Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures Part 9

"Plump!"

"Hear her!"

"She's the girl who went up in the balloon and came down 'plump!'"

The shouts that greeted Heavy's seriously put remark did not disturb the fleshy girl at all. "That is exactly the trouble," she went on, quite placidly. "And it cost me half a dollar yesterday."

"What's that?" asked somebody, curiously.

"Where?" asked another girl.

"In chapel. Didn't you see me trying to crawl through between the two rows of seats? And I got stuck!"

"Did you have to pay Foyle the fifty cents to pry you out, Heavy?"

demanded Ann Hicks.

"No. I dropped the half dollar and tried to find it. I looked for it; that's all I _could_ do. I was too fat to find it."

"Did you look good, Jennie?" asked Ruth, sympathetically.

"Did I look good?" repeated the fleshy girl, with scorn. "I looked as good as a fat girl crawling around on all fours, ever _does_ look. What do you think?"

The laugh at Jennie Stone's sally really cleared the room, for the warning bell for supper sounded almost immediately. Heavy and Nettie, and all who did not belong in the quartette room, departed. Then Mercy went tap, tap, tapping down the corridor with her canes--"just like a silly woodp.e.c.k.e.r!"

as she often said herself; and Ann strode away, trying to hum the marching song, but ignominiously falling into the doleful strains of the "Cowboy's Lament" before she reached the head of the stairway.

"I really would like to know what that thing is you've been writing, Ruth," remarked Helen, when they were alone. "All those sheets of paper--Goodness! it's no composition. I believe you've been writing your valedictory this early."

"Don't be silly," laughed Ruth. "I shall never write the valedictory of this cla.s.s. Mercy will do that."

"I don't care! Mrs. Tellingham considers you the captain of the graduating cla.s.s. So now!" cried loyal Helen.

"That may be; but Mercy is our brilliant girl--you know that."

"Yes--the poor dear! but how could she ever stand up before them all and give an oration?"

"She _shall_!" cried Ruth, with emphasis. "She shall _not_ be cheated out of all the glory she wins--or of an atom of that glory. If she is our first scholar, she must, somehow, have all the honors that go with the position."

"Oh, Ruthie! how can you overcome her natural dislike of 'making an exhibition of herself,' as she calls it, and the fact that, really, a girl as lame as she is, poor creature, could never make a pleasant appearance upon the platform?"

"I do not know," Ruth said seriously. "Not now. But I shall think it out, if n.o.body else _can_. Mercy shall graduate with flying colors from Briarwood Hall, whether I do myself, or not!"

"Never mind," said Helen, laughing at her chum's emphasis. "At least the valedictorian will hail from this dear old quartette room."

"Yes," agreed Ruth, looking around the loved chamber with a tender smile.

"What will we do when we see it no longer, Helen?"

"Oh, don't talk about it!" cried Helen, who had forgotten by this time what she had started to question Ruth about. "Come on! We'll be late for supper."

When her chum's back was turned, Ruth slipped out of her table drawer the very packet of papers Helen had spoken about. The sheets had been typewritten and were now sealed in a manila envelope, which was addressed and stamped.

She hesitated all day about dropping the packet in the mailbag; but now she took her courage in both hands and determined to send it to its destination.

CHAPTER VIII

A NEW STAR

Ruth had actually been trying her "prentice hand," as Mr. Hammond had called it, at the production of a moving picture scenario. It was the first literary work she had ever achieved, although her taste in that direction had been noted by Mrs. Tellingham and the under-instructors of the school.

Oh! she would not have had any of them know what she had done in secret since arriving at the Hall at the beginning of this term. She would not let even Helen know about it.

"If it is a success--if Mr. Hammond produces it--_then_ I'll tell them,"

Ruth said to herself. "But if he tells me it is no good, then n.o.body shall ever know that I was so foolish as to attempt such a thing."

Even after she had it all ready she hesitated some hours as to whether or not she should send it to the address Mr. Hammond had given her. The pamphlet he had promised to send her had not arrived, and Ruth had little idea as to how a scenario should be prepared She had written much more explanatory matter than was necessary; but she had achieved one thing at least--she had been direct in the composition of her scenario and she had the faculty of saying just what she meant, and that briefly. This concise style was of immense value to her, as Ruth was later to learn.

Ruth managed to slip the big envelope addressed to Mr. Hammond into the mailbag in the hall without spurring Helen's curiosity again. She had to chuckle to herself over it, for it really was a good joke on her chum.

Unconsciously, Helen had given her the idea for this little allegorical comedy which she had written. And how her friend would laugh if the picture of "Curiosity" should be produced and they should see it on the screen.

The girls crowded into the big dining room in an orderly manner, but with some suppressed whispering and laughter on the part of the more giggling kind. There were always some of the girls so full of spirits that they could not be entirely repressed.

The long tables quickly filled up. There were few beginners at this time of year, for most of the new scholars came to Briarwood Hall at the commencement of the autumn semester.

There was one new girl at the table where Ruth and her particular friends sat, over which Miss Picolet the little teacher of French, had nominal charge. Nowadays, Miss Picolet's life was an easy one. She had little trouble with even the more boisterous girls of the West Dormitory, thanks to the Sweetbriars.

The new pupil beside the French teacher was Amy Gregg. She was a colorless, flaxen-haired girl, with such light eyebrows and lashes that Helen said her face looked like a blank wall.

She was a nervous girl, too; she pouted a good deal and seemed dissatisfied. Of course, being a stranger, she was lonely as yet; but under the rules of the Sweetbriars she was not hazed. The S.B.'s word had become law in all such matters at Briarwood Hall.

After they were seated, Heavy Stone whispered to Ruth: "Isn't that Gregg girl the most discontented looking thing you ever saw? Her face would sour cream right now! I hope she doesn't overlook my supper and give me indigestion."

"Behave!" was Ruth's only comment.

There was supposed to be silence until all were served and the teachers began eating. The waitresses bustled about, light-footed and demure. Mrs.

Tellingham, who was present on this evening, overlooked all from the small guest table, as it was called, placed at the head of the room on a slightly raised platform.

Mrs. Tellingham, Ruth thought, was the loveliest lady in the world. The girl of the Red Mill had never lost the first impression the preceptress had made upon her childish mind and heart when she had come to Briarwood Hall.

At last--just in time to save Heavy's life, it would seem--Miss Picolet lifted her fork and the girls began to eat. A pleasant interchange of conversation broke out:

"Did you hear what that funny little Pease girl said to Miss Brokaw in physiology cla.s.s yesterday?" asked Lluella Fairfax, who was across the table from Ruth.

"No. What has the child said now? She's a queer little thing," Helen said, before her chum could answer.

"She's rather dense, don't you know," put in Lluella's chum, Belle Tingley.