"What shall we do about it?" asked Helen.
"Do about what, dear?"
"You know very well, Ruthie Fielding! You saw him as well as I did,"
Helen declared.
They were riding slowly back to the Big House after their visit to the
river side, and Helen reined her horse close in beside her chum's mount.
"I know what you mean," admitted Ruth, placidly. "Do you think it is
necessary for us to say anything--especially where others might hear?"
"But that's Curly!" whispered Helen, fiercely.
"I am sure of it."
"And did you see how he looked? Why, the boy is in rags. He even looks
much worse than when we last saw him--when he saved me from that deer at
Norfolk," and Helen began to giggle at the recollection.
"Something has happened to poor Curly since then," said Ruth, with a
sigh. "I guess he has found out that it is not so much fun to run away
as he thought."
"The man said he was starving," sighed Helen.
"He certainly must have been having a hard time," Ruth returned. "I'll
write to his grandmother again. Her answer to my letter written at Old
Point Comfort has not arrived yet; but I think she ought to know that we
have found Curly again."
"And tell her he is ragged and hungry. Maybe it will touch her heart,"
begged Helen. "But we ought to do something for him, Ruth."
"Maybe."
"Of course we should. Why not?"
"It might scare him away if he knew that anybody here had recognized
him. It is such a coincidence that he should come right here to this
Merredith plantation," Ruth said. "What do you suppose it means? Could
he have known that we were coming here, and is he trying to find us?"
"Oh, Ruth! He'd know we would help him, wouldn't he?"
"I didn't think that Curly was the sort of boy to hunt up girl's help in
any case," laughed Ruth.
"Don't laugh! it seems so cruel. Hungry!" breathed Helen.
"The boy is learning something," her chum said, with decision. "Now that
he is really away from his grandmother, I hope this will teach him a
lesson. I don't want any harm to come to Curly Smith; but if he learns
that his home is better than a loose life among strangers, it will be a
good thing."
"Why, Ruth!" gasped Helen. "You talk just as though the police were not
looking for him."
"Hush! we won't tell everybody that," advised Ruth. "Probably they will
never discover him here, in any case. His crime is not so great in the
eyes of the law."
"I don't believe he ever did it!" cried Helen.
"Neither do I. It seems to me," Ruth said gravely, "that if he had
helped those men commit the robbery, he would have gone away from
Lumberton with them."
"That is so!"
"And he shows that he has no criminal friends, or he would not come so
far--and all alone. Nor would he have been so forlorn and hungry, if he
was willing to steal."
Ruth wrote her letter, as she promised; and she thought a good deal
about the boy they had seen at the cotton warehouse. Suppose Curly Smith
should take up his wanderings from this place? Suppose the warehouseman,
Mr. Jimson, should discharge him? The man had spoken in rather an
unfeeling way of the "little, hungry Yank," and Ruth did not know how
good at heart the lanky, chin-whiskered man was.
She determined to do something to make it reasonably sure that Curly
would remain on the Merredith plantation until she could hear from his
grandmother. Possibly the trouble in Lumberton might be settled. If the
railroad had not lost much money--provided it was really proved that
Curly had recklessly helped the thieves--the matter might be straightened
out if Mrs. Sadoc Smith would refund a portion of the money lost.
And by this time Ruth believed the boy's grandmother might be willing to
do just that. It was very natural for her to announce in the first flush
of her anger and shame, that she would have nothing more to do with her
grandson, but Ruth was quite sure she loved him devotedly, and that her
heart would soon be yearning for his graceless self.
Besides, when Mrs. Smith read the letter Ruth wrote, she would know that
the wandering boy was in trouble and in poverty. As Helen begged her,
Ruth had written these facts "strong." She had made out Curly's case to
be as pitiful as possible, and she hoped for results from Lumberton.
Suppose, however, if a forgiving letter came from Mrs. Sadoc Smith,
Curly could not then be found at the warehouse on the river side? Ruth
thought of this during the heat of the day, when the family at the Big
House rested. That siesta after luncheon seemed necessary here, in the
warm, moist climate of the river-lands. Ruth awoke about three o'clock,
with an idea for action in Curly Smith's case. She slipped out of the
room without disturbing Helen.
Running downstairs she found that nobody had yet descended. Two of the
liveried men rose yawning from the mahogany settees in the hall. A
downstairs girl dozed with her head on her arms on the center table in
one reception room.
"The castle of the Sleeping Beauty," murmured Ruth, smiling, and without
speaking to any of the house servants, she ran out.
She knew the way to the stables and there were signs of life there. Two
or three of the grooms were currying horses in the yard, and idly
talking and laughing. One of them threw down the currycomb and brush and
ran immediately to Ruth as she appeared at the bars.
Ruth recognized him as the boy who had held her horse while she mounted
that morning, and she suspected immediately that he had been instructed
to be at her beck and call if she expressed any desire for a mount. She
asked him if that was so.
"Yes, ma'am. Patrick Henry say fo' me t' 'tend yo' if yo' rode."
"Can I ride out any time?" asked the girl.
He grinned at her widely. "Sho' kin, ma'am," he said. "Dat little bay
mare wid de scah on her hip, she at yo' sarbice--an' so's Toby."
"You are Toby?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am."
"Then saddle the mare for me at once and--stay! can you go with me?"
"Positive got t' go wid yo', miss. Ab-so-lum-lute-ly," declared the
negro, gravely. "Dem's ma 'structions f'om Patrick Henry."
"All right, Toby. I want to go back to that cotton warehouse where we
stopped this morning. I forgot something."
"Ready in a pig's wink, Miss Ruth," declared the young negro, and ran
off to saddle the bay mare and get, for himself, a wicked looking
speckled mule.
The bay mare felt just as much refreshed by her siesta as Ruth did. She
started when Ruth was in the saddle, seemingly with a determination to
break her own record for speed. The girl of the Red Mill, her hat off,
her hair flying, and her eyes and cheeks aglow, looked back to see what
had become of Toby and the speckled mule.
But she need not have worried about them. Toby had no saddle, and only a
rope bridle; but he clung to the mule like a limpet to a rock, with his
great-toes between two ribs, "tick'lin' ob 'im up!" as he expressed it
to the laughing Ruth, when at last she brought the mare to a halt in
sight of the river.
"Dishyer mu-el," declared Toby, "I s'pec could beat out dat mare on a
long lane; but I got t' hol' Mistah Mu-el in, 'cause Patrick Henry done
tol' me hit ain' polite t' ride ahaid ob de quality."
He dropped respectfully to the rear when they started again, only
calling out to Ruth the turns to take as they rode on. In half an hour
they were in sight of the cotton warehouse.
It was just then that the girl almost drew her bay mare to a full stop.
It smote her suddenly that she had not made up her mind just how she
should approach Curly Smith, the runaway.