Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures Part 30

Tellingham announced in chapel one morning that Mr. Gregg had sent his check for five hundred dollars toward the rebuilding of the dormitory, the walls of which now were completed, and the roof on.

She spoke, too, of the reason Amy had left her candle burning in her lonely room in the old West Dormitory that fatal evening. "We failed in our duty, both as teachers and fellow-pupils," Mrs. Tellingham said. "I hope that no other girl who enters Briarwood Hall will ever be neglected and left alone as Amy Gregg was, no matter what the new comer's disposition or att.i.tude toward us may be."

To hear the princ.i.p.al take herself to task for lack of foresight and kindness to a new pupil, made a deep impression upon the school at large, and when Amy Gregg appeared on the campus again she was welcomed with gentleness by the other girls. Although Amy Gregg still doubted and shrank from them for some time, before the end of the term she had her chums, and was one of a set whose bright, particular star was her one-time enemy, Mary Pease.

Meanwhile, the older girls--the seniors who were to graduate--had a new problem. The films for "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" were reported almost ready. Mr. Hammond was to release them as soon as he could, in order to bring all the aid to the dormitory fund possible before the end of the semester.

Now the query was, "How is the picture to be advertised?" Merely the ordinary billing in front of the picture playhouses and on the display boards, was not enough. An interest must be stirred of a deeper and broader nature than that which such a casual manner of advertising could be expected to engender.

"How'll we do it?" demanded Jennie, with as much solemnity as it was possible for her rosy, round face to express. "We should invent some catch-phrase to introduce the great film--something as effective as 'Good evening! have you used Higgin's Toothpaste?' or, 'You-must-have-a pound-cake.' You know, something catchy that will stick in people's minds."

"It has taken years and years to make some of those catchy trademarks universal," objected Ruth, seriously. "Our advertising must be done in a hurry."

"Well, we've got to put our best foot forward, somehow," declared Helen.

"Everybody must be made to know that the Briarwood girls have a show of their own--a five-reel film that is a corker----"

"Hear! hear!" cried Belle. "Wait till the censor gets hold of _that_ word."

"Quite right," agreed Ruth. "Let us be lady-like, though the heavens fall!"

"And still be natural?" chuckled Jennie. "Impossible!"

"Her best foot forward--one's best foot forward." Mary c.o.x kept repeating Helen's remark while the other girls chattered. Mary had a talent for drawing. "Say!" she suddenly exclaimed. "I could make a dandy poster with that for a text."

"With what for a text?" somebody asked.

"'Putting One's Best Foot Forward,'" declared Mary c.o.x, and suddenly seizing charcoal and paper, she sketched the idea quickly--a smartly dressed up-to-date Briarwood girl with her right foot advanced--and that foot, as in a foreshortened photograph--of enormous size.

The poster took with the girls immensely. There was something chic about the figure, and the face, while looking like n.o.body in particular, was a composite of several of the girls. At least, it was an inspiration on the part of Mary c.o.x, and when Mrs. Tellingham saw it, she approved.

"We'll just send this 'Big Foot Girl' broadcast," cried Helen, who was proud that her spoken word had been the inspiration for Mary's clever cartoon. "Come on! we'll have it stamped on our stationery, and write to everyone we know bespeaking their best attention when they see the poster in their vicinity."

"And we'll have new postcards made of Briarwood Hall, with Mary's figure printed on the reverse," Sarah Fish said.

They sent a proof of the poster to Mr. Hammond, and to his billing of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" he immediately added "The Briarwood Girl with Her Best Foot Forward." Locally, during the next few weeks, this poster became immensely popular.

The campaign of advertising did not end with Mary's poster--no, indeed! In every way they could think of the girls of Briarwood Hall spread the tidings of the forthcoming release of the school play.

Lumberton's advertising s.p.a.ce was plastered with the Briarwood Girl and with other billing weeks before the film could be seen. As every moving picture theatre in the place clamored for the film, Mr. Hammond had refused to book it with any. The Opera House was engaged for three days and nights, a high price for tickets asked, and it was expected that a goodly sum would be raised for the dormitory right at home.

However, before the picture of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" came to town, something else happened in the career of Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill which greatly influenced her future.

CHAPTER XXIV

"SEEING OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US"

"I want to tell you girls one thing," said Jennie Stone, solemnly. "If I get through these examinations without having so low a mark that Miss Brokaw sends me down into the primary grade, I promise to be good for--for--well, for the rest of my life--at Briarwood!"

"Of course," Helen said. "Heavy would limit that vow to something easy."

"Perhaps she had the same grave doubt about being able to be good that the little boy felt who was saying his prayers," Belle said. "He prayed: 'Dear G.o.d, please make me a good boy--and if You don't at first succeed, try, try again!'"

"But oh! some of the problems _are_ so hard," sighed Lluella.

"'The Mournful Sisters' will now give their famous sketch," laughed Ruth, as announcer. "Come, now! altogether, girls!"

"'Knock, knock, knock! the girls are knocking----Bring the hammers all this way!'"

"Never mind, Ruthie Fielding," complained Lluella. "We don't all of us have the luck you do. All your English made up for you in that scenario----"

"And who is _this_ made up, I'd be glad to have somebody tell me?"

interposed Jennie. "Oh, girls! tell me. Do you all see the same thing I do?"

The crowd were strolling slowly down the Cedar Walk and the individual the plump girl had spied had just come into view, walking toward them. He was a tall, lean man, "as narrow as a happy thought," Jennie muttered, and dressed in a peculiar manner.

Few visitors came to Briarwood save parents or friends of the girls. This man did not even look like a pedler. At least, he carried no sample case, and he was not walking from the direction of Lumberton.

His black suit was very dusty and his yellow shoes proved by the dust they bore, too, that he had walked a long way.

"He wears a rolling collar and a flowing tie," muttered the irrepressible Jennie. "Goodness! it almost makes me seasick to look at them. _What_ can he be? A chaplain in the navy? An actor?"

"Actor is right," thought Ruth, as the man strutted up the walk.

The girls, who were attending Ruth and Ann and Amy Gregg a part of the way to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's, gave the strange man plenty of room on the gravel walk, but when he came near them he stopped and stared. And he stared at Ruth.

"Pardon me, young lady," he said, in a full, sonorous tone. "Are you Miss Fielding?"

The other girls drifted away and left Ruth to face the odd looking person.

"I am Ruth Fielding," Ruth said, much puzzled.

"Ah! you do not know me?" queried the man.

"No, sir."

"My card!" said the man, with a flourish.

Jennie whispered to the others: "Look at him! He draws and presents that card as though it were a sword at his enemy's throat! I hope he won't impale her upon it."

Ruth, much bewildered, and not a little troubled, accepted the card. On it was printed:

AMASA FARRINGTON Criterion Films

"Goodness!" thought Ruth. "More moving picture people?"