THE FOX AT WORK
Ruth Fielding, after the death of her parents, when she was quite a young
girl, had come from Darrowtown to live with her mother's uncle at the
Red Mill, on the Lumano River near Cheslow, as was related in the first
volume of this series, entitled, "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill; Or,
Jasper Parloe's Secret." Ruth had found Uncle Jabez very hard to get
along with at first, for he was a miser, and his kinder nature seemed
to have been crusted over by years of hoarding and selfishness.
But through a happy turn of circumstances Ruth was enabled to get at
the heart of her crotchety uncle, and when Ruth's very dear friend,
Helen Cameron, planned to go to boarding school, Uncle Jabez was won
over to sending Ruth with her. The fun and work of that first half at
school are related in the second volume of the series, entitled "Ruth
Fielding at Briarwood Hall; Or, Solving the Campus Mystery."
In the third volume of the series, "Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp; Or, Lost
in the Backwoods," Ruth and some of her school friends spend a part of
the mid-winter vacation at Mr. Cameron's hunting lodge in the Big Woods,
where they enjoy many winter sports and have adventures galore.
Ruth and Helen occupied a "duo" room on the second floor of the West
Dormitory; but when Mercy Curtis, the lame girl, had come to Briarwood
in the middle of the first term, the chums had taken her in with them,
the occupants of that particular study being known thereafter among the
girls of Briarwood as the Triumvirate.
Helen, when deserted by The Fox, who, from that first day at Briarwood
Hall, had shown herself to be jealous of Ruth Fielding, for some reason,
went slowly up to her room and found Ruth and Mercy there before her.
There was likewise a stout, doll-faced, jolly girl with them, known to
the other girls as "Heavy," but rightly owning the name of Jennie Stone.
"Here she is now!" cried this latter, on Helen's appearance. "'The
candidate will now advance and say her a-b-abs!' You looked scared to
death when they shot you with the lime-light. I was chewing a caramel
when they initiated me, and I swallowed it whole, and pretty near choked,
when the spot-light was turned on."
Mercy, who was a very sharp girl indeed, was looking at Helen slily. She
saw that something had occasioned their friend annoyance.
"What's happened to you since we came from the supper, Helen?" she
asked.
"Indigestion!" gasped Heavy. "I've some pepsin tablets in my room.
Want one, Nell?"
"No. I am all right," declared Helen.
"Well, we were just waiting for you to come in," the stout girl said.
"Maybe we'll all be so busy to-morrow that we won't have time to talk
about it. So we must plan for the Lighthouse Point campaign now."
"Oh!" said Helen, slowly. "So you can make up your party now?"
"Of course! Why, we really made it up last winter; didn't we?" laughed
Heavy.
"But we didn't know whether we could go or not then," Ruth Fielding
said.
"You didn't know whether _I_ could go, I suppose you mean?" suggested
Helen.
"Why--not particularly," responded Ruth, in some wonder at her chum's
tone. "I supposed you and Tom would go. Your father so seldom refuses
you anything."
"Oh!"
"I didn't know how Uncle Jabez would look at it," pursued Ruth. "But
I wrote him a while ago and told him you and Mercy were going to accept
Jennie's invite, and he said I could go to Lighthouse Point, too."
"Oh!" said Helen again. "You didn't wait until I joined the
S. B.'s, then, to decide whether you would accept Heavy's invitation,
or not?"
"Of course not!"
"How ridiculous!" cried Heavy.
"Well, it's to be a Sweetbriar frolic; isn't it, Heavy?" asked Helen,
calmly.
"No. Madge and Bob Steele are going. And your brother Tom," chuckled
the stout girl. "And perhaps that Isadore Phelps. You wouldn't call
Busy Izzy a Sweetbriar; would you?"
"I don't mean the boys," returned Helen, with some coolness.
Suddenly Mercy Curtis, her head on one side and her thin little face
twisted into a most knowing grimace, interrupted. "I know what this
means!" she exclaimed.
"What do _you_ mean, Goody Two-Sticks?" demanded Ruth, kindly.
"Our Helen has a grouch."
"Nonsense!" muttered Helen, flushing again.
"I thought something didn't fit her when she came in," said Heavy,
calmly. "But I thought it was indigestion."
"What _is_ the matter, Helen?" asked Ruth Fielding in wonder.
"'Fee, fi, fo fum! I see the negro run!'--into the woodpile!"
ejaculated the lame girl, in her biting way. "I know what is the matter
with Queen Helen of Troy. She's been with The Fox."
Ruth and Heavy stared at Mercy in surprise; but Helen turned her head
aside.
"That's the answer!" chuckled the shrewd little creature. "I saw
them walk off together after supper. And The Fox has been trying to make
trouble--same as usual."
"Mary Cox! Why, that's impossible," said Heavy, good-naturedly. "She
wouldn't say anything to make Helen feel bad."
Mercy darted an accusing fore-finger at Helen, and still kept her eyes
screwed up. "I dare you to tell! I dare you to tell!" she cried in a
singsong voice.
Helen had to laugh at last.
"Well, Mary Cox said you had decided to have none but Sweetbriars at the
cottage on the beach, Heavy."
"Lot she knows about it," grunted the stout girl.
"Why, Heavy asked her to go; didn't she?" cried Ruth.
"Well, that was last Winter. I didn't press her," admitted the stout
girl.
"But she's your roommate, like Belle and Lluella," said Ruth, in some
heat. "Of course you've got to ask her."
"Don't you do it. She's a spoil-sport," declared Mercy Curtis, in
her sharp way. "The Fox will keep us all in hot water."
"Do be still, Mercy!" cried Ruth. "This is Heavy's own affair. And
Mary Cox has been her roommate ever since she's been at Briarwood."
"I don't know that Belle and Lluella can go with us," said the stout
girl, slowly. "The fright they got up in the woods last Winter scared
their mothers. I guess they think I'm too reckless. Sort of wild, you
know," and the stout girl's smile broadened.
"But you intended inviting Mary Cox?" demanded Ruth, steadily.
"Yes. I said something about it to her. But she wouldn't give me a
decided answer then."
"Ask her again."
"Don't you do it!" exclaimed Mercy, sharply.
"I mean it, Jennie," Ruth said.
"I can't please both of you," said the good-natured stout girl.
"Please me. Mercy doesn't mean what she says. If Mary Cox thinks that
I am opposed to your having her at Lighthouse Point, I shall be offended
if you do not immediately insist upon her being one of the party."
"And that'll suit The Fox right down to the ground," exclaimed Mercy.
"That is what she was fishing for when she got at Helen to-night."
"Did _I_ say she said anything about Lighthouse Point?" quickly
responded Helen.
"You didn't have to," rejoined Mercy, sharply. "We knew."
"At least," Ruth said to Heavy, quietly, yet with decision, "you will
ask your old friend to go?"
"Why--if you don't mind."
"There seems to have been some truth in Mary's supposition, then,"
Ruth said, sadly. "She thinks I intended to keep her out of a good
time. I never thought of such a thing. If Mary Cox does not accept your
invitation, Heavy, I shall be greatly disappointed. Indeed, I shall be
tempted to decline to go to the shore with you. Now, remember that,
Jennie Stone."
"Oh, shucks! you're making too much fuss about it," said the stout
girl, rising lazily, and speaking in her usual drawling manner. "Of
course I'll have her--if she'll go. Father's bungalow is big enough,
goodness knows. And we'll have lots of fun there."
She went her leisurely way to the door. Had she been brisker of movement,
when she turned the knob she would have found Mary Cox with her ear
at the keyhole, drinking in all that had been said in the room of the
triumvirate. But The Fox was as swift of foot as she was shrewd and sly
of mind. She was out of sight and hearing when Jennie Stone came out into
the corridor.