Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point: or, Nita, the Girl Castaway

“I don’t believe that is your really-truly name,” said Ruth, gravely.

“I bet you’re right, Ruth Fielding!” cried Heavy, chuckling. “‘Nita’ and ‘Jib Pottoway’ don’t seem to go together. ‘Nita’ is altogether too fancy.”

“It’s a nice name!” exclaimed the strange girl, in some anger. “It was the name of the girl in the paper-covered novel–and it’s good enough for me.”

“But what’s your real name?” urged Ruth.

“I’m not telling you that,” replied the runaway, shortly.

“Then you prefer to go under a false name–even among your friends?” asked the girl from the Red Mill.

“How do I know you’re my friends?” demanded Nita, promptly.

“We can’t very well be your enemies,” said Helen, in some disgust.

“I don’t know. Anybody’s my enemy who wants to send me back–well, anyone who wants to return me to the place I came from.”

“Was it an institution?” asked Mary Cox quickly.

“What’s that?” demanded Nita, puzzled. “What do you mean by an ‘institution’?”

“She means a sort of school,” explained Ruth.

“Yes!” exclaimed The Fox, sharply. “A reform school, or something of the kind. Maybe an almshouse.”

“Never heard of ’em,” returned Nita, unruffled by the insinuation. “Guess they don’t have ’em where I come from. Did you go to one, Miss?”

Heavy giggled, and Madge Steele rapped The Fox smartly on the shoulder. “There!” said the senior. “It serves you right, Mary Cox. You’re answered.”

“Now, I tell you what it is!” cried the strange girl, sitting up in bed again and looking rather flushed, “if you girls are going to nag me, and bother me about who I am, and where I come from, and what my name is–though Nita’s a good enough name for anybody–”

“Anybody but Jib Pottoway,” chuckled Heavy.

“Well! and he warn’t so bad, if he was half Injun,” snapped the runaway. “Well, anyway, if you don’t leave me alone I’ll get out of bed right now and walk out of here. I guess you haven’t any hold on me.”

“Better wait till your clothes are dry,” suggested Madge.

“Aunt Kate would never let you go,” said Heavy.

“I’ll go to-morrow morning, then!” cried the runaway.

“Why, we don’t mean to nag you,” interposed Ruth, soothingly. “But of course we’re curious–and interested.”

“You’re like all the other Eastern folk I’ve met,” declared Nita. “And I don’t like you much. I thought you were different.”

“You’ve been expecting some rich man to adopt you, and dress you in lovely clothes, and all that, eh?” said Mercy Curtis.

“Well! I guess there are not so many millionaires in the East as they said there was,” grumbled Nita.

“Or else they’ve already got girls of their own to look after,” laughed Ruth. “Why, Helen here, has a father who is very rich. But you couldn’t expect him to give up Helen and Tom and take you into his home instead, could you?”

Nita glanced at the dry-goods merchant’s daughter with more interest for a moment.

“And Heavy’s father is awfully rich, too,” said Ruth. “But he’s got Heavy to support–”

“And that’s some job,” broke in Madge, laughing. “Two such daughters as Heavy would make poor dear Papa Stone a pauper!”

“Well,” said Nita, again, “I’ve talked enough. I won’t tell you where I come from. And Nita is my name–now!”

“It is getting late,” said Ruth, mildly. “Don’t you all think it would be a good plan to go to bed? The wind’s gone down some. I guess we can sleep.”

“Good advice,” agreed Madge Steele. “The boys have been abed some time. To-morrow is another day.”

Heavy and she and Mary went off to their room. The others made ready for bed, and the runaway did not say another word to them, but turned her face to the wall and appeared, at least, to be soon asleep.

Ruth crept in beside her so as not to disturb their strange guest. She was a new type of girl to Ruth–and to the others. Her independence of speech, her rough and ready ways, and her evident lack of the influence of companionship with refined girls were marked in this Nita’s character.

Ruth wondered much what manner of home she could have come from, why she had run away from it, and what Nita really proposed doing so far from home and friends. These queries kept the girl from the Red Mill awake for a long time–added to which was the excitement of the evening, which was not calculated to induce sleep.

She would have dropped off some time after the other girls, however, had she not suddenly heard a door latch somewhere on this upper floor, and then the creep, creep, creeping of a rustling step in the hall. It continued so long that Ruth wondered if one of the girls in the other room was ill, and she softly arose and went to the door, which was ajar. And what she saw there in the hall startled her.

CHAPTER XII

BUSY IZZY IN A NEW ASPECT

The stair-well was a wide and long opening and around it ran a broad balustrade. There was no stairway to the third floor of this big bungalow, only the servants’ staircase in the rear reaching those rooms directly under the roof. So the hall on this second floor, out of which the family bedrooms opened, was an L-shaped room, with the balustrade on one hand.

And upon that balustrade Ruth Fielding beheld a tottering figure in white, plainly visible in the soft glow of the single light burning below, yet rather ghostly after all.

She might have been startled in good earnest had she not first of all recognized Isadore Phelps’ face. He was balancing himself upon the balustrade and, as she came to the door, he walked gingerly along the narrow strip of moulding toward Ruth.

“Izzy! whatever are you doing?” she hissed.

The boy never said a word to her, but kept right on, balancing himself with difficulty. He was in his pajamas, his feet bare, and–she saw it at last–his eyes tight shut.

“Oh! he’s asleep,” murmured Ruth.

And that surely was Busy Izzy’s state at that moment. Sound asleep and “tight-rope walking” on the balustrade.

Ruth knew that it would be dangerous to awaken him suddenly–especially as it might cause him to fall down the stair-well. She crept back into her room and called Helen. The two girls in their wrappers and slippers went into the hall again. There was Busy Izzy tottering along in the other direction, having turned at the wall. Once they thought he would plunge down the stairway, and Helen grabbed at Ruth with a squeal of terror.

“Sh!” whispered her chum. “Go tell Tom. Wake him up. The boys ought to tie Izzy in bed if he is in the habit of doing this.”

“My! isn’t he a sight!” giggled Helen, as she ran past the gyrating youngster, who had again turned for a third perambulation of the railing.

She whispered Tom’s name at his open door and in a minute the girls heard him bound out of bed. He was with them–sleepy-eyed and hastily wrapping his robe about him–in a moment.

“For the land’s sake!” he gasped, when he saw his friend on the balustrade. “What are you–”