Ruth Hall

“ The word “employer” recalled the rambling waiter to his senses, and great was his consternation on finding that “the old chap with the red wig” was the father of young Mr. Hall, who was beloved by everything in the establishment, down to old Neptune the house-dog.
“I told you so,” said the doctor, turning to his wife; “Harry’s no better—consultation this morning—very little hope of him;—so much for my not being here to prescribe for him. Ruth shouldered a great responsibility when she brought him away out of reach of my practice. ”

“ Dana; “her books will always find a ready market.”
“We shall see,” said the old lady bridling; “it is my opinion she’ll go out like the wick of a candle. People [386] won’t read a second edition of such trash. Ruth Hall ‘Floy’? Humph! that accounts,—humph! Well, anyhow, if she has made money, she had her nose held to the grindstone pretty well first; that’s one comfort. ”

“ The first and closest friends of her own age that Ruth made in her new home were Helen and Tom Cameron, twin children of a wealthy merchant whose all-year home was not far from the Red Mill. With Helen and Mercy Curtis, a lame girl, Ruth is sent to Briarwood Hall, a delightfully situated boarding school at some distance from the girls' homes, and there, in the second volume of the series, Ruth is introduced to new scenes, some new friends and a few enemies ”

“ Ruth made known her errand, and also the fact of her being about to publish her book. He handed her a chair, and drawing another in front of her, said very stiffly, “My partner, Mr. Elder, Mrs. Hall, has astonished me by the information that you have very suddenly decided to withdraw from us, who first patronized you, and to write for the ‘Household Messenger.’”
“Yes,” replied Ruth, “I considered it my duty to avail myself of that increase of salary. My circumstances have been exceedingly straitened. ”

“ Deserted, save for her chum, Helen Cameron, cowering in her bed. The masked and shrouded figures were gone, and Ruth found herself standing, panting and gasping, in the middle of the room, with the half-filled goblet in her hand, her heart beating as though it would burst. ”

“ I tell you that placid Ruth is a smouldering volcano.”
“That tells the whole story,” said the doctor. “And speaking of volcanoes, it won’t be so easy to make Mr. [134] Ellet subscribe anything for Ruth’s support; he thinks more of one cent than of any child he ever had. I am expecting him every moment, Mis. Hall, to talk over our proposal about Ruth. Perhaps you had better leave us alone; you know you have a kind of irritating way if anything comes across you, and you might upset the whole business. As to my paying anything towards Ruth’s board unless he does his full share, you needn’t fear.” ”

“ Ruth, who could look out of the windows above, wondered how her chum was getting on. To go clear to the center of the campus with that vase, and leave it at the foot of the figure surmounting the fountain, was no pleasant experience, Ruth felt.
The minutes passed slowly, the girls in their shrcuds whispering among themselves. Suddenly there came a sound from outside—a pattering of running feet on the cement walk. Ruth sprang to the nearest window in spite of the commands of the hazing party. Helen was running toward the house at a speed which betrayed her agitation. ”

“ Hammond, president of the Alectrion Film Corporation, when one of the school dormitories was burned. To help increase the fund for a new structure, the girls all desired to raise as much money as possible.
Ruth was inspired to write a second scenario—a five-reel drama of schoolgirl life—and Mr. Hammond produced it for the benefit of the Hall. “The Heart of a Schoolgirl” made a big hit and brought Ruth no little fame in her small world.
With Helen and the other girls who had been so close to her during her boarding school life, Ruth Fielding had now graduated from Briarwood Hall. ”

“ There are no dunces in this crowd, my dear."
"Goodness, no!" agreed her friend. "They all look as sharp as needles."
There were girls of all the classes at the station, as was easily seen. Ruth and Helen chanced to get into a seat with two of the seniors, who seemed most awfully sophisticated to the recent graduates of Briarwood Hall.
"You are just entering, are you not—you and your friend?" asked the nearest senior of Ruth.
"Yes," admitted the girl of the Red Mill, feeling and looking very shy. ”

“ Now I could wind him round my little finger in five minutes if I chose, but I hate to stoop to it, I so detest the whole family.”
“I’ll shake hands with you there,” said the doctor; “but that puppy of a Hyacinth is my especial aversion, though Ruth is bad enough in her way; a mincing, conceited, tip-toeing, be-curled, be-perfumed popinjay—faugh! Do you suppose, Mis. Hall, there can be anything in a man who wears fancy neck-ties, a seal ring on his little finger, and changes his coat and vest a dozen times a day? No; he’s a sensuous fop, that tells the whole story ”

“ Ellet, foiled with his own weapons.
Ruth replied only with her tears, and a kiss on each little head, which had nestled up to her with an indistinct idea that she needed sympathy.
“It is of no use getting up a scene, it won’t move me, Ruth,” said Mr. Ellet, irritated by the sight of the weeping group before him, and the faint twinges of his own conscience; “the doctor must take the children, there’s nothing else left.”
“Father,” said Ruth, rising from her couch and standing before him; “my children are all I have left to love; in pity do not distress me by urging what I can never grant.” ”

“ Ruth weeps! weeps that her faith was for an instant o’erclouded; weeps that she shrank from breasting the foaming waves at the bidding of Him who said, “It is I, be not afraid.” And she, who came there fluttering with a broken wing, went away singing, soaring.
Oh man of God! pressed down with many cares, anxious and troubled, sowing but not reaping, fearing to bring in no sheaves for the harvest, be of good courage. The arrow shot at a venture may to thine eye fall aimless; but in the Book of Life shalt thou read many an answer to the wrestling prayer, heard in thy closet by God alone. ”

“ But as the trio of freshmen went on toward Dare Hall, Ruth shook her head doubtfully.
"What's the matter, Ruthie?" asked Helen, squeezing her arm. "The mean things!"
"I wonder," murmured Ruth.
"You wonder what?" demanded Helen.
Ruth sighed. "I guess fame isn't always an asset," she said.
CHAPTER VIII THE STONE FACE
Ruth knew better than to show anger over any such silly joke. If she was to be made the laughing stock of her class by the sophomores, she might as well face it and bear the cross good-naturedly.
Ruth was as sensitive as any refined girl. It hurt her to be ridiculed. ”

“ Ruth smiled, and improvised a favorable termination to her story, more suitable to her tender-hearted audience.
“That is nice,” said Nettie, kissing her mother; “when I get to be a woman shall I write books, mamma?”
“God forbid,” murmured Ruth, kissing the child’s changeful cheek; “God forbid,” murmured she, musingly, as she turned over the leaves of her book; “no happy woman ever writes. From Harry’s grave sprang ‘Floy.’” ”

“ The sound smote the company of whispering, laughing girls into a company of frightened, trembling culprits. They hardly dared breathe, and when the commanding rap came for a second time neither Ruth nor Helen had strength enough in their limbs to go to the door. ”

“ Heavy said to Ruth, frankly, "and that's how you got out of it so easily. But I tell them that's all nonsense, you know. If you'd wanted to make us trouble, you would have let Helen have the party in our room, as she wanted to, and so you could have stayed home and not been in it at all."
"As she wanted to?" repeated Ruth, slowly. "Did Helen first plan to have the supper in your quartette?"
"Of course she did. It was strictly a Upede affair—or would have been if you hadn't been in it. But you're a good little thing, Ruth Fielding, and I tell them you never in this world told Picolet." ”

“ Jennie Stone, gobbling almond cakes and chocolate, said to Ruth:
"If this is a fair sample of what is to be divulged upon the Night of Harpocrates, I shall fast on that day—now mind!"
When the girls had gone Ruth asked her chum, point-blank, if she proposed to have a midnight supper.
"A regular debauch!" declared Helen, laughing. "Now, don't be prim and prudish about it, Ruthie. I won't have it in here if you don't want——"
"Why not?" demanded Ruth, quickly. "Don't think of going to any other room." ”

“ She so wants you with her while you remain in Paris.”
“Of course,” said Ruth, who had a warm feeling for 41 the French teacher with whom she had been so friendly at Briarwood Hall. “And she has such a cosy and quiet little place.”
But after Ruth had rested from her train journey, Madame Picolet’s apartment did not prove to be so quiet a place. Besides Helen Cameron and Jennie Stone, there were a lot of other young women whom Ruth knew in Paris, working for the Red Cross or for other war institutions. ”

“ Further on, at one block’s remove, was a more pretentious-looking house, the blinds of which were almost always closed, save when the colored servants threw them open once a day, to give the rooms an airing. Then Ruth saw damask chairs, satin curtains, pictures, vases, books, and pianos; it was odd that people who could afford such things should live in such a neighborhood. Ruth looked and wondered. Throngs of visitors went there—carriages rolled up to the door, and rolled away; gray-haired men, business men, substantial-looking family men, and foppish-looking young men ”

“ There's just eight of them," crowed another. "There certainly will be something doing at Briarwood Hall with those two roomsful."
"Say! that's right!" cried Heavy, eagerly, to Ruth. "You, and Helen, and Mercy, and Jinny, take that quartette room on our other side. We'll just about boss that dormitory. What do you say?"
"If Mrs. Tellingham will agree," said Ruth. "I'll ask her."
"But you girls will be 'way ahead of me in your books," broke in Jane Ann.
"We needn't be ahead of you in sleeping, and in fun," laughed Heavy, pinching her. ”

“ I never should dream of such a means of support. Your Professor made one great mistake; for instance,” said Ruth, “he thinks my physique is feeble. Do you know that I can walk longer and faster than any six women in the United States?”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Walter, “I know all about that; I have known you, under a strong impetus, do six days’ work in one, and I have known you after it prostrated with a nervous headache which defied every attempt at mitigation. He is right, Ruth, your mind often tires your body completely out.” ”

“ For that the man with the harp and Miss Picolet had a rendezvous behind the marble figure on the campus fountain was the sum and substance of the conclusion which Ruth had come to.
In the morning Ruth only mentioned these suppositions to Helen, but discussed them not at all with the other girls, her new school-fellows. Indeed, those girls who had set out to haze the two Infants, and had been frightened by the manifestation of the sounding harp upon the campus, were not likely to broach the subject to Ruth or Helen, either. ”

“ It always makes one so dirty."
"This is a whole lot better than the way poor Tom was received at his school; isn't it?" whispered Helen, tucking her arm in Ruth's as they came to the steps of the building.
Ruth nodded. But there were so many new things to see that Ruth had few words to spare. There were plenty of girls in sight now. It seemed to the girl from the Red Mill as though there were hundreds of them. Short girls, tall girls, thin girls, plump girls—and the very plumpest girl of her age that Ruth had ever seen, stood right at the top of the steps. ”

“ Ruth left Tony shaking his head and muttering angrily as he pursued his occupation. Ruth found herself deeply interested in the mystery of the campus; but if she had actually solved the problem of the sounding of the harp at midnight, the reason for the happening, and what really brought that remarkable manifestation about, was as deep a puzzle to her as before. ”

“ She had a motive—an aim; she should some day make somebody’s heart glad,—somebody’s hearth-stone bright; somebody should be proud of her; and oh, how she could love that somebody! History, astronomy, mathematics, the languages, were all pastime now. Life wore a new aspect; the skies were bluer, the earth greener, the flowers more fragrant;—her twin-soul existed somewhere.
When Ruth had been a year at school, her elegant brother Hyacinth came to see her. Ruth dashed down her books, and bounded down three stairs at a time, to meet him ”

“ But through a happy turn of circumstances Ruth was enabled to get at the heart of her crotchety uncle, and when Ruth's very dear friend, Helen Cameron, planned to go away to school, Uncle Jabez was won over to the idea of sending Ruth with her. The girls were now home for the winter holidays after spending their first term at Briarwood Hall, where they had made many friends as well as learning a good many practical and necessary things. The fun and work of this first term is all related in "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall ”

“ She seems to get along very well," returned her chum.
But Ruth could not forget how the little French teacher had looked—how frightened she was and how tearful—the afternoon when Ruth had told her of the incident aboard the Minnetonka, and of her loss of the mysterious letter sent by the harpist. The little French woman had begged her not to blame herself for the loss of the letter; she had only begged her to say nothing to a soul about either the man or the letter. And Ruth had kept the secret. ”