ANOTHER OF CURLY'S TRICKS
Miss Scrimp, the matron of the old West Dormitory, had bound Mary Pease to
secrecy. But, as Jennie put it, "the binding did not hold and _Pease_
spilled the _beans_."
The story flew over the school like wildfire. Miss Scrimp, actually in
tears, was inclined to blame Ruth Fielding for the outbreak of the story.
"You ought to have taken Mary Pease and run her right into a closet!"
declared the matron. "Such behavior!"
Ruth was a good deal chagrined that the story should have come out while
she was monitor; but she really did not see how she could have helped it.
The quarrel between Amy Gregg and Mary Pease had commenced before Ruth had
gone into the classroom.
"And how could you help it?" cried the faithful Jennie. "I expect little
Pease has been aching to tell all these weeks. She should have been
quarantined, in the first place."
But there was nothing to do about it now, save "to pick up the pieces."
And that was no light task. Feeling ran high in Briarwood Hall against Amy
Gregg.
Some of the girls of her own age would not speak to her. Many of the older
girls made her feel by every glance and word they gave her that she was
taboo. And it was whispered on the campus that Amy would be sent home by
Mrs. Tellingham, if she could not be made to pay, or her folks be made to
pay, something toward the damage her carelessness had brought about.
Ruth sheltered the unfortunate Amy all she could. She even influenced her
closest friends to be kind to the child. At Mrs. Sadoc Smith's Helen and
Ann did not speak of the discovery of the origin of the fire, and, of
course, good-natured Jennie Stone did just as Ruth asked, while even Mercy
Curtis kept her lips closed.
Amy, however, not being an utterly callous girl, felt the condemnation of
the whole school. There was no escaping that.
Amy had denied having a candle on the night of the fire, and it shocked
and grieved Mrs. Tellingham very much to learn that one of her girls was
not to be trusted to speak the truth at all times.
Not because of the fire did the preceptress consider sending Amy Gregg
home, for the origin of the fire was plainly an accident, though bred in
carelessness. For prevarication, however, Mrs. Tellingham was tempted to
expel Amy Gregg.
The girl had denied the fact that she had left a candle burning in her
room when she went to supper. Mary Pease had seen it, and both Miss Scrimp
and Ruth Fielding knew that the fire started in that particular room.
Why the girl had left the candle burning was another mystery. Recklessly
denying the main fact, of course Amy would not explain the secondary
mystery. Nagged and heckled by some of the sophomores and juniors, Amy
declared she wished the whole school had burned down and then she would
not have had to stay at Briarwood another day!
Ruth and Helen one day rescued the girl from the midst of a mob of larger
girls who were driving Amy Gregg almost mad by taunting her with being a
"fire bug."
"What are you wild animals doing?" demanded Helen, who was much sharper
with the evil doers among the under classes than was Ruth. "So she's a
'fire-bug?' Oh, girls! what better are you than poor little Gregg, I'd
like to know? Every soul of you has done worse things than she has
done--only your acts did not have such appalling results. Behave
yourselves!"
Ruth could not have talked that way to the girls; but many of them slunk
away under Helen's reprimand. Ruth took the crying Amy away--but neither
she nor Helen was thanked.
"I wish you girls would mind your own business and let me alone," sobbed
the foolish child, hysterically. "I can fight my own battles, I'll tear
their hair out! I'll scratch their faces for them!"
"Oh, dear me, Amy!" sighed Ruth. "Do you think that would be any real
satisfaction to you? Would it change things for the better, or in the
least?"
What made the girls so unfeeling toward Amy was the fact that from the
beginning she had expressed no sorrow over the destruction of the
dormitory, and that she had refused to write home to ask for a
contribution to the fund being raised for the new building.
When every other girl at Briarwood Hall was doing her best to get money to
help Mrs. Tellingham, Amy Gregg's callousness regarding the fire and its
results showed up, said Jennie, "just like a stubbed toe on a bare-footed
boy!"
Really, Ruth began to think she would have to act as guard for Amy Gregg
to and from the school. The girl was not allowed to play with the other
girls of her age. Wherever she went a small riot started.
It had become general knowledge that Amy Gregg's father was a wealthy man,
and that the family lived very sumptuously. Amy had a stepmother and
several half brothers and sisters; but she did not get along well with
them and, therefore, her father had sent her to Briarwood Hall.
"I guess she was too mean at home for them to stand her," said Mary Pease,
who was the most vindictive of Amy's class, "and they sent her here to
trouble _us_. And see what she's done!"
There was no stopping the younger girls from nagging. The fact that so
much was being done by others to help the dormitory fund kept the feud
against Amy Gregg alive. Her one partisan at this time (for Ruth could not
be called that, no matter how sorry she was for her) was Curly Smith.
Once or twice Amy slipped away before Ruth was ready to go back to Mrs.
Smith's house for the evening, and started alone for the lodgings. The
Cedar Walk was the nearest way, and there were many hiding places along
the Cedar Walk.
Mary Pease and her chums lay in wait for the unfortunate Amy on two
occasions, and chased her all the way to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's. What they
intended doing to the much disliked girl if they had caught her, nobody
seemed to know. They just seemed determined to plague her.
Ruth did not want to report the culprits; but warning them did not seem to
do any good. On a third occasion Amy started home ahead, and Ruth and
Helen hurried after her to make sure that none of the other girls
troubled the victim. Half way down the walk, Helen exclaimed:
"See there, Ruth! Amy isn't alone, after all."
"Who's with her?" asked Ruth. "I can't see--Why! it can't be Ann?"
"No. But she's tall like Ann."
"And that girl walks queerly. Did you ever see the like? Strides along
just like a boy--Oh!"
Out of a cedar clump appeared a crowd of shrieking girls, who began to
dance around Amy and her companion, shouting scornful phrases which were
bound to make Amy Gregg angry. But Mary and her friends this time received
a surprise. Amy ran. Not so the "girl" with her.
This strange individual ran among Amy's tormentors, tripped two or three
of them up, tore down the hair of several, taking the ribbons as trophies,
and sent the whole crowd shrieking away, much alarmed and not a little
punished.
"It isn't a girl!" gasped Helen. "It's Curly Smith. And as sure as you
live he's got on some of Ann's clothes. _Won't_ our Western friend be
furious at that?"
But Ann Hicks was not troubled at all. She had lent Curly the frock and
hat, and when he behaved himself and walked properly he certainly made a
very pretty girl.
He gave Amy's enemies a good fright, and they let her alone after that.
"But, goodness me! what is Briarwood Hall coming to?" demanded Ruth, in
discussing this incident with her room-mates. "We are leaving a tribe of
young Indians here for Mrs. Tellingham to control. Helen! you know we
never acted this way when we were in the lower grades."
"Well, we were pretty bad sometimes," Helen said slowly. "We did not
engage in free fights, however."
"They all ought to have a good spanking," declared Ann, with conviction.
"And I suppose you seniors ought to do it?" sneered Amy, who could not be
gentle even with her own friends.
"I'm not convinced that I sha'n't begin with you, my lady," said the
Western girl, sharply. "I lent those old duds of mine to Curly to help you
out, and you are about as grateful as a poison snake! I never saw such a
girl in my life before."