It was a fact that Ruth crouched back behind the log, fearful of the
wrathful farmer. He was a big, coarse, high-booted, red-faced man, and
he swung and snapped the blacksnake whip he carried as though he really
intended using the cruel instrument upon the tender body of the girl,
whose figure he had evidently seen dimly through the bushes.
"Come out 'o that!" he bawled, striding toward the log, and making the
whiplash whistle once more in the air.
Ruth leaped up, screaming with fear. "Don't you touch me, sir! Don't you
dare!" she cried, and ran around the bushes out in to the road.
The blundering farmer followed her, still snapping the whip. Perhaps he
had been drinking; at least, it was certain he was too angry to see the
girl very well until they were both in the road.
Then he halted, and added:
"I'll be whipsawed if that's the gal!"
"I am _not_ the girl--not the girl you want--poor thing!" gasped Ruth.
"Oh! you are horrid--terrible----"
"Shut up, ye little fool!" exclaimed the man, harshly. "You know where
Sade is, then, I'll be bound."
"How do you know----?"
"Ha! ye jest the same as told me," he returned, grinning suddenly and
again snapping the whip. "You can tell me where that runaway's gone."
"I don't know. Even if I did, I would not tell you, sir," declared Ruth,
recovering some of her natural courage now.
"Don't ye sass me--nor don't ye lie to me," and this time he swung the
cruel whip, until the long lash whipped around her skirts about at a
level with her knees. It did not hurt her, but Ruth cringed and shrieked
aloud again.
"Stop yer howling!" commanded Perkins. "Tell me about Sade Raby. Where's
she gone?"
"I don't know."
"Warn't she right there in them bushes with you?"
"I shan't tell you anything more," declared Ruth.
"Ye won't?"
The brute swung the blacksnake--this time in earnest. It cracked, and
then the snapper laid along the girl's forearm as though it were seared
with a hot iron.
Ruth shrieked again. The pain was more than she could bear in silence.
She turned to flee up the Cedar Walk, but Perkins shouted at her to
stand.
"You try ter run, my beauty, and I'll cut ye worse than that," he
promised. "You tell me about Sade Raby."
Suddenly there came a hail, and Ruth turned in hope of assistance. Old
Dolliver's stage came tearing along the road, his bony horses at a
hand-gallop. The old man, whom the girls of Briarwood Hall called "Uncle
Noah," brought his horses--and the Ark--to a sudden halt.
"What yer doin' to that gal, Sim Perkins?" the old man demanded.
"What's that to you, Dolliver?"
"You'll find out mighty quick. Git out o' here or you'll git into
trouble. Did he hurt you, Miss Ruth?"
"No-o--not much," stammered Ruth, who desired nothing so much as to get
way from the awful Mr. Perkins. Poor Sadie Raby! No wonder she had been
forced to run away from "them Perkinses."
"I'll see you jailed yet, Sim, for some of your meanness," said the old
stage driver. "And you'll git there quick if you bother Mis'
Tellingham's gals----"
"I didn't know she was one 'o them tony school gals," growled Perkins,
getting aboard his wagon again.
"Well, she is--an' one 'o the best of the lot," said Dolliver, and he
smiled comfortably at Ruth.
"Huh! whad-she wanter be in comp'ny of that brat 'o mine, then?"
demanded Perkins, gathering up his reins.
"Oh! are you hunting that orphanage gal ye took to raise? I heard she
couldn't stand you and Ma Perkins no longer," Dolliver said, with
sarcasm.
"Never you mind. I'll git her," said Perkins, and whipped up his horses.
"Oh, dear, me!" cried Ruth, when he had gone. "What a terrible man, Mr.
Dolliver."
"Yah!" scoffed the old driver. "Jest a bag of wind. Mean as can be, but
a big coward. Meanes' folks around here, them Perkinses air."
"But why were they allowed to have that poor girl, then?" demanded Ruth.
"They went a-fur off to git her. Clean to Harburg. Nobody knowed 'em
there, I s'pose. Why, Ma Perkins kin act like butter wouldn't melt in
her mouth, if she wants to. But I sartainly am sorry for that poor
little Sade Raby, as they call her."
"Oh! I do pity her so," said Ruth, sadly.
The old man's eyes twinkled. Old Dolliver was sly! "Then ye _do_ know
suthin' about Sade--jes' as Perkins said?"
"She was here just now. I gave her something to eat--and a little money.
You won't tell, Mr. Dolliver?"
"Huh! No. But dunno's ye'd oughter helped a runaway. That's agin' the
law, ye see."
"Would the law give that poor girl back to those ugly people?"
"I s'pect so," said Dolliver, scratching his head. "Ye see, Sim Perkins
an' his wife air folks ye can't really go agin'--not _much_. Sim owns a
good farm, an' pays his taxes, an' ain't a bad neighbor. But they've had
trouble before naow with orphans. But before, 'twas boys."
"I just hope they all ran away!" cried Ruth, with emphasis.
"Wal--they did, by golly!" ejaculated the stage driver, preparing to
drive on.
"And if you see this poor girl, you won't tell anybody, will you, Mr.
Dolliver?" pleaded Ruth.
"I jes' sha'n't see her," said the man, his little eyes twinkling. "But
you take my advice, Miss Fielding--don't _you_ see her, nuther!"
Ruth ran back to the school then--it was time. She could not think of her
lessons properly because of her pity for Sadie Raby. Suppose that horrid
man should find the poor girl!
Every time Ruth saw the red welt on her arm, where the whiplash had
touched her, she wondered how many times Perkins had lashed Sadie when
he was angry. It was a dreadful thought.
Although she had promised Sadie to keep her secret, Ruth wondered if she
might not do the girl some good by telling Mrs. Tellingham about her.
Ruth was not afraid of the dignified principal of Briarwood Hall--she
knew too well Mrs. Grace Tellingham's good heart.
She determined at least that if Sadie appeared at the end of the Cedar
Walk the next day she would try to get the runaway girl to go with her
to the principal's office. Surely the girl should not run wild in the
woods and live any way and how she could--especially so early in the
season, for there was still frost at night.
When Ruth ran down the long walk between the cedar trees the next
forenoon at ten, there was nobody peering through the bushes where Sadie
Raby had watched the day before. Ruth went up and down the road, into
the woods a little way, too--and called, and called. No reply. Nothing
answered but a chattering squirrel and a jay who seemed to object to any
human being disturbing the usual tenor of the woods' life thereabout.
"Perhaps she'll come this afternoon," thought Ruth, and she hid the
package of food she had brought, and went back to her classes.
In the afternoon she had no better luck. The runaway did not appear. The
food had not been touched. Ruth left the packet, hoping sadly that the
girl might find it.
The next morning she went again. She even got up an hour earlier than
usual and slipped out ahead of the other girls. The food had been
disturbed--oh, yes! But by a dog or some "varmint." Sadie had not been to
the rendezvous.
Hoping against hope, Ruth Fielding tacked a note in an envelope to the
log on which she and Sadie had sat side by side. That was all she could
do, save to go each day for a time to see if the strange girl had found
the note.
There came a rain and the letter was turned to pulp. Then Ruth Fielding
gave up hope of ever seeing Sadie Raby again. Old Dolliver told her that
the orphan had never returned to "them Perkinses." For this Ruth might
be thankful, if for nothing more.
The busy days and weeks passed. All the girls of Ruth's clique were
writing back and forth to their homes to arrange for the visit they
expected to make to Madge Steele's summer home--Sunrise Farm. The senior
was forever singing the praises of her father's new acquisition. Mr.
Steele had closed contracts to buy several of the neighboring farms, so
that, altogether, he hoped to have more than a thousand acres in his
estate.
"And, don't you _dare_ disappoint me, Ruthie Fielding," cried Madge,
shaking her playfully. "We won't have any good time without you, and you
haven't said you'd go yet!"
"But I can't say so until I know myself," Ruth told her. "Uncle Jabez----"
"That uncle of yours must be a regular ogre, just as Helen says."
"What does Mercy say about him?" asked Ruth, with a quiet smile. "Mercy
knows him fully as well, and she has a sharp tongue."
"Humph! that's odd, too. She doesn't seem to think your Uncle Jabez is a
very harsh man. She calls him 'Dusty Miller,' I know."
"Uncle Jabez has a prickly rind, I guess," said Ruth. "But the meat
inside is sweet. Only he's old-fashioned and he can't get used to
new-fashioned ways. He doesn't see any reason for my 'traipsing around'
so much. I ought to be at the mill between schooltimes, helping Aunt
Alvirah--so he says. And I am afraid he is right. I feel condemned----"
"You're too tender-hearted. Helen says he's as rich as can be and might
hire a dozen girls to help 'Aunt Alviry'."
"He might, but he wouldn't," returned Ruth, smiling. "I can't tell you
yet for sure that I can go to Sunrise Farm. I'd love to. I've always
heard 'twas a beautiful place."
"And it is, indeed! It's going to be the finest gentleman's estate in
that section, when father gets through with it. He's going to make it a
great, big, paying farm--so he says. If it wasn't for that man Caslon,
we'd own the whole hill all the way around, as well as the top of it."
"Who's that?" asked Ruth, surprised that Madge should speak so sharply
about the unknown Caslon.
"Why, he owns one of the farms adjoining. Father's bought all the
neighbors up but Caslon. _He_ won't sell. But I reckon father will find
a way to make him, before he gets through. Father usually carries his
point," added Madge, with much pride in Mr. Steele's business acumen.
Uncle Jabez had not yet said Ruth could go with the crowd to the
Steeles' summer home; Aunt Alvirah wrote that he was "studyin' about
it." But there was so much to do at Briarwood as the end of the school
year approached, that the girl of the Red Mill had little time to worry
about the subject.
Although Ruth and Helen Cameron were far from graduation themselves,
they both had parts of some prominence in the exercises which were to
close the year at Briarwood Hall. Ruth was in a quartette selected from
the Glee Club for some special music, and Helen had a small violin solo
part in one of the orchestral numbers.
Not many of the juniors, unless they belonged to either the school
orchestra or the Glee Club, would appear to much advantage at
graduation. The upper senior class was in the limelight--and Madge Steele
was the only one of Ruth's close friends who was to receive her diploma.
"We who aren't seniors have to sit around like bumps on a log," growled
Heavy. "Might as well go home for good the day before."
"You should have learned to play, or sing, or something," advised one of
the other girls, laughing at Heavy's apparently woebegone face.
"Did you ever hear me try to sing, Lluella?" demanded the plump young
lady. "I like music myself--I'm very fond of it, no matter how it sounds!
But I can't even stand my own chest-tones."
Preparations for the great day went on apace. There was to be a
professional director for the augmented orchestra and he insisted,
because of the acoustics of the hall, upon building an elevated
extension to the stage, upon which to stand to conduct the music.
"Gee!" gasped Heavy, when she saw it the first time. "What's the
diving-board for?"
"That's not a diving-board," snapped Mercy Curtis. "It's the lookout
station for the captain to watch the high C's."
The bustle and confusion of departure punctuated the final day of the
term, too. There were so many girls to say good-bye to for the summer;
and some, of course, would never come back to Briarwood Hall again--as
scholars, at least.
In the midst of the excitement Ruth received a letter in the crabbed
hand of dear old Aunt Alvirah. The old lady enclosed a small money
order, fearing that Ruth might not have all the money she needed for her
home-coming. But the best item in the letter beside the expression of
Aunt Alvirah's love, was the statement that "Your Uncle Jabe, he's come
round to agreeing you should go to that Sunrise Farm place with your
young friends. I made him let me hire a tramping girl that came by, and
we got the house all rid up, so when you come home, my pretty, all you
got to do is to visit."
"And I _will_ visit with her--the unselfish old dear!" Ruth told herself.
"Dear me! how very, very good everybody is to me. But I am afraid poor
Uncle Jabez wouldn't be so kind if he wasn't influenced by Aunt
Alvirah."