CARRYING OUT HER PLAN.
"Of course I would dare," answered Ruby, positively. "I am not such a
coward as you are, Ruthy. You see, even if your mamma would let you
come over and stay at my house, so you could be in the plan, it would
n't be of any use, for it would be just like you to get afraid as soon
as it was dark, and then you would cry and want to go back into the
house."
"I am afraid I would," Ruthy answered meekly, not resenting the
accusation of cowardice. "I should think you would be afraid too,
Ruby; and then what will your papa and mamma think when they find out
in the night that you are gone."
"They won't find out," answered Ruby, easily disposing of that
objection. "You see I shall wait till after they think I have gone to
sleep to go out to my hut. I will get most undressed to-night at
bed-time and then put my nightie on over the rest of my clothes, and
when papa comes in to kiss me good-night he will never think of my
getting up again. Then I will creep downstairs as softly as a mouse,
and out into the yard. It will be such fun to roll up in the blankets,
and pretend that they are the skins of wild animals, and I shall lie
awake for ever so long listening to hear if any bears come around, or
lions. Oh, it will be such fun," and Ruby's eyes sparkled. Ruthy
looked troubled.
"I don't think it will be a bit nice," she said presently. "I don't
believe your mamma would like it one single bit; and suppose somebody
should carry you off when you are out there all by yourself."
"You just can't make me afraid, I guess, Ruthy Warren," sniffed Ruby,
scornfully. "You are such a 'fraid-cat that you never want to do
anything in all your life but play paper dolls. I might have known you
would n't see what fun it is to play Swiss Family Robinson. Now don't
you dare tell any one a single word about it. Remember you promised
across your heart."
"I sha'n't tell," Ruthy answered, "but I do wish you would n't do it,
Ruby. Why, I shall be as scared as anything if I wake up in the night
and think that you are out there in your house all alone in the pitch
dark. I should be so frightened if I was you that I would just scream
and scream till some one heard me and came and got me."
"I would n't have such a baby as you to stay with me," Ruby said. "I
am going to do it just as sure as anything, Ruthy Warren, and if you
breathe a word of it to any one so I don't get let to do it, I will
never, never speak to you again as long as I live and breathe."
"Of course I sha'n't tell when I promised," Ruthy replied, a little
hurt at Ruby's doubting her word. "Maybe you won't do it after all,
though. Perhaps when it gets dark you will be frightened."
"I never get frightened," Ruby said, tossing her head. "Now I must go
home, Ruthy. Come and walk part way with me, won't you?"
"I'll ask mamma," Ruthy answered, and gathering up her paper dolls she
ran into the house, coming back in a few minutes with two red-cheeked
apples for the little girls to eat on their way, and permission to go
as far as the corner with Ruby.
Ruby could talk and think of nothing but her great plan for the night,
and Ruthy pleaded with her in vain to give it up. The little girl was
so troubled about it that she wished Ruby had not told her about it.
She did not see how she would ever be able to go to bed that night, and
go to sleep, thinking of her little friend out alone in her little
house down by the barn. In the bottom of her heart she wished that
Ruby would be caught by Ann on her way out of the house, and prevented
from carrying out her plan, but she did not dare whisper this wish to
Ruby, as she knew how angry it would make her to think of her plans
being thwarted.
By the time Ruby reached home another plan occurred to her busy brain.
Nora was not far from right when she said that Ruby could think up more
mischief than any three children could carry out. Suppose it should be
cold in the night. Ruby could not quite remember what time in the year
it was when the Swiss Family Robinson were shipwrecked, but she knew
they had to make a fire. She would get some shavings and some little
sticks, and get a fire all ready to light in her hut, and then if it
should be cold, and she should want to light a fire, it would be all
ready.
This new idea added a great charm to the thought of staying out there
all night. She was quite sure that she would need a fire, and she
bustled around very busily when she got home, gathering up shavings
from the place where the carpenters had been at work, and getting
little sticks to lay upon them so that the fire would burn up readily.
Then she went back to the house, and going up into the spare room, took
down the match-box from the tall chest of drawers, and carried it out
to the hut where it would be all ready for the night. When this was
done she felt as if she could hardly wait for the sun to go down and
bedtime to come. She was so excited over her grand plan that her eyes
shone like stars, and her cheeks were so flushed that when her father
came in, he put his hand on her cheeks to see whether she had any
fever. If he had only known what a naughty plan was in Ruby's mind, he
would have been more sorry than to have had his little girl sick.
Of course I need not tell you that Ruby knew just how wrong it was to
plan something which she knew very well her father and mother would not
permit for a moment if they knew of it. But in all the years that you
have known her she had not grown any less self-willed, I am sorry to
say, and so she thought of nothing but of getting her own way, whether
it was naughty or not.
The longest day will have an end at last, and though it seemed to Ruby
as if a day had never passed so slowly, yet finally the sun went down.
Ruby had had her supper, had kissed mamma good-night, and bed-time had
come. She took off her shoes, and her dress, and then slipping her
little white night-dress on over her other clothes, she scrambled into
bed, and waited for her papa to come and kiss her good-night, her heart
beating so loudly with excitement that she was afraid he would hear it,
and wonder what was the matter with her. I think if it had been her
mother who had come in she would have wondered why only Ruby's dress
and shoes were to be seen, and why the little girl had such a flushed,
guilty look, and held the bed-clothes tucked up so tightly under her
chin; but Ruby's papa did not notice any of these things, so Ruby was
not hindered from carrying out her naughty plan.
She waited for what seemed to her a very long time, and then she heard
the wheels of her father's buggy going out of the yard, and knew he had
gone somewhere to see a patient. She was glad, for that made one
person less who would be likely to hear her when she went out. Her
mamma she was sure would not hear her, for her door was closed, and if
she could only get past the kitchen door without Ann discovering her,
she would be safe. When she could not hear any one stirring, she got
up and crept softly over to the door. The house was very still, so
even the rustle of her night-dress seemed to make a noise as she
stepped along the hall. Down the stairs she crept like a little thief,
and at last she reached the door. Ann had been sitting with her back
to the kitchen door reading when Ruby went past, so she had not noticed
the little figure gliding along.
Ruby stepped through the open door out upon the back porch. It was
dark, and the noise of the tree toads and frogs seemed to make it more
lonely than she had thought it would be. For a moment she was almost
willing to give up her plan and go back to bed like a good little girl,
but then she thought of Ruthy, and how she would hate to confess to her
the next day that she had given up her plan after all; so she went on.
Ruby was not inclined to be timid about anything, so, although it did
not seem as delightful as she had imagined it would, yet she was not
afraid as she ran down the yard to her little house. She was glad,
however, that it was not upon a desert island. It was very nice to
know that she was not surrounded by great rolling waves on every side,
and that if she wished to go back to her home and her mother she could
do so in a very few minutes.
She crept into her hut, and finding the bedclothes rolled herself up in
them. Oh, why was n't it as nice as she had thought it would be? Ruby
was provoked with herself for wishing that she was back in the house
curled up in her own little bed, instead of being out here in the night
alone. She would not give up and go back, though, she said over and
over again to herself. No; she had said that she would stay out all
night, and she meant to keep her word, whether she liked it or not.
If Ruby had only been half as determined to keep her good resolutions
as she was to keep her bad ones, she would never have found herself in
such scrapes.
She rolled herself up in a little ball and drew the blanket closely
about her,--not because she was cold, but because it seemed less
lonesome. While she was listening to all the music of a summer's
night, she fell asleep, and dreamed a very remarkable dream about
sleeping in a nest swung from a cocoanut-tree, with a monkey for a
bed-fellow.
In the mean time very unexpected events were taking place at the house.
A little while after Ruby's father had gone out to see his patient a
carriage drove up from the station with a visitor.
It was Ruby's Aunt Emma, who had come to make a visit of a few days,
and who had written to say that she was coming, but had only discovered
at the last moment that her letter had not been mailed in time for her
brother to receive it before her arrival.
After she had had a little talk with Ruby's mother, she was very
impatient to see her little niece.
"I wish I could have reached here in time to see her before she went to
sleep," she said.
"I am afraid if she woke up now and found you were here she would not
go to sleep again all night," said Ruby's mother.
"I won't wake her, but I will just go and peep at her while she is
asleep," said Aunt Emma; and lighting a candle, she followed Ann into
the room where Ruby was supposed to be fast asleep in her trundle-bed.
Of course there was no Ruby there. The little girl was curled up in
her blankets out in the yard, under her little tent of boards; and
there was only a little crumpled place in the pillow to show where her
head had nestled.
"Why, where can she be, I wonder?" said Ann in surprise.
"Hush! don't let her mother hear, or she will be worried," said Aunt
Emma, who knew how easily the invalid would be alarmed. "Perhaps she
has gone downstairs to get a drink of water or something."
"No, I am sure she has n't been downstairs, for I have been sitting
right there in the kitchen all the evening," said Ann, positively.
"Oh, Miss Emma, she has got to be the witchiest girl ever you did see.
She's always up to some piece of mischief or another, and it's more
than any one but her mother can do to keep her in order. I try my
best, but it ain't any use at all. She does just as she likes for all
of me, unless I tell her father; and then it worries him so that I
don't like to, when he has so much else on his mind."
"I should like to know where she is now," said Miss Emma, looking very
much puzzled. "There comes her father," she went on, as she heard the
sound of wheels coming into the yard. "Perhaps he will know." She
went downstairs softly, and met the doctor who, was very much surprised
at this unexpected visitor. After he had told her how glad he was to
see her, she told him that Ruby was not upstairs in her bed, and that
Ann did not know where she was, and asked him if he knew what had
become of the little girl.
He looked very anxious.
"Why, no, I have not the least idea," he said gravely. "I kissed her
good-night just before I went out to make a call, and she was all right
in her bed then. I do not see what could have become of her. I hope
we can keep it from her mother, or she will be sadly frightened if she
hears Ruby is not to be found at this hour of the night."
Of course no one could imagine where Ruby had gone, and although they
hunted all over the house, there was not a trace of the little girl to
be seen.
"Perhaps she has been walking in her sleep," suggested Aunt Emma. "She
may have wandered downstairs and out into the yard while she was
asleep, and been too frightened when she woke up to know how to find
her way back into the house. I have heard of children doing such
things."
"But she could n't have gone past the door without my seeing her," said
Ann, very positively. "I have been sitting right there in the kitchen
all the evening, and I am sure I would have heard her, if she had gone
past. I never knew Ruby to walk in her sleep; but then I would n't say
she might n't have done it this time, only I know she did n't walk past
the kitchen door and go out that way."
"Could she have gone out the front door?" asked Aunt Emma.
The doctor shook his head.
"No; that would be too heavy for her to open alone, after it was locked
up for the night. I fastened it myself before I went out, and it is
fastened now; so she could not have gone out that way. There is her
mother calling. I hope she will not ask for Ruby. She must not have
this anxiety if we can spare her."