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<pre>
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: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE ***
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Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
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</pre>
<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
<a name='i001' id='i001'></a>
<img src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="RUTH SECURED A GRIP ON THE BLACK MAN’S SLEEVE." title=""/><br />
<span class='caption'>RUTH SECURED A GRIP ON THE BLACK MAN’S SLEEVE.</span>
</div>
<p>
 <br />
 <br />
 <br />
</p>
<div class='center'>
<p><span style='font-size:1.4em;font-weight:bold;'>Ruth Fielding</span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:1.4em;font-weight:bold;'>Down In Dixie</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>OR</p>
<p> </p>
<p>GREAT TIMES IN THE LAND OF COTTON</p>
<p> </p>
<p>BY</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>ALICE B. EMERSON</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>Author of “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,” “Ruth</span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>Fielding and the Gypsies,” Etc.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>ILLUSTRATED</em></p>
</div>
<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
<a name='i002' id='i002'></a>
<img src='images/title.jpg' alt='' title=''/><br />
</div>
<div class='center'>
<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>NEW YORK</span></p>
<p>CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY</p>
<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>PUBLISHERS</span></p>
</div>
<p>
 <br />
 <br />
 <br />
</p>
<div class='center'>
<p>Books for Girls</p>
<p>BY ALICE B. EMERSON</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>RUTH FIELDING SERIES</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.</p>
</div>
<table class='c' summary='centered block'><tr><td>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Or, Jasper Parloe’s Secret.</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'> </p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Or, Solving the Campus Mystery.</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'> </p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Or, Lost in the Backwoods.</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'> </p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway.</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'> </p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Or, Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys.</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'> </p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Or, The Old Hunter’s Treasure Box.</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'> </p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Or, What Became of the Raby Orphans.</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'> </p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Or, The Missing Pearl Necklace.</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'> </p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Or, Helping the Dormitory Fund.</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'> </p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE</p>
<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Or, Great Times in the Land of Cotton.</p>
</td></tr></table>
<div class='center'>
<p>Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Copyright, 1916, by</p>
<p>Cupples & Leon Company</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class='sc'>Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Printed in U. S. A.</p>
</div>
<p>
 <br />
 <br />
 <br />
</p>
<div class='center'>
<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>CONTENTS</span></p>
</div>
<table class='c' summary='table of contents'>
<tr><td style='font-size:smaller'>CHAPTER</td><td></td><td style='font-size:smaller'>PAGE</td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>I.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chI'>1</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>II.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Worm Turns</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chII'>12</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>III.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Boy in the Moonlight</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIII'>25</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>IV.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Capes of Virginia</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIV'>33</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>V.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Newspaper Account</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chV'>45</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VI.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>All in the Rain</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVI'>56</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Miss Catalpa</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVII'>66</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VIII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Under the Umbrella</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVIII'>73</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>IX.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Sunshine at the Gatehouse</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIX'>78</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>X.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>An Adventure in Norfolk</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chX'>86</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XI.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>At the Merredith Plantation</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXI'>94</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Boy at the Warehouse</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXII'>103</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Ruth Is Troubled</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIII'>111</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIV.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Ruth Finds a Helper</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIV'>118</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XV.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Ride to Holloways</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXV'>123</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVI.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The “Hop”</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVI'>135</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Flood Rises</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVII'>139</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVIII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Across the River</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVIII'>145</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIX.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>“If Aunt Rachel Were Only Here”</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIX'>151</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XX.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Curly Plays an Heroic Part</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXX'>159</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXI.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Next Morning</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXI'>166</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Something for Curly</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXII'>174</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXIII.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>“Here’s a State of Things!”</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXIII'>182</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXIV.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Chamber Concert</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXIV'>189</a></td></tr>
<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXV.</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Back Home</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXV'>202</a></td></tr>
</table>
<p>
 <br />
 <br />
 <br />
</p>
<h1><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_1'></a>1</span>Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie</h1>
<h2><a name='chI' id='chI'></a>CHAPTER I—A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING</h2>
<p>
“Isn’t that the oddest acting girl you ever saw,
Ruth?”
</p>
<p>
“Goodness! what a gawky thing!” agreed Ruth
Fielding, who was just getting out of the taxicab,
following her chum, Helen Cameron.
</p>
<p>
“And those white-stitched shoes!” gasped
Helen. “Much too small for her, I do believe!”
</p>
<p>
“How that skirt does hang!” exclaimed Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Excuse <em>me</em>!” returned Helen. “I don’t think
I care to. Oh, look!”
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_2'></a>2</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Right dis way, miss,” said the porter politely,
and started off with the suitcase.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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. <em>She</em> don’t need no he’p,
<em>she</em> don’t.”
</p>
<p>
“Let him take our bags—poor fellow,” said
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_3'></a>3</span>
Helen, turning around after paying their own
driver. “Wasn’t that girl rude?”
</p>
<p>
“Here,” said Ruth, laughing and extending her
light traveling bag to the disturbed porter, “you
may carry <em>our</em> bags to the boat. We’re not as
strong as that girl.”
</p>
<p>
“She sho’ was a strong one,” said the negro,
grinning. “I declar’ for’t, missy! I ain’ nebber
seed no lady so strong befo’.”
</p>
<p>
“Isn’t he delicious?” whispered Helen, pinching
Ruth’s arm as they followed the man down the
dock. “<em>He’s</em> 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.”
</p>
<p>
“I feel awfully important,” admitted Ruth.
“And I guess you do. Traveling alone all the way
from Cheslow to New York.”
</p>
<p>
“And this city <em>is</em> so big,” sighed Helen. “I
hope we can stop and see it when we come back
from the Land of Cotton.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4'></a>4</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Lemme see dat, missy,” said the porter to
Ruth. “I done know dis boat like a book, I sho’
does.”
</p>
<p>
“And, poor fellow, I don’t suppose he ever
looked inside a book,” whispered Helen. “Isn’t
he comical?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5'></a>5</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Curly?” cried Helen, suddenly interested.
“Never! What’s he done now?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“The poor boy!” exclaimed Helen. “I knew
he was an awful cut-up——”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“His grandmother has always been so strict with
him,” said Helen. “You know how she treated
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_6'></a>6</span>
him while we were lodging with her when the new
West Dormitory at Briarwood was being built.”
</p>
<p>
“I remember very clearly,” agreed Ruth. “And,
after all, Curly wasn’t such a bad fellow. Mrs.
Smith says he threatens to run away. <em>That</em> would
be awful.”
</p>
<p>
“Goodness! I believe I’d run away myself,”
said Helen, “if I had anybody who nagged me as
Mrs. Sadoc Smith does Henry.”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“And the tall buildings that we couldn’t see
from the taxicab window,” added Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“Who’s going to keep the key?” demanded
Helen, as Ruth locked the stateroom door.
</p>
<p>
“<em>I</em> am. You’re not to be trusted, young lady,”
laughed Ruth. “Where’s your handbag?”
</p>
<p>
“Why—I left it inside.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“I’ll fix <em>that</em>,” declared Helen, and reached in
to slide the blind shut. They heard the catch snap
and were satisfied.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7'></a>7</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“I see her,” Ruth whispered. “It’s the same
girl.”
</p>
<p>
“And she’s going into that stateroom,” added
Helen, as the person unlocked the door of an inside
room.
</p>
<p>
“I’d like to see her face,” Ruth said, smiling.
“I see she has curly hair, and I believe it’s short.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_8'></a>8</span>
was one of the largest coast-wise steamers sailing
out of the port.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9'></a>9</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
Every half minute there was something new for
the chums to exclaim over.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Launch coming up, sir. Port, astern.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“That is a police launch. I guess we’re all arrested.
See! they’re coming aboard.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10'></a>10</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
These men were surely not passengers who had
been belated, for the launch still remained attached
to the steamer.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“No, thank you,” Ruth replied, smiling. But
Helen burst out with: “Do tell us what those men
have come aboard for?”
</p>
<p>
“Dem men from de <em>po</em>-lice launch?” inquired
the black man.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11'></a>11</span>
</p>
<p>
“Yes. What are they after? Are they police?”
</p>
<p>
“Ya-as’m. Dem’s <em>po</em>-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.”
</p>
<p>
“A boy in girl’s clothing?” gasped Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“‘A wolf in sheep’s clothing!’” laughed her
chum.
</p>
<p>
“Ya-as indeedy, missy. Das wot dey say.”
</p>
<p>
“Are they <em>sure</em> he came aboard this boat?”
asked Ruth anxiously.
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>dat</em> is,” chuckled the darkey.
“No boy gwine t’ look like his sister in her clo’es—no,
indeedy.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“It is most certainly that person,” agreed Ruth
positively.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12'></a>12</span><a name='chII' id='chII'></a>CHAPTER II—THE WORM TURNS</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13'></a>13</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14'></a>14</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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!
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15'></a>15</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16'></a>16</span>
way to meet Mrs. Rachel Parsons and Nettie at
Old Point Comfort. And from this place their
trip into Dixie would really begin.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“So, why should we interfere?” said Ruth,
quietly. “We don’t know the circumstances. Perhaps
he’s only accused.”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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——”
</p>
<p>
“That girl we saw going into the stateroom was
about Curly’s size,” said Helen reflectively.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17'></a>17</span>
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” said Ruth, smiling. “His famous revolt
against kilts and long curls. You couldn’t really
blame him.”
</p>
<p>
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 viséd their
tickets. One or two of the other men, though in
citizen’s dress, were unmistakably policemen.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
He rattled the knob. Then he knocked. Helen
seized Ruth’s hand. “Oh, see!” she cried. “It
is forty-eight.”
</p>
<p>
“I see it is. Poor fellow,” murmured Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“If she <em>is</em> a fellow.”
</p>
<p>
“And what will happen if he is a girl?” laughed
Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“Won’t she be mad!” cried Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Or terribly embarrassed,” Ruth added.
</p>
<p>
“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,
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18'></a>18</span>
pressed with all his force, and the door gave way
with a splintering of wood and metal.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“The bird’s flown, Jim,” said one policeman to
another.
</p>
<p>
“Hullo!” said the purser. “What’s that in
the berth?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19'></a>19</span>
police officers go down the ladder and into the
launch.
</p>
<p>
They all did this without accident. Then the
rope ladder was cast off and the launch chugged
away, turning back toward the distant city.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“I should think it would be dreadfully lonely,”
Helen said, with reflection. “Just to tend the
lights—and the fish, perhaps—eh?”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t suppose they have dances or have people
come to afternoon tea,” giggled Ruth. “What
do you expect?”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“Maybe,” said Ruth seriously, “they wouldn’t
let us aboard. Maybe it’s against the rules. Or
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20'></a>20</span>
perhaps they only select men who are misanthropes,
or women-haters, to tend lightships.”
</p>
<p>
“<em>Are</em> there such things as women-haters?” demanded
Helen, big-eyed and innocent looking. “I
thought <em>they</em> were fabled creatures—like—like
mermaids, for instance.”
</p>
<p>
“Goodness! Do you think, Helen Cameron,
that every man you meet is going to fall on his
knees to you?”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“How you talk!” cried Helen. “I suppose Tom
will have a dozen flames before he settles
down——”
</p>
<p>
Ruth suddenly burst into laughter. She knew
she had been foolish for a moment.
</p>
<p>
“What nonsense to talk so about a boy in a military
school!” she cried. “Why! he’s only a boy
yet.”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21'></a>21</span>
</p>
<p>
“Goodness me!” gasped Ruth, suddenly seizing
her chum by the arm.
</p>
<p>
“O-o-o! ouch!” responded Helen. “What a
grip you’ve got, Ruth! What’s the matter with
you?”
</p>
<p>
“See there!” whispered Ruth, pointing.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Goodness!” whispered Helen. “Can—can it
be?”
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“It’s that boy they were looking for.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Ruth! Can it be possible?” Helen repeated.
</p>
<p>
“See the short hair?”
</p>
<p>
“Of course!”
</p>
<p>
“Oh!”
</p>
<p>
The Unknown had turned swiftly and disappeared
into the passage. “Come on!” cried Helen.
“Let’s see where he goes to.”
</p>
<p>
Ruth was nothing loath. Although she would
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22'></a>22</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“Horrors!” cried Helen. “Then I feel like the
detective of fiction. I am sure <em>he</em> never chews
tobacco.”
</p>
<p>
“There! there she is!” breathed Ruth, stopping
at the exit of the passage where they could see a
good portion of the saloon.
</p>
<p>
“Come on! we mustn’t lose sight of her,” said
Helen, with determination.
</p>
<p>
The awkward figure of the supposedly disguised
boy was marching up the saloon and the girls
almost ran to catch up with it.
</p>
<p>
“Do you suppose he will <em>dare</em> go to room forty-eight
again?” whispered Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“And like enough they are watching that room.”
</p>
<p>
“Well—see there!”
</p>
<p>
The person they were following suddenly
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23'></a>23</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Why we should refer to her as <em>she</em>, when without
doubt she is a <em>he</em>, I do not know,” said Helen,
in a whisper, to Ruth.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“I wish I could hear its voice,” whispered Ruth.
“Then we might tell something more about it.”
</p>
<p>
“But we heard him speak on the dock—don’t
you remember?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, yes! when he almost knocked that poor
colored man down.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes. And his voice was just a squeal then,”
said Helen. “He tried to disguise it, of course.”
</p>
<p>
“While now,” added Ruth, chuckling, “he is as
silent as the Sphinx.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24'></a>24</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Do let us go away, Helen,” she said. “We
have no right to stare so.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“There!” murmured Ruth, with a sigh. “The
worm has turned. We’re in for it, Helen—and
we deserve it!”
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25'></a>25</span><a name='chIII' id='chIII'></a>CHAPTER III—THE BOY IN THE MOONLIGHT</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“I want to know,” repeated the woman sternly,
“what you mean by following me around this
boat?”
</p>
<p>
The chums were tongue-tied in their embarrassment
for the moment, but Helen managed to blurt
out: “We—we didn’t know——”
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
It would have been hard for most people to resist Ruth’s
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26'></a>26</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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. <em>I’d</em> teach you what’s what!”
</p>
<p>
“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
<em>her</em> pretty sharp at times.”
</p>
<p>
“I wonder what and who the woman is,” Ruth
murmured. “I am glad she is nobody whom I
have to know.”
</p>
<p>
“Hope we have seen the last of the hateful old
thing!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“My dear!” she said. “Did you see <em>that</em>?”
</p>
<p>
“Don’t point out any other mysteries to me—please!”
cried Helen. “We’ll get into a worse
pickle.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27'></a>27</span>
</p>
<p>
“But did you see that boy?” insisted Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“No. I’m not looking for boys.”
</p>
<p>
“Neither am I,” Ruth returned. “But I could
not help seeing how much that one resembled
Curly Smith.”
</p>
<p>
“Dear me! You certainly have Henry Smith
on the brain,” cried Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28'></a>28</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Wait a moment, madam,” he said sharply.
“What is it all about?”
</p>
<p>
“My ticket!” cried the short-haired woman,
glaring through her spectacles at Ruth and Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Your ticket?” said the officer. “What about
it?”
</p>
<p>
“It isn’t there!” and she pointed tragically to
the seat on which she had previously rested.
</p>
<p>
“Did you leave it there?” queried the officer,
guessing at the reason for her excitement.
</p>
<p>
“I just did, sir!” snapped the stern woman.
</p>
<p>
“Your ticket for your trip to Norfolk?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Well?” said the officer calmly. “I apprehend
that you left the folder on this seat—or think
you did?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“The inference being, then,” went on the officer, “that
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29'></a>29</span>
they took the folder and the ticket?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, sir, I am convinced they did just that,”
declared the woman, glaring at the horrified Ruth
and Helen.
</p>
<p>
Said the latter, angrily: “Why, the mean old
thing! Who ever heard the like?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” exclaimed Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“Nasty cat!” muttered Helen.
</p>
<p>
The officer was not greatly impressed. “Have
you any real evidence connecting these young ladies
with the loss of your ticket?” he asked.
</p>
<p>
“I say it’s stolen!” cried the sharp-voiced one.
</p>
<p>
“And it may, instead, have been picked up,
folder and all, by a quite different party. Perhaps
the purser already has your lost ticket——”
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“If missy jes’ let me take her stateroom key,
den all dem roses be ‘ranged in dar mos’ skillful—ya-as’m;
mos’ skillful.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30'></a>30</span>
</p>
<p>
“Why! did you ever!” gasped Helen, amazed.
</p>
<p>
“Those are never for <em>us</em>?” cried Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, the dear!” cried Helen, clasping her
hands.
</p>
<p>
“<em>Those</em> were the roses you thought he sent to
Hazel Gray,” whispered Ruth sharply.
</p>
<p>
“So they are!” cried Helen. “What a dunce I
was. Of course, old Tom would not forget us.
He’s a good, good boy!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The chums opened the blind again so that they
could look out across the water at the Jersey shore.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31'></a>31</span>
Sandy Hook was now far behind them. Long
Branch and the neighboring seaside resorts were
likewise passed.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“See him?” she whispered. “That’s the boy
who you said looked like Henry Smith. See his
curly hair?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Helen!” gasped Ruth, a thought stabbing
her suddenly. “Suppose it is?”
</p>
<p>
“Suppose it is what?”
</p>
<p>
“Suppose it <em>should</em> be Curly whom the police
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32'></a>32</span>
were after? You know, that dressed-up boy—if it
was he we saw on the dock—had curly hair.”
</p>
<p>
“So he had! I forgot that when we were trailing
that queer old maid,” chuckled Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“No; I suppose not,” admitted Helen, rather
puzzled.
</p>
<p>
“And if it is Curly—”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, goodness me! we don’t even know that
Henry Smith has run away!” exclaimed Helen.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33'></a>33</span><a name='chIV' id='chIV'></a>CHAPTER IV—THE CAPES OF VIRGINIA</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, dear! let’s go to bed,” said Helen plaintively.
“I <em>don’t</em> see why those engines have to
pound so. It sounds like the tramping of a herd
of elephants.”
</p>
<p>
“Did you ever hear a herd of elephants tramping?”
asked Ruth, laughing.
</p>
<p>
“No; but I can imagine how they would sound,”
said Helen. “At any rate, let’s go to bed.”
</p>
<p>
They did not see the curly-haired boy; but as
they went in to the ladies’ lavatory on their side
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34'></a>34</span>
of the deck, they came face to face with the queer
woman with whom they had already had some
trouble.
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“I hope you have found your ticket, ma’am?”
</p>
<p>
“No, I haven’t found it—and you know right
well I haven’t,” declared the short-haired woman.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, goody!” exclaimed Helen, under her
breath.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35'></a>35</span>
girls. You’ve made me trouble enough, I should
hope. I would believe anything of you—<em>any</em>thing!”
</p>
<p>
“Do come away, Ruth,” whispered Helen; and
Ruth seeing that there was no use talking with
such a set and vindictive person, complied.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“How are you going to stop her?” Helen demanded.
“Muzzle her?”
</p>
<p>
“That might not be a bad plan,” Ruth said,
beginning to smile again. “Oh! but she <em>did</em> make
me so angry!”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“I wonder who she is and what sort of girls
she teaches—for of course she <em>is</em> a teacher,” said
Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“In a reform school, I should think,” Helen
said. “Her opinion of schoolgirls is something
awful. It’s worse than Miss Brokaw’s.”
</p>
<p>
“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—”
</p>
<p>
“There’s something wrong with her looks, that’s
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36'></a>36</span>
sure,” Helen agreed. “She is the dowdiest thing
I ever saw.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, I suppose so,” Ruth said. “Of course, he
would have to be insane to do it.”
</p>
<p>
They returned to their stateroom. It was somewhat
ghostly, Helen thought, along the narrow
deck now. Ruth fumbled at the lock for some
time.
</p>
<p>
“Are you sure you have the right room?” Helen
whispered.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
They went in. Ruth remembered where the
electric light bulb was and snapped on the light.
“There! isn’t this cozy?” she asked.
</p>
<p>
“‘Snug as a bug in a rug,’” quoted Helen.
“Goodness! how sharp your elbow is, dear!”
</p>
<p>
“And that was my foot you stepped on,” complained
Ruth.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37'></a>37</span>
</p>
<p>
“I believe we’ll have to take turns undressing,”
Helen said. “One stay outside on the deck till
the other gets into bed.”
</p>
<p>
“And we’ve got to draw lots for the upper berth.
What a climb!”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Now, Miss Cameron!” cried Ruth, with mock
sternness. “We’ll settle this thing at once. No
cheating. Here are two matches——”
</p>
<p>
“Matches! Where did you get matches?”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Now, I break the head off this one. Do you
see? One is now shorter than the other. I put
them together—<em>so</em>. Now I hide them in my hand.
You pull one, Helen. If you pull the longer one
you get the lower berth.”
</p>
<p>
“I get something else, too, don’t I?” said Helen.
</p>
<p>
“What?”
</p>
<p>
“The match!” laughed the other girl. “There!
Oh, dear me! it’s the short one.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38'></a>38</span>
</p>
<p>
“Oh, that’s too bad, dear,” cried Ruth, at once
sympathetic. “If you really dread getting into
the upper berth——”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
The next moment Helen began on something
else. “Oh, me! oh, my! what a pair of little geese
we are, Ruthie.”
</p>
<p>
“What about?” demanded her chum.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Now you’ve done it!” groaned Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“Done what?” demanded Helen in alarm. “I
guess that hasn’t anything to do with the electric
lights. Is it the fire alarm?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“But what have I <em>done</em>?” demanded Helen.
“Why will it cost me money?”
</p>
<p>
Ruth calmly reached down the ice-water pitcher
from its rack. “You’ll know in a minute,” she
said. “There! hear it?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39'></a>39</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“D’jew ring fo’ ice-water, missy? I got it
right yere.”
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“That man will be rich before we get to Old
Point Comfort,” sighed Ruth, who was of a
frugal disposition.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40'></a>40</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, my, Helen! You have the best of it after
all. Oh, how that hurt!”
</p>
<p>
“M-m-m-m!” from Helen. So quickly was she
asleep!
</p>
<p>
But Ruth could not go immediately to Dreamland.
There had been too much of an exciting
nature happening.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41'></a>41</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
She peered out quietly. There stood the curly-haired
boy again, leaning on the rail, and looking
wistfully off to the distant shore.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42'></a>42</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
Helen moved in the berth above. “Hullo, up
there!” whispered Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“Hullo, down there!” was the quick reply.
“What ever made me wake up so early?”
</p>
<p>
“Because you want to get up early,” replied
Ruth, this time sliding out of her berth so adroitly
that she did <em>not</em> bump her head.
</p>
<p>
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
<em>this</em>. I came near to breaking my neck.”
</p>
<p>
“Come on! scramble into your clothes,” said
Ruth, already at the wash basin.
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43'></a>43</span>
</p>
<p>
“Wha-at?” yawned Helen. “Did they come
from the light?”
</p>
<p>
“No, goosy! from the island. They are bred
there.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“The surf,” Ruth said. “And that must be Hog
Island Light. How faint it is. The sun is putting
it out.”
</p>
<p>
“It’s a long way ahead.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes. We won’t pass that till almost six
o’clock. Oh, Helen! there comes the sun.”
</p>
<p>
“What’s that?” asked Helen, suddenly seizing
her chum’s wrist. “Did you hear it?”
</p>
<p>
“That splash? The men are washing decks.”
</p>
<p>
“It is a man overboard!” murmured Helen.
</p>
<p>
“More likely a big fish jumping,” said the practical
Ruth.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44'></a>44</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“I believe somebody did fall overboard from
this steamer, and those fishermen have picked him
up,” Helen declared.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45'></a>45</span><a name='chV' id='chV'></a>CHAPTER V—THE NEWSPAPER ACCOUNT</h2>
<p>
“Do you suppose Nettie and her aunt have arrived,
Ruth?”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Goodness! won’t you feel funny going up to
that big, sprawling hotel alone?”
</p>
<p>
“No, dear. I sha’n’t be alone,” laughed Ruth.
“You will be with me, won’t you?”
</p>
<p>
Helen merely pinched her for answer.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Fine! I leave it all to you,” agreed Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Of course you will. You always do,” said
Ruth drily. “You certainly are one of the fortunate
ones in this world, Helen, dear.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46'></a>46</span>
</p>
<p>
“How am I?”
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>somebody</em>
will come to your rescue.”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“And a beautiful place we are going to. That’s
the fort yonder—the largest in the United States,
I shouldn’t wonder.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
As they descended to the lower deck, suddenly
the queer looking school teacher, with the short
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47'></a>47</span>
hair and funny clothes, faced them. The purser
had evidently been trying to pacify her, but now he
gave it up.
</p>
<p>
“You mean to tell me that you won’t demand
to have these girls examined—<em>searched</em>?” 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!”
</p>
<p>
“Do you <em>know</em> these two young ladies?” demanded
the purser, in surprise.
</p>
<p>
“Yes; I know their kind. I have been teaching
girls just like ’em for fifteen years. They’re up
to all kinds of mischief.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Of course you’d take their side!” sniffed the
woman.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
The woman tossed her head and strode away,
after glaring again at the embarrassed girls. The
purser said, gently:
</p>
<p>
“I am very sorry, young ladies, that you have
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48'></a>48</span>
been annoyed by that person. And I am glad that
you did not let the offence make <em>us</em> any more
trouble. Of course, she had no right to speak of
you and to you as she has.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, that is true enough, I expect,” Ruth admitted.
“See how they used to treat little Picolet!”
she added to Helen.
</p>
<p>
“I guess <em>no</em> girl would fall in love with this horrid
creature who says we stole her ticket.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! you don’t suppose she will try to make
trouble for us ashore?” Ruth cried.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49'></a>49</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“Sorry you missed that, young ladies. The instrument
is in Room Seventy,” said the purser,
bustling away.
</p>
<p>
“‘Too late! too late! the villain cried!’” murmured
Helen. “We missed that.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“No I can’t,” said Helen shortly.
</p>
<p>
“Why not?”
</p>
<p>
“Because I won’t have any money left by that
time,” Helen declared ruefully. “Goodness! how
much it does cost to travel.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50'></a>50</span>
</p>
<p>
“What’s that?” asked Ruth, with a laugh.
</p>
<p>
“That old maid school marm from New England,”
Helen replied promptly.
</p>
<p>
“Poor thing!” commented Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“There you go! Pitying her already! How
do you know that she won’t try to have us arrested?”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Ruth and Helen had sharp eyes, and they saw
two plain-clothes men standing by to watch the
forthcoming passengers.
</p>
<p>
“The officers looking for that boy,” whispered
Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, dear! do you suppose he <em>was</em> Curly?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51'></a>51</span>
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know. I must write to Mrs. Smith
as soon as we get to the hotel.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
As they went up to the rooms Helen whispered:
“Don’t you feel kind of <em>bridey</em>?”
</p>
<p>
“Kind of what?” gasped her chum.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Maybe you feel that you are a queen,” giggled
Ruth. “But not me. If you are a bride,
Helen Cameron, where is the gloom?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52'></a>52</span>
</p>
<p>
“Gloom?” repeated Helen. “Do you mean
<em>groom</em>?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“I—I didn’t have anything smaller,” confessed
the culprit.
</p>
<p>
“Well, you ought to have had change.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
Ruth went off into a gale of laughter. “I wonder
how that darkey would have looked if you
had contributed a button to him.”
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
“Oh, this will be lovely,” Ruth assured him.
“And are Mrs. Parsons’ rooms yonder?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53'></a>53</span>
</p>
<p>
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 <em>dear</em>! Or are all people down
here in Dixie as polite as this person with the side
whiskers?”
</p>
<p>
“Why! I think people are kind to us almost
everywhere,” said Ruth, laying off her hat and
coat.
</p>
<p>
“What shall we do first?” asked Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>did</em> run away, we know where he is.”
</p>
<p>
“Do we?” asked Helen, doubtfully.
</p>
<p>
“Why—I——Well, he was aboard that
steamer, I am sure,” Ruth said.
</p>
<p>
“Is he now?” asked Helen. “I believe he went
overboard and was picked up by that fishing boat.”
</p>
<p>
“Goodness! do you really believe so?”
</p>
<p>
“I am quite positive that the disguised boy did
just that,” said Helen, nodding her dark head
confidently.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“And with the police after him!” Helen added.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54'></a>54</span>
“I am sure he never committed any real crime.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
“A police launch followed the New Union S.S.
<em>Pocahontas</em> 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.
</p>
<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55'></a>55</span>
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.
</p>
<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
“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.
</p>
<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
“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 <em>Pocahontas</em>.
</p>
<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
“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.”
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56'></a>56</span><a name='chVI' id='chVI'></a>CHAPTER VI—ALL IN THE RAIN</h2>
<p>
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 <em>they</em> should have seen
him in his girl’s apparel, and not have known him.
</p>
<p>
“After seeing him dressed up in Ann’s old dress
that time, too,” sighed Helen. “The foolish
boy!”
</p>
<p>
“But only think of his dropping off that shed
roof. Do you know, Helen, it is twenty feet from
the ground?”
</p>
<p>
“That reporter writes as though he thought it
were a joke,” Helen said. “Mean thing!”
</p>
<p>
“He never saw that shed,” said Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“It is fortunate poor Curly didn’t break his
neck.”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57'></a>57</span>
her how Curly is being hounded by the police, and
that he jumped overboard.”
</p>
<p>
“Sure he did! He’s an awfully brave boy,”
Helen declared.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“He’s all right,” urged Helen, with admiration.
“I don’t believe the police will ever catch him.”
</p>
<p>
“But what will become of him?”
</p>
<p>
“If we come across him again, we’ll help him,”
said Helen, with confidence.
</p>
<p>
“That’s not likely. I can’t even tell Mrs. Smith
where he has gone. We don’t know.”
</p>
<p>
“Let’s go out and make sure that he wasn’t
taken by the police here, or at Norfolk.”
</p>
<p>
“How will you find out?”
</p>
<p>
“At the dock. Somebody will know.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58'></a>58</span>
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“In what?” asked Ruth, doubtfully.
</p>
<p>
“Well, I’d call it a barouche. It’s an old thing;
but he’s such a nice, old darkey, and——”
</p>
<p>
“How much have you already paid him, my
dear?” asked Ruth, interrupting.
</p>
<p>
“Well—I——Oh! don’t be so inquisitive!”
</p>
<p>
“And I thought you went to inquire whether
they had arrested that boy?”
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>such</em> a funny livery, asked me to
ride with him. He’s been driving white folks
around here, he says, ever since the war.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Now, Ruthie——”
</p>
<p>
“That is true. Well! we’ll get our hats——”
</p>
<p>
“Don’t need anything of the kind. Or wraps,
either. It’s lovely out.”
</p>
<p>
“But that black cloud?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59'></a>59</span>
</p>
<p>
“What do you mean, Ruthie? My hack
driver?” giggled Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Nonsense, you naughty child! That thunder
storm.”
</p>
<p>
“The driver says it won’t come over here. Let’s
go.”
</p>
<p>
“All right,” Ruth finally said. “I know you
have already paid him and we must get some return
for your money.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60'></a>60</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Do get in,” giggled Helen. “Did you ever see
such a funny old thing?”
</p>
<p>
“It looks as if it would fall to pieces,” objected
Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“He assures me it won’t. I don’t care if everybody
<em>is</em> laughing at us.”
</p>
<p>
“Neither do I. But I believe it is going to
rain.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
They rode along the edge of the fortress moat
and past the officer’s quarters, and so around the
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61'></a>61</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“We’ll have to go back, Uncle,” cried Helen to
the driver.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“You should not have encouraged us to come
out with you when it was sure to rain,” said Ruth,
rather tartly for her.
</p>
<p>
“Sho’ ‘nuff, missy—sho’ ‘nuff,” cackled the old
darkey. “But ’twas a great temptation.”
</p>
<p>
“What was a great temptation?”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62'></a>62</span>
conveyances—no’m!” and the old negro chuckled
as though poverty, too, were a humorous thing.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“You’d better not mind it, Mr. Simmy,” Helen
said, “and drive us back at once. We’re bound to
get wet anyway.”
</p>
<p>
“Dey calls me <em>Unc’</em> 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.”
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“‘On Jor-dy-an’s sto’my bank I stand<br />
An’ cas’ a wishful eye<br />
T’ Can-ny-an’s bright an’ glo-ree-ous land—<br />
Ma’ ho-o-me ’twill be, bymeby!’<br />
</p>
<p>
Dis ain’ gwine t’ be much ob a shower, missy. We
turns in yere.“
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63'></a>63</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Where for pity’s sake is he taking us?” Ruth
demanded.
</p>
<p>
“I don’t care—it’s fun,” gasped Helen, cowering
before the rain drops.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64'></a>64</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“‘Miss Catalpa,’ no less!” murmured Helen
in Ruth’s ear. “<em>That</em> sounds like a real darkey
name, doesn’t it? I wonder if she’s an old aunty—or
mammy, do they call them?”
</p>
<p>
But Ruth was interested in another phase of
the matter. “Won’t the lady object to unexpected
visitors, Uncle Simmy?” she asked.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“Then Miss Catalpa is <em>white</em>!” gasped Helen
to Ruth, as the old darkey led the way across the
back yard to the cottage.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
In the half dusk of the vine-sheltered porch they
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65'></a>65</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The little lady was blind.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66'></a>66</span><a name='chVII' id='chVII'></a>CHAPTER VII—MISS CATALPA</h2>
<p>
“Oh! the poor dear!” gasped Helen, for she,
like Ruth, discovered the little lady’s infirmity
almost at once.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
But the quick, sudden shower lulled a little and
they could hear the lady’s voice—a sweet, delicious,
drawling tone. She said:
</p>
<p>
“Yo’ have brought some callers, I see, Simmy.
Good afternoon, young ladies.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
She was dressed very plainly in gingham; but
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67'></a>67</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
The negro cleared his voice and said, with great
respect, removing his ancient hat as he did so:
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, yes, Simmy. I know,” said Miss Catalpa,
with a little sigh. “It isn’t as it used to be befo’
<em>we</em> 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?”
</p>
<p>
And Helen and Ruth had not yet said a word!
The subtle appreciation of the blind woman told
her much that astonished the girls.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Indeed? I went to school fo’ a while at Miss
Chamberlain’s in Washington. Hers was a very
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68'></a>68</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“It must have been terrible,” said Ruth, “to lose
one’s brothers and fathers and cousins by bullet
and sword.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Isn’t it terrible?” whispered Helen to her
chum, for it sounded to the unsophisticated girl
like a tale of recent happenings.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69'></a>69</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“It must be dreadful to have been rich, and then
fall into poverty,” Helen said, commiseratingly.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Dear, dear!” murmured Helen, wiping her
own eyes.
</p>
<p>
“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,”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70'></a>70</span>
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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Ya-as’m, Miss Catalpa— Ah sho’ will.”
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“And if I were she I’d not only cry my eyes
blind, but I’d cry them <em>out</em>!” whispered Helen to
Ruth, as they followed the old coachman.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71'></a>71</span>
</p>
<p>
When they were out of ear-shot of the Lady of
the Gatehouse Ruth asked: “Who keeps house for
Miss Grogan, Uncle Simmy?”
</p>
<p>
“Fo’ Miss Catalpa?” ejaculated the negro.
“Sho’, missy, she don’t need nobody but Unc’
Simmy.”
</p>
<p>
“There is no woman servant?”
</p>
<p>
“Lor’ bress yo’,” chuckled the black man, “ain’t
been no money to pay sarbents since dat Needleses’
Bank done busted. Nebber <em>did</em> hear tell o’ sech a
bustification as <em>dat</em>. Dar warn’t re’lly nottin’ lef’
fo’ de rats in de cellar. Das wot Kunnel Wildah
say.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Ma ol’ woman done hit till she up an’ died
’bout eight ’r nine years ago,” said the coachman.
</p>
<p>
“And <em>you</em> have done it all since?”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72'></a>72</span>
</p>
<p>
“Thank you, Unc’ Simmy,” she said firmly.
“That’s all I wanted to know.”
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>me</em> being extravagant. Why, I gave him
only two dollars for the whole ride.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73'></a>73</span><a name='chVIII' id='chVIII'></a>CHAPTER VIII—UNDER THE UMBRELLA</h2>
<p>
The rain had not stopped—not by any means.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“I fancy this family got through being well-known
years ago. The poor little lady has been
lost sight of, I suppose,” Ruth said.
</p>
<p>
“Yes. All her old friends are dead.”
</p>
<p>
“Except this old friend sitting up in front of
us,” Ruth said, smiling.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74'></a>74</span>
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Suddenly Helen uttered a squeal of surprise,
and grabbed her friend’s arm:
</p>
<p>
“Do look there, Ruth Fielding! Whom does
that look like?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“You horrid girl! nothing of the kind,” cried
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75'></a>75</span>
Ruth Fielding, quite exercised. “We must take
her in with us—the carriage will hold three. Unc’
Simmy!”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“It always does good,” responded Ruth. “Unc’
Simmy!”
</p>
<p>
“To whom, I’d like to know?” demanded
Helen.
</p>
<p>
“To <em>me</em>,” snapped Ruth, and this time when she
raised her voice she made the old darkey hear.
</p>
<p>
“Ya-as’m! ya-as’m!” he cried, turning and pulling
the old horse down to a welcome walk.
</p>
<p>
“Let that lady get in here, Unc’ Simmy. We’ll
take her to the hotel.”
</p>
<p>
“Sho’ nuff! Sartainly,” agreed the coachman,
and with a flourish he stopped beside the woman
who was fairly wading through a muddy river.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Do get in, quick!” cried Ruth, opening the low
door and peering out from the semi-gloom of the
hood.
</p>
<p>
The school teacher from New England understood
instantly what the invitation meant. She
plunged toward the carriage and was half inside
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76'></a>76</span>
before she saw who had rescued her from the
deluge.
</p>
<p>
“Get in! get in!” urged Ruth. “Unc’ Simmy
will take us right to the hotel.”
</p>
<p>
Miss Miggs fairly snorted. “What! you? I
wouldn’t ride with you in this carriage if we were
in the middle of the Atlantic!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, drive on! drive on!” she gasped. “Let her
swim if she wants to.”
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“Wal, now! das one foolish woman, das sho’
is! Why don’ she git under kiver when she’s ‘vited
t’ do so?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77'></a>77</span>
with the umbrella just then and raised it high
enough for the two girls in the carriage to see his
face.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Ruthie, look there!” whispered Helen, as
the horse started forward. “See who it is!”
</p>
<p>
“It’s Curly—it’s surely Curly Smith,” muttered
Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“That’s what I tell you,” whispered Helen,
fiercely. “And now we can’t speak to him.”
</p>
<p>
“Not with that Miss Miggs in the way. She is
mean enough to tell the police who he is.”
</p>
<p>
“Never mind,” cried Helen, exultantly, “he got
ashore from the fishing boat.”
</p>
<p>
“But I wonder if he has any money left—and
what he will do now. The police may still be looking
for him.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, a boy as smart as he is would <em>never</em> 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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“That does all very well to talk about, Ruth
Fielding!” cried Helen. “But suppose he can’t
<em>prove</em> himself innocent? Do you want the poor
boy to go to jail and stay there the rest of his
life?”
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78'></a>78</span><a name='chIX' id='chIX'></a>CHAPTER IX—SUNSHINE AT THE GATEHOUSE</h2>
<p>
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 <em>she</em> arrived!
</p>
<p>
“I hope we won’t see that mean thing any
more,” Helen declared. “She is our Nemesis, I
do believe.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Ya-as’m! ya-as’m! T’ankee ma’am!” responded
the darkey, and when Helen had likewise
alighted, he rattled away.
</p>
<p>
“Goodness!” laughed Helen. “Are you so
much in love with that old outfit that you want
to ride in it again, Ruthie Fielding?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79'></a>79</span>
</p>
<p>
“Oh—yes! that’s so,” admitted Helen. “Come
on to luncheon. I have Heavy Stone’s appetite,
right now!”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
But they went up to their rooms first to “prink
and putter” as Tom always called it.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“You’re the only ‘mixed’ party I see around
here,” laughed Ruth. “But I wish Tom <em>were</em>
here. He’d know just how to get at Curly Smith
and do something for him.”
</p>
<p>
“That’s right! I wish he were here,” sighed
Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Never mind,” laughed Ruth. “Don’t let it
take away that famous appetite you just claimed to
have. Come on.”
</p>
<p>
The girls went down and ventured into one of
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80'></a>80</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
She greeted Helen kindly, but warmly kissed
Ruth, having become an admirer of the girl of
the Red Mill some time before.
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>she</em> receives our heirloom at
her coming-out party, she will thank you, too.”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81'></a>81</span>
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“To the gatehouse? Where is that?” asked
Aunt Rachel, lazily.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“She said we might come again and see her before
we left the Point,” suggested Ruth, gently.
</p>
<p>
Mrs. Rachel Parsons looked at her understandingly.
“Quite right, my dear. We <em>will</em> go. I
will find out about this lawyer, Colonel Wilder,
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82'></a>82</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Don’t fret about <em>me</em>, girls,” she said, when
Helen said that they should have taken a different
equipage.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83'></a>83</span>
</p>
<p>
Helen hilariously related this incident to Nettie
and her aunt. But, warned by Ruth, she said
nothing about the identity of the boy.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“And a school teacher?” was the reply.
“Fancy!”
</p>
<p>
They arrived at the gatehouse and Ruth begged
Unc’ Simmy to stop and ask if Miss Catalpa
would receive them.
</p>
<p>
“Give her my card, too, boy,” said Mrs. Parsons,
as the smiling old man climbed down from
his seat.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84'></a>84</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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?”
</p>
<p>
“I do,” sighed Aunt Rachel. “I’d give anything
for my own youth.”
</p>
<p>
“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——”
</p>
<p>
She waved the knitting in her hand, and laughed—her
low, bird-like call. “The good Lord will
provide. He always has.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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,
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85'></a>85</span>
tinkling glasses of lemonade, with a sprig of mint
in each.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“And I thank you, my dear,” she added, “for
giving me the opportunity of helping Miss Grogan
and Uncle Simmy.”
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86'></a>86</span><a name='chX' id='chX'></a>CHAPTER X—AN ADVENTURE IN NORFOLK</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“But we want you to really <em>see</em> 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.
</p>
<p>
“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. <em>Then</em> we’ll
have a good time, I assure you.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87'></a>87</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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 zoölogical 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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“How am I going to feed this pretty, soft-nosed
thing with grass if I <em>don’t</em> stand near?” demanded
Helen.
</p>
<p>
“But you don’t <em>have</em> to feed the deer,” laughed
Nettie.
</p>
<p>
“No. But there’s no sign that says you sha’n’t,”
complained Helen. “And I don’t see——”
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88'></a>88</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Although the wire-fence saved the beast from
serious injury, the blow was heavy enough to make
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89'></a>89</span>
him fall back and cease his charges against the
wire netting. Then the boy helped Helen to her
feet.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, my dear!” gasped Ruth, reaching her. “You
did not even thank him.”
</p>
<p>
“I know it,” whispered Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Are—are you hurt, dear?”
</p>
<p>
“Only my dignity is hurt,” confessed her chum,
beginning to laugh hysterically.
</p>
<p>
“But that boy——”
</p>
<p>
“Hush, Ruthie!” begged Helen, her lips close
to her chum’s ear. “Do you know who he was?”
</p>
<p>
“Why—I——Of course not! I did not see his
face.”
</p>
<p>
“It was Curly. Don’t say a word,” breathed
Helen. “Here comes a policeman.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90'></a>90</span>
</p>
<p>
“And I thought they were such gentle, affectionate
creatures,” she sighed. “Why, that one was
as savage as a bear!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91'></a>91</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92'></a>92</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Besides,” declared Helen, “’most a million
squirrels. Did you ever see so many of the little
dears? And see how tame they are.”
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93'></a>93</span>
of General Robert E. Lee and some other famous
dwellings.
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94'></a>94</span><a name='chXI' id='chXI'></a>CHAPTER XI—AT THE MERREDITH PLANTATION</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Despite the moisture and the heat, the girls
from the North were enjoying themselves hugely.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95'></a>95</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96'></a>96</span>
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!
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
The party soon came to where two huge oaks,
scarred deeply by the axe, intermingled their
branches over the roadway.
</p>
<p>
“This is our gateway,” said Mrs. Parsons.
“Here is the beginning of the Merredith plantation.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Mrs. Parsons!” cried Helen, pointing to
one side. “What is that pole there? Or is it a
dead tree?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
She spoke to the coachman in a minute: “Jeffreys!”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the black man.
</p>
<p>
“Drive by the quarters.” She said “quahtahs.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97'></a>97</span>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, ma’am,” said the coachman and swung
the horses into a by-road.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The green trees and the green grass contrasted
with the white cots made a delightfully cool picture
for the eye.
</p>
<p>
The mistress’ equipage was sighted immediately
and there boiled out of the cabins a seemingly
never-ending army of children and dogs. The
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98'></a>98</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
A little later, however, as they rode on, the visitors
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99'></a>99</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“How many acres in this piece, Jeffreys?” asked
Mrs. Parsons, of the coachman, seeing that the
two Northern girls were interested.
</p>
<p>
“Four hundred acres, ma’am. I hear Mistah
Lomaine say so.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
They rode steadily on, having taken a considerable
sweep around to see the “quarters,” and now
approached the Big House. And it <em>was</em> big! Ruth
and Helen never heard it called anything but the
“Big House” by anybody on the plantation.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100'></a>100</span>
where the land is strong enough to sustain it. It
needs little attention from the lawnmower, but
makes a thick, velvety carpet.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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,
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101'></a>101</span>
although coachmen and footmen, and other “outriders”
could find room in the cabins, or stables.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Good day, ma’am! Good-day!” said the old
man to Mrs. Parsons. “My duty to you.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“We are all well, Patrick Henry,” said Aunt
Rachel. “Is everything right on the plantation?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes’m; yes’m. I’ll be proud to make my report
at any time, ma’am.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, to-morrow, I pray, Patrick Henry,” cried
Mrs. Parsons. She ran lightly up the steps and
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102'></a>102</span>
the big colored woman, waiting there with smiling
lips but overflowing eyes, gathered the lady to her
broad bosom in a bearlike hug.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“You are good for many years more, you know
it, Mammy Dilsey!” laughed Mrs. Parsons,
breathlessly.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103'></a>103</span><a name='chXII' id='chXII'></a>CHAPTER XII—THE BOY AT THE WAREHOUSE</h2>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>say</em> you do.”
</p>
<p>
“Hear! hear!” cried Ruth. “There is a difference.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104'></a>104</span>
feel that the vast majority of the negroes were
better off in those days than they are now.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Your aunt is a dear, good woman,” Ruth said
warmly. “I am sure whatever she does is right.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105'></a>105</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“Dear me! let’s go silver-mining, Ruthie,” cried
Helen. “I need to have my purse replenished
already.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Of course. That’s what I want it for,” confessed
Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“<em>That</em> 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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106'></a>106</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>such trash</em>!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The whippoorwill flew to other “pitches” near
the house, and once actually lit upon the roof to
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107'></a>107</span>
utter his love-call; but never, Nettie told the other
girls, would the bird alight upon a live branch.
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“He’s clearing his voice,” declared Helen.
“Now! off he goes. Isn’t he funny?”
</p>
<p>
“I wonder what the little whippoorwillies are
like?” asked Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“My, I’d like to see one!” exclaimed Helen.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108'></a>108</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109'></a>109</span>
both pickaninnies and canines would have followed
“de quality” around the plantation.
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“And hind feet with the itch!” exclaimed Ruth.
“I don’t want to get near the <em>dangerous</em> end of
one of those creatures.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110'></a>110</span>
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111'></a>111</span><a name='chXIII' id='chXIII'></a>CHAPTER XIII—RUTH IS TROUBLED</h2>
<p>
“What shall we do about it?” asked Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Do about what, dear?”
</p>
<p>
“You know very well, Ruthie Fielding! You
saw him as well as I did,” Helen declared.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“I know what you mean,” admitted Ruth, placidly.
“Do you think it is necessary for us to say
anything—especially where others might hear?”
</p>
<p>
“But that’s Curly!” whispered Helen, fiercely.
</p>
<p>
“I am sure of it.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112'></a>112</span>
</p>
<p>
“The man said he was starving,” sighed Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Maybe.”
</p>
<p>
“Of course we should. Why not?”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Ruth! He’d know we would help him,
wouldn’t he?”
</p>
<p>
“I didn’t think that Curly was the sort of boy to
hunt up girl’s help in any case,” laughed Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“Don’t laugh! it seems so cruel. Hungry!”
breathed Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113'></a>113</span>
a loose life among strangers, it will be a good
thing.”
</p>
<p>
“Why, Ruth!” gasped Helen. “You talk just
as though the police were not looking for him.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t believe he ever did it!” cried Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“That is so!”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
She determined to do something to make it
reasonably sure that Curly would remain on the
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114'></a>114</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115'></a>115</span>
Curly Smith’s case. She slipped out of the room
without disturbing Helen.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“The castle of the Sleeping Beauty,” murmured
Ruth, smiling, and without speaking to any of the
house servants, she ran out.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, ma’am. Patrick Henry say fo’ me t’
‘tend yo’ if yo’ rode.”
</p>
<p>
“Can I ride out any time?” asked the girl.
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“You are Toby?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116'></a>116</span>
</p>
<p>
“Oh, yes, ma’am.”
</p>
<p>
“Then saddle the mare for me at once and—stay!
can you go with me?”
</p>
<p>
“Positive got t’ go wid yo’, miss. Ab-so-lum-lute-ly,”
declared the negro, gravely. “Dem’s ma
’structions f’om Patrick Henry.”
</p>
<p>
“All right, Toby. I want to go back to that
cotton warehouse where we stopped this morning.
I forgot something.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Dishyer mu-el,” declared Toby, “I s’pec could
beat out dat mare on a long lane; but I got t’ hol’
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117'></a>117</span>
Mistah Mu-el in, ’cause Patrick Henry done tol’
me hit ain’ polite t’ ride ahaid ob de quality.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118'></a>118</span><a name='chXIV' id='chXIV'></a>CHAPTER XIV—RUTH FINDS A HELPER</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, no trouble at all,” said the girl of the Red
Mill, brightly. “I—I just thought I’d stop and
speak to you.”
</p>
<p>
“That’s handsome of yo’,” agreed the man, but
with a puzzled look.
</p>
<p>
“I wanted another ride,” went on Ruth, “and I
got Toby to take me around this way. Because,
you see, I’m curious.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119'></a>119</span>
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
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?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes’m. And the boys,” said Mr. Jimson,
drily.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Finally, when Ruth was just before the man,
she smiled one of her friendly, confiding smiles
and he capitulated.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Mr. Jimson! how sharp you are.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120'></a>120</span>
</p>
<p>
“Pretty sharp,” admitted the boss, with a sly
smile. “I’d like t’ know what he’s done.”
</p>
<p>
“He’s run away from home,” Ruth said
quickly.
</p>
<p>
“Ya-as. They mos’ allus do. But what did he
do ’fore he ran away, Miss Ruth?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Curly?” repeated Jimson.
</p>
<p>
“Yes. That’s what we call him. His name is
Henry Smith.”
</p>
<p>
“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, <em>that</em>‘d
be as good a disguise as he could ha’ thunk up,
mebbe. Smith’s a mighty common name, ain’t it?”
</p>
<p>
“Curly always was a frank and truthful boy.
But he was full of mischief.”
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121'></a>121</span>
since they had left home to come South,
seemed to amuse Mr. Jimson a great deal, too.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Wal, that don’t make so much difference,” said
Mr. Jimson. “Her twin brother? Is he older’n
she is?” he added, quite innocently.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, no,” Ruth admitted, stifling a desire to
laugh. “My chum and I feel quite confident of
finding our way about all right.”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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——”
</p>
<p>
“An’ git him grabbed by the police?” demanded
Jimson.
</p>
<p>
“He ought to go back and fight it out,” Ruth
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122'></a>122</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>scared</em>.”
</p>
<p>
“I suppose so,” Ruth admitted. “I would run
away myself, I suppose. But I want Curly to go
back to Mrs. Sadoc Smith.”
</p>
<p>
“Jest as you say, Miss Ruth. I’ll hold on to
him,” the warehouse boss promised.
</p>
<p>
“I hope he doesn’t see us girls and get frightened,
thinking that we’ll tell on him,” Ruth said.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
Jimson was a prophet. That very night it began
to rain.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123'></a>123</span><a name='chXV' id='chXV'></a>CHAPTER XV—THE RIDE TO HOLLOWAYS</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124'></a>124</span>
beautiful. The girls listened to the tales of the
parties at the Big House almost breathlessly.
</p>
<p>
“An’ dat time de Gov’nor come—de <em>two</em>
Gov’nors come,” sighed Mammy Dilsey. “De
Gov’nor ob No’th Ca’lina an’ de Gov’nor ob So’th
Ca’lina——”
</p>
<p>
“I know what they <em>said</em> to each other—those
two governors,” interrupted Helen, her eyes dancing.
“My father told me.”
</p>
<p>
“I dunno wot dey <em>said</em>,” said Mammy Dilsey,
who did not know the old joke. “But I sho’ knows
how dey <em>looked</em>. Dey was bof such big, upstandin’
sort o’ men. My-oh-my! Ah tells yo’,
chillen, dey was a big <em>breed</em> o’ men in dese pahts
in dem days—sho’ was.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125'></a>125</span>
</p>
<p>
“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
<em>our</em> beck and call as they used to in these times
Mammy Dilsey tells about.”
</p>
<p>
“I guess we make <em>ourselves</em> too much like <em>them</em>selves,”
laughed Ruth. “That’s why the boys of
to-day are different. If chivalry is dead, we
women folks have killed it.”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t see why,” pouted Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“You’re so funny, Ruthie,” laughed Nettie.
</p>
<p>
“Lecture by Miss Ruth Fielding, the famous
woman’s rights advocate,” groaned Helen.
</p>
<p>
“I am not sure I advocate it, my dear,” sighed
Ruth. “‘I, too, would love and live in Arcady.’”
</p>
<p>
“Goodness! hear her exude sentiment,” gasped
Helen. “Who ever thought to live till <em>that</em> wonder
was born?”
</p>
<p>
“Maybe, after all, Ruth has the right idea,”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126'></a>126</span>
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 <em>wife</em>.”
</p>
<p>
“Horrid thing!” Helen declared. “I don’t like
your cousin Mapes, Nettie.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Mrs. Parsons thought that her young guests
would become woefully lonely and “fair ill of
Merredith,” if they did not soon have some social
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127'></a>127</span>
diversion, so it was planned to go to Holloways
to the weekend “hop” held by the hotel guests
and cottagers.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“But we won’t have half so much fun if you
don’t go, Mrs. Parsons,” Helen said.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“But how are you going to the station, Aunt
Rachel?” cried Nettie.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128'></a>128</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Both of the Northern girls were extremely
anxious to see the boy from Lumberton. Ruth
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129'></a>129</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Suddenly, just as Jeffreys was about to drive on,
Helen uttered a scream, and pointed to a drifting
hencoop.
</p>
<p>
“See! See that poor thing!” she cried.
</p>
<p>
“What’s the matter now, honey?” asked Nettie.
“I don’t see anything.”
</p>
<p>
“On the roof of that coop,” Ruth said quickly
espying what her chum saw. “The poor cat!”
</p>
<p>
“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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130'></a>130</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Never mind,” drawled the Southern girl, “I am
not being chased and knocked down by deer——Oh!
I see the poor kitty.”
</p>
<p>
“I should hope you did!” Helen said. “And
it’s going to be drowned!”
</p>
<p>
“No, no,” Ruth said. “I hope not. Can’t it
be brought ashore? See! that coop is swinging
into an eddy.”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Nettie! ask him to try!” gasped Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“Hey, boy!” called Nettie. “Can’t you save
that poor cat for us?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Mr. Jimson came running from the interior of
the warehouse and shouted after him.
</p>
<p>
“There! I hope we haven’t got him into more
trouble,” mourned Ruth.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131'></a>131</span>
</p>
<p>
“And he can’t get the cat,” wailed Helen, in a
moment. “The current is taking the raft clear
out into midstream.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Yo’ kyant git that cat, you fool boy!” bawled
Jimson. “And yo’ll lose my raft.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Mr. Jimson!” cried Nettie. “We do want
him to save that cat if he can.”
</p>
<p>
“But he’ll lose a mighty good oar, an’ that
raft,” complained the boss.
</p>
<p>
“Never mind,” said Nettie, firmly. “You can
make another oar and another raft. But how are
you going to make another cat?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
The girls laughed at this, but they were anxious
about the cat. And, the next moment, they began
to be anxious about the boy.
</p>
<p>
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?
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132'></a>132</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Once within reach of the land, the cat leaped
ashore and darted into the bushes; while Jimson
helped the breathless Curly to land.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133'></a>133</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh! catch him!” gasped Ruth. “Don’t let
him run away, Mr. Jimson.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“But maybe he won’t come back,” said Helen,
likewise anxious.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“My! this is dangerous!” cried Helen. “Suppose
the bridge should give way?”
</p>
<p>
“Then we would not get home very easily,”
laughed Nettie.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134'></a>134</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“We’ll be marooned on this island,” said Ruth,
“if the water rises much higher.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Come in—do,” she added. “I will show you
to your rooms.”
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135'></a>135</span><a name='chXVI' id='chXVI'></a>CHAPTER XVI—THE “HOP”</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The affair was to begin early. Indeed, the girls
heard the fiddles tuning up before dinner was
ended.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136'></a>136</span>
</p>
<p>
“Oh! hear that fiddle. Doesn’t it make your
feet fairly <em>itch</em>?” cried Nettie. Nettie, like most
Southern girls, loved dancing.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Learning to dance seems to be more common
among Southern boys than up North,” Helen said.
“Even Tom says he <em>hates</em> dancing. And it’s sometimes
hard to get good partners at the school
dances at Briarwood.”
</p>
<p>
“I think we have our boys down here better
trained,” said Nettie, smiling.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137'></a>137</span>
every white person on the island was in
attendance—either dancing or looking on.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“And how do you suppose the bridges are?”
asked Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Whoo!” Helen cried. “How are <em>we</em> going to
get home?”
</p>
<p>
“By boat, maybe,” laughed Ruth. “Don’t
worry. To-morrow is another day.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138'></a>138</span>
</p>
<p>
Then the building shook again. There was an
unmistakable thumping at the up-river end of the
building. The thumping was repeated.
</p>
<p>
“Something’s broken loose!” exclaimed Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Let’s see what it means!” exclaimed Ruth, and
she darted out of the long window.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139'></a>139</span><a name='chXVII' id='chXVII'></a>CHAPTER XVII—THE FLOOD RISES</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh! oh! oh!” screamed the stranger as she
spattered into the water in her slippered feet. “I
am killed! I am drowned!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, oh, oh!” said the woman, more feebly.
</p>
<p>
“Come right back into the house—do!” cried
Ruth. “You won’t get wet there.”
</p>
<p>
“But the house is falling down!” gasped the
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140'></a>140</span>
woman, and as she turned the lamplight from the
hall revealed her features, and Helen uttered a
stifled cry.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
“Do come into the house, Miss Miggs,” urged
Ruth. “It isn’t going to fall yet.”
</p>
<p>
“How do you know?” snapped the school
teacher, as obstinate as ever.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141'></a>141</span>
</p>
<p>
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?”
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Look at these other houses floating away,
Lydia Holloway!” screamed Miss Miggs.
</p>
<p>
“But they are only the huts from along
shore——”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The two women and the two girls were flung
together in a clinging group for half a minute.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142'></a>142</span>
Then Miss Martha Miggs tore herself away.
“Let go of me, you impudent young minxes!” she
cried. “Are you trying to rob me again?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! the horrid thing!” gasped Helen; but
Ruth kept her lips closed.
</p>
<p>
She knew anything they could say would make
a bad matter worse. Already the hotel proprietor’s
wife was looking at them very doubtfully.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“And lots of good the ticket did—with these
girls stealing it from me,” snapped Miss Miggs.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143'></a>143</span>
“But look at that house next to yours. There!
see it heave? And there’s a lighted lamp in that
room.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Even as they looked, the house tipped perceptibly,
and the lighted lamp fell from the table to
the floor.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144'></a>144</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Don’t—don’t,” she gasped. “I’m all right.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Hearing the school teacher accuse the two
Northern girls of stealing from her, Mrs. Holloway
considered herself unsafe in Ruth’s hands.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Hush!” warned Ruth. But in secret she felt
justified in making the same wish as her chum.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145'></a>145</span><a name='chXVIII' id='chXVIII'></a>CHAPTER XVIII—ACROSS THE RIVER</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146'></a>146</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
In the first place, he did not know that any of
the Briarwood Hall girls who had made their
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147'></a>147</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“Ye don’t mean that’s Holloway’s, Jimson?”
</p>
<p>
“That’s what she be.”
</p>
<p>
“And the bridge is down by this time.”
</p>
<p>
“Sho’s yo’ bawn, Almiry. An’ boats swep’
away, too.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148'></a>148</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“It looks like the up-river end of the hotel,”
said her husband.
</p>
<p>
“My land! what’ll Mrs. Parsons say? If anything
happens to her niece an’ them other
gals——”
</p>
<p>
“I’ll be whip-sawed! them little Miss Yanks is
right there, ain’t they?”
</p>
<p>
At that, Curly Smith woke up. “Say!” he cried.
“Are Ruth Fielding and Helen Cameron at that
hotel that’s afire?”
</p>
<p>
“Huh?” demanded Jimson. “Them little Miss
Yanks?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“And the river up all around them? And no
boats?” demanded Curly.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149'></a>149</span>
</p>
<p>
“Sho’! I never thought of that,” admitted the
man. “Here’s this old bateau yere——”
</p>
<p>
“Can you and me row it?” asked Curly, sharply.
</p>
<p>
“Great grief! No!” exclaimed Jimson. “Not
in a thousand years!”
</p>
<p>
“Can’t we get some of the colored men to help?”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Le’s try it, then!” cried the excited boy. “I’ll
run stir up the negroes—shall I?”
</p>
<p>
“Better let me do that,” said Jimson, with more
firmness. “Almiry! gimme my hat. If we kin do
anything to help ’em——”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Paw! look at them flames!” cried one of
the children.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
If the hotel burned, where would the people go
who were in it? With the river rising momentarily,
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150'></a>150</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“That ain’t the hotel, boss,” said one of the
negroes, with assurance.
</p>
<p>
“What is it, then?” demanded Jimson.
</p>
<p>
“It’s got t’ be the cottage dishyer side ob the
hotel. But, fo’ goodness’ sake! de hotel’s gwine t’
burn, too.”
</p>
<p>
“And all them folkses in hit!” groaned another.
</p>
<p>
“Shut up and come on!” commanded Jimson.
“We’ll git acrosst and see what’s what.”
</p>
<p>
“If we <em>kin</em> git acrosst,” grumbled another of the
men. “Looks mighty spasmdous t’ <em>me</em>. Dat
watah’s sho’ high.”
</p>
<p>
But Curly was casting off the mooring, and in a
moment the big, clumsy boat swung out into the
current.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151'></a>151</span><a name='chXIX' id='chXIX'></a>CHAPTER XIX—“IF AUNT RACHEL WERE ONLY HERE!”</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152'></a>152</span>
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!
</p>
<p>
“Oh! is the house tumbling down?” asked one
frightened woman of Ruth. “Must we drown?”
</p>
<p>
“Not unless we want to, I am sure, madam,”
said the girl of the Red Mill, cheerfully.
</p>
<p>
“But isn’t the house afire?” cried another.
</p>
<p>
“It isn’t this house, but another, that is burning,”
the Northern girl said, with continued
placidity.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Ruth! there’s Nettie!” exclaimed Helen,
and drew her away.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153'></a>153</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“In time of peace prepare for war, however,”
she said to the other girls. “We <em>may</em> 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.”
</p>
<p>
“But how can we leave?” demanded Helen.
“By boat?”
</p>
<p>
“Maybe. Goodness! if we only had a boat we
could get back across the river and walk to the
Big House.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! I wish we were there now,” murmured
Nettie.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“I hope we get out before there is trouble over
that horrid woman’s ticket. Who would have
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154'></a>154</span>
expected to meet her here?” said Helen to her
chum.
</p>
<p>
“No more than we expected to meet Curly at
Merredith,” Ruth returned.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155'></a>155</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156'></a>156</span>
</p>
<p>
“Hush, Martha!” exclaimed Mrs. Holloway.
</p>
<p>
Ruth turned with flaming cheeks and angry eyes.
Her temper at last had got the better of her discretion.
</p>
<p>
“I believe you are the meanest woman whom I
ever saw!” she exclaimed, much to Helen’s delight.
“Don’t you <em>dare</em> 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.”
</p>
<p>
“Three rousing cheers!” gasped Helen under
her breath, while Nettie Parsons looked on in
open-mouthed amazement.
</p>
<p>
“There! you hear how the minx dares talk to
me,” cried Miss Miggs, appealing to the ladies
about her.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>we</em> do.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157'></a>157</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps we had better look out for our possessions,”
said one of the other ladies, doubtfully.
</p>
<p>
“Yes. They <em>did</em> just come out of one of these
rooms,” said another.
</p>
<p>
“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——”
</p>
<p>
“Say!” gasped Nettie, at last finding voice. “I
want to know what yo’-all mean? Yo’ can’t be
speaking of my friends?”
</p>
<p>
“Who is <em>this</em> girl, I’d like to know!” exclaimed
Miss Miggs. “One just like them, no doubt.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Martha! Mrs. Parsons’ niece,” gasped
Mrs. Holloway. “Mrs. Parsons will never forgive
me.”
</p>
<p>
“Gracious heavens!” gasped one of the other
women. “You don’t mean to say that these are
the girls from Merredith?”
</p>
<p>
“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——”
</p>
<p>
“I should like to know,” said Nettie, with sudden
firmness, “just what you mean—all of you?
What have Ruth and Helen done?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158'></a>158</span>
</p>
<p>
“They stole my railroad ticket on the boat coming
down from New York,” declared Miss Martha
Miggs.
</p>
<p>
“That is not so!” said Nettie, quickly. “Under
no circumstances would I believe it. It is impossible.”
</p>
<p>
“Do you say that my cousin does not tell the
truth?” asked Mrs. Holloway, stiffly, while Miss
Miggs herself could only stammer angry words.
</p>
<p>
“Absolutely,” declared Nettie, her naturally
pale cheeks glowing. “I am amazed at you, Mrs.
Holloway. I know Aunt Rachel will be offended.”
</p>
<p>
“But my own cousin tells me so, and——”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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. “<em>And she would, too!</em>”
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159'></a>159</span><a name='chXX' id='chXX'></a>CHAPTER XX—CURLY PLAYS AN HEROIC PART</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160'></a>160</span>
</p>
<p>
“It is self-evident that if Aunt Rachel invites
anybody to her home, that the person’s character
is above reproach. That is all <em>I</em> can say. But
I know very well that she will say something far
more serious when she hears of this.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Miss Nettie!” gasped the hotel keeper’s
wife. “I did not mean——”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161'></a>161</span>
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>dared</em>——”
</p>
<p>
“There, there!” said Ruth, soothingly. “Let it
go. Neither Helen nor I are killed.”
</p>
<p>
“But your reputations might well be,” Nettie
said quickly.
</p>
<p>
“Nobody knows us much here——”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“A boat is coming!” explained somebody to the
girls. “That’s a lantern in it. A boat from across
the river.”
</p>
<p>
“A steamboat?” cried Helen.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162'></a>162</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Bet it’s the old bateau from the cotton warehouse
across there,” said another of the men.
“Jimson is trying to reach us.”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“If that is Mr. Jimson,” said Helen, “I hope he
can take us back across the river.”
</p>
<p>
“And he shall if it’s safe,” Nettie said, with
confidence. “But my! the water’s rough.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Miss Nettie! Miss Nettie!” groaned
Norma. “Yo’ ain’ gwine t’ vencha on dat awful
ribber, is yo’?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163'></a>163</span>
</p>
<p>
“Why not, you ridiculous creature?” demanded
her mistress. “If you are afraid to stay here, and
afraid to go in the boat, what <em>will</em> you do?”
</p>
<p>
“Wait till it dries up!” wailed the darkey maid.
“Den we kin walk home, dry-shod—ya-as’m!”
</p>
<p>
“Wait for the river to dry up, and all?” chuckled
Helen.
</p>
<p>
“That’s what she wants,” said Nettie. “I never
saw such a foolish girl.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Hol’ on, boys! hol’ on!” arose the voice of
Mr. Jimson. “Don’t lose yo’ grip! <em>Pull!</em>”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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!
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
One of the negroes uttered a wild yell and went
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164'></a>164</span>
whirling away down stream, clinging to a timber
that floated by. Two others managed to climb into
the low branches of a tree.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165'></a>165</span>
</p>
<p>
The boy and the negro came near. The water
eddied about the porch-end and held them in its
grasp for a moment.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Hold on t’ him, Miss Ruth!” he cried. “We’ll
git him!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Haul that negro in,” said one, laughing. “Is
he worth saving, Jimson?”
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>me</em> ag’in if
it hadn’t been fo’ Curly. I was jes’ about all in.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166'></a>166</span><a name='chXXI' id='chXXI'></a>CHAPTER XXI—THE NEXT MORNING</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Let me find somebody!” cried Nettie, who
knew almost everybody in the hotel party.
</p>
<p>
She ran out upon the veranda, forgetting her
slippers and silk hose for the moment, and soon
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167'></a>167</span>
came back with one of the men who had been helping
to throw water against the side of the building.
</p>
<p>
“This is Dr. Coombs. I know he can help you,
Ruth—and he will.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
He had forgotten for the moment that he had
ever left Lumberton, and Ruth soothed him as best
she could.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168'></a>168</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
She wondered what they really thought of her
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169'></a>169</span>
and Helen. The positive Miss Miggs had undoubtedly
made an impression on their minds when
she accused Ruth and Helen of stealing.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
These thoughts troubled Ruth’s mind, sleeping
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170'></a>170</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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’.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171'></a>171</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“How did <em>you</em> come here?” returned Ruth, smiling
at him.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172'></a>172</span>
</p>
<p>
“You ran away, of course,” said the girl, just
as though she knew nothing about the trouble
Curly had had in Lumberton.
</p>
<p>
“Yep. I did. So would you.”
</p>
<p>
“Why would I?”
</p>
<p>
“’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.”
</p>
<p>
“Keep still then, Curly,” she said. “And tell
me the truth. <em>Why</em> did you run away?”
</p>
<p>
“Because they said I helped rob the railroad
station.”
</p>
<p>
“But if you didn’t do it, couldn’t you risk being
exonerated in court?”
</p>
<p>
“Say! they never called you, ‘that Smith boy’;
did they?”
</p>
<p>
“Of course not,” admitted Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, hadn’t they some reason?” asked Ruth,
gravely.
</p>
<p>
“Mebbe they had. Mebbe they had,” cried
Henry Smith. “But they ought to’ve known I
wouldn’t <em>steal</em>.”
</p>
<p>
“You didn’t help those tramps, then?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173'></a>173</span>
</p>
<p>
“There you go!” sniffed the boy. “You’re just
as bad as the rest of ’em.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Old Scratch! did they have it in the paper?”
queried Curly, with wonder.
</p>
<p>
“Yes. And your grandmother is dreadfully
disgraced——”
</p>
<p>
“No she isn’t,” snapped Curly. “She only
thinks she is. I never done it.”
</p>
<p>
“Well,” said Ruth, with a sigh, “I’m glad to
hear you say that, although it’s very bad grammar.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Why?”
</p>
<p>
Curly looked away. “Well, I played a trick on
him. More’n one, I guess. He gets so mad, it’s
fun.”
</p>
<p>
“Your idea of fun has brought you to a pretty
hard bed, I guess, Curly,” was Ruth Fielding’s
comment.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174'></a>174</span><a name='chXXII' id='chXXII'></a>CHAPTER XXII—SOMETHING FOR CURLY</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“You must admit, Ruth, that he is awfully
smart,” she repeated again and again to her chum.
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>deer</em>,
my <em>dear</em>!”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, indeed? And didn’t he earn enough to
pay his way down here? He says he rode in the
cars.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175'></a>175</span>
</p>
<p>
“I’ll ask him about that,” said Ruth, musingly.
</p>
<p>
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?
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“I suppose he would be better off,” said Helen,
in agreement. “But isn’t it awful that his grandmother
won’t take him back?”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t understand it at all,” sighed Ruth. “I
didn’t think she was really so hard-hearted.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
There had been landings and boats along the
shore of the island; but not a craft was now left.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176'></a>176</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Jimson and his negroes could not get back
across the river, and not a craft of any description
came in sight.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177'></a>177</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“You could scarcely blame her. Miss Miggs is
Mrs. Holloway’s cousin.”
</p>
<p>
“Of course I can blame her,” cried Nettie.
“And I do.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178'></a>178</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“There have been duels for less in this county,
I can assure you,” said Nettie, without smiling.
</p>
<p>
“How bloodthirsty!” laughed Ruth. “But let’s
think about something pleasanter. Nettie is becoming
savage.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Music has been known to soothe the savage
breast,” declared Helen, tucking the violin,
swathed in a silk handkerchief, under her dimpled
chin.
</p>
<p>
“I’ll forgive anybody—even my worst enemy—if
Ruth will sing, too,” begged Nettie.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Nettie set the door ajar. The two girls came
in from the other room. Norma, wide-eyed,
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179'></a>179</span>
crouched on the floor to listen. And before long
a crowd of faces appeared at the open door.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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:
</p>
<p>
“Bully for Ruth! Bully for Helen! That’s
fine.”
</p>
<p>
“Shut the door, Nettie!” cried Helen, insistently.
“I—I really have an idea.”
</p>
<p>
“The concert is over, ladies,” declared the
Southern girl, laughing, and shutting the door.
</p>
<p>
“What’s the idea, dear?” asked Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“About raising money for poor Curly.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“<em>I</em> can’t,” confessed Helen. “I have scarcely
any left. If my fare home were not paid I’d have
to borrow.”
</p>
<p>
“I can give some; but not enough,” said Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“That’s where my idea comes in,” Helen said.
“That’s why I said to shut the door.”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180'></a>180</span>
</p>
<p>
Nettie ejaculated: “Goodness! what does the
child mean?”
</p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“Will <em>what</em>?” gasped Nettie. “You girls are
thought readers. What one thinks of the other
knows right away.”
</p>
<p>
“A concert,” said Ruth and Helen together.
</p>
<p>
“Oh! When?”
</p>
<p>
“Right here—and now!” said Helen, promptly.
“If the Holloways will let us.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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!”
</p>
<p>
“What do you mean?” asked the puzzled Nettie.
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
The laughter that followed was interrupted by
a shout from below. They heard somebody say
that there was a boat coming.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181'></a>181</span>
</p>
<p>
“Well, maybe there will be something for Curly
after all,” Helen cried, as she followed Ruth out
of the room.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, goody!” cried Nettie. “Maybe we can
get across the river and back to Merredith.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Hullo, Jimson,” he said, greeting the warehouse
boss. “Just a little wet here, ain’t yo’?”
</p>
<p>
“A little, Sheriff,” said Jimson.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182'></a>182</span><a name='chXXIII' id='chXXIII'></a>CHAPTER XXIII—“HERE’S A STATE OF THINGS!”</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“What’s that?” he said. “Said I got an escaped
prisoner? <em>Who</em> said that, Mr. Ricketts?”
</p>
<p>
“Yo’ wife, I reckon ’twas, tol’ me the boy was
yere.”
</p>
<p>
“She’s crazy!” declared Jimson with apparent
anger. “I dunno what’s got into that woman. I
ain’t seen no convict——”
</p>
<p>
“Who’s talkin’ about a convict, Jimson?” demanded
Mr. Ricketts. “D’ yo’ think I’m after
some desperado from the swamps? I reckon not.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, who <em>are</em> you after?” demanded the boss,
in great apparent vexation. “I ain’t got him, whoever
he is!”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183'></a>183</span>
</p>
<p>
“Not a boy named Henry Smith?”
</p>
<p>
“What’s he done?”
</p>
<p>
“I see you’re some int’rested,” said Ricketts,
drily. “Come on now, Jimson! I know you. The
boy’s a bad lot.”
</p>
<p>
“Your say-so don’t make him so. And I dunno
as I know the boy you mean.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Huh? I did, did I?” grunted Jimson, not at
all willing to give in that he knew whom the deputy
sheriff was talking about.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“Huh?” growled Jimson.
</p>
<p>
“Don’t yo’ call him Curly?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! you mean <em>him</em>?” said the boss. “Wal—I
reckon he’s yere. Got a broken laig. Doctor
won’t let him be moved. Impossible, Mr. Ricketts.
Impossible!”
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184'></a>184</span>
come ashore. I may need you to hold Jimson,”
and he winked and chuckled at the chagrined warehouse
boss.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Bless my soul, ladies!” gasped the confused
Ricketts, sweeping off his hat. “Your servant!”
</p>
<p>
“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!”
</p>
<p>
“Ya-as, ma’am! that’s my name, ma’am,” said
the embarrassed deputy.
</p>
<p>
“We heard what you just said,” pursued Nettie.
“About Curly Smith, you know.”
</p>
<p>
“I—I——”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Your servant, ma’am!” gasped the deputy,
very red in the face now, and bowing low before
Helen.
</p>
<p>
“There are three of us, Mr. Ricketts,” suggested Ruth,
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185'></a>185</span>
her own eyes dancing with fun, despite
the really serious distress she felt over Curly’s
case.
</p>
<p>
“Bless my soul!” murmured Mr. Ricketts, bowing
in her direction, too. “So there are—so there
are. <em>Your</em> servant, ma’am.”
</p>
<p>
“Then, Mr. Ricketts, if you are the servant of
<em>all</em> of us, I know you will do what we ask,” and
Nettie laughed merrily.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“You know,” repeated Nettie, taking her cue
from Helen, “that we are awfully interested in
that boy that you say you have come after.”
</p>
<p>
“The young scamp’s mighty lucky, then—mighty
lucky!”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Tut, tut, tut! I’m awfully sorry miss.
But——”
</p>
<p>
“And he’s had an awfully bad time,” broke in
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186'></a>186</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
Mr. Ricketts stared and swallowed hard. He
could not find voice to reply just then.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“And,” said Ruth, from the stair above, “I am
sure he never helped those men rob the Lumberton
railroad station. Never!”
</p>
<p>
“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 <em>git</em> him—and git him I must.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, Mr. Ricketts!” gasped Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Please, Mr. Ricketts!” begged Nettie.
</p>
<p>
“Do consider, Mr. Ricketts!” joined in Ruth.
“He’s really not guilty.”
</p>
<p>
“Who says he ain’t?” demanded the deputy
sheriff, shooting in the question suddenly.
</p>
<p>
“He says so,” said Ruth, firmly, “and I never
knew Curly Smith to tell a story.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187'></a>187</span>
</p>
<p>
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:
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Not in your old jail at Pegburg!” cried Nettie.
“You know better, Mr. Ricketts,” and she was
quite severe.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188'></a>188</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Ruth’s heart suddenly beat faster. What had
the negro done? She leaned forward farther to
see the launch tugging at its rope. <em>The craft was
already a dozen yards away from the hotel!</em>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“I reckon ye won’t git away with that there
little Yankee boy as you expected, Mr. Ricketts,”
cried Jimson. “Er-haw! haw! haw!”
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189'></a>189</span><a name='chXXIV' id='chXXIV'></a>CHAPTER XXIV—THE CHAMBER CONCERT</h2>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190'></a>190</span>
</p>
<p>
“Oh, dear me, Ruth!” groaned Helen. “It
never rains but it pours.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Goodness! I don’t mean real rain,” said
Helen. “I mean troubles never come singly.”
</p>
<p>
“What’s troubling you particularly now?” asked
Ruth.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Well! if that were all that bothered us!”
groaned Helen. “What are we going to do about
Curly?”
</p>
<p>
“What <em>can</em> we do about him?” asked Ruth.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191'></a>191</span>
</p>
<p>
“You don’t want to see him arrested and carried
to jail, do you?”
</p>
<p>
“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?”
</p>
<p>
“I wish Nettie’s Aunt Rachel were here,” cried
the other Northern girl.
</p>
<p>
“Even Mrs. Parsons, I fear, could not stop the
law in its course.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Dislike! I <em>hate</em> her!” exclaimed Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“I should like to know why?” demanded Helen,
in some heat.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192'></a>192</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“‘Nervous wreck,’” scoffed Helen. “Wrecked
by her ugly temper, you mean.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Not so’s you’d notice it,” grumbled Helen.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, dear me, Ruthie! now you are trying to
find excuses for the mean old thing.”
</p>
<p>
“I’m telling you—that’s all.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“I feel very angry with her myself,” Ruth said.
“It is hard for me to get over anger, I am afraid.”
</p>
<p>
“But you are slow to wrath. ‘Beware the anger
of a patient man’ says—says—well, <em>somebody</em>.
‘Overhaul your book and, when found, make note
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193'></a>193</span>
of,’” giggled Helen. “Well! how did Martha
get away from the aunt?”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
Helen sniffed again. She would not own up that
she was affected by the story.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“Well—she’s to be pitied, I suppose,” said
Helen, grudgingly. “But I can’t fall in love with
her.”
</p>
<p>
“Who could? She has had a hard time, just
the same, When she lost her ticket she had barely
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194'></a>194</span>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“Well! she’s unfortunate. But she had no business
to accuse us of stealing her ticket—if it was
stolen at all.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“I remember vividly,” agreed Helen, “our first
encounter with Miss Miggs.” Then she began to
laugh. “And wasn’t she funny?”
</p>
<p>
“‘Not so’s you’d notice it!’ to quote your own
classic language,” said Ruth, sharply. “There was
nothing funny about it.”
</p>
<p>
“That is when we first saw Curly on the boat.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“And heard him jump overboard,” finished
Helen. “The foolish boy.”
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195'></a>195</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“I’d like to see you get a dollar for that purpose
out of Miss Miggs,” giggled Helen.
</p>
<p>
“Never mind, honey, somebody will have to pay
fo’ her,” declared Nettie. “Then we’ll sell the
choice seats and the boxes at auction.”
</p>
<p>
“Goodness, child!” cried Ruth. “What boxes
do you mean; soap boxes?”
</p>
<p>
“The front stairs,” said Nettie, placidly. “The
seats in the upstairs hall here will be reserved, and
must bring a premium, too.”
</p>
<p>
“The ingenuity of the girl!” gasped Ruth.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196'></a>196</span>
</p>
<p>
“Why, Ruthie,” said Helen, “it isn’t <em>anything</em>
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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“But those on the lower step will have their
feet in the water!” cried Ruth, in a gale of laughter.
</p>
<p>
“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.’”
</p>
<p>
“And every bald head that sits there will have
a nice cold in his head,” Ruth declared.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
The deputy sheriff was made to subscribe for
the two lower tiers of seats on the stair at a good
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197'></a>197</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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:”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198'></a>198</span>
</p>
<p>
“S. B.—Ah-h-h!<br />
S. B.—Ah-h-h!<br />
Sound our battle-cry<br />
Near and far!<br />
S. B.—All!<br />
Briarwood Hall!<br />
Sweetbriars, do or die——<br />
This be our battle-cry——<br />
Briarwood Hall!<br />
<em>That’s All!</em>”<br />
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199'></a>199</span>
Holloway came down in a flutter to meet the lady
of the Big House.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“Is this the—the person who has circulated the
false reports about Ruth and Helen?” asked Mrs.
Parsons, sternly.
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
The little group had reached Curly’s bedside;
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200'></a>200</span>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“Who?” suddenly shouted a voice behind them,
and before any of the party could reply to Miss
Miggs’ absurd accusation.
</p>
<p>
Curly was sitting up in bed, his cheeks very red
and his eyes bright with fever; but he was in his
right senses.
</p>
<p>
“Those girls did it!” snapped Miss Miggs.
</p>
<p>
“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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201'></a>201</span>
Dee on it from Norfolk. There now! If that’s
stealin’, then I <em>have</em> stolen, and Gran is right—I’m
a thief!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202'></a>202</span><a name='chXXV' id='chXXV'></a>CHAPTER XXV—BACK HOME</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“And who didn’t know that?” sniffed Helen.
“Of course he didn’t.”
</p>
<p>
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
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203'></a>203</span>
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!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204'></a>204</span>
</p>
<p>
“Now Miss Catalpa kin have mo’ of the fixin’s
like she’s use to. Glory!”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“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?”
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205'></a>205</span>
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“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?
</p>
<p>
“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.
</p>
<p>
“I need trouble Uncle Jabez no more for money.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206'></a>206</span>
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!”
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<div class='center'>
<p> </p>
<p>THE END</p>
</div>
<p>
 <br />
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</p>
<p>
<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES</span>
</p>
<p>
By ALICE B. EMERSON
</p>
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<p>
<i>12mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors.</i>
</p>
<p>
<i>Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional.</i>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Ruth Fielding is a character that will live in juvenile fiction.
</p>
<p>
1. RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL<br />
2. RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL<br />
3. RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP<br />
4. RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT<br />
5. RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH<br />
6. RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND<br />
7. RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM<br />
8. RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES<br />
9. RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES<br />
10. RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE<br />
11. RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE<br />
12. RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE<br />
13. RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS<br />
14. RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT<br />
15. RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND<br />
16. RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST<br />
17. RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST<br />
18. RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE<br />
19. RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING<br />
20. RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH<br />
21. RUTH FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS<br />
22. RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA<br />
23. RUTH FIELDING AND HER GREAT SCENARIO<br />
24. RUTH FIELDING AT CAMERON HALL<br />
25. RUTH FIELDING CLEARING HER NAME<br />
26. RUTH FIELDING IN TALKING PICTURES<br />
27. RUTH FIELDING AND BABY JUNE<br />
28. RUTH FIELDING AND HER DOUBLE<br />
29. RUTH FIELDING AND HER GREATEST TRIUMPH<br />
30. RUTH FIELDING AND HER CROWNING VICTORY<br />
</p>
<p>
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</p>
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<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>MYSTERY BOOKS FOR GIRLS</span>
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<i>12mo. Illustrated. Colored jackets.</i>
</p>
<p>
<i>Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional.</i>
</p>
<p>
<b>THE JADE NECKLACE,</b>
by <span class='sc'>Pemberton Ginther</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
<b>THE THIRTEENTH SPOON,</b>
by <span class='sc'>Pemberton Ginther</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
<b>THE SECRET STAIR,</b>
by <span class='sc'>Pemberton Ginther</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
<b>THE DOOR IN THE MOUNTAIN,</b>
by <span class='sc'>Isola L. Forrester</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
<b>SECRET OF THE DARK HOUSE,</b>
by <span class='sc'>Frances Y. Young</span>
</p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
These books may be purchased wherever books are sold
</p>
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<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>THE MAXIE SERIES</span>
</p>
<p>
By ELSIE B. GARDNER
</p>
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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.
</p>
<p>
<b>1. MAXIE, AN ADORABLE GIRL</b>
<i>or Her Adventures in the British West Indies</i>
</p>
<p>
<b>2. MAXIE IN VENEZUELA</b>
<i>or The Clue to the Diamond Mine</i>
</p>
<p>
<b>3. MAXIE, SEARCHING FOR HER PARENTS</b>
<i>or The Mystery in Australian Waters</i>
</p>
<p>
<b>4. MAXIE AT BRINKSOME HALL</b>
<i>or Strange Adventures with Her Chums</i>
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Her style is somewhat of a reminder of that
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in plot and action. Clean tales that all
the girls will enjoy reading.
</p>
<p>
1. THE GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY<br />
2. THREE GIRL CHUMS AT LAUREL HALL<br />
3. NELL GRAYSON’S RANCHING DAYS<br />
4. FOUR LITTLE WOMEN OF ROXBY<br />
5. PLAIN JANE AND PRETTY BETTY<br />
6. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE<br />
7. HAZEL HOOD’S STRANGE DISCOVERY<br />
8. TWO GIRLS AND A MYSTERY<br />
9. THE GIRLS OF LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND<br />
10. KATE MARTIN’S PROBLEM<br />
11. THE GIRL IN THE TOP FLAT<br />
12. THE SEARCH FOR PEGGY ANN<br />
13. SALLIE’S TEST OF SKILL<br />
14. CHARLOTTE CROSS AND AUNT DEB<br />
15. VIRGINIA’S VENTURE<br />
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<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>KAY TRACEY MYSTERY STORIES</span>
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By FRANCES K. JUDD
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<b>1. THE SECRET OF THE RED SCARF</b>
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A case of mistaken identity at a masquerade leads Kay into a
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<b>2. THE STRANGE ECHO</b>
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Lost Lake had two mysteries—an old one and a new one. Kay,
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<b>3. THE MYSTERY OF THE SWAYING CURTAINS</b>
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Heavy draperies swaying in a lonely mansion give the clue
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<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>THE BETTY GORDON SERIES</span>
</p>
<p>
By ALICE B. EMERSON
</p>
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Author of the “Ruth Fielding Series”
</p>
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1. BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM<br />
2. BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON<br />
3. BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL<br />
4. BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL<br />
5. BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP<br />
6. BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK<br />
7. BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS<br />
8. BETTY GORDON AT RAINBOW RANCH<br />
9. BETTY GORDON IN MEXICAN WILDS<br />
10. BETTY GORDON AND THE LOST PEARLS<br />
11. BETTY GORDON ON THE CAMPUS<br />
12. BETTY GORDON AND THE HALE TWINS<br />
13. BETTY GORDON AT MYSTERY FARM<br />
14. BETTY GORDON ON NO-TRAIL ISLAND<br />
15. BETTY GORDON AND THE MYSTERY GIRL<br />
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