CHAPTER III--SADIE RABY'S STORY
Ruth did not sleep at all well that night. Luckily, Helen had nothing on_her_ mind or conscience, or she must have been disturbed by Ruth'stossing and wakefulness. The other two girls in the big quartetteroom--Mercy Curtis and Ann Hicks--were likewise unaware of Ruth'srestlessness.
The girl of the Red Mill felt that she could take nobody into herconfidence regarding the strange girl who said her name was Raby.Perhaps Ruth had no right to aid the girl if she was a runaway; yetthere must be some very strong reason for making a girl prefer practicalstarvation to the shelter of "them Perkinses."
Bread and water! The thought of the child being so hungry that she hadeaten discarded, dry bread, washed down with water from the fountain inthe campus, brought tears to Ruth's eyes.
"Oh! I wish I knew what was best to do for her," thought Ruth. "Should Itell Mrs. Tellingham? Or, mightn't I get some of the girls interested inher? Dear Helen has plenty of money, and she is just as tender-heartedas she can be."
Yet Ruth had given her promise to take nobody into her confidence aboutthe half-wild girl; and, with Ruth Fielding, "a promise was a promise!"
In the morning, there was soon a buzz of excitement all over the schoolregarding the strange happening at the fountain on the campus. One girlwhispered it to another, and the tale spread like wildfire. However, theteachers and the principal did not hear of the affair.
Ruth's lips, she decided, were sealed for the present regarding themysterious girl who had pushed Sarah Fish into what Heavy declared was"her proper element." The wildest and most improbable stories andsuspicions were circulated before assembly hour, regarding the Unknown.
There was so much said, and so many questions asked, in the quartetteroom where Ruth was located, that she felt like running away herself.But at mail time Madge Steele burst into the dormitory "charged to themuzzle," as The Fox expressed it, with a new topic of conversation.
"What do you think, girls? Oh! what do you think?" she cried. "We'regoing to live at Sunrise Farm."
"Ha! you ask us a question and answer it in the same breath," saidMercy, with a snap. "Now you've spilled the beans and we don't careanything about it at all."
"You _do_ care," declared Madge. "I ask _you_ first of all, Mercy. Iinvite every one of you for the last week in June and the first twoweeks of July at Sunrise Farm----"
"Oh, wait!" exclaimed Mary Cox, otherwise "The Fox." "Do begin at thebeginning. I, for one, never heard of Sunrise Farm before."
"I--I believe _I_ have," said Ruth slowly. "But I don't suppose it can bethe same farm Madge means. It is a big stock farm and it's not manymiles from Darrowtown where I--I used to live once. _That_ farm belongedto a family named Benson----"
"And a family named Steele owns it now," put in Madge, promptly. "It'sthe very same farm. It's a big place--five hundred acres. It's on a big,flat-topped hill. Father has been negotiating for the other farms aroundabout, and has gotten options on most of them, too. He's been doing itvery quietly.
"Now he says that the old house on the main farm is in good enough shapefor us to live there this summer, while he builds a bigger house. Andyou shall all come with us--all you eight girls--the Brilliant Octette ofBriarwood Hall.
"And Bob will get Helen's brother, and Busy Izzy; and Belle shall inviteher brothers if she likes, and----"
"Say! are you figuring on having a standing army there?" demanded Mercy.
"That's all right. There is room. The old garret has been made over intotwo great dormitories----"
"And you've been keeping all this to yourself, Madge Steele?" criedHelen. "What a nice girl you are. It sounds lovely."
"And your mother and father will wish we had never arrived, after we'vebeen there two days," declared Heavy. "By the way, do they know I eatthree square meals each day?"
"Yes. And that if you are hungry, you get up in your sleep and find thepantry," giggled The Fox.
"Might as well have all the important details understood right at thestart," said Heavy, firmly.
"If you'll all say you'll come," said Madge, smiling broadly, "we'lljust have the lov-li-est time!"
"But we'll have to write home for permission," Lluella Fairfax ventured.
"Of course we shall," chimed in Helen.
"Then do so at once," commanded the senior. "You see, this will be mygraduation party. No more Briarwood for me after this June, and I don'tknow what I shall do when I go to Poughkeepsie next fall and leave allyou 'Infants' behind here----"
"_Infants!_ Listen to her!" shouted Belle Tingley. "Get out of here!"and under a shower of sofa pillows Madge Steele had to retire from theroom.
Ruth slipped away easily after that, for the other girls were gabblingso fast over the invitation for the early summer vacation, that they didnot notice her departure.
This was the hour she had promised to meet the strange girl in whom shehad taken such a great interest the night before--it was between the twomorning recitation hours.
She ran down past the end of the dormitory building into the head of thelong serpentine path, known as the Cedar Walk. The lines of closelygrowing cedars sheltered her from observation from any of the girls'windows.
The great bell in the clock tower boomed out ten strokes as Ruth reachedthe muddy road at the end of the walk. Nobody was in sight. Ruth lookedup and down. Then she walked a little way in both directions to see ifthe girl she had come to meet was approaching.
"I--I am afraid she isn't going to keep her word," thought Ruth. "Andyet--somehow--she seemed so frank and honest----"
She heard a shrill, but low whistle, and the sound made her start andturn. She faced a thicket of scrubby bushes across the road. Suddenlyshe saw a face appear from behind this screen--a girl's face.
"Oh! Is it you?" cried Ruth, starting in that direction.
"Cheese it! don't yell it out. Somebody'll hear you," said the girl,hoarsely.
"Oh, dear me! you have a dreadful cold," urged Ruth, darting around theclump of brush and coming face to face with the strange girl.
"Oh, _that_ don't give me so much worry," said the Raby girl. "Aw--Mygoodness! Is that for _me_?"
Ruth had unfolded a paper covered parcel she carried. There weresandwiches, two apples, a piece of cake, and half a box of chocolatecandies. Ruth had obtained these supplies with some difficulty.
"I didn't suppose you would have any breakfast," said Ruth, softly. "Yousit right down on that dry log and eat. Don't mind me. I--I was awakemost all night worrying about you being out here, hungry and alone."
The girl had begun to eat ravenously, and now, with her mouth full, shegazed up at her new friend's face with a suddenness that made Ruthpause.
"Say!" said the girl, with difficulty. "You're all right. I seen youcome down the path alone, but reckoned I'd better wait and see if youdidn't have somebody follerin' on behind. Ye might have give me away."
"Why! I told you I would tell nobody."
"Aw, yes--I know. Mebbe I'd oughter have believed ye; but I dunno. Lotsof folks has fooled me. Them Perkinses was as soft as butter when theycame to take me away from the orphanage. But now they treat me as meanas dirt--yes, they do!"
"Oh, dear me! So you haven't any mother or father?"
"Not a one," confessed the other. "Didn't I tell you I was took from anorphanage? Willie and Dickie was taken away by other folks. I wishtsomebody would ha' taken us all three together; but I'm mighty glad themPerkinses didn't git the kids."
She sighed with present contentment, and wiped her fingers on her skirt.For some moments Ruth had remained silent, listening to her. Now she hadfor the first time the opportunity of examining the strange girl.
It had been too dark for her to see much of her the night before. Nowthe light of day revealed a very unkempt and not at all attractivefigure. She might have been twelve--possibly fourteen. She was slight forher age, but she might be stronger than she appeared to Ruth. Certainlyshe was vigorous enough.
She had black hair which was in a
dreadful tangle. Her complexion wasnaturally dark, and she had a deep layer of tan, and over that quite athick layer of dirt. Her hands and wrists were stained and dirty, too.
She wore no hat, raw as the weather was. Her ragged dress was an oldfaded gingham; over it she wore a three-quarter length coat of someindeterminate, shoddy material, much soiled, and shapeless as amealsack. Her shoes and stockings were in keeping with the rest of heroutfit.
Altogether her appearance touched Ruth Fielding deeply. This Raby girlwas an orphan. Ruth remembered keenly the time when the loss of her ownparents was still a fresh wound. Supposing no kind friends had beenraised up for her? Suppose there had been no Red Mill for her to go to?She might have been much the same sort of castaway as this.
"Tell me who you are--tell me all about yourself--do!" begged the girl ofthe Red Mill, sitting down beside the other on the log. "I am an orphanas well as you, my dear. Really, I am."
"Was you in the orphanage?" demanded the Raby girl, quickly.
"Oh, no. I had friends----"
"You warn't never a reg'lar orphan, then," was the sharp response.
"Tell me about it," urged Ruth.
"Me an' the kids was taken to the orphanage just as soon as Mom died,"said the girl, in quite a matter-of-fact manner. "Pa died two monthsbefore. It was sudden. But Mom had been sickly for a long time--I canremember. I was six."
"And how old are you now?" asked Ruth.
"Twelve and a half. They puts us out to work at twelve anyhow, so themPerkinses got me," explained the child. "I was pretty sharp and foxywhen we went to the orphanage. The kids was only two and a half----"
"Both of them?" cried Ruth.
"Yep. They're twins, Willie and Dickie is. An' awful smart--an' prettybefore they lopped off their curls at the orphanage. I was glad Mom wasdead then," said the girl, nodding. "She'd been heart-broke to see 'emat first without their long curls.
"I dunno now--not rightly--just what's become of 'em," went on the girl."Mebbe they come back to the orphanage. The folks that took 'em was niceenough, I guess, but the man thought two boys would be too much for hiswife to take care of. She was a weakly lookin' critter.
"But the matron always said they shouldn't go away for keeps, unlessthey went together. My goodness me! they'd never be happy apart," saidthe strange girl, wagging her head confidentially. "And they're onlynine now. There's three years yet for the matron to find them a goodhome. Ye see, folks take young orphans on trial. I wisht them Perkinseshad taken _me_ on trial and then had sent me back. Or, I wisht they'dlet the orphans take folks on trial instead of the other way 'round."
"Oh, it must be very hard!" murmured Ruth. "And you and your littlebrothers had to be separated?'
"Yep. And Willie and Dickie liked their sister Sade a heap," and thegirl suddenly "knuckled" her eyes with her dirty hand to wipe away thetears. "Huh! I'm a big baby, ain't I? Well! that's how it is."
"And you really have run away from the people that took you from theorphanage, Sadie?"
"Betcher! So would you. Mis' Perkins is awful cross, an' he's crosser! Igot enough----"
"Wouldn't they take you back at the orphanage?"
"Nope. No runaways there. I've seen other girls come back and they made'em go right away again with the same folks. You see, there's a Board,or sumpin'; an' the Board finds out all about the folks that take awaythe orphans in the first place. Then they won't never own up that theywas fooled, that Board won't. They allus say it's the kids' fault ifthey ain't suited."
Suddenly the girl jumped up and peered through the bushes. Ruth hadheard the thumping of horses' hoofs on the wet road.
"My goodness!" gasped Sadie Raby. "Here's ol' Perkins hisself. He's comeclean over this road to look for me. Don't you tell him----"
She seized Ruth's wrist with her claw-like little hand.
"Don't you be afraid," said Ruth. "And take this." She thrust aclosely-folded dollar bill into the girl's grimy fingers. "I wish it wasmore. I'll come here again to-morrow----"
The other had darted into the woods ere she had ceased speaking.Somebody shouted "Whoa!" in a very harsh voice, and then a heavy pair ofcowhide boots landed solidly in the road.
"I see ye, ye little witch!" exclaimed the harsh voice. "Come out o'there before I tan ye with this whip!" and the whip in question snappedviciously as the speaker pounded violently through the clump of bushes,right upon the startled Ruth.
Ruth Fielding At Sunrise Farm; Or, What Became of the Raby Orphans Page 4