Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures Part 18

and his grandmother was never ending in her talk about the escapade. The curls remained short, however. If she refused to give Curly twenty cents occasionally to have his hair cut, he would stick burrs or mola.s.ses taffy in the hair so that it had to be kept short.

There seemed an affinity between this scapegrace lad and Amy Gregg. Not that she possessed any abundance of spirit; but she would listen to Curly romance about his adventures by the hour, and he could safely confide all his secrets to Amy Gregg. Wild horses would not have drawn a word from her as to his intentions, or what mischief he had already done.

Curly was a tall, thin boy of fifteen, wiry and strong, and with a face as smooth and pink-and-white as a girl's. That he was so girlish looking was a sore subject with the boy, and whenever any unwise boy called him "Girly" instead of "Curly" it started a fight, there and then.

Henry was forbidden by his grandmother to bother the girls from Briarwood Hall in any way, and to make sure that he played no tricks upon them, when Ruth and her mates came to the house to lodge, Mrs. Smith housed Curly in a little, steep-roofed room over the summer kitchen.

It was a cold and uncomfortable place, he told Amy Gregg. Ruth heard him tell her so, but judged that it would not be wise to beg Mrs. Smith for other quarters for her grandson. She was not a woman to whom one could easily give advice--especially one of Ruth's age and inexperience.

Mrs. Smith was a very grim looking woman with a false front of little, corkscrew curls, the color of which did not at all match the iron-gray of her hair. That the curls were made of Mrs. Smith's own hair, cropped from her head many years before, there could be no doubt. It Nature had erred in turning her actual hair to iron-gray in these, her later years, that was Nature's fault, not Mrs. Smith's!

She grimly ignored the parti-colored hair as she did the natural exuberance of her grandson's spirit. If Nature had given him an unquenchable amount of mirth and jollity, that, too, was Nature's fault.

Still, Mrs. Sadoc Smith proposed to quell that mirth and suppress the joy of Curly's nature if possible.

The only question was: In the process of making Curly over to fit her ideas of what a boy should be, was not Mrs. Smith running a grave chance of ruining the boy entirely?

And what boy, living in a house with four girls, could keep from trying to play tricks upon them? If the shed-chamber had been a mile away over the roofs of the Smith house, Curly would have been tempted to creep over the s.h.i.+ngles to one of the windows of the big front room, and----

Nine o'clock at night. All four of the girls quartered with Mrs. Smith were busy with their books--even flaxen-haired Amy Gregg. The rustle of turning leaves and a sigh of weariness now and then was all that had broken the silence for half an hour.

Outside, the wind moaned in the trees. It was cold and the sky was overcast with the promise of a stormy morrow. Suddenly Helen started and glanced hastily at the window behind her, where the shade was drawn.

"What's that?" she whispered.

"Huh?" said Ann.

"I didn't hear anything," Ruth added.

Not a word from Amy Gregg, who likewise appeared to be deeply immersed in her book.

Another silence; then both Ruth and Helen jumped. "I declare! Is that a bird or a beast?" Helen demanded.

"What is it?" cried Ann, starting up.

"Somebody rapping on that window," Ruth declared.

"This far up from the ground? Nonsense!" exclaimed the bold Ann, and marched to the cas.e.m.e.nt and ran up the shade.

They could see nothing. There was no light in the roadway before the house. Ann opened the window and leaned out.

"n.o.body down there throwing up gravel, that's sure," she declared, drawing in her head again, and shutting the window.

Just as they returned to their books the scratching, squeaking noise broke out again. This time Ruth ran to see.

"Nothing!" she confessed.

"What do you suppose it can be?" asked Helen nervously. "I declare, I can't study any more. That gets on my nerves."

Mrs. Smith put in her head at that moment. "Of course you haven't seen that boy, any of you?" she asked sharply.

The three older girls looked at each other; Amy Gregg continued to pore over her book. No; Ruth, Helen and Ann could honestly tell Mrs. Smith that they had not seen Curly.

"Well, the young rascal has slipped out. I went up to his door to take him some clothes I had mended, and he didn't answer. So I opened the door, and his bed hasn't been touched, and he went up an hour ago. He's slipped out over the shed roof, for his window's open; though I don't see how he dared drop to the ground. It's twenty feet if it's an inch," Mrs. Smith said sternly.

"I shall wait up for him and catch him when he comes back. I'll learn him to go out nights without me knowin' of it."

She went away, stepping wrathfully. "Goodness! I'm sorry for that boy,"

said Ann, beginning leisurely to prepare for bed.

But Ruth watched Amy Gregg curiously. She saw the smaller girl flush and pale and glance now and then toward the window. Ruth jumped to a sudden conclusion. Curly was somewhere outside that window on the roof!

CHAPTER XV

A DAWNING POSSIBILITY

"Well, the evening's spoiled anyway," yawned Helen, seeing Ann braiding her hair. "I might as well stop, too," and she closed her books with relief.

"It's time small girls were on their way to the Land of Nod," said the Western girl, taking the book from the resisting hand of Amy Gregg.

"Hullo! it's time _you_ were in bed, girlie, sure enough. Holding the book upside down, no less! What do you know about that, ladies?"

"Certainly she should go to bed," Helen said sharply. "We're all sleepy.

Do hurry, child."

"Speak for yourself, Helen," snapped Amy. "I don't have to mind _you_, I hope."

"You do if you want to get anywhere in this school--and mind every other senior who is kind enough to notice you," said Ann. "You've not learned that lesson yet."

"And I don't believe _you_ can teach me," responded the younger girl, ready to quarrel with anybody. "Give me back my book!"

Ruth went to her and put her arm around Amy's neck. "Don't, dear, be so fractious," she begged. "We had all to go through a process of 'f.a.gging'

when we first came to Briarwood. It is good for us--part of the discipline. I asked Mrs. Tellingham to let you come over here with us so that you really would not be put upon----"

"I don't thank you!" snapped Amy, ungratefully. "I can look out for myself, I guess. I always have."

"You're like the self-made man," drawled Ann. "You've made an awfully poor job of it! You need a little discipline, my dear."

"Not from you!" cried the other girl, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng.

It took Ruth several minutes to quiet this sea of trouble. It was half an hour before Amy cried herself to sleep on her couch. The other girls had both crept into bed and called to Ruth sleepily to put out the light. Ruth was not undressed; but she did as they requested.

Then she went to the window and opened it. Nothing had been heard from above since Mrs. Smith had looked in at the chamber door. But Ruth was sure the grim old woman was waiting at her grandson's window, in the cold shed bedroom, ready for Curly when he came in.

And Ruth was sure, too, that the boy had not dropped to the ground. _He was still on the roof_.

"That was a tictac," Ruth told herself. She had heard Tom Cameron's too many times to mistake the sound. "And Amy was expecting it. Curly had told her what he was going to do. And now what will that reckless boy do, with his grandmother waiting for him and every other window in the house locked?"