The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ruth Fielding Down East, 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 East Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point Author: Alice B. Emerson Release Date: October 20, 2007 [eBook #23116] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST*** E-text prepared by David Edwards, Anne Storer, D. Alexander, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Tom cast aside his sweater TOM CAST ASIDE HIS SWEATER AND PLUNGED INTO THE TIDE. Ruth Fielding Down East Page 113 R u t h F i e l d i n g D o w n E a s t OR THE HERMIT OF BEACH PLUM POINT BY ALICE B. EMERSON Author of “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,” “Ruth Fielding at Sunrise Farm,” “Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound,” Etc. ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY PUBLISHERS Books for Girls BY ALICE B. EMERSON RUTH FIELDING SERIES 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York. Copyright, 1920, By Cupples & Leon Company Ruth Fielding Down East Printed in U. S. A. CONTENTS chapter page I. The Wind Storm 1 II. The Mystery of It 7 III. The Derelict 14 IV. The Crying Need 22 V. Off at Last 29 VI. “The Nevergetovers” 35 VII. Movie Stunts 43 VIII. The Auction Block 52 IX. A Dismaying Discovery 67 X. A Wild Afternoon 77 XI. Mr. Peterby Paul—and “Whosis” 86 XII. Alongshore 95 XIII. The Hermit 104 XIV. A Quotation 113 XV. An Amazing Situation 122 XVI. Ruth Solves One Problem 129 XVII. John, the Hermit’s, Contribution 136 XVIII. Uncertainties 144 XIX. Counterclaims 152 XX. The Grill 159 XXI. A Hermit for Revenue Only 171 XXII. An Arrival 180 XXIII. Trouble—Plenty 186 XXIV. About “Plain Mary” 193 XXV. Lifting the Curtain 199 RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST CHAPTER I THE WIND STORM Across the now placidly flowing Lumano where it widened into almost the proportions of a lake just below the picturesque Red Mill, a bank of tempestuous clouds was shouldering into view above the sky line of the rugged and wooded hills. These slate-colored clouds, edged with pallid light, foredoomed the continuance of the peaceful summer afternoon. Not a breath of air stirred on the near side of the river. The huge old elms shading the Red Mill and the farmhouse connected with it belonging to Mr. Jabez Potter, the miller, were like painted trees, so still were they. The brooding heat of midday, however, had presaged the coming storm, and it had been prepared for at mill and farmhouse. The tempest was due soon. The backyard of the farmhouse—a beautiful lawn of short grass—sloped down to the river. On the bank and over the stream itself was set a summer-house of fair proportions, covered with vines—a cool and shady retreat on the very hottest day of midsummer. A big robin redbreast had been calling his raucous weather warning from the top of one of the trees near the house; but, with her back to the river and the coming storm, the girl in the pavilion gave little heed to this good-intentioned weather prophet. She did raise her eyes, however, at the querulous whistle of a striped creeper that was wriggling through the intertwined branches of the trumpet-vine in search of insects. Ruth Fielding was always interested in those busy, helpful little songsters. “You cute little thing!” she murmured, at last catching sight of the flashing bird between the stems of the old vine. “I wish I could put you into my scenario.” On the table at which she was sitting was a packet of typewritten sheets which she had been annotating, and two fat note books. She laid down her gold-mounted fountain pen as she uttered these words, and then sighed and pushed her chair back from the table. Then she stood up suddenly. A sound had startled her. She looked all about the summer-house—a sharp, suspicious glance. Then she tiptoed to the door and peered out. The creeper fluttered away. The robin continued to shout his warning. Had it really been a rustling in the vines she had heard? Was there somebody lurking about the summer-house? She stepped out and looked on both sides. It was then she saw how threatening the aspect of the clouds on the other side of the river were. The sight drove from her thoughts for the moment the strange sound she had heard. She did not take pains to look beneath the summer-house on the water side. Instead, another sound assailed her ears. This time one that she could not mistake for anything but just what it was—the musical horn of Tom Cameron’s automobile. Ruth turned swiftly to look up the road. A dark maroon car, long and low-hung like a racer, was coming along the road, leaving a funnel of dust behind it. There were two people in the car. The girl beside the driver—black-haired and petite—fluttered her handkerchief in greeting when she saw Ruth standing by the summer-house. At once the latter ran across the yard, over the gentle rise, and down to the front gate of the Potter farmhouse. She ran splendidly with a free stride of untrammeled limbs, but she held one shoulder rather stiffly. “Oh, Ruth!” “Oh, Helen!” The car was at the gate, and Tom brought it to a prompt stop. Helen, his twin sister, was out of it instantly and almost leaped into the bigger girl’s arms. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” sobbed Helen. “You are alive after all that horrible experience coming home from Europe.” “And you are alive and safe, dear Helen,” responded Ruth Fielding, quite as deeply moved. It was the first time they had met since separating in Paris a month before. And in these times of war, with peace still an uncertainty, there were many perils to fear between the port of Brest and that of New York. Tom, in uniform and with a ribbon and medal on his breast, grinned teasingly at the two girls. “Come, come! Break away! Only twenty seconds allowed in a clinch. Don’t Helen look fine, Ruth? How’s the shoulder?” “Just a bit stiff yet,” replied the girl of the Red Mill, kissing her chum again. At this moment the first sudden swoop of the tempest arrived. The tall elms writhed as though taken with St. Vitus’s dance. The hens began to screech and run to cover. Thunder muttered in the distance. “Oh, dear me!” gasped Ruth, paling unwontedly, for she was not by nature a nervous girl. “Come right into the house, Helen. You could not get to Cheslow or back home before this storm breaks. Put your car under the shed, Tom.” She dragged her friend into the yard and up the warped flag stones to the side door of the cottage. A little old woman who had been sitting on the porch in a low rocking chair arose with difficulty, leaning on a cane. “Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!” murmured Aunt Alvirah Boggs, who was not long out of a sick bed herself and would never again be as “spry” as she once had been. “Do come in, dearies. It is a wind storm.” Ruth stopped to help the little old woman. She continued pale, but her thought for Aunt Alvirah’s comfort caused her to put aside her own fear. The trio entered the house and closed the door. In a moment there was a sharp patter against the house. The rain had begun in big drops. The rear door was opened, and Tom, laughing and shaking the water from his cap, dashed into the living room. He wore the insignia of a captain under his dust-coat and the distinguishing marks of a very famous division of the A. E. F. “It’s a buster!” he declared. “There’s a paper sailing like a kite over the roof of the old mill——” Ruth sprang up with a shriek. She ran to the back door by which Tom had just entered and tore it open. “Oh, do shut the door, deary!” begged Aunt Alvirah. “That wind is ’nough to lift the roof.” “What is the matter, Ruth?” demanded Helen. But Tom ran out after her. He saw the girl leap from the porch and run madly down the path toward the summer-house. Back on the wind came a broken word or two of explanation: “My papers! My scenario! The best thing I ever did, Tom!” He had almost caught up to her when she reached the little pavilion. The wind from across the river was tearing through the summer-house at a sixty-mile-an-hour speed. “Oh! It’s gone!” Ruth cried, and had Tom not caught her she would have dropped to the ground. There was not a scrap of paper left upon the table, nor anywhere in the place. Even the two fat notebooks had disappeared, and, too, the gold-mounted pen the girl of the Red Mill had been using. All, all seemed to have been swept out of the summer-house. CHAPTER II THE MYSTERY OF IT For half a minute Tom Cameron did not know just what to do for Ruth. Then the water spilled out of the angry clouds overhead and bade fair to drench them. He half carried Ruth into the summer-house and let her rest upon a bench, sitting beside her with his arm tenderly supporting her shoulders. Ruth had begun to sob tempestuously. Ruth Fielding weeping! She might have cried many times in the past, but almost always in secret. Tom, who knew her so well, had seen her in dangerous and fear-compelling situations, and she had not wept. “What is it?” he demanded. “What have you lost?” “My scenario! All my work gone!” “The new story? My goodness, Ruth, it couldn’t have blown away!” “But it has!” she wailed. “Not a scrap of it left. My notebooks—my pen! Why!” and she suddenly controlled her sobs, for she was, after all, an eminently practical girl. “Could that fountain pen have been carried away by the windstorm, too?” “There goes a barrel through the air,” shouted Tom. “That’s heavier than a fountain pen. Say, this is some wind!” The sound of the dashing rain now almost drowned their voices. It sprayed them through the porous shelter of the vines and latticework so that they could not sit on the bench. Ruth huddled upon the table with Tom Cameron standing between her and the drifting mist of the storm. She looked across the rain-drenched yard to the low-roofed house. She had first seen it with a home-hungry heart when a little girl and an orphan. How many, many strange experiences she had had since that time, which seemed so long ago! Nor had she then dreamed, as “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,” as the first volume of this series is called, that she would lead the eventful life she had since that hour. Under the niggard care of miserly old Jabez Potter, the miller, her great uncle, tempered by the loving kindness of Aunt Alvirah Boggs, the miller’s housekeeper, Ruth’s prospects had been poor indeed. But Providence moves in mysterious ways. Seemingly unexpected chances had broadened Ruth’s outlook on life and given her advantages that few girls in her sphere secure. First she was enabled to go to a famous boarding school, Briarwood Hall, with her dearest chum, Helen Cameron. There she began to make friends and widen her experience by travel. With Helen, Tom, and other young friends, Ruth had adventures, as the titles of the series of books run, at Snow Camp, at Lighthouse Point, at Silver Ranch, on Cliff Island, at Sunrise Farm, with the Gypsies, in Moving Pictures, and Down in Dixie. With the eleventh volume of the series Ruth and her chums, Helen Cameron and Jennie Stone, begin their life at Ardmore College. As freshmen their experiences are related in “Ruth Fielding at College; Or, The Missing Examination Papers.” This volume is followed by “Ruth Fielding in the Saddle; Or, College Girls in the Land of Gold,” wherein Ruth’s first big scenario is produced by the Alectrion Film Corporation. As was the fact with so many of our college boys and girls, the World War interfered most abruptly and terribly with Ruth’s peaceful current of life. America went into the war and Ruth into Red Cross work almost simultaneously. In “Ruth Fielding in the Red Cross; Or, Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam,” the Girl of the Red Mill gained a very practical experience in the work of the great peace organization which does so much to smooth the ravages of war. Then, in “Ruth Fielding at the War Front; Or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier,” the Red Cross worker was thrown into the very heart of the tremendous struggle, and in northern France achieved a name for courage that her college mates greatly envied. Wounded and nerve-racked because of her experiences, Ruth was sent home, only to meet, as related in the fifteenth volume of the series, “Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound; Or, A Red Cross Worker’s Ocean Perils,” an experience which seemed at first to be disastrous. In the end, however, the girl reached the Red Mill in a physical and mental state which made any undue excitement almost a tragedy for her. The mysterious disappearance of the moving picture scenario, which had been on her heart and mind for months and which she had finally brought, she believed, to a successful termination, actually shocked Ruth Fielding. She could not control herself for the moment. Against Tom Cameron’s uniformed shoulder she sobbed frankly. His arm stole around her. “Don’t take on so, Ruthie,” he urged. “Of course we’ll find it all. Wait till this rain stops——” “It never blew away, Tom,” she said. “Why, of course it did!” “No. The sheets of typewritten manuscript were fastened together with a big brass clip. Had they been lose and the wind taken them, we should have seen at least some of them flying about. And the notebooks!” “And the pen?” murmured Tom, seeing the catastrophe now as she did. “Why, Ruthie! Could somebody have taken them all?” “Somebody must!” “But who?” demanded the young fellow. “You have no enemies.” “Not here, I hope,” she sighed. “I left them all behind.” He chuckled, although he was by no means unappreciative of the seriousness of her loss. “Surely that German aviator who dropped the bomb on you hasn’t followed you here.” “Don’t talk foolishly, Tom!” exclaimed the girl, getting back some of her usual good sense. “Of course, I have no enemy. But a thief is every honest person’s enemy.” “Granted. But where is the thief around the Red Mill?” “I do not know.” “Can it be possible that your uncle or Ben saw the things here and rescued them just before the storm burst?” “We will ask,” she said, with a sigh. “But I can imagine no reason for either Uncle Jabez or Ben to come down here to the shore of the river. Oh, Tom! it is letting up.” “Good! I’ll look around first of all. If there has been a skulker near——” “Now, don’t be rash,” she cried. “We’re not behind the German lines now, Fraulein Mina von Brenner,” and he laughed as he went out of the summer- house. He did not smile when he was searching under the house and beating the brush clumps near by. He realized that this loss was a very serious matter for Ruth. She was now independent of Uncle Jabez, but her income was partly derived from her moving picture royalties. During her war activities she had been unable to do much work, and Tom knew that Ruth had spent of her own means a great deal in the Red Cross work. Ruth had refused to tell her friends the first thing about this new story for the screen. She believed it to be the very best thing she had ever originated, and she said she wished to surprise them all. He even knew that all her notes and “before-the-finish” writing was in the notebooks that had now gone with the completed manuscript. It looked more than mysterious. It was suspicious. Tom looked all around the summer-house. Of course, after this hard downpour it was impossible to mark any footsteps. Nor, indeed, did the raider need to leave such a trail in getting to and departing from the little vine-covered pavilion. The sward was heavy all about it save on the river side. The young man found not a trace. Nor did he see a piece of paper anywhere. He was confident that Ruth’s papers and notebooks and pen had been removed by some human agency. And it could not have been a friend who had done this thing. CHAPTER III THE DERELICT “Didn’t you find anything, Tom?” Ruth Fielding asked, as Helen’s twin re-entered the summer-house. His long automobile coat glistened with wet and his face was wind-blown. Tom Cameron’s face, too, looked much older than it had—well, say a year before. He, like Ruth herself, had been through much in the war zone calculated to make him more sedate and serious than a college undergraduate is supposed to be. “I did not see even a piece of paper blowing about,” he told her. “But before we came down from the house you said you saw a paper blow over the roof like a kite.” “That was an outspread newspaper. It was not a sheet of your manuscript.” “Then it all must have been stolen!” she cried. “At least, human agency must have removed the things you left on this table,” he said. “Oh, Tom!” “Now, now, Ruth! It’s tough, I know——” But she recovered a measure of her composure almost immediately. Unnerved as she had first been by the disaster, she realized that to give way to her trouble would not do the least bit of good. “An ordinary thief,” Tom suggested after a moment, “would not consider your notes and the play of much value.” “I suppose not,” she replied. “If they are stolen it must be by somebody who understands—or thinks he does—the value of the work. Somebody who thinks he can sell a moving picture scenario.” “Oh, Tom!” “A gold mounted fountain pen would attract any petty thief,” he went on to say. “But surely the itching fingers of such a person would not be tempted by that scenario.” “Then, which breed of thief stole my scenario, Tom?” she demanded. “You are no detective. Your deductions suggest two thieves.” “Humph! So they do. Maybe they run in pairs. But I can’t really imagine two light-fingered people around the Red Mill at once. Seen any tramps lately?” “We seldom see the usual tramp around here,” said Ruth, shaking her head. “We are too far off the railroad line. And the Cheslow constables keep them moving if they land there.” “Could anybody have done it for a joke?” asked Tom suddenly. “If they have,” Ruth said, wiping her eyes, “it is the least like a joke of anything that ever happened to me. Why, Tom! I couldn’t lay out that scenario again, and think of all the details, and get it just so, in a year!” “Oh, Ruth!” “I mean it! And even my notes are gone. Oh, dear! I’d never have the heart to write that scenario again. I don’t know that I shall ever write another, anyway. I’m discouraged,” sobbed the girl suddenly. “Oh, Ruth! don’t give way like this,” he urged, with rather a boyish fear of a girl’s tears. “I’ve given way already,” she choked. “I just feel that I’ll never be able to put that scenario into shape again. And I’d written Mr. Hammond so enthusiastically about it.” “Oh! Then he knows all about it!” said Tom. “That is more than any of us do. You wouldn’t tell us a thing.” “And I didn’t tell him. He doesn’t know the subject, or the title, or anything about it. I tell you, Tom, I had such a good idea——” “And you’ve got the idea yet, haven’t you? Cheer up! Of course you can do it over.” “Suppose,” demanded Ruth quickly, “this thief that has got my manuscript should offer it to some producer? Why! if I tried to rewrite it and bring it out, I might be accused of plagiarizing my own work.” “Jimminy!” “I wouldn’t dare,” said Ruth, shaking her head. “As long as I do not know what has become of the scenario and my notes, I will not dare use the idea at all. It is dreadful!” The rain was now falling less torrentially. The tempest was passing. Soon there was even a rift in the clouds in the northwest where a patch of blue sky shone through “big enough to make a Scotchman a pair of breeches,” as Aunt Alvirah would say. “We’d better go up to the house,” sighed Ruth. “I’ll go right around to the neighbors and see if anybody has noticed a stranger in the vicinity,” Tom suggested. “There’s Ben! Do you suppose he has seen anybody?” A lanky young man, his clothing gray with flour dust, came from the back door of the mill and hastened under the dripping trees to reach the porch of the farmhouse. He stood there, smiling broadly at them, as Ruth and Tom hurriedly crossed the yard. “Good day, Mr. Tom,” said Ben, the miller’s helper. Then he saw Ruth’s troubled countenance. “Wha—what’s the matter, Ruthie?” “Ben, I’ve lost something.” “Bless us an’ save us, no!” “Yes, I have. Something very valuable. It’s been stolen.” “You don’t mean it!” “But I do! Some manuscript out of the summer-house yonder.” “And her gold-mounted fountain pen,” added Tom. “That would tempt somebody.” “My goodness!” Ben could express his simple wonderment in a variety of phrases. But he seemed unable to go beyond these explosive expressions. “Ben, wake up!” exclaimed Ruth. “Have you any idea who would have taken it?” “That gold pen, Ruthie? Why—why—— A thief!” “Old man,” said Tom with suppressed disgust, “you’re a wonder. How did you guess it?” “Hush, Tom,” Ruth said. Then: “Now, Ben, just think. Who has been around here to-day? Any stranger, I mean.” “Why—I dunno,” said the mill hand, puckering his brows. “Think!” she commanded again. “Why—why——old Jep Parloe drove up for a grinding.” “He’s not a stranger.” “Oh, yes he is, Ruthie. Me nor Mr. Potter ain’t seen him before for nigh three months. Your uncle up and said to him, ‘Why, you’re a stranger, Mr. Parloe.’” “I mean,” said Ruth, with patience, “anybody whom you have never seen before—or anybody whom you might suspect would steal.” “Well,” drawled Ben stubbornly, “your uncle, Ruthie, says old Jep ain’t any too honest.” “I know all about that,” Ruth said. “But Parloe did not leave his team and go down to the summer-house, did he?” “Oh, no!” “Did you see anybody go down that way?” “Don’t believe I did—savin’ you yourself, Ruthie.” “I left a manuscript and my pen on the table there. I ran out to meet Tom and Helen when they came.” “I seen you,” said Ben. “Then it was just about that time that somebody sneaked into that summer-house and stole those things.” “I didn’t see anybody snuck in there,” declared Ben, with more confidence than good English. “Say!” ejaculated Tom, impatiently, “haven’t you seen any tramp, or straggler, or Gypsy—or anybody like that?” “Hi gorry!” suddenly said Ben, “I do remember. There was a man along here this morning —a preacher, or something like that. Had a black frock coat on and wore his hair long and sort o’ wavy. He was shabby enough to be a tramp, that’s a fact. But he was a real knowledgeable feller—he was that. Stood at the mill door and recited po’try for us.” “Poetry!” exclaimed Tom. “To you and Uncle Jabez?” asked Ruth. “Uh-huh. All about ‘to be or not to be a bean—that is the question.’ And something about his having suffered from the slung shots and bow arrers of outrageous fortune—whatever that might be. I guess he got it all out of the Scriptures. Your uncle said he was bugs; but I reckoned he was a preacher.” “Jimminy!” muttered Tom. “A derelict actor, I bet. Sounds like a Shakespearean ham.” “Goodness!” said Ruth. “Between the two of you boys I get a very strange idea of this person.” “Where did he go, Ben?” Tom asked. “I didn’t watch him. He only hung around a little while. I think he axed your uncle for some money, or mebbe something to eat. You see, he didn’t know Mr. Potter.” “Not if he struck him for a hand-out,” muttered the slangy Tom. “Oh, Ben! don’t you know whether he went toward Cheslow—or where?” cried Ruth. “Does it look probable to you,” Tom asked, “that a derelict actor—— Oh, Jimminy! Of course! He would be just the person to see the value of that play script at a glance!” “Oh, Tom!” “Have you no idea where he went, Ben?” Tom again demanded of the puzzled mill hand. “No, Mister Tom. I didn’t watch him.” “I’ll get out the car at once and hunt all about for him,” Tom said quickly. “You go in to Helen and Aunt Alvirah, Ruth. You’ll be sick if you let this get the best of you. I’ll find that miserable thief of a ham actor—if he’s to be found.” He added this last under his breath as he ran for the shed where he had sheltered his automobile. CHAPTER IV THE CRYING NEED Tom Cameron chased about the neighborhood for more than two hours in his fast car hunting the trail of the man who he had decided must be a wandering theatrical performer. Of course, this was a “long shot,” Tom said; but the trampish individual of whom Ben had told was much more likely to be an actor than a preacher. Tom, however, was able to find no trace of the fellow until he got to the outskirts of Cheslow, the nearest town. Here he found a man who had seen a long-haired fellow in a shabby frock coat and black hat riding toward the railroad station beside one of the farmers who lived beyond the Red Mill. This was following the tempest which had burst over the neighborhood at mid-afternoon. Trailing this information farther, Tom learned that the shabby man had been seen about the railroad yards. Mr. Curtis, the railroad station master, had observed him. But suddenly the tramp had disappeared. Whether he had hopped Number 10, bound north, or Number 43, bound south, both of which trains had pulled out of Cheslow within the hour, nobody could be sure. Tom returned to the Red Mill at dusk, forced to report utter failure. “If that bum actor stole your play, Ruth, he’s got clear way with it,” Tom said bluntly. “I’m awfully sorry——” “Does that help?” demanded his sister snappishly, as though it were somewhat Tom’s fault. “You go home, Tom. I’m going to stay with Ruthie to-night,” and she followed her chum into the bedroom to which she had fled at Tom’s announcement of failure. “Jimminy!” murmured Tom to the old miller who was still at the supper table. “And we aren’t even sure that that fellow did steal the scenario.” “Humph!” rejoined Uncle Jabez. “You’ll find, if you live to be old enough, young feller, that women folks is kittle cattle. No knowing how they’ll take anything. That pen cost five dollars, I allow; but them papers only had writing on ’em, and it does seem to me that what you have writ once you ought to be able to write again. That’s the woman of it. She don’t say a thing about that pen, Ruthie don’t.” However, Tom Cameron saw farther into the mystery than Uncle Jabez appeared to. And after a day or two, with Ruth still “moping about like a moulting hen,” as the miller expressed it, the young officer felt that he must do something to change the atmosphere of the Red Mill farmhouse. “Our morale has gone stale, girls,” he declared to his sister and Ruth. “Worrying never did any good yet.” “That’s a true word, Sonny,” said Aunt Alvirah, from her chair. “‘Care killed the cat.’ my old mother always said, and she had ten children to bring up and a drunken husband who was a trial. He warn’t my father. He was her second, an’ she took him, I guess, ’cause he was ornamental. He was a sign painter when he worked. But he mostly advertised King Alcohol by painting his nose red. “We children sartain sure despised that man. But mother was faithful to her vows, and she made quite a decent member of the community of that man before she left off. And, le’s see! We was talkin’ about cats, warn’t we?” “You were, Aunty dear,” said Ruth, laughing for the first time in several days. “Hurrah!” said Tom, plunging head-first into his idea. “That’s just what I wanted to hear.” “What?” demanded Helen. “I have wanted to hear Ruth laugh. And we all need to laugh. Why, we are becoming a trio of old fogies!” “Speak for yourself, Master Tom,” pouted his sister. “I do. And for you. And certainly Ruth is about as cheerful as a funeral mute. What we all need is some fun.” “Oh, Tom, I don’t feel at all like ‘funning,’” sighed Ruth. “You be right, Sonny,” interjected Aunt Alvirah, who sometimes forgot that Tom, as well as the girls, was grown up. She rose from her chair with her usual, “Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! You young folks should be dancing and frolicking——” “But the war, Auntie!” murmured Ruth. “You’ll neither make peace nor mar it by worriting. No, no, my pretty! And ’tis a bad thing when young folks grow old before their time.” “You’re always saying that, Aunt Alvirah,” Ruth complained. “But how can one be jolly if one does not feel jolly?” “My goodness!” cried Tom, “you were notoriously the jolliest girl in that French hospital. Didn’t the poilus call you the jolly American? And listen to Grandmother Grunt now!” “I suppose it is so,” sighed Ruth. “But I must have used up all my fund of cheerfulness for those poor blessés. It does seem as though the font of my jollity had quite dried up.” “I wish Heavy Stone were here,” said Helen suddenly. “She’d make us laugh.” “She and her French colonel are spooning down there at Lighthouse Point,” scoffed Ruth—and not at all as Ruth Fielding was wont to speak. “Say!” Tom interjected, “I bet Heavy is funny even when she is in love.” “That’s a reputation!” murmured Ruth. “They are not at Lighthouse Point. The Stones did not go there this summer, I understand,” Helen observed. “I am sorry for Jennie and Colonel Marchand if they are at the Stones’ city house at this time of the year,” the girl of the Red Mill said. “Bully!” cried Tom, with sudden animation. “That’s just what we will do!” “What will we do, crazy?” demanded his twin. “We’ll get Jennie Stone and Henri Marchand—he’s a good sport, too, as I very well know—and we’ll all go for a motor trip. Jimminy Christmas! that will be just the thing, Sis. We’ll go all over New England, if you like. We’ll go Down East and introduce Colonel Marchand to some of our hard-headed and tight-fisted Yankees that have done their share towards injecting America into the war. We will——” “Oh!” cried Ruth, breaking in with some small enthusiasm, “let’s go to Beach Plum Point.” “Where is that?” asked Helen. “It is down in Maine. Beyond Portland. And Mr. Hammond and his company are there making my ‘Seaside Idyl.’” “Oh, bully!” cried Helen, repeating one of her brother’s favorite phrases, and now quite as excited over the idea as he. “I do so love to act in movies. Is there a part in that ‘Idyl’ story for me?” “I cannot promise that,” Ruth said. “It would be up to the director. I wasn’t taking much interest in this particular picture. I wrote the scenario, you know, before I went to France. I have been giving all my thought to—— “Oh, dear! If we could only find my lost story!” “Come on!” interrupted Tom. “Let’s not talk about that. Will you write to Jennie Stone?” “I will. At once,” his sister declared. “Do. I’ll take it to the post office and send it special delivery. Tell her to wire her answer, and let it be ‘yes.’ We’ll take both cars. Father won’t mind.” “Oh, but!” cried Helen. “How about a chaperon?” “Oh, shucks! I wish you’d marry some nice fellow, Sis, so that we’d always have a chaperon on tap and handy.” She made a little face at him. “I am going to be old-maid aunt to your many children, Tommy-boy. I am sure you will have a full quiver. We will have to look for a chaperon.” “Aunt Kate!” exclaimed Ruth. “Heavy’s Aunt Kate. She is just what Helen declares she wants to be—an old-maid aunt.” “And a lovely lady,” cried Helen. “Sure. Ask her. Beg her,” agreed Tom. “Tell her it is the crying need. We have positively got to have some fun.” “Well, I suppose we may as well,” Ruth sighed, in agreement. “Yes. We have always pampered the boy,” declared Helen, her eyes twinkling. “I know just what I’ll wear, Ruthie.” “Oh, we’ve clothes enough,” admitted the girl of the Red Mill rather listlessly. “Shucks!” said Tom again. “Never mind the fashions. Get that letter written, Sis.” So it was agreed. Helen wrote, the letter was sent. With Jennie Stone’s usual impulsiveness she accepted for herself and “mon Henri” and Aunt Kate, promising to be at Cheslow within three days, and all within the limits of a ten-word telegram! CHAPTER V OFF AT LAST “The ancients,” stated Jennie Stone solemnly, “burned incense upon any and all occasions—red letter days, labor days, celebrating Columbus Day and the morning after, I presume. But we moderns burn gasoline. And, phew! I believe I should prefer the stale smoke of incense in the unventilated pyramids of Egypt to this odor of gas. O-o-o-o, Tommy, do let us get started!” “You’ve started already—in your usual way,” he laughed. This was at Cheslow Station on the arrival of the afternoon up train that had brought Miss Stone, her Aunt Kate, and the smiling Colonel Henri Marchand to join the automobile touring party which Jennie soon dubbed “the later Pilgrims.” “And that big machine looks much as the Mayflower must have looked steering across Cape Cod Bay on that special occasion we read of in sacred and profane history, hung about with four-poster beds and whatnots. In our neighborhood,” the plump girl added, “there is enough decrepit furniture declared to have been brought over on the Mayflower to have made a cargo for the Leviathan.” “Oh, ma chere! you do but stretch the point, eh?” demanded the handsome Henri Marchand, amazed. “I assure you——” “Don’t, Heavy,” advised Helen. “You will only go farther and do worse. In my mind there has always been a suspicion that the Mayflower was sent over here by some shipped knocked-down furniture factory. Miles Standish and Priscilla Mullins and John Alden must have hung on by their eyebrows.” “Their eyebrows—ma foi!” gasped Marchand. “Say, old man,” said Tom, laughing, “if you listen to these crazy college girls you will have a fine idea of our historical monuments, and so forth. Take everything with a grain of salt—do.” “Oui, Monsieur! But I must have a little pepper, too. I am ‘strong,’ as you Americans say, for plentiful seasoning.” “Isn’t he cute?” demanded Jenny Stone. “He takes to American slang like a bird to the air.” “Poetry barred!” declared Helen. “Say,” Tom remarked aside to the colonel, “you’ve got all the pep necessary, sure enough, in Jennie.” “She is one dear!” sighed the Frenchman. “And she just said you were a bird. You’ll have a regular zoo about you yet. Come on. Let’s see if we can get this baggage aboard the good ship. It does look a good deal of an ark, doesn’t it?” Although Ruth and Aunt Kate had not joined in this repartee, the girl of the Red Mill, as well as their lovely chaperon, enjoyed the fun immensely. Ruth had revived in spirits on meeting her friends. Jennie had flown to her arms at the first greeting, and hugged the girl of the Red Mill with due regard to the mending shoulder. “My dear! My dear!” she had cried. “I dream of you lying all so pale and bloody under that window-sill stone. And what I hear of your and Tom’s experiences coming over——” “But worse has happened to me since I arrived home,” Ruth said woefully. “No? Impossible!” “Yes. I have had an irreparable loss,” sighed Ruth. “I’ll tell you about it later.” But for the most part the greetings of the two parties was made up as Tom said of “Ohs and Ahs.” “Take it from me,” the naughty Tom declared to Marchand, “two girls separated for over-night can find more to tell each other about the next morning than we could think of if we should meet at the Resurrection!” The two Cameron cars stood in the station yard, and as the other waiting cars, taxicabs and “flivvers” departed, “the sacred odor of gasoline,” which Jennie had remarked upon, was soon dissipated. The big touring car was expertly packed with baggage, and had a big hamper on either running-board as well. There was room remaining, however, for the ladies if they would sit there. But as Tom was to drive the big car he insisted that Ruth sit with him in the front seat for company. As for his racing car, he had turned that over to Marchand. It, too, was well laden; but at the start Jennie squeezed in beside her colonel, and the maroon speeder was at once whisperingly dubbed by the others “the honeymoon car.” “Poor children!” said Aunt Kate in private to the two other girls. “They cannot marry until the war is over. That my brother is firm upon, although he thinks well of Colonel Henri. And who could help liking him? He is a most lovable boy.” “‘Boy!’” repeated Ruth. “And he is one of the most famous spies France has produced in this war! And a great actor!” “But we believe he is not acting when he tells us he loves Jennie,” Aunt Kate said. “Surely not!” cried Helen. “He is the soul of honor,” Ruth declared. “I trust him as I do—well, Tom. I never had a brother.” “I’ve always shared Tom with you,” pouted Helen. “So you have, dear,” admitted Ruth. “But a girl who has had no really-truly brother really has missed something. Perhaps good, perhaps bad. But, at least, if you have brothers you understand men better.” “Listen to the wisdom of the owl!” scoffed Helen. “Why, Tommy is only a girl turned inside out. A girl keeps all her best and softest attributes to the fore, while a boy thinks it is more manly to show a prickly surface—like the burr of a chestnut.” “Listen to them!” exclaimed Aunt Kate, with laughter. “All the wise sayings of the ancient world must be crammed under those pretty caps you wear, along with your hair.” “That is what we get at college,” said Helen seriously. “Dear old Ardmore! Ruth! won’t you be glad to get back to the grind again?” “I—don’t—know,” said her chum slowly. “We have seen so much greater things than college. It’s going to be rather tame, isn’t it?” But this conversation was all before they were distributed into their seats and had started. Colonel Marchand was an excellent driver, and he soon understood clearly the mechanism of the smaller car. Tom gave him the directions for the first few miles and they pulled out of the yard with Mr. Curtis, the station master, and his lame daughter, who now acted as telegraph operator, waving the party good-bye. They would not go by the way of the Red Mill, for that would take them out of the way they had chosen. The inn they had in mind to stop at on this first night was a long four hours’ ride. “Eastward, Ho!” shouted Tom. “This is to be a voyage of discovery, but don’t discover any punctures or blow-outs this evening.” Then he glanced at Ruth’s rather serious face beside him and muttered to himself: “And we want to discover principally the smile that Ruth Fielding seems to have permanently lost!” CHAPTER VI “THE NEVERGETOVERS” After crossing the Cheslow Hills and the Lumano by the Long Bridge about twenty miles below the Red Mill, the touring party debouched upon one of the very best State roads. They left much of the dust from which they had first suffered behind them, and Tom could now lead the way with the big car without smothering the occupants of the honeymoon car in the rear. The highway wound along a pretty ridge for some miles, with farms dotting the landscape and lush meadows or fruit- growing farms dipping to the edge of the distant river. “Ah,” sighed Henri Marchand. “Like la belle France before the war. Such peace and quietude we knew, too. Fortunate you are, my friends, that le Boche has not trampled these fields into bloody mire.” This comment he made when they halted the cars at a certain overlook to view the landscape. But they could not stop often. Their first objective inn was still a long way ahead. They did not, however, reach the inn, which was a resort well known to motorists. Five miles away Tom noticed that the car was acting strangely. “What is it, Tom?” demanded Ruth quickly. “Steering gear, I am afraid. Something is loose.” It did not take him long to make an examination, and in the meantime the second car came alongside. “It might hold out until we get to the hotel ahead; but I think we had better stop before that time if we can,” was Tom’s comment. “I do not want the thing to break and send us flying over a stone wall or up a tree.” “But you can fix it, Tom?” questioned Ruth. “Sure! But it will take half an hour or more.” After that they ran along slowly and presently came in sight of a place called the Drovers’ Tavern. “Not a very inviting place, but I guess it will do,” was Ruth’s announcement after they had looked the inn over. The girls and Aunt Kate alighted at the steps while the young men wheeled the cars around to the sheds. The housekeeper, who immediately announced herself as Susan Timmins, was fussily determined to see that all was as it should be in the ladies’ chambers. “I can’t trust this gal I got to do the upstairs work,” she declared, saying it through her nose and with emphasis. “Just as sure as kin be, if ye go for to help a poor relation you air always sorry for it.” She led the way up the main flight of stairs as she talked. “This here gal will give me the nevergitovers, I know! She’s my own sister’s child that married a good-for-nothing and is jest like her father.” “Bella! You Bella! Turn on the light in these rooms. Is the pitchers filled? And the beds turned down? If I find a speck of dust on this furniture I’ll nigh ’bout have the nevergitovers! That gal will drive me to my grave, she will. Bella!” Bella appeared—a rather good looking child of fourteen or so, slim as a lath and with hungry eyes. She was dark— almost Gypsy-like. She stared at Ruth, Helen and Jennie with all the amazement of the usual yokel. But it was their dress, not themselves, Ruth saw, engaged Bella’s interest. “When you ladies want any help, you call for Bella,” announced Miss Susan Timmins. “And if she don’t come running, you let me know, and I’ll give her her nevergitovers, now I tell ye!” “No wonder this hotel is called ‘Drovers’ Tavern,’” said Jennie Stone. “That woman certainly is a driver—a slave driver.” Ruth, meanwhile, was trying to make a friend of Bella. “What is your name, my dear?” she asked the lathlike girl. “You heard it,” was the ungracious reply. “Oh! Yes. ‘Bella.’ But your other name?” “Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice Pike. My father is Montague Fitzmaurice.” She said it proudly, with a lift of her tousled head and a straightening of her thin shoulders. “Oh!” fairly gasped Ruth Fielding. “It—it sounds quite impressive, I must say. I guess you think a good deal of your father?” “Aunt Suse don’t,” said the girl ungraciously. “My mother’s dead. And pa is resting this season. So I hafter stay here with Aunt Suse. I hate it!” “Your father is—er—what is his business?” Ruth asked. “He’s one of the profession.” “A doctor?” “Lands, no! He’s a heavy.” “A what?” “A heavy lead—and a good one. But these moving pictures knock out all the really good people. There are no chances now for him to play Shakespearean roles——” “Your father is an actor!” cried Ruth. “Of course. Montague Fitzmaurice. Surely you have heard the name?” said the lathlike girl, tossing her head. “Why—why——of course!” declared Ruth warmly. It was true. She had heard the name. Bella had just pronounced it! “Then you know what kind of an actor my pa is,” said the proud child. “He did not have a very good season last winter. He rehearsed with four companies and was only out three weeks altogether. And one of the managers did not pay at all.” “That is too bad.” “Yes. It’s tough,” admitted Bella. “But I liked it.” “You liked it when he was so unsuccessful?” repeated Ruth. “Pa wasn’t unsuccessful. He never is. He can play any part,” declared the girl proudly. “But the plays were punk. He says there are no good plays written nowadays. That is why so many companies fail.” “But you said you liked it?” “In New York,” explained Bella. “While he was rehearsing pa could get credit at Mother Grubson’s boarding house on West Forty-fourth Street. I helped her around the house. She said I was worth my keep. But Aunt Suse says I don’t