Alice B. Emerson

“ Here and there, along the water’s edge, a tall tree seemed floating in the air, its bole and roots cut off by the drifting mist.
“Oh, it is very, very beautiful here!” sighed Ruth Fielding, kneeling at the open window and looking out upon the awakening world—as she had done many and many another early morning since first she was given this little gable-windowed room for her very own. ”

“ You know the path,” said Bobbins, breathlessly.
“We’re goin’, too,” said one of the other fresh airs.
“We’d rather play with the girls than stay here. Hadn’t we, Dickie?” proposed Willie Raby.
“Yep,” agreed Master Dickie, with due solemnity.
“Go on!” cried Bob. “And see you go straight back to the house. My!” he added to Tom, “but those kids are a nuisance.”
“Think we ought to let them go alone?” queried Tom, with some faint doubt on the subject. “You reckon they’ll be all right, Bobbins?”
“Great Scott! they sure know the way to the house,” said Bob. “It’s a straight path.” ”

“ Ruth had been hoping the old man’s heart was open, not only to her, but to the whole world. She knew that, in secret, Uncle Jabez was helping to pay Mercy Curtis’s tuition at Briarwood. He still loved money; he always would love it, in all probability. But he had learned to “loosen up,” as Tom Cameron expressed it, in a most astonishing way. One could not honestly call Uncle Jabez a miser nowadays. ”

“ After that first grab at Tom’s arm, Ruth did not interfere with him. She turned about, knelt on the seat-cushion, and, one after the other, 167 swept the twins across the sputtering, shooting bunch of fireworks, and into the space between her and Tom and the dashboard.
Providentially the shooting rockets headed into the air, and to the rear. As the big horse dashed up the hill, swinging the light vehicle from side to side behind him, there was left behind a trail of smoke and fire that (had it been night-time) would have been a brilliant spectacle. ”

“ It was a fact that Ruth crouched back behind the log, fearful of the wrathful farmer. He was a big, coarse, high-booted, red-faced man, and he swung and snapped the blacksnake whip he carried as though he really intended using the cruel instrument upon the tender body of the girl, whose figure he had evidently seen dimly through the bushes. ”

“ The girl, who was considerably smaller, and far slighter than Ruth, struggled madly to escape. She did not say a word at first, only straining to get away from Ruth’s strong grip.
“Now stop! now wait!” panted Ruth. “I want to know who you are——”
The other tugged her best, but the girl of the Red Mill was very strong for her age, and she held on.
“Stop!” panted Ruth again. “If you make a noise, you’ll bring old Tony here—and then you will be in trouble. I want to know who you are and what you were doing down there at the fountain—and why you pushed Sarah into the water?” ”

“ City’s no place for children to grow up—’specially those that have no fathers and mothers.
“You can’t tell me but that these young ones miss their parents less here on this farm than they do back in the brick building they live in most of the year,” concluded the good woman, earnestly.
Ruth quite fell in love with the old lady—who did not appear so very old, after all. Perhaps she had kept her heart young in serving these “fresh air” orphans, year after year. And Mr. Caslon seemed a very happy, jolly sort of man, too. ”

“ At one place was a great horseshoe curve, around which the four steeds rattled at a smart pace, skirting a precipice, the depth of which made the girls shriek again.
“I never did see such a road,” complained Lluella.
“We saw worse at Silver Ranch—didn’t we, Ann?” demanded Ruth of the Montana girl.
“Well, this is bad enough, I should hope,” said Belle Tingley. “Lucky there is a good brake on this coach. Where’d we be——?” ”

“ Then came the pounding of heavy hoofs.
Around the curve of the drive charged a great black horse, a frayed and broken lead-rope hanging from his arching neck, his eyes red and glowing, and 140 his sleek black body all a-quiver with the joy of his escape.
“The Black Douglass!” ejaculated Tom Cameron, in horror, for the great horse was charging straight for the dancing child in the driveway.
It was the most dangerous beast upon Sunrise Farm—indeed, almost the only savage creature Mr. Steele had retained when he bought out the former owner of the stock farm and his stud of horses. ”

“ Ruth did not remain at the window for more than a moment after seeing the girls engaged in the initiation disperse, and hearing their screams. She drew back from the crowding group and darted out of the room. Fortunately neither the French teacher, nor the matron, had yet been aroused. If the girls came noisily into the dormitory building, Ruth knew very well that “the powers that be” must of necessity take cognizance of the infraction of the rules. ”

“ There’s three years yet for the matron to find them a good home. Ye see, folks take young orphans on trial. I wisht them Perkinses had taken me on trial and then had sent me back. Or, I wisht they’d let the orphans take folks on trial instead of the other way ’round.”
“Oh, it must be very hard!” murmured Ruth. “And you and your little brothers had to be separated?’
“Yep. And Willie and Dickie liked their sister Sade a heap,” and the girl suddenly “knuckled” her eyes with her dirty hand to wipe away the tears. “Huh! I’m a big baby, ain’t I? Well! that’s how it is.” ”

“ Helen concluded.
This was “harking back” to the very first night Ruth had arrived at Cheslow from her old home at Darrowtown. But she was not likely to forget it, for through that accident of Master Tom Cameron’s, she had met this very dear friend beside her now in the automobile.
“Oh, dear me! and the fun we used to have when we were little girls—‘member, Ruthie?” demanded Helen, laughing. “My! isn’t it warm? Is my face shiny?”
“Just a little,” admitted Ruth.
“Never can keep the shine off,” said Helen, bitterly. “Here! you take the wheel and let me find my powder-paper. ”

“ Just like a boy. What do you suppose is to become of a girl like her traveling around the country?”
“She seemed to want to get to Campton real bad. I reckon she has folks there,” said Tom, slowly.
“She’s got no folks—if her story is true,” said Ruth, quietly, “save two little brothers.”
“And they’re twins, like us, Tom,” said Helen, eagerly. “Oh, dear! it’s too bad Ruth and I didn’t come across Sadie, instead of you.”
Tom began to laugh at that. “You’d have had a fine time getting her away from those tramps,” he scoffed. ”

“ The ‘terrible twins’ and their mates. My goodness!” cried Ann Hicks, “you didn’t forget and leave them down there at the pond, did you?”
The boys looked at each other for a moment. “What’s the joke?” Bobbins finally drawled.
“It’s no joke,” Ruth said, quickly. “You don’t mean to say that you forgot those little boys?”
“Now, stop that, Ruth Fielding!” cried Isadore Phelps, very red in the face. “A joke’s a joke; but don’t push it too far. You know very well those kids came back up here more’n an hour ago.” ”

“ Mr. Goat, impatient of the delay, suddenly charged the tree and banged against it with his horns in a desperate attempt to jar down the girls perched above. 102
“Oh, the foolish billy!” cooed Helen. “We’re not ripe enough to drop off so easily. But he thinks we are.”
“You can laugh,” complained Ruth. “But I don’t think this is much fun.”
“Not for the goat, anyway. He is getting so angry that he may have apoplexy. Let’s shout. Maybe the boys will hear us.”
“Not ‘way down here, I fear,” returned Ruth. “We can’t hear a sound from them. But let’s try.” ”

“ Meanwhile the merry party of young folk at Sunrise Farm was busy every waking hour. There were picnics, and fishing parties, and games, and walks, and of course riding galore, for Mr. Steele had plenty of horses.
Ruth and Helen privately worked up some interest among the girls and boys visiting the farm, in a celebration on the Fourth for the fresh air children. Ruth had learned that the farmer had purchased some cheap fireworks and the like for the entertainment of the orphans; but Ruth and her chum wanted to add to his modest preparations. ”

“ I do love fireworks,” cried Madge.
“The girls are as bad as the boys, Mother,” said Mr. Steele, shaking his head. “What I wanted to say,” he added, raising his voice, “was that we ought to invite these little chaps—these brothers of Sadie Raby—to come up at night to see our show.”
“Oh, let’s have all the fresh airs, Pa!” cried Madge, eagerly. “What a good time they’d have.”
“I—don’t—know,” said her father, soberly, looking at his wife. “I am afraid that will be too much for your mother.”
“Mr. Caslon has some fireworks for the children,” broke in Ruth, timidly. “I happen to know that. ”

“ Their friendly greeting and smiling faces opened the way for Ruth’s task. She threw herself, figuratively speaking, into their arms.
“I know you are both just as kind as you can be,” said Ruth, eagerly, “and you won’t mind if I ask you to change your program a little to-day for the youngsters? They want to give them all a good time up at Sunrise Farm.”
“Good land!” exclaimed Mrs. Caslon. “Not all of them?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Ruth, and she sketched briefly the idea of the celebration on the hill-top, including the presents she and Tom were to buy in Darrowtown for the kiddies. ”

“ She doesn’t seem to think your Uncle Jabez is a very harsh man. She calls him ‘Dusty Miller,’ I know.”
“Uncle Jabez has a prickly rind, I guess,” said Ruth. “But the meat inside is sweet. Only he’s old-fashioned and he can’t get used to new-fashioned ways. He doesn’t see any reason for my ‘traipsing around’ so much. I ought to be at the mill between schooltimes, helping Aunt Alvirah—so he says. And I am afraid he is right. I feel condemned——”
“You’re too tender-hearted. Helen says he’s as rich as can be and might hire a dozen girls to help ‘Aunt Alviry’.” ”

“ Steele will go right ahead with this, I know,” said Tom, nodding. “He’s taken a fancy to those kids——”
“Well! he ought to, to Sadie!” cried Ruth.
“Sure. And he’s a generous man, after all. Too bad he’s taken such a dislike to old Caslon.”
“Oh, dear, Tom! we ought to fix that,” sighed Ruth.
“Crickey! you’d tackle any job in the world, I believe, Ruthie, if you thought you could help folks.”
“Nonsense! But both of them—both Mr. Steele and Mr. Caslon—are such awfully nice people——”
“Well! there’s not much hope, I guess. Mr. Steele’s lawyer is trying to find a flaw in Caslon’s title. ”

“ For the folks in this town—‘specially the wimmen folks that don’t git out much—is just a-honin’ for news, and True Pettis, when she goes out by the day, has gotter have a full and plenty supply of it.”
Ruth, smiling quietly to herself, remembered how the thin, sallow, quick spoken lady looked when she said all this. Miss Pettis’s eyes were black and snapping; her nose was a beak; she bit 75 off threads as though her temper was biting, too. But Ruth knew better. A kinder-hearted mortal never lived than the little old seamstress. ”

“ Sister Sadie appeared from the rear premises, vastly excited, too, but when she lifted the twins down and found not a scratch upon them, she turned to Ruth with a delighted face.
“You took care of them just like you loved ’em, Miss,” she whispered, as Ruth tumbled out of the cart, too, into her arms. “Oh, dear! don’t you dare get sick—you ain’t hurt, are you?”
“No, no!” exclaimed Ruth, having hard work to crowd back the tears. “But I’m almost scared to death. That—that young one!” and she grabbed at Dickie. “What did you drop that punk into the fireworks for?” ”

“ While the girls were still listening to the runaway, a maid rapped at the door.
“Mr. Steele will see this—this strange girl in the library,” announced the servant.
Sadie looked a little scared for a moment, and glanced wildly around the big room for some way of escape.
“Gee! I ain’t got to talk with that man, have I?” she whispered.
“He won’t bite you,” laughed Heavy. 133
“He’s just as kind as kind can be,” declared Helen.
“I’ll go down with you,” said Ruth, decisively. “You have plenty of friends now, Sadie. You mustn’t be expecting to run away all the time.” ”

“ No. They didn’t have a mama or papa. Never had had any. But they had a sister. She was a big girl and had gone away from the asylum. Some time, when they were big enough, they were going to run away from the asylum and find her.
“Ain’t we, Dickie?”
“Yep.”
Whether the other ten “fresh airs” were as funny and cute as the “terrible twins,” or not, Ruth Fielding did not know, but both she and Mrs. Steele were vastly amused by them, and continued to be so all the way to the old homestead under the hill where the children had come to spend a part of the summer with Mr. and Mrs. Caslon. ”

“ She made both friends and enemies. No person of real character can escape being disliked, now and then, by those of envious disposition.
Ruth Fielding succeeded, usually, in winning to her those who at first disliked her. And this, I claim, is a better gift than that of being universally popular from the start.
Ruth had come from her old home in Darrowtown, where her parents died, two years before, to the Red Mill on the Lumano River, where her great-uncle, Jabez Potter, the miller, was inclined at first to shelter her only as an object of his grudging charity. ”