Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures Part 11

"Lighting the lamps," whispered Ruth.

"Good. Tell him to go right up there and see what can be done. Warn Miss Scrimp. I will telephone to town, and Miss Brokaw will take charge and march the pupils to the big hall to call the roll. I hope n.o.body is in the dormitories."

Mrs. Tellingham had pushed back her chair and dropped her napkin; but her movements, though swift, were not alarming. She pa.s.sed out by a rear door which led to the kitchens, while Ruth walked composedly down the room to the main exit.

"Hey! what's the matter, Ruthie?" called Heavy, in a low tone. "Whose old cat's in the well?"

Ruth appeared not to hear her. Miss Brokaw, a very capable woman, came into the dining hall as Ruth pa.s.sed out. Miss Brokaw stepped to the monitor's desk at one side and tapped on the bell.

"Oh, mercy!" gasped Heavy, the incorrigible. "She's shut us off again. And I haven't had half enough to eat."

"Rise!" said Miss Brokaw, after a moment of waiting. "Immediately, girls.

Miss Stone, you will come, too."

A murmur of laughter rose at Jennie Stone's evident intention to linger; but Heavy always took admonition in good part, and she arose smiling.

"Monitors to their places," commanded Miss Brokaw. "You will march to the big hall. It is Mrs. Tellingham's request. She will have something of importance to say to you."

The big hall was on the other side of the building, and from its windows nothing could be seen of either dormitory.

Meanwhile, Ruth, once alone in the hall, had bounded to the chief entrance of the building and opened one leaf of the heavy door. It was a crisp night and the frost bit keenly. The wind fluttered her skirt about her legs.

She stopped for no outer apparel, however, but dashed out upon the stone portico, drawing the door shut behind her. That act alone saved the school from panic; for it she had left the door ajar, when the girls filed out into the entrance hall from the dining room some of them would have been sure to see the growing red glow on the second floor of the West Dormitory.

To Ruth the fire seemed to be filling the room in which it had apparently started. There was no smoke as yet; but the flames leaped higher and higher, while the illumination grew frightfully.

A spark of light coming into being at the far end of the campus near the East Dormitory, showed Ruth where Tony Foyle then was. He was not likely to see the fire as yet, for in lighting the campus lamps he followed a route that kept his back to the West Dormitory until he turned to come back.

Like an arrow from the bow the young girl ran toward the distant gardener.

She took the steps of the little Italian garden in the center of the campus in two flying leaps, pa.s.sed the marble maiden at the fountain, and bounded up to the level of the campus path again without stopping.

"Tony! Oh, Tony!" she called breathlessly.

"Shure now, phat's the matter widyer?" returned the old Irishman, querulously. "Phy! 'tis Miss Ruth, so ut is. Phativer do be the trouble, me darlin'?"

He was very fond of Ruth and would have done anything in his power for her. So at once Tony was exercised by her appearance.

"Phativer is the matter?" he repeated.

"Fire!" blurted out Ruth, able at last to speak. The keen night air had seemed for the moment fairly to congest her lungs and render her speechless and breathless.

"That's _that_?" cried Tony. "'Fire,' says you? An' where is there fire save in the furnaces and the big range in the kitchen----"

He had turned, and the red glare from the room on the second floor of the West Dormitory came into his view.

"There it is!" gasped Ruth, and just then the tinkle of breaking gla.s.s betrayed the fact that the heat of the flames was bursting the panes of the window.

"Fur the love of----Begorra! I'll git the hose-cart, an' rouse herself an'

the gals in the kitchen----"

Poor Tony, so wildly excited that he dropped the little "dhudeen" he was smoking and did not notice that he stepped on it, galloped away on rheumatic legs. At this hour there was no man on the premises but the little old Irishman, who cared for the furnaces until the fireman and engineer came on duty at seven in the morning.

Ruth was quite sure that neither Tony nor "herself" (by this name he meant Mrs. Foyle, the cook) or any of the kitchen girls, could do a thing towards extinguis.h.i.+ng the fire. But she remembered that Miss Scrimp, the matron, must be in the threatened building, and the girl dashed across the intervening s.p.a.ce and in at the door.

There was not a sound from upstairs--no crackling of flames. Ruth would never have believed the dormitory was afire had she not seen the fire outside.

The girl ran down the corridor to Miss Scrimp's room, and burst in the door like a young hurricane. The matron was at tea, and she leaped up in utter amazement when she saw Ruth.

"For the good land's sake, Ruthie Fielding!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Whatever is the matter with you?"

"Fire!" cried Ruth. "One of the rooms on the next floor--front--is all afire! I saw it from the dining hall! Mrs. Tellingham has telephoned for the department at Lumberton----"

With a shriek of alarm, Miss Scrimp picked up the little old "brown Betty"

teapot off the hearth of her small stove, and started out of the room with it--whether with the expectation of putting out the fire with the contents of the pot, or not, Ruth never learned.

But when the lady was half way up the first flight of stairs the flames suddenly burst through the doorframe, and Miss Scrimp stopped.

"That candle!" she shrieked. "I knew I had no business to give that girl that candle."

"Who?" asked Ruth.

"That infant--Amy Gregg her name is. I'll tell Mrs. Tellingham----"

"But please don't tell anybody else, Miss Scrimp," begged Ruth. "It will be awful for Amy if it becomes generally known that she is at fault."

"Well, now," said the matron more calmly, coming down the stairs again.

"You are right, Ruthie--you thoughtful child. We can't do a thing up there," she added, as she reached the lower floor again. "All we can do is to take such things out as we can off this floor," and she promptly marched out with the little tea-pot and deposited it carefully on the gra.s.splot right where somebody would be sure to step on it when the firemen arrived.

Miss Scrimp prided herself upon having great presence of mind in an emergency like this. A little later Ruth saw the good woman open her window and toss out her best mirror upon the cement walk.

Miss Picolet came flying toward the burning building, chattering about her treasures she had brought from France. "Le Bon Dieu will not let to burn up my mothair's picture--my harp--my confirmation veil--all, all I have of my youth left!" chattered the excited little Frenchwoman, and because of her distress and her weakness, Ruth helped remove the harp and likewise the featherbed on which the French teacher always slept and which had come with her from France years before.

By the time these treasures were out of the house a crowd came running from the main building--Mrs. Foyle, some of the kitchen girls and waitresses, Tony dragging the hose cart, and last of all Dr. Tellingham himself.

The good old doctor was the most absent minded man in the world, and the least useful in a practical way in any emergency. He never had anything of importance to do with the government of the school; but he sometimes gave the girls wonderfully interesting lectures on historical subjects. He wrote histories that were seldom printed save in private editions; but most of the girls thought the odd old gentleman a really wonderful scholar.

He was in dishabille just now. He had run out in his dressing-gown and carpet slippers, and without his wig. That wig was always awry when he was at work, and it was a different color from his little remaining hair, anyway. But without the toupe at all he certainly looked naked.

"Go back, that's a dear man!" gasped Mrs. Foyle, turning the doctor about and heading him in the right direction. "Shure, ye air not dacently dressed. Go back, Oi say. Phat will the young ladies be thinkin' of yez?

Ye kin do no good here, dear Dochter."

This was quite true. He could do no good. And, as it turned out later, the unfortunate, forgetful, short-sighted old gentleman had already done a great deal of harm.

CHAPTER X

GAUNT RUINS