Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures Part 22

Once or twice Amy slipped away before Ruth was ready to go back to Mrs.

Smith's house for the evening, and started alone for the lodgings. The Cedar Walk was the nearest way, and there were many hiding places along the Cedar Walk.

Mary Pease and her chums lay in wait for the unfortunate Amy on two occasions, and chased her all the way to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's. What they intended doing to the much disliked girl if they had caught her, n.o.body seemed to know. They just seemed determined to plague her.

Ruth did not want to report the culprits; but warning them did not seem to do any good. On a third occasion Amy started home ahead, and Ruth and Helen hurried after her to make sure that none of the other girls troubled the victim. Half way down the walk, Helen exclaimed:

"See there, Ruth! Amy isn't alone, after all."

"Who's with her?" asked Ruth. "I can't see--Why! it can't be Ann?"

"No. But she's tall like Ann."

"And that girl walks queerly. Did you ever see the like? Strides along just like a boy--Oh!"

Out of a cedar clump appeared a crowd of shrieking girls, who began to dance around Amy and her companion, shouting scornful phrases which were bound to make Amy Gregg angry. But Mary and her friends this time received a surprise. Amy ran. Not so the "girl" with her.

This strange individual ran among Amy's tormentors, tripped two or three of them up, tore down the hair of several, taking the ribbons as trophies, and sent the whole crowd shrieking away, much alarmed and not a little punished.

"It isn't a girl!" gasped Helen. "It's Curly Smith. And as sure as you live he's got on some of Ann's clothes. _Won't_ our Western friend be furious at that?"

But Ann Hicks was not troubled at all. She had lent Curly the frock and hat, and when he behaved himself and walked properly he certainly made a very pretty girl.

He gave Amy's enemies a good fright, and they let her alone after that.

"But, goodness me! what is Briarwood Hall coming to?" demanded Ruth, in discussing this incident with her room-mates. "We are leaving a tribe of young Indians here for Mrs. Tellingham to control. Helen! you know we never acted this way when we were in the lower grades."

"Well, we were pretty bad sometimes," Helen said slowly. "We did not engage in free fights, however."

"They all ought to have a good spanking," declared Ann, with conviction.

"And I suppose you seniors ought to do it?" sneered Amy, who could not be gentle even with her own friends.

"I'm not convinced that I sha'n't begin with you, my lady," said the Western girl, sharply. "I lent those old duds of mine to Curly to help you out, and you are about as grateful as a poison snake! I never saw such a girl in my life before."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FIVE-REEL DRAMA

There was a spark of romance in old Mrs. Sadoc Smith, after all. Ruth read to her the first part of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" and to further the continuation and ultimate successful completion of that scenario, the old lady would have done much.

Curly looked upon Ruth with awe. He was a devotee of the moving pictures, and every nickel he could spare went into the coffers of one or the other of the "picture palaces" in Lumberton. Lumberton was a thriving city, with both water-freight and railroad facilities besides its mills and lumber interests; so it could well support several of the modern houses of entertainment that have sprung up in such mushroom growth all over the land.

Mr. Hammond's films taken at Lumberton were of an educational nature and the Board of Trade of the city expected much advertising of the industries of the place when the films were released.

However, to get back to Mrs. Sadoc Smith--Her instructions from Mrs.

Tellingham included the putting out of the lamp in the big room the four Briarwood girls occupied by ten o'clock every night; but Mrs. Smith allowed Ruth to come downstairs after the other girls were in bed and write under the radiance of the reading lamp on her sitting-room table. It was quiet there, for Mrs. Sadoc Smith either sent Curly to bed, or made him keep as still as a mouse. And there was n.o.body else to disturb the young author as she wrote, save the cat that delighted to jump up into her lap and lie there purring, while the scenario was being written.

Ruth did not avail herself of this privilege often; but she was desirous for the scenario to be finished and in Mr. Hammond's hands. So sure had that gentleman been of her success, and so pleased was he with the plan of the entire play, that he had taken a copy of the first part with him when he left Lumberton and now wrote that Mr. Grimes was already making a few of the studio scenes.

The young author rather shrank from letting the pugnacious Mr. Grimes have anything to do with her story; but she knew that both Mr. Hammond and Hazel Gray thought highly of the man's ability. Nor was she in a position to insist upon any other director. She was working for Briarwood, not for her own advantage.

"If Grimes takes hold of it with his usual vigor, it will be a success,"

Mr. Hammond a.s.sured Ruth in his letter. "Hurry along the rest of the play.

Spring is upon us, and we shall have some good open weather soon in which to take the pictures at Briarwood Hall."

Ruth hurried. Indeed, the story was finished so rapidly that the girl scarcely realized what she had done. There was no time for her to go over the scenario carefully for revision and polis.h.i.+ng. The last scenes she read to n.o.body; she scarcely knew herself how they sounded.

Ruth Fielding had written an ingenious and very original scenario. Its crudities were many and manifest; nevertheless, the true gold was there.

Mr. Hammond had recognized the originality of the girl's ideas in the first part of the play. He was not going into the scheme, and risking his money and reputation as a film producer, from any feeling of sentiment. It was a business proposition, pure and simple, with him.

In the first place, n.o.body had ever thought of just this kind of moving picture. The producer would be in the field with a new idea. In addition, the drama would be looked for all over the country by the friends of the pupils, past and present, of Briarwood Hall. The girls themselves appearing in some of the scenes would add to the interest their parents, friends, and the graduates of the Hall, were bound to take in the production.

To Ruth, nervous and overworked after the finis.h.i.+ng of the scenario, the days of waiting until Mr. Hammond read and p.r.o.nounced judgment on the play, were hard indeed to endure. No matter how much confidence her friends--even Mrs. Tellingham--had in her ability to succeed, Ruth was not at all sure she had written up to the mark.

Try as she might she began to fall behind in her recitation marks during these days of waiting. Her nervousness was enhanced by the doubts she felt regarding her general standing in her cla.s.ses.

Mrs. Tellingham talked cheerfully in chapel about "our graduating cla.s.s;"

but some of the girls who were working with a view to receiving their diplomas in June would never be able to reach the high mark necessary for Mrs. Tellingham to allow them those certificates.

There would be a fringe of girls standing at the back of the cla.s.s who, although never appearing at Briarwood Hall another term, could not win the roll of parchment which would enter them in good standing in any of the women's colleges. Ruth did not want to be among those who failed.

She worried about this a good deal; she could not sleep at night; and her cheeks grew pale. She worked hard, and yet sometimes when she reached the cla.s.sroom she felt as though her head were a hollow drum in which the thoughts beat to and fro without either rhyme or reason.

Ruth Fielding was a perfectly healthy girl, as well as an athletic one.

But in a time of stress like this the very healthiest person can easily and quickly break down. "I feel as though I should fly!" is an expression often heard from nervous and overwrought schoolgirls. Ruth wished that she might fly--away from school and study and scenarios and sullen girls like Amy Gregg.

One evening when she came back to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's with a strapful of books to study before bedtime, Ruth saw Curly Smith by the shed door busy with some fis.h.i.+ng tackle. Ruth's pulses leaped. Fis.h.i.+ng! She had not thrown a hook into the water for months and months!

"Going fis.h.i.+ng, Curly?" she said wistfully.

"Yep."

"Where are they biting now?"

"There's carp and bream under the old mill-dam up in Norman's Woods. I saw 'em jumping there to-day."

"Oh! when are you going?" gasped the girl, hungry for outdoor sport and adventure.

"In the morning--before _you're_ up," said the boy, rather sullenly.

"I wager I'll be awake," said Ruth, sitting down beside him. "I wake up--oh, just awfully early! and lie and think."

Curly looked at her. "That don't get you nothin'," he said.

"But I can't help it."