Alice B. Emerson

“ But Jane Ann Hicks is this young lady who wants to be called 'Nita'—Oh, glory! what a name!"
"If it is so," Ruth rejoined, slowly, "I don't so much wonder that she wanted a fancy name. 'Jane Ann Hicks'! It sounds ugly; but an ugly name can stand for a truly beautiful character.'
"That fact doesn't appeal to this runaway girl, I guess," said Tom. "But the question is: What shall we do about it?"
"I don't know as we can do anything about it," Ruth said, slowly. "Of course we don't know that this Hicks girl and Nita are the same." ”

“ The ledge was very narrow, and Ruth was stooping over the deep pool, breathlessly watching the line.
With a half-stifled scream Ruth fell forward, flinging out both hands. Mary clutched at her—she did try to save her. But she was not quick enough. Ruth dropped like a plummet and the green water closed over her with scarcely a splash.
Mary did not cry out. She was speechless with fear, and stood with clasped hands, motionless, upon the path.
"She can swim! she can swim!" ”

“ But if escape to the shore depended upon the work of the lifeboat and her crew, the castaways were in peril indeed, for the boat was coming shoreward now with a rush. With her came the tossing, charging timbers washed from the deck load. The sea between the reef and the beach was now a seething mass of broken and splintering planks and beams. No craft could live in such a seaway.
But Ruth and her friends were suddenly conscious of a peril nearer at hand. The broken lifeboat with its crew was being swept shoreward upon a great wave, and with the speed of an express train. ”

“ Helen had to laugh at last.
"Well, Mary Cox said you had decided to have none but Sweetbriars at the cottage on the beach, Heavy."
"Lot she knows about it," grunted the stout girl.
"Why, Heavy asked her to go; didn't she?" cried Ruth.
"Well, that was last Winter. I didn't press her," admitted the stout girl.
"But she's your roommate, like Belle and Lluella," said Ruth, in some heat. "Of course you've got to ask her."
"Don't you do it. She's a spoil-sport," declared Mercy Curtis, in her sharp way. "The Fox will keep us all in hot water."
"Do be still, Mercy!" cried Ruth. ”

“ Ruth returned.
The catboat sailed slowly past the seaward side of the Thimble. There were fifty places in which a person might hide upon the rock—plenty of broken boulders and cracks in the base of the conical eminence that formed the peculiarly shaped island.
The three watched the rugged shore very sharply as the catboat beat up the wind—the girls especially giving the Thimble their attention. A hundred pair of eyes might have watched them from the island, as far as they knew. But certainly neither Ruth nor Helen saw anything to feed their suspicion.
"What shall we do now?" demanded Tom. ”

“ Ruth knew that Uncle Jabez and Dr. Davison together had made it possible for Mercy to attend Briarwood Hall. Of course, Uncle Jabez would cut off that charity as well, and the few tears Ruth cried that night after she went to bed were as much for Mercy's disappointment as for her own.
"But maybe Dr. Davison will assume the entire cost of keeping Mercy at school," thought the girl of the Red Mill. "Or, perhaps, Mr. Curtis may have paid the debts he contracted while Mercy was so ill, and will be able to help pay her expenses at Briarwood." ”

“ Ruth peered anxiously out of the shadow. A man slouched along the dock and reached the shell road. He turned east, moving away toward the lighthouse. It was Jack Crab.
"And Nita is not with him!" gasped Ruth. "What has he done with her? Where has he taken her in the boat? What does it mean?"
She dared not run after Crab and ask him. She was really afraid of the man. His secret communication with Nita was no matter to be blurted out to everybody, she was sure. Nita had gone to meet him of her own free will. She was not obliged to sail away with Crab in the catboat. ”

“ CHAPTER XX
"WHAR'S MY JANE ANN?"
Three of Heavy's listeners knew in an instant what the telegram meant—who it was from, and who was mentioned in it—Ruth, Helen and Tom. But how, or why the telegram had been sent was as great a mystery to them as to the others; therefore their surprise was quite as unfeigned as that of the remaining girls and boys.
"Why, somebody's made a mistake," said Heavy. "Such a telegram couldn't be meant for me." ”

“ I reckon you've forgotten how to build a kitchen fire—livin' so long in a steam-heated room," he grunted.
"Now, don't you believe that!" she assured him, and running out to the shed for a handful of fat-pine, or "lightwood," soon had the stove roaring comfortably.
"What a comfort you be, my pretty creetur," sighed Aunt Alvirah, as she hobbled down stairs. "Oh, my back and oh, my bones! This is going to be a creaky day. I feel the dampness."
"Don't you believe it, Aunty!" cried the girl. "The sun's going to come out and drive away every atom of this mist. Cheer up!" ”

“ He had probably been walking that cable—in his mind—when Ruth had caught him balancing on the balustrade.
The strange girl who persisted in calling herself "Nita" came down to the table in some of Heavy's garments, which were a world too large for her. Her own had been so shrunk and stained by the sea-water that they would never be fit to put on again. Aunt Kate was very kind to her, but she looked at the runaway oddly, too. Nita had been just as uncommunicative to her as she had been to the girls in the bedroom the night before. ”

“ She seized Mary Cox by the hair, and although her school fellow was still sinking, Ruth, with sturdy strokes, drew her up to the surface.
What a blessing it was to obtain a draught of pure air! But The Fox was unconscious, and Ruth had to bear her weight up, while treading water, until she could dash the drops from her eyes. There was the lifebuoy not ten yards away. She struck out for it with one hand, while towing Mary with the other. Long before the steamer had been stopped and a boat lowered and manned, Ruth and her burden reached the great ring, and the girls were comparatively safe. ”

“ Ruth flushed angrily, but before she could speak, Nita said, looking coolly at The Fox:
"You're a might snappy, snarly sort of a girl; ain't you? And you think you are dreadfully smart. But somebody told you that. It ain't so. I've seen a whole lot smarter than you. You wouldn't last long among the boys where I come from."
"Thank you!" replied Mary, her head in the air. "I wouldn't care to be liked by the boys. It isn't ladylike to think of the boys all the time——"
"These are grown men, I mean," said Nita, coolly. "The punchers that work for—well, just cow punchers. You call them cowboys. ”

“ Ruth said.
"I can't please both of you," said the good-natured stout girl.
"Please me. Mercy doesn't mean what she says. If Mary Cox thinks that I am opposed to your having her at Lighthouse Point, I shall be offended if you do not immediately insist upon her being one of the party."
"And that'll suit The Fox right down to the ground," exclaimed Mercy. "That is what she was fishing for when she got at Helen to-night."
"Did I say she said anything about Lighthouse Point?" quickly responded Helen. ”

“ The blackfish is not much of a fighter, but he can sag back and do his obstinate best to remain in the water when the fisher is determined to get him out.
This fellow weighed two pounds and a half and was well hooked. Ruth, her cheeks glowing, her eyes dancing, hauled in, and in, and in——
There he came out of the water, a plump, glistening body, that flapped and floundered in the air, and on the ledge at her feet. She desired mightily to cry out; but Phineas had warned them all to be still while they fished. Their voices might scare all the fish away. ”

“ Ruth was perfectly willing to do her share; but one can scarcely make it pleasant for a person who refuses to speak to one. And the girl from the Red Mill could not help feeling that The Fox had done her best to make her withdraw from Jennie Stone's party.
The sea was not in sight until the wagons had been driven more than half the distance to the Stone bungalow. Then, suddenly rounding a sandy hill, they saw the wide sweep of the ocean in the distance, and the small and quieter harbor on the inviting shore of which the bungalow was built. ”

“ Mary was just coming along to pass me. I had a bite. Between trying to let her by and 'tending my fish,' I fell in—and now I have lost fish, line, and all."
"Be thankful you did not lose your life, Miss Fielding," said Aunt Kate. "Come right down to the boat and get those wet things off. You, too, Tom."
At that moment Nita came to the spot. "Is she safe? Is she safe?" she cried.
"Don't I look so?" returned Ruth, laughing gaily. "And here's the fish I did catch. I mustn't lose him."
Nita stepped close to the girl from the Red Mill and tugged at her wet sleeve. ”

“ What do girls know about fishing?"
"If there's any tautog over there, I bet Helen and Ruth get 'em. They're all right in any game," declared the loyal Tom.
"Madge will squeal and want somebody to take the fish off her hook, if she does catch one," grinned Bob. "She puts on lots of airs because she's the oldest; but she's a regular 'scare-cat,' after all."
"Helen and Ruth are good fellows," returned Tom, with emphasis. "They're quite as good fun as the ordinary boy—of course, not you, Bobbins, or Busy Izzy here; but they are all right."
"What do you think of that Nita girl?" ”

“ Bob wasn't satisfied until he had placed the hardshell between two stones and wrecked it—smashed it flat as a pancake.
"There! I know that fellow will never nip another inoffensive citizen," groaned Bob, and he sat on a stone and nursed his big toe and his bruised ankle until the others were ready to go home.
They got a nice mess of crabs; but Bob refused to eat any. "Never want to see even crabs a la Newburgh again," he grunted. "And I don't believe that even a fried soft-shell crab is dead enough so that it can't bite a fellow!" ”

“ Fuller's Island, with its white sands and gleaming green lawns and clumps of wind-blown trees; the long strip of winding coast southward, like a ribbon laid down for the sea to wash, and far, far to the east, over the tumbling waves, still boisterous with the swell of last night's storm, the white riding sail of the lightship on No Man's Shoal. ”