RUTH SOLVES ONE PROBLEM
Had Ruth Fielding been confronted with the question: "Did she expect to
find a clue to the identity of the person who had stolen her scenario
before she left the Red Mill?" she could have made no confident answer.
She did not know what she would find when she sat down at Mr. Hammond's
desk for the purpose of looking over the submitted stories.
Doubt and suspicion, however, enthralled her mind. She was both curious
and anxious.
Ruth had no particular desire to read the manuscripts. In any case she did
not presume Mr. Hammond desired her advice about selecting a script for
filming.
She skimmed through the first story. It had not a thing in it that would
suggest in the faintest way any familiarity of the author with her own
lost scenario.
For two hours she fastened her attention upon one after another of the
scenarios, often by main will-power, because of the utter lack of
interest in the stories the writers had tried to put over.
Without being at all egotistical, Ruth Fielding felt confident that had
any one of these scenario writers come into possession of her lost script,
and been dishonest enough to use it, he would have turned out a much
better story.
But not a trace of her original idea and its development was to be found
in these manuscripts. Her suspicion had been needlessly roused.
Ruth could not deny that the scrap of paper found in the sand was quite as
mysterious as ever. The quotation on it seemed to be taken directly from
her own scenario. But there was absolutely nothing in this pile of
manuscripts to justify her suspicions.
She was just as dissatisfied after scanning all the submitted scenarios as
Mr. Hammond seemed to be with the day's work when the company came back
from Herringport in the late afternoon.
"I suppose it is a sanguine disposition that keeps me at this game, Miss
Ruth," he sighed. "I always expect much more than I can possibly get out
of a situation; and when I fail I go on hoping just the same."
"I am sure that is a commendable disposition to possess," she laughed.
"What has gone so wrong?"
"It is the old story of leading the horse to water, and the inability of
making him drink. This is a balky horse, and no mistake!"
"Do tell me what you mean, Mr. Hammond?"
"Why, I told you we had got what the ladies call 'perfectly lovely' types
for that scene to-day. You ought to see them, Miss Ruth! You would be
charmed. Just what the dear public expects a back-country sewing circle
should look like."
"Oh!"
"And they all promised to be on hand at the location--and they were. I
have had my experiences with amateurs before. I had begged the ladies to
dress just as they would were they going to an actual meeting of their
sewing society----"
"And they all dressed up?" laughed Ruth, clasping her hands.
"Well, that I expected to contend with. And most of them even in their
best bib and tucker were not out of the picture. Not at all! That was not
the main difficulty and the one that has spoiled our day's work."
"Indeed?"
"I am afraid Jim Hooley will have to fake the whole scene after all,"
continued the manager. "Those women came all dressed up 'to have their
pictures took,' it is true. But the worst of it is, they could not be
natural. It was impossible. They showed in every move and every glance
that they were sitting with a bunch of actors and were not at all sure
that what they were doing was altogether the right thing.
"We worked over them as though it were a 'mob scene' and there were five
hundred in it instead of twenty. But twenty wooden dummies would have
filmed no more unnaturally. You know, in your story, they are supposed to
be discussing the bit of gossip about your heroine's elopement with the
schoolteacher. I could not work up a mite of enthusiasm in their minds
about such a topic."
Ruth laughed. But she saw that the matter was really serious for Mr.
Hammond and the director. She became sympathetic.
"I fancy that if they had had a real scandal to discuss," she observed,
"their faces would have registered more poignant interest."
"'Poignant interest'!" scoffed the manager in disgust. "If these
Herringport tabbies had the toothache they would register only polite
anguish--in public. They are the most insular and self-contained and
self-suppressed women I ever saw. These Down-Easters! They could walk over
fiery ploughshares and only wanly smile----"
Ruth went off into a gale of laughter at this. Mr. Hammond was a Westerner
by birth, and he found the Yankee character as hard to understand as did
Henri Marchand.
"Have you quite given up hope, Mr. Hammond?" Ruth asked.
"Well, we'll try again to-morrow. Oh, they promised to come again! They
are cutting out rompers, or flannel undervests, I suppose, for the South
Sea Island children; or something like that. They are interested in that
job, no doubt.
"I wanted them to 'let go all holts,' as these fishermen say, and be eager
and excited. They are about as eager as they would be doing their washing,
or cleaning house--if as much!" and Mr. Hammond's disappointment became
too deep for further audible expression.
Ruth suddenly awoke to the fact that one of her best scenes in the
"Seaside Idyl" was likely to be spoiled. She talked with Mr. Hooley about
it, and when the day's run was developed and run off in one of the shacks
which was used for a try-out room, Ruth saw that the manager had not put
the matter too strongly. The sewing circle scene lacked all that snap and
go needed to make it a realistic piece of action.
Of course, there were enough character actors in the company to use in the
scene; but naturally an actor caricatures such parts as were called for in
this scene. The professional would be likely to make the characters seem
grotesque. That was not the aim of the story.
"I thought you were not going to take any interest in this 'Seaside Idyl,'
at all," suggested Helen, when Ruth was talking about the failure of the
scene after supper that night.
"I can't help it. My reputation as a scenario writer is at stake, just as
much as is Mr. Hooley's reputation as director," Ruth said, smiling. "I
really didn't mean to have a thing to do with the old picture. But I can
see that somebody has got to put a breath of naturalness into those
ladies' aid society women, or this part of the picture will be a fizzle."
"And our Ruth," drawled Jennie, "is going to prescribe one of her famous
cure-alls, is she?"
"I believe I can make them look less like a lot of dummies while they are
cutting out rompers for cannibal island pickaninnies," laughed Ruth. "Tom,
I am going to the port with you the first thing in the morning."
"By all means," said Captain Cameron. "I am yours to command."
Her newly aroused interest in the scenario at present being filmed, was a
good thing for Ruth Fielding. Having found nothing at all in the submitted
stories that suggested her own lost story, the girl of the Red Mill tried
to put aside again the thing that so troubled her mind. And this new
interest helped.
In the morning before breakfast she and Tom ran over to the port in the
maroon roadster. While they were having breakfast at the inn, Ruth asked
the waitress, who was a native of this part of the country, about the
Union Church and some of the more intimate life-details of the members of
its congregation.
It is not hard to uncover neighborhood gossip of a kind not altogether
unkindly in any similar community. The Union Church had a new minister,
and he was young. He was now away on his vacation, and more than one local
beauty and her match-making mamma would have palpitation of the heart
before he returned for fear that the young clergyman would have his heart
interests entangled by some designing "foreigner."
Tom had no idea as to what Ruth Fielding was getting at through this
questioning of the beaming Hebe who waited on them at breakfast. And he
was quite as much in the dark as to his friend's motive when Ruth
announced their first visit to be to the office of the Herringport
_Harpoon_, the local news sheet.