"Not a very inviting place, but I guess it will do," was Ruth"s announcement after they had looked the inn over.
The girls and Aunt Kate alighted at the steps while the young men wheeled the cars around to the sheds.
The housekeeper, who immediately announced herself as Susan Timmins, was fussily determined to see that all was as it should be in the ladies"
chambers.
"I can"t trust this gal I got to do the upstairs work," she declared, saying it through her nose and with emphasis. "Just as sure as kin be, if ye go for to help a poor relation you air always sorry for it."
She led the way up the main flight of stairs as she talked.
"This here gal will give me the nevergitovers, I know! She"s my own sister"s child that married a good-for-nothing and is jest like her father."
"Bella! You Bella! Turn on the light in these rooms. Is the pitchers filled? And the beds turned down? If I find a speck of dust on this furniture I"ll nigh "bout have the nevergitovers! That gal will drive me to my grave, she will. Bella!"
Bella appeared--a rather good looking child of fourteen or so, slim as a lath and with hungry eyes. She was dark--almost Gypsy-like. She stared at Ruth, Helen and Jennie with all the amazement of the usual yokel. But it was their dress, not themselves, Ruth saw, engaged Bella"s interest.
"When you ladies want any help, you call for Bella," announced Miss Susan Timmins. "And if she don"t come running, you let me know, and I"ll give her her nevergitovers, now I tell ye!"
"No wonder this hotel is called "Drovers" Tavern,"" said Jennie Stone.
"That woman certainly is a driver--a slave driver."
Ruth, meanwhile, was trying to make a friend of Bella.
"What is your name, my dear?" she asked the lathlike girl.
"You heard it," was the ungracious reply.
"Oh! Yes. "Bella." But your other name?"
"Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice Pike. My father is Montague Fitzmaurice."
She said it proudly, with a lift of her tousled head and a straightening of her thin shoulders.
"Oh!" fairly gasped Ruth Fielding. "It--it sounds quite impressive, I must say. I guess you think a good deal of your father?"
"Aunt Suse don"t," said the girl ungraciously. "My mother"s dead. And pa is resting this season. So I hafter stay here with Aunt Suse. I hate it!"
"Your father is--er--what is his business?" Ruth asked.
"He"s one of the profession."
"A doctor?"
"Lands, no! He"s a heavy."
"A _what_?"
"A heavy lead--and a good one. But these moving pictures knock out all the really good people. There are no chances now for him to play Shakespearean roles----"
"Your father is an actor!" cried Ruth.
"Of course. Montague Fitzmaurice. Surely you have heard the name?" said the lathlike girl, tossing her head.
"Why--why----of course!" declared Ruth warmly. It was true. She had heard the name. Bella had just p.r.o.nounced it!
"Then you know what kind of an actor my pa is," said the proud child. "He did not have a very good season last winter. He rehea.r.s.ed with four companies and was only out three weeks altogether. And one of the managers did not pay at all."
"That is too bad."
"Yes. It"s tough," admitted Bella. "But I liked it."
"You liked it when he was so unsuccessful?" repeated Ruth.
"Pa wasn"t unsuccessful. He never is. He can play any part," declared the girl proudly. "But the plays were punk. He says there are no good plays written nowadays. That is why so many companies fail."
"But you said you liked it?"
"In New York," explained Bella. "While he was rehearsing pa could get credit at Mother Grubson"s boarding house on West Forty-fourth Street. I helped her around the house. She said I was worth my keep. But Aunt Suse says I don"t earn my salt here."
"I am sure you do your best, Bella," Ruth observed.
"No, I don"t. Nor you wouldn"t if you worked for Aunt Suse. She says I"ll give her her nevergitovers--an" I hope I do!" with which final observation she ran to unlace Aunt Kate"s shoes.
"Poor little thing," said Ruth to Helen. "She is worse off than an orphan.
Her Aunt Susan is worse than Uncle Jabez ever was to me. And she has no Aunt Alvirah to help her to bear it. We ought to do something for her."
"There! You"ve begun. Every waif and stray on our journey must be aided, I suppose," pouted Helen, half exasperated.
But Tom was glad to see that Ruth had found a new interest. Bella waited on the supper table, was snapped at by Miss Timmins, and driven from pillar to post by that crotchety individual.
"Jimminy Christmas!" remarked Tom, "that Timmins woman must be a reincarnation of one of the ancient Egyptians who was overseer in the brickyard where Moses learned his trade. If they were all like her, no wonder the Israelites went on a strike and marched out of Egypt."
They were all very careful, however, not to let Miss Susan Timmins hear their comments. She had the true dictatorial spirit of the old-fashioned New England school teacher. The guests of Drovers" Tavern were treated by her much as she might have treated a cla.s.s in the little red schoolhouse up the road had she presided there.
She drove the guests to their chambers by the method of turning off the electric light in the general sitting room at a quarter past ten. Each room was furnished with a bayberry candle, and she announced that the electricity all over the house would be switched off at eleven o"clock.
"That is late enough for any decent body to be up," she announced in her decisive manner. "That"s when I go to bed myself. I couldn"t do so in peace if I knew folks was burning them electric lights to all hours.
"Tain"t safe in a thunder storm.
"Why, when we first got "em, Jed Parraday from Wachuset come to town to do his buyin" and stayed all night with us. He"d never seed a "lectric bulb before, and he didn"t know how to blow it out. And he couldn"t sleep in a room with a light.
"So, what does the tarnal old fool do but unhook the cord so"t the bulb could be carried as far as the winder. And he hung it outside, shut the winder down on it, drawed the shade and went to bed in the dark.
"Elnathan Spear, the constable, seen the light a-shining outside the winder in the middle of the night and he thought "twas burglars. He _dreams_ of burglars, Elnathan does. But he ain"t never caught none yet.
"On that occasion, howsomever, he was sure he"d got a whole gang of "em, and he waked up the whole hotel trying to find out what was going on. I charged Parraday ha"f a dollar for burning extry "lectricity, and he got so mad he ain"t stopped at the hotel since.
"He"d give one the nevergitovers, that man would!" she concluded.