Ruth Fielding At Sunrise Farm; What Became of the Raby Orphans

“Nope. She’s gone on. Couldn’t keep her no longer. And my! how that young ’un could eat! Never saw the beat of her,” added Uncle Jabez as he clumped out in his heavy boots.

Ruth heard more about “that trampin’ girl” when Aunt Alvirah appeared. Before that happened, however, the newly returned schoolgirl proved she had not forgotten how to make a country breakfast.

The sliced corned ham was frying nicely; the potatoes were browning delightfully in another pan. Fluffy biscuits were ready to take out of the oven, and the cream was already whipped for the berries and the coffee.

“Gracious me! child alive!” exclaimed the little old woman, coming haltingly into the room. “You an’ Jabez air in a conspiracy to spile me – right from the start. Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!” and she lowered herself carefully into a chair.

“I did sartain sure oversleep this day. Ben done the chores? An’ ye air all ready, my pretty? Jest blow the horn, then, and yer uncle will come in. My! what a smart leetle housekeeper you be, Ruth. School ain’t spiled ye a mite.”

“Uncle is still afraid it will,” laughed Ruth, kissing the old woman fondly.

“He only says that,” whispered Aunt Alvirah, with twinkling eyes. “He’s as proud of ye as he can stick – I know!”

“It – it would be nice, if he said so once in a while,” admitted the girl.

After the hearty breakfast was disposed of and the miller and his hired man had tramped out again, the old housekeeper and Ruth became more confidential.

“It sartain sure did please me,” said Aunt Alvirah, “when Jabez let me take in that trampin’ gal for a week an’ more. He paid her without a whimper, too. But, she did eat!”

“So he said,” chuckled Ruth.

“Yes. More’n a hired hand in thrashin’ time. I never seen her beat. But I reckon the poor little thing was plumb starved. They never feed ’em ha’f enough in them orphan ‘sylums, I don’t s’pect.”

“From an orphanage?” cried Ruth, with sudden interest born of her remembrance of the mysterious Sadie Raby.

“So I believe. She’d run away, I s’pect. I hadn’t the heart to blame her. An’ she was close-mouthed as a clam,” declared Aunt Alvirah.

“How did you come to get her?” queried the interested Ruth.

“She walked right up to the door. She’d been travelin’ far – ye could see that by her shoes, if ye could call ’em shoes. I made her take ’em off by the fire, an’ then I picked ’em up with the tongs – they was just pulp – and I pitched ’em onto the ash-heap.

“Well, she stayed that night, o’ course. It was rainin’. Your Uncle Jabez wouldn’t ha’ turned a dog out in sech weather. But he made me put her to bed on chairs here.

“It was plain she was delighted to have somebody to talk to – and as that somebody was ‘her pretty,’ the dear old soul was all the more joyful.

“So, one thing led to another,” pursued Aunt Alvirah, “and I got him to let me keep her to help rid the house up. You know, you wrote me to wait till you come home for house-cleanin’. But I worked Jabez Potter right; I know how to manage him,” said she, nodding and smiling.

“And you didn’t know who the girl was?” asked Ruth, still curious. “Nothing about her at all?”

“Not much. She was short-tongued, I tell ye. But I gathered she had been an orphan a long time and had lived at an institution.”

“Not even her name?” asked Ruth, at last.

“Oh, yes. She told her name – and it was her true one, I reckon,” Aunt Alviry said. “It was Sadie Raby.”

CHAPTER VI – SEEKING THE TRAIL

“I might have known that! I might have known it!” Ruth exclaimed when she heard this. “And if I’d only written you or Uncle Jabez about her, maybe you would have kept her till I came. I wanted to help that girl,” and Ruth all but shed tears.

“Deary, deary me!” cried Aunt Alvirah. “Tell me all about it, my pretty.”

So Ruth related all she knew about the half-wild girl whose acquaintance she had made at Briarwood Hall under such peculiar circumstances. And she told just how Sadie looked and all about her.

“Yes,” agreed Aunt Alvirah. “That was the trampin’ gal sure enough. She was honest, jest as you say. But your uncle had his doubts. However, she looked better when she went away from here.”

“I’m glad of that,” Ruth said, heartily.

“You know one o’ them old dresses of yours you wore to Miss Cramp’s school – the one Helen give you?” said old Aunt Alvirah, hesitatingly.

“Yes, indeed!” said Ruth. “And how badly I felt when the girls found out they were ‘hand-me-downs.’ I’ll never forget them.”

“One of them I fitted to that poor child,” said Aunt Alvirah. “The poor, skinny little thing. I wisht I could ha’ kep’ her long enough to put some flesh on her bones.”

Ruth hugged the little old woman. “You’re a dear, Aunty! I bet you fixed her up nice before she went away.”

“Wal, she didn’t look quite sech a tatterdemalion,” granted Aunt Alvirah. “But I was sorry for her. I am allus sorry for any young thing that’s strayin’ about without a home or a mother. But natcherly Jabez wouldn’t hear to keepin’ her after the cleanin’ was done. It’s his nearness, Ruthie; he can’t help it. Some men chew tobacco, and your Uncle Jabez is close. It’s their nater. I’d ruther have a stingy man about, than a tobacco chewin’ man – yes, indeed I had!”

Ruth laughed and agreed with her. Yet she was very sorry that Sadie Raby, “the tramping girl,” had been allowed to move on without those at the Red Mill, who had sheltered her, discovering her destination.

She learned that Sadie had gone to Cheslow – at least, in that direction – and when Helen came spinning along in one of her father’s cars from Outlook that afternoon, and wanted to take Ruth for a drive, the latter begged to ride “Cheslowward.”

“Besides, we both want to see Dr. Davison – and there’s Mercy’s mother. And Miss Cramp will be glad to see me, I know; we’ll wait till her school is out,” Ruth suggested.

“You’re boss,” declared her chum. “And paying calls ‘all by our lonesomes’ will be fun enough. Tom’s deserted me. He’s gone tramping with Reno over toward the Wilkins Corner road – you know, that place where he was hurt that time, and you and Reno found him,” Helen concluded.

This was “harking back” to the very first night Ruth had arrived at Cheslow from her old home at Darrowtown. But she was not likely to forget it, for through that accident of Master Tom Cameron’s, she had met this very dear friend beside her now in the automobile.

“Oh, dear me! and the fun we used to have when we were little girls – ‘member, Ruthie?” demanded Helen, laughing. “My! isn’t it warm? Is my face shiny?”

“Just a little,” admitted Ruth.

“Never can keep the shine off,” said Helen, bitterly. “Here! you take the wheel and let me find my powder-paper. Tom says he believes I smoke cigarettes and roll them myself,” and Helen giggled.

Ruth carefully changed seats with her chum, who immediately produced the booklet of slips from her vanity case and rubbed the offending nose vigorously.

“Have a care, Helen! you’ll make it all red,” urged Ruth, laughing. “You do go at everything so excitedly. Anybody would think you were grating a nutmeg.”

“Horrid thing! My nose doesn’t look at all like a nutmeg.”

“But it will – if you don’t look out,” laughed Ruth. “Oh, dear, me! here comes a big wagon. Do you suppose I can get by it safely?”

“If he gives you any room. There! he has begun to turn out. Now, just skim around him.”

Ruth was careful and slowed down. This did not suit the fly-away Helen. “Come on!” she urged. “We’ll never even get to the old doctor’s house if you don’t hurry.”

She began to manipulate the levers herself and soon they were shooting along the Cheslow road at a speed that made Ruth’s eyes water.

They came safely to the house with the green lamps before it, and ran in gaily to see their friend, Dr. Davison. For the moment the good old gentleman chanced to be busy and waved them into the back office to wait until he was free.