THE HERMIT
"Now, tell me, Miss Ruth," said Mr. Hammond, having taken the girl of the
Red Mill into his own car for the short run to Beach Plum Point, "what is
this trouble about your new scenario? You have excited my curiosity during
all these months about the wonderful script, and now you say it is not
ready for me."
"Oh, Mr. Hammond!" exclaimed Ruth, "I fear it will never be ready for
you."
"Nonsense! Don't lose heart. You have merely come to one of those
thank-you-ma'ams in story writing that all authors suffer. Wait. It will
come to you."
"No, no!" sighed Ruth. "It is nothing like that. I had finished the
scenario. I had it all just about as I wanted it, and then----"
"Then what?" he asked in wonder at her emotion.
"It--it was stolen!"
"Stolen?"
"Yes. And all my notes--everything! I--I can't talk about it. And I never
could write it again," sobbed Ruth. "It is the best thing I ever did, Mr.
Hammond."
"If it is better than 'The Heart of a Schoolgirl', or 'The Forty-Niners',
or 'The Boys of the Draft', then it must be some scenario, Miss Ruth. The
last two are still going strong, you know. And I have hopes of the
'Seaside Idyl' catching the public fancy just when we are all getting
rather weary of war dramas.
"If you can only rewrite this new story----"
"But Mr. Hammond! I am sure it has been stolen by somebody who will make
use of it. Some other producer may put it on the screen, and then my
version would fall flat--if no worse."
"Humph! And you have been so secret about it!"
"I took your advice, Mr. Hammond. I have told nobody about it--not a
thing!"
"And somebody unknown stole it?"
"We think it was a vagrant actor. A tramp. Just the sort of person,
though, who would know how to make use of the script."
"Humph! All actors were considered 'vagrants' under the old English
law--in Shakespeare's younger days, for instance," remarked Mr. Hammond.
"You see how unwise it would be for me to try to rewrite the story--even
if I could--and try to screen it."
"I presume you are right. Yes. But I hoped you would bring a story with
you that we could be working on at odd times. I have a good all-around
company here on the lot."
"I had most of your principals in mind when I wrote my scenario," sighed
Ruth. "But I could not put my mind to that same subject now. I am
discouraged, Mr. Hammond."
"I would not feel that way if I were you, Miss Ruth," he advised, trying,
as everybody else did, to cheer her. "You will get another good idea, and
like all other born writers, you will just _have_ to give expression to
it. Meantime, of course, if I get hold of a promising scenario, I shall
try to produce it."
"I hope you will find a good one, Mr. Hammond."
He smiled rather ruefully. "Of course, there is scarcely anybody on the
lot who hasn't a picture play in his or her pocket. I was possibly unwise
last week to offer five hundred dollars spot cash for a play I could make
use of, for now I suppose there will be fifty to read. Everybody, from
Jacks, the property man, to the old hermit, believes he can write a
scenario."
"Who is the hermit?" asked Ruth, with some curiosity.
"I don't know. Nobody seems to know who he is about Herringport. He was
living in an old fish-house down on the Point when we came here last week
with the full strength of the company. And I have made use of the old
fellow in your 'Seaside Idyl'.
"He seems to be a queer duck. But he has some idea of the art of acting,
it seems. Director Jim Hooley is delighted with him. But they tell me the
old fellow is scribbling all night in his hut. The scenario bug has
certainly bit that old codger. He's out for my five hundred dollars," and
the producing manager laughed again.
"I hope you get a good script," said Ruth earnestly. "But don't ask me to
read any of them, Mr. Hammond. It does seem as though I never wanted to
look at a scenario again!"
"Then you are going to miss some amusement in this case," he chuckled.
"Why so?"
"I tell you frankly I do not expect much from even those professional
actors. It was my experience even before I went into the motion picture
business that plays submitted by actors were always full of all the old
stuff--all the old theatrical tricks and the like. Actors are the most
insular people in existence, I believe. They know how plays should be
written to fulfill the tenets of the profession; but invention is
'something else again'."
The young people who had motored so far were welcomed by many of Mr.
Hammond's company who had acted in "The Forty-Niners" and had met Ruth and
her friends in the West, as related in "Ruth Fielding in the Saddle."
The shacks that had been built especially for the company's use were
comfortable, even if they did smell of new pine boards. The men of the
company lived in khaki tents. There were several old fish-houses that were
likewise being utilized by the members of the company.
Beach Plum Point was the easterly barrier of sand and rock that defended
the beautiful harbor from the Atlantic breakers. It was a wind-blown
place, and the moan of the surf on the outer reef was continually in the
ears of the campers on the Point.
The tang of salt in the air could always be tasted on the lips when one
was out of doors. And the younger folks were out on the sands most of the
time when they were not working, sleeping, or eating.
"We are going to have some fun here," promised Tom Cameron to Ruth, after
their party had got established with its baggage. "See that hard strip of
beach? That's no clamflat. I am going to race my car on that sand. Palm
Beach has nothing on this. Jackman, the property man (you remember Jacks,
don't you, Ruth?), says the blackfish and bass are biting off the Point.
You girls can act in movies if you like, but _I_ am going fishing."
"Don't talk movies to me," sighed the girl. "I almost wish we had not
come, Tom."
"Nonsense! You shall go fishing with me. Put on your oldest duds
and--well, maybe you will have to strip off your shoes and stockings. It
is both wet and slippery on the rocks."
"Pooh! I'll put on my bathing suit and a sweater. I never was afraid of
water yet," Ruth declared.
This was the morning after their arrival. Tom had been up to the port and
brought down Aunt Kate for the day. Aunt Kate sat under an umbrella near
where the company was working on location, and she scribbled all day in a
notebook. Jennie whispered that she, too, was bitten by the scenario bug!
"I feel it coming over me," announced Helen. "I've got what I think is a
dandy idea."
"Oh, there's too much to do," Jennie Stone said. "I couldn't find time to
dabble in literature."
"My, oh, my!" gasped Helen, with scorn. "How busy we are! You and Henri
spend all your time making eyes at each other."
"But just think, Nell!" cried the plump girl. "He's got to go back to
France and fight----"
"And so has my Tom."
"But Tom is only your brother."
"And Henri is nothing at all to you," rejoined Helen cruelly. "A fiance is
only an expectation. You may change your mind about Henri."
"Never!" cried Jennie, with horror.
"Well, he keeps you busy, I grant. And there go Tom and Ruth mooning off
together with fish lines. Lots of fishing _they_ will do! They are almost
as bad as you and Henri. Why!" ejaculated Helen in some heat, "I am just
driven to writing scenarios to keep from dying of loneliness."
"I notice that 'juvenile lead,' Mr. Simmons, is keeping you quite busy,"
remarked Jennie slyly, as she turned away.
It was a fact that Ruth and Tom enjoyed each others' company. But Helen
need not have been even a wee bit jealous. To tell the truth, she did not
like to "get all mussed up," as she expressed it, by going fishing. To
Ruth the adventure was a glad relief from worriment. Much as she tried,
she could not throw off all thought of her lost scenario.
She welcomed every incident that promised amusement and mental relaxation.
Some of the troupe of actors--the men, mostly--were bathing off the
Point.
"And see that man in the old skiff!" cried Ruth. "'The Lone Fisherman'."
The individual in question sat upon a common kitchen chair in the skiff
with a big, patched umbrella to keep the sun off, and was fishing with a
pole that he had evidently cut in the woods along the shore.
"That is that hermit fellow," said Tom. "He's a queer duck. And the boys
bother him a good deal."
He was angrily driving some of the swimmers away from his fishing location
at that moment. It was plain the members of the moving picture company
used the hermit as a butt for their jokes.
While one fellow was taking up the hermit's attention in front, another
bather rose silently behind him and reached into the bottom of the skiff.
What this second fellow did Tom and Ruth could not see.
"The old chap can't swim a stroke," explained one of the laughing bathers
to the visitors. "He's as afraid of water as a cat. Now you watch."
But Tom and Ruth saw nothing to watch. They went on to the tip of the
Point and Tom prepared the fishing tackle and baited the hooks. Just as
Ruth made her first cast there sounded a scream from the direction of the
lone fisherman.
"What is it?" she gasped, dropping her pole.
The bathers had deserted the old man in the skiff, and were now at some
distance. He was anchored in probably twenty feet of water.
To the amazement of Ruth and her companion, the skiff had sunk until its
gunwales were scarcely visible. The hermit had wrenched away his umbrella
and was now balanced upon the chair on his feet, in danger of sinking. His
fear of this catastrophe was being expressed in unstinted terms.