RAVELL BULSON'S TROUBLE
"What do you think of those two girls, anyway, Nan?" Bess Harley asked.
This was late in the evening, after the porter had made up their
berths again in the Pullman. The baskets of food had been welcomed by
the snow-bound passengers with acclaim. The two girls were thanked
more warmly for their thoughtfulness than Nan and Bess believed they
really deserved.
Bess Harley's question, of course, referred to Sallie Morton and Celia
Snubbins, the girls who had run away from home to become moving picture
actresses. Nan replied to her chum's query:
"That Sallie Morton must be a very silly girl indeed to leave such a
comfortable home and such a lovely mother. Perhaps Celia Snubbins may not
have been so pleasantly situated; but I am sure she had no reason for
running away."
Bess sighed. "Well," she murmured, "it must be great fun to work for the
movies. Just think of those two country girls appearing in a five-reel
film like 'A Rural Beauty.'"
"Well, for goodness' sake, Bess Harley!" cried Nan, astonished, "have you
been bitten by _that_ bug?"
"Don't call it 'bug'--that sounds so common," objected Bess. "Call it
'bacilli of the motion picture.' It must be _great_," she added
emphatically, "to see yourself acting on the screen!"
"I guess so," Nan said, with a laugh. "A whole lot those two foolish
girls _acted_ in that 'Rural Beauty' picture. They were probably two of
the 'merry villagers' who helped to make a background for the real
actresses. You know very well, Bess, that girls like us wouldn't be hired
by any film company for anything important."
"Why--you know, Nan," her chum said, "that some of the most highly paid
film people are young girls."
"Yes. But they are particularly fitted for the work. Do you feel the
genius of a movie actress burning in you?" scoffed Nan.
"No-o," admitted Bess. "I think it is that hard boiled egg I ate. And it
doesn't exactly burn."
Nan went off in a gale of laughter at this, and stage-struck Bess chimed
in. "I don't care," the latter repeated, the last thing before they
climbed into their respective berths, "it must be oodles of fun to work
for the movies."
While the chums slept there were great doings outside the snow-bound
train. The crew turned out with shovels, farmers in the neighborhood
helped, and part of a lately arrived section gang joined in to shovel the
snow away from the stalled engine and train.
Cordwood had been bought of Peleg Morton and hauled over to the
locomotive for fuel. With this the engineer and fireman managed to make
sufficient steam to heat the Pullman coach and the smoking car. Nan and
Bess had brought little "Buster," as the spaniel had been named, into
their section and, having been fed and made warm, he gave the girls
hardly any trouble during the night.
Selfish Mr. Bulson, who had shipped the puppy home to his little boy,
seemed to have no interest whatsoever in Buster's welfare.
It was not until the great snow-plow and a special locomotive appeared
the next morning, and towed the stalled train on to its destination, and
Nan Sherwood and her chum arrived at Tillbury, that Nan learned anything
more regarding Mr. Ravell Bulson.
Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood had been more than a little worried by Nan's delay
in getting home and Mr. Sherwood was at the station to meet the train
when it finally steamed into Tillbury.
Owneyville, which the girls knew to be Mr. Bulson's home town, was a
station beyond Tillbury, and a much smaller town. The fat man had to
change cars, so it was not surprising that he stepped down upon the
Tillbury platform just as Nan ran into her father's arms.
"Oh, Papa Sherwood!" Nan almost sobbed.
"My dear Nancy!" he returned, quite as much moved.
And just then Mr. Bulson appeared beside them. "Well, Sherwood!" the fat
man growled, "have you come to your senses yet?"
Robert Sherwood's face flushed and he urged Nan away along the snowy
platform. "I don't care to talk to you, Bulson," he said shortly.
"Well, you _will_ talk to me!" exclaimed the angry fat man. "I'll get you
into court where you'll have to talk."
Mr. Sherwood kept right on with Nan and Bulson was left fuming and
muttering on the platform. Bess had already been put into the family
sleigh and was being whisked home. Nan and her father tramped briskly
through the snowy streets toward "the little dwelling in amity," which
Nan had not seen since leaving Tillbury for her Uncle Henry Sherwood's
home at Pine Camp, ten months before.
"Oh, _dear_, Papa Sherwood!" gasped Nan. "What is the matter with that
horrid man? He says the most dreadful things about you!"
"What's that?" demanded her father, quickly. "What do you know
about Bulson?"
"More than I really want to know about him," said Nan, ruefully. She
related briefly what had happened a few days before on Pendragon Hill.
"And when he called you a rascal, I--oh! I was very, very angry! What did
he mean, Papa Sherwood?"
But her father postponed his explanation until later; and it was really
from her mother that Nan heard the story of Mr. Sherwood's trouble with
Ravell Bulson. Mrs. Sherwood was very indignant about it, and so, of
course, was Nan.
A week or more before, Mr. Sherwood had had business in Chicago, and in
returning took the midnight train. The sleeping car was side-tracked at
Tillbury and when most of the passengers were gone the man in the berth
under Mr. Sherwood's began to rave about having been robbed. His watch
and roll of banknotes had disappeared.
The victim of the robbery was Mr. Ravell Bulson. Mr. Bulson had at once
accused the person occupying the berth over his as being the guilty
person. Nan's father had got up early, and had left the sleeping car long
before Mr. Bulson discovered his loss.
The railroad and the sleeping car company, of course, refused to
acknowledge responsibility for Mr. Bulson's valuables. Nor on mere
suspicion could Mr. Bulson get a justice in Tillbury to issue a warrant
for Mr. Sherwood.
But Ravell Bulson had been to the Sherwood cottage on Amity Street, and
had talked very harshly. Besides, the fat man had in public loudly
accused his victim of being dishonest.
Mr. Sherwood's reputation for probity in Tillbury was well founded; he
was liked and respected; those who really knew him would not be
influenced by such a scandal.
But as Mr. Sherwood was making plans to open an agency in Tillbury for a
certain automobile manufacturing concern, he feared that the report of
Mr. Bulson's charge would injure his usefulness to the corporation he was
about to represent. To sue Bulson for slander would merely give wider
circulation to the story the fat man had originated.
Ravell Bulson was a traveling man and was not often in Tillbury--that was
one good thing. He had a reputation in his home town of Owneyville of
being a quarrelsome man, and was not well liked by his neighbors.
Nevertheless a venomous tongue can do a great deal of harm, and a
spiteful enemy may sometimes bring about a greater catastrophe than a
more powerful adversary.