CHAPTER VI--SEEKING THE TRAIL
"I might have known that! I might have known it!" Ruth exclaimed whenshe heard this. "And if I'd only written you or Uncle Jabez about her,maybe you would have kept her till I came. I wanted to help that girl,"and Ruth all but shed tears.
"Deary, deary me!" cried Aunt Alvirah. "Tell me all about it, mypretty."
So Ruth related all she knew about the half-wild girl whose acquaintanceshe had made at Briarwood Hall under such peculiar circumstances. Andshe told just how Sadie looked and all about her.
"Yes," agreed Aunt Alvirah. "That was the trampin' gal sure enough. Shewas honest, jest as you say. But your uncle had his doubts. However, shelooked better when she went away from here."
"I'm glad of that," Ruth said, heartily.
"You know one o' them old dresses of yours you wore to Miss Cramp'sschool--the one Helen give you?" said old Aunt Alvirah, hesitatingly.
"Yes, indeed!" said Ruth. "And how badly I felt when the girls found outthey were 'hand-me-downs.' I'll never forget them."
"One of them I fitted to that poor child," said Aunt Alvirah. "The poor,skinny little thing. I wisht I could ha' kep' her long enough to putsome flesh on her bones."
Ruth hugged the little old woman. "You're a dear, Aunty! I bet you fixedher up nice before she went away."
"Wal, she didn't look quite sech a tatterdemalion," granted AuntAlvirah. "But I was sorry for her. I am allus sorry for any young thingthat's strayin' about without a home or a mother. But natcherly Jabezwouldn't hear to keepin' her after the cleanin' was done. It's his_nearness_, Ruthie; he can't help it. Some men chew tobacco, and yourUncle Jabez is _close_. It's their nater. I'd ruther have a stingy manabout, than a tobacco chewin' man--yes, indeed I had!"
Ruth laughed and agreed with her. Yet she was very sorry that SadieRaby, "the tramping girl," had been allowed to move on without those atthe Red Mill, who had sheltered her, discovering her destination.
She learned that Sadie had gone to Cheslow--at least, in thatdirection--and when Helen came spinning along in one of her father's carsfrom Outlook that afternoon, and wanted to take Ruth for a drive, thelatter begged to ride "Cheslowward."
"Besides, we both want to see Dr. Davison--and there's Mercy's mother.And Miss Cramp will be glad to see me, I know; we'll wait till herschool is out," Ruth suggested.
"You're boss," declared her chum. "And paying calls 'all by ourlonesomes' will be fun enough. Tom's deserted me. He's gone trampingwith Reno over toward the Wilkins Corner road--you know, that place wherehe was hurt that time, and you and Reno found him," Helen concluded.
This was "harking back" to the very first night Ruth had arrived atCheslow from her old home at Darrowtown. But she was not likely toforget it, for through that accident of Master Tom Cameron's, she hadmet this very dear friend beside her now in the automobile.
"Oh, dear me! and the fun we used to have when we were littlegirls--'member, Ruthie?" demanded Helen, laughing. "My! isn't it warm? Ismy face shiny?"
"Just a little," admitted Ruth.
"Never can keep the shine off," said Helen, bitterly. "Here! you takethe wheel and let me find my powder-paper. Tom says he believes I smokecigarettes and roll them myself," and Helen giggled.
Ruth carefully changed seats with her chum, who immediately produced thebooklet of slips from her vanity case and rubbed the offending nosevigorously.
"Have a care, Helen! you'll make it all red," urged Ruth, laughing. "You_do_ go at everything so excitedly. Anybody would think you were gratinga nutmeg."
"Horrid thing! My nose doesn't look at all like a nutmeg."
"But it will--if you don't look out," laughed Ruth. "Oh, dear, me! herecomes a big wagon. Do you suppose I can get by it safely?"
"If he gives you any room. There! he has begun to turn out. Now, justskim around him."
Ruth was careful and slowed down. This did not suit the fly-away Helen."Come on!" she urged. "We'll never even get to the old doctor's house ifyou don't hurry."
She began to manipulate the levers herself and soon they were shootingalong the Cheslow road at a speed that made Ruth's eyes water.
They came safely to the house with the green lamps before it, and ran ingaily to see their friend, Dr. Davison. For the moment the good oldgentleman chanced to be busy and waved them into the back office to waituntil he was free.
Old Mammy, who presided over the doctor's old-fashioned establishment,had spied the girls and almost immediately the tinkling of ice in apitcher announced the approach of one of Mammy's pickaninnygrandchildren with a supply of her famous lemonade and a plate of cakes.
"Mammy said you done git hungery waitin'," declared the grinning,kinky-haired child who presented herself with the refreshments. "An' adrink on one o' dese yere dusty days is allus welcome, misses."
Then she giggled, and darted away to the lower regions of the house,leaving the two chums to enjoy the goodies. Helen was cheerfullycurious, and had to go looking about the big office, peeking into thebookcases, looking at the "specimens" in bottles along the shelf, tryingto spell out and understand the Latin labels on the jars of drugs.
"Miss Nosey!" whispered Ruth, admonishingly.
"There you go! hitting my nose again," sighed Helen. And then she jumpedback and almost screamed. For in fooling with the knob of a narrowcloset door, it had snapped open, the door swung outward, and Helenfound herself facing an articulated skeleton!
"Goodness gracious me!" exclaimed Helen.
"Oh, no," giggled Ruth. "It's not you at all. It's somebody else."
"Funny!" scoffed Helen. Then she laughed, too. "It's somebody thedoctor's awfully choice of. Do you suppose it was his first patient?"
"Hush! Suppose he heard you?"
"He'd laugh," returned Helen, knowing the kindly old physician too wellto be afraid of him in any case. "Now, behave! Don't say a word. I'mgoing to dress him up."
"What?" gasped Ruth.
"You'll see," said the daring Helen, and she seized an old hat of thedoctor's from the top of the bookcase and set it jauntily upon thegrinning skull.
"My goodness! doesn't he look terrible that way? Oh! I'll shut the door.He wiggles all over--_just as though he were alive_!"
Just then they heard the doctor bidding his caller good-bye, or Helenmight have done some other ridiculous thing. The old gentleman came in,rubbing his hands, and with his eyes twinkling. He was a man who hadnever really grown old, and he liked to hear the girls tell of theirschool experiences, chuckling over their scrapes and antics with muchdelight.
"And how has my Goody Two-sticks gotten along this year?" he asked, forhe was much interested in Mercy Curtis and her improvement, bothphysically and mentally. Had it not been for the doctor, Mercy mightnever have gotten out of her wheelchair, or gone to Briarwood Hall.
"She's going to beat us all," Helen declared, with enthusiasm. "Isn'tshe, Ruth?"
"She will if we don't work pretty hard," admitted the girl of the RedMill, who was hoping herself to be finally among the first few membersof her class at the Hall. "But I would rather see Mercy win first place,I believe, than anybody else--unless it is you, Helen."
"Don't you fret," laughed Helen. "You'll never see little me at the headof the class--and you know it."
The two friends did not bore the physician by staying too long, butafter he bade them good-bye at the door, Helen ran down the pathgiggling.
"What do you suppose he'll say when he finds that hat on the skeleton?"she demanded, her eyes dancing.
"He'll say, 'That Helen Cameron was in here--that explains it!' You can'tfool Dr. Davison," laughed Ruth.
Ruth had taken Helen into her confidence ere this about the strangerunaway, Sadie Raby, and during their call at the doctor's, she hadasked that gentleman if he had seen the tramping girl, after the latterhad left the Red Mill. But he had not. Oddly enough, however, Ruth foundsome trace of Sadie at Mercy's house, where the girls in the automobilenext went to call.
Mercy's mother had taken the
girl in for a night, and fed her. Thelatter had asked Mr. Curtis about the trains going west, but he had soldSadie no ticket.
"She was very reticent," Mrs. Curtis told Ruth. "She was so independentand capable-acting, in spite of her tender years, that I did not feel asthough it was my place to try to stop her. She seemed to have somedestination in view, but she would not tell me what it was."
"I wonder if that wasn't what Aunt Alvirah meant?" queried Ruth,thoughtfully, as she and Helen drove away. "That Sadie is awfullyindependent. I wish you had seen her."
"Maybe she's going to find her twin brothers that she told you about,"suggested Helen. "I wish I _had_ seen her."
"And maybe you've guessed it!" cried Ruth. "But that doesn't help usfind _her_, for she didn't say where Willie and Dickie had been takenwhen they were removed from the orphanage."
"Gracious, Ruthie!" exclaimed her chum, laughing. "You're alwaysworrying over somebody else's troubles."
Ruth Fielding At Sunrise Farm; Or, What Became of the Raby Orphans Page 7
