RUTH'S LITTLE PLOT
The punt was in shallow water and the girls who had ventured into it
without oars were perfectly safe before any of the teachers arrived. With
them came Ruth and Helen, and some of the other juniors and seniors. Heavy
took the stump.
"Now! you see what she did?" cried the stout girl, seizing Ann in her arms
the moment she could get ashore. "If she hadn't known how to fling a
lasso, and rope a steer, she'd never have been able to send that rope to
us.
"Three cheers for Ann Hicks, the girl from the ranch, who knows what to do
when folks are drowning in Buchane Pond! One--two--three----"
The cheers were given with a will. Several of the girls who had treated
the western girl so meanly about the dunce cap had been in the boat, and
they asked Ann to shake hands. They were truly repentant, and Ann could
not refuse their advances.
But the western girl was still doubtful of her standing with her mates,
and went back to play with the little ones. Meanwhile she showed Ruth
where Jerry Sheming stood at one side, and the girl from the Red Mill ran
to him eagerly.
"I am delighted to see you!" she exclaimed, shaking Jerry's rough hand. "I
was afraid I wouldn't be able to find you after you left the mill. And I
wanted to."
"I'm glad of your interest in me, Miss Ruth," he said, "but I ain't got no
call to expect it. Mr. Potter was pretty kind to me, and he kept me as
long as there was work there."
"But you haven't got to tramp it, now?"
"Only to look for a steady job. I--I come over this way hopin' I'd hit it
at Lumberton. But they're discharging men at the mills instead of hiring
new ones."
"And I expect you'd rather work in the woods than anywhere else?"
suggested Ruth.
"Why--yes, Miss. I love the woods. And I got a good rifle and shotgun, and
I'm a good camp cook. I can't get a guide's license, but I could go as
assistant--if anybody would take me around Tallahaska."
"Suppose I could get you a job working right where you've always lived--at
Cliff Island?" she asked, eagerly.
"What d'ye mean--Cliff Island?" he demanded, flushing deeply. "I wouldn't
work for that Rufus Blent--nor he wouldn't have me."
"I don't know anything about the man," said Ruth, smiling. "But one of my
chums has invited me to go to Cliff Island for the Christmas holidays. Her
father has bought the place and is building a lodge there."
"Good lands!" ejaculated Jerry.
"Isn't that a coincidence?" Ruth commented. "Now, you wouldn't refuse a
job with Mr. Tingley; would you?"
"Tingley--is that the name?"
"Yes. Perhaps I can get him, through Belle, to hire you. I'll try. Would
you go back?"
"In a minute!" exclaimed Jerry.
"Then I'll try. You see, in four or five weeks, we'll be going there
ourselves. I think it would just be jolly to have you around, for you know
all about the island and everything."
"Yes, indeed, ma'am," agreed Jerry. "I'd like the job."
"So you must write me every few days and let me know where you are. Mrs.
Tellingham won't mind--I'll explain to her," Ruth said, earnestly. "I am
not quite sure that I can go myself, yet. But I'll know for sure in a few
days. And I'll see if Belle won't ask her father to give you work at Cliff
Island. Then, in your off time, you can look for that box your uncle
lost. Don't you see?"
"Oh, Miss! I guess that's gone for good. Near as I could make out o' Uncle
Pete, the landslide at the west end of the island buried his treasure box
a mile deep! It was in one o' the little caves, I s'pose."
"Caves? Are there caves on the island?"
"Lots of 'em. Big ones as well as small. If Uncle Pete wasn't plumb crazy,
he had his money and papers in a hide-out that I'd never found."
"I see Miss Picolet coming this way. She won't approve of my talking with
'a strange young man' so long," laughed Ruth. "You let me know every few
days where you are, Jerry?"
"Yes, ma'am, I will. And thank you kindly."
"You aren't out of funds? You have money?"
"I've got quite a little store," said Jerry, smiling. "Thanks to that nice
black-eyed girl that I helped out of the car window."
"Oh! Ann Hicks. And she's being made much of, now, by the girls, because
she knew how to fling a rope," cried Ruth, looking across the picnic
ground to where her schoolmates were grouped.
"She's all right," said Jerry, enthusiastically. "They ought to be proud
of her--them that was in that boat."
"It will break the ice for Ann," declared Ruth. "I am so glad. Now, I must
run. Don't forget to write, Jerry. Good bye."
She gave him her hand and ran back to join her school friends. Ann had
gone about putting up the children's swing and at first had paid little
attention to the enthusiasm of the girls who had been saved from going
over the dam. But she could not ignore them altogether.
"You're just the smartest girl I ever saw," Heavy declaimed. "We'd all be
in the water, sure enough, if you hadn't got that rope to us. Come on,
Ann! Be a sport. _Do_ wear your laurels kindly."
"I'm just as 'dumb' about books as ever. Flinging that rope didn't make
any difference," growled the western girl.
"I don't care if you don't know your 'A.B., abs,'" cried one of the girls
who had taken a prominent part in the dunce cap trick. "You make me
awfully ashamed of myself for being so mean to you. Please forgive us all,
Ann--that's a good girl."
Ann was awkward about accepting their apologies; and yet she was not
naturally a bad-tempered girl. She was just different from them all--and
felt the difference so keenly!
This sudden reversal of feeling, and their evident offer of friendliness,
made her feel more awkward than ever. She remained very glum while at the
picnic grounds.
But, as Ruth had said, the incident served to break the ice. Ann had
gotten her start. Somebody beside the "primes" gave her "the glad hand and
the smiling eye." Briarwood began to be a different sort of place for the
ranch girl.
There were plenty of the juniors who looked down on her still; but she had
"shown them" once that she could do something the ordinary eastern girl
could not do and Ann was on the _qui vive_ for another chance to "make
good" along her own particular line.
She grew brighter and more self-possessed as the term advanced. Her
lessons, too, she attacked with more assurance.
A few days after Thanksgiving Ruth received a letter in Aunt Alvirah's
cramped hand-writing which assured her that Uncle Jabez would make no
objection to her accepting the invitation to go to Cliff Island for the
holidays.
"And I'll remind him of it in time so't he can send you a Christmas
goldpiece, if the sperit so moves him," wrote Aunt Alvirah, in her
old-fashioned way. "But do take care of yourself, my pretty, in the middle
of that lake."
In telling Belle how happy she was to accept the invitation for the
frolic, Ruth diffidently put forward her request that Mr. Tingley give
Jerry Sheming a job.
"I am quite sure he is a good boy," she told Belle. "He has worked for my
uncle, and Uncle Jabez praised him. Now, Uncle Jabez doesn't praise for
nothing."
"I'll tell father about this Jerry--sure," laughed Belle. "You're an odd
girl, Ruth. You're always trying to do something for somebody."
"Trying to do somebody for somebody, maybe," interposed Mercy, in her
sharp way. "Ruth uses her friends for her own ends."
But Ruth's little plot worked. A fortnight after Thanksgiving she was able
to write to Jerry, who had found a few days' work near the school, that he
could go back to Cliff Island and present himself to Mr. Tingley's
foreman. A good job was waiting for him on the island where he had lived
so long with his uncle, the old hunter.