THE FIVE-REEL DRAMA
There was a spark of romance in old Mrs. Sadoc Smith, after all. Ruth read
to her the first part of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" and to further the
continuation and ultimate successful completion of that scenario, the old
lady would have done much.
Curly looked upon Ruth with awe. He was a devotee of the moving pictures,
and every nickel he could spare went into the coffers of one or the other
of the "picture palaces" in Lumberton. Lumberton was a thriving city, with
both water-freight and railroad facilities besides its mills and lumber
interests; so it could well support several of the modern houses of
entertainment that have sprung up in such mushroom growth all over the
land.
Mr. Hammond's films taken at Lumberton were of an educational nature and
the Board of Trade of the city expected much advertising of the industries
of the place when the films were released.
However, to get back to Mrs. Sadoc Smith--Her instructions from Mrs.
Tellingham included the putting out of the lamp in the big room the four
Briarwood girls occupied by ten o'clock every night; but Mrs. Smith
allowed Ruth to come downstairs after the other girls were in bed and
write under the radiance of the reading lamp on her sitting-room table. It
was quiet there, for Mrs. Sadoc Smith either sent Curly to bed, or made
him keep as still as a mouse. And there was nobody else to disturb the
young author as she wrote, save the cat that delighted to jump up into her
lap and lie there purring, while the scenario was being written.
Ruth did not avail herself of this privilege often; but she was desirous
for the scenario to be finished and in Mr. Hammond's hands. So sure had
that gentleman been of her success, and so pleased was he with the plan of
the entire play, that he had taken a copy of the first part with him when
he left Lumberton and now wrote that Mr. Grimes was already making a few
of the studio scenes.
The young author rather shrank from letting the pugnacious Mr. Grimes have
anything to do with her story; but she knew that both Mr. Hammond and
Hazel Gray thought highly of the man's ability. Nor was she in a position
to insist upon any other director. She was working for Briarwood, not for
her own advantage.
"If Grimes takes hold of it with his usual vigor, it will be a success,"
Mr. Hammond assured Ruth in his letter. "Hurry along the rest of the play.
Spring is upon us, and we shall have some good open weather soon in which
to take the pictures at Briarwood Hall."
Ruth hurried. Indeed, the story was finished so rapidly that the girl
scarcely realized what she had done. There was no time for her to go over
the scenario carefully for revision and polishing. The last scenes she
read to nobody; she scarcely knew herself how they sounded.
Ruth Fielding had written an ingenious and very original scenario. Its
crudities were many and manifest; nevertheless, the true gold was there.
Mr. Hammond had recognized the originality of the girl's ideas in the
first part of the play. He was not going into the scheme, and risking his
money and reputation as a film producer, from any feeling of sentiment. It
was a business proposition, pure and simple, with him.
In the first place, nobody had ever thought of just this kind of moving
picture. The producer would be in the field with a new idea. In addition,
the drama would be looked for all over the country by the friends of the
pupils, past and present, of Briarwood Hall. The girls themselves
appearing in some of the scenes would add to the interest their parents,
friends, and the graduates of the Hall, were bound to take in the
production.
To Ruth, nervous and overworked after the finishing of the scenario, the
days of waiting until Mr. Hammond read and pronounced judgment on the
play, were hard indeed to endure. No matter how much confidence her
friends--even Mrs. Tellingham--had in her ability to succeed, Ruth was not
at all sure she had written up to the mark.
Try as she might she began to fall behind in her recitation marks during
these days of waiting. Her nervousness was enhanced by the doubts she felt
regarding her general standing in her classes.
Mrs. Tellingham talked cheerfully in chapel about "our graduating class;"
but some of the girls who were working with a view to receiving their
diplomas in June would never be able to reach the high mark necessary for
Mrs. Tellingham to allow them those certificates.
There would be a fringe of girls standing at the back of the class who,
although never appearing at Briarwood Hall another term, could not win the
roll of parchment which would enter them in good standing in any of the
women's colleges. Ruth did not want to be among those who failed.
She worried about this a good deal; she could not sleep at night; and her
cheeks grew pale. She worked hard, and yet sometimes when she reached the
classroom she felt as though her head were a hollow drum in which the
thoughts beat to and fro without either rhyme or reason.
Ruth Fielding was a perfectly healthy girl, as well as an athletic one.
But in a time of stress like this the very healthiest person can easily
and quickly break down. "I feel as though I should fly!" is an expression
often heard from nervous and overwrought schoolgirls. Ruth wished that she
might fly--away from school and study and scenarios and sullen girls like
Amy Gregg.
One evening when she came back to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's with a strapful of
books to study before bedtime, Ruth saw Curly Smith by the shed door busy
with some fishing tackle. Ruth's pulses leaped. Fishing! She had not
thrown a hook into the water for months and months!
"Going fishing, Curly?" she said wistfully.
"Yep."
"Where are they biting now?"
"There's carp and bream under the old mill-dam up in Norman's Woods. I saw
'em jumping there to-day."
"Oh! when are you going?" gasped the girl, hungry for outdoor sport and
adventure.
"In the morning--before _you're_ up," said the boy, rather sullenly.
"I wager I'll be awake," said Ruth, sitting down beside him. "I wake
up--oh, just awfully early! and lie and think."
Curly looked at her. "That don't get you nothin'," he said.
"But I can't help it."
"Gran says you're overworked," Curly said. "Why don't you run away from
school if they make you work so hard? _I_ would. Our teacher's sick so
there isn't any session at the district school to-morrow."
"Oh, Curly! Play hooky?" gasped Ruth, clasping her hands.
"Yep. Only you girls haven't any pluck."
"If I played hooky would you let me go fishing with you to-morrow?" asked
Ruth, her eyes dancing.
"You haven't the sand," scoffed Curly.
"But can I go if I _dare_ run away?" urged Ruth.
"Yep," said the boy, but with rather a sour grin.
"What time are you going to start?"
"Four."
"If I'm not down in the kitchen by that time, throw some gravel up to the
window," commanded Ruth. "But don't break the window."
"Oh, shucks! you won't go when you see how dark and damp it is," declared
Curly.
When, just after four o'clock in the morning, Curly crept downstairs from
his shed chamber, knuckling his eyes to get the sleep out, there was a
light in the kitchen and Ruth was just pouring out two fragrant cups of
coffee which flanked a heaping plate of doughnuts.
"Old Scratch!" gasped Curly. "Gran will have our hides and hair! You're
not _going_, Ruth Fielding?"
"If you will let me," said Ruth, meekly.
"Well--if you want. But you'll get wet and dirty and mussy----"
Then he stopped. He saw that Ruth had on an old gymnasium suit, her rubber
boots lay on the chair, and a warm polo coat was at hand. She already wore
her tam-o-shanter.
"Huh! I see you're ready," Curly said. "You might as well go. But
remember, if you want to come home before afternoon, you'll have to find
your way back alone. I'm not going to be bothered by a girl's fantods."
"All right, Curly," said Ruth, cheerfully.
Curly put his face under the spigot, brushed his hair before the little
mirror in the corner, and was ready to sample Ruth's coffee.
"We want to hurry," he said, filling his pockets with the doughnuts,
"it'll be broad daylight before we know it, and then everybody we see will
want to come along. The other fellows aren't on to the old dam yet this
season. The fish are running early."
He brought forth a basket with tackle and bait, dug over night. Ruth
burdened herself with a big, square box, neatly wrapped and tied. Curly
eyed this askance.
"I s'pose you expect to tear your clo'es and want something to wear back
to town that's decent," he growled.
"Well, I want to look half way respectable," laughed Ruth, as they set
forth.
The damp smell of thawing earth greeted their nostrils as they left the
house. No plowing had been done, save in very warm corners; but the lush
buds on the trees and bushes, and the crocuses by the corner of the old
house, promised spring.
A clape called at them raucously as he rapped out his warning on a dead
limb beside the road. A rabbit rose from its form and shot away into the
dripping woods. The sun poked a jolly red face above the wooded ridge
before the two runaways left the beaten track and took a narrow woodpath
that would cut off about a mile of their walk.
It was a rough way and the pace Curly set was made to force Ruth to beg
for time. But the girl gritted her teeth, minded not the pain in her side,
and sturdily followed him. By and by the pain stopped, she got her second
wind, and then she began to tread close on Curly's heels.
"Huh!" he grunted at last, "you needn't be in such a hurry. The dam will
stay there--and so will the fish."
"All right," responded Ruth, still meekly, but with dancing eyes.
The fishing place was reached and while yet the early rays of the sun
fell aslant the dimpling pools under the dam, the two threw in their
baited hooks. Curly evidently expected to see the girl balk at the bait,
but Ruth seized firmly the fat, squirmy worm and impaled it scientifically
upon her hook.
She caught the first fish, too! In fact, as the morning drew leisurely
along, Ruth's string splashing in the cool water grew much faster than
Curly's.
"I never saw the beat of your luck!" declared the boy. "You must have been
fishing before, Ruth Fielding."
"Lots of times."
"Where?"
Ruth told him of the Red Mill on the bank of the Lumano, of her fishing
trips with Tom Cameron, and of all the fun that they had about Cheslow,
and up the river above the mill.
Mid-forenoon came and Curly produced some crackers and a piece of bologna.
The doughnuts he had pocketed were gone long ago.
"Have a bite, Ruth?" he said generously. "I wish it was better, but I
didn't have much money, and Gran won't ever let me carry any lunch. She
says the proper place for a boy to eat is at his own table. It's there for
me, and if I don't get home to get it, then I can do without."
Ruth accepted a piece of the bologna and the crackers gravely. She baited
her hook with a piece of the bologna and caught a big, struggling carp.
"What do you know about that?" cried Curly, in disgust. "You could bait
your hook with a marble and catch a whopper, I believe!"
Meanwhile, Ruth was having a most delightful time. The roses had come back
into her cheeks at the first. Her eyes sparkled, and she "wriggled all
over," as she expressed it, "with just the _feel_ of spring."
She did not spend all her time fishing, but ran about and examined the
early plants and sprouting bushes, and woke up the first violets and
searched for May flowers, which, of course, she did not find. Squirrels
chattered at them, and a blue jay hung about, squalling, evidently hoping
for crumbs from their lunch. Only there were no crumbs of Curly's frugal
bologna and crackers left.
When the sun was in mid-heaven the boy confessed to being as hungry as
ever, and tightened his belt. "Crackers don't stick to your ribs much," he
grumbled.
Ruth calmly began opening her box. Curly looked at her askance.
"You aren't figgering on going home _now_, are you?" he asked.
"Oh, no. I sha'n't go home till you do."
Then she produced from the box sandwiches, deviled eggs, a jelly roll, a
jar of peanut butter, crackers, olives, and some more of Mrs. Smith's good
doughnuts.
"Old Scratch!" Curly ejaculated. "You're the best fellow to go fishing
with, Ruth Fielding, that I ever saw. You can come to _my_ parties any
time you like."
They spent the whole day delightfully and, tired, scratched, and not a
little wind-burned, Ruth tramped home behind Curly in good season for
supper at Mrs. Sadoc Smith's.
She did not tell the boy that the whole outing had been arranged the night
before with his grandmother before Ruth herself went to bed. Curly
expected to be "called down," as he expressed it, by his grandmother when
they arrived home. To his amazement they were met cheerfully and ushered
in to a bounteous supper on which Mrs. Smith had expended no little
thought and time.
Curly was stricken almost dumb by his grandmother's generosity and
good-nature. After supper he whispered to Ruth:
"Say! you're a wonder, you are, Ruth Fielding. Never anybody got around
Gran the way you do, before. You're a wonder!"
Helen and Ann met Ruth in great excitement. "Where under the sun have you
been--and in that ragged old gym suit?" gasped Helen.
"You look as though your face was burnt. I believe you've been playing
hooky, Ruth Fielding!" cried Ann.
"Right the first time," sighed Ruth, happily. "Oh, I feel _so_ much
better. And I know I shall sleep like a brick."
"You mean, a railroad tie, don't you?" demanded Ann. "_That's_ a sleeper!"
"Of course we found your note, and we told Miss Brokaw. But she's got it
in for you just the same," said Helen, slangily. "And only guess!"
"Yes! Guess! Ruth! Fielding!" and Ann seized her and danced her about the
room. "You missed it by being absent to-day."
"Oh, don't! Never mind all this! I'm tired enough. I've walked _miles_,"
groaned Ruth. "What have I missed?"
"Mr. Hammond is in Lumberton. He came to see you about the scenario,"
Helen eagerly said.
Ruth sat down and clasped her hands, while her cheeks paled. "It's a
failure!" she whispered.