LOOKING FOR RUBY.
People who are sick are very quick to hear when anything is wrong, and
as soon as the doctor opened the door of the sick-room, Ruby's mamma
asked anxiously,--
"Is anything wrong with Ruby? Where is she?"
Just then the only possible explanation of her absence occurred to the
doctor, and he answered,
"She is not in her bed, my dear, and I am afraid she has run away and
gone over to Ruthy's to spend the night. You know she asked permission
to stay all night the last time she went over there for supper, and I
suppose she has made up her mind to go without permission. It is too
bad in her to act this way and worry you. I will drive over after her
right away, and bring her back in a few minutes."
"I don't believe she would go all the way up to Ruthy's after dark,"
said her mother, in anxious tones. "I am afraid something has happened
to her, though I cannot imagine what it could be."
"Don't think about it till I bring her back safe and sound," said the
doctor as he hurried away.
But it was a great deal easier to give this advice than to follow it.
Ruby's mamma could not help worrying about her little girl, and while
naughty little Ruby was curled up in her blankets, sleeping as sweetly
as a little bird in its nest, her mamma was listening to the wheels of
the doctor's buggy, rolling out of the yard, with a beating heart, and
wondering what had happened to the little girl who had gone to bed not
two hours ago.
It did not take very long to drive over to Ruthy's house, and the
doctor did not wait to hitch staid old Dobbin, but jumped out and ran
up the steps to the house, anxious to know whether Ruby was really
there. Although he was quite sure that she must be, yet he was
impatient to satisfy himself.
"Is Ruby here?" were his first words, when Mr. Warren opened the door.
"Why, no," Mr. Warren answered. "I don't think she has been here
to-day."
"Oh, yes, she was here a little while this afternoon," said Mrs. Warren
coming to the door. "Why, what is the matter, doctor? Is n't Ruby at
home?"
"No, she went to bed all right, but a little while ago when her aunt
came and went to look for her, she was gone," said the doctor, feeling
as if he did not know now where to turn to look for the little runaway;
for where could she possibly be at that time of night, if she had not
come over to visit her little friend? "Where can the child be?"
"Is n't she in the house somewhere?" asked Mrs. Warren.
"No, we have looked through the house," the doctor answered. "I don't
know what will become of her mother, if I have to go back without Ruby.
No one could have come into the house and stolen her, that is certain,
and yet I cannot conceive where she could have gone to at this hour in
the evening. This is dreadful."
Neither Mr. Warren nor his wife could suggest any place to look for
Ruby. It was certainly a very strange thing that she could have
disappeared from her bed after dark, without any one knowing anything
about it. The doctor got into his buggy again and started towards
home, wondering what he should do when he had to tell Ruby's mother
that her little girl could not be found.
If Ruby could have known what a heartache her father had, as he drove
slowly homeward, dreading to take such sad news back with him, I am
quite sure the little girl would have tried to be good, and not make
those who loved her so anxious about her.
In the mean time, Ruby had stirred uneasily in her sleep, and at last
when the owl who lived in the tall elm-tree close by, gave a long,
mournful hoot, she awakened, and sat up, wondering, as she rubbed her
eyes open, where she was.
The cool evening breeze fanned her face, and the stars looked down upon
her, and all at once Ruby remembered where she had gone to sleep. In
the very depths of her heart she wished that she was back again in her
own little bed, with her head on her pillow, and the white spread drawn
over her. It seemed so very, very desolate to be down here at the end
of the garden all alone, with a long, dark walk before her if she
should go back to the house; and she began to think that the Swiss
Family Robinson had a better time than Robinson Crusoe, since they were
all together, and poor Crusoe must often have been very lonely all by
himself, before his man Friday came to live with him.
If Ruthy had only been there, Ruby thought she would have made a very
good man Friday, but she was quite sure that nothing would have
persuaded Ruthy to stay out of doors at night.
"I am not a little 'fraid-cat like Ruthy," said Ruby to herself, trying
to pretend that she was not at all lonely nor frightened. "I would
just as lief stay out here every night. I wonder what time it is. I
guess it must be nearly morning. I was asleep just hours and hours, I
think. I am dreadfully hungry, so it must be ever so long since I had
my supper. I had better eat some provisions, maybe."
Ruby was not really very hungry, but she wanted to be as much like the
Swiss Family Robinson as possible, so she sat up and sleepily nibbled
at some cookies.
"I don't think these are very nice cookies," she said, as she tried to
keep up the pretence that she was very hungry. "I wish they were
cocoanuts. They would be ever so much nicer."
"I wish this was a big, tall cocoanut-tree," Ruby went on. "And that
it was just full of cocoanuts, and that some monkeys had a nest in it,
and would throw me down cocoanuts whenever I wanted one. It would hurt
if they hit me on the head though. I guess I would have to live under
another tree, so as to be sure the cocoanuts would n't drop on me. I
wonder if monkeys live in nests. Of course they don't live in
bird's-nests, but maybe they take sticks up into trees, and make little
nests, and--and--"
Ruby nodded so hard that she woke up again. She had nearly gone to
sleep sitting straight up, she was so sleepy.
"I don't want to go to sleep just yet," she said. "I am going to stay
awake, so. I might just as well be in bed as keep asleep out here all
the time. I guess I will make a fire, and then that will be just like
a real castaway."
The sticks and matches were all ready, and Ruby struck a match and
lighted the little fire. It was not a very large pile of sticks, and
Ruby had not thought that it would make much of a blaze, but the
shavings underneath, and the light, dry sticks upon the top, were very
ready to take fire and make as large a blaze as they could, so Ruby was
quite dismayed at the size of her fire.
She was a little frightened, too. She had made the fire in the front
of her little house, and she could not get past it to go out. The
fence made a strong back wall to the house, over which she could not
climb, and she could not possibly get away from the smoke and heat
without going so near the fire that she was sure her night-gown would
take fire.
Suppose the boards that she used in making the house should take fire,
what would become of her then. I do not wonder that Ruby was
frightened when she looked at the little bonfire, crackling and
snapping away as cheerily as if a frightened child was not watching it
with tears in her eyes.
"Oh, I shall be all burned up," she cried. "And no one will ever know
what became of me. My mamma will cry and cry and wonder where Ruby is,
but she will never think that I came down here and made a fire, and
burned myself all entirely up. Oh, oh, I do wish I had n't. I do wish
I had n't. I wonder if I screamed and screamed for papa, whether he
would come down and hear me and come down and get me out. Perhaps he
could n't. I don't see how anybody could get past that dreadful blaze.
He would just have to see me all burning up and he could n't do one
thing to save me. Oh, how sorry he would be," and Ruby cried harder
than ever at the thought of her father's distress.
The smoke made her eyes smart and sting, and it choked her so that she
coughed and strangled, and I need not tell you that she would have
given anything in the world to have been back in her own little bed
again.
Just then papa drove through the gate, and you can imagine how much
surprised he was to see a fire under some boards down at the end of the
yard. He jumped out of the buggy and went down there as quickly as he
could, to find out what it was.
He looked into the little house, and there beyond the fire, crying so
hard that she did not see nor hear him, was the little girl he had been
looking for.
"Why, Ruby!" he exclaimed in amazement; and Ruby looked up, as much
surprised at finding her father there, as he had been a second before
when he saw her.
"Oh, papa, papa, must I be all burned up?" she cried, but papa was
already answering that question. He threw down the boards out of which
Ruby had made her house, and striding past the fire, lifted her in his
arms, and started up to the house with her.
He was so glad that he had found her, and could take her back to her
mother safe and unharmed, that he forgot everything else, and of
course, Ruby was happy at being in those strong arms, when she had been
so sure that she was going to be burned up; and all the way up to the
house she resolved, as she had so many times before, that she would
surely, surely be good now, for whenever she was naughty, and did
things that she knew would not please her father and mother, she always
got into trouble, and was not half as happy as she would have been if
she had tried to please them. After all, papas and mammas did know
what was best for little girls.