Ruth Fielding At College: or, The Missing Examination Papers

"But didn't you see this visitor?"

"Why, yes, Ruthie. I seen her. It was funny, too," Aunt Alvirah said, shaking her head. "I meant to write to you about it; then I forgot.

"I hears somebody knock on the door one day, and I opened the door and there I declare stood Maggie herself. Or, I thought 'twas her."

"What?" gasped Ruth, very much interested.

"She looked a sight like her," said Aunt Alvirah, laughing to herself at the remembrance. "Yet I knowed Maggie had gone upstairs to make the beds, and this here girl who had knocked on the door was all dressed up."

"'Why, Maggie!' says I. And she says, kinder tart-like:

"'I ain't Maggie. But I want to see her.'

"So I axed her in; but she wouldn't come. I seen then maybe she was a little younger than Maggie is. Howsomever I called to Maggie, and she went out, and the two of 'em walked up and down the road for an hour. The other gal never come in. And I seen her start back toward Cheslow. Maggie never said no word about her from that day to this.

"Do you know what I think about it, Ruthie?" concluded Aunt Alvirah.

"No, Aunt Alvirah," said the girl of the Red Mill, reflectively.

"I think that was Maggie's sister. Maybe she works out for somebody in Cheslow."

Ruth merely nodded. She did not think much of that phase of the matter. What she was really puzzling over was her memory of the girl she and Helen had interviewed on the island in Lake Remona before the Christmas holidays.

That girl had looked very much like Maggie, too!

CHAPTER XXI

MANY THINGS HAPPEN

It was, of course, hard to tell by merely seeing them taken what the pictures about the old Red Mill would be like; but Ruth and Helen both acted in them as "extras" and were greatly excited over the film, one may be sure.

The director, not the cross Mr. Grimes this time, assured Ruth that he was confident "Crossed Wires" would make good on the screen. Hazel Gray played the lead in the picture, as she had in "The Heart of a School Girl," and Ruth and Helen were glad to meet the bright little screen actress again.

Miss Gray seemed to have forgotten all about Tom Cameron and Ruth, for some reason, felt glad. She ventured to ask Helen if her twin was still as enamored of the young actress as he had seemed to be the year before.

"Why, no," Helen said thoughtfully. "You know how it is with boys; they have one craze after another, Ruthie."

"No. Do they?" asked the other.

"Yes. Tom made a collection of the photographs of a slap-stick comedian at first. Then he decorated his room at Seven Oaks with all the pictures he could find of Miss Gray. Now, when I was over there with father the other day, what do you suppose is his chief decoration on his room walls?"

"I haven't the least idea," Ruth confessed.

"Great, ugly, brutal boxers! Prize-fighters! Awful pictures, Ruth! I suppose next he will make a collection of the photographs of burglars!" and Helen laughed.

The chums were whisked back to Ardmore, having been absent five days. They were so well prepared in their recitations, however, that they did not fall behind in any particular. Indeed, these two bright-minded girls found it not difficult to keep up with their classes.

Even Jennie Stone, leisure loving as she naturally was, had no real difficulty in being well to the front in her studies. And she had become one of the most faithful of devotees of gymnastic practice.

Ardmore's second basket ball five pushed the first team hard; and Jennie Stone was on the second five. As the spring training for the boats opened she, as well as Ruth and Helen, tried for the freshmen eight-oared shell. All three won places in that crew.

Jennie was still somewhat over-weight. But the instructor put her at bow and her weight counted there. Ruth was stroke and Helen Number 2. As practice went on it was proved that the freshman crew was a very well balanced one.

They more than once "bumped" the sophomore shell in trial races, and once came very near to catching the junior eight. The seniors and juniors began now to pay more attention to the freshman class; especially to those members who showed well in athletics.

Because of their characters and their class standing, several of the instructors besides Miss Cullam, the mathematics teacher, were the friends of the Briarwoods. Miss Cullam had shown a warm appreciation of Ruth Fielding's character all through the year. Not that Ruth was a prize pupil in Miss Cullam's study, for she was not. Mathematics was the one study it was hard for Ruth to interest herself in. But when the girl of the Red Mill had a hard thing to do, she always put her whole mind to it; and, therefore, she made a good mark in mathematics in spite of her distaste for the study.

"You are doing well, Miss Fielding," Miss Cullam declared. "Better than I expected. I have no doubt that you will pass well in the year's examinations."

"And you won't be afraid that I'll crib the answers, Miss Cullam?" Ruth asked, laughing.

"Hush! don't repeat gossip," Miss Cullam said smiling, however, rather ruefully. "Even when the gossip emanates from an old cross-patch of a teacher who gets nervous and worries about improbabilities. No. I do not believe any of my girls would take advantage of the examination papers. Yet, I would give a good deal to know just where those papers and that vase went."

"Has nothing ever been heard from Miss Rolff since she left Ardmore?" Ruth asked.

"No. Not a word. And it is hard on the sororities, too. Heretofore, the girls have enjoyed the benefits of the associations for three years. You, I am sure, Ruth, would have been invited by this time to join one of the sororities."

"And I should dearly love to," sighed Ruth. "The Kappa Alpha. It looks good to me. But there are other things in college – and out of it, too. Oh see, Miss Cullam! Here is what I wanted to show you," and the girl of the Red Mill brought forth a large envelope from her handbag.

They were talking together in the library on this occasion, it being a Saturday afternoon when there was nothing particular to take up either the teacher's time or the pupil's. Ruth emptied the envelope on the table.

"See these photographs? They are stills taken in connection with my new scenario. I want you to see just how lovely a place the old Red Mill, where I live, is."

Miss Cullam adjusted her eyeglasses with a smile, and picked up the topmost picture which Mr. Hammond had sent to Ruth.

"That's dear old Aunt Alvirah herself feeding the chickens. She doesn't know that we took that picture of her. If I had said 'photograph' to the dear old creature, she would have been determined to put on her best bib and tucker!"

"That's the back yard. Isn't it, dear? Who is that on the porch?" asked Miss Cullam.

"On the porch? Why, is anybody on the porch? I don't remember that."

Ruth stooped to peer closer at the unmounted photograph in the teacher's hand.

"Why! there is somebody standing there," she murmured. "You can see the head and shoulders just as plain – "

"And the face," said Miss Cullam, with strange eagerness.

"Oh, I know!" cried Ruth, and she laughed heartily. "Of course. That's Maggie."

"Maggie?"

"Yes. The girl who helps Aunt Alvirah. And she's quite an interesting character, Miss Cullam. I'll tell you about her some day."

"Yes?" said Miss Cullam, reflectively.

"Now, here is the front of the old house – "

"Allow me to keep this picture for a little while, will you, Miss Fielding?" broke in the teacher, still staring at the clearly exposed face of Maggie on the porch.