wantin' a boy wot's been stealin'--an' he's done got girl's +clo'es on, missy." + +"A boy in girl's clothing?" gasped Ruth. + +"'A wolf in sheep's clothing!'" laughed her chum. + +"Ya-as indeedy, missy. Das wot dey say." + +"Are they _sure_ he came aboard this boat?" asked Ruth anxiously. + +"Sho is, missy. Dey done trailed him right to de dock. Das wot de head +steward heard 'em say. De taxicab man remembered him--he acted so funny +in dem girl's clo'es--he, he, he! Das one silly trick, das wot _dat_ is," +chuckled the darkey. "No boy gwine t' look like his sister in her +clo'es--no, indeedy." + +But Ruth and Helen were now staring at each other with the same thought +in their minds. "Oh, Helen!" murmured Ruth. And, "Oh, Ruth!" responded +Helen. + +"Ought we to tell?" pursued Helen, putting all the burden of deciding +the question on her chum as usual. "It's that very strange looking girl +we saw going into number forty-eight; isn't it?" + +"It is most certainly that person," agreed Ruth positively. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE WORM TURNS + + +Ruth Fielding was plentifully supplied with good sense. Under ordinary +circumstances she would not have tried to shield any person who was a +fugitive from justice. + +But in this case there seemed to her no reason for Helen and her to +volunteer information--especially when such information as they might +give was based on so infirm a foundation. They had seen an odd looking +girl disappear into one of the staterooms. They had really nothing more +than a baseless conclusion to back up the assertion that the individual +in question was disguised, or was the boy wanted by the police. + +Of course, whatever Ruth said was best, and Helen would agree to it. The +latter had learned long since that her chum was gifted with judgment +beyond her years, and if she followed Ruth Fielding's lead she would not +go far wrong. + +Indeed, Helen began to admire her chum soon after Ruth first appeared at +Jabez Potter's Red Mill, on the banks of the Lumano, near which Helen's +father had built his all-year-around home. Ruth had come to the old Red +Mill as a "charity child." At least, that is what miserly Jabez Potter +considered her. Nor was he chary at first of saying that he had taken +his grand-niece in because there was no one else to whom she could go. + +Young as she then was, Ruth felt her position keenly. Had it not been +for Aunt Alvirah (who was nobody's relative, but everybody's aunt), whom +the miller had likewise "taken in out of charity" to keep house for him +and save the wages of a housekeeper, Ruth would never have been able to +stay at the Red Mill. Her uncle's harshness and penurious ways mortified +the girl, and troubled her greatly as time went on. + +Ruth succeeded in finding her uncle's cashbox that had been stolen from +him at the time a freshet carried away a part of the old mill. These +introductory adventures are told in the initial volume of the series, +called: "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill; or, Jacob Parloe's Secret." + +Because he felt himself in Ruth's debt, her Uncle Jabez agreed to pay +for her first year's tuition and support at a girls' boarding school to +which Mr. Cameron was sending Helen. Helen was Ruth's dearest friend, +and the chums, in the second volume, "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall," +entered school life hand in hand, making friends and rivals alike, and +having adventures galore. + +The third volume took Ruth and her friends to Snow Camp, a winter lodge +in the Adirondack wilderness. The fourth tells of their summer +adventures at Lighthouse Point on the Atlantic Coast. The fifth book +deals with the exciting times the girls and their boy friends had with +the cowboys at Silver Ranch, out in Montana. The sixth story is about +Cliff Island and its really wonderful caves, and what was hidden in +them. Number seven relates the adventures of a "safe and sane" Fourth of +July at Sunrise Farm and the rescue of the Raby orphans. While "Ruth +Fielding and the Gypsies," the eighth volume of the series, relates a +very important episode in Ruth's career; for by restoring a valuable +necklace to an aunt of one of her school friends she obtains a reward of +five thousand dollars. + +This money, placed to Ruth's credit in the bank by Mr. Cameron, made the +girl of the Red Mill instantly independent of Uncle Jabez, who had so +often complained of the expense Ruth was to him. Much to Aunt Alvirah's +sorrow, Uncle Jabez became more exacting and penurious when Ruth's +school expenses ceased to trouble him. + +"I could almost a-wish, my pretty, that you hadn't got all o' that +money, for Jabez Potter was l'arnin' to let go of a dollar without +a-squeezin' all the tail feathers off the eagle that's onto it," said +the rheumatic, little, old woman. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! It's +nice for you to have your own livin' pervided for, Ruthie. But it's +awful for Jabez Potter to get so selfish and miserly again." + +Aunt Alvirah had said this to the girl of the Red Mill just before Ruth +started for Briarwood Hall at the opening of her final term at that +famous school. In the story immediately preceding the present narrative, +"Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures; Or, Helping the Dormitory Fund," Ruth +and her school chums were much engaged in that modern wonder, the making +of "movie" films. Ruth herself had written a short scenario and had had +it accepted by Mr. Hammond, president of the Alectrion Film Corporation, +when one of the school dormitories was burned. To help increase the fund +for a new structure, the girls all desired to raise as much money as +possible. + +Ruth was inspired to write a second scenario--a five-reel drama of +schoolgirl life--and Mr. Hammond produced it for the benefit of the Hall. +"The Heart of a Schoolgirl" made a big hit and brought Ruth no little +fame in her small world. + +With Helen and the other girls who had been so close to her during her +boarding school life, Ruth Fielding had now graduated from Briarwood +Hall. Nettie Parsons and her Aunt Rachel had invited the girl of the Red +Mill and Helen Cameron to go South for a few weeks following their +graduation; and the two chums were now on their way to meet Mrs. Rachel +Parsons and Nettie at Old Point Comfort. And from this place their trip +into Dixie would really begin. + +Ruth had stated positively her belief that the odd looking girl they had +seen going into the stateroom numbered forty-eight was the disguised boy +the police were after. But belief is not conviction, after all. They had +no proof of the identity of the person in question. + +"So, why should we interfere?" said Ruth, quietly. "We don't know the +circumstances. Perhaps he's only accused." + +"I wish we could have seen his face," said Helen. "I'd like to know what +kind of looking girl he made. Remember when Curly Smith dressed up in +Ann Hick's old frock and hat that time?" + +"Yes," said Ruth, smiling. "But Curly looks like a girl when he's +dressed that way. If his hair were long and he learned to walk better----" + +"That girl we saw going into the stateroom was about Curly's size," said +Helen reflectively. + +"Poor Curly!" said Ruth. "I hope he is not in any serious trouble. It +would really break his grandmother's heart if he went wrong." + +"I suppose she does love him," observed Helen. "But she is so awfully +strict with him that I wonder the boy doesn't run away again. He did +when he was a little kiddie, you know." + +"Yes," said Ruth, smiling. "His famous revolt against kilts and long +curls. You couldn't really blame him." + +However, the girls were not particularly interested in the fate of Henry +Smith just then. They did not wish to lose any of the sights outside, +and were just returning to the open deck when they saw a group of men +hurrying through the saloon toward the bows. With the group Ruth and +Helen recognized the purser who had vised their tickets. One or two of +the other men, though in citizen's dress, were unmistakably policemen. + +"Here's the room," said the purser, stopping suddenly, and referring to +the list he carried. "I remember the person well. I couldn't say he +didn't look like a young girl; but she--or he--was peculiar looking. Ah! +the door's locked." + +He rattled the knob. Then he knocked. Helen seized Ruth's hand. "Oh, +see!" she cried. "It is forty-eight." + +"I see it is. Poor fellow," murmured Ruth. + +"If she _is_ a fellow." + +"And what will happen if he is a girl?" laughed Ruth. + +"Won't she be mad!" cried Helen. + +"Or terribly embarrassed," Ruth added. + +"Here," said one of the police officers, "he may be in there. By your +lief, Purser," and he suddenly put his knee against the door below the +lock, pressed with all his force, and the door gave way with a +splintering of wood and metal. + +The officer plunged into the room, his comrades right behind him. Quite +a party of spectators had gathered in the saloon to watch. But there was +nobody in the stateroom. + +"The bird's flown, Jim," said one policeman to another. + +"Hullo!" said the purser. "What's that in the berth?" + +He picked up a dress, skirt, and hat. Ruth and Helen remembered that +they were like those that the strange looking girl had worn. One of the +policemen dived under the berth and brought forth a pair of high, fancy, +laced shoes. + +"He's dumped his disguise here," growled an officer. "Either he went +ashore before the boat sailed, or he's in his proper clothes again. Say! +it would take us all night, Jim, to search this steamer." + +"And we're not authorized to go to the Capes with her," said the +policeman who had been addressed as Jim. "We'd better go back and +report, and let the inspector telegraph to Old Point a full description. +Maybe the dicks there can nab the lad." + +The stateroom door was closed but could not be locked again. The purser +and policemen went away, and the girls ran out on deck to see the police +officers go down the ladder and into the launch. + +They all did this without accident. Then the rope ladder was cast off +and the launch chugged away, turning back toward the distant city. + +The steamer had now passed Romer Light and Sandy Hook and was through +the Ambrose Channel. The Scotland Lightship, courtesying to the rising +swell, was just ahead. Ruth and Helen had never seen a lightship before +and they were much interested in this drab, odd looking, short-masted +vessel on which a crew lived month after month, and year after year, +with only short respites ashore. + +"I should think it would be dreadfully lonely," Helen said, with +reflection. "Just to tend the lights--and the fish, perhaps--eh?" + +"I don't suppose they have dances or have people come to afternoon tea," +giggled Ruth. "What do you expect?" + +"Poor men! And no ladies around. Unless they have mermaids visit them," +and Helen chuckled too. "Wouldn't it be fun to hire a nice big launch--a +whole party of us Briarwood girls, for instance--and sail out there and +go aboard that lightship? Wouldn't the crew be surprised to see us?" + +"Maybe," said Ruth seriously, "they wouldn't let us aboard. Maybe it's +against the rules. Or perhaps they only select men who are misanthropes, +or women-haters, to tend lightships." + +"_Are_ there such things as women-haters?" demanded Helen, big-eyed and +innocent looking. "I thought _they_ were fabled creatures--like--like +mermaids, for instance." + +"Goodness! Do you think, Helen Cameron, that every man you meet is going +to fall on his knees to you?" + +"No-o," confessed Helen. "That is, not unless I push him a little, weeny +bit! And that reminds me, Ruthie. You ought to see the great bunch of +roses Tom had the gardener cut yesterday to send to some girl. Oh, a +barrel of 'em!" + +"Indeed?" asked Ruth, a faint flush coming into her cheek. "Has Tom a +crush on a new girl? I thought that Hazel Gray, the movie queen, had his +full and complete attention?" + +"How you talk!" cried Helen. "I suppose Tom will have a dozen flames +before he settles down----" + +Ruth suddenly burst into laughter. She knew she had been foolish for a +moment. + +"What nonsense to talk so about a boy in a military school!" she cried. +"Why! he's only a boy yet." + +"Yes, I know," sighed Helen, speaking of her twin reflectively. "He's +merely a child. Isn't it funny how much older we are than Tom is?" + +"Goodness me!" gasped Ruth, suddenly seizing her chum by the arm. + +"O-o-o! ouch!" responded Helen. "What a grip you've got, Ruth! What's +the matter with you?" + +"See there!" whispered Ruth, pointing. + +She had turned from the rail. Behind them, and only a few feet away, was +the row of staterooms of which their own was one. Near by was a passage +from the outer deck to the saloon, and from the doorway of this passage +a person was peeping in a sly and doubtful way. + +"Goodness!" whispered Helen. "Can--can it be?" + +The figure in the doorway was lean and tall. Its gown hung about its +frame as shapelessly as though the frock had been hung upon a +clothespole! The face of the person was turned from the two girls; but +Ruth whispered: + +"It's that boy they were looking for." + +"Oh, Ruth! Can it be possible?" Helen repeated. + +"See the short hair?" + +"Of course!" + +"Oh!" + +The Unknown had turned swiftly and disappeared into the passage. "Come +on!" cried Helen. "Let's see where he goes to." + +Ruth was nothing loath. Although she would not have told anybody of +their discovery, she was very curious. If the disguised boy had left his +first disguise in stateroom forty-eight, he had doubly misled his +pursuers, for he was still in women's clothing. + +"Oh, dear me!" whispered Helen, as the two girls crowded into the +doorway, each eager to be first. "I feel just like a regular detective." + +"How do you know how a regular detective feels?" demanded Ruth, +giggling. "Those detectives who came aboard just now did not look as +though they felt very comfortable. And one of them chewed tobacco!" + +"Horrors!" cried Helen. "Then I feel like the detective of fiction. I am +sure _he_ never chews tobacco." + +"There! there she is!" breathed Ruth, stopping at the exit of the +passage where they could see a good portion of the saloon. + +"Come on! we mustn't lose sight of her," said Helen, with determination. + +The awkward figure of the supposedly disguised boy was marching up the +saloon and the girls almost ran to catch up with it. + +"Do you suppose he will _dare_ go to room forty-eight again?" whispered +Ruth. + +"And like enough they are watching that room." + +"Well--see there!" + +The person they were following suddenly wheeled around and saw them. +Ruth and Helen were so startled that they stopped, too, and stared in +return. The face of the person in which they were so interested was a +rather grim and unpleasant face. The cheeks were hollow, the short hair +hung low on the forehead and reached only to the collar of the jacket +behind. There were two deep wrinkles in the forehead over the high +arched nose. Although the person had on no spectacles, the girls were +positive that the eyes that peered at them were near-sighted. + +"Why we should refer to her as _she_, when without doubt she is a _he_, +I do not know," said Helen, in a whisper, to Ruth. + +The Unknown suddenly walked past them and sought a seat on one of the +divans. The girls sat near, where they could keep watch of her, and they +discussed quite seriously what they should do. + +"I wish I could hear its voice," whispered Ruth. "Then we might tell +something more about it." + +"But we heard him speak on the dock--don't you remember?" + +"Oh, yes! when he almost knocked that poor colored man down." + +"Yes. And his voice was just a squeal then," said Helen. "He tried to +disguise it, of course." + +"While now," added Ruth, chuckling, "he is as silent as the Sphinx." + +The stranger was busy, just the same. A shabby handbag had been opened +and several pamphlets and folders brought forth. The near-sighted eyes +were made to squint nervously into first one of these folders and then +another, and finally there were several laid out upon the seat about the +Unknown. + +Suddenly the Unknown looked up and caught the two chums staring frankly +in the direction of "his, her, or its" seat. Red flamed into the sallow +cheeks, and gathering up the folders hastily, the person crammed them +into the bag and then started up to make her way aft. But Ruth had +already seen the impoliteness of their actions. + +"Do let us go away, Helen," she said. "We have no right to stare so." + +She drew Helen down the saloon on the starboard side; it seems that the +Unknown stalked down the saloon on the other. The chums and the strange +individual rounded the built-up stairwell of the saloon at the same +moment and came face to face again. + +"Well, I want to know!" exclaimed the Unknown suddenly, in a viperish +voice. "What do you girls mean? Are you following me around this boat? +And what for, I'd like to know?" + +"There!" murmured Ruth, with a sigh. "The worm has turned. We're in for +it, Helen--and we deserve it!" + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE BOY IN THE MOONLIGHT + + +A mistake could scarcely be made in the sex of the comical looking +individual at whom the chums had been led to stare so boldly, when once +they heard the voice. That shrill, sharp tone could never have come from +a male throat. Now, too, the Unknown drew a pair of spectacles from her +bag, adjusted them, and glared at Ruth and Helen. + +"I want to know," repeated the woman sternly, "what you mean by +following me around this boat?" + +The chums were tongue-tied in their embarrassment for the moment, but +Helen managed to blurt out: "We--we didn't know----" + +She was on the verge of making a bad matter worse, by saying that they +didn't know the lady was a lady! But Ruth broke in with: + +"Oh, I beg your pardon, I am sure. We did not mean to offend you. Won't +you forgive us, if you think we were rude? I am sure we did not intend +to be." + +It would have been hard for most people to resist Ruth's mildness and +her pleading smile. This person with the spectacles and the short hair +was not moved by the girl of the Red Mill at all. Later Ruth and Helen +understood why not. + +"I don't want any more of your impudence!" the stern woman said. "Go +away and leave me alone. I'd like to have the training of all such girls +as you. _I'd_ teach you what's what!" + +"And I believe she would," gasped Helen, as she and Ruth almost ran back +up to the saloon deck again. "Goodness! she is worse than Miss Brokaw +ever thought of being--and we thought _her_ pretty sharp at times." + +"I wonder what and who the woman is," Ruth murmured. "I am glad she is +nobody whom I have to know." + +"Hope we have seen the last of the hateful old thing!" + +But they had not. As the girls walked forward through the saloon and +approached the spot where they had sat watching the mysterious woman +with the short hair and the shorter temper, a youth got up from one of +the seats and strolled out upon the deck ahead of them. Ruth started, +and turned to look at Helen. + +"My dear!" she said. "Did you see _that_?" + +"Don't point out any other mysteries to me--please!" cried Helen. "We'll +get into a worse pickle." + +"But did you see that boy?" insisted Ruth. + +"No. I'm not looking for boys." + +"Neither am I," Ruth returned. "But I could not help seeing how much +that one resembled Curly Smith." + +"Dear me! You certainly have Henry Smith on the brain," cried Helen. + +"Well, I can't help thinking of the poor boy. I hope we shall hear from +his grandmother again. I am going to write and mail the letter just as +soon as we reach Old Point Comfort." + +The girls had walked slowly on, past the seat where the odd looking +woman whom they had watched had sat down to examine the contents of her +handbag. There were few other passengers about, for as the evening +closed in almost everybody had sought the open deck. + +Suddenly, from behind them, came a sound which seemed to be a cross +between a steam whistle gone mad and the clucking of an excited hen. +Ruth and Helen turned in amazement and saw the lank, mannish figure of +the strange woman flying up the saloon. + +"Stop them! Come back! My ticket!" were the words which finally became +coherent as the strange individual reached the vicinity of the girl +chums. An officer who was passing through happened to be right beside +the two girls when the excited woman reached them. + +She apparently had the intention of seizing hold upon Ruth and Helen, +and the friends, startled, shrank back. The ship's officer promptly +stepped in between the girls and the excited person with the short hair. + +"Wait a moment, madam," he said sharply. "What is it all about?" + +"My ticket!" cried the short-haired woman, glaring through her +spectacles at Ruth and Helen. + +"Your ticket?" said the officer. "What about it?" + +"It isn't there!" and she pointed tragically to the seat on which she +had previously rested. + +"Did you leave it there?" queried the officer, guessing at the reason +for her excitement. + +"I just did, sir!" snapped the stern woman. + +"Your ticket for your trip to Norfolk?" + +"No, it isn't. It's my ticket for my railroad trip from Norfolk to +Charleston. I had it folded in one of those Southern Railroad Company's +folders. And now it isn't in my bag." + +"Well?" said the officer calmly. "I apprehend that you left the folder +on this seat--or think you did?" + +"I know I did," declared the excited woman. "Those girls were following +me around in a most impudent way; and they were right here when I got up +and forgot that folder." + +"The inference being, then," went on the officer, "that they took the +folder and the ticket?" + +"Yes, sir, I am convinced they did just that," declared the woman, +glaring at the horrified Ruth and Helen. + +Said the latter, angrily: "Why, the mean old thing! Who ever heard the +like?" + +"Oh, I know girls through and through!" snapped the strange woman. "I +should think I ought to by this time--after fifteen years of dealing with +the minxes. I could see that those two were sly and untrustworthy, the +instant I saw them." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Ruth. + +"Nasty cat!" muttered Helen. + +The officer was not greatly impressed. "Have you any real evidence +connecting these young ladies with the loss of your ticket?" he asked. + +"I say it's stolen!" cried the sharp-voiced one. + +"And it may, instead, have been picked up, folder and all, by a quite +different party. Perhaps the purser already has your lost ticket----" + +At that moment the purser himself appeared, coming up the saloon. Behind +him were two of the under stewards burdened with magnificent bunches of +roses. A soft voice appealed at Ruth's elbow: + +"If missy jes' let me take her stateroom key, den all dem roses be +'ranged in dar mos' skillful--ya-as'm; mos' skillful." + +"Why! did you ever!" gasped Helen, amazed. + +"Those are never for _us_?" cried Ruth. + +"You are Miss Cameron?" asked the smiling purser of Ruth's chum. "These +flowers came at the last moment by express for you and your friend. In +getting under way they were overlooked; but the head stewardess opened +the box and rearranged the roses, and I am sure they have not been hurt. +Here is the card--Mr. Thomas Cameron's compliments." + +"Oh, the dear!" cried Helen, clasping her hands. + +"_Those_ were the roses you thought he sent to Hazel Gray," whispered +Ruth sharply. + +"So they are!" cried Helen. "What a dunce I was. Of course, old Tom +would not forget us. He's a good, good boy!" + +She ran ahead to the stateroom. Ruth turned to see what had happened to +the woman who thought they had taken her railroad ticket. The deck +officer had turned her over to the purser and it was evident that the +latter was in for an unpleasant quarter of an hour. + +The roses seemed fairly to fill the stateroom, there were so many of +them. The girls preferred to arrange them themselves; so the three +porters left after having been tipped. + +The chums opened the blind again so that they could look out across the +water at the Jersey shore. Sandy Hook was now far behind them. Long +Branch and the neighboring seaside resorts were likewise passed. + +The girls watched the shore with its ever varying scenes until past six +o'clock and many of the passengers had gone into the dining saloon. Ruth +and Helen finally went, too. They saw nothing of the unpleasant woman +whose ire had been so roused against them; but after they came up from +dinner, and the orchestra was playing, and the Brigantine Buoy was just +off the port bow, the girls saw somebody else who began to interest them +deeply. + +The moon was coming up, and its silvery rays whitened everything upon +deck. The girls sat for a while in the open stern deck watching the +water and the lights. It was very beautiful indeed. + +It was Helen who first noticed the figure near, with his back to them +and with his head upon the arm that rested on the steamer's rail. She +nudged Ruth. + +"See him?" she whispered. "That's the boy who you said looked like Henry +Smith. See his curly hair?" + +"Oh, Helen!" gasped Ruth, a thought stabbing her suddenly. "Suppose it +is?" + +"Suppose it is what?" + +"Suppose it _should_ be Curly whom the police were after? You know, that +dressed-up boy--if it was he we saw on the dock--had curly hair." + +"So he had! I forgot that when we were trailing that queer old maid," +chuckled Helen. + +"This is no laughing matter, dear," whispered Ruth, watching the +curly-haired boy closely. "Having gotten rid of his disguise, there was +no reason why that boy should not stay aboard the steamboat." + +"No; I suppose not," admitted Helen, rather puzzled. + +"And if it is Curly--" + +"Oh, goodness me! we don't even know that Henry Smith has run away!" +exclaimed Helen. + +Instantly the boy near them started. He rose and clung to the rail for a +moment. But he did not look back at the two girls. + +Ruth had clutched Helen's arm and whispered: "Hush!" She was not sure +whether the boy had heard or not. At any rate, he did not look at them, +but walked slowly away. They did not see his face at all. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE CAPES OF VIRGINIA + + +Ruth and Helen did not think of going to bed until long after Absecon +Light, off Atlantic City, was passed. They watched the long-spread +lights of the great seaside resort until they disappeared in the +distance and Ludlum Beach Light twinkled in the west. + +The music of the orchestra came to their ears faintly; but above all was +the murmur and jar of the powerful machinery that drove the ship. This +had become a monotone that rather got on the girls' nerves. + +"Oh, dear! let's go to bed," said Helen plaintively. "I _don't_ see why +those engines have to pound so. It sounds like the tramping of a herd of +elephants." + +"Did you ever hear a herd of elephants tramping?" asked Ruth, laughing. + +"No; but I can imagine how they would sound," said Helen. "At any rate, +let's go to bed." + +They did not see the curly-haired boy; but as they went in to the +ladies' lavatory on their side of the deck, they came face to face with +the queer woman with whom they had already had some trouble. + +She glared at the two girls so viperishly that Helen would never have +had the courage to accost her. Not so Ruth. She ignored the angry gaze +of the lady and said: + +"I hope you have found your ticket, ma'am?" + +"No, I haven't found it--and you know right well I haven't," declared the +short-haired woman. + +"Surely, you do not believe that my friend and I took it?" Ruth said, +flushing a little, yet holding her ground. "We would have no reason for +doing such a thing, I assure you." + +"Oh, I don't know what you did it for!" exclaimed the woman harshly. +"With all my experience with you and your kind I have never yet been +able to foretell what a rattlepated schoolgirl will do, or her reason +for doing it." + +"I am sorry if your experience has been so unfortunate with +schoolgirls," Ruth said. "But please do not class my friend and me with +those you know--who you intimate would steal. We did not take your +ticket, ma'am." + +"Oh, goody!" exclaimed Helen, under her breath. + +The woman tossed her head and her pale, blue eyes seemed to emit sparks. +"You can't tell me! You can't tell me!" she declared. "I know you girls. +You've made me trouble enough, I should hope. I would believe anything +of you--_any_thing!" + +"Do come away, Ruth," whispered Helen; and Ruth seeing that there was no +use talking with such a set and vindictive person, complied. + +"But we don't want her going about the boat and telling people that we +stole her ticket," Ruth said, with indignation. "How will that sound? +Some persons may believe her." + +"How are you going to stop her?" Helen demanded. "Muzzle her?" + +"That might not be a bad plan," Ruth said, beginning to smile again. +"Oh! but she _did_ make me so angry!" + +"I noticed that for once our mild Ruth quite lost her temper," Helen +said, delightedly giggling. "Did me good to hear you stand up to her." + +"I wonder who she is and what sort of girls she teaches--for of course +she _is_ a teacher," said Ruth. + +"In a reform school, I should think," Helen said. "Her opinion of +schoolgirls is something awful. It's worse than Miss Brokaw's." + +"Do you suppose that fifteen years of teaching can make any woman hate +girls as she certainly does?" Ruth said reflectively. "There must be +something really wrong with her--" + +"There's something wrong with her looks, that's sure," Helen agreed. +"She is the dowdiest thing I ever saw." + +"Her way of dressing has nothing to do with it. It is the hateful temper +she shows. I am afraid that poor woman has had a very hard time with her +pupils." + +"There you go!" cried Helen. "Beginning to pity her! I thought you would +not be sensible for long. Oh, Ruthie Fielding! you would find an excuse +for a man's murdering his wife and seven children." + +"Yes, I suppose so," Ruth said. "Of course, he would have to be insane +to do it." + +They returned to their stateroom. It was somewhat ghostly, Helen +thought, along the narrow deck now. Ruth fumbled at the lock for some +time. + +"Are you sure you have the right room?" Helen whispered. + +"I've got the right room, for I know the number; but I'm not sure about +the key," giggled Ruth. "Oh! here it opens." + +They went in. Ruth remembered where the electric light bulb was and +snapped on the light. "There! isn't this cozy?" she asked. + +"'Snug as a bug in a rug,'" quoted Helen. "Goodness! how sharp your +elbow is, dear!" + +"And that was my foot you stepped on," complained Ruth. + +"I believe we'll have to take turns undressing," Helen said. "One stay +outside on the deck till the other gets into bed." + +"And we've got to draw lots for the upper berth. What a climb!" + +"It makes me awfully dizzy to look down from high places," giggled +Helen. "I don't believe I'd dare to climb into that upper berth." + +"Now, Miss Cameron!" cried Ruth, with mock sternness. "We'll settle this +thing at once. No cheating. Here are two matches----" + +"Matches! Where did you get matches?" + +"Out of my bag. In this tiny box. I have never traveled without matches +since the time we girls were lost in the snow up in the woods that time. +Remember?" + +"I should say I do remember our adventures at Snow Camp," sighed Helen. +"But I never would have remembered to carry matches, just the same." + +"Now, I break the head off this one. Do you see? One is now shorter than +the other. I put them together--_so_. Now I hide them in my hand. You +pull one, Helen. If you pull the longer one you get the lower berth." + +"I get something else, too, don't I?" said Helen. + +"What?" + +"The match!" laughed the other girl. "There! Oh, dear me! it's the short +one." + +"Oh, that's too bad, dear," cried Ruth, at once sympathetic. "If you +really dread getting into the upper berth----" + +"Be still, you foolish thing!" cried Helen, hugging her. "If we were +going to the guillotine and I drew first place, you'd offer to have your +dear little neck chopped first. I know you." + +The next moment Helen began on something else. "Oh, me! oh, my! what a +pair of little geese we are, Ruthie." + +"What about?" demanded her chum. + +"Why! see this button in the wall? And we were scrambling all over the +place for the electric light bulb. Can't we punch it on?" and she tried +the button tentatively. + +"Now you've done it!" groaned Ruth. + +"Done what?" demanded Helen in alarm. "I guess that hasn't anything to +do with the electric lights. Is it the fire alarm?" + +"No. But it costs money every time you punch that button. You are as +silly as poor, little, flaxen-haired Amy Gregg was when she came to +Briarwood Hall and did not know how to manipulate the electric light +buttons." + +"But what have I _done_?" demanded Helen. "Why will it cost me money?" + +Ruth calmly reached down the ice-water pitcher from its rack. "You'll +know in a minute," she said. "There! hear it?" + +A faint tinkling approached. It came along the deck outside and Helen +pushed back the blind a little way to look out. Immediately a soft, +drawling voice spoke. + +"D'jew ring fo' ice-water, missy? I got it right yere." + +Ruth already had found a dime and she thrust it out with the pitcher. It +was their own particular "colored gemmen," as Helen gigglingly called +him. She dodged back out of sight, for she had removed her shirtwaist. +He filled the pitcher and went tinkling away along the deck with a +pleasant, "I 'ank ye, missy. Goo' night." + +"I declare!" cried Helen. "He's one of the genii or a bottle imp. He +appears just when you want him, performs his work, and silently +disappears." + +"That man will be rich before we get to Old Point Comfort," sighed Ruth, +who was of a frugal disposition. + +They closed the blind again, and a little later the lamp on the deck +outside was extinguished. The girls had said their prayers, and now +Helen, with much hilarity, "shinnied up" to the berth above, kicking her +night slippers off as she plunged into it. + +"Good-bye--if I don't see you again," she said plaintively. "You may have +to call the fire department with their ladders, to get me down." + +Ruth snapped off the light, and then registered her getting into bed by +a bump on her head against the lower edge of the upper berth. + +"Oh, my, Helen! You have the best of it after all. Oh, how that hurt!" + +"M-m-m-m!" from Helen. So quickly was she asleep! + +But Ruth could not go immediately to Dreamland. There had been too much +of an exciting nature happening. + +She lay and thought of Curly Smith, and of the disguised boy, and of the +obnoxious school teacher who had accused her and Helen of robbing her. +The odor of Tom's roses finally became so oppressive that she got up to +open the blind again for more air. She again struck her head. It was +impossible to remember that berth edge every time she got up and down. + +As she stepped lightly upon the floor in her bare feet she heard a +stealthy footstep outside. It brought Ruth to an immediate halt, her +hand stretched out toward the blind. Through the interstices of the +blind she could see that the white moonlight flooded the deck. +Stealthily she drew back the blind and peered out. + +The person on the deck had halted almost opposite the window. Ruth knew +now that the steamer must be well across the Five Fathom Bank, with the +Delaware Lightship behind them and the Fenwick Lightship not far ahead. +To the west was the wide entrance to Delaware Bay, and the land was now +as far away from them as it would be at any time during the trip. + +She peered out quietly. There stood the curly-haired boy again, leaning +on the rail, and looking wistfully off to the distant shore. + +Was it Henry Smith? Was he the boy who had come aboard the boat in +girl's clothes? And if so, what would he do when the boat docked at Old +Point Comfort and the detectives appeared? They would probably have a +good description of the boy wanted, and could pick him out of the crowd +going ashore. + +Ruth was almost tempted to speak to the boy--to whisper to him. Had she +been sure it was Curly she would have done so, for she knew him so well. +But, as before, his face was turned away from her. + +He moved on, and Ruth softly slid back the blind and stole to bed again, +for the third time bumping her head. "My! if this keeps on, I'll be all +lumps and hollows like an outline map of the Rocky Mountains," she +whimpered, and then cuddled down under the sheet and lay looking out of +the open window. + +The sea air blew softly in and cooled her flushed cheeks. The odor of +the roses was not so oppressive, and after a time she dropped to sleep. +When she awoke it was because of the change in the temperature some time +before dawn. The moon was gone; but there was a faint light upon the +water. + +Helen moved in the berth above. "Hullo, up there!" whispered Ruth. + +"Hullo, down there!" was the quick reply. "What ever made me wake up so +early?" + +"Because you want to get up early," replied Ruth, this time sliding out +of her berth so adroitly that she did _not_ bump her head. + +Helen came tumbling down, skinning her elbow and landing with a thump on +the floor. "Gracious to goodness--and all hands around!" she ejaculated. +"Talk about sleeping on a shelf in a Pullman car! Why, that's 'Home +Sweet Home' to _this_. I came near to breaking my neck." + +"Come on! scramble into your clothes," said Ruth, already at the wash +basin. + +Helen peered out. "Why--oh, my!" she said, shivering and holding the lacy +neck of her gown about her. "It's da-ark yet. It must be midnight." + +"It is ten minutes to four o'clock," said Ruth promptly. She had studied +the route and knew it exactly. "That is Chincoteague Island Light +yonder. That's where those cunning little ponies that Madge Steele's +father had at Sunrise Farm came from." + +"Wha-at?" yawned Helen. "Did they come from the light?" + +"No, goosy! from the island. They are bred there." + +Ten minutes later the chums were out on the open deck. They raced +forward to see if they could see the sun. His face was still below the +sea, but a flush along the edge of the horizon announced his coming. + +"Oh, see yonder!" cried Helen. "See the shore! How near! And the long +line of beaches. What's that white line outside the yellow sand?" + +"The surf," Ruth said. "And that must be Hog Island Light. How faint it +is. The sun is putting it out." + +"It's a long way ahead." + +"Yes. We won't pass that till almost six o'clock. Oh, Helen! there comes +the sun." + +"What's that?" asked Helen, suddenly seizing her chum's wrist. "Did you +hear it?" + +"That splash? The men are washing decks." + +"It is a man overboard!" murmured Helen. + +"More likely a big fish jumping," said the practical Ruth. + +The girls hung over the rail, looking shoreward, and tried in the +uncertain light to see if there was any object floating on the water. If +Helen expected to see a black spot like the head of a swimmer, she was +disappointed. + +But she did see--and so did Ruth--a lazy fishing smack drifting by on the +tide. They could almost have thrown a stone aboard of her. + +There seemed to be a little excitement aboard the smack. Men ran to and +fro and leaned over the rail. Then the girls thought they saw the +smackmen spear something, or possibly somebody, with a boathook and haul +their prize aboard. + +"I believe somebody did fall overboard from this steamer, and those +fishermen have picked him up," Helen declared. + +The girls watched the sunrise and the shore line for another hour or +more and then went in to breakfast. When they came back to the open deck +the steamer was flying past the coast of the lower Peninsula, and Cape +Charles Lightship courtesied to her on the swells. + +Far, far in the distance they saw the staff of the Cape Henry Light. The +steamer soon turned her prow to pass between these two points of land, +known to seamen as the Capes of Virginia, which mark the entrance to +Chesapeake Bay. + +Their fair trip down the coast from New York was almost ended and the +chums began to pick up their things in the stateroom and repack their +bags. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE NEWSPAPER ACCOUNT + + +"Do you suppose Nettie and her aunt have arrived, Ruth?" + +"I really don't," Ruth Fielding said, as she and her chum stood on the +upper deck again and watched the shore which they were approaching so +rapidly. + +"Goodness! won't you feel funny going up to that big, sprawling hotel +alone?" + +"No, dear. I sha'n't be alone," laughed Ruth. "You will be with me, +won't you?" + +Helen merely pinched her for answer. + +"The rooms are engaged for us, you know," Ruth assured her chum. "Mrs. +Parsons knew she might be delayed by business in Washington and that we +would possibly reach the hotel first. They have our names and all we +have to do is to present her card." + +"Fine! I leave it all to you," agreed Helen. + +"Of course you will. You always do," said Ruth drily. "You certainly are +one of the fortunate ones in this world, Helen, dear." + +"How am I?" + +"Because," Ruth said, laughing, "all you ever will do in any emergency +will be to roll those pretty eyes of yours and look helpless, and +_somebody_ will come to your rescue." + +"Lucky me, then!" sighed her friend. "How green the grass is on the +shore, Ruth--and how blue the water. Isn't this one lovely morning?" + +"And a beautiful place we are going to. That's the fort yonder--the +largest in the United States, I shouldn't wonder." + +As the steamer drew in closer to the dock those passengers who were not +going on to Norfolk got their hand baggage together and pressed toward +the forward lower deck, from which they would land at the Point. The +girls followed suit; but as they came out of their stateroom there was +the omnipresent colored man, in his porter's uniform now, ready to take +the bags. + +Ruth and Helen let him take the bags, though they were very well able to +carry them, for he was insistent. The stewardess--a comfortable looking +old "aunty" in starched cap and apron--was likewise bobbing courtesies to +them as they went through the saloon. Helen's ready purse drew the +colored population of that boat as a honey-pot does bees. + +As they descended to the lower deck, suddenly the queer looking school +teacher, with the short hair and funny clothes, faced them. The purser +had evidently been trying to pacify her, but now he gave it up. + +"You mean to tell me that you won't demand to have these girls +examined--_searched_?" cried the angry woman. "They may have taken my +ticket for fun, but it's a serious matter and they are now afraid to +give it up. I know 'em--root and branch!" + +"Do you _know_ these two young ladies?" demanded the purser, in +surprise. + +"Yes; I know their kind. I have been teaching girls just like 'em for +fifteen years. They're up to all kinds of mischief." + +"Oh, madam!" cried the purser, "that is strong language. I cannot hold +these young ladies on your say-so. You have no evidence. Nor do I +believe they have your ticket in their possession." + +"Of course you'd take their side!" sniffed the woman. + +"I am on the side of innocence always. If you care to get into trouble +by speaking to the police, you will probably find two policemen waiting +on the dock as we go ashore. They are after that disguised boy who came +aboard." + +The woman tossed her head and strode away, after glaring again at the +embarrassed girls. The purser said, gently: + +"I am very sorry, young ladies, that you have been annoyed by that +person. And I am glad that you did not let the offence make _us_ any +more trouble. Of course, she had no right to speak of you and to you as +she has. + +"I believe she is to be pitied, however. I learn that she is going on a +trip South for her health, after a particularly arduous year's work. She +is, as she intimates, a teacher in a big girl's boarding school in New +England. She is probably not a favorite with her pupils at best, and is +now undoubtedly broken down nervously and not quite responsible for what +she says and does." + +Then the purser continued, smiling: "Perhaps you can imagine that her +pupils have not tried to make her life pleasant. I have a daughter about +your age who goes to such a school, and I know from her that sometimes +the girls are rather thoughtless of an instructor's comfort--if they +dislike her." + +"Oh, that is true enough, I expect," Ruth admitted. "See how they used +to treat little Picolet!" she added to Helen. + +"I guess _no_ girl would fall in love with this horrid creature who says +we stole her ticket." + +"She is not of a lovable disposition, that is sure," agreed the purser. +"Her name is Miss Miggs. I hope you will not see her again." + +"Oh! you don't suppose she will try to make trouble for us ashore?" Ruth +cried. + +"I will see that she does not. I will speak to the officers who I expect +are awaiting the boat's arrival. They have already communicated with us +by wireless about that boy." + +"Wireless!" cried Helen. "And we didn't know you had it aboard. I +certainly would have thanked Tom for those roses. And then, Ruth! Just +think of telegraphing by wireless!" + +"Sorry you missed that, young ladies. The instrument is in Room +Seventy," said the purser, bustling away. + +"'Too late! too late! the villain cried!'" murmured Helen. "We missed +that." + +"Never mind," said Ruth, smiling. "If we go back to New York by boat we +can hang around the wireless telegraph room all the time and you can +send messages to all your friends." + +"No I can't," said Helen shortly. + +"Why not?" + +"Because I won't have any money left by that time," Helen declared +ruefully. "Goodness! how much it does cost to travel." + +"It does, I guess, if you practise such generosity as you have +practised," said Ruth. "Do use a little judgment, Helen. You tip +recklessly, and you buy everything you see." + +"No," declared her chum. "There's one thing I've seen that I wouldn't +buy if it was selling as cheap as 'two bits,' as these folks say down +here." + +"What's that?" asked Ruth, with a laugh. + +"That old maid school marm from New England," Helen replied promptly. + +"Poor thing!" commented Ruth. + +"There you go! Pitying her already! How do you know that she won't try +to have us arrested?" + +"Goodness! we'll hope not," said Ruth, as they surged toward the gangway +with the rest of the disembarking passengers, the boat having already +docked. + +The crowd came out into the sunshine of a perfect morning upon a +bustling dock. There was a goodly crowd from the hotels to see the +newcomers land. Some of the passengers were met by friends; but neither +Nettie Parsons nor her aunt were in sight. + +The porter who carried the girls' bags, however, handed them over to a +hotel porter and evidently said a good word for them to that +functionary; for he was very attentive and led the chums out of the +crowd toward the broad veranda of the hotel front. + +Ruth and Helen had sharp eyes, and they saw two plain-clothes men +standing by to watch the forthcoming passengers. + +"The officers looking for that boy," whispered Ruth. + +"Oh, dear! do you suppose he _was_ Curly?" + +"I don't know. I must write to Mrs. Smith as soon as we get to the +hotel." + +The chums had traveled considerably by land, and had ventured into more +than one hotel; but never alone. When they had gone to Montana to visit +Ann Hicks, Ann's Uncle Bill had been with them and had looked after the +transportation matters. And in going into the Adirondacks they had +traveled in a private car. + +The porter took them immediately to a reception parlor, and took Mrs. +Parson's card that she had given Ruth to the hotel manager. The manager +came himself to greet the girls. Mrs. Parsons' name was evidently well +known at this hotel. + +"At this time of year there is a choice of rooms at your disposal," he +said. "I will show you the suite Mrs. Parsons usually has; but if the +rooms assigned you are not satisfactory, we can accommodate you +elsewhere." + +As they went up to the rooms Helen whispered: "Don't you feel kind of +_bridey_?" + +"Kind of what?" gasped her chum. + +"Why, as though you were on your bridal tour?" said Helen. "We've got on +brand new clothes, and everybody treats us as though we were queens." + +"Maybe you feel that you are a queen," giggled Ruth. "But not me. If you +are a bride, Helen Cameron, where is the gloom?" + +"Gloom?" repeated Helen. "Do you mean _groom_?" + +"Not in your case," sniffed Ruth. "He will be a 'gloom' all right, the +way you make the money fly. See how you tipped that fellow below just +now. He's standing in a trance, looking at that dollar yet." + +"I--I didn't have anything smaller," confessed the culprit. + +"Well, you ought to have had change." + +"My! do you want me to do as the old lady said she did when going to +church? She always carried some buttons in her purse, for then, if she +had run out of change, when the contribution box was passed she'd still +have something to drop in." + +Ruth went off into a gale of laughter. "I wonder how that darkey would +have looked if you had contributed a button to him." + +The manager here threw open a door which gave entrance upon two big +rooms, with a bathroom between, the windows opening upon a balcony. To +the girls it seemed a most delightful place--so high and airy--and such a +view! + +"Oh, this will be lovely," Ruth assured him. "And are Mrs. Parsons' +rooms yonder?" + +"Right through that door," replied the man. "There are the buttons. Ring +for any attendance you may need. If everything is not perfectly +satisfactory, young ladies, let me know." + +He bowed himself out. Helen performed several stately steps about the +first room. "I tell you, my dear, we are very important. Nettie's Aunt +Rachel is a _dear_! Or are all people down here in Dixie as polite as +this person with the side whiskers?" + +"Why! I think people are kind to us almost everywhere," said Ruth, +laying off her hat and coat. + +"What shall we do first?" asked Helen. + +"I told you. I am going right down to the ladies' writing room--I saw it +as we came through the lower floor--and write to Mrs. Smith. If Curly +_did_ run away, we know where he is." + +"Do we?" asked Helen, doubtfully. + +"Why--I----Well, he was aboard that steamer, I am sure," Ruth said. + +"Is he now?" asked Helen. "I believe he went overboard and was picked up +by that fishing boat." + +"Goodness! do you really believe so?" + +"I am quite positive that the disguised boy did just that," said Helen, +nodding her dark head confidently. + +"Well, I can tell Mrs. Smith nothing about that; it would only scare +her. But I want her to write to me as soon as she can and tell me if +Curly is at home. Poor boy! what ever would become of him if he ran +away?" + +"And with the police after him!" Helen added. "I am sure he never +committed any real crime." + +"So am I sure. But he was always playing jokes and was up to all kinds +of mischief. He was bound to get into trouble," Ruth said, with a sigh. +"Everybody around there disliked him so." + +Ruth went downstairs and easily found the writing room. Outside was a +periodical and newspaper stand. The New York morning papers had just +arrived and Ruth bought one before she entered the writing room. Before +beginning the letter to Mrs. Sadoc Smith, she opened the paper and +almost the first brief article she noticed was the following: + + + "A police launch followed the New Union S.S. _Pocahontas_ yesterday + afternoon as far as the Narrows, and plain-clothes men James + Morrisy, B. Phelps, Schwartz and Rockheimer, boarded her to search + for a boy from up-state who has created a stir in the vicinity of + Lumberton. + + "It is reported that Henry Smith, fifteen years old, tall for his + age, curly, chestnut hair, small features, especially girlish face, + is accused of helping a pair of tramps rob the Lumberton railroad + station. The tramps escaped on a hand-car with their booty. The + local police went after Henry, who lives with his grandmother, Mrs. + Sadoc Smith, his only relative, an eminently respectable woman. + Henry locked himself in his room, and while his grandmother was + urging him to come out and give himself up to the police, he slid + out of the window and over the shed roof, dropping to the ground--the + old path to the circus grounds and the bright and early Independence + Day celebration. + + "Henry Smith left home with some money and a new pair of boots. The + boots and his other male attire he seems to have exchanged for + female garb at a hotel in Albany. Henry masquerades as a girl very + effectively, it is said. + + "The Albany police were just too late in reaching the hotel, but + later had reason to know that Henry had come on to New York by + train. Detective Morrisy and his squad missed the fugitive at the + Grand Central Terminal. Through the good offices of a taxicab + driver, Henry was traced to the New Union pier, where he was + supposed to have boarded the _Pocahontas_. + + "The detectives, however, did not find Henry Smith thereon, neither + in female garb nor in his proper habiliments. The police at Old + Point Comfort and Norfolk have been notified to watch for the boy. + His grandmother, Mrs. Sadoc Smith, declares she will disinherit her + grandson." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--ALL IN THE RAIN + + +Ruth Fielding was so much disturbed over the story of Curly Smith's +escapade that she had to run and show the paper to Helen before she did +anything else. And then the chums had to talk it all over, and exclaim +over the boy's boldness, and the odd fact that _they_ should have seen +him in his girl's apparel, and not have known him. + +"After seeing him dressed up in Ann's old dress that time, too," sighed +Helen. "The foolish boy!" + +"But only think of his dropping off that shed roof. Do you know, Helen, +it is twenty feet from the ground?" + +"That reporter writes as though he thought it were a joke," Helen said. +"Mean thing!" + +"He never saw that shed," said Ruth. + +"It is fortunate poor Curly didn't break his neck." + +"And his grandmother says she will disinherit him. That's really cruel! +I dare not tell her what I think when I write," Ruth said. "But I will +tell her how Curly is being hounded by the police, and that he jumped +overboard." + +"Sure he did! He's an awfully brave boy," Helen declared. + +"I'm not sure that he's to be praised for that kind of bravery. It was a +perilous chance he took. I wonder where he will go--what he will do? +Goodness! what a boy!" + +"He's all right," urged Helen, with admiration. "I don't believe the +police will ever catch him." + +"But what will become of him?" + +"If we come across him again, we'll help him," said Helen, with +confidence. + +"That's not likely. I can't even tell Mrs. Smith where he has gone. We +don't know." + +"Let's go out and make sure that he wasn't taken by the police here, or +at Norfolk." + +"How will you find out?" + +"At the dock. Somebody will know." + +"You go. I'll write to Mrs. Smith. Don't get lost," said Ruth, drawing +paper and envelopes toward her and preparing to write the missive. + +It was growing dark before Ruth finished the letter--and that should not +have been, for it was not yet noon! She looked up and then ran to the +window. A storm cloud was sweeping down the bay and off across Hampton +Roads. Over in Norfolk it was raining--a sharp shower. But it did not +look as though it would hit the Point. + +While Ruth was looking out Helen came running into the writing room, +greatly excited. "Oh, come on, Ruthie!" she cried. "I've got a man who +will take us for a drive all around the Point and around the fortress." + +"In what?" asked Ruth, doubtfully. + +"Well, I'd call it a barouche. It's an old thing; but he's such a nice, +old darkey, and----" + +"How much have you already paid him, my dear?" asked Ruth, interrupting. + +"Well--I----Oh! don't be so inquisitive!" + +"And I thought you went to inquire whether they had arrested that boy?" + +"Oh! didn't I tell you?" said Helen. "They didn't get him. Neither here +nor at Norfolk. I asked the man on the dock. Then this nice, old colored +man in _such_ a funny livery, asked me to ride with him. He's been +driving white folks around here, he says, ever since the war." + +"What war? The War with Spain?" asked Ruth, tartly. "I begin to believe +that there must be some sign on you, my dear, which tells these fellows +that you have money and can be easily parted from it." + +"Now, Ruthie----" + +"That is true. Well! we'll get our hats----" + +"Don't need anything of the kind. Or wraps, either. It's lovely out." + +"But that black cloud?" + +"What do you mean, Ruthie? My hack driver?" giggled Helen. + +"Nonsense, you naughty child! That thunder storm." + +"The driver says it won't come over here. Let's go." + +"All right," Ruth finally said. "I know you have already paid him and we +must get some return for your money." + +"What a terribly saving creature you are," scoffed Helen. "I begin to +believe that you have caught Uncle Jabez's disease, living with him +there in the Red Mill. There! Oh, Ruth! I didn't mean that. I wouldn't +hurt your feelings for anything." + +But she had effectually closed Ruth's lips upon the subject of the waste +of money. Her chum's countenance was rather serious as they went out +upon the great veranda, which had a sweep wider than the face of the +Capitol at Washington. Below them was a decrepit old carriage, drawn by +a horse, the harness of which was repaired in more than one place with +rope. The smart equipages made this ramshackle old vehicle look older +than Noah's Ark at Briarwood Hall. + +Helen was enormously amused by the looks of the old rattletrap and the +funny appearance of the driver. The latter was an aged negro with a gray +poll and gaps in his teeth when he grinned. He wore a tall hat such as +the White House coachman is pictured as wearing in Lincoln's day. The +long-tailed coat he wore had once been blue, but was now faded to a +distinct maroon shade, saving a patch on the small of his back which had +retained much of its original color by being sheltered against the +seat-back. + +The vest and trousers this nondescript wore were coarse white duck, but +starched and ironed, and as white as the snow. The least said about his +shoes the better, and a glimpse Ruth had of one brown shank, as the old +man got creakingly down to politely open the barouche door for them, +assured her that he wore no hose at all. + +"Do get in," giggled Helen. "Did you ever see such a funny old thing?" + +"It looks as if it would fall to pieces," objected Ruth. + +"He assures me it won't. I don't care if everybody _is_ laughing at us." + +"Neither do I. But I believe it is going to rain." + +"Nothing more than a little shower, if any," Helen said, and popped into +the carriage. Ruth, rather doubtful still, followed her. Amid a good +deal of amusement on the part of the company on the verandas, the +rattling equipage rolled away. + +They rode along the edge of the fortress moat and past the officer's +quarters, and so around the entire fortress and across the reservation +into the country. The old man sat very stiff and upright in his seat, +flourished his whip over his old horse in a grand manner, and altogether +made as brave an appearance as possible. + +The knock-kneed horse dragged its feet over the highway with a shuffle +that made Ruth nervous. She liked a good horse. This one moved so +slowly, and the turnout was altogether so ridiculous, that Ruth did not +know whether to join Helen in laughing at it, or get out and walk back. + +Suddenly, however, a drizzle of rain began to fall. It was not +unexpected, for the clouds were still black and a chill breeze had blown +up. + +"We'll have to go back, Uncle," cried Helen to the driver. + +"Wait a minute--wait a minute," urged the old man. "Ah'll git right down +an' fix dat hood. Dat'll shelter yo' till we gits back t' de +hotel--ya-as'm." + +"You should not have encouraged us to come out with you when it was sure +to rain," said Ruth, rather tartly for her. + +"Sho' 'nuff, missy--sho' 'nuff," cackled the old darkey. "But 'twas a +great temptation." + +"What was a great temptation?" + +"To earn a dollar. Dollars come skeerce like nowadays, for Unc' Simmy. +He kyan't keep up wid dese yere taxum-cabs an' de rich folks' smart +conveyances--no'm!" and the old negro chuckled as though poverty, too, +were a humorous thing. + +He began to fuss with the hood of the carriage, which was supposed to +pull up and shelter the occupants. But it would not "stay put," as Helen +laughingly said, and the summer shower began to patter harder on the +unprotected girls. + +"You'd better not mind it, Mr. Simmy," Helen said, "and drive us back at +once. We're bound to get wet anyway." + +"Dey calls me _Unc'_ Simmy, missy--ma frien's do," said the old man, +rheumatically climbing to his seat again. "An' Ah ain't gwine t' drib +yo' back to de hotel in de face ob dishyer shower, an' git all yo' +fin'ry wet. No'm! Yo' leab' Unc' Simmy 'lone fo' a-gittin' yo' to +shelter 'twill de storm passes ober." + +He touched up the old horse with the whiplash, and the creature really +broke into a knock-kneed trot, Unc' Simmy meanwhile singing a broken +accompaniment to the shuffling pace of his steed: + + "'On Jor-dy-an's sto'my bank I stand + An' cas' a wishful eye + T' Can-ny-an's bright an' glo-ree-ous land-- + Ma' ho-o-me 'twill be, bymeby!' + +Dis ain' gwine t' be much ob a shower, missy. We turns in yere." + +They had passed several smart looking dwellings--villas they might better +be called--and more than one old, Southern house with high pillars in +front and an air of decayed gentility about them. + +Unc' Simmy swung his steed through a ruined gateway where the Virginia +creeper and honeysuckle hid the gateposts and wall. There was a small +wooden structure like a gate-keeper's cottage, much out of repair. The +shingles on the roof had curled in the hot sun's rays till they +resembled clutching fingers; some of the siding-strips in the peak, far +out of ordinary reach, hung and flapped by one nail; some bricks were +missing from the chimney-top; the house had not been painted for at +least two decades. The porch on the front was sheltered by climbing +vines, and there were many old-fashioned flowers in neatly kept beds +before the little house. But the girls did not see much of the front of +the cottage just then, for the old horse went by and up the lane at a +clumsy gallop. The rain was coming down faster. + +"Where for pity's sake is he taking us?" Ruth demanded. + +"I don't care--it's fun," gasped Helen, cowering before the rain drops. + +Behind the cottage was a small barn--evidently built much more recently +than the house. The wide door was swung open and hooked back and Unc' +Simmy drove inside. + +"Dar we is!" he cried exultantly. "Ah'll jes' take yo' all in t' visit +wid' Miss Catalpa while Ah fixes dishyer kerrige so it'll take yo' back +to de P'int dry--ya-as'm." + +"'Miss Catalpa,' no less!" murmured Helen in Ruth's ear. "_That_ sounds +like a real darkey name, doesn't it? I wonder if she's an old aunty--or +mammy, do they call them?" + +But Ruth was interested in another phase of the matter. "Won't the lady +object to unexpected visitors, Uncle Simmy?" she asked. + +"Lor' bress yo'! no, honey," he said, helping her out of the sheltered +carriage, and then Helen in turn. "Yo' come right in wid me. Miss +Catalpa's on de front po'ch. She likes t' hear de drummin' ob de rain, +she say--er--he, he, he! W'ite folks sho' do have funny sayin's, don't +dey?" + +"Then Miss Catalpa is _white_!" gasped Helen to Ruth, as the old darkey +led the way across the back yard to the cottage. + +They reached the shelter of the front veranda just as the rain "came +down in buckets," as Helen declared. The chums had never seen it rain so +hard before. And the thunder of it on the porch roof drowned all other +sound. Unc' Simmy was grinning at them and saying something; they could +see his lips moving; but they could not hear a word. + +In the half dusk of the vine-sheltered porch they saw him gesticulating +and they looked toward the other end. There was a low table and a sewing +basket. In a low rocker, swinging to and fro, and crooning a song +perhaps, for her lips were moving as her needles flashed back and forth +in the soft wool she was knitting, was a fair, pink-cheeked little lady, +her light brown hair rippling away from her brow and over her ears in +some old-fashioned and forgotten style, but which was very becoming to +the wearer. + +Her ear was turned toward their end of the porch, and she was smiling. +Evidently, in spite of the drumming of the hard rain, she had +distinguished their coming; but her eyes had the unmistakable look of +those who live in darkness. + +The little lady was blind. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--MISS CATALPA + + +"Oh! the poor dear!" gasped Helen, for she, like Ruth, discovered the +little lady's infirmity almost at once. + +The old negro coachman pompously strode down the porch, beckoning to the +girls to follow. They were, for the moment, embarrassed. It seemed +impudent to approach this strange gentlewoman with no introduction save +that of the disreputable looking Unc' Simmy. + +But the quick, sudden shower lulled a little and they could hear the +lady's voice--a sweet, delicious, drawling tone. She said: + +"Yo' have brought some callers, I see, Simmy. Good afternoon, young +ladies." + +Her use of the word "see" brought the quick, stinging tears to Ruth +Fielding's eyes. But the lady's smile and outstretched hand welcomed +both girls to her end of the porch. The hand was frail and beautiful. It +surely had never done any work more arduous than the knitting in the +lady's lap. + +She was dressed very plainly in gingham; but every flaunce was starched +and ironed beautifully, and the lace in the low-cut neck of the cheap +gown and at the wrists, was valuable and ivory-hued with age. + +The negro cleared his voice and said, with great respect, removing his +ancient hat as he did so: + +"De young ladies done tak' refuge yere wid' yo' w'ile it shower so hard, +Miss Catalpa. I tell 'em yo' don't mind dem comin' in t' res'. Yo' knows +Unc' Simmy dribes de quality eround de P'int nowadays." + +"Oh, yes, Simmy. I know," said Miss Catalpa, with a little sigh. "It +isn't as it used to be befo' _we_ had to take refuge, too, in this old +gatehouse. It is a refuge both in sun and rain fo' us. How do you do, my +dears? I know you are young ladies--and I love the young. And I fancy you +are from the No'th, too?" + +And Helen and Ruth had not yet said a word! The subtle appreciation of +the blind woman told her much that astonished the girls. + +"Yes, ma'am," said Ruth, striving to keep her voice from shaking, for +the pity she felt for the lady gripped her at the throat. "We are two +schoolgirls who have come down to Dixie to play for a few weeks after +our graduation from Briarwood Hall." + +"Indeed? I went to school fo' a while at Miss Chamberlain's in +Washington. Hers was a very select young ladies' school. But, re'lly, +you know, had my po' eyes not been too weak to study, the family +exchequer could scarcely stand the drain," and she laughed, low and +sweetly. "The Grogan fortunes had long been on the wane, you see. No men +to build them up again. The war took everything from us; but the +heaviest blow of all was the killin' of our men." + +"It must have been terrible," said Ruth, "to lose one's brothers and +fathers and cousins by bullet and sword." + +"Yes, indeed!" sighed the lady. "Not that I can remembah it, child! No +more than you can. I'm not so old as all that," and she laughed merrily. +"The Grogan plantation was gone, of course, long before I saw the light. +But my father was a broken man, disabled by the campaigns he went +through." + +"Isn't it terrible?" whispered Helen to her chum, for it sounded to the +unsophisticated girl like a tale of recent happenings. + +Miss Catalpa smiled, turning her sightless eyes up to them. "There's +only Unc' Simmy and I left now. My lawyer, Kunnel Wildah, tells me there +is barely enough left to keep us in this po' place till I'm called to my +long rest," said the lady devoutly. + +"But my wants are few. Uncle Simmy does for me most beautifully. He is +the last of the family servants--bo'n himself on the old plantation. This +was the gateway to the Grogan Place--and it was a mile from the house," +and she laughed again--pleasantly, sweetly, and as carefree in sound as a +bird's note. "The limits of the estate have shrunk, you see." + +"It must be dreadful to have been rich, and then fall into poverty," +Helen said, commiseratingly. + +"Why, honey," said Miss Catalpa, cheerfully, "nothin' is dreadful in +this wo'ld if we look at it right. All trials are sent for our blessin', +if we take them right. Even my blindness," she added simply. "It must +have been for my good that I was deprived of the boon of sight ten years +ago--just when almost the last bit of money left to me seemed to have +been lost. And I expect if I hadn't foolishly cried so much over the +failure of the Needles Bank where the money was, and which seemed to be +a total wreck, I would not have been totally blind. So the doctors tell +me." + +"Dear, dear!" murmured Helen, wiping her own eyes. + +"But then, you see, there was enough saved from the wreckage after all +to keep me alive," and Miss Catalpa smiled again. "All that troubles me +is what will become of Uncle Simmy when I am gone. He insists on 'dribin +de quality', as he calls it, and so earns a little something for +himself. That livery he wears is the old Grogan livery. I expect it is a +good deal faded by now," she laughed, adding: "Our old barouche, too! He +insists on taking me out in it every pleasant Sunday. I can feel that +the cushions are ragged and that the wheels wobble. Po' Uncle Simmy! Ah! +here he is. Surely, Simmy, the rain hasn't stopped?" + +"No'm, Miss Catalpa," said the old negro, appearing and bowing again. +"But mebbe 'twon't stop soon, an' deseyer young ladies want t' git back +fo' luncheon at de hotel. I done fix' dat hood, misses. 'Twell keep yo' +dry." + +Ruth took the lady's hand again. "I am glad to have met you," she said, +her voice quite firm now. "If we stay long enough at the Point, may we +come and see you again?" + +"Sho'ly! Sho'ly, my dear," she said, drawing Ruth down to kiss her +cheek. "I love to have you young people about me. Take good care of +them, Uncle Simmy." + +"Ya-as'm, Miss Catalpa-- Ah sho' will." + +She kissed Helen, too, and possibly felt the tears on the girl's cheek. +She patted the hand she held and whispered: "Don't weep for me, my dear. +I am going to a better and a brighter world some day, I know. I am not +through with this one yet--and I love it. There is nothing to weep for." + +"And if I were she I'd not only cry my eyes blind, but I'd cry them +_out_!" whispered Helen to Ruth, as they followed the old coachman. + +When they were out of ear-shot of the Lady of the Gatehouse Ruth asked: +"Who keeps house for Miss Grogan, Uncle Simmy?" + +"Fo' Miss Catalpa?" ejaculated the negro. "Sho', missy, she don't need +nobody but Unc' Simmy." + +"There is no woman servant?" + +"Lor' bress yo'," chuckled the black man, "ain't been no money to pay +sarbents since dat Needleses' Bank done busted. Nebber _did_ hear tell +o' sech a bustification as _dat_. Dar warn't re'lly nottin' lef' fo' de +rats in de cellar. Das wot Kunnel Wildah say." + +Ruth looked at the old man seriously and with a glance that saw right +into the white soul that dwelt in his very black and crippled body: "Who +launders her frocks so beautifully--and your trousers, Unc' Simmy?" was +her innocent if somewhat impudent question. + +"Ma ol' woman done hit till she up an' died 'bout eight 'r nine years +ago," said the coachman. + +"And _you_ have done it all since?" + +"Oh, ya-as'm! ya-as'm!" exclaimed Unc' Simmy, briskly. "Miss Catalpa +wouldn't feel right if she knowed anybody else did fo' her but me--No'm!" + +Helen had gone ahead. The old man, his eyes lowered, stood before Ruth +in the rain. The girl opened her purse quickly, selected a five dollar +bill, and thrust it into his hand. + +"Thank you, Unc' Simmy," she said firmly. "That's all I wanted to know." + +A tear found a wrinkle in Unc' Simmy's lined face for a sluiceway; but +the darkey was still smiling. "Lor' bress you', honey!" he murmured. "I +dunno wot Unc' Simmy would do if 'twarn't fo' yo' rich folks from de +Norf. Ah got a lot to t'ank you-uns for 'sides ma freedom! An' so's Miss +Catalpa," he added, "on'y she don't know it." + +"Come along, Ruth!" cried Helen, hopping into the old carriage, the +cover of which was now lifted and tied into place. Then, when Ruth +joined her and Unc' Simmy climbed to his seat and spread the oilcloth +over his knees, she added, in a whisper: "I saw you, Ruth Fielding! Five +dollars! Talk about _me_ being extravagant. Why, I gave him only two +dollars for the whole ride." + +"It was worth five to meet Miss Catalpa, wasn't it?" returned her chum, +placidly. And in her own mind she was already thinking up a scheme by +which the faithful old negro should be more substantially helped in his +lifework of caring for his blind mistress. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--UNDER THE UMBRELLA + + +The rain had not stopped--not by any means. + +Ruth and Helen had never seen so much water fall in so short a time. The +roadway, when Unc' Simmy drove out into it through the ruined gateway, +was flooded from side to side. It was like driving through a red, muddy +stream. + +But the two girls were comparatively dry under the carriage top. They +looked out at the drenched country side with interest, meantime talking +together about the Lady of the Gatehouse, by which term they ever after +spoke of Miss Catalpa. + +"The last of one of the F.F.V.'s, I suppose," suggested Helen. "I wonder +if Nettie's Aunt Rachel knows her. Nettie says Aunt Rachel knows +everybody who is anybody, in the South." + +"I fancy this family got through being well-known years ago. The poor +little lady has been lost sight of, I suppose," Ruth said. + +"Yes. All her old friends are dead." + +"Except this old friend sitting up in front of us," Ruth said, smiling. + +"Yes. Isn't he an old dear?" whispered Helen. "But I wonder if he shows +his Miss Catalpa off to all the Northern people who come to the Point?" + +Ruth was silent on this matter. Helen did not suspect yet what Ruth had +discovered--that Unc' Simmy was the sole support of the little, blind +lady; and Ruth thought she would not tell her chum just now. She wanted +to think of some way of materially helping both the old coachman and the +Lady of the Gatehouse. + +Suddenly Helen uttered a squeal of surprise, and grabbed her friend's +arm: + +"Do look there, Ruth Fielding! Whom does that look like?" + +Ruth came to her side of the carriage and craned her head out of the +window to look forward. In the roadway on that side, a few yards ahead +of the ambling horse, strode a figure in the rain that could not be +mistaken. So narrow and mannish was the pedestrian that a stranger would +scarcely think it a woman. The skirt clung to the rail-like limbs, while +the straight coat and silk hat helped to make Miss Miggs look extremely +like a man. + +"And wet! That's no name for it," giggled Helen. "She's saturated right +to the bone--and plenty of bone she has to be saturated to. Let's give +her three cheers as we go by, Ruth." + +"You horrid girl! nothing of the kind," cried Ruth Fielding, quite +exercised. "We must take her in with us--the carriage will hold three. +Unc' Simmy!" + +"You're the greatest girl," groaned Helen. "You might return good for +evil for a year with this person and it would do no good." + +"It always does good," responded Ruth. "Unc' Simmy!" + +"To whom, I'd like to know?" demanded Helen. + +"To _me_," snapped Ruth, and this time when she raised her voice she +made the old darkey hear. + +"Ya-as'm! ya-as'm!" he cried, turning and pulling the old horse down to +a welcome walk. + +"Let that lady get in here, Unc' Simmy. We'll take her to the hotel." + +"Sho' nuff! Sartainly," agreed the coachman, and with a flourish he +stopped beside the woman who was fairly wading through a muddy river. + +The rain was coming down harder again. It did not thunder and lightning +much, but the rainfall was fairly appalling to these visitors from the +North. + +"Do get in, quick!" cried Ruth, opening the low door and peering out +from the semi-gloom of the hood. + +The school teacher from New England understood instantly what the +invitation meant. She plunged toward the carriage and was half inside +before she saw who had rescued her from the deluge. + +"Get in! get in!" urged Ruth. "Unc' Simmy will take us right to the +hotel." + +Miss Miggs fairly snorted. "What! you? I wouldn't ride with you in this +carriage if we were in the middle of the Atlantic!" + +She backed out and stepped right into a puddle of water as deep as her +ankles! The excited scream she gave made Helen burst into suppressed +laughter. Hearing the girl, the woman glared at her in a way that +excited the laughter of the careless Helen to an even greater height. + +"Oh, drive on! drive on!" she gasped. "Let her swim if she wants to." + +But Unc' Simmy would not do this unless Ruth said so. He looked down at +the half submerged school teacher from his seat and exclaimed: + +"Wal, now! das one foolish woman, das sho' is! Why don' she git under +kiver when she's 'vited t' do so?" + +Just then a new actor appeared on the scene. A big umbrella came into +view and its bearer crossed the road, splashing through the accumulated +water without regard to the wetting of his own feet and legs. + +He gave the half-submerged woman a hand and drew her out to the side of +the road, and upon a comparatively dry spot. He had some difficulty with +the umbrella just then and raised it high enough for the two girls in +the carriage to see his face. + +"Oh, Ruthie, look there!" whispered Helen, as the horse started forward. +"See who it is!" + +"It's Curly--it's surely Curly Smith," muttered Ruth. + +"That's what I tell you," whispered Helen, fiercely. "And now we can't +speak to him." + +"Not with that Miss Miggs in the way. She is mean enough to tell the +police who he is." + +"Never mind," cried Helen, exultantly, "he got ashore from the fishing +boat." + +"But I wonder if he has any money left--and what he will do now. The +police may still be looking for him." + +"Oh, a boy as smart as he is would _never_ get caught by the police," +declared Helen, in delight. "I only wish I could speak to him and tell +him how glad I am he escaped arrest." + +"You're an awful-talking girl," sighed Ruth, as the old horse jogged on. +"I wish I could get him to go back to his grandmother--and go back to +show the people up there that he is innocent." + +"That does all very well to talk about, Ruth Fielding!" cried Helen. +"But suppose he can't _prove_ himself innocent? Do you want the poor boy +to go to jail and stay there the rest of his life?" + + + + +CHAPTER IX--SUNSHINE AT THE GATEHOUSE + + +The shower was over when Unc' Simmy stopped before the hotel veranda. +The two girls were rather bedraggled in appearance; but what would Miss +Miggs look like when _she_ arrived! + +"I hope we won't see that mean thing any more," Helen declared. "She is +our Nemesis, I do believe." + +"Don't let her worry you. She surely punished herself this time," said +Ruth, getting down. "Good-bye Unc' Simmy. Come for us again +to-morrow--only I hope it won't rain." + +"Ya-as'm! ya-as'm! T'ankee ma'am!" responded the darkey, and when Helen +had likewise alighted, he rattled away. + +"Goodness!" laughed Helen. "Are you so much in love with that old outfit +that you want to ride in it again, Ruthie Fielding?" + +"I want to see Miss Catalpa again--don't you?" returned her chum. "And I +would not go to the gatehouse with anybody but Unc' Simmy. It would be +impudent to do so." + +"Oh--yes! that's so," admitted Helen. "Come on to luncheon. I have Heavy +Stone's appetite, right now!" + +"If so, what will poor Heavy do?" asked Ruth, smiling. "This must be +about the time she wishes to exercise her own appetite at Lighthouse +Point. Would you deprive her, my dear, of any gastronomic pleasure?" + +"Woo-o-o!" blew Helen, making a noise like a whistle. "All ashore that's +going ashore! What big words you do use, Ruth. At any rate, let us +partake of the eatables supplied by this hostlery. Come on!" + +But they went up to their rooms first to "prink and putter" as Tom +always called it. + +"Dear old Tom!" sighed his twin. "How I miss him. And what fun we'd have +if he were along. Sorry Nettie's Aunt Rachel doesn't like boys enough to +have made up a mixed party." + +"You're the only 'mixed' party I see around here," laughed Ruth. "But I +wish Tom _were_ here. He'd know just how to get at Curly Smith and do +something for him." + +"That's right! I wish he were here," sighed Helen. + +"Never mind," laughed Ruth. "Don't let it take away that famous appetite +you just claimed to have. Come on." + +The girls went down and ventured into one of the dining rooms. A smiling +colored waiter--"at so much per smile," as Ruth whispered--welcomed them +at the door and seated them at rather a large table. This had been +selected for them because their party would soon be augmented. + +And this, in fact, happened before night. The girls were lolling in +content and happiness upon the veranda when the train came in bringing +among other passengers Mrs. Parsons and Nettie. + +Mrs. Parsons was a dark-haired and olive-skinned lady, who had been a +famous beauty in her youth, and a belle in her part of South Carolina. +Rachel Merredith had been quite famous, indeed, in several social +centers, and she was well known in Washington and Richmond, as well as +in the more Southern cities. + +She greeted Helen kindly, but warmly kissed Ruth, having become an +admirer of the girl of the Red Mill some time before. + +"Here's my clever little girl," she said, in her soft, drawling way. "I +declare! Ev'ry time I put on my necklace I think of you, Ruthie +Fielding, and how greatly beholden to you I am. I tell Nettie, here, +that when _she_ receives our heirloom at her coming-out party, she will +thank you, too." + +"I don't have to wait till then, Aunt Rachel!" cried Nettie, squeezing +the plump shoulders of the girl of the Red Mill. "Isn't it nice to see +you both again? How jolly!" + +"That's a new word Nettie got up No'th," said her Aunt Rachel. "Tell me, +dears: Have they treated you right, here at the hotel?" + +The girls assured her that the management had been very kind to them. +Then the question was asked: What had they done to kill time? + +Helen rattled off a dozen things she and Ruth had dabbled in that +afternoon--or, "evening" as the Virginians say; but it was Ruth who +mentioned their ride in the rain with old Unc' Simmy. + +"To the gatehouse? Where is that?" asked Aunt Rachel, lazily. + +Between bursts of laughter Helen tried to tell her about the queer old +negro and his dilapidated turnout; but it was Ruth who softly explained +to Mrs. Parsons about Miss Catalpa and the faithful old darkey's +relations to her. + +"Grogan?" repeated the lady. "Yes, yes, I remember the name. Who +doesn't? Major Grogan, her father, was a famous leader in the Lost +Cause. Oh, dear me, Ruthie! We are still so poor in the South that the +family of many a hero has come down to want. Catalpa Grogan? And you say +she is blind?" + +"She said we might come again and see her before we left the Point," +suggested Ruth, gently. + +Mrs. Rachel Parsons looked at her understandingly. "Quite right, my +dear. We _will_ go. I will find out about this lawyer, Colonel Wilder, +and he can probably tell me all we need to know. She and the old negro +shall be helped--that is the least we can do." + +So, the next morning, all in the glorious sunshine that is usually the +weather condition at Old Point Comfort, the party climbed into Unc' +Simmy's old barouche and set out on the drive. Mrs. Parsons accepted the +dilapidated turnout as quite a matter of course. + +"Don't fret about _me_, girls," she said, when Helen said that they +should have taken a different equipage. + +Ruth had already begun to get the "slant" of the Southern mind. The +Southerners respected themselves, and were inordinately proud of their +name and blood; but they could cheerfully go without many of the +conveniences of life which Northerners would consider a distinct +privation. Poverty among them was no disgrace; rather, it was to be +expected. They cheerfully made the best of it, and enjoyed what good +things they had without allowing caviling care to corrode their +pleasure. + +The sunshine drenched them as they rolled over the now dusty road, as +the rain had drenched the chums the day before. Yonder was the hole +beside the roadway into which Miss Miggs had been half submerged, and +from which she was rescued by the unfortunate Curly Smith. + +Helen hilariously related this incident to Nettie and her aunt. But, +warned by Ruth, she said nothing about the identity of the boy. + +"I hope we shall not meet that woman again," Ruth said, with a sigh. +"She surely would make a scene, Mrs. Parsons. You don't know how mean +she can be." + +"And a school teacher?" was the reply. "Fancy!" + +They arrived at the gatehouse and Ruth begged Unc' Simmy to stop and ask +if Miss Catalpa would receive them. + +"Give her my card, too, boy," said Mrs. Parsons, as the smiling old man +climbed down from his seat. + +"Ya-as'm! ya-as'm!" said Unc' Simmy, rolling his eyes, for he saw that +Mrs. Parsons was "one of de quality," as he expressed it. "Sho' will." + +They were not kept waiting long. Miss Grogan was too much the lady to +strive for effect. She received them, as she had the girls, on her +porch; but this time in the sunshine. + +It was a beautiful old front yard, hidden by an untrimmed hedge from the +highway; and the end of the porch where the blind woman sat was now +dressed with several old chairs that her guests might sit down. It was +likely that Unc' Simmy had brought these out himself, foretelling that +there would be visitors. + +"I am glad to see you," Miss Catalpa said. She remembered Ruth and Helen +when she clasped their hands, distinguishing between them, although she +had "seen" them but once. + +To Mrs. Parsons she confessed: "These young girls came in the rain and +cheered me up. I love the young. Don't you, ma'am?" + +"I do," sighed Aunt Rachel. "I'd give anything for my own youth." + +"No, no," returned Miss Catalpa, shaking her head. "Life gets better as +we grow mellow. That's what I tell them all. I do not regret my youth, +although 'twas spent comparatively free from care. And now----" + +She waved the knitting in her hand, and laughed--her low, bird-like call. +"The good Lord will provide. He always has." + +Mrs. Parsons, being a Southerner herself, could talk confidentially to +Miss Catalpa. It seemed that several names were known to them in common; +and the visitor from South Carolina learned how and where to find the +particular "Kunnel Wildah" who had the disposal of Miss Catalpa's +affairs in his hands. + +The party had a very pleasant visit with the blind woman. Unc' Simmy +appeared suddenly before them, his coachman's coat and gloves discarded, +and a rusty black coat in place of the livery. He bore a tray with high, +beautifully thin, tinkling glasses of lemonade, with a sprig of mint in +each. + +"Nobody makes lemonade quite like Uncle Simmy," Miss Catalpa said +kindly, and the old negro's face shone like a polished kitchen range at +the praise. It was evident that he fairly worshiped his mistress. + +The visitors left at last. Helen understood now why they had come. That +afternoon the girls were left to their own devices while Mrs. Parsons +sought out Colonel Wilder and made some provision for helping in the +support of Miss Catalpa and her old servant. + +"No, my dear," she said to Ruth. "You may help a little; but not much. +Wait until you become a self-supporting woman--as you will be, I know. +Then you can have the full pleasure of helping other people as you +desire. I can only enjoy it because my cotton fields have made me rich. +When we use money that has been left to us, or given to us in some way, +for charitable purposes, we lose the sweeter taste of giving away that +which we have actually earned. + +"And I thank you, my dear," she added, "for giving me the opportunity of +helping Miss Grogan and Uncle Simmy." + + + + +CHAPTER X--AN ADVENTURE IN NORFOLK + + +The party was off on its real tour into Dixie the next day. They were to +take the route in a leisurely fashion to the Merredith plantation, and, +as Nettie laughingly put it, "would go all around Robin Hood's barn" to +reach that South Carolinian Garden of Eden. + +"But we want you to really _see_ something of the South on the way; it +will be so warm--or, will seem so to you No'therners--when you come back, +that you will only be thinking of taking the steamer at Norfolk for New +York. + +"Now you shall see something of Richmond and Charleston, anyway," +concluded the Louisiana girl. "And next winter I hope you'll go home +with me to my own canebrakes and bayous. _Then_ we'll have a good time, +I assure you." + +Ruth and Helen were having a good time. Everybody about the hotel +treated them like grown-up young ladies--and of course such deferential +attentions delighted two schoolgirls just set free from the scholastic +yoke. + +They went across the bay on the ferry and landed at Norfolk. A trip to +the Navy Yard was the first thing, and as Mrs. Parsons knew some of the +officers there, the party was very courteously treated. They might have +visited the war vessels lying in Hampton Roads; but it seemed so hot on +the water that the chums from the North voted for a trip by surface car +to Norfolk's City Park. + +The lawns had not yet been burned brown and the trees were beautifully +leaved out. The park was a pleasant place and in it is one of the best +small zoological parks in the East. The deer herd was particularly +fine--such pretty, graceful creatures! All would have gone well had not +Helen received an unexpected fright as they were watching the beautiful +beasts. + +"You would better not stand so near that grating, Helen," Nettie told +her, as they were in front of the fence of the deer range. + +"How am I going to feed this pretty, soft-nosed thing with grass if I +_don't_ stand near?" demanded Helen. + +"But you don't _have_ to feed the deer," laughed Nettie. + +"No. But there's no sign that says you sha'n't," complained Helen. "And +I don't see----" + +Just then there was a fierce whistle and a big stag charged. Helen +looked all around--save in the right direction--for the sound. She was +leaning against the wire fence, but with her head turned so that she did +not see the gentle little doe bound away as her master came savagely +down the slope. + +The next instant the brute crashed against the fence and the shock of +his collision sent Helen to the ground. Although the angry stag was on +the other side of the woven-wire fence, so savage did he appear that +other people standing about ran screaming away. + +The stag was tearing up the sod with his forefeet and throwing himself +against the shaking fence as though determined to get at the prostrate +Helen. + +The latter was really hurt a little, and so badly frightened that she +could not arise instantly. Nettie was the nearest of her party; but she +was trembling and crying. Ruth was too far away, as was Mrs. Parsons, to +help her chum immediately, though she started running in her direction. + +But there was a rescuer at hand. A boy in a faded suit of overalls, who +must have been working near, ran down to drag the frightened girl away +from the fence. As he passed an old gentleman on the walk he seized the +latter's cane and darting between Helen and the fence, dealt the angry +stag a heavy blow upon the nose. + +Although the wire-fence saved the beast from serious injury, the blow +was heavy enough to make him fall back and cease his charges against the +wire netting. Then the boy helped Helen to her feet. + +"Oh!" shrieked the frightened girl. And after that, although the boy +quickly slipped away through the gathering crowd, and out of sight, +Helen said no other word. + +"Oh, my dear!" gasped Ruth, reaching her. "You did not even thank him." + +"I know it," whispered Helen. + +"Are--are you hurt, dear?" + +"Only my dignity is hurt," confessed her chum, beginning to laugh +hysterically. + +"But that boy----" + +"Hush, Ruthie!" begged Helen, her lips close to her chum's ear. "Do you +know who he was?" + +"Why--I----Of course not! I did not see his face." + +"It was Curly. Don't say a word," breathed Helen. "Here comes a +policeman." + +Ruth was as much amazed as Helen at the unexpected appearance of Henry +Smith. He was constantly bobbing up before them just like an imp in a +pantomime. + +Their friends hurried the chums away from the caged deer and the crowd +that had gathered. Helen had a few bruises but was not, fortunately, +really injured. But she confessed that she had seen all the deer she +cared to see for the time. + +"And I thought they were such gentle, affectionate creatures," she +sighed. "Why, that one was as savage as a bear!" + +They returned to the water-front and went aboard the Richmond boat in +good season for dinner. Ruth and Helen were rather used to boat travel +they thought by this time, and they found this smaller craft quite as +pleasant as the big steamer on which they had come down the coast. + +While they were at table in the saloon the boat started, and so nicely +was it eased off, and so quiet was the water, that the girls had no idea +the vessel had started. + +The girls ran out on deck, arranged a comfortable place for Mrs. +Parsons, and there watched the panoramic view of the roads and the +shores until darkness fell. + +"We shall miss many of the beauties of the James River plantations and +towns," Mrs. Parsons said; "by taking this night boat; but we shall have +a good night's sleep and see more of Richmond to-morrow than we +otherwise could." + +The chums did not have quite as much freedom on the river trip as they +did coming down on the New Union Line boat; for Mrs. Parsons insisted +upon an early bedtime. She would not have liked their sitting out on the +deck alone at a late hour. She did not believe in too much freedom for +young girls of her niece's age. + +However, she was very pleasant to travel with. Ruth and Helen marveled +at the attention Mrs. Parsons received from all the employees of the +boat, both white and black. + +"And she doesn't have to tip extravagantly to get service," Ruth pointed +out to Helen. "You see, these darkeys consider it an honor to attend +Mrs. Parsons. We Northerners are interlopers, after all; they sell us +their servile attentions at a high price; but they are glad to serve the +descendants of their old masters. There is a bond between the whites and +blacks of the South that we cannot quite understand." + +"I guess we're too independent and want to help ourselves too much," +Helen said. "You let me alone, Ruth Fielding, and I'll loll around just +like Nettie does and let the colored people fetch and carry for me." + +"You lazy little thing!" Ruth threw at her, laughing. "It doesn't become +your father's daughter to long for such methods and habits. Goodness! +the negroes themselves are so slow they give me the fidgets." + +In the morning they awoke from sleep as the boat was being docked. It +was another beautiful, sunshiny day. The negro dockhands lolled upon the +wharves. Up the river they could see the bridge to Manchester and the +rapids, up which no boat could sail. + +They ate their breakfast in a leisurely manner on the boat, and then +took an open carriage on Main Street, where the sickish odor of the +tobacco factories was all that spoiled the ride. + +They rode east and passed the site of the old Libby tobacco +warehouse--execrated by the prisoners during the Civil War as "Libby +Prison"--and saw, too, Libby Hill Park, Marshall's Park and the beautiful +Chimborazo reservation. + +Coming back they climbed the Broad Street hill and stopped at the hotel, +remaining there for rest and luncheon. Then the girls walked on Broad +Street and saw the shops and bought a few souvenirs and some needfuls, +while Mrs. Parsons remained in the hotel. The sun was hot, but the air +was dry and invigorating. + +Later in the afternoon the whole party went down into Capitol Square--a +very beautiful park, in which are located the state-house, the library, +and the Washington Monument. + +"Besides," declared Helen, "'most a million squirrels. Did you ever see +so many of the little dears? And see how tame they are." + +The squirrels and the children with their black nurses in Capitol Square +are among the pleasantest sights of Richmond. There was the old bell +tower, too, near the North Twelfth Street side, which interested the +girls, and they walked back to the hotel by way of Franklin Street and +saw the old home of General Robert E. Lee and some other famous +dwellings. + +The party was to remain one night in Richmond, and in the morning the +girls went alone to the Confederate Museum on Clay Street, which during +the Civil War was the "White House of the Confederacy." + +"I leave you young people to do the rest of the sightseeing," Mrs. +Parsons said, and took her breakfast in bed, waited on by a colored +maid. + +But at noon she appeared, trim and fresh again, in time for luncheon and +the ride to the railway station where they took the train for the South. + +"Now we're off for the Land of Cotton!" cried Helen. "This dip into +Dixie so far has only been a taste. What adventures are before us now, +do you suppose, Ruth?" + +Her chum could not tell her. Indeed, neither of them could have imagined +quite what was to happen to them before they again turned their faces +north for the return journey. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--AT THE MERREDITH PLANTATION + + +The noontide bell at some distant cotton house sent a solemn note--like +an alarm--ringing across the lowlands. The warm, sweet smell of the +brakes almost overpowered the girls from the North. And lulling their +senses, too, were the bird-notes, seemingly from every tree and bush. + +Long festoons of moss hung from some of the wide-armed trees. Here and +there, cleared hammocks were shaded by mighty oaks which may have been +standing when the first white settlers on this coast of the New World +established themselves at Georgetown, not many miles away. + +Riding in the comfortable open carriage, behind a handsome pair of bay +horses, and driven by a liveried coachman with a footman likewise +caparisoned on the seat beside him, Ruth and Helen, as guests of Mrs. +Rachel Parsons and Nettie, had already come twenty miles from the +railroad station. + +Despite the moisture and the heat, the girls from the North were +enjoying themselves hugely. The week that had passed since they had met +Nettie and her aunt at Old Point Comfort had been a most delightful one +for the chums. + +The long railroad journey south from Richmond had been broken by stops +at points of interest, including New Bern, Wilmington, Pee Dee, and +finally Charleston. The latter city had interested the girls +immensely--quite as much as Richmond. + +After two days there, the party had come back as far as Lanes and had +there taken the branch road for Georgetown, at the mouth of the Pee Dee +River, one of the oldest towns in the South, and around which linger +many memories of Revolutionary days. The guests would not see this old +town until a later date, however. + +Leaving the train at a small station in the forest, they were met by +this handsome equipage and were now approaching the Merredith +plantation. Ruth, as silent as her companions, was contrasting in her +own mind this beautiful carriage and pair with the old Grogan barouche, +the knock-kneed horse, and Unc' Simmy. + +"Two phases of the new South," she thought, for Ruth was rather prone to +a kind of mental problem that does not usually interest young folk of +her age. "Here is the progressive, up-to-date, money-making class +represented by Mrs. Parsons, reviving the ancient fortunes of her house. +While poor Miss Catalpa and her single faithful servant represent the +helpless and hopeless class, ruined by the war and--probably--ruined +before the war, only they had not found it out! + +"The Southern families who are reviving will, in time, be wealthier than +they were under the old regime. But how many poor people like Miss +Catalpa there must be scattered through this Dixieland!" + +The party soon came to where two huge oaks, scarred deeply by the axe, +intermingled their branches over the roadway. + +"This is our gateway," said Mrs. Parsons. "Here is the beginning of the +Merredith plantation." + +"Oh, Mrs. Parsons!" cried Helen, pointing to one side. "What is that +pole there? Or is it a dead tree?" + +"A dead pine. And it has been dead more than a hundred years, yet it +still stands," explained the lady. "They say that to its lowest branch +was hung a British spy in Revolutionary times--'as high as Haman'; but +re'lly, how they ever climbed so high to affix the rope over the limb, I +cannot say." + +She spoke to the coachman in a minute: "Jeffreys!" + +"Yes, ma'am," replied the black man. + +"Drive by the quarters." She said "quahtahs." "It will give the children +a chance to see us, and Dilsey and Patrick Henry won't want them coming +to the Big House and littering up the lawn." + +"Yes, ma'am," said the coachman and swung the horses into a by-road. + +All the drives were beautifully kept. If there chanced to be a piece of +grass in a forest opening, it was clipped like a lawn. This end of the +great plantation was kept as well as an English park. Occasionally they +saw men at work amid the groves of lovely shade trees. + +Suddenly there burst upon their view a sloping upland, dotted here and +there with groups of outbuildings and stables, checkered by fenced +pastures in which sleek cattle and horses grazed. There were truck +patches, too, belonging to the quarters, where the negroes lived. + +These whitewashed cabins, with their attendant chicken-runs and +pig-pens--all whitewashed, too--were near at hand. As the carriage swung +out of the forest, the hum of a busy village broke upon the ears of the +girls, as the sight of all this rich and rolling upland burst upon their +view. + +The green trees and the green grass contrasted with the white cots made +a delightfully cool picture for the eye. + +The mistress' equipage was sighted immediately and there boiled out of +the cabins a seemingly never-ending army of children and dogs. The dogs +were all of the hound breed, and the children were of one variety, +too--brown, bare-legged pickaninnies, about all of a size, and most of +them bow-legged. + +But they were a laughing, happy crowd as they came tearing along the +lane to meet the carriage. The hullabaloo of the dogs and children +brought the mothers to the cabin doors, or around from their washtubs at +the rear of the cabins. They, too, were smiling and--many of them--in +clean frocks and new bandanas, prepared to meet "de quality." + +And there were so many of them, bowing and smiling at "Mistis," as they +called Mrs. Parsons, and bidding her welcome! It was like a village +turning out to greet the feudal owner of the property. Mrs. Parsons +seemed to know all of them by name, and she shook hands with the older +women, and spoke particularly to some of the young women with babies in +their arms. Noticeably there were no children over seven or eight years +old at home; nor were there any young men or women, save the few married +girls with infants. Everybody else was at work in the fields, Ruth +learned. And she learned, too, in time, that the Merredith plantation +was one of the largest cotton farms in the state, and one of the most +productive. + +A little later, however, as they rode on, the visitors learned that +there was something beside cotton grown on the estate. On the upland +they came to a field of corn. It extended farther than their eyes could +see--a waving, black-green, waist-high sea, its blades clashing like a +forest of green swords. + +"How many acres in this piece, Jeffreys?" asked Mrs. Parsons, of the +coachman, seeing that the two Northern girls were interested. + +"Four hundred acres, ma'am. I hear Mistah Lomaine say so." + +"We passed huge corn and grain fields when we went West to Silver +Ranch," Ruth said. "But mostly in the night, I believe; and the corn was +not in the same stage of growth as this." + +"Cotton is still king in the South," laughed Mrs. Parsons; "but Corn has +become his prime-minister. I believe some of our bottom lands will raise +even better corn than this." + +They rode steadily on, having taken a considerable sweep around to see +the "quarters," and now approached the Big House. And it _was_ big! Ruth +and Helen never heard it called anything but the "Big House" by anybody +on the plantation. + +It was set upon a low mound in a grove of whispering trees. The lawns +about it were like velvet; the grass was of that old-fashioned, short, +"door-yard" kind which finds root in many door-yards of the South and +spreads slowly and surely where the land is strong enough to sustain it. +It needs little attention from the lawnmower, but makes a thick, velvety +carpet. + +The roots of some of the old trees had been exposed so many years that +their upper surface had rotted away, and in the rich mold thus made the +grass had taken root, upholstering low, inviting seats with its green +velvet. + +The house itself--mansion it had better be called--was painted white, of +course, even to its brick foundation. The massive roof of the veranda +which sheltered the second-floor windows as well as those of the first +floor on the front of the main building, was upheld by six great fluted +pillars as sound now as when cut from an equal number of forest monarchs +and raised into place, a hundred years before. + +On either side wings were built on to the main house, each big enough +for the largest family Ruth Fielding had ever known! What could possibly +be done with all those bedrooms upstairs was a mystery to her inquiring +mind until Nettie told her that, in the old slavery days, long before +the war, and when people traveled only on horseback and by coach, a +house party at the Merredith plantation meant the inviting for a week or +two of twenty-five ladies and as many gentlemen, and each had his or her +black attendant--valet, or maid--that had to be sheltered in the Big House +at night, although coachmen and footmen, and other "outriders" could +find room in the cabins, or stables. + +Both wings were closed now; but the windows remained dressed, for Mrs. +Parsons would not allow any part of the old house to look ugly and +forlorn. Twice a year an army of colored women went through the empty +rooms and cleaned and scoured, just as though again a vast company were +expected. + +The small retinue of house servants met the carriage at the foot of the +broad steps. They were mostly smiling young negroes, the men in livery +and the girls in cotton gowns, stiffly starched aprons, and white caps. +There was a broad, unctuous looking, mahogany colored "Mammy" on the top +step, and a gray-wooled, bent, old negro at the door of the carriage +when it stopped. + +"Good day, ma'am! Good-day!" said the old man to Mrs. Parsons. "My duty +to you." + +He waved away the officious footman and insisted upon helping the +mistress of the Merredith plantation down with all the pompous service +of a major-domo. + +"We are all well, Patrick Henry," said Aunt Rachel. "Is everything right +on the plantation?" + +"Yes'm; yes'm. I'll be proud to make my report at any time, ma'am." + +"Oh, to-morrow, I pray, Patrick Henry," cried Mrs. Parsons. She ran +lightly up the steps and the big colored woman, waiting there with +smiling lips but overflowing eyes, gathered the lady to her broad bosom +in a bearlike hug. + +"Ma honey-gal! Ma little mistis!" she crooned, rocking the white woman's +head to and fro upon her bosom. "Dilsey don't reckon she'll welcome yo' +here so bery many mo' times; but she's sho' glad of dishyer one!" + +"You are good for many years more, you know it, Mammy Dilsey!" laughed +Mrs. Parsons, breathlessly. + +"Here's Miss Nettie," she said, "and two of her school friends--Miss Ruth +and Miss Helen. Of course, there is no need to ask you, Mammy Dilsey, if +everything is ready for them?" + +"Sho', chile!" chuckled the old negress. "Yo' knows I wouldn't fo'git +nottin' like dat. De quality allus is treated proper at Mer'dith. Come +along, honeys; dere's time t' res' yo'selfs an' dress fo' dinner. We +gwine t' gib yo' sech anudder dinner as yo' ain' seen, Miss Rachel, +since yo' was yere airly in de spring. I know bery well yo' been +stahvin' ob yo'self in dem hotels in de Norf all dishyer w'ile." + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE BOY AT THE WAREHOUSE + + +"Goodness me!" cried Helen to Nettie. "How do you get along with so many +of these colored people under foot? I had thought it might be fun to +have so many servants; but I don't believe I could stand it." + +"Oh, I don't think Aunt Rachel has too many," Nettie said carelessly. +"We don't mind having them around. As long as their faces are smiling +and we know they are happy, we don't mind. You see, we Southerners +actually like the negroes; you Northerners only _say_ you do." + +"Hear! hear!" cried Ruth. "There is a difference." + +"Well," pouted Helen, "I don't know that I have any dislike for them. +I--I guess maybe I'm not just used to them." + +"It takes several generations of familiarity, I reckon," said Nettie, +with some gravity, "to breed the feeling we Southerners have for the +children of our old slaves. Slavery seems to have been a terrible +institution to you Northern girls; but we feel that the vast majority of +the negroes were better off in those days than they are now. + +"Slavery after all is a condition of the mind," Nettie said. "Those +blacks who were intelligent in the old days perhaps should have had +their freedom. But few slaves went with empty stomachs in the old days, +or had to worry about shelter. + +"It is different now. Whites as well as blacks throughout the South +often go hungry. Aunt Rachel keeps many more people on the Merredith +plantation than she really needs to work it, so that there shall be +fewer starving families on the outskirts of the estate." + +"Your aunt is a dear, good woman," Ruth said warmly. "I am sure whatever +she does is right." + +The girls were sitting in comfortable rocking chairs on the broad +veranda in the cool of the evening. A mocking-bird began to sing in a +tree near by and the three friends broke off their conversation to +listen to him. + +"I'd have loved to see one of those grand companies of ladies and +gentlemen who used to visit here," said Helen, after a little. "Such a +weekend party as that must have been worth while." + +"And you don't like darkeys!" cried Nettie, laughing merrily. "Why, in +those times the place was alive with them. This piece of gravel before +the house was haunted by every darkey from the quarters. The gravel was +worked like a regular silver-mine. No gentleman mounted his horse before +the door here without scattering a handful of silver to the darkeys. +Even now, the men working for Aunt Rachel, sometimes find tarnished old +silver pieces as they rake over the gravel." + +"Dear me! let's go silver-mining, Ruthie," cried Helen. "I need to have +my purse replenished already." + +"And if you found any money here you would give it to that bright little +girl who waited on us so nicely upstairs," laughed Ruth. + +"Of course. That's what I want it for," confessed Helen. + +"Your mind is perfectly adjusted to a system of slavery, my dear," +Nettie said to Helen Cameron. "Here is my father's picture of what +slavery meant to the South. He says he was walking along a street in New +Orleans years ago and saw an old gentleman grubbing in the mud of a +gutter with his cane. The old gentleman finally turned up a half dollar +which had been dropped there; and after picking it up and polishing it +on his handkerchief to make sure it was good money, he tossed it to the +nearest negro idling on the street corner. + +"_That_ was slavery. It was the whites who were enslaved to the blacks, +after all. Both were bound by the system; but it was the negro who got +the best of it, for every half dollar that the white man earned he had +to pay for food to keep his slaves. Now," added Nettie, smiling, "the +law even lets the bad white man cheat the ignorant black out of the +wages he earns, and the poor black may starve." + +"Dear me!" cried Helen, "we're getting as sociological as one of Miss +Brokaw's lectures. Let's not. Keep your information to yourself, please, +Miss Parsons. Positively I refuse to learn anything about social +conditions in the South while I am in the Land of Cotton. I'll get my +information from text-books and at a distance. This is too beautiful a +landscape to have it spoiled by statistics and examples, or any other +_such trash_!" + +By and by, as the darkness came swiftly (so swiftly that it surprised +the visitors from the North) a bird flew heavily out of the lowlands and +pitched upon a dead limb near the house. At once the plaintive cry of +"whip-poor-will!" resounded through the night, and Ruth and Helen began +to count the number of times in succession the bird uttered its somber +note without a break. + +Usually the count numbered from forty-three to forty-seven--never an even +number; but Nettie said she had heard one demand "the castigation of +poor William" more than seventy times before stopping. + +The whippoorwill flew to other "pitches" near the house, and once +actually lit upon the roof to utter his love-call; but never, Nettie +told the other girls, would the bird alight upon a live branch. + +Just before his cry began they could hear him "cluck! cluck! cluck!" +just like an old hen--or, as Ruth suggested--"like a rheumatic old clock +getting ready to strike." + +"He's clearing his voice," declared Helen. "Now! off he goes. Isn't he +funny?" + +"I wonder what the little whippoorwillies are like?" asked Ruth. + +"I don't know. I never saw the young. But I've seen a nest," said +Nettie. "The whippoorwill makes it right out in the open, on the top of +an old stump, or on a boulder. There the female lays the eggs and +shelters them and the young from the storms with her own body." + +"My, I'd like to see one!" exclaimed Helen. + +But there were more interesting things than the nest of the whippoorwill +to see about the Merredith plantation. And the sightseeing began the +next morning, before the sun had been long up. + +Immediately after breakfast, while it was still cool, the horses +appeared on the gravel before the great door, each held by a grinning +negro lad from the stables. No Southern plantation would be properly +equipped without a plentiful supply of good riding stock, and Mrs. +Parsons had bred some rather famous horses during the time she had +governed her ancestral estate. + +Ruth and Helen had learned to ride well when they visited Silver Ranch +some years before; so they were not afraid to mount the spirited animals +that danced and curveted upon the gravel. Mr. Lomaine, the +superintendent of the estate, and whom the visitors had met the evening +before, came pacing along from the stables upon a great, black horse, +ready to accompany the three girls upon a tour of inspection. + +Mr. Lomaine was a very pleasant gentleman and was dressed in black, +wearing a broad-brimmed black hat, riding puttees, and gauntlets. The +whip he carried was silver-mounted. He had entire charge of the work on +the plantation; but the old negro, Patrick Henry, Mammy Dilsey's +husband, had personal care of the house, its belongings, and the other +negroes' welfare. + +"Come on, girls," cried Nettie, showing more vigor than she usually +displayed as she was helped into her saddle by one of the attendants. +"I'm just aching for a ride." + +They rode, however, with side-saddle, and neither Ruth nor Helen felt as +sure of themselves mounted in this way as they had in the West on the +cow-ponies belonging to Mr. Bill Hicks. + +The morning, however, was delightful. The dogs and little negroes +cheered the cavalcade as they passed in sight of the cabins. Had Mr. +Lomaine not ordered them back, a dozen or more of both pickaninnies and +canines would have followed "de quality" around the plantation. + +They rode down from the corn lands to the cotton fields. Negroes and +mules were at work everywhere. "I do say!" gasped Helen. "I didn't know +there were so many mules in the whole world. Funny things! with their +shaved tails and long ears." + +"And hind feet with the itch!" exclaimed Ruth. "I don't want to get near +the _dangerous_ end of one of those creatures." + +The cavalcade followed the roads through the fields of cotton and down +to the river bank. Here stood the long cotton warehouse and the +gin-house and press, where the cotton is prepared, baled, and stored for +the market. The Merredith cotton was shipped direct from the +plantation's own dock, and the buyers came here at the selling time to +inspect and judge the quality of the output. + +The warehouse boss, a long, lean, yellow man with a chin whisker that +wabbled in a funny way every time he spoke, came out on the platform to +speak with Mr. Lomaine. There were some hands inside trundling baled +cotton from one end of the dark warehouse to the other. + +"Hullo!" exclaimed Mr. Lomaine, within the girls' hearing, and after a +minute or two of desultory conversation with the boss. "Hullo! who's +that white boy you got there, Jimson?" + +"That boy?" returned the man, with a broad grin. "That's a little, +starvin' Yank that come along. I had to feed him; so I thought I'd +bettah put him to work. And he kin work--sho' kin!" + +Ruth's eye would never have been attracted by the slim figure wheeling +the big cotton bale had she not overheard this speech. A boy from the +North? And he had curly hair. + +It was a very dilapidated figure, indeed, that Ruth watched trundle the +bale down the shadowy length of the warehouse. When his load was +deposited he wheeled the hand-truck back for another bale. His face was +red and he was perspiring. Ruth thought the work must be very arduous +for his slight figure. + +And then she forgot all about anything but the identity of the boy. It +was Henry Smith--"Curly" as he was known about Lumberton, New York. She +glanced quickly at her chum. Helen saw the boy, too, and had recognized +him as quickly as had Ruth herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--RUTH IS TROUBLED + + +"What shall we do about it?" asked Helen. + +"Do about what, dear?" + +"You know very well, Ruthie Fielding! You saw him as well as I did," +Helen declared. + +They were riding slowly back to the Big House after their visit to the +river side, and Helen reined her horse close in beside her chum's mount. + +"I know what you mean," admitted Ruth, placidly. "Do you think it is +necessary for us to say anything--especially where others might hear?" + +"But that's Curly!" whispered Helen, fiercely. + +"I am sure of it." + +"And did you see how he looked? Why, the boy is in rags. He even looks +much worse than when we last saw him--when he saved me from that deer at +Norfolk," and Helen began to giggle at the recollection. + +"Something has happened to poor Curly since then," said Ruth, with a +sigh. "I guess he has found out that it is not so much fun to run away +as he thought." + +"The man said he was starving," sighed Helen. + +"He certainly must have been having a hard time," Ruth returned. "I'll +write to his grandmother again. Her answer to my letter written at Old +Point Comfort has not arrived yet; but I think she ought to know that we +have found Curly again." + +"And tell her he is ragged and hungry. Maybe it will touch her heart," +begged Helen. "But we ought to do something for him, Ruth." + +"Maybe." + +"Of course we should. Why not?" + +"It might scare him away if he knew that anybody here had recognized +him. It is such a coincidence that he should come right here to this +Merredith plantation," Ruth said. "What do you suppose it means? Could +he have known that we were coming here, and is he trying to find us?" + +"Oh, Ruth! He'd know we would help him, wouldn't he?" + +"I didn't think that Curly was the sort of boy to hunt up girl's help in +any case," laughed Ruth. + +"Don't laugh! it seems so cruel. Hungry!" breathed Helen. + +"The boy is learning something," her chum said, with decision. "Now that +he is really away from his grandmother, I hope this will teach him a +lesson. I don't want any harm to come to Curly Smith; but if he learns +that his home is better than a loose life among strangers, it will be a +good thing." + +"Why, Ruth!" gasped Helen. "You talk just as though the police were not +looking for him." + +"Hush! we won't tell everybody that," advised Ruth. "Probably they will +never discover him here, in any case. His crime is not so great in the +eyes of the law." + +"I don't believe he ever did it!" cried Helen. + +"Neither do I. It seems to me," Ruth said gravely, "that if he had +helped those men commit the robbery, he would have gone away from +Lumberton with them." + +"That is so!" + +"And he shows that he has no criminal friends, or he would not come so +far--and all alone. Nor would he have been so forlorn and hungry, if he +was willing to steal." + +Ruth wrote her letter, as she promised; and she thought a good deal +about the boy they had seen at the cotton warehouse. Suppose Curly Smith +should take up his wanderings from this place? Suppose the warehouseman, +Mr. Jimson, should discharge him? The man had spoken in rather an +unfeeling way of the "little, hungry Yank," and Ruth did not know how +good at heart the lanky, chin-whiskered man was. + +She determined to do something to make it reasonably sure that Curly +would remain on the Merredith plantation until she could hear from his +grandmother. Possibly the trouble in Lumberton might be settled. If the +railroad had not lost much money--provided it was really proved that +Curly had recklessly helped the thieves--the matter might be straightened +out if Mrs. Sadoc Smith would refund a portion of the money lost. + +And by this time Ruth believed the boy's grandmother might be willing to +do just that. It was very natural for her to announce in the first flush +of her anger and shame, that she would have nothing more to do with her +grandson, but Ruth was quite sure she loved him devotedly, and that her +heart would soon be yearning for his graceless self. + +Besides, when Mrs. Smith read the letter Ruth wrote, she would know that +the wandering boy was in trouble and in poverty. As Helen begged her, +Ruth had written these facts "strong." She had made out Curly's case to +be as pitiful as possible, and she hoped for results from Lumberton. + +Suppose, however, if a forgiving letter came from Mrs. Sadoc Smith, +Curly could not then be found at the warehouse on the river side? Ruth +thought of this during the heat of the day, when the family at the Big +House rested. That siesta after luncheon seemed necessary here, in the +warm, moist climate of the river-lands. Ruth awoke about three o'clock, +with an idea for action in Curly Smith's case. She slipped out of the +room without disturbing Helen. + +Running downstairs she found that nobody had yet descended. Two of the +liveried men rose yawning from the mahogany settees in the hall. A +downstairs girl dozed with her head on her arms on the center table in +one reception room. + +"The castle of the Sleeping Beauty," murmured Ruth, smiling, and without +speaking to any of the house servants, she ran out. + +She knew the way to the stables and there were signs of life there. Two +or three of the grooms were currying horses in the yard, and idly +talking and laughing. One of them threw down the currycomb and brush and +ran immediately to Ruth as she appeared at the bars. + +Ruth recognized him as the boy who had held her horse while she mounted +that morning, and she suspected immediately that he had been instructed +to be at her beck and call if she expressed any desire for a mount. She +asked him if that was so. + +"Yes, ma'am. Patrick Henry say fo' me t' 'tend yo' if yo' rode." + +"Can I ride out any time?" asked the girl. + +He grinned at her widely. "Sho' kin, ma'am," he said. "Dat little bay +mare wid de scah on her hip, she at yo' sarbice--an' so's Toby." + +"You are Toby?" + +"Oh, yes, ma'am." + +"Then saddle the mare for me at once and--stay! can you go with me?" + +"Positive got t' go wid yo', miss. Ab-so-lum-lute-ly," declared the +negro, gravely. "Dem's ma 'structions f'om Patrick Henry." + +"All right, Toby. I want to go back to that cotton warehouse where we +stopped this morning. I forgot something." + +"Ready in a pig's wink, Miss Ruth," declared the young negro, and ran +off to saddle the bay mare and get, for himself, a wicked looking +speckled mule. + +The bay mare felt just as much refreshed by her siesta as Ruth did. She +started when Ruth was in the saddle, seemingly with a determination to +break her own record for speed. The girl of the Red Mill, her hat off, +her hair flying, and her eyes and cheeks aglow, looked back to see what +had become of Toby and the speckled mule. + +But she need not have worried about them. Toby had no saddle, and only a +rope bridle; but he clung to the mule like a limpet to a rock, with his +great-toes between two ribs, "tick'lin' ob 'im up!" as he expressed it +to the laughing Ruth, when at last she brought the mare to a halt in +sight of the river. + +"Dishyer mu-el," declared Toby, "I s'pec could beat out dat mare on a +long lane; but I got t' hol' Mistah Mu-el in, 'cause Patrick Henry done +tol' me hit ain' polite t' ride ahaid ob de quality." + +He dropped respectfully to the rear when they started again, only +calling out to Ruth the turns to take as they rode on. In half an hour +they were in sight of the cotton warehouse. + +It was just then that the girl almost drew her bay mare to a full stop. +It smote her suddenly that she had not made up her mind just how she +should approach Curly Smith, the runaway. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--RUTH FINDS A HELPER + + +The warehouse foreman, or "boss," was sunning himself on the end +platform, just where the lap, lap, lap of the river drowsed upon his ear +on one side, and the buzzing of the bees drowsed on the other. He +started from his nap at the clatter of hoofs and beheld one of those +"little Miss Yanks," as he privately called the visitors to Merredith, +reining in her horse before him, with the grinning darkey a proper +distance behind. + +"Wal, I'll be whip-sawed!" ejaculated Mr. Jimson, under his breath. Then +aloud: "Mighty glad t' see yo', miss. It's a pretty evenin', ain't it? +What seems t' be the trouble?" + +"Oh, no trouble at all," said the girl of the Red Mill, brightly. "I--I +just thought I'd stop and speak to you." + +"That's handsome of yo'," agreed the man, but with a puzzled look. + +"I wanted another ride," went on Ruth, "and I got Toby to take me around +this way. Because, you see, I'm curious." + +"Is that so, Miss Ruth?" returned the long and lanky man. "Seems t' me +we most of us are. What is yo' curiosity aimin' at right now?" + +Ruth laughed, as she saw his gray eyes twinkling. But she put on a brave +front and said: "I'd dearly love to see into your cotton storehouse. +Can't I come in? Are the men working there now?" + +"Yes'm. And the boys," said Mr. Jimson, drily. + +Ruth had to flush at that. How the boss had guessed her errand she did +not know; but she believed he suspected the reason for her visit. It was +a moment or two before she could decide whether to confide in him or +not. + +Meanwhile, Toby held her stirrup and she leaped down and mounted the +platform. The negro led the mare and the mule into the shade. Mr. Jimson +still smiled lazily at her, and chewed a straw. + +Finally, when Ruth was just before the man, she smiled one of her +friendly, confiding smiles and he capitulated. + +"Miss Ruth," he said, in his soft, Southern drawl, "Jes' what is it yo' +want? I saw you an' that other little Miss Yank--beggin' yo' +pahdon--lookin' at that rag'muffin I took in yisterday, an' I s'pected +that you knowed him." + +"Oh, Mr. Jimson! how sharp you are." + +"Pretty sharp," admitted the boss, with a sly smile. "I'd like t' know +what he's done." + +"He's run away from home," Ruth said quickly. + +"Ya-as. They mos' allus do. But what did he do 'fore he ran away, Miss +Ruth?" + +The man's dry, crooked smile held assurance in it. Ruth realized that if +she wanted his help--and she did--she must be more open with Mr. Jimson. + +"I don't believe that he has really done anything very bad," Ruth said +gravely. "It was what he was accused of and the punishment threatening +him, which made Curly run away." + +"Curly?" repeated Jimson. + +"Yes. That's what we call him. His name is Henry Smith." + +"I'll be whip-sawed!" exclaimed Jimson. "I like that boy. He give me his +real name--he sho' did. Curly Smith he said 'twas. An' yit, _that_'d be +as good a disguise as he could ha' thunk up, mebbe. Smith's a mighty +common name, ain't it?" + +"Curly always was a frank and truthful boy. But he was full of +mischief." + +She knew that she had Mr. Jimson's sympathy for the boy now, so she +began to tell him all about Curly. The warehouse boss listened without +interruption save for an occasional, "sho', now!" or "you don't say!" +Her own and Helen's adventures since they had left home to come South, +seemed to amuse Mr. Jimson a great deal, too. + +"I'll be whip-sawed!" he exclaimed, at last. "You little Miss Yanks are +the beatenes'--I declar'! Never heard tell of sech gals as you are, +travelin' about alone--jest as perky as young pa'tridges! Sho' now!" + +"My chum and I have gone about a good deal alone. We don't think it so +very strange. 'Most always my friend's twin brother is with us." + +"Wal, that don't make so much difference," said Mr. Jimson. "Her twin +brother? Is he older'n she is?" he added, quite innocently. + +"Oh, no," Ruth admitted, stifling a desire to laugh. "My chum and I feel +quite confident of finding our way about all right." + +"Sho' now! I got a gal at home that's bigger'n older'n you and Miss +Helen and her maw wouldn't trust her t' go t' the Big House for a +drawin' of tea. She'd plumb git lost," chuckled Mr. Jimson. "But now! +about this boy. What d' yo' want t' do about him?" + +"Oh, Mr. Jimson!" Ruth cried. "I do so want to be sure that Curly stays +here until I can hear from his grandmother. I have written to her and +begged her to take him back----" + +"An' git him grabbed by the police?" demanded Jimson. + +"He ought to go back and fight it out," Ruth declared firmly. "He ought +not to knock about the world, and fall into bad associations as he may, +and come to harm. I don't believe he will be punished if he is not +guilty." + +"It don't a-tall matter whether a man's innocent or guilty," objected +Mr. Jimson. "If the police is after him, he's jest natcher'ly _scared_." + +"I suppose so," Ruth admitted. "I would run away myself, I suppose. But +I want Curly to go back to Mrs. Sadoc Smith." + +"Jest as you say, Miss Ruth. I'll hold on to him," the warehouse boss +promised. + +"I hope he doesn't see us girls and get frightened, thinking that we'll +tell on him," Ruth said. + +"I'll see to it that he doesn't skedaddle," Mr. Jimson assured her. +"He's sleepin' at my shack nights. I'll lock him in his room." + +Ruth laughed at that, and rather ruefully. "That's what his grandmother +did," she observed. "But it didn't do any good, you see. He got out of +the window and went over the shed roof to the ground. And it was a +twenty-foot drop, too." + +"Don't yo' fret," said Mr. Jimson. "The windah of his room is barred. +And he'd half t' drop into the river. By the looks of things," he added, +cocking his eye at the treetops, "there's goin' to be plenty of water in +this river pretty soon." + +Jimson was a prophet. That very night it began to rain. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--THE RIDE TO HOLLOWAYS + + +Being kept indoors by the rain was not altogether a privation. At least, +the three girls staying at the Big House did not find it such. + +They became acquainted with Mammy Dilsey during that first day of rain. +At least, the girls from the North did; Nettie had been a pet of the old +woman for years. + +Dilsey was full of old-time stories--just such stories as were calculated +to enthrall girls of the age of Ruth Fielding and her friends. For even +Ruth, with all her good sense and soberness, loved to hear of pretty +ladies, in pretty frocks, and with beautifully dressed gentlemen dancing +attendance upon them, such as in the old times often filled Merredith +House. + +Mammy Dilsey insisted she could remember when men really dressed in +satin and lace, and wore wonderfully fluted shirt-bosoms, and fine linen +and broadcloth. The pre-Civil War ladies, of course, with their +crinolines, and tiny bonnets, and enormous shade-hats must have looked +really beautiful. The girls listened to the tales of the parties at the +Big House almost breathlessly. + +"An' dat time de Gov'nor come--de _two_ Gov'nors come," sighed Mammy +Dilsey. "De Gov'nor ob No'th Ca'lina an' de Gov'nor ob So'th Ca'lina----" + +"I know what they _said_ to each other--those two governors," interrupted +Helen, her eyes dancing. "My father told me." + +"I dunno wot dey _said_," said Mammy Dilsey, who did not know the old +joke. "But I sho' knows how dey _looked_. Dey was bof such big, +upstandin' sort o' men. My-oh-my! Ah tells yo', chillen, dey was a big +_breed_ o' men in dese pahts in dem days--sho' was. + +"Ma Miss Rachel, she been a li'le tinty gal in dem days. Ah car's her in +ma arms 'mos' de time. Her maw was weakly-like. An' I could walk up an' +down de end o' dis big verandah wid dat mite ob a baby, an' see all dat +went on. + +"My-oh-my! de splendid car'ages, an' de beautiful horses, an' de fine +ladies an' gemmen--dere nebber'll be nothin' like it fo' ol' Mammy Dilsey +t' see ag'in twill she gits t' dat Hebenly sho' an' see dat angel band +wot de Good Book talks about." + +Incidents of this great party at the Merredith plantation, and of other +famous entertainments there, were still as fresh in Mammy Dilsey's mind +as the occurrences of yesterday. + +"Oh, goodness," sighed Helen, "there never will be any fun for girls +again. And nowadays the boys only care to go to baseball games, or to go +hunting and fishing. They refuse to come at _our_ beck and call as they +used to in these times Mammy Dilsey tells about." + +"I guess we make _ourselves_ too much like _them_selves," laughed Ruth. +"That's why the boys of to-day are different. If chivalry is dead, we +women folks have killed it." + +"I don't see why," pouted Helen. + +"Oh, my dear!" cried her chum. "You want to have your cake and eat it, +too. It can't be done. If we girls want the boys to be gallant and dance +attendance on us, and cater to our whims--as they certainly did in our +grandmothers' days--we must not be rough and ready friends with them: +play golf, tennis, swim, run, bat balls, and--and talk slang--the equal of +our boy friends in every particular." + +"You're so funny, Ruthie," laughed Nettie. + +"Lecture by Miss Ruth Fielding, the famous woman's rights advocate," +groaned Helen. + +"I am not sure I advocate it, my dear," sighed Ruth. "'I, too, would +love and live in Arcady.'" + +"Goodness! hear her exude sentiment," gasped Helen. "Who ever thought to +live till _that_ wonder was born?" + +"Maybe, after all, Ruth has the right idea," said Nettie, timidly. "My +cousin Mapes says that he finds lots of girls who are 'good fellows'; +but that when he marries he doesn't want to marry a 'good fellow,' but a +_wife_." + +"Horrid thing!" Helen declared. "I don't like your cousin Mapes, +Nettie." + +"I am not sure that a girl might not, after all, fill your cousin's +'bill of particulars,' if she would," Ruth said, laughing. "'Friend +Wife' can still be a good comrade, and darn her husband's socks. I +guess, after all, not many young fellows would want to marry the kind of +girl his grandmother was." + +The trio of girls did not spend all their rainy hours with Mammy Dilsey, +or in such discussions as the above. Besides, now and then the sun broke +through the clouds and then the whole world seemed to steam. + +The girls had the big porch to exercise upon, and as soon as it promised +any decided change in the weather there were plans for new activities. + +Across the river was a place called Holloways--actually a small island. +It was quite a resort in the summer, there being a hotel and several +cottages, occupied by Georgetown and Charleston people through the hot +season. + +Mrs. Parsons thought that her young guests would become woefully lonely +and "fair ill of Merredith," if they did not soon have some social +diversion, so it was planned to go to Holloways to the weekend "hop" +held by the hotel guests and cottagers. + +This was nothing like a public dance. Mrs. Parsons would not have +approved of that. But the little coterie of hotel guests and the +neighbors arranged very pleasant parties which the mistress of the +Merredith plantation was not averse to her young folks attending. + +As it happened, she herself could not go. A telegram from her lawyers in +Charleston called Mrs. Parsons to the city only a few hours before the +time set for the party to start for Holloways. + +"Now, listen!" cried Aunt Rachel. "You girls shall not be +disappointed--no, indeed! Mrs. Holloway will herself act as your chaperon +and will take good care of you. We should remain at her hotel over +night, in any case." + +"But we won't have half so much fun if you don't go, Mrs. Parsons," +Helen said. + +"Nonsense! nonsense! what trio of girls was ever enamored of a strict +duenna like me?" and Mrs. Parsons laughed. "I'll send one of the boys on +ahead with a note to Mrs. Holloway to look out for you and Jeffreys will +drive you over and come after you to-morrow noon. I believe in girls +sleeping till noon after a party." + +"But how are you going to the station, Aunt Rachel?" cried Nettie. + +"I'll ride Nordeck. And John shall ride after me and bring the horse +back. Now, scatter to do your own primping, girls, and let Mammy Dilsey +'tend to me." + +In half an hour Mrs. Parsons was off--such need was there for haste. She +went on horseback with a single retainer, as she said, riding at her +heels. Although the weather appeared to have cleared permanently, the +creeks were up and Mr. Lomaine reported the river already swollen. + +Mrs. Parsons had been wise to ride horseback; a carriage might not have +got safely through some of the fords she would be obliged to cross +between the plantation and the railroad station. + +On the other hand, the girls bound for Holloways were not likely to be +held back, for there were bridges instead of fords. All in their party +finery, Ruth and Helen and Nettie started away from the Big House in the +roomy family carriage, and with them went Norma, Nettie's own little +colored maid, with her sewing kit and extra wraps. + +The road to the bridge which spanned the wide river led directly past +the cotton warehouse. Ruth had not been there since her conversation +with Mr. Jimson; but the warehouse boss had sent her word twice that +Curly Smith seemed to be contented and desired to remain. + +Both of the Northern girls were extremely anxious to see the boy from +Lumberton. Ruth looked every day, now, for a letter from Mrs. Sadoc +Smith; and she hoped the stern old woman would relent and ask her +grandson to return. + +The river was, as Mr. Lomaine had said, very high. The brown, muddy +current was littered with logs, uprooted trees, fence rails, pig-pens, +hen houses, and other light litter wrenched from the banks during the +last few days. Ruth said it looked quite as angry as the Lumano, at the +Red Mill, when there was a flood. + +Jeffreys had brought the carriage to a full stop on the bank overlooking +the stream and the warehouse. The water surged almost level with the +shipping platform. There had been a reason for Mr. Jimson's shifting all +the cotton in storage to the upper end of the huge building. He had +foreseen this rain and feared a flood. + +Suddenly, just as Jeffreys was about to drive on, Helen uttered a +scream, and pointed to a drifting hencoop. + +"See! See that poor thing!" she cried. + +"What's the matter now, honey?" asked Nettie. "I don't see anything." + +"On the roof of that coop," Ruth said quickly espying what her chum saw. +"The poor cat!" + +"Where is there a cat?" cried Nettie, anxiously. She was a little +near-sighted and could not focus her gaze upon the small object on the +raft as quickly as the chums from the North. + +"Dear me, Nettie!" cried Helen, in exasperation. "If you met a bear he'd +have to bite you before you'd know he was there." + +"Never mind," drawled the Southern girl, "I am not being chased and +knocked down by deer----Oh! I see the poor kitty." + +"I should hope you did!" Helen said. "And it's going to be drowned!" + +"No, no," Ruth said. "I hope not. Can't it be brought ashore? See! that +coop is swinging into an eddy." + +"Well, Ruthie Fielding!" cried Helen, "you're not going to jump +overboard in your party dress, and try to get that poor cat, I should +hope!" + +"There's a boy who can get her!" exclaimed Nettie, standing up in the +carriage, and being able to see well enough to espy a figure on a small +raft down by the loading dock. + +"Oh, Nettie! ask him to try!" gasped Ruth. + +"Hey, boy!" called Nettie. "Can't you save that poor cat for us?" + +The boy turned, and both Ruth and Helen recognized the curly head--if not +the shockingly ragged garments--of Henry Smith. He waved a reassuring +hand and pushed off from the platform. + +Mr. Jimson came running from the interior of the warehouse and shouted +after him. + +"There! I hope we haven't got him into more trouble," mourned Ruth. + +"And he can't get the cat," wailed Helen, in a moment. "The current is +taking the raft clear out into midstream." + +Curly was working vigorously with the single sweep, however, and he +finally brought the cumbersome craft to the edge of the eddy where the +hencoop with its frightened passenger whirled under the high bank. + +"Yo' kyant git that cat, you fool boy!" bawled Jimson. "And yo'll lose +my raft." + +"Oh, Mr. Jimson!" cried Nettie. "We do want him to save that cat if he +can." + +"But he'll lose a mighty good oar, an' that raft," complained the boss. + +"Never mind," said Nettie, firmly. "You can make another oar and another +raft. But how are you going to make another cat?" + +"I'll be whip-sawed!" exclaimed the long and lanky man. "Who ever heard +the like of that? There's enough cats come natcher'lly without nobody's +wantin' t' make none." + +The girls laughed at this, but they were anxious about the cat. And, the +next moment, they began to be anxious about the boy. + +Curly threw away the oar and plunged right into the eddy. He had little +clothing on, and no shoes, so he was not greatly trammeled in swimming +to the drifting hencoop. But once there, how would he get the cat +ashore? + +However, the boy went about his task in quite a manful manner. He +climbed up, got one arm hooked over the roof and reached for the wet and +frightened cat. The poor creature was so despairing that she could not +even use her claws in defense, and Curly pulled her off her perch and +set her on his shoulder. + +There she clung trembling, and when Curly let himself down into the +water again she only uttered a wailing, "Me-e-ou!" and did not try to +scratch him. He struck out for the shore, keeping his shoulders well out +of the water, and after a fight of a minute or two, brought the cat to +land. + +Once within reach of the land, the cat leaped ashore and darted into the +bushes; while Jimson helped the breathless Curly to land. + +"There! yo' reckless creatuah!" exclaimed the man. "I've seen folks +drown in a current no worse than that. Stan' up an' make yo' bow t' Miss +Nettie, here," and he turned to Nettie, who had got out of the carriage +in her interest. + +Ruth and Helen stayed back. They did not wish to thrust themselves on +the notice of Curly Smith. Nettie told Jimson to see that the saturated +boy had a new outfit. + +"And don't let him get away till Aunt Rachel returns from Charleston and +sees him. She'll want to do something for him, I know," she added. + +The boy glanced shyly up at the girls and suddenly caught sight of Ruth +and Helen in the background. Like a shot he wheeled and ran into the +bushes. + +"Oh! catch him!" gasped Ruth. "Don't let him run away, Mr. Jimson." + +"He's streakin' it for my shack, I reckon," said the boss. "Mis +Jimson'll find him some old duds of mine to put on." + +"But maybe he won't come back," said Helen, likewise anxious. + +"Ya-as he will. I ain't paid him fo' his wo'k here," chuckled Jimson. +"He'll stay a while longah. Don't fret about that." + +Nettie got back into the carriage, which went on toward the bridge. As +they crossed the long span the girls saw that the current was roaring +between the piers and that much rubbish was held upstream by the bridge. +The bridge shook under the blows of the logs and other debris which +charged against it. + +"My! this is dangerous!" cried Helen. "Suppose the bridge should give +way?" + +"Then we would not get home very easily," laughed Nettie. + +It was not a laughing matter, however, when they came later to the +shorter span that bridged the back water between the island where the +hotel was situated, and the shore of the river. Here the rough current +was level with the plank flooring of the bridge, and as the carriage +rattled over, the girls could feel that the planks were almost ready to +float away. + +"We'll be marooned on this island," said Ruth, "if the water rises much +higher." + +"Who cares?" laughed Nettie, to whom it was all an exciting adventure +and nothing more. With all her natural timidity she did not look ahead +very far. + +Jeffreys and the footman were in a hurry to get back. The instant the +girls and their little maid got out at the hotel steps, the coachman +turned the horses and hastened away. + +A little, smiling woman in a trailing gown came down the steps to +welcome the party from Merredith. "I am Mrs. Holloway," she said. "I am +glad to see you, girls. Jake reached here about an hour ago and said +Mrs. Parsons could not come. It is to be deplored; but it need not +subtract any from your pleasure on the occasion. + +"Come in--do," she added. "I will show you to your rooms." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--THE "HOP" + + +It was not a large hotel, and altogether it could not have housed more +than fifty guests. But in the dusk, as the girls from Merredith had +ridden over in the carriage, they could see that there were several +attractive cottages on the island. There was a deal of life about the +caravansary. + +Now there was just time for Ruth Fielding and her friends to take a peep +in the mirror before running down at the sound of the dinner gong to +take the places Mrs. Holloway had pointed out to them in the dining +room. + +The other guests came trooping in from the porches and from their +rooms--most of the matrons and young girls already in their party frocks, +like the girls from Merredith. Mrs. Holloway found an opportunity to +introduce the trio of friends to several people, while Nettie Parsons +was already known to many of the matrons present. + +The affair was to begin early. Indeed, the girls heard the fiddles +tuning up before dinner was ended. + +"Oh! hear that fiddle. Doesn't it make your feet fairly _itch_?" cried +Nettie. Nettie, like most Southern girls, loved dancing. + +There were some Virginia reels and some square dances, and all, old and +young, joined in these. The reels were a general romp, it was true; but +the fun and frolic were of the most harmless character. + +The master of ceremonies called out the changes in a resonant voice and +all--old and young--danced the square dance with hearty enjoyment. The +girls from the North had never seen quite such a party as this; but they +enjoyed it hugely. They were not allowed to be without partners for any +dance; and the boys introduced to Ruth and Helen were nice and polite +and--most of them--danced well. + +"Learning to dance seems to be more common among Southern boys than up +North," Helen said. "Even Tom says he _hates_ dancing. And it's +sometimes hard to get good partners at the school dances at Briarwood." + +"I think we have our boys down here better trained," said Nettie, +smiling. + +The girls heard, as the time passed, several people expressing their +wonder that certain guests from the mainland had not arrived. The +dancing floor, which occupied more than half the lower floor of the +hotel, was by no means crowded, although every white person on the +island was in attendance--either dancing or looking on. + +At the back, the gallery was crowded with blacks, their shining faces +thrust in at the windows to watch the white folk. In fact, the whole +population of Holloway Island was at the hotel. + +The last few guests who had arrived from the cottages came under +umbrellas as it had begun to rain again. When the fiddles stopped they +could hear the drumming of the rain on the porch roofs. + +"I'm glad we aren't obliged to go home to-night," said Nettie, with a +little shiver, as she stood with her friends near a porch window during +an intermission. "Hear that rain pouring down!" + +"And how do you suppose the bridges are?" asked Helen. + +"There! I reckon that's why those folks from the other shore didn't get +here," Nettie said. "I shouldn't wonder if the planks of the old bridge +had floated away." + +"Whoo!" Helen cried. "How are _we_ going to get home?" + +"By boat, maybe," laughed Ruth. "Don't worry. To-morrow is another day." + +And just as she said this the hotel was jarred suddenly, throughout its +every beam and girder! The fiddles had just started again. They stopped. +For a moment not a sound broke the startled silence in the ballroom. + +Then the building shook again. There was an unmistakable thumping at the +up-river end of the building. The thumping was repeated. + +"Something's broken loose!" exclaimed Helen. + +"Let's see what it means!" exclaimed Ruth, and she darted out of the +long window. + +Her chum and Nettie followed her. But when they found themselves +splashing through water which had risen over the porch flooring, almost +ankle deep, Nettie squealed and ran back. Helen followed Ruth to the +upper end of the porch. The oil lamps burning there revealed a sight +that both amazed and terrified the girls from the North. + +The river had risen over its banks. It surged about the front of the +hotel, but had not surrounded it, for the land at the back was higher. + +In the semi-darkness, however, the girls saw a large object looming +above the porch roof, and it again struck against the hotel. It was a +light cottage that had been raised from its foundation and swept by the +current against the larger building. + +Again it crashed into the corner of the hotel. The roof of the porch was +wrecked at this corner by the heavy blow. Windows crashed and servants +began to scream. Ruth clutched Helen and drew her back against the wall +as the chimney-bricks of the drifting cottage fell through the broken +roof of the veranda. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--THE FLOOD RISES + + +There was a doorway near at hand--the floor of the house being one step +higher than the porch which was now flooded. Ruth was just about to drag +her chum into this doorway when a figure plunged out of it--a thin, +graceless figure in a rain-garment of some kind--and little else, as it +proved. + +"Oh! oh! oh!" screamed the stranger as she spattered into the water in +her slippered feet. "I am killed! I am drowned!" + +Helen began actually to giggle. It did not seem so tragic to her that +the hotel on the island should become suddenly surrounded by water, or +be battered by drifting buildings which the flood had uprooted. The +surprise and fright the woman expressed as she halted on the porch, was +calculated to arouse one's laughter. + +"Oh, oh, oh!" said the woman, more feebly. + +"Come right back into the house--do!" cried Ruth. "You won't get wet +there." + +"But the house is falling down!" gasped the woman, and as she turned the +lamplight from the hall revealed her features, and Helen uttered a +stifled cry. + +She recognized the woman's face. So did Ruth, and amazement possessed +both the girls. There was no mistaking the features of the irritable, +nervous teacher from New England, Miss Miggs! + +"Do come into the house, Miss Miggs," urged Ruth. "It isn't going to +fall yet." + +"How do you know?" snapped the school teacher, as obstinate as ever. + +The cottage that had been battering the corner of the porch was now torn +away by the river and swept on, down the current. There sounded a great +hullabaloo from the ballroom. Although the river had not yet risen as +high as the dancing floor, the frightened revelers saw that the flood +was fairly upon them. At the back the darkies added their cries to the +screams of the hysterical guests. + +Another drifting object struck and jarred the hotel. Miss Miggs repeated +her scream of fear, and darted into the hall with the same impetuosity +with which she had darted out. + +"Who are you girls?" she demanded, peering at Ruth and Helen closely, +for she did not wear her spectacles. "Haven't I seen you before? I +declare! you're the girls who stole my ticket--the idea!" + +At the moment--and in time to hear this accusation--Mrs. Holloway appeared +from down the hall. "Oh, Martha!" she cried. "Are you out of your bed?" + +She gave the two girls from the North a sharp look as she spoke to the +teacher; but this was no time for an explanation of Miss Miggs' remark. +The school teacher immediately opened a volley of complaints: + +"Well, I must say, Cousin Lydia, if I were you I'd build my house on +some secure foundation. And calling it a hotel, too! My mercy me! the +whole thing will be down like a house of cards in ten minutes, and we +shall be drowned." + +"Oh, no, Cousin Martha," said the Southern woman. "We shall be all +right. The river will not rise much higher, and it will never tear the +hotel from its base. It is too large." + +"Look at these other houses floating away, Lydia Holloway!" screamed +Miss Miggs. + +"But they are only the huts from along shore----" + +Her statement was interrupted by a terrific shock the hotel suffered as +a good-sized cottage--one of the nearest of the summer colony--smashed +against the hotel, rebounded, and drifted away down stream. + +The two women and the two girls were flung together in a clinging group +for half a minute. Then Miss Martha Miggs tore herself away. "Let go of +me, you impudent young minxes!" she cried. "Are you trying to rob me +again?" + +"Oh! the horrid thing!" gasped Helen; but Ruth kept her lips closed. + +She knew anything they could say would make a bad matter worse. Already +the hotel proprietor's wife was looking at them very doubtfully. + +It had stopped raining, but the damp wind swept into the open door and +chilled the girls in their thin frocks. Mrs. Holloway saw this and +remembered that she had to answer to Mrs. Parsons for her guests' well +being. + +"Come back into this room," she commanded, and led Miss Miggs first by +the arm into an unlighted parlor. The windows looked up the river, and +as the quartette reached the middle of the room, the unhappy school +teacher emitted another shriek and pointed out of the nearest unshaded +window. + +"What is the matter with you now, Martha Miggs?" demanded Mrs. Holloway, +in some exasperation. "If I had known you were in such an hysterical, +nervous state, I would not have invited you down here--and sent your +ticket and all--I assure you. I never saw such a person for startling +one." + +"And lots of good the ticket did--with these girls stealing it from me," +snapped Miss Miggs. "But look at that house next to yours. There! see it +heave? And there's a lighted lamp in that room." + +Everybody saw the peril which the school teacher had observed. A lamp +stood on the center table in the parlor of the house next. This house +was set on a lower foundation than the hotel and the rising river, +surging about it, had begun to loosen it. + +Even as they looked, the house tipped perceptibly, and the lighted lamp +fell from the table to the floor. + +The burning oil was scattered about the room. Although everything was +saturated with rain outside, the interior of the cottage began to burn +furiously and the conflagration would soon endanger the hotel itself. + +Helen broke down and began to cry. Ruth put her arm about her chum and +tried to soothe her. Some of the men came charging into the room, +thinking by the sudden flare of the conflagration, that this end of the +hotel was already on fire. + +"Oh, dear! Goodness, me!" shrieked the school teacher, taking thought of +her dishabille, and she turned at once and fled upstairs. Mrs. Holloway +quietly fainted in an adjacent, comfortable chair. The men went out on +the porch to see if they could reach the burning cottage; but the water +was too deep and too swift between the two structures. + +Ruth carefully attended the woman who had fainted. What had become of +Miss Miggs she did not know. Mrs. Holloway regained consciousness very +suddenly. She looked up at Ruth, recognized her, and shrank away from +the girl of the Red Mill. + +"Don't--don't," she gasped. "I'm all right." + +Mrs. Holloway's hand went to the bosom of her gown, she fumbled there a +minute, and then brought forth her purse. The feel of the money in it +seemed to reassure her; but Ruth knew what the gesture meant. What she +had heard her cousin say had impressed the hotel keeper's wife strongly. + +Hearing the school teacher accuse the two Northern girls of stealing +from her, Mrs. Holloway considered herself unsafe in Ruth's hands. + +"Oh, come away," urged Helen, who had likewise observed the woman's +action. "These people make me ill. I wish we were back North again among +our own kind." + +"Hush!" warned Ruth. But in secret she felt justified in making the same +wish as her chum. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--ACROSS THE RIVER + + +As the night shut down and the rain began again, the party at Holloway's +had paid no attention to the rising flood. But on the other side of the +river the increasing depth of the water was narrowly watched. + +"It's the biggest rise she's showed since Adam was a small boy!" Mr. +Jimson declared. "Looks like she'd make a clean sweep of some of these +bottomland farms below yere. Mr. Lomaine's goin' t' lose cash-dollars +befo' she's through kickin' up her heels--yo' take it from me!" + +Mr. Jimson's audience consisted of his immediate family--a wife, lank +like himself, and six white-haired, lank children, like six human steps, +from the little toddler, hanging to the table-cloth and so getting his +balance, to a lank girl of fifteen or thereabouts. In addition, there +was Curly Smith. + +Curly had been taken right into the Jimson family when he had first come +along on a flatboat, the crew of which had treated him so badly that he +had left it and applied at the cotton warehouse for work. He worked +every day beyond his strength, if the truth were told, and for very poor +pay; but he was glad of decent housing. + +The world had never used a runaway worse than it had used Curly. All the +way down the river from Pee Dee--where his money had run out, and his +transportation, too--the boy had been knocked about. And farther north, +as Ruth Fielding and Helen knew, Curly Smith's path had not been strewn +with roses. + +Therefore, if for no other reason, the boy who had run away to escape +arrest, would have remained with Mr. Jimson. The latter's rough good +nature seemed the friendliest thing Curly had ever known; but he was +scared when he recognized Ruth and Helen and knew that they were the +"little Miss Yanks" of whom he had heard the cotton warehouse boss +speak. + +Here were two girls who knew him--knew him well when he was at home--right +in the very part of Dixie in which unwise Curly Smith had taken refuge. +Curly had no idea while coming down on the New Union Line boat to +Norfolk, that Ruth and Helen were aboard; nor had he recognized Helen +when he went to her rescue at the City Park zoo when the stag had so +startled her. + +In the first place, he did not know that any of the Briarwood Hall girls +who had made their home with his grandmother for a few weeks in the +spring, had any intention of coming down to the Land of Cotton for a +part of their summer vacation. + +It was a distinct shock to Curly when he brought the half-drowned cat +ashore that afternoon, to see Ruth and Helen as the guests of Nettie +Parsons. He did not know that the girls recognized him; but he was quite +sure they would see him if he continued to linger in the vicinity. + +Therefore, Curly's mind was more taken up with plans for getting away +from Mr. Jimson than it was with the boss' remarks about the rising +river. Not until some time after supper one of the children ran in with +the announcement that there was a "big fire acrosst the river" was the +boy shaken out of his secret ponderings. + +"That's got t' be the hotel, I'll be whip-sawed if 'taint!" declared Mr. +Jimson, starting out into the now drizzling rain without his hat. + +Curly followed, because the rest of the family showed interest; but he +really did not care. What was a burning hotel to him? Then he heard Mrs. +Jimson say: + +"Ye don't mean that's Holloway's, Jimson?" + +"That's what she be." + +"And the bridge is down by this time." + +"Sho's yo' bawn, Almiry. An' boats swep' away, too." + +"An' like enough the water's clean up over that islan'. My land, Jimson! +that'll be dretful. Them folks is all caught like rats in a trap. Treed +by the river--an' the hotel afire." + +"It looks like the up-river end of the hotel," said her husband. + +"My land! what'll Mrs. Parsons say? If anything happens to her niece an' +them other gals----" + +"I'll be whip-sawed! them little Miss Yanks is right there, ain't they?" + +At that, Curly Smith woke up. "Say!" he cried. "Are Ruth Fielding and +Helen Cameron at that hotel that's afire?" + +"Huh?" demanded Jimson. "Them little Miss Yanks?" + +"Yes." + +"If they stuck to Miss Nettie, they are," agreed the warehouse boss. +"And Jeffreys said he left 'em there, when he come back jest 'fo' +supper." + +"Those girls in that burning building?" repeated Curly. "Say, Mr. +Jimson! you aren't going to stand here and do nothing about it, are +you?" + +"Wal! what d'ye reckon we kin do?" asked the man, scratching his head in +a puzzled way. "There's more'n we-uns over there to rescue the ladies." + +"And the river up all around them? And no boats?" demanded Curly. + +"Sho'! I never thought of that," admitted the man. "Here's this old +bateau yere----" + +"Can you and me row it?" asked Curly, sharply. + +"Great grief! No!" exclaimed Jimson. "Not in a thousand years!" + +"Can't we get some of the colored men to help?" + +"I reckon we could. The hotel's more'n a mile below yere on the other +side and we might strike off across the river slantin' and hit the +island," Jimson said slowly. + +"Le's try it, then!" cried the excited boy. "I'll run stir up the +negroes--shall I?" + +"Better let me do that," said Jimson, with more firmness. "Almiry! gimme +my hat. If we kin do anything to help 'em----" + +"Oh, Paw! look at them flames!" cried one of the children. + +The fire seemed to shoot up suddenly in a pillar of flame and smoke. It +had burst through the upper floor of the cottage and was now writhing +out the chimney; but from this side of the river it still seemed to be +the hotel itself that was ablaze. + +Curly had forgotten his idea of running away--for the present, at least. +He remembered what a "good sport" (as he expressed it) Ruth Fielding +was, and how she and her chum might be in danger across there at +Holloways. + +If the hotel burned, where would the people go who were in it? With the +river rising momentarily, and threatening every small structure along +its banks with destruction, and no boats at hand, surely the situation +of the people in the hotel must be serious. + +Curly went down to the edge of the water and found the big bateau. There +were huge sweeps for it, and four could be used to propel the craft, +while a fifth was needed to steer with. + +The boy got these out and arranged everything for the start. When Jimson +came back with four lusty negroes--all hands from the warehouse and +gin-house--Curly was impatiently waiting for them. The fire across the +river had assumed greater proportions. + +"That ain't the hotel, boss," said one of the negroes, with assurance. + +"What is it, then?" demanded Jimson. + +"It's got t' be the cottage dishyer side ob the hotel. But, fo' +goodness' sake! de hotel's gwine t' burn, too." + +"And all them folkses in hit!" groaned another. + +"Shut up and come on!" commanded Jimson. "We'll git acrosst and see +what's what." + +"If we _kin_ git acrosst," grumbled another of the men. "Looks mighty +spasmdous t' _me_. Dat watah's sho' high." + +But Curly was casting off the mooring, and in a moment the big, clumsy +boat swung out into the current. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--"IF AUNT RACHEL WERE ONLY HERE!" + + +As soon as they were sure Mrs. Holloway had quite recovered from her +fainting spell, Ruth Fielding and Helen wished to get as far away from +the fire as possible. + +There was nothing they could do, of course, to help put out the blaze. +Nor did it seem possible for the men who had come from the ballroom to +do anything towards extinguishing the fire. The flames were spreading +madly through the interior of the cottage; but they had not as yet burst +through the walls or the roof. + +The cottage had not been torn from its foundation, although it had been +sadly shaken. If it fell it might not endanger the hotel, for it was +plain that what little cant had been given to the burning house was away +from the larger building, not toward it. + +Ruth and Helen had wet their feet already; but they did not care to slop +through the puddle on the porch again, so made their way to the ballroom +through the main part of the house. There was less noise among the +frightened women and girls now than before; but they were huddled into +groups, some crying with fear of they did not know what! + +"Oh! is the house tumbling down?" asked one frightened woman of Ruth. +"Must we drown?" + +"Not unless we want to, I am sure, madam," said the girl of the Red +Mill, cheerfully. + +"But isn't the house afire?" cried another. + +"It isn't this house, but another, that is burning," the Northern girl +said, with continued placidity. + +"Oh, Ruth! there's Nettie!" exclaimed Helen, and drew her away. + +In a corner was Nettie Parsons, crouched upon a stool, and the girls +expected to find her in tears. But the little serving maid, Norma, had +run to her and was now kneeling on the floor with her face hidden in +Nettie's lap. + +"The po' foolish creature," sighed Nettie, when the chums reached her, a +soothing hand upon the shaking black girl's head. "She is just about out +of her head, she's so scared. I tell her that the Good Lo'd won't let +harm come to us; but she just can't help bein' scared." + +Nettie's drawl made Helen laugh. But Ruth was proud of her. The Southern +girl had forgotten to be afraid herself while she comforted her little +servant. + +There was nothing one could do but speak a comforting word now and then. +Ruth was glad that Helen took the matter so cheerfully. For, really, as +the girl of the Red Mill saw it, there was not yet any reason for being +particularly worried. + +"In time of peace prepare for war, however," she said to the other +girls. "We _may_ have to leave the hotel in a hurry. Let us go upstairs +to the rooms we were to occupy, and pack our bags again, and bring them +down here with us. Then if they say we must leave, we shall be ready." + +"But how can we leave?" demanded Helen. "By boat?" + +"Maybe. Goodness! if we only had a boat we could get back across the +river and walk to the Big House." + +"Oh! I wish we were there now," murmured Nettie. + +"I wish you had your wish!" exclaimed Helen. "But we'll do as Ruth says. +Maybe we'll get a chance to leave the place." + +For Helen had been quite as much disturbed by the appearance of Miss +Miggs as Ruth had been. She, too, saw that the woman's accusation had +made an impression upon the mind of her cousin, Mrs. Holloway. + +"I hope we get out before there is trouble over that horrid woman's +ticket. Who would have expected to meet her here?" said Helen to her +chum. + +"No more than we expected to meet Curly at Merredith," Ruth returned. + +They went upstairs, Norma, the little maid, keeping close to them. Helen +declared the negress was so scared that she was gray in the face. + +They heard a group of men talking on the stairs. They were discussing +the pros and cons of the situation. Nobody seemed to have any idea as to +what should be done. A more helpless lot of people Ruth Fielding thought +she had never seen before. + +But after all, the girls from the North did not understand the situation +exactly. There was nothing one could do to stop the rising flood. There +were no means of transporting the people from the island to the higher +land across the narrow creek. And all around the hotel, save at the +back, the water was shoulder deep. + +The rough current and the floating debris made venturing into the water +a dangerous thing, as well. The fire next door could not be put out; so +there seemed nothing to do but to wait for what might happen. + +This policy of waiting for what might turn up did not suit Ruth +Fielding, of course. But there was nothing she could do just then to +change matters for the better. The suggestion she had made about packing +the bags was more to give her friends something to do, and so take their +minds off the peril they were in, than aught else. + +There were other people on the second floor, and as the girls went into +their rooms they heard somebody talking loudly at the other end of the +hall. At the moment they paid no attention to this excited female voice. + +Ruth set the example of immediately returning her few possessions to her +bag and preparing to leave the room at once. Her chum was ready almost +as soon; but they had to help Nettie and the maid. The former did not +know what to do, and the frightened Norma was perfectly useless. + +"I declare! I won't take this useless child with me anywhere again," +said Nettie. "Goodness me!" she continued, pettishly, to the shaking +maid, "have you stolen the silver spoons that your conscience troubles +you so?" + +But nothing could make Norma look upon the situation less seriously. +When the girls came out of the door into the hall, bags in hand, Ruth +was first. Immediately the high, querulous voice broke upon their ears +again, and now the girls from the North recognized it. + +"There! they've been in one of your rooms!" cried the sharp voice of +Miss Miggs. "You'd better go and search 'em and see what they've stolen +now." + +"Hush, Martha!" exclaimed Mrs. Holloway. + +Ruth turned with flaming cheeks and angry eyes. Her temper at last had +got the better of her discretion. + +"I believe you are the meanest woman whom I ever saw!" she exclaimed, +much to Helen's delight. "Don't you _dare_ say Helen and I touched your +railroad ticket. I--I wish there were some means of punishing you for +accusing us the way you do. I don't blame your scholars for treating you +meanly--if they did. I don't see how you could expect them to do +otherwise. Nobody could love such a person as you are, I do believe." + +"Three rousing cheers!" gasped Helen under her breath, while Nettie +Parsons looked on in open-mouthed amazement. + +"There! you hear how the minx dares talk to me," cried Miss Miggs, +appealing to the ladies about her. + +Besides Mrs. Holloway, there were three or four others. Miss Miggs was +dressed now and looked more presentable than she had when endeavoring to +escape from the hotel in her raincoat and slippers. + +"I--I don't understand it at all," confessed the hotel proprietor's wife. +"Surely, my cousin would not accuse these girls without some reason. She +is from the North, too, and must understand them better than _we_ do." + +No comment could have been more disastrous to the peace of mind of Ruth +and Helen. The latter uttered a cry of anger and Ruth could scarcely +keep back the tears. + +"Perhaps we had better look out for our possessions," said one of the +other ladies, doubtfully. + +"Yes. They _did_ just come out of one of these rooms," said another. + +"Oh! these are the rooms they were to occupy," cried Mrs. Holloway, all +in a flutter. "I--I do not think they would do anything----" + +"Say!" gasped Nettie, at last finding voice. "I want to know what +yo'-all mean? Yo' can't be speaking of my friends?" + +"Who is _this_ girl, I'd like to know!" exclaimed Miss Miggs. "One just +like them, no doubt." + +"Oh, Martha! Mrs. Parsons' niece," gasped Mrs. Holloway. "Mrs. Parsons +will never forgive me." + +"Gracious heavens!" gasped one of the other women. "You don't mean to +say that these are the girls from Merredith?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Holloway. "Of course, nobody believes that Miss Parsons +would do any such thing; but these other girls are probably merely +school acquaintances----" + +"I should like to know," said Nettie, with sudden firmness, "just what +you mean--all of you? What have Ruth and Helen done?" + +"They stole my railroad ticket on the boat coming down from New York," +declared Miss Martha Miggs. + +"That is not so!" said Nettie, quickly. "Under no circumstances would I +believe it. It is impossible." + +"Do you say that my cousin does not tell the truth?" asked Mrs. +Holloway, stiffly, while Miss Miggs herself could only stammer angry +words. + +"Absolutely," declared Nettie, her naturally pale cheeks glowing. "I am +amazed at you, Mrs. Holloway. I know Aunt Rachel will be offended." + +"But my own cousin tells me so, and----" + +"I do not care who tells you such a ridiculous story," Nettie +interrupted, and Ruth and Helen were surprised to see how dignified and +assertive their usually timid friend could be when she was really +aroused. + +"Ruth Fielding and Helen Cameron are above such things. They are, +besides, guests at Merredith, and we were put in your care, Mrs. +Holloway, and when you insult them you insult my aunt. Oh! if Aunt +Rachel were only here, she could talk to you," concluded Nettie, shaking +all over she was so angry. "_And she would, too!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XX--CURLY PLAYS AN HEROIC PART + + +Mrs. Rachel Parsons' name was one "to conjure with," as the saying goes. +Ruth and Helen had marked that fact before. Not alone in the vicinity of +Merredith plantation, but in the cities and towns through which the +visitors had come in reaching the cotton farm, they had observed how +impressive her name seemed. + +Several of the ladies who had been listening avidly to Miss Miggs' +declaration that she had been robbed, now hastened to disclaim any +intention of offending Mrs. Parsons' niece and her friends. + +But the angry Nettie was not so easily pacified. She was actually in +tears, it was true, but, as Helen said, "as brave as a little lioness!" +In the cause of her school friends she could well hold her own with +these scandal-mongers. + +"I am surprised that anybody knowing my aunt should believe for a moment +such a ridiculous tale as this woman utters," Nettie said, flashing an +indignant glance about the group. + +"It is self-evident that if Aunt Rachel invites anybody to her home, +that the person's character is above reproach. That is all _I_ can say. +But I know very well that she will say something far more serious when +she hears of this. + +"Come, Ruthie and Helen. Let us go downstairs. I am sorry I cannot take +you immediately home. But be sure that, once we are away from +Holloway's, we shall never come here again." + +"Oh, Miss Nettie!" gasped the hotel keeper's wife. "I did not mean----" + +"You will have to discuss that point with Aunt Rachel," said Nettie, +firmly, yet still wiping her eyes. "I only know that I will take Ruthie +and Helen nowhere again to be insulted. As for that woman," she flashed, +as a Parthian shot at Miss Miggs, "I think she must be crazy!" + +The girls descended the stairs. At the foot Nettie put her arms about +Ruth's neck and then about Helen's, and kissed them both. She was not +naturally given to such displays of affection; but she was greatly +moved. + +"Oh, my dears!" she cried. "I would not have had this happen for +anything! It is terrible that you should be so insulted--and among our +own people. Aunt Rachel will be perfectly wild!" + +"Don't tell her, then," urged Ruth, quickly. "That woman will not be +allowed to say anything more, it is likely; so let it blow over." + +"It cannot blow over. Not only did she insult you, and her cousin +allowed her to do so, but their attitude insulted Aunt Rachel. Why! +there is not a person in this hotel the equal of Aunt Rachel. The +Merrediths are the best known family in the whole county. How Mrs. +Holloway _dared_----" + +"There, there!" said Ruth, soothingly. "Let it go. Neither Helen nor I +are killed." + +"But your reputations might well be," Nettie said quickly. + +"Nobody knows us much here----" + +"But they know Aunt Rachel. And I assure you they will hear about this +matter in a way they won't like. The Holloways especially. She'd better +send that crazy woman packing back to the North." + +At that moment a shout arose from the front veranda. The girls, followed +by Norma screaming in renewed fright, ran to the door. The water was +still over the flooring of the veranda, but it had not advanced into the +house. + +The group of excited men on the porch were pointing off into the river. +Out there it was very dark; but there was a light moving on the face of +the troubled waters. + +"A boat is coming!" explained somebody to the girls. "That's a lantern +in it. A boat from across the river." + +"A steamboat?" cried Helen. + +"Oh, no; a steamboat would not venture to-night--if at all. And there is +none near by. It's a bateau of some kind." + +"Bet it's the old bateau from the cotton warehouse across there," said +another of the men. "Jimson is trying to reach us." + +"And what can he do when he gets here?" asked a third. "That burning +house is bound to fall this way. Then we'll have to fight fire for +sure!" + +"Well, Holloway has a bucket brigade all ready," said the first speaker. +"With all this water around, it's too bad if we can't put a fire out." + +The fire was illuminating all the vicinity now, for the flames had burst +through the roof. The whole of one end of the cottage was in a blaze, +and the wall of the hotel nearest to it was blistering in the heat. + +The hotel proprietor stood there with his helpers watching the blaze. +But the girls watched the approaching boat, its situation revealed by +the bobbing lantern. + +"If that is Mr. Jimson," said Helen, "I hope he can take us back across +the river." + +"And he shall if it's safe," Nettie said, with confidence. "But my! the +water's rough." + +"Oh, Miss Nettie! Miss Nettie!" groaned Norma. "Yo' ain' gwine t' vencha +on dat awful ribber, is yo'?" + +"Why not, you ridiculous creature?" demanded her mistress. "If you are +afraid to stay here, and afraid to go in the boat, what _will_ you do?" + +"Wait till it dries up!" wailed the darkey maid. "Den we kin walk home, +dry-shod--ya-as'm!" + +"Wait for the river to dry up, and all?" chuckled Helen. + +"That's what she wants," said Nettie. "I never saw such a foolish girl." + +The bobbing lantern came nearer. Just as it reached the edge of the +submerged island, there arose a shout from the men aboard of her. Then +sounded a mighty crash. + +"Hol' on, boys! hol' on!" arose the voice of Mr. Jimson. "Don't lose yo' +grip! _Pull!_" + +But the negroes could not pull the water-logged boat. She had struck a +snag which ripped a hole in her bottom, and had been rammed by a log at +the same time. The bateau was a wreck in a few seconds. + +The six members of the crew, including the boss and Curly Smith, leaped +overboard as the bateau sank. They had brought the boat so far, after a +terrific fight with the current, only to sink her not twenty yards from +the front steps of the hotel! + +"Throw us a line--or a life-buoy!" yelled Jimson. "This yere river is +tearin' at us like a pack o' wolves. Ain't yo' folks up there got no +heart?" + +One of the negroes uttered a wild yell and went whirling away down +stream, clinging to a timber that floated by. Two others managed to +climb into the low branches of a tree. + +But Jimson, the fourth negro, and Curly Smith struck out for the hotel. +After all, Curly was the best swimmer. Jimson would have been carried +past the end of the hotel and down the current, had not the Northern boy +caught him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him to the steps. + +There he left the panting boss and plunged in again to bring the negro +to the surface. This fellow could not swim much, and was badly +frightened. The instant he felt Curly grab him, he turned to wind his +arms about the boy. + +The lights burning on the hotel porch showed all this to the girls. Ruth +and Helen, already wet half-way to their knees, had ventured out on the +porch again in their excitement. Ruth screamed when she saw the danger +Curly was in. + +The boy had helped save Mr. Jimson; but the negro and he were being +swept right past the hotel porch. They must both sink and be drowned if +somebody did not help them--and no man was at hand. + +"Take my hand, Helen!" commanded Ruth. "Maybe I can reach them. Scream +for help--do!" and she leaned out from the end of the veranda, while her +chum clung tightly to her left wrist. + +The boy and the negro came near. The water eddied about the porch-end +and held them in its grasp for a moment. + +It was then that Ruth stooped lower and secured a grip upon the black +man's sleeve. She held on grimly while her chum shrieked for help. +Jimson came staggering along to their aid. + +"Hold on t' him, Miss Ruth!" he cried. "We'll git him!" + +But if it had depended upon the spent warehouse boss to rescue the boy +and his burden, they would never have been saved. Two of the men at the +other end of the porch finally heard Helen and Nettie and came to help. + +"Haul that negro in," said one, laughing. "Is he worth saving, Jimson?" + +"I 'spect so," gasped the boss of the cotton warehouse. "But I know well +that that white boy is. My old woman sho' wouldn't ha' seen _me_ ag'in +if it hadn't been fo' Curly. I was jes' about all in." + +So was Curly, as the girls could see. When the boy was dragged out upon +the porch floor, and lay on his back in the shallow water, he could +neither move nor speak. The men tried to raise him to his feet, but his +left leg doubled under him. + +It was Ruth who discovered what was the matter. "Bring him inside. Lay +him on a couch. Don't you see that the poor boy has broken his leg?" she +demanded. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI--THE NEXT MORNING + + +The fire was now at its height, and many of the men were fighting the +flames as they leaped across from the burning cottage. Therefore, not +many had been called to the help of the refugees from the wrecked +bateau. + +"I'll be whip-sawed!" complained Jimson. "Foolin' with their blamed old +bonfire, they might ha' let me an' my negroes drown. This yere little +Yankee boy is wuth the whole bilin' of 'em." + +They carried Curly, who was quite unconscious now, into the house. On a +couch in the office Ruth fixed a pillow, and straightened out his +injured leg. + +"Isn't there a doctor? Somebody who knows something about setting the +leg?" she demanded. "If it can only be set now, while he is unconscious, +he will be saved just so much extra pain." + +"Let me find somebody!" cried Nettie, who knew almost everybody in the +hotel party. + +She ran out upon the veranda, forgetting her slippers and silk hose for +the moment, and soon came back with one of the men who had been helping +to throw water against the side of the building. + +"This is Dr. Coombs. I know he can help you, Ruth--and he will." + +"Boy with broken leg, heh?" said the gentleman, briefly. "Is that all +the damage?" and he began to examine the unconscious Curly. "Now, you're +a cool-headed young lady," he said to Ruth; "you and Jimson can give me +a hand. Send the others out of the room. We're going to be mighty busy +here for a few minutes." + +He saw that Ruth was calm and quick. He had her get water and bandages. +Mr. Jimson whittled out splints as directed. The doctor was really a +veterinary surgeon, but when the setting of the broken limb was +accomplished, Curly might have thanked Dr. Coombs for a very neat and +workmanlike piece of work. But poor Curly remained unconscious for some +time thereafter. + +The flames were under control and the danger of the hotel's catching +fire was past before the boy opened his eyes. He opened them to see Ruth +sitting at the foot of the couch on which he lay. + +"Old Scratch!" exclaimed Curly, "don't tell Gran, Ruth Fielding. If you +do, she'll give me whatever for busting my leg. Ooo! don't it hurt." + +He had forgotten for the moment that he had ever left Lumberton, and +Ruth soothed him as best she could. + +The bustle and confusion around the hotel had somewhat subsided. The +regular guests had retired to their rooms, for it was past midnight now. +The water was creeping higher and higher, and now began to run in over +the floor of the lower story. + +By Ruth's advice, Helen and Nettie had gone up to their rooms. They had +allowed Mrs. Holloway to put two young ladies in one of the beds there, +for the hotel keeper had to house many more than the usual number of +people. + +Ruth alone stayed with Mr. Jimson to watch Curly. And when the water +began to rise she insisted that the couch be lifted upon the shoulders +of four powerful negroes, and carried upstairs. + +One of the men who transferred the boy to the wide hall above, was the +darkey whom Curly had saved from drowning. That negro was so grateful +that he camped upon the stairs for the rest of the night, to be within +call of Ruth or Mr. Jimson if anything was needed that he could do for +"dat li'le w'ite boy." + +Mrs. Holloway found a screen to put at the foot of the couch, and thus +made a shelter for the boy and his nurse. But Ruth knew that many of the +ladies before they went to bed came and peeped at her, and whispered +about her together in the open hall. + +She wondered what they really thought of her and Helen. The positive +Miss Miggs had undoubtedly made an impression on their minds when she +accused Ruth and Helen of stealing. + +"What they really think of us, we can't tell," Ruth told herself. "It is +awful to be so far from home and friends, and have no way of proving +that one is of good character. Here is poor Curly. What is going to +become of him? His grandmother hasn't answered my letters, and perhaps +she won't have anything to do with him after all. What will become of +him while he lies helpless? He can't have earned much money in these few +days over at the warehouse, for they don't pay much." + +Ruth Fielding's sympathetic nature often caused her to bear burdens that +were imaginary--to a degree. But it was not her own trouble that worried +her now. It was that of the boy with the broken leg. + +He was a stranger in a strange land, and with practically nobody to care +how he got along. He had played a heroic part in the rescue of Mr. +Jimson and the negro workman; but Ruth doubted greatly if either of the +rescued men could do much for poor Curly. + +Jimson was a poor man with a large family; the negro was, of course, +less able to do anything for the white boy than the boss of the +warehouse. + +These thoughts troubled Ruth's mind, sleeping and waking, all night. She +refused to leave Curly; but she dozed a good deal of the time in the +comfortable chair that the negro had brought her from the parlor +downstairs. + +Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Holloway came to speak to her, or to see how Curly +was, all night long. Yet Ruth knew that both were working hard, with the +negroes in their employ, to make all their guests comfortable. + +Back of the hotel on slightly higher ground were the kitchens and +quarters. To these rooms the stores were removed and breakfast was begun +for all before six o'clock. + +By that time the clouds had broken and the sun shone. But the river +roared past the hotel at express speed. Jimson said he had never seen it +so high, or so furious. + +"There's a big reservoir above yere, up the creek; I reckon it's done +busted its banks, or has overflowed, or something," the boss of the +warehouse said. "Never was so much water in this yere river at one time +since Adam was a boy, I tell yo'." + +The girls came for Ruth before breakfast, and made her lie down for a +nap. The two strange girls who had been put in their rooms were still in +bed, and Ruth was not disturbed until the negroes began coming upstairs +with trays of breakfast for the different rooms. + +There was great hilarity then. There was no use in trying to serve the +guests downstairs, for the dining room had a foot of water washing +through one end of it, and the rear was several inches deep in a muddy +overflow. + +The two girls who had slept with them awoke when Ruth did, and all five +of the girls, with Norma to wait upon them, made a merry breakfast. Ruth +ran back then to see how Curly was being served. She found the boy +alone, and nobody had thought to bring him any food save the grateful +negro laborer. + +"That coon's all right," said Curly, with satisfaction. "He got me half +a fried chicken and some corn pone and sweet potatoes, and I'm feeling +fine. All but my leg. Old Scratch! but that hurts like a good feller, +Ruth Fielding." + +"Dear me!" said Ruth. "Don't speak of the poor man as a 'coon.' That's +an animal with four legs--and they eat them down here." + +"And he wouldn't be good eating, I know," chuckled Curly. "But he's a +good feller. Say, Ruthie! how did you and Helen Cameron come 'way down +here?" + +"How did _you_ come here?" returned Ruth, smiling at him. + +"Why--on the boat and on a train--several trains, until I got to Pee Dee. +And then a flatboat. Old Scratch! but I've had an awful time, Ruth." + +"You ran away, of course," said the girl, just as though she knew +nothing about the trouble Curly had had in Lumberton. + +"Yep. I did. So would you." + +"Why would I?" + +"'Cause of what they said about me. Why, Ruth Fielding!" and he started +to sit up in bed, but lay down quickly with a groan. "Oh! how that leg +aches." + +"Keep still then, Curly," she said. "And tell me the truth. _Why_ did +you run away?" + +"Because they said I helped rob the railroad station." + +"But if you didn't do it, couldn't you risk being exonerated in court?" + +"Say! they never called you, 'that Smith boy'; did they?" + +"Of course not," admitted Ruth. + +"Then you don't know what you're talking about. I had no more chance of +being exonerated in any court around Lumberton than I had of flying to +the moon! Everybody was down on me--including Gran." + +"Well, hadn't they some reason?" asked Ruth, gravely. + +"Mebbe they had. Mebbe they had," cried Henry Smith. "But they ought +to've known I wouldn't _steal_." + +"You didn't help those tramps, then?" + +"There you go!" sniffed the boy. "You're just as bad as the rest of +'em." + +"I'm asking you for information," said Ruth, coolly. "I want to hear you +say whether you did or not. I read about it in the paper." + +"Old Scratch! did they have it in the paper?" queried Curly, with +wonder. + +"Yes. And your grandmother is dreadfully disgraced----" + +"No she isn't," snapped Curly. "She only thinks she is. I never done +it." + +"Well," said Ruth, with a sigh, "I'm glad to hear you say that, although +it's very bad grammar." + +"Hang grammar!" cried the excited Curly. "I never stole a cent's worth +in my life. And they all know it. But if they'd got me up before Judge +Necker I'd got a hundred years in jail, I guess. He hates me." + +"Why?" + +Curly looked away. "Well, I played a trick on him. More'n one, I guess. +He gets so mad, it's fun." + +"Your idea of fun has brought you to a pretty hard bed, I guess, Curly," +was Ruth Fielding's comment. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII--SOMETHING FOR CURLY + + +Helen Cameron was very proud of Curly. She was, in the first place, +deeply grateful for what the boy had done for her the time the stag +frightened her so badly in the City Park at Norfolk. Then, it seemed to +her, that he had shown a deal of pluck in getting so far from home as +this Southern land, and keeping clear of the police, as well. + +"You must admit, Ruth, that he is awfully smart," she repeated again and +again to her chum. + +"I don't see it--much," returned Ruth Fielding. "I don't see how he got +away down here on the little money he says he had at the start. He +bought the frock and hat and shoes he wore with his own money, and paid +his fare on the boat. But that took all he had, and he had to get work +in Norfolk. He worked a week for a contractor there. That's when he +saved you from the _deer_, my _dear_!" + +"Oh, indeed? And didn't he earn enough to pay his way down here? He says +he rode in the cars." + +"I'll ask him about that," said Ruth, musingly. + +But she forgot to do so just then. In fact there was another problem in +both the girls' minds: What would become of Curly when the water +subsided and he would have to be taken away from the hotel? + +"Nettie says there is a hospital in Georgetown. But it is a private +institution. Curly will be laid up a long while with that leg. It is a +compound fracture and it will have to be kept in splints for weeks. The +doctor says it ought to be in a cast. I wish he were in the hospital." + +"I suppose he would be better off," said Helen, in agreement. "But isn't +it awful that his grandmother won't take him back?" + +"I don't understand it at all," sighed Ruth. "I didn't think she was +really so hard-hearted." + +The marooned guests of the hotel and the servants were quite comfortable +in their quarters; but the women and girls did not care to descend to +the lower floor of the big house. The men waded around the porches; and +two men who owned cottages on the island which had not been swept away +by the flood, used a storm-door for a raft and paddled themselves over +to inspect their property. Their families were much better off with the +Holloways at the hotel, however. + +There had been landings and boats along the shore of the island; but not +a craft was now left. The river had risen so swiftly the evening before, +while the dancing was in full blast, that there had been no opportunity +to save any such property. + +Every small structure on the island had been swept down the current; and +only half a dozen of the cottages were left standing. These structures, +too, might go at any time, it was prophesied. + +Jimson and his negroes could not get back across the river, and not a +craft of any description came in sight. + +The two negroes who had climbed into the tree at the edge of the island, +were rescued by the aid of the storm-door raft; and as Jimson said, in +his rough way, they only added to the number of mouths to feed, for they +were of no aid in any way. + +The hotel keeper chanced to have a good supply of flour, meal, sugar and +the other staples on hand; and they had been removed to dry storage +before the flood reached its height. There was likewise a well supplied +meat-house behind the hotel. + +Naturally the ladies and girls, marooned on the upper floor of the +hotel, were bound to become more closely associated as the hours of +waiting passed. The two girls who roomed with Nettie and her party, +learned that Ruth Fielding and Helen Cameron were very nice girls +indeed. They did not have to take Nettie's word for it. + +Perhaps they influenced public opinion in favor of the Northern girls as +much as anything did. Miss Miggs was Northern herself, and not much +liked. Her spitefulness did not compare well with Ruth's practical +kindness to the boy with the broken leg. + +Before night public opinion had really turned in favor of the visitors +from the North. But Ruth and Helen kept very much to themselves, and +Nettie was so angry with Mrs. Holloway that she would scarcely speak to +that repentant woman. + +"I don't want anything to do with her," she said to Ruth. "If Aunt +Rachel had been here last night I don't know what she would have done +when that woman seemed to side with that crazy school teacher." + +"You could scarcely blame her. Miss Miggs is Mrs. Holloway's cousin." + +"Of course I can blame her," cried Nettie. "And I do." + +"Well, I think it was pretty mean, myself," said Helen. "But I didn't +suppose you would hold rancor so long, Nettie Sobersides! Come on! cheer +up; the worst is yet to come." + +"The worst will certainly come to these people at this hotel," +threatened the Southern girl. "Aunt Rachel will have the last word. You +are her guests and a Merredith or a Parsons never forgives an insult to +a guest." + +"Goodness!" cried Ruth, trying to laugh away Nettie's resentment. "It is +fortunate you are not a man, Nettie. You would, I suppose, challenge +somebody to a duel over this." + +"There have been duels for less in this county, I can assure you," said +Nettie, without smiling. + +"How bloodthirsty!" laughed Ruth. "But let's think about something +pleasanter. Nettie is becoming savage." + +"I know what will cure her," cried Helen and bounced out of the room. +She came back in a few minutes with a battered violin that she had +borrowed from one of the negroes who had been a member of the orchestra +the night before. It was a mellow instrument and Helen quickly had it in +tune. + +"Music has been known to soothe the savage breast," declared Helen, +tucking the violin, swathed in a silk handkerchief, under her dimpled +chin. + +"I'll forgive anybody--even my worst enemy--if Ruth will sing, too," +begged Nettie. + +So after a few introductory strains Helen began an old ballad that she +and Ruth had often practised together. Ruth, sitting with her hands +folded in her lap and looking thoughtfully out on the drenched +landscape, began to sing. + +Nettie set the door ajar. The two girls came in from the other room. +Norma, wide-eyed, crouched on the floor to listen. And before long a +crowd of faces appeared at the open door. + +Quite unconscious of the interest they were creating, the two members of +the Briarwood Glee Club played and sang for several minutes. It was +Helen who looked toward the door first and saw their audience. + +"Oh, Ruth!" she exclaimed, and stopped playing. Ruth turned, the song +dying on her lips. The crowd of guests began to applaud and in the +distance could be heard Curly Smith clapping his hands together and +shouting: + +"Bully for Ruth! Bully for Helen! That's fine." + +"Shut the door, Nettie!" cried Helen, insistently. "I--I really have an +idea." + +"The concert is over, ladies," declared the Southern girl, laughing, and +shutting the door. + +"What's the idea, dear?" asked Ruth. + +"About raising money for poor Curly." + +"We can give him some ourselves," Nettie said, for of course she had +been taken into the full confidence of the chums about the runaway. + +"_I_ can't," confessed Helen. "I have scarcely any left. If my fare home +were not paid I'd have to borrow." + +"I can give some; but not enough," said Ruth. + +"That's where my idea comes in," Helen said. "That's why I said to shut +the door." + +Nettie ejaculated: "Goodness! what does the child mean?" + +But Ruth guessed, and her face broke into a smile. "I'm with you, dear!" +she cried. "Of course we will--if we're let." + +"Will _what_?" gasped Nettie. "You girls are thought readers. What one +thinks of the other knows right away." + +"A concert," said Ruth and Helen together. + +"Oh! When?" + +"Right here--and now!" said Helen, promptly. "If the Holloways will let +us." + +"Oh, girls! what a very splendid idea," declared Nettie. Then the next +moment she added: "But the piano is downstairs, and they could never get +it up here. And there's no room big enough upstairs, anyhow." + +Ruth began to laugh. "I tell you. It shall be a regular chamber concert. +We'll have it in the bed chambers, for a fact!" + +"What do you mean?" asked the puzzled Nettie. + +"Why, the audience can sit in their rooms or on the stairs or in the +long hall up here. We will give the concert downstairs. I don't know but +we'll have to give it barefooted, girls!" + +The laughter that followed was interrupted by a shout from below. They +heard somebody say that there was a boat coming. + +"Well, maybe there will be something for Curly after all," Helen cried, +as she followed Ruth out of the room. + +Through the wide doorway they could see the boat approaching. And they +could hear it, too, for it was a small launch chugging swiftly up to the +submerged island. + +"Oh, goody!" cried Nettie. "Maybe we can get across the river and back +to Merredith." + +It looked as though the launch had just come from the other side of the +swollen stream. Jimson and several of the negroes were on the porch to +meet the launch as it touched. + +There were but two men in it, one at the wheel and the other in the bow. +The latter, a gray-haired man with a broad-brimmed hat, blue clothes, +and a silver star on his breast, stepped out upon the porch in his high +boots. + +"Hullo, Jimson," he said, greeting the warehouse boss. "Just a little +wet here, ain't yo'?" + +"A little, Sheriff," said Jimson. + +"I'm after a party they told me at your house was probably over here. A +boy from the No'th. Name's Henry Smith. Is he yere? I was told to get +him and notify folks up No'th that the little scamp's cotched. He's been +stealin' up there, and they want him." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--"HERE'S A STATE OF THINGS!" + + +The words of the deputy sheriff came clearly to the ears of Ruth +Fielding and her two girl friends as they stood on the lower step of the +broad flight leading to the second floor of the hotel. + +Jimson, the warehouse boss, who had already shown his interest in Curly, +looked quickly around and spied the girls. He made a crooked face and +began at once to fence with the deputy. + +"What's that?" he said. "Said I got an escaped prisoner? _Who_ said +that, Mr. Ricketts?" + +"Yo' wife, I reckon 'twas, tol' me the boy was yere." + +"She's crazy!" declared Jimson with apparent anger. "I dunno what's got +into that woman. I ain't seen no convict----" + +"Who's talkin' about a convict, Jimson?" demanded Mr. Ricketts. "D' yo' +think I'm after some desperado from the swamps? I reckon not." + +"Well, who _are_ you after?" demanded the boss, in great apparent +vexation. "I ain't got him, whoever he is!" + +"Not a boy named Henry Smith?" + +"What's he done?" + +"I see you're some int'rested," said Ricketts, drily. "Come on now, +Jimson! I know you. The boy's a bad lot." + +"Your say-so don't make him so. And I dunno as I know the boy you mean." + +"Come now, your wife tol' me all about him. He's a curly-headed boy. He +come along on a flatboat. You took him on as a hand in the warehouse." + +"Huh? I did, did I?" grunted Jimson, not at all willing to give in that +he knew whom the deputy sheriff was talking about. + +"I mean a curly-headed Yankee boy that come over yere last night in that +old boat of yours, Jimson," said the deputy sheriff, chuckling. "And +your woman wants to know when you're going to bring the boat back?" + +"Huh?" growled Jimson. + +"Don't yo' call him Curly?" + +"Oh! you mean _him_?" said the boss. "Wal--I reckon he's yere. Got a +broken laig. Doctor won't let him be moved. Impossible, Mr. Ricketts. +Impossible!" + +"I reckon I'll look to suit myself, Jimson," said Ricketts, firmly. +"This ain't no funnin', you know." Then he turned to the man in the +boat. "Tie that rope to one o' these posts, Tom, and come ashore. I may +need you to hold Jimson," and he winked and chuckled at the chagrined +warehouse boss. + +The big deputy sheriff strode across the porch, in at the door, +scattering the wide-eyed negroes right and left, and came face to face +with three pretty young girls, dressed in the party frocks donned for +the ball the night before, all the frocks they had to wear on this +occasion. + +"Bless my soul, ladies!" gasped the confused Ricketts, sweeping off his +hat. "Your servant!" + +"Oh, Mr. Ricketts!" exclaimed Nettie Parsons, her hands clasped, and +looking in her most appealing way up into the big man's face. Although +Nettie stood a step up from the hall floor, the deputy sheriff still +towered above her head and shoulders. "Oh, Mr. Ricketts!" + +"Ya-as, ma'am! that's my name, ma'am," said the embarrassed deputy. + +"We heard what you just said," pursued Nettie. "About Curly Smith, you +know." + +"I--I----" + +"And we're awfully interested in Curly," put in Helen, joining in the +attempt to cajole a perfectly helpless officer of the law from the path +of duty. + +"Your servant, ma'am!" gasped the deputy, very red in the face now, and +bowing low before Helen. + +"There are three of us, Mr. Ricketts," suggested Ruth, her own eyes +dancing with fun, despite the really serious distress she felt over +Curly's case. + +"Bless my soul!" murmured Mr. Ricketts, bowing in her direction, too. +"So there are--so there are. _Your_ servant, ma'am." + +"Then, Mr. Ricketts, if you are the servant of _all_ of us, I know you +will do what we ask," and Nettie laughed merrily. + +Little drops of perspiration were exuding upon the deputy's broad, bald +brow. He was not used to the society of ladies--not even extremely young +ladies; and he felt both ridiculous and in a glow of delight. He +chuckled and wabbled his head above his stiff collar, and looked +foolish. But there was a grim firmness to his smoothly shaven chin that +led Ruth to believe that he would not be an easy person to swerve from +his path. + +"You know," repeated Nettie, taking her cue from Helen, "that we are +awfully interested in that boy that you say you have come after." + +"The young scamp's mighty lucky, then--mighty lucky!" + +"But he has a broken leg--and he's awfully sick," said Nettie, her lips +drooping at the corners as though she were about to cry. + +"Tut, tut, tut! I'm awfully sorry miss. But----" + +"And he's had an awfully bad time," broke in Helen. "Curly has. He's +ragged, and he has been ill-treated. And we saw him jump overboard and +swim from that steamer before it reached Old Point Comfort, and he was +picked up by a fishing boat. Oh! he is awfully brave." + +Mr. Ricketts stared and swallowed hard. He could not find voice to reply +just then. + +"And he saved that cat from drowning. Oh! I had forgotten that," said +Nettie, chiming in. "He really is very kind-hearted, as well as brave." + +"And," said Ruth, from the stair above, "I am sure he never helped those +men rob the Lumberton railroad station. Never!" + +"My soul and body, ladies!" exclaimed the deputy sheriff. "You are sho' +more knowin' about this yere boy from the No'th than I am. I only got +instructions to _git_ him--and git him I must." + +"Oh, Mr. Ricketts!" gasped Helen. + +"Please, Mr. Ricketts!" begged Nettie. + +"Do consider, Mr. Ricketts!" joined in Ruth. "He's really not guilty." + +"Who says he ain't?" demanded the deputy sheriff, shooting in the +question suddenly. + +"He says so," said Ruth, firmly, "and I never knew Curly Smith to tell a +story." + +Mr. Ricketts was undoubtedly in a very embarrassing position. He was the +soul of gallantry--according to his standards. To please the ladies was +almost the highest law of his nature. + +Behind him, Jimson, his companion, Tom, and the negroes had gathered in +a compact crowd to listen. Mr. Ricketts, hat in hand, and perspiring now +profusely, did not know what to do. He said, feebly: + +"My soul and body, ladies! I dunno what t' say. I'd please yo' if I +could. But I'm instructed t' bring this yere boy in, an' I got t' do it. +A broken laig ain't no killin' matter. I've had one myself--ya-as, ma'am! +We kin take him in this yere little launch that b'longs t' Kunnel +Peters. He'll be 'tended to fust-class." + +"Not in your old jail at Pegburg!" cried Nettie. "You know better, Mr. +Ricketts," and she was quite severe. + +"I know you, Miss Nettie," Mr. Ricketts said, with humility, "You're +Mrs. Parsons' niece. You say the wo'd an' I'll take the boy right to my +own house." + +Ruth had been watching one of the negroes who had stood on the outskirts +of the group. He was a big, burly, dull-looking fellow--the very man whom +Curly had risked his life to save from the river the night before. + +This man stepped softly away from the crowd. He disappeared toward the +front of the porch. By craning her neck a little Ruth could see around +the corner of the door-jamb and follow the movements of this negro with +her eyes. + +The man, Tom, had tied the painter of the launch to a post there. The +negro stood for a moment near that post; then he disappeared altogether. + +Ruth's heart suddenly beat faster. What had the negro done? She leaned +forward farther to see the launch tugging at its rope. _The craft was +already a dozen yards away from the hotel!_ + +"I'm awful sorry, ladies," declared the deputy sheriff, obstinately +shaking his head. "I've got t' arrest that boy. That's my sworn and +bounden duty. And I got t' take him away in this yere launch of Kunnel +Peterses." + +He turned to wave a ham-like hand toward the tethered launch. The +gesture was stayed in midair. Jimson, turning likewise, burst into a +high cackle of laughter. + +"Here's a state of things!" roared the deputy, and rushed out upon the +porch. The launch was whirling away down the current, far out of reach. +"Here, Tom! didn't you hitch that boat?" + +"I reckon ye won't git away with that there little Yankee boy as you +expected, Mr. Ricketts," cried Jimson. "Er-haw! haw! haw!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV--THE CHAMBER CONCERT + + +"You kin say what you like," Mr. Jimson said later, and in a hoarse +aside to Ruth Fielding, "the sheriff's a good old sport. He took it +laffin'--after the fust s'prise. You make much of him, Miss Ruth--you and +Miss Helen and Miss Nettie--an' yo'll keep him eatin' out o' your hand, +he's that gentled." + +Ruth was afraid at first that somebody would suspect the negro of +unleashing the launch. She did not think Mr. Jimson knew who did it. In +the first heat, Mr. Ricketts accused his man, Tom, of being careless. + +But it all simmered down in a few minutes. Mr. Holloway came out and +invited the deputy and his comrade to come back to the rear apartment +for a bite of lunch. + +Mr. Ricketts seemed satisfied to know that the boy was upstairs and in +good hands. He did not--at that time--ask to see him; and Ruth wanted, if +she could, to keep news of the deputy's arrival from the knowledge of +the patient. + +"Oh, dear me, Ruth!" groaned Helen. "It never rains but it pours." + +"That seems very true of the weather in this part of the world," agreed +her chum. "I never saw it rain harder than it has during the past few +days." + +"Goodness! I don't mean real rain," said Helen. "I mean troubles never +come singly." + +"What's troubling you particularly now?" asked Ruth. + +"I've lost my last handkerchief," said Helen, tragically. "Isn't it just +awful to be here another night without a single change of anything? I +feel just as mussy as I can feel. And this pretty dress will never be +fit to wear again." + +"We're better off than some of the girls," laughed Ruth. "One of those +that room with us danced right through her stockings, heel and toe, the +evening of the hop; and now every time she steps there is a great gap at +each heel above her low pumps. With that costume she wears she can put +on nothing but black stockings, and I saw her just now trying to ink her +heels so that when anybody follows her upstairs, they will not be so +likely to notice the holes in her stockings." + +"Well! if that were all that bothered us!" groaned Helen. "What are we +going to do about Curly?" + +"What _can_ we do about him?" asked Ruth. + +"You don't want to see him arrested and carried to jail, do you?" + +"No, my dear. But how can we help it--when this deputy sheriff manages to +find a craft in which to take him away from the island?" + +"I wish Nettie's Aunt Rachel were here," cried the other Northern girl. + +"Even Mrs. Parsons, I fear, could not stop the law in its course." + +"I don't know. She is pretty powerful," returned her chum, grinning. +"See how nice they have all begun to treat us since Nettie threatened +them with the terrors of her Aunt Rachel's displeasure." + +"Perhaps. But I would rather they were nice to us for our own sakes," +Ruth said thoughtfully. "If it were not for Nettie, and Curly and the +concert we want to give for his benefit, I wouldn't care whether many of +them spoke to us or not. And every time that Miggs woman is in sight she +makes me feel awfully unhappy," confessed Ruth. "I don't believe I ever +before disliked anybody quite so heartily as I dislike her." + +"Dislike! I _hate_ her!" exclaimed Helen. + +"It's awful to feel so towards any human creature," Ruth went on. "And I +fear that we ought to pity her, not to hate her." + +"I should like to know why?" demanded Helen, in some heat. + +"Mrs. Holloway told one of the ladies the particulars of Miss Miggs' +coming down here, and why she is such a nervous wreck--and the lady just +told me." + +"'Nervous wreck,'" scoffed Helen. "Wrecked by her ugly temper, you +mean." + +"She has been the sole support, and nurse as well, of a bed-ridden aunt +for years. During this last term--she teaches in a big school in +Bannister, Massachusetts--she had a very hard time. She has always had +trouble with her girls; and evidently doesn't love them." + +"Not so's you'd notice it," grumbled Helen. + +"And they made her a good deal of trouble. The old aunt became more +exacting toward the last, and finally Miss Miggs was up almost all night +with the invalid and then was harassed in the schoolroom all day by the +thoughtless girls." + +"Oh, dear me, Ruthie! now you are trying to find excuses for the mean +old thing." + +"I'm telling you--that's all." + +"Well! I don't know that I want you to tell me," sniffed Helen. "I don't +feel as ugly toward that Miggs woman as I did." + +"I feel very angry with her myself," Ruth said. "It is hard for me to +get over anger, I am afraid." + +"But you are slow to wrath. 'Beware the anger of a patient man' +says--says--well, _somebody_. 'Overhaul your book and, when found, make +note of,'" giggled Helen. "Well! how did Martha get away from the aunt?" + +"The aunt got away from her," said Ruth, gravely. "She died--just before +the end of the term. Altogether poor Miss Miggs was 'all in,' as the +saying is." + +Helen sniffed again. She would not own up that she was affected by the +story. + +"Then," said Ruth, earnestly, "just a few days before the end of school +some of her girls played a trick on the poor thing and frightened +her--oh, horribly! She fell at her desk unconscious, and the girls who +had played the trick ran out of the room and left her there--of course, +not knowing that she had fainted. She broke her glasses, and when she +came to she could not find her way about, and almost went mad. It was a +very serious matter, indeed. They found her wandering about the room +quite out of her mind. Mrs. Holloway had already invited her down here +and sent her a ticket from Norfolk to Pee Dee, where she was to take +boat again. The doctors said the trip would be the best thing for her, +and they packed her off," concluded Ruth. + +"Well--she's to be pitied, I suppose," said Helen, grudgingly. "But I +can't fall in love with her." + +"Who could? She has had a hard time, just the same, When she lost her +ticket she had barely money enough to bring her on to Pee Dee where Mrs. +Holloway met her. The poor thing was worried to death. You see, all her +money had been spent on the aunt, and her funeral expenses." + +"Well! she's unfortunate. But she had no business to accuse us of +stealing her ticket--if it was stolen at all." + +"Of course somebody picked it up. But the ticket may have done nobody +any good. She says she left it in the railroad folder on that seat in +the steamer's saloon--you remember." + +"I remember vividly," agreed Helen, "our first encounter with Miss +Miggs." Then she began to laugh. "And wasn't she funny?" + +"'Not so's you'd notice it!' to quote your own classic language," said +Ruth, sharply. "There was nothing funny about it." + +"That is when we first saw Curly on the boat." + +"Yes. He was there. But he didn't hear anything of the row, I guess. He +says he had no idea we were on that boat--and we saw him three times." + +"And heard him jump overboard," finished Helen. "The foolish boy." + +She went away to sit by him and tell him stories. Helen was developing +quite a reputation as a nurse. The boy was in pain and anything was +welcome that kept his mind for a little off the troublesome leg. + +The girls were very busy that evening with another matter. Permission +had been asked and obtained to give the proposed "chamber concert" for +Curly's benefit. What the boy had done in saving two lives was well +known now among the enforced guests at Holloway's, and the idea of any +entertainment was welcome. + +There was a mimeograph on which the hotel menus were printed and Ruth +got up a gorgeous program in two-colored ink of the "chamber concert," +inviting everybody to come. + +"And they've just got to come, my dears," said Nettie, who took upon +herself the distribution of the concert programs and--as Helen called +it--the "boning" for the money. "Ev'ry white person in this hotel has got +to pay a dollar at least, fo' the pleasure of hearing Helen play and +Ruth sing. That's their admission." + +"I'd like to see you get a dollar for that purpose out of Miss Miggs," +giggled Helen. + +"Never mind, honey, somebody will have to pay fo' her," declared Nettie. +"Then we'll sell the choice seats and the boxes at auction." + +"Goodness, child!" cried Ruth. "What boxes do you mean; soap boxes?" + +"The front stairs," said Nettie, placidly. "The seats in the upstairs +hall here will be reserved, and must bring a premium, too." + +"The ingenuity of the girl!" gasped Ruth. + +"Why, Ruthie," said Helen, "it isn't _anything_ to get up a concert, or +to carry a program all alone. But it takes genius to devise such schemes +as this. You will be a multi-millionairess before you die, Nettie." + +"I expect to be," returned the Southern girl. "Now, listen: Each of +these broad stairs will hold four people comfortably. We will letter the +stairs and number the seats." + +"But those on the lower step will have their feet in the water!" cried +Ruth, in a gale of laughter. + +"Very well. They will be nearest to the performers. You say yourselves +that you will probably have to be barefooted, when you are down there +singing and playing," said Nettie. "They ought to pay an extra premium +for being allowed to be so near to the performers. That is 'the +bald-headed row.'" + +"And every bald head that sits there will have a nice cold in his head," +Ruth declared. + +However, Nettie had her way in every particular. The next evening the +auction of "reserved seats and boxes" was held in the upper hall. Mr. +Jimson officiated as auctioneer and for an hour or more the party +managed to extract a great deal of wholesome fun from the affair. + +The deputy sheriff was made to subscribe for the two lower tiers of +seats on the stair at a good price, because, as Mr. Jimson said, "he was +the bigges' an' fattes' man in dis hyer destitute community." The other +seats sold merrily. No one hesitated over paying the admission fee. +There is nobody in the world as generous both in spirit and actual +practice as these Southern people. + +Almost two hundred dollars was raised for Curly's benefit. The concert +was held the afternoon following the auctioning of the seats, and the +chums covered themselves with glory. + +The piano was rolled out into the hall and the negroes knocked together +a platform on which Ruth and Helen could stand and play, while Nettie +perched herself on the piano bench to accompany them, and kept her feet +out of the water. + +They sang the old glees together--all three of them, for Nettie possessed +a sweet contralto voice. Ruth's ballads were appreciated to the full and +Helen--although the instrument she used was so poor a one--delighted the +audience with her playing. + +When she softly played the old, sweet harmonies, and Ruth sang them, the +applause from Curly's couch at the end of the hall to the foot of the +stairs where the deputy sheriff sat with his boots in the water, was +tremendous. + +The concert ended with the girls standing in a row with clasped hands +and for the glory of Briarwood giving the old Sweetbriar "war-cry:" + + "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!_" + +During all the time it had rained intermittently, and the river did not +show any signs of abating. But the morning following the very successful +"chamber concert," a large launch chugged up to the submerged steps of +the hotel on Holloway Island. In it was Mrs. Rachel Parsons, and with +her was the negro from the warehouse who had been swept down the river +on the log when Mr. Jimson's bateau made its landing at the island. + +Mrs. Parsons had been unable to get to Charleston after all because of +washouts on the railroad, and had come back to Georgetown, heard of the +marooning on the island of the pleasure party and at the first +opportunity had come up the river to rescue Nettie, Ruth and Helen. + +A plank was laid for Mrs. Parsons from the bow of the launch to the +lower step of the flight leading to the second story of the hotel. Mrs. +Holloway came down in a flutter to meet the lady of the Big House. + +Mrs. Parsons, however, had gone straight to Nettie's room and was shut +in with her niece for half an hour before she had anything to say to the +hotel keeper's wife, or to anybody else. Then she went first to see poor +Curly, who was feverish and in much pain. + +Just as Mrs. Parsons and her niece were passing down the hall they met +Miss Miggs. Nettie shot the maiden lady an angry glance and moved +carefully to one side. + +"Is this the--the person who has circulated the false reports about Ruth +and Helen?" asked Mrs. Parsons, sternly. + +"No false reports, I'd have you know, ma'am!" cried Martha Miggs, "right +on deck," Curly said afterwards, "to repel boarders." "I'd have you know +I am just as good as you are, and I'm just as much respected in my own +place," she continued. Miss Miggs' troubles and consequent nervous break +had really left her in such a condition that she was not fully +responsible for what she did and said. + +"I have no doubt of that," said Mrs. Parsons, quietly. "But I wish to +know what your meaning is in trying to injure the reputation of two +young girls." + +The little group had reached Curly's bedside; but they did not notice +that young invalid. Ruth had risen from her seat nervously, wishing that +Nettie's Aunt Rachel had not brought the unpleasant subject to the +surface again. + +"I could not injure the reputation of a couple of young minxes like +these!" declared Miss Miggs, angrily. "I put the ticket in the railroad +folder, and laid it on the seat beside me in the steamer's saloon, and +when I got up I forgot to take the folder with me. These girls were the +only people in sight. They were watching me, and when my back was turned +they took the ticket and folder." + +"Who?" suddenly shouted a voice behind them, and before any of the party +could reply to Miss Miggs' absurd accusation. + +Curly was sitting up in bed, his cheeks very red and his eyes bright +with fever; but he was in his right senses. + +"Those girls did it!" snapped Miss Miggs. + +"They didn't, either!" cried Curly. "I did it. Now you can have me +arrested if you want to!" added the boy, falling back on his pillows. "I +didn't know the ticket belonged to anybody. When I was drying my things +aboard that fishing boat, I found it in a folder that I had picked up in +the cabin of the steamer. I s'posed it was a ticket the railroad gave +away with the folder, until I asked a railroad man if it was good, and +he said it was as good as any other ticket. So I rode down to Pee Dee on +it from Norfolk. There now! If that's stealin', then I _have_ stolen, +and Gran is right--I'm a thief!" + +Even as obstinate a person as Miss Miggs was forced to believe this +story, for its truth was self-evident. It completely ended the +controversy about the lost ticket; but Curly Smith was not satisfied +until enough money was taken out of the fund raised for his benefit to +reimburse Mrs. Holloway for the purchase-money of the ticket she had +sent to her New England cousin. + +"I wish, Martha, I had never invited you down here," the hotel keeper's +wife was heard to tell the New England woman. "You've made me trouble +enough. I will never be able to pacify Mrs. Parsons. She is going to +take the young ladies and the boy away at once, and I know that she will +never again give me her good word with any of her wealthy friends. Your +ill-temper has cost me enough, I am sure." + +Perhaps it had cost Miss Miggs a good deal, too; only Miss Miggs was the +sort of obstinate person who never does or will acknowledge that she is +wrong. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV--BACK HOME + + +Mrs. Rachel Parsons marveled at what the girls had done in raising money +for Curly Smith. He would have money enough to keep him at the hospital +until his leg was healed, and to spare. + +Curly was not to be arrested. Deputy Sheriff Ricketts went with the +party on the launch back to Georgetown, picking up his own lost launch +by the way, uninjured, and saw the boy housed in a private room of the +hospital. Then he, as well as Ruth, received news about Curly. + +The letter from Mrs. Sadoc Smith at last arrived. In it the unhappy +woman opened her heart to Ruth again and begged her to send or bring +Curly home. It had been discovered that the boy had nothing to do with +the robbery of the railroad station at Lumberton. + +"And who didn't know that?" sniffed Helen. "Of course he didn't." + +Mr. Ricketts, too, received information that called him off the case. +"That there li'le Yankee boy ain't t' be arrested after all," he +confessed to Ruth. "Guess he jest got in wrong up No'th. But yo'd better +take him back with you when you go, Miss Ruth, He needs somebody to take +care of him--sho' do!" + +The river subsided and the girls went back to Merredith. They spent the +next fortnight delightfully and then the chums from Cheslow got ready to +start home. They could not take Curly with them; but he would be sent to +New York by steamer just as soon as the doctors could get him upon +crutches; and eventually the boy from Lumberton returned to his +grandmother, a much wiser lad than when he left her home and care. + +The days at Merredith, all things considered, had been very delightful. +But the weather was growing very oppressive for Northerners. Ruth and +Helen bade Mrs. Parsons and Nettie and everybody about the Big House, +including Mr. Jimson, good-bye and caught the train for Norfolk. They +had a day to wait there, and so they went across in the ferry to Old +Point Comfort, found Unc' Simmy, and were driven out to the gatehouse to +see Miss Catalpa. + +"And we sho' done struck luck, missy," Unc' Simmy confided to Ruth. +"Kunnel Wildah done foun' some mo' money b'longin' t' Miss Catalpa, an' +it's wot he calls a 'nuity. It comes reg'lar, like a man's wages," and +the old darkey's smile was beautiful to see. + +"Now Miss Catalpa kin have mo' of the fixin's like she's use to. Glory!" + +"He is the most unselfish person I have ever met," said Ruth to Helen. +"It makes me ashamed to see how he thinks only of that dear blind +woman." + +Miss Catalpa welcomed the chums delightedly; and they took tea with her +on the vine-shaded porch of the old gatehouse, Unc' Simmy doing the +honors in his ancient butler's coat. It was a very delightful party, +indeed, and Helen as well as Ruth went away at last hoping that she +would some time see the sweet-natured Miss Catalpa again. + +Three days later Mr. Cameron's automobile deposited Ruth at the Red +Mill--her arrival so soon being quite unexpected to the bent old woman +rocking and sewing in the cheerful window of the farmhouse kitchen. + +When Ruth ran up the steps and in at the door, Aunt Alvirah was quite +startled. She dropped her sewing and rose up creakingly, with a +murmured, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" but she reached her thin arms +out to clasp her hands at the back of Ruth Fielding's neck, and looked +long and earnestly into the girl's eyes. + +"My pretty's growing up--she's growing up!" cried Aunt Alvirah. "She +ain't a child no more. I can't scurce believe it. What have you seen +down South there that's made you so old-like, honey?" + +"I guess it is not age, Aunt Alvirah," declared Ruth. "Maybe I have seen +some things that have made me thoughtful. And have endured some things +that were hard. And had some pleasures that I never had before." + +"Just the same, my pretty!" crooned the old woman. "Just as thoughtful +as ever. You surely have an old head on those pretty young shoulders. +Oh, yes you have." + +"And maybe that isn't a good thing to have, after all--an old head on +young shoulders," thought Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill the night of her +return, as she sat at her little chamber window and looked out across +the rolling Lumano. "Helen is happier than I am; she doesn't worry about +herself or anybody else. + +"Now I'm worrying about what's to happen to me. Briarwood is a thing of +the past. Dear, old Briarwood Hall! Shall I ever be as happy again as I +was there? + +"I see college ahead of me in the fall. Of course, my expenses for +several years are assured. Mr. Hammond writes me that he will take +another moving picture scenario. I have found out that my voice--as well +as Helen's violin playing--can be coined. I am going to be +self-supporting and that, as Mrs. Parsons says, is a heap of +satisfaction. + +"I need trouble Uncle Jabez no more for money. But I can't remain in +idleness--that's 'agin nater,' to quote Aunt Alvirah. I know what I'll +do! I'll--I'll go to bed!" + +She arose from her seat with a laugh and began to disrobe. Ten minutes +later, her prayers said and her hair in two neat plaits on the pillow, +Ruth Fielding fell asleep. + + + THE END + + + + +THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES + +By ALICE B. EMERSON + + +12mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors. + +Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. + +Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle. Her +adventures and travels make stories that will hold the interest of every +reader. + +Ruth Fielding is a character that will live in juvenile fiction. + + 1. RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL + 2. RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL + 3. RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP + 4. RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT + 5. RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH + 6. RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND + 7. RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM + 8. RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES + 9. RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES + 10. RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE + 11. RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE + 12. RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE + 13. RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS + 14. RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT + 15. RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND + 16. RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST + 17. RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST + 18. RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE + 19. RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING + 20. RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH + 21. RUTH FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS + 22. RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA + 23. RUTH FIELDING AND HER GREAT SCENARIO + 24. RUTH FIELDING AT CAMERON HALL + 25. RUTH FIELDING CLEARING HER NAME + 26. RUTH FIELDING IN TALKING PICTURES + 27. RUTH FIELDING AND BABY JUNE + 28. RUTH FIELDING AND HER DOUBLE + 29. RUTH FIELDING AND HER GREATEST TRIUMPH + 30. RUTH FIELDING AND HER CROWNING VICTORY + +These books may be purchased wherever books are sold + +Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers NEW YORK + + + + +MYSTERY BOOKS FOR GIRLS + + +12mo. Illustrated. Colored jackets. + +Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. + +THE JADE NECKLACE, by Pemberton Ginther + +Roslyn Blake possesses a necklace of ancient Chinese design and of +mysterious origin. It brings both hope and fear. Strange events result +in its loss, but her courage and the friendship of Dr. Briggs help her +to solve the mystery. + +THE THIRTEENTH SPOON, by Pemberton Ginther + +A mystery story for girls, that holds the interest from the first word +to the last. Twelve famous Apostle spoons, and the thirteenth, the +Master Spoon vanish. Who has stolen them? Carol's courage solves the +mystery in an original and exciting story. + +THE SECRET STAIR, by Pemberton Ginther + +The 'Van Dirk Treasure' is a manuscript jewelled and illuminated. The +treasure is hidden in the old family mansion where Sally Shaw goes to +live. Strange events occur. The house is thought to be haunted. The Book +vanishes. Its recovery makes a most unusual story. + +THE DOOR IN THE MOUNTAIN, by Isola L. Forrester + +The four McLeans, three boys and a plucky girl, lived just outside of +Frisbee, Arizona, on Los Flores Canyon, thirty miles from even the +railroad. But adventure lurks in unexpected places, and when Katherine +and Peter chanced on the Door in the Mountain, a legend that held +considerable mystery for the community, the adventure proved the courage +and ingenuity of all the McLeans. + +SECRET OF THE DARK HOUSE, by Frances Y. Young + +Jean had an inquiring mind, and any event that she could not understand +aroused her curiosity to the 'nth degree. A charming stranger in the +schoolroom, a taciturn chauffeur, a huge dark house, strange robberies +in the neighborhood, and a secretive old man who always wore a disguise, +combined to put Jean on a hunt that before it was over involved +brothers, sisters, police, famous detectives, Smuff, her dog, in one +grand mystery story that every girl will enjoy reading. + +These books may be purchased wherever books are sold + +Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers NEW YORK + + + + +THE MAXIE SERIES + +By ELSIE B. GARDNER + + +12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. With colored Jacket. + +Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. + +Maxie is such an interesting, delightful, amusing character that +everyone will love and long remember her. She has the ability of turning +every event in her life into the most absorbing and astounding +adventures, and when she is sent to visit her only other Uncle in the +British West Indies, it proves to be the beginning of not only an +entirely new mode of living, but a series of tremendously thrilling +adventures and stirring deeds that every girl will thoroughly enjoy. + +1. MAXIE, AN ADORABLE GIRL or Her Adventures in the British West Indies + +2. MAXIE IN VENEZUELA or The Clue to the Diamond Mine + +3. MAXIE, SEARCHING FOR HER PARENTS or The Mystery in Australian Waters + +4. MAXIE AT BRINKSOME HALL or Strange Adventures with Her Chums + +These books may be purchased wherever books are sold + +Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers NEW YORK + + + + +THE BARTON BOOKS FOR GIRLS + +By MAY HOLLIS BARTON + + +12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. With colored Jacket. + +Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. + +May Hollis Barton is a new writer for girls who is bound to win instant +popularity. Her style is somewhat of a reminder of that of Louisa M. +Alcott, but thoroughly up-to-date in plot and action. Clean tales that +all the girls will enjoy reading. + + 1. THE GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY + 2. THREE GIRL CHUMS AT LAUREL HALL + 3. NELL GRAYSON'S RANCHING DAYS + 4. FOUR LITTLE WOMEN OF ROXBY + 5. PLAIN JANE AND PRETTY BETTY + 6. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE + 7. HAZEL HOOD'S STRANGE DISCOVERY + 8. TWO GIRLS AND A MYSTERY + 9. THE GIRLS OF LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND + 10. KATE MARTIN'S PROBLEM + 11. THE GIRL IN THE TOP FLAT + 12. THE SEARCH FOR PEGGY ANN + 13. SALLIE'S TEST OF SKILL + 14. CHARLOTTE CROSS AND AUNT DEB + 15. VIRGINIA'S VENTURE + +Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers NEW YORK + + + + +KAY TRACEY MYSTERY STORIES + +By FRANCES K. JUDD + + +12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in color. + +Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. + +Meet clever Kay Tracey, who, though only sixteen, solves mysteries in a +surprising manner. Working on clues which she assembles, this surprising +heroine supplies the solution to cases that have baffled professional +sleuths. The Kay Tracey Mystery Stories will grip a reader from start to +finish. + +1. THE SECRET OF THE RED SCARF + +A case of mistaken identity at a masquerade leads Kay into a delightful +but mysterious secret. + +2. THE STRANGE ECHO + +Lost Lake had two mysteries--an old one and a new one. Kay, visiting +there, solves both of them by deciphering a strange echo. + +3. THE MYSTERY OF THE SWAYING CURTAINS + +Heavy draperies swaying in a lonely mansion give the clue which is +needed to solve a mystery that has defied professional investigators but +proves to be fun for the attractive and clever Kay Tracey. + +4. THE SHADOW ON THE DOOR + +Was the shadow on the door made by a human being or an animal? +Apparently without explanation Kay Tracey, after some exciting work +solved the mystery and was able to help a small child out of an +unfortunate situation. + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers NEW YORK + + + + +THE BETTY GORDON SERIES + +By ALICE B. EMERSON + +Author of the "Ruth Fielding Series" + + +12mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors. + +Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. + +A new series of stories bound to make this writer more popular than ever +with her host of girl readers. Every one will want to know Betty Gordon, +and every one will be sure to love her. + + 1. BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM + 2. BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON + 3. BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL + 4. BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL + 5. BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP + 6. BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK + 7. BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS + 8. BETTY GORDON AT RAINBOW RANCH + 9. BETTY GORDON IN MEXICAN WILDS + 10. BETTY GORDON AND THE LOST PEARLS + 11. BETTY GORDON ON THE CAMPUS + 12. BETTY GORDON AND THE HALE TWINS + 13. BETTY GORDON AT MYSTERY FARM + 14. BETTY GORDON ON NO-TRAIL ISLAND + 15. BETTY GORDON AND THE MYSTERY GIRL + +Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers NEW YORK + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie, by Alice B. Emerson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE *** + +***** This file should be named 36747.txt or 36747.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/4/36747/ + +Produced by Roger Frank, David Edwards and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |