It was some time before Ruth could quiet the almost hysterical girl. Rebecca Frayne had held herself in check so long, and the bitterness of her position had so festered in her mind, that now the barriers were burst she could not control herself.
But Ruth Fielding was sympathetic. And her heart went out to this lonely and foolish girl as it seldom had to any person in distress. She felt, too, did Ruth, as though it was partly her fault and the fault of the other freshmen that Rebecca was in this state of mind.
She was fearful that having actually forced herself upon Rebecca that the girl might, when she came to herself, turn against her. But at present Rebecca's heart was so full that it spilled over, once having found a confidant.
In Ruth Fielding's arms the unfortunate girl told a story that, if supremely silly from one standpoint, was a perfectly natural and not uncommon story.
She was a girl, born and brought up in a quiet, small town, living in the biggest and finest house in that town, yet having suffered actual privations all her life for the sake of keeping up appearances.
The Frayne family was supposed to be wealthy. Not as wealthy as a generation or so before; still, the Fraynes were looked upon as the leaders in local society.
There was now only an aunt, Rebecca, a younger sister, and a brother who was in New York struggling upward in a commission house.
"And if it were not for the little Fred can spare me and sends me twice a month, I couldn't stay here," Rebecca confessed during this long talk with Ruth. "He's the best boy who ever lived."
"He must be," Ruth agreed. "I'd be glad to have a brother like that."
Rebecca had been hungry for books. She had always hoped to take a college course.
"But I was ignorant of everything," she sighed.
Ruth gathered, too, that the aunt, who was at the nominal head of the Frayne household, was also ignorant. This Aunt Emmy seemed to be an empty-headed creature who thought that the most essential thing for a girl in life was to be fancifully dressed, and to attain a position in society.
Aunt Emmy had evidently filled Rebecca's head with such notions. The girl had come to Ardmore with a totally wrong idea of what it meant to be in college.
"Why! some of these girls act as waitresses," said Rebecca. "I couldn't dothateven to obtain the education I want so much. Oh! Aunt Emmy would never hear to it."
"It's a perfectly legitimate way of helping earn one's tuition," Ruth said.
"The Fraynes have never done such things," the other girl said haughtily.
And right there and then Ruth decided that Rebecca Frayne was going to have a very hard time, indeed, at Ardmore unless she learned to look upon life quite differently from the way she had been taught at home.
Already Ruth Fielding had seen enough at Ardmore to know that many of the very girls whose duties Rebecca scorned, were getting more out of their college life than Rebecca Frayne could possibly get unless she took a radically different view of life and its comparative values from that her present standards gave her.
The girls who were waitresses, and did other work to help pay for their tuition or for their board were busy and happy and were respected by their mates. In addition, they were often the best scholars in the classes.
Rebecca was wrong in scorning those who combined domestic service with an attempt to obtain an education. But Ruth was wise enough to see that this feeling was inbred in Rebecca. It was useless to try to change her opinion upon it.
If Rebecca were poverty-stricken, her purse could not be replenished by any such means as these other girls found to help them over the hard places. In this matter of the tam-o'-shanter, for instance, it would be very difficult to help the girl. Ruth knew better than to offer to pay for the new tam-o'-shanter the freshman could not afford to buy. To make such an offer would immediately close the door of the strange girl's friendship to Ruth. So she did not hint at such a thing. She talked on, beginning to laugh and joke with Rebecca, and finally brought her out of her tears.
"Cheer up," Ruth said. "You are making the worst possible use of your time here—keeping to yourself and being so afraid of making friends. We're not all rich girls, I assure you. And the girls on this corridor are particularly nice."
"I suppose that may be. But if everywhere I go they show so plainly they don't want me——"
"That will stop!" cried Ruth, vigorously. "If I have to go to Dr. Milroth myself, it shall be stopped. It is hazing of the crudest kind. Oh! what a prettily crocheted table-mat. It's old-fashioned, but pretty."
"Aunty does that, almost all the time," Rebecca said, with a little laugh. "Fred once said—in confidence, of course—that half the family income goes for Aunt Emmy's wool."
"Doyoudo it, too?" Ruth asked suspiciously.
"Oh yes. I can."
"Say! could you crochet one of these tams?" cried Ruth, eagerly.
"Why—I suppose so," admitted the other girl.
"Then, why not? Do it to please the seniors and juniors. It won't hurt to bow to a custom, will it? And you only need buy a few hanks of wool at a time."
Rebecca's face flamed again; but she took the suggestion, after all, with some meekness.
"Imightdo that," she admitted.
"All right. Then you'll be doing your part. And talk to the girls. Let them talk to you. Come down to the dining-room for your meals again. You know, the housekeeper, Mrs. Ebbets, will soon be getting into trouble about you. Somebody will talk to Dr. Milroth or to some other member of the upper faculty."
"I suppose so," groaned Rebecca. "They won't let poor little me alone."
"Oh, you can't expect to have your own way at school," cried Ruth, laughing. "Oh, and say!"
"Well, Miss Fielding?"
"Docall me Ruth," begged the girl of the Red Mill. "It won't cost you a cent more," but she said it so good-naturedly that Rebecca had to laugh.
"I will," said the other girl, vehemently. "You are the very nicest little thing!"
"Well, now that's settled," laughed Ruth, "do something for me, will you?"
"Any—anything I can," agreed Rebecca, with some doubt.
"You know we girls on this corridor are going to have a sitting-room all to ourselves. That corner room that is empty. Everybody is going to buy—is going to give something to help furnish the room."
"Oh, Ruth! I can't——"
"Yes you can," interrupted Ruth, quickly. "When you stop this foolish eating by yourself, you can bring over your alcohol lamp. It's just what we want to make tea on. Now, say you will, Rebecca!"
"I—I will. Why, yes, I can do that," Rebecca agreed.
"Goody! I'll tell the girls. And you'll be as welcome as the flowers in May, lamp or no lamp," she cried, kissing Rebecca again and bustling out of the room.
Ruth had shown a very cheerful face before Rebecca Frayne, but when she was once out of the room the girl of the Red Mill did not show such a superabundance of cheerfulness.
She knew well enough that Rebecca had become so unpopular that public opinion could not be changed regarding her in a moment.
Besides, there were the two upper classes to be considered. Their order regarding the freshmen's head-covering had been flagrantly disobeyed, and would have to be disobeyed for some time to come. A girl cannot crochet a tam-o'-shanter in a minute.
Having undertaken to straighten out Rebecca Frayne's troubles, however, Ruth did not publicly shrink from the task. She was one who made up her mind quickly, and having made it up, set to work immediately to carry the matter through.
Merry Dexter, the first senior she had met upon coming to Ardmore, was kindly disposed toward her, and Ruth knew that Miss Dexter was an influential member of her class. Therefore, Ruth took her trouble—and Rebecca's—directly to Miss Dexter.
Yet, she did not feel that she had a right to explain, even to this one senior, all that Rebecca Frayne had confided to her. She realized that the girl, with her false standards of respectability and social standing, would never be able to hold up her head at college if her real financial situation were known to the girls in general. Ruth was bound, however, to take Miss Dexter somewhat into her confidence to obtain a hearing. She put the matter before the senior as nicely as possible, saying in conclusion:
"And she will knit herself a tam of the proper color just as soon as possible. No girl, you know, Miss Dexter, likes to admit that she is poor. It is dreadfully embarrassing. So I hope that this matter will be adjusted without her situation being discussed."
"Goodness!Ican't change things," the senior declared. "Not unless that girl agrees to do as she is told—like the rest of you freshies."
"Then my opinion of your class, Miss Dexter," Ruth said firmly, "must be entirely wrong. I did not believe that they ordered us to wear baby blue tams just out of an arbitrary desire to make us obey. Had I believedthatI would not have bought a new tam myself!"
"You wouldn't?"
"No, Miss Dexter. Nor would a great many of us freshmen. We believed the order had a deeper significance—and ithad. It helped our class get together. We are combined now, we are a social body. And I believe that if I took this matter up with Rebecca's class, and explained just her situation to them (which, of course, I do not want to do), the freshmen as a whole would back me in a revolt against the upper classes."
"You're pretty sure of that, Ruth Fielding, are you?" demanded the senior.
"Yes, I am. We'd all refuse to wear the new tams. You seniors and juniors would have a nice time sending us all to Coventry, wouldn't you? If you didn't want to eat with us, you'd all go hungry for a long time before the freshmen would do as Rebecca foolishly did."
Miss Dexter laughed at that. And then she hugged Ruth.
"I believe you are a dear girl, with a lot of good sense in your head," she said. "But you must come before our executive committee and talk to them."
"Oh, dear! Beard the lions in their den?" cried Ruth.
"Yes, my dear. I cannot be your spokesman."
Ruth found this a harder task than she had bargained for; but she went that same evening to a hastily called meeting of the senior committee. Perhaps Miss Dexter had done more for her than she agreed, however, for Ruth found these older girls very kind and she seemingly made them easily understand Rebecca's situation without being obliged to say in just so many words that the girl was actually poverty-stricken.
And it was probable, too, that Ruth Fielding helped herself in this incident as much as she did her classmate. The members of the older classes thereafter gave the girl of the Red Mill considerably more attention than she had previously received. Ruth began to feel surprised that she had so many warm friends and pleasant acquaintances in the college, even among the sophomores of Edith Phelps' stamp. Edith Phelps found her tart jokes about the "canned-drama authoress" falling rather flat, so she dropped the matter.
Older girls stopped on the walks to talk to Ruth. They sat beside her in chapel and at other assemblies, and seemed to like to talk with her. Although Ruth did not hold an office in her own class organization, yet she bade fair to become soon the most popular freshman at Ardmore.
Ruth was perfectly unconscious of this fact, for she had not a spark of vanity in her make-up. Her mind was so filled with other and more important things that her social conquests impressed her but little. She did, however, think a good bit about poor Rebecca Frayne's situation. She warned her personal friends among the freshmen, especially those at Dare Hall, to say nothing to Rebecca about the unfortunate affair.
Rebecca came into the dining-room again. Ruth knew that she had actually begun to crochet a baby blue tam-o'-shanter. But it was a question in Ruth's mind if the odd girl would be able to "keep up appearances" on the little money she had left and that which her brother could send her from time to time. It was quite tragic, after all. Rebecca was sure of good and sufficient food as long as she could pay her board; but the girl undoubtedly needed other things which she could not purchase.
Naturally, youth cannot give its entire attention to even so tragic a matter as this. Ruth's gay friends acted as counterweights in her mind to Rebecca's troubles.
The girls were out on the lake very frequently as the cold weather continued; but Ruth never saw again the strange girl whom she and Helen had interviewed at night on Bliss Island.
Hearing from Aunt Alvirah as she did with more or less frequency, the girl of the Red Mill was assured that Maggie seemed content and was proving a great help to the crippled old housekeeper. Maggie seemed quite settled in her situation.
"Just because that queer girl looked like Maggie doesn't prove that Maggie knows her," Ruth told herself. "Still—it's odd."
Stormy weather kept the college girls indoors a good deal; and the general sitting-room on Ruth's corridor became the most social spot in the whole college.
The girls whose dormitory rooms were there, irrespective of class, all shared in the furnishing of the sitting-room. Second-hand furniture is always to be had of dealers near an institution like Ardmore. Besides, the girls all owned little things they could spare for the general comfort, like Rebecca Frayne's alcohol lamp.
Helen had a tea set; somebody else furnished trays. In fact, all the "comforts of home" were supplied to that sitting-room; and the girls were considered very fortunate by their mates in other parts of the hall, and, indeed, in the other three dormitory buildings.
But during the holiday recess something happened that bade fair to deprive Ruth and her friends of their special perquisite. Dr. McCurdy's wife's sister came to Ardmore. The McCurdys did not keep house, preferring to board. They could find no room for Mrs. Jaynes, until it was remembered that there was an unassigned dormitory room at Dare Hall.
Many of the girls had gone home over the brief holidays; but our three friends from Briarwood had remained at Ardmore.
So Ruth and Helen and Jennie Stone chanced to be among the girls present when the housekeeper of Dare Hall came into the sitting-room and, to quote Jennie, informed them that they must "vamoose the ranch."
"That is what Ann Hicks would call it," Jennie said, defending her language when taken to task for it. "We've just got to get out—and it's a mean shame."
Dr. McCurdy was one of the important members of the faculty. Of course, the girls on that corridor had no real right to the extra room. All they could do was to voice their disappointment—and they did that, one may be sure, with vociferation.
"And just when we had come to be so comfortably fixed here," groaned one, when the housekeeper had departed. "I know I shall dis-likethat Mrs. Jaynes extremely."
"We won't speak to her!" cried Helen, in a somewhat vixenish tone.
"Maybe she won't care if we don't," laughed Ruth.
But it was no laughing matter, as they all felt. They made a gloomy party in the pretty sitting-room that last evening of its occupancy as a community resort.
"There's Clara Mayberry in her rocker again on that squeaky board," Rebecca Frayne remarked. "I hope she rocks on that board every evening over this woman's head who has turned us out."
"Let's all hope so," murmured Helen.
Jennie Stone suddenly sat upright in the rocker she was occupying, but continued to glare at the ceiling. A board in the floor of the room above had frequently annoyed them before. Clara Mayberry sometimes forgot and placed her rocker on that particular spot.
"If—if she had to listen to that long," gasped Jennie suddenly, "she would go crazy. She's just that kind of nervous female. I saw her at chapel this morning."
"But even Clara couldn't stand the squeak of that board long," Ruth observed, smiling.
Without another word Jennie left the room. She came back later, so full of mystery, as Helen declared, that she seemed on the verge of bursting.
However, Jennie refused to explain herself in any particular; but the board in Clara Mayberry's room did not squeak again that evening.
"Heavy is actually losing flesh," Helen declared to Ruth. "I can see it."
"You mean youcan'tsee it," laughed her chum. "That is, you can't see so much of it as there used to be. If she keeps on with the rowing machine work in the gym and the basket ball practise and dancing, she will soon be the thinnest girl who ever came to Ardmore."
"Oh, never!" cried Helen. "I don't believe I should like Heavy so much if she wasn't alittlefat."
People who had not seen Jennie Stone for some time observed the change in her appearance more particularly than did her two close friends. This was proved when Mr. Cameron and Tom arrived.
For, as the girls did not go home for just a few days, Helen's father and her twin unexpectedly appeared at college on Christmas Eve, and their company delighted the chums immensely.
On Friday evenings the girls could have company, and on all Saturday afternoons, even during the college term. Also a girl could have a young man call on her Sunday evening, provided he took her to service at chapel.
The three Briarwood friends had had no such company heretofore. They made the most of Mr. Cameron and Tom, therefore, during Christmas week.
There was splendid sleighing, and the skating on the lake was at its very best. Ruth insisted upon including Rebecca Frayne in some of their parties, and Rebecca proved to be good fun.
Tom stared at Jennie Stone, round-eyed, when first he saw her.
"What's the matter with you, Tom Cameron?" the fleshy girl asked, rather tartly. "Didn't you ever see a good-looking girl before?"
"But say, Jennie!" he cried, "are you going into a decline?"
"I decline to answer," she responded. But she dimpled when she said it, and evidently considered Tom's rather blunt remark a compliment.
The Christmas holidays were over all too soon, it seemed to the girls. Yet they took up the class work again with vigor.
Their acquaintanceship was broadening daily, both in the student body and among the instructors. Most of the strangeness of this new college world had worn off. Ruth and Helen and Jennie were full-fledged "Ardmores" now, quite as devoted to the college as they had been to dear old Briarwood.
After New Year's there was a raw and rainy spell that spoiled many of the outdoor sports. Practice in the gymnasium increased, and Helen said that Jennie Stone was bound to work herself down to a veritable shadow if the bad weather continued long.
Ruth was in Rebecca's room one dingy, rainy afternoon, having skipped gymnasium work of all kind for the day. The proprietor of the room had finished her baby blue cap and had worn it the first time that week.
"I feel that they are not all staring at me now," she confessed to Ruth.
Ruth was at the piles of old papers which Rebecca had hidden under a half-worn portierre she had brought from home.
"Do you know," the girl of the Red Mill said reflectively, "these old things are awfully interesting, Becky?"
"What old things?"
"These papers. I've opened one bundle. They were all printed in Richmond during the Civil War. Why, paper must have been awfully scarce then. Some of these are actually printed on wrapping paper—you can scarcely read the print."
"Ought to look at those Charleston papers," said Rebecca, carelessly. "There are full files of those, too, I believe. Why, some of them are printed on wall paper."
"No!"
"Yes they are. Ridiculous, wasn't it?"
Ruth sat silent for a while. Finally she asked:
"Are you sure, Becky, that you have quite complete files here of this Richmond paper? For all the war time, I mean?"
"Yes. And of the South Carolina paper, too. Father collected them during and immediately following the war. He was down there for years, you see."
"I see," Ruth said quietly, and for a long time said nothing more.
But that evening she wrote several letters which she did not show Helen, and took them herself to the mailbag in the lower hall.
Before this, Mrs. Jaynes, Dr. McCurdy's sister-in-law, was settled in the room which had formerly been used by the girls as their own particular sitting-room. She was not an attractive woman at all; so it was not hard for her youthful associates on that corridor of Dare Hall to declare war upon Mrs. Jaynes.
Indeed, without having been introduced to a single girl there, Mrs. Jaynes eyed them all as though she suspected they belonged to a tribe of Bushmen.
Naturally, during hours of relaxation, and occasionally at other times, the girls joked and laughed and raced through the halls and sang and otherwise acted as a crowd of young people usually act.
Mrs. Jaynes was plainly of that sort that believes that all youthfulness and ebullition of spirits should be suppressed. Luckily, she met the girls but seldom—only when she was going to and from her room. On stormy days she remained shut up in her apartment most of the time, and Mrs. Ebbetts sent a maid up with her tray at meal time. She never ate in the Dare Hall dining-room.
Meantime, Jennie Stone had several mysterious sessions with certain of the girls who felt quite as she did regarding the usurpation of Dr. McCurdy's sister-in-law of the spare room. Had Ruth not been so busy in other directions she would have realized that a plot of some kind was in process of formation, for Helen was in it, as well.
Jennie Stone had made a friend of Clara Mayberry on the floor above. In fact, a number of the girls on the lower corridor affected by the presence of Mrs. Jaynes, were in and out of Clara's room all day long. None of these girls remained long at a time—not more than half an hour; but another visitor always appeared before the first left, right through the day, from breakfast call till "lights out." And after retiring hour there began to be seen figures stealing through the corridors and on the stairway between the two floors. That is, there would have been seen such ghostly marauders had there been anybody to watch.
Mrs. Jaynes crossly complained to Mrs. Ebbetts that she was kept awake all night long—and all day, for that matter! But as she never put her head out of her room after the lights were lowered in the corridors, she did not discover the soft-footed spectres of the night.
"But," she complained to Mrs. Ebbetts, "it is the noisiest room I ever was in. Such a squeaking you never heard! And all the time, day and night."
"I do not understand that at all," said the puzzled housekeeper.
"I'd like to know how the girl who had that room before I took it, stood that awful squeaking noise," said the visitor.
"Why, Mrs. Jaynes," said the housekeeper, "no girl slept there. It was a sitting-room."
"Even so, I cannot understand how anybody could endure the noise. If I believed in such things I should declare the room was haunted."
"Indeed, Madam!" gasped the housekeeper. "I do not understand it."
"Well, I cannot endure it. I shall tell my sister that I cannot remain here at Ardmore unless she finds me other lodgings. That awfulsqueak, squeak, squeakcontinues day and night. It is unbearable."
In the end, Dr. McCurdy found lodgings for his sister-in-law in Greenburg. The girls of Ruth's corridor were delighted, and that night held a regular orgy in the recovered sitting-room.
"Thank goodness!" sighed Jennie Stone, "no more up and down all night for us, either. We may sleep in peace, as well as occupy the room in peace."
"Whatdoyou mean, Heavy?" demanded Ruth.
"Oh, Ruthie! That's one time we put one over on you, dear," said the fleshy girl sweetly. "You were not asked to join in the conspiracy. We feared your known sympathetic nature would revolt."
"But explain!"
"Why, Clara let us use her rocking chair," Jennie said demurely. "It's a very nice chair. We all rocked in it, one after another, half-hour watches being assigned——"
"Not at night?" cried the horror-stricken Ruth.
"Oh, yes. All day and all night. Every little minute that rocker was going upon the squeaky board. It's a wonder the board is not worn out," chuckled the wicked Jennie.
"Well, I never!" proclaimed Ruth, aghast. "What won't you think of next, Jennie Stone?"
"I don't know. I know I'm awfully smart," sighed Jennie. "I did so much of the rocking myself, however, that I don't much care if I never see a rocking-chair again."
Ruth Fielding knew that Rebecca Frayne was painfully embarrassed for money. She managed to find the wherewithal for her board, and her textbooks of course had been paid for at the beginning of the college year. But there are always incidentals and unforeseen small expenses, which crop up in a most unexpected manner and clamor for payment.
Rebecca never opened her lips about these troubles, despite the fact that she loved Ruth and was much with the girl of the Red Mill. But Ruth was keen-eyed. She knew that Rebecca suffered for articles of clothing. She saw that her raiment was becoming very, very shabby.
The girl in this trouble was foolish, of course. But foolishness is a disease not so easily cured. There was not the slightest chance of giving Rebecca anything that she needed; Ruth knew that quite well. Her finery—and cheap enough it was—the girl would flaunt to the bitter end.
Deep down she was a good girl in every respect; but she did put on airs and ape the wealthy girls she saw. What garments she owned had been ultra-fashionable in cut, if poor in texture, when she had come to college. But fashions change so frequently nowadays that already poor Rebecca Frayne was behind the styles—and she knew it and grieved bitterly.
Most of her mates at Dare Hall, the freshmen especially, usually dressed in short cloth skirts and middy blouses, with a warm coat over all in cold weather. Would Rebecca be caught going to classes in such an outfit? Not much! That was why her better clothes wore out so quickly and now looked so shabby. Jennie Stone said, with disgust, and with more than a little truth, perhaps:
"That girl primps to go to recitations just as though she were bound for a party. I don't see how she finds time for study."
Ruth realized that Rebecca was made that way, and that was all there was to it. She wasted no strength, nor did she run the risk of being bad friends with the unwise girl, by criticising these silly things. Ruth believed in being helpful, or else keeping still.
Rebecca could never be induced to try to do the things that other poor girls did at college to help pay their expenses. Perhaps she was not really fitted for such services, and would only have failed.
Other girls acted as waitresses, did sewing, one looked after the linen for one of the dormitories, another darned hose and repaired lingerie. Dr. Frances Milroth's own personal secretary was a junior who was working her way through Ardmore and was taking a high mark, too, in her studies.
One girl helped Mrs. Leidenburg with her children during several hours of each day. Some girls were agents for articles which their college mates were glad to secure easily and quickly.
Indeed, the field of endeavor seemed rather well covered, and it would have been hard to discover anything new for Rebecca Frayne to do, had the girl even been willing to "go into trade," a thing Rebecca had told Ruth a Frayne had never done.
This attitude of the Frayne family seemed quite ridiculous to Ruth, but she knew it was absolutely useless to scold Rebecca.
Indeed, it was not Ruth Fielding's way to be a scold. If she could not be helpful she preferred to ignore that which she saw was wrong. And in Rebecca Frayne's case she was determined to be helpful if she could. Rebecca was a bright scholar. After all, she would shine in her class before all was said and done. They could not afford to lose such a really bright girl from among the freshmen.
Often on stormy days Ruth spent the time between recitations and dinner in Rebecca's room.
"I never saw anybody so fond of old papers as you are, Ruthie," Rebecca said. "Do take 'em all if you like. Of course, I'll never be silly enough to carry them back home with me. They are only useful to help build the fire."
"Don't dare destroy one of them, Rebecca Frayne!" Ruth had warned her—and actually made her promise that she would not do so.
Then the replies to Ruth's letters came. She had gone all through the bundles of papers by this time, arranged them according to their dates of issue, and wrapped the different years' issues in strong paper. Rebecca could not see for the life of her, she said, what Ruth was about.
"Surely they can't be worth much as old paper, Ruthie. I know you are a regular little business woman; but junk men aren't allowed on the college grounds."
"Expressmen are, my dear," laughed Ruth.
"What do you mean? Whatareyou going to do with those papers?"
"You said you didn't care——"
"And I don't. They are yours to do with as you please," said the generous Rebecca Frayne.
"To punish you," Ruth said seriously, "I ought really to take you at your word," and she shook her head.
"What meanest thou, my fair young lady?" asked Rebecca, laughing.
"Read this," commanded Ruth, handing her, with the air of the stage hero "producing the papers," one of the letters she had received. "Cast your glance over this, Miss Frayne."
The other received the letter curiously, and read it with dawning surprise. She read it twice and then gazed at Ruth with almost speechless amazement.
"Well! what do you think of your Aunt Ruthnow?" demanded the girl of the Red Mill, laughing.
"It—it can't beso, Ruthie!" murmured Rebecca Frayne, the hand which held the letter fairly shaking.
"It's just assoas it can be," and Ruth continued to laugh.
The tears suddenly flooded into Rebecca's eyes. She could not turn quickly enough to hide them from Ruth's keen vision. But all she said was:
"Well, Ruthie! I congratulate you. Think of it! Two hundred dollars offered for each set of those old papers. Well!"
"You see, it would scarcely have been wise to have built the fire with them," Ruth said drily.
"I—I should say not. And—and they have lain in our attic for years."
"And you brought them to college as waste paper," Ruth added.
Rebecca was silent. Ruth, smiling roguishly, stole up behind her. Suddenly she put both arms around Rebecca Frayne and hugged her tight.
"Becky! Don't you understand?" she cried.
"Understand what?" Rebecca asked gruffly, trying to dash away her few tears.
"Why, honey, I did it foryou. I believed the papers must be worth something. I had heard of a set of New York illustrated papers for the years of the Civil War selling for a big price. These, I believed, must be even more interesting to collectors of such things.
"So I wrote to Mr. Cameron, and he sent me the names of old book dealers, andtheysent me the addresses of several collectors. This Mr. Radley has a regular museum of such things, and he offers the best price—four hundred dollars for the lot if they prove to be as perfect as I said they were. And theyare."
"Yes—but——"
"And, of course, the money is yours, Rebecca," said Ruth, promptly. "You don't for a moment suppose that I would take your valuable papers and cheat you out of the reward just because I happened to know more about their worth than you did? What do you take me for?"
"Oh—oh, Ruthie!"
"What do you take me for?" again demanded Ruth Fielding, quite as though she were offended.
"For the best and dearest girl who ever lived!" cried Rebecca Frayne, and cast herself upon Ruth's breast, holding her tightly while she sobbed there.
This was one surprise. But there was another later, and this was a surprise for Ruth herself.
She was very glad to have been the means of finding Rebecca such a nice little fortune as this that came to her for the old periodicals. With what the girl's brother could send her, Rebecca would be pretty sure of sufficient money to carry her through her freshman year and pay for her second year's tuition at Ardmore.
"Something may be found then for Rebecca to do," thought Ruth, "that will not so greatly shock her notions of gentility. Dear me! she's as nice a girl as ever lived; but she is a problem."
Ruth had other problems, however, on her mind. One of these brought about the personal surprise mentioned above. She had found time finally to complete the scenario of "Crossed Wires," and after some changes had been made in it, Mr. Hammond had informed her that it would be put in the hands of a director for production. It called for so many outdoor scenes, however, that the new film would not be made until spring.
Spring was now fast approaching, and Ruth determined to be at the Red Mill on a visit when the first scenes were taken for her photo-drama.
Of course, if she went, Helen must go. They stood excellently well in all their classes, and it was not hard to persuade Dr. Milroth, who had good reports of both freshmen, to let them go to Cheslow.
Ruth's coming home was in the nature of a surprise to Uncle Jabez and Aunt Alvirah. The old housekeeper was outspoken in her joy at seeing "her pretty" once more. Uncle Jabez was startled into perhaps a warmer greeting of his niece than he ordinarily considered advisable.
"I declare for't, Ruth! Ain't nothin' the matter, is there?" he asked, holding her hand and staring into her face with serious intent.
"Oh, no, Uncle. Nothing at all the matter. Just ran home to see how you all were, and to watch them take the pictures of the old mill."
"Ain't lost any of that money, have ye?" persisted the miller.
"Not a penny. And Mr. Hammond sent me a nice check on account of royalties, too," and she dimpled and laughed at him.
"All right," grunted Uncle Jabez. "Ye wanter watch out for that there money. Business is onsartain. Ain't no knowin' when everything'll go to pothere. I never see the times so hard."
But Ruth was not much disturbed by such talk. Uncle Jabez had been prophesying disaster ever since she had known him.
Maggie welcomed Ruth cordially, as well as Ben. Maggie was still the puzzling combination of characteristics that she had seemed to Ruth from the first. She was willing to work, and was kind to Aunt Alvirah; but she always withdrew into herself if anybody tried to talk much to her.
The others at the Red Mill had become used to the girl's reticence; but to Ruth it remained just as tantalizing. She had the feeling that Maggie was by no means in her right environment.
"Doesn't she ever write letters?" Ruth asked Aunt Alvirah. "Doesn't she ever have a visitor?"
"Why, bless ye, my pretty! I don't know as she writes much," Aunt Alvirah said, as she moved about the kitchen in her old slow fashion. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! Well Ruthie, she reads a lot. She's all for books, I guess, like you be. But she don't never talk much. And a visitor? Why, come to think on't, she did have one visitor."
"Is that so?" cried the curious Ruth. "Let's hear about it. I feel gossipy, Aunt Alvirah," and she laughed.
She knew that Maggie was away from the house, and they were alone. She could trust Aunt Alvirah to say nothing to the girl regarding her queries.
"Yes, my pretty," the old woman said, "she did have one visitor. Another gal come to see her the very week you went away to college, Ruthie."
"Is that so? Who was she?"
"Maggie didn't say. I didn't ask her. Ye see, she ain't one ter confide in a body," explained Aunt Alvirah, shaking her head and lowering herself into her rocking chair. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"
"But didn't you see this visitor?"
"Why, yes, Ruthie. I seen her. It was funny, too," Aunt Alvirah said, shaking her head. "I meant to write to you about it; then I forgot.
"I hears somebody knock on the door one day, and I opened the door and there I declare stood Maggie herself. Or, I thought 'twas her."
"What?" gasped Ruth, very much interested.
"She looked a sight like her," said Aunt Alvirah, laughing to herself at the remembrance. "Yet I knowed Maggie had gone upstairs to make the beds, and this here girl who had knocked on the door was all dressed up."
"'Why, Maggie!' says I. And she says, kinder tart-like:
"'I ain't Maggie. But I want to see her.'
"So I axed her in; but she wouldn't come. I seen then maybe she was a little younger than Maggie is. Howsomever I called to Maggie, and she went out, and the two of 'em walked up and down the road for an hour. The other gal never come in. And I seen her start back toward Cheslow. Maggie never said no word about her from that day to this.
"Do you know what I think about it, Ruthie?" concluded Aunt Alvirah.
"No, Aunt Alvirah," said the girl of the Red Mill, reflectively.
"I think that was Maggie's sister. Maybe she works out for somebody in Cheslow."
Ruth merely nodded. She did not think much of that phase of the matter. What she was really puzzling over was her memory of the girl she and Helen had interviewed on the island in Lake Remona before the Christmas holidays.
That girl had looked very much like Maggie, too!
It was, of course, hard to tell by merely seeing them taken what the pictures about the old Red Mill would be like; but Ruth and Helen both acted in them as "extras" and were greatly excited over the film, one may be sure.
The director, not the cross Mr. Grimes this time, assured Ruth that he was confident "Crossed Wires" would make good on the screen. Hazel Gray played the lead in the picture, as she had in "The Heart of a School Girl," and Ruth and Helen were glad to meet the bright little screen actress again.
Miss Gray seemed to have forgotten all about Tom Cameron and Ruth, for some reason, felt glad. She ventured to ask Helen if her twin was still as enamored of the young actress as he had seemed to be the year before.
"Why, no," Helen said thoughtfully. "You know how it is with boys; they have one craze after another, Ruthie."
"No. Do they?" asked the other.
"Yes. Tom made a collection of the photographs of a slap-stick comedian at first. Then he decorated his room at Seven Oaks with all the pictures he could find of Miss Gray. Now, when I was over there with father the other day, what do you suppose is his chief decoration on his room walls?"
"I haven't the least idea," Ruth confessed.
"Great, ugly, brutal boxers! Prize-fighters! Awful pictures, Ruth! I suppose next he will make a collection of the photographs of burglars!" and Helen laughed.
The chums were whisked back to Ardmore, having been absent five days. They were so well prepared in their recitations, however, that they did not fall behind in any particular. Indeed, these two bright-minded girls found it not difficult to keep up with their classes.
Even Jennie Stone, leisure loving as she naturally was, had no real difficulty in being well to the front in her studies. And she had become one of the most faithful of devotees of gymnastic practice.
Ardmore's second basket ball five pushed the first team hard; and Jennie Stone was on the second five. As the spring training for the boats opened she, as well as Ruth and Helen, tried for the freshmen eight-oared shell. All three won places in that crew.
Jennie was still somewhat over-weight. But the instructor put her at bow and her weight counted there. Ruth was stroke and Helen Number 2. As practice went on it was proved that the freshman crew was a very well balanced one.
They more than once "bumped" the sophomore shell in trial races, and once came very near to catching the junior eight. The seniors and juniors began now to pay more attention to the freshman class; especially to those members who showed well in athletics.
Because of their characters and their class standing, several of the instructors besides Miss Cullam, the mathematics teacher, were the friends of the Briarwoods. Miss Cullam had shown a warm appreciation of Ruth Fielding's character all through the year. Not that Ruth was a prize pupil in Miss Cullam's study, for she was not. Mathematics was the one study it was hard for Ruth to interest herself in. But when the girl of the Red Mill had a hard thing to do, she always put her whole mind to it; and, therefore, she made a good mark in mathematics in spite of her distaste for the study.
"You are doing well, Miss Fielding," Miss Cullam declared. "Better than I expected. I have no doubt that you will pass well in the year's examinations."
"And you won't be afraid that I'll crib the answers, Miss Cullam?" Ruth asked, laughing.
"Hush! don't repeat gossip," Miss Cullam said smiling, however, rather ruefully. "Even when the gossip emanates from an old cross-patch of a teacher who gets nervous and worries about improbabilities. No. I do not believe any of my girls would take advantage of the examination papers. Yet, I would give a good deal to know just where those papers and that vase went."
"Has nothing ever been heard from Miss Rolff since she left Ardmore?" Ruth asked.
"No. Not a word. And it is hard on the sororities, too. Heretofore, the girls have enjoyed the benefits of the associations for three years.You, I am sure, Ruth, would have been invited by this time to join one of the sororities."
"And I should dearly love to," sighed Ruth. "The Kappa Alpha. It looks good to me. But there are other things in college—and out of it, too. Oh see, Miss Cullam! Here is what I wanted to show you," and the girl of the Red Mill brought forth a large envelope from her handbag.
They were talking together in the library on this occasion, it being a Saturday afternoon when there was nothing particular to take up either the teacher's time or the pupil's. Ruth emptied the envelope on the table.
"See these photographs? They are stills taken in connection with my new scenario. I want you to see just how lovely a place the old Red Mill, where I live, is."
Miss Cullam adjusted her eyeglasses with a smile, and picked up the topmost picture which Mr. Hammond had sent to Ruth.
"That's dear old Aunt Alvirah herself feeding the chickens. She doesn't know that we took that picture of her. If I had said 'photograph' to the dear old creature, she would have been determined to put on her best bib and tucker!"
"That's the back yard. Isn't it, dear? Who is that on the porch?" asked Miss Cullam.
"On the porch? Why,isanybody on the porch? I don't remember that."
Ruth stooped to peer closer at the unmounted photograph in the teacher's hand.
"Why! thereissomebody standing there," she murmured. "You can see the head and shoulders just as plain——"
"And the face," said Miss Cullam, with strange eagerness.
"Oh, I know!" cried Ruth, and she laughed heartily. "Of course. That's Maggie."
"Maggie?"
"Yes. The girl who helps Aunt Alvirah. And she's quite an interesting character, Miss Cullam. I'll tell you about her some day."
"Yes?" said Miss Cullam, reflectively.
"Now, here is the front of the old house——"
"Allow me to keep this picture for a little while, will you, Miss Fielding?" broke in the teacher, still staring at the clearly exposed face of Maggie on the porch.
"Why, yes, certainly," responded the girl, curiously.
"I wish to show this girl's face to somebody else. She seems very familiar to me," the mathematics teacher said.
Ruth gave the matter of Maggie's photograph very little thought. Not at that time, at least. She merely handed the print over to Miss Cullam and forgot all about it.
These were busy days, both in the classroom and out of it. The warmth of late spring was in the air; every girl who felt at all the blood coursing in her veins, tried to be out of doors.
The whole college was eager regarding the coming boat races. Ardmore was to try out her first eight-oared crew with three of several colleges, and two of the trials would be held upon Lake Remona.
There were local races between the class crews every Saturday afternoon. Jennie Stone had to choose between basket ball and rowing, for there were Saturdays when both sports were in ascendency.
"No use. I can't be in two places at once," declared Jennie, regretfully resigning from the basketball team.
"No, honey," said Helen. "You're not big enough for that now. A few months ago you might have played basket ball and sent your shadow to pull an oar with us. See what it means to get thin."
"My! I feel like another girl," said the fleshy one ecstatically. "What do you suppose my father will say to me in June?"
"He'll say," suggested Helen, giggling, "'you took so much away, why do you bring so little back from college?'"
It was several days before Miss Cullam returned to Ruth the picture she had borrowed; and when she did she made a statement regarding it that very much astonished the girl of the Red Mill.
"I will tell you now, my dear; why I wished to keep the photograph," the teacher said. "I showed it to Dr. Milroth and to several of the other members of the faculty."
"Indeed?" responded Ruth, quite puzzled.
"Some of them agree with me. Dr. Milroth does not. Nevertheless, I wish you would tell me all about this Maggie who works for your aunt——"
"Maggie!" gasped Ruth. "What do you mean, Miss Cullam? Was it because her face is in the picture that you borrowed it?"
"Yes, my dear. I think, as do some of the other instructors, that Maggie looks very much like the Miss Rolff who last year occupied the room you have and who left us so strangely before the close of the semester."
"Oh, Miss Cullam!"
"Foolish, am I?" laughed the teacher. "Well, I suppose so. You know all about Maggie, do you?"
"No!" gasped Ruth.
Eagerly she explained to the mathematics teacher how the strange girl had appeared at the Red Mill and why she had remained there. Miss Cullam was no less excited than Ruth when she heard these particulars.
"I must tell Dr. Milroth this," Miss Cullam declared. "Say nothing about it, Ruth Fielding. And she says her name is 'Maggie'? Of course! Margaret Rolff. I believe that is who she is."
"But to go out to housework," Ruth said doubtfully.
"That doesn't matter. We must learn more about this Maggie. Say nothing until I have spoken to Dr. Milroth again."
But if this was a clue to the identity and where-abouts of the girl who had left Ardmore so abruptly the year before, Ruth learned something the very next day that, unfortunately, put it quite beyond her ability to discover further details in the matter.
A letter arrived from Aunt Alvirah and after reading it once through Ruth hurried away to Miss Cullam with the surprising news it contained.
Maggie had left the Red Mill. Without any explanation save that she had been sent for and must go, the strange girl had left Aunt Alvirah and Uncle Jabez, and they did not know her destination. Ben, the hired man, had driven her to the Cheslow railway station and she had taken an eastbound train. Otherwise, nothing was known of the strange girl's movements.
"Oh, my dear!" cried Miss Cullam. "I am certain, then, that she is Margaret Rolff. Even Dr. Milroth has come to agree that it may be that strange girl. I hoped there was a chance of learning what really became of those missing examination papers—and, of course, the vase. But how can we discover what became of them if the girl has disappeared again?"
"Well, it's a very strange thing, I am sure," Ruth admitted. "Of course, I'll write the folks at the Red Mill that if Maggie—or whatever her real name is—ever turns up there again, they must let me know at once."
"Yes, do," begged the teacher. "Now that the subject has come up again I feel more disturbed than ever over those papers.Werethey lost, or weren't they? My dear Ruth! you don't know how I feel about that mystery. All these girls whom I think so highly of, are still under suspicion."
"I hope nothing like that will happen this year, dear Miss Cullam," Ruth said warmly. "I feel that we freshmen all want to pass our examinations honestly—or not at all."
"That is exactly what I believe about the other girls," groaned the teacher. "But the sorority members admit that Margaret Rolff was instructed to remove the Egyptian vase from the library as a part of the stunt she was expected to do during the initiation ceremonies.
"And in that vase were my papers. Of course, the girls did not know the examination papers were there before the vase was taken.But what became of them afterward?"
"Why, Miss Cullam," Ruth said thoughtfully, "of course they must still be in the vase."
"Perhaps. Then, perhaps not," murmured the teacher. "Who knows?"
The first college eight went off to Gillings, and, as it was only a few miles by rail, half the student body, at least, went to root for the crew. The Ardmore boat was beaten.
"Oh, dear! To come home plucked in such a disgusting way," groaned Helen, who, with Jennie, as well as Ruth, was among the disgruntled and disappointed girls who had gone to see the race. "It is awful."
"It's taught them a lesson, I wager," Ruth said practically. "We have all been rowing in still water. The river at Gillings is rough, and the local eight was used to it. I say, girls!"
"Say it," said Jennie, gruffly. "It can't be anything that will hurt us after what we've seen to-day. Three whole boatlengths ahead!"
"Never mind," broke in Helen. "The races with Hampton and Beardsley will be on our own lake."
"And if there is a flutter of wind, our first eight will be beaten again," from Jennie Stone.
"No, no, girls!" Ruth cried. "I heard the coach tell them that hereafter she was going to make them row if there was a hurricane. And that's whatwemust do."
"Whomust do, Ruthie? What do you mean?" asked Helen.
"The freshman eight."
"E-lu-ci-date," drawled Jennie.
"We must learn to handle our shell in rough water. If there is a breath of wind stirring we mustn't beat it to land," said Ruth, vigorously. "Let's learn to handle our shell in really rough water."
"Sounds reasonable," admitted Jennie. "Shall we all take out accident policies?"
"No. All learn to swim. That's the wisest course," laughed Ruth.
"Ain't it thetrewth?" agreed Jennie, making a face. "I'm not much of a swimmest in fresh water. But I never could sink."
The freshmen with the chums in the eight-oared shell proved to be all fair swimmers. And that crew was not the only one that redoubled its practice after the disastrous race at Gillings College.
Each class crew did its very best. The coaches were extremely stern with the girls. Ardmore had a reputation for turning out champion crews, and the year before, on their own water, the Ardmore eight had beaten Gillings emphatically.