"You kin say what you like," Mr. Jimson said later, and in a hoarse
aside to Ruth Fielding, "the sheriff's a good old sport. He took it
laffin'--after the fust s'prise. You make much of him, Miss Ruth--you and
Miss Helen and Miss Nettie--an' yo'll keep him eatin' out o' your hand,
he's that gentled."
Ruth was afraid at first that somebody would suspect the negro of
unleashing the launch. She did not think Mr. Jimson knew who did it. In
the first heat, Mr. Ricketts accused his man, Tom, of being careless.
But it all simmered down in a few minutes. Mr. Holloway came out and
invited the deputy and his comrade to come back to the rear apartment
for a bite of lunch.
Mr. Ricketts seemed satisfied to know that the boy was upstairs and in
good hands. He did not--at that time--ask to see him; and Ruth wanted, if
she could, to keep news of the deputy's arrival from the knowledge of
the patient.
"Oh, dear me, Ruth!" groaned Helen. "It never rains but it pours."
"That seems very true of the weather in this part of the world," agreed
her chum. "I never saw it rain harder than it has during the past few
days."
"Goodness! I don't mean real rain," said Helen. "I mean troubles never
come singly."
"What's troubling you particularly now?" asked Ruth.
"I've lost my last handkerchief," said Helen, tragically. "Isn't it just
awful to be here another night without a single change of anything? I
feel just as mussy as I can feel. And this pretty dress will never be
fit to wear again."
"We're better off than some of the girls," laughed Ruth. "One of those
that room with us danced right through her stockings, heel and toe, the
evening of the hop; and now every time she steps there is a great gap at
each heel above her low pumps. With that costume she wears she can put
on nothing but black stockings, and I saw her just now trying to ink her
heels so that when anybody follows her upstairs, they will not be so
likely to notice the holes in her stockings."
"Well! if that were all that bothered us!" groaned Helen. "What are we
going to do about Curly?"
"What _can_ we do about him?" asked Ruth.
"You don't want to see him arrested and carried to jail, do you?"
"No, my dear. But how can we help it--when this deputy sheriff manages to
find a craft in which to take him away from the island?"
"I wish Nettie's Aunt Rachel were here," cried the other Northern girl.
"Even Mrs. Parsons, I fear, could not stop the law in its course."
"I don't know. She is pretty powerful," returned her chum, grinning.
"See how nice they have all begun to treat us since Nettie threatened
them with the terrors of her Aunt Rachel's displeasure."
"Perhaps. But I would rather they were nice to us for our own sakes,"
Ruth said thoughtfully. "If it were not for Nettie, and Curly and the
concert we want to give for his benefit, I wouldn't care whether many of
them spoke to us or not. And every time that Miggs woman is in sight she
makes me feel awfully unhappy," confessed Ruth. "I don't believe I ever
before disliked anybody quite so heartily as I dislike her."
"Dislike! I _hate_ her!" exclaimed Helen.
"It's awful to feel so towards any human creature," Ruth went on. "And I
fear that we ought to pity her, not to hate her."
"I should like to know why?" demanded Helen, in some heat.
"Mrs. Holloway told one of the ladies the particulars of Miss Miggs'
coming down here, and why she is such a nervous wreck--and the lady just
told me."
"'Nervous wreck,'" scoffed Helen. "Wrecked by her ugly temper, you
mean."
"She has been the sole support, and nurse as well, of a bed-ridden aunt
for years. During this last term--she teaches in a big school in
Bannister, Massachusetts--she had a very hard time. She has always had
trouble with her girls; and evidently doesn't love them."
"Not so's you'd notice it," grumbled Helen.
"And they made her a good deal of trouble. The old aunt became more
exacting toward the last, and finally Miss Miggs was up almost all night
with the invalid and then was harassed in the schoolroom all day by the
thoughtless girls."
"Oh, dear me, Ruthie! now you are trying to find excuses for the mean
old thing."
"I'm telling you--that's all."
"Well! I don't know that I want you to tell me," sniffed Helen. "I don't
feel as ugly toward that Miggs woman as I did."
"I feel very angry with her myself," Ruth said. "It is hard for me to
get over anger, I am afraid."
"But you are slow to wrath. 'Beware the anger of a patient man'
says--says--well, _somebody_. 'Overhaul your book and, when found, make
note of,'" giggled Helen. "Well! how did Martha get away from the aunt?"
"The aunt got away from her," said Ruth, gravely. "She died--just before
the end of the term. Altogether poor Miss Miggs was 'all in,' as the
saying is."
Helen sniffed again. She would not own up that she was affected by the
story.
"Then," said Ruth, earnestly, "just a few days before the end of school
some of her girls played a trick on the poor thing and frightened
her--oh, horribly! She fell at her desk unconscious, and the girls who
had played the trick ran out of the room and left her there--of course,
not knowing that she had fainted. She broke her glasses, and when she
came to she could not find her way about, and almost went mad. It was a
very serious matter, indeed. They found her wandering about the room
quite out of her mind. Mrs. Holloway had already invited her down here
and sent her a ticket from Norfolk to Pee Dee, where she was to take
boat again. The doctors said the trip would be the best thing for her,
and they packed her off," concluded Ruth.
"Well--she's to be pitied, I suppose," said Helen, grudgingly. "But I
can't fall in love with her."
"Who could? She has had a hard time, just the same, When she lost her
ticket she had barely money enough to bring her on to Pee Dee where Mrs.
Holloway met her. The poor thing was worried to death. You see, all her
money had been spent on the aunt, and her funeral expenses."
"Well! she's unfortunate. But she had no business to accuse us of
stealing her ticket--if it was stolen at all."
"Of course somebody picked it up. But the ticket may have done nobody
any good. She says she left it in the railroad folder on that seat in
the steamer's saloon--you remember."
"I remember vividly," agreed Helen, "our first encounter with Miss
Miggs." Then she began to laugh. "And wasn't she funny?"
"'Not so's you'd notice it!' to quote your own classic language," said
Ruth, sharply. "There was nothing funny about it."
"That is when we first saw Curly on the boat."
"Yes. He was there. But he didn't hear anything of the row, I guess. He
says he had no idea we were on that boat--and we saw him three times."
"And heard him jump overboard," finished Helen. "The foolish boy."
She went away to sit by him and tell him stories. Helen was developing
quite a reputation as a nurse. The boy was in pain and anything was
welcome that kept his mind for a little off the troublesome leg.
The girls were very busy that evening with another matter. Permission
had been asked and obtained to give the proposed "chamber concert" for
Curly's benefit. What the boy had done in saving two lives was well
known now among the enforced guests at Holloway's, and the idea of any
entertainment was welcome.
There was a mimeograph on which the hotel menus were printed and Ruth
got up a gorgeous program in two-colored ink of the "chamber concert,"
inviting everybody to come.
"And they've just got to come, my dears," said Nettie, who took upon
herself the distribution of the concert programs and--as Helen called
it--the "boning" for the money. "Ev'ry white person in this hotel has got
to pay a dollar at least, fo' the pleasure of hearing Helen play and
Ruth sing. That's their admission."
"I'd like to see you get a dollar for that purpose out of Miss Miggs,"
giggled Helen.
"Never mind, honey, somebody will have to pay fo' her," declared Nettie.
"Then we'll sell the choice seats and the boxes at auction."
"Goodness, child!" cried Ruth. "What boxes do you mean; soap boxes?"
"The front stairs," said Nettie, placidly. "The seats in the upstairs
hall here will be reserved, and must bring a premium, too."
"The ingenuity of the girl!" gasped Ruth.
"Why, Ruthie," said Helen, "it isn't _anything_ to get up a concert, or
to carry a program all alone. But it takes genius to devise such schemes
as this. You will be a multi-millionairess before you die, Nettie."
"I expect to be," returned the Southern girl. "Now, listen: Each of
these broad stairs will hold four people comfortably. We will letter the
stairs and number the seats."
"But those on the lower step will have their feet in the water!" cried
Ruth, in a gale of laughter.
"Very well. They will be nearest to the performers. You say yourselves
that you will probably have to be barefooted, when you are down there
singing and playing," said Nettie. "They ought to pay an extra premium
for being allowed to be so near to the performers. That is 'the
bald-headed row.'"
"And every bald head that sits there will have a nice cold in his head,"
Ruth declared.
However, Nettie had her way in every particular. The next evening the
auction of "reserved seats and boxes" was held in the upper hall. Mr.
Jimson officiated as auctioneer and for an hour or more the party
managed to extract a great deal of wholesome fun from the affair.
The deputy sheriff was made to subscribe for the two lower tiers of
seats on the stair at a good price, because, as Mr. Jimson said, "he was
the bigges' an' fattes' man in dis hyer destitute community." The other
seats sold merrily. No one hesitated over paying the admission fee.
There is nobody in the world as generous both in spirit and actual
practice as these Southern people.
Almost two hundred dollars was raised for Curly's benefit. The concert
was held the afternoon following the auctioning of the seats, and the
chums covered themselves with glory.
The piano was rolled out into the hall and the negroes knocked together
a platform on which Ruth and Helen could stand and play, while Nettie
perched herself on the piano bench to accompany them, and kept her feet
out of the water.
They sang the old glees together--all three of them, for Nettie possessed
a sweet contralto voice. Ruth's ballads were appreciated to the full and
Helen--although the instrument she used was so poor a one--delighted the
audience with her playing.
When she softly played the old, sweet harmonies, and Ruth sang them, the
applause from Curly's couch at the end of the hall to the foot of the
stairs where the deputy sheriff sat with his boots in the water, was
tremendous.
The concert ended with the girls standing in a row with clasped hands
and for the glory of Briarwood giving the old Sweetbriar "war-cry:"
"S. B.--Ah-h-h!
S. B.--Ah-h-h!
Sound our battle-cry
Near and far!
S. B.--All!
Briarwood Hall!
Sweetbriars, do or die----
This be our battle-cry----
Briarwood Hall!
_That's All!_"
During all the time it had rained intermittently, and the river did not
show any signs of abating. But the morning following the very successful
"chamber concert," a large launch chugged up to the submerged steps of
the hotel on Holloway Island. In it was Mrs. Rachel Parsons, and with
her was the negro from the warehouse who had been swept down the river
on the log when Mr. Jimson's bateau made its landing at the island.
Mrs. Parsons had been unable to get to Charleston after all because of
washouts on the railroad, and had come back to Georgetown, heard of the
marooning on the island of the pleasure party and at the first
opportunity had come up the river to rescue Nettie, Ruth and Helen.
A plank was laid for Mrs. Parsons from the bow of the launch to the
lower step of the flight leading to the second story of the hotel. Mrs.
Holloway came down in a flutter to meet the lady of the Big House.
Mrs. Parsons, however, had gone straight to Nettie's room and was shut
in with her niece for half an hour before she had anything to say to the
hotel keeper's wife, or to anybody else. Then she went first to see poor
Curly, who was feverish and in much pain.
Just as Mrs. Parsons and her niece were passing down the hall they met
Miss Miggs. Nettie shot the maiden lady an angry glance and moved
carefully to one side.
"Is this the--the person who has circulated the false reports about Ruth
and Helen?" asked Mrs. Parsons, sternly.
"No false reports, I'd have you know, ma'am!" cried Martha Miggs, "right
on deck," Curly said afterwards, "to repel boarders." "I'd have you know
I am just as good as you are, and I'm just as much respected in my own
place," she continued. Miss Miggs' troubles and consequent nervous break
had really left her in such a condition that she was not fully
responsible for what she did and said.
"I have no doubt of that," said Mrs. Parsons, quietly. "But I wish to
know what your meaning is in trying to injure the reputation of two
young girls."
The little group had reached Curly's bedside; but they did not notice
that young invalid. Ruth had risen from her seat nervously, wishing that
Nettie's Aunt Rachel had not brought the unpleasant subject to the
surface again.
"I could not injure the reputation of a couple of young minxes like
these!" declared Miss Miggs, angrily. "I put the ticket in the railroad
folder, and laid it on the seat beside me in the steamer's saloon, and
when I got up I forgot to take the folder with me. These girls were the
only people in sight. They were watching me, and when my back was turned
they took the ticket and folder."
"Who?" suddenly shouted a voice behind them, and before any of the party
could reply to Miss Miggs' absurd accusation.
Curly was sitting up in bed, his cheeks very red and his eyes bright
with fever; but he was in his right senses.
"Those girls did it!" snapped Miss Miggs.
"They didn't, either!" cried Curly. "I did it. Now you can have me
arrested if you want to!" added the boy, falling back on his pillows. "I
didn't know the ticket belonged to anybody. When I was drying my things
aboard that fishing boat, I found it in a folder that I had picked up in
the cabin of the steamer. I s'posed it was a ticket the railroad gave
away with the folder, until I asked a railroad man if it was good, and
he said it was as good as any other ticket. So I rode down to Pee Dee on
it from Norfolk. There now! If that's stealin', then I _have_ stolen,
and Gran is right--I'm a thief!"
Even as obstinate a person as Miss Miggs was forced to believe this
story, for its truth was self-evident. It completely ended the
controversy about the lost ticket; but Curly Smith was not satisfied
until enough money was taken out of the fund raised for his benefit to
reimburse Mrs. Holloway for the purchase-money of the ticket she had
sent to her New England cousin.
"I wish, Martha, I had never invited you down here," the hotel keeper's
wife was heard to tell the New England woman. "You've made me trouble
enough. I will never be able to pacify Mrs. Parsons. She is going to
take the young ladies and the boy away at once, and I know that she will
never again give me her good word with any of her wealthy friends. Your
ill-temper has cost me enough, I am sure."
Perhaps it had cost Miss Miggs a good deal, too; only Miss Miggs was the
sort of obstinate person who never does or will acknowledge that she is
wrong.