Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie Part 31

S. B.-Ah-h-h!

Sound our battle-cry Near and far!

S. B.-All!

Briarwood Hall!

Sweetbriars, do or die-- This be our battle-cry-- Briarwood Hall!

_That's All!_"

During all the time it had rained intermittently, and the river did not show any signs of abating. But the morning following the very successful "chamber concert," a large launch chugged up to the submerged steps of the hotel on Holloway Island. In it was Mrs. Rachel Parsons, and with her was the negro from the warehouse who had been swept down the river on the log when Mr. Jimson's bateau made its landing at the island.

Mrs. Parsons had been unable to get to Charleston after all because of washouts on the railroad, and had come back to Georgetown, heard of the marooning on the island of the pleasure party and at the first opportunity had come up the river to rescue Nettie, Ruth and Helen.

A plank was laid for Mrs. Parsons from the bow of the launch to the lower step of the flight leading to the second story of the hotel. Mrs.

Holloway came down in a flutter to meet the lady of the Big House.

Mrs. Parsons, however, had gone straight to Nettie's room and was shut in with her niece for half an hour before she had anything to say to the hotel keeper's wife, or to anybody else. Then she went first to see poor Curly, who was feverish and in much pain.

Just as Mrs. Parsons and her niece were pa.s.sing down the hall they met Miss Miggs. Nettie shot the maiden lady an angry glance and moved carefully to one side.

"Is this the-the person who has circulated the false reports about Ruth and Helen?" asked Mrs. Parsons, sternly.

"No false reports, I'd have you know, ma'am!" cried Martha Miggs, "right on deck," Curly said afterwards, "to repel boarders." "I'd have you know I am just as good as you are, and I'm just as much respected in my own place," she continued. Miss Miggs' troubles and consequent nervous break had really left her in such a condition that she was not fully responsible for what she did and said.

"I have no doubt of that," said Mrs. Parsons, quietly. "But I wish to know what your meaning is in trying to injure the reputation of two young girls."

The little group had reached Curly's bedside; but they did not notice that young invalid. Ruth had risen from her seat nervously, wis.h.i.+ng that Nettie's Aunt Rachel had not brought the unpleasant subject to the surface again.

"I could not injure the reputation of a couple of young minxes like these!" declared Miss Miggs, angrily. "I put the ticket in the railroad folder, and laid it on the seat beside me in the steamer's saloon, and when I got up I forgot to take the folder with me. These girls were the only people in sight. They were watching me, and when my back was turned they took the ticket and folder."

"Who?" suddenly shouted a voice behind them, and before any of the party could reply to Miss Miggs' absurd accusation.

Curly was sitting up in bed, his cheeks very red and his eyes bright with fever; but he was in his right senses.

"Those girls did it!" snapped Miss Miggs.

"They didn't, either!" cried Curly. "I did it. Now you can have me arrested if you want to!" added the boy, falling back on his pillows. "I didn't know the ticket belonged to anybody. When I was drying my things aboard that fis.h.i.+ng boat, I found it in a folder that I had picked up in the cabin of the steamer. I s'posed it was a ticket the railroad gave away with the folder, until I asked a railroad man if it was good, and he said it was as good as any other ticket. So I rode down to Pee Dee on it from Norfolk. There now! If that's stealin', then I _have_ stolen, and Gran is right-I'm a thief!"

Even as obstinate a person as Miss Miggs was forced to believe this story, for its truth was self-evident. It completely ended the controversy about the lost ticket; but Curly Smith was not satisfied until enough money was taken out of the fund raised for his benefit to reimburse Mrs. Holloway for the purchase-money of the ticket she had sent to her New England cousin.

"I wish, Martha, I had never invited you down here," the hotel keeper's wife was heard to tell the New England woman. "You've made me trouble enough. I will never be able to pacify Mrs. Parsons. She is going to take the young ladies and the boy away at once, and I know that she will never again give me her good word with any of her wealthy friends. Your ill-temper has cost me enough, I am sure."

Perhaps it had cost Miss Miggs a good deal, too; only Miss Miggs was the sort of obstinate person who never does or will acknowledge that she is wrong.

CHAPTER XXV-BACK HOME

Mrs. Rachel Parsons marveled at what the girls had done in raising money for Curly Smith. He would have money enough to keep him at the hospital until his leg was healed, and to spare.

Curly was not to be arrested. Deputy Sheriff Ricketts went with the party on the launch back to Georgetown, picking up his own lost launch by the way, uninjured, and saw the boy housed in a private room of the hospital. Then he, as well as Ruth, received news about Curly.

The letter from Mrs. Sadoc Smith at last arrived. In it the unhappy woman opened her heart to Ruth again and begged her to send or bring Curly home. It had been discovered that the boy had nothing to do with the robbery of the railroad station at Lumberton.

"And who didn't know that?" sniffed Helen. "Of course he didn't."

Mr. Ricketts, too, received information that called him off the case.

"That there li'le Yankee boy ain't t' be arrested after all," he confessed to Ruth. "Guess he jest got in wrong up No'th. But yo'd better take him back with you when you go, Miss Ruth, He needs somebody to take care of him-sho' do!"

The river subsided and the girls went back to Merredith. They spent the next fortnight delightfully and then the chums from Cheslow got ready to start home. They could not take Curly with them; but he would be sent to New York by steamer just as soon as the doctors could get him upon crutches; and eventually the boy from Lumberton returned to his grandmother, a much wiser lad than when he left her home and care.

The days at Merredith, all things considered, had been very delightful.

But the weather was growing very oppressive for Northerners. Ruth and Helen bade Mrs. Parsons and Nettie and everybody about the Big House, including Mr. Jimson, good-bye and caught the train for Norfolk. They had a day to wait there, and so they went across in the ferry to Old Point Comfort, found Unc' Simmy, and were driven out to the gatehouse to see Miss Catalpa.

"And we sho' done struck luck, missy," Unc' Simmy confided to Ruth.

"Kunnel Wildah done foun' some mo' money b'longin' t' Miss Catalpa, an'

it's wot he calls a 'nuity. It comes reg'lar, like a man's wages," and the old darkey's smile was beautiful to see.

"Now Miss Catalpa kin have mo' of the fixin's like she's use to. Glory!"

"He is the most unselfish person I have ever met," said Ruth to Helen.

"It makes me ashamed to see how he thinks only of that dear blind woman."

Miss Catalpa welcomed the chums delightedly; and they took tea with her on the vine-shaded porch of the old gatehouse, Unc' Simmy doing the honors in his ancient butler's coat. It was a very delightful party, indeed, and Helen as well as Ruth went away at last hoping that she would some time see the sweet-natured Miss Catalpa again.

Three days later Mr. Cameron's automobile deposited Ruth at the Red Mill-her arrival so soon being quite unexpected to the bent old woman rocking and sewing in the cheerful window of the farmhouse kitchen.

When Ruth ran up the steps and in at the door, Aunt Alvirah was quite startled. She dropped her sewing and rose up creakingly, with a murmured, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" but she reached her thin arms out to clasp her hands at the back of Ruth Fielding's neck, and looked long and earnestly into the girl's eyes.

"My pretty's growing up-she's growing up!" cried Aunt Alvirah. "She ain't a child no more. I can't scurce believe it. What have you seen down South there that's made you so old-like, honey?"

"I guess it is not age, Aunt Alvirah," declared Ruth. "Maybe I have seen some things that have made me thoughtful. And have endured some things that were hard. And had some pleasures that I never had before."

"Just the same, my pretty!" crooned the old woman. "Just as thoughtful as ever. You surely have an old head on those pretty young shoulders.

Oh, yes you have."

"And maybe that isn't a good thing to have, after all-an old head on young shoulders," thought Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill the night of her return, as she sat at her little chamber window and looked out across the rolling Lumano. "Helen is happier than I am; she doesn't worry about herself or anybody else.

"Now I'm worrying about what's to happen to me. Briarwood is a thing of the past. Dear, old Briarwood Hall! Shall I ever be as happy again as I was there?

"I see college ahead of me in the fall. Of course, my expenses for several years are a.s.sured. Mr. Hammond writes me that he will take another moving picture scenario. I have found out that my voice-as well as Helen's violin playing-can be coined. I am going to be self-supporting and that, as Mrs. Parsons says, is a heap of satisfaction.

"I need trouble Uncle Jabez no more for money. But I can't remain in idleness-that's 'agin nater,' to quote Aunt Alvirah. I know what I'll do! I'll-I'll go to bed!"

She arose from her seat with a laugh and began to disrobe. Ten minutes later, her prayers said and her hair in two neat plaits on the pillow, Ruth Fielding fell asleep.

THE END