THE GIRL IN THE AUTOMOBILE
The men who had gone in with the unconscious boy and the stretcher
hung about the doctor's door, which was some yards from the gateway.
Everybody seemed to have forgotten the girl, a stranger in Cheslow,
and for the first day of her life away from kind and indulgent
friends.
It was only ten minutes walk to the railroad station, and Ruth
remembered that it was a straight road. She arrived in the waiting
room safely enough. Sam Curtis, the station master, descried her
immediately and came out of his office with her bag.
"Well, and what happened? Is that boy really hurt?" he asked.
"He has a broken arm and his head is cut. I do not know how seriously,
for Doctor Davison had not finished examining him when I--I came
away," she replied, bravely enough, and hiding the fact that she had
been overlooked.
"They took him to the doctor's house, did they?" asked Sam.
"Yes, sir," said Ruth. "But--"
"Mr. Curtis, has there been anybody here for me?"
"For you, Miss?" the station master returned, somewhat surprised it
seemed.
"Yes, sir. Anybody from Red Mill?"
Curtis smote one fist into his other palm, exclaiming:
"You don't mean to say that you was what Jabe Potter was after?"
"Mr. Jabez Potter, who keeps the Red Mill, is my uncle," Ruth
observed, with dignity.
"My goodness gracious me, Miss! He was here long before your train was
due. He's kind of short in his speech, Miss. And he asked me if there
was anything here for him, and I told him no. And he stumped out again
without another word. Why, I thought he was looking for an express
package, or freight. Never had an idea he was expectin' a niece!"
Ruth still looked at him earnestly. The man did not suspect, by her
appearance, how hard a time she was having to keep the tears from
overrunning those calm, gray eyes.
"And you expected to go out to the Red Mill to-night, Miss?" he
continued. "They're country folk out there and they'd all be abed
before you could get there, even if you took a carriage."
"I don't know that I have enough to pay for carriage hire," Ruth said,
softly. "Is--is there any place I can stop over night in the village?
Then I can walk out in the morning."
"Why--there's a hotel. But a young girl like you--You'll excuse me,
Miss. You're young to be traveling alone."
"Perhaps I haven't money enough to pay for a lodging there?" suggested
Ruth. "I have a dollar. It was given me to spend as I liked on the
way. But Miss True gave me such a big box of luncheon that I did not
want anything."
"A dollar wouldn't go far at the Brick Hotel," murmured the station
agent. He still stared at her, stroking his lean, shaven jaw. Finally
he burst out with: "I tell you! We'll go home and see what my wife
says."
At the moment the station began to jar with the thunder of a coming
train and Ruth could not make herself heard in reply to his proposal.
Besides, Sam Curtis hurried out on the platform. Nor was Ruth ready to
assert her independence and refuse any kind of help the station master
might offer. So she sat down patiently and waited for him.
There were one or two passengers only to disembark from this train and
they went away from the station without even coming into the waiting
room. Then Curtis came back, putting out the lights and locking his
ticket office. The baggage room was already locked and Ruth's old
trunk was in it.
"Come on now, girl--What's your name?" asked Curtis.
"Ruth Fielding."
"Just so! Well, it's only a step to our house and wife will have
supper waiting. And there's nobody else there save Mercy."
Ruth was a little curious about "Mercy"--whether it referred to
abounding grace, or was a person's name. But she asked no questions as
they came out of the railroad station and Sam Curtis locked the door.
They did not cross the tracks this time, but went into the new part of
the town. Turning a corner very soon as they walked up what Curtis
said was Market Street, they reached, on a narrow side street, a
little, warm-looking cottage, from almost all the lower windows of
which the lamplight shone cheerfully. There was a garden beside it,
with a big grape arbor arranged like a summer-house with rustic chairs
and a table. The light shining on the side porch revealed the arbor to
Ruth's quick eyes.
When they stepped upon this porch Ruth heard a very shrill and not at
all pleasant voice saying--very rapidly, and over and over again: "I
don't want to! I don't want to! I don't want to!" It might have been a
parrot, or some other ill-natured talking bird; only Ruth saw nothing
of the feathered conversationalist when Sam opened the door and
ushered her in.
"Here we are, wife!" he exclaimed, cheerfully. "And how's Mercy?"
The reiterated declaration had stopped instantly. A comely, kind-faced
woman with snow-white hair, came forward. Ruth saw that she was some
years younger than Curtis, and he was not yet forty. It was not Father
Time that had powdered Mrs. Curtis' head so thickly.
"Mercy is--Why, who's this?" she asked espying Ruth. "One of the
girls come in to see her?"
Instantly the same whining, shrill voice began:
"I don't want her to see me! They come to stare at me! I hate 'em all!
All girls do is to run and jump and play tag and ring-around-a-rosy
and run errands, and dance! I hate 'em!"
This was said very, very fast--almost chattered; and it sounded so
ill-natured, so impatient, so altogether mean and hateful, that Ruth
fell back a step, almost afraid to enter the pleasant room. But then
she saw the white-haired lady's face, and it was so grieved, yet
looked such a warm welcome to her, that she took heart and stepped
farther in, so that Sam Curtis could shut the door.
The father appeared to pay no attention to the fault-finding, shrill
declamation of the unhappy voice. He said, in explanation, to his
wife:
"This is Ruth Fielding. She has come a long way by train to-day,
expecting to meet her uncle, old Jabe Potter of the Red Mill. And you
know how funny Jabe is, wife? He came before the train, and did not
wait, but drove right away with his mules and so there was nobody here
to meet Ruthie. She's marooned here till the morning, you see."
"Then she shall stay with us to-night," declared Mrs. Curtis, quickly.
"I don't want her to stay here to-night!" ejaculated the same shrill
voice.
Mr. and Mrs. Curtis paid no attention to what was said by this
mysterious third party. Ruth, coming farther into the room, found that
it was large and pleasant. There was a comfortable look about it all.
The supper table was set and the door was opened into the warm
kitchen, from which delicious odors of tea and toast with some warm
dish of meat, were wafted in. But the shrill and complaining voice had
not come from the next room.
In the other corner beside the stove, yet not too near it, stood a
small canopy bed with the pretty chintz curtains drawn all about it.
Beside it stood a wheel-chair such as Ruth knew was used by invalids
who could not walk. It was a tiny chair, too, and it and the small bed
went together. But of the occupant of either she saw not a sign.
"Supper will be ready just as soon as our guest has a chance to remove
the traces of travel, Sam," said Mrs. Curtis, briskly. "Come with me,
Ruth."
When they returned from the pleasant little bed-chamber which the
good-hearted lady told Ruth was to be her own for that night, they
heard voices in the sitting room--the voice of Mr. Curtis and the
querulous one. But it was not so sharp and strained as it seemed
before. However, on opening the door, Mr. Curtis was revealed sitting
alone and there was no sign of the owner of the sharp voice, which
Ruth supposed must belong to the invalid.
"Mercy has had her supper; hasn't she, wife?" said the station master
as he drew his chair to the table and motioned Ruth to the extra place
Mrs. Curtis had set.
The woman nodded and went briskly about putting the supper on the
table. While they ate Mr. Curtis told about Reno stopping the train,
and of the search for and recovery of the injured Cameron boy. All the
time Ruth, who sat sideways to the canopied bed, realized that the
curtains at the foot were drawn apart just a crack and that two very
bright, pin-point eyes were watching her. So interested did these eyes
become as the story progressed, and Ruth answered questions, that more
of Mercy Curtis' face was revealed--a sharp, worn little face, with a
peaked chin and pale, thin cheeks.
Ruth was very tired when supper was ended and the kind Mrs. Curtis
suggested that she go to bed and obtain a good night's rest if she was
to walk to the Red Mill in the morning. But even when she bade her
entertainers good-night she did not see the child in the canopy bed
and she felt diffident about asking Mrs. Curtis about her. The young
traveler slept soundly--almost from the moment her head touched the
pillow. Yet her last thought was of Uncle Jabez. He had been in town
some time before the train on which she arrived was due and had driven
away from the station with his mules, Mr. Curtis said. Had he driven
over that dark and dangerous road on which Tom Cameron met with his
accident, and had he run down the injured boy, or forced him over the
bank of the deep gully where they had found Tom lying unconscious?
"It was Jabe Potter--he did it," the injured lad had murmured, and
these words were woven in the pattern of Ruth's dreams all night.
The little cottage was astir early and Ruth was no laggard. She came
down to breakfast while the sun was just peeping above the house-tops
and as she entered the sitting room she found an occupant at last in
the little wheel-chair. It was the sharp, pale little face that
confronted her above the warm wrapper and the rug that covered the
lower part of the child's body; for child Mercy Curtis was, and little
older than Ruth herself, although her face seemed so old.
To Ruth's surprise the first greeting of the invalid was a most
ill-natured one. She made a very unpleasant face at the visitor, ran
out her tongue, and then said, in her shrill, discordant voice:
"I don't like you at all--I tell you that, Miss!"
"I am sorry you do not like me," replied Ruth, gently. "I think I
should like you if you'd let me."
"Yah!" ejaculated the very unpleasant, but much to be pitied invalid.
The mother and father ignored all this ill-nature on the part of the
lame girl and were as kind and friendly with their visitor as they had
been on the previous evening. Once during breakfast time (Mercy took
hers from a tray that was fastened to her chair before her) the child
burst out again, speaking to Ruth. There were eggs on the table and,
pointing to the golden-brown fried egg that Mrs. Curtis had just
placed upon Ruth's plate, Mercy snapped:
"Do you know what's the worst wish I'd wish on My Enemy?"
Ruth looked her astonishment and hesitated to reply. But Mercy did not
expect a reply, for she continued quickly:
"I'd wish My Enemy to have to eat every morning for breakfast two soft
fried eggs with his best clothes on--that's what I'd wish!"
And this is every word she would say to the visitor while Ruth
remained. But Mr. Curtis bade Ruth good-bye very kindly when he
hurried away to the station, and Mrs. Curtis urged her to come and see
them whenever she came to town after getting settled at the Red Mill.
It was a fresh and lovely morning, although to the weather-wise the
haze in the West foredoomed the end of the day to disaster. Ruth felt
more cheerful as she crossed the railroad tracks and struck into the
same street she had followed with the searching party the evening
before. She could not mistake Doctor Davison's house when she passed
it, and there was a fine big automobile standing before the gate where
the two green lanterns were. But there was nobody in the car, nor did
she see anybody about the doctor's house.
Beyond the doctor's abode the houses were far apart--farther and
farther apart as she trudged on. Nobody noticed or spoke to the girl
as she went on with her small bag--the bag that grew heavy, despite
its smallness, as she progressed. And so she traveled two miles, or
more, along the pleasant road. Then she heard the purring of an
automobile behind her--the first vehicle that she had seen since
leaving town.
It was the big gray car that had been standing before Doctor Davison's
house when she had passed, and Ruth would have known the girl who sat
at the steering wheel and was driving the car alone, even had Reno,
the big mastiff, not sat in great dignity on the seat beside her. For
no girl could look so much like Tom Cameron without being Tom
Cameron's sister.
And the girl, the moment she saw Ruth on the road, retarded the speed
of the machine. Reno, too, lost all semblance of dignity and would not
wait for the car to completely stop before bounding into the road and
coming to caress her hand.
"I know who you are!" cried the girl in the automobile. "You are Ruth
Fielding."
She was a brilliant, black-eyed, vivacious girl, perhaps a year or
more older than Ruth, and really handsome, having her brother's olive
complexion with plenty of color in cheeks and lips. And that her
nature was impulsive and frank there could be no doubt, for she
immediately leaped out of the automobile, when it had stopped, and ran
to embrace Ruth.
"Thank you! thank you!" she cried. "Doctor Davison has told us all
about you--and how brave you are! And see how fond Reno is of you! He
knows who found his master; don't you, Reno?"
"Oh, dear me," said Ruth, breathlessly, "Doctor Davison has been too
kind. I did nothing at all toward finding your brother--I suppose he
is your brother, Miss?"
"How dare you 'Miss' me?" demanded the other girl, hugging her again.
"You're a dear; I knew you must be! And I was running back and
intended to stop at the Red Mill to see you. I took father to town
this morning, as he had to take an early train to the city, and we
wished to see Tom again."
"He--he isn't badly hurt, then--your brother, I mean?" said Ruth,
timidly.
"He is going to stay at the doctor's to-day, and then he can come
home. But he will carry his arm in a sling for a while, although no
bone was broken, after all. His head is badly cut, but his hair will
hide that. Poor Tom! he is always falling down, or getting bumped, or
something. And he's just as reckless as he can be. Father says he is
not to be trusted with the car as much as I am."
"How--how did he come to fall over that bank?" asked Ruth, anxiously.
"Why--it was dark, I suppose. That was the way of it. I don't know as
he really told me what made him do such a foolish thing. And wasn't it
lucky Reno was along with him?" cried Tom's sister.
"Now, I see you remained in town over night. They thought somebody had
come for yon and taken you out to the mill. Is Jabez Potter really
your uncle?"
"Yes. He was my mother's uncle. And I have no other relative."
"Well, dear, I am more than sorry for you," declared the girl from the
automobile. "And now we will climb right in and I'll take you along to
the mill."
But whether she was sorry for Ruth Fielding's friendlessness, or sorry
because she was related to Jabez Potter, the young traveler could not
decide.