Ruth was determined to have her way, and really, after one has suffered
with a felon for a week, one is in no shape to combat the determination
of as strong a character as that of the girl of the Red Mill!
At least, so Miss True Pettis found. She bowed to Ruth's mandate, and
sat meekly in the rocking chair while that young lady bustled about,
made the toast, poached eggs, made a pot of the kind of tea the spinster
liked, and just as she liked it---- Oh, Ruth had not forgotten all her
little ways, although she had been gone so long from the seamstress's
tiny cottage here in Darrowtown.
All the time, she was as cheerful as a bluebird--and just as chatty as
one, too! She ran out and caught a neighbor's boy, and sent him
scurrying down to the sidetracked sleeping car with a note to Helen. The
rest of the crowd expected at Sunrise Farm would arrive on an early
morning train on the other road, and both parties were to meet for
breakfast at the Darrowtown Inn.
The vehicle to transport them to the farm, however, was not expected
until ten o'clock.
Therefore, Ruth insisted, she had plenty of time to fix up the house for
Miss Pettis. This she proceeded to do.
"I allus _did_ say you was the handiest youngun that ever was born in
Darrowtown," said the seamstress, with a sigh of relief, as Ruth,
enveloped in a big apron, set to work.
Ruth did more than wash dishes, and sweep, and clean, and scrub. All the
time she told Miss Pettis about her life at the Red Mill, and her life
at the boarding school, and of many and various things that had happened
to her since, two years before, she had gone away from Darrowtown to
take up her new life with Uncle Jabez.
Not that she had not frequently written to Miss Pettis; but one cannot
write the particulars that can be told when two folks are "gossiping."
Miss True Pettis had not enjoyed herself--felon and all!--so much for ages
as she did that forenoon.
And she would have a long and interesting story to tell regarding "Mary
Fielding's little girl" when again she took up her work of going out by
the day and bringing both her nimble needle and her nimble tongue into
the homes of the busy Darrowtown housewives.
On the other hand, Miss Pettis told Ruth all the news of her old home;
and although the girl from the Red Mill had no time then to call upon
any other of her one-time friends--not even Patsy Hope--she finally went
away feeling just as though she had met them all again. For little of
value escaped Miss Pettis, and she had told it all.
The Brick Church clock was striking ten when Ruth ran around the corner
and came in sight of the Darrowtown Inn. There was a crowd of girls and
boys on the porch, and before it stood a great, shiny yellow coach,
drawn by four sleek horses.
"Bobbins" himself--Madge Steele's big, white-haired brother, who attended
the military academy with Tom Cameron, was already on the coachman's
seat, holding the reins in most approved style. Beside him sat a man in
livery, it was true; but Bob himself was going to drive the
four-in-hand.
"Isn't that scrumptious, Ruth?" demanded Belle Tingley, one of those who
had arrived on the other railroad. "Where have you been all the time?
Helen was worried for fear you wouldn't get here."
"And here's Ralph!" exclaimed Ruth, heartily shaking hands with one of
Belle's brothers. "I'm all right. I used to live here in Darrowtown, you
know, and I was making calls. And here is Isadore!"
"Oh, I say, Ruth!" exclaimed the chap in knickerbockers, who was so
sharp and curious that he was always called "Busy Izzy" Phelps. "Where
have you been all the time? We were going to send a searching party
after you."
"You needn't mind, sir. I can find my way around a bit yet," laughed
Ruth.
"All ready, now!" exclaimed Bob, importantly, from the high seat. "Can't
keep these horses standing much longer."
"All right, little boy," said his sister, marshaling the girls down the
steps of the hotel. "Don't you be impatient."
"It's the horses," he complained. "See that nigh leader beginning to
dance?"
"Tangoing, I suppose?--or is it the hesitation?" laughed Lluella Fairfax.
"May anybody sit up there beside you, Mr. Bob?"
"I'm afraid not. But there's room on top of the coach for all of you, if
you'll crowd a bit."
"Me behind with the horn!" cried Tom, swinging himself up into the
little seat over the luggage rack.
"Now, girls, there are some steep places on the road," said Madge. "If
any of you feel nervous, I advise you to come inside with me."
"Ha!" ejaculated Heavy. "It's not my nerves that keep me from climbing
up on that thing--don't think it. But I'll willingly join you, Madge,"
and the springs creaked, while the girls laughed, as Heavy entered the
coach.
They were all quickly seated--the boys of course riding on the roof.
Ruth, Helen, Lluella and Belle occupied the seat directly behind the
driver. Jane Ann Hicks, who had been spending the intervening week since
school closed with Heavy, and would return to Montana after their
sojourn at Sunrise Farm, was the only other girl who ventured to ride
a-top the coach.
"All ready?" sang out Bobbins, with a backward glance.
Tom put the long silver horn to his lips and blew a blast that startled
the Darrowtown echoes, and made the frisky nigh leader prance again. Bob
curled the long lash of the yellow whip over the horses' ears, and at
the crack of it all four plunged forward.
There was a crowd to see the party off. Darrowtown had not become
familiar with the Steeles' yellow coach. In fact, there were not many
wealthy men's estates around the town as yet, and such "goings-on" as
this coaching party of girls and boys was rather startling to the staid
inhabitants of Darrowtown.
The road through the town proper was very good, and the heavy coach
wheels rolled over it smoothly. As soon as they reached the suburbs,
however, the way was rough, and the horses began to climb, for
Darrowtown was right at the foot of the hills, on the very highest of
which Sunrise Farm lay.
There were farms here and there along the way, but there was a great
deal of rough country, too. Although it was a warm day, those on top of
the coach were soon well shaded by the trees. The road wound through a
thick piece of wood, where the broad-branched trees overhung the way
and--sometimes--almost brushed the girls from their seats.
"Low bridge!" called Bobbins, now and again, and they would all squeal
and stoop while the leafy branches brushed above them.
Bobbins had been practicing a good deal, so as to have the honor of
driving his friends home from Darrowtown, and they all praised him for
being so capable.
As for Tom, he grew red in the face blowing that horn to warn the foxes
in the hills and the rabbits in the bushes that they were coming.
"You look out, Tommy!" advised Madge from below. "You'll blow yourself
all away tooting so much, and goodness knows, we don't want any accident
before luncheon. Mother is expecting all manner of things to happen to
us after we get to the farm; but I promised faithfully I'd bring you all
home to one o'clock luncheon in perfect order."
"A whole lot you've got to do with it," grunted Busy Izzy, ungallantly.
"It's Bobbins that's doing the chief work."
Three hours to Sunrise Farm, yet it was only fifteen miles. The way was
not always uphill, but the descents were as hard to get over as the
rising ground, and the coach rolled and shook a good deal over the
rougher places.
Bye and bye they began to look down into the valleys from the steeps the
horses climbed. At one place was a great horseshoe curve, around which
the four steeds rattled at a smart pace, skirting a precipice, the depth
of which made the girls shriek again.
"I never did see such a road," complained Lluella.
"We saw worse at Silver Ranch--didn't we, Ann?" demanded Ruth of the
Montana girl.
"Well, this is bad enough, I should hope," said Belle Tingley. "Lucky
there is a good brake on this coach. Where'd we be----?"
As it chanced, the coach had just pitched over the brow of another
ridge. Bob had been about to point out proudly the white walls of the
house at Sunrise Farm which surmounted the next hill.
But there had been a rain within a week, and a hard one. Right here
there was a small washout in the road, and Bob overlooked it. He did not
swerve the trotting horses quickly enough, and the nigh fore-wheel
dropping into this deep, deep rut.
It is true Bob became a little excited. He yelled "Whoa!" and yanked
back on the lines, for the nigh leader had jumped. The girls screamed as
the coach came to an abrupt stop.
The four horses were jerked back by the sudden stoppage; then,
frightened, they all leaped forward together.
"Whoa, there!" yelled Bob again, trying to hold them in. Something broke
and the nigh leader swung around until he was at right angles with his
team-mate.
The leader had snapped a tug; he forced his mate over toward the far
side of the road; and there the ground broke away, abruptly and steeply,
for many, many yards to the bottom of the hill.
There was neither fence, nor ditch, to guard passengers on the road from
catastrophe.