"Oh! how"s that, Ruth?" cried Helen.
"Say," drawled Jennie Stone, the plump girl, "we"re not all fixed like you, Ruth--with a bank account to draw on."
Ruth blushed; but she did not lose her temper. "You don"t understand what I mean yet," she said. "Either I am particularly muddy in my suggestions, or you girls are awfully dense to-day."
"How polite! how polite!" murmured Jennie.
"What I am trying to get at," Ruth continued earnestly, "is the fact that the rebuilding of the West Dormitory should interest us girls more than anybody else in the world, save Mrs. Tellingham."
"Well--doesn"t it?" demanded Mary c.o.x, rather sharply.
"Does it interest us all enough for each girl to be willing to do something personally, or sacrifice something, toward the new building?"
asked Ruth.
"I getcha, Steve!" exclaimed the slangy Jennie.
"Oh, dear me, Ruthie! we _are_ dense," said Nettie. "Of course! every girl should be able to do as much as the next one. Otherwise there may be hard feelings."
"Secret heartburnings," added Helen.
"Of course," Mercy said, "Ruth would see _that_ side of it. I don"t expect my folks could give ten dollars toward the fund; but I should want to do as much as any girl here. n.o.body loves Briarwood Hall more than I do,"
added the lame girl, fiercely.
"I believe you, dear," Ruth said. "And what we want to do is to invent some way of earning money in which every girl will have her part, and do her part, and feel that she has done her full share in rebuilding the West Dormitory."
"Hurrah!" cried Jennie. "That"s the talk! I tell you, Ruth, you are the only bright girl in this school!"
"Thank you," said Ruth. "You cannot flatter me into believing that."
"But what"s the idea, dear?" demanded Helen, eagerly. "You have some nice invention, I am sure. You always do have."
"Another base flatterer!" cried Ruth, laughing gaily. "I believe you girls say such things just to jolly me along, and so that you will not have to exercise any gray matter yourselves."
"Oh! oh!" groaned Jennie. "How ungrateful."
"Of course you have something to suggest?" Nettie said.
"No, not a thing. My idea is, merely, that we start something that every girl in the school can have her share in. Of course, that does not cut out contributions from those who have money to spare; but the new building must be erected by the efforts of the girls of Briarwood Hall as----"
"As a bunch of briars," chuckled Jennie. "Isn"t that a sharp one?"
"Just as sharp as you are, my dear," said Helen.
"You know what that means, Heavy," said Mary c.o.x. "You"re all curves."
"Oh! ouch! I know that hurt me," declared the plump girl, altogether too good-natured to be offended by anything her mates said to her.
"So that"s how it is," Ruth finished "Call the girls together. Put the idea before them. Let"s hear from everybody, and see which girl has the best thought along this line. We want a way of making money in which everyone can join."
"I--don"t--see," complained Nettie, "how you are going to do it."
"Never mind. Don"t worry," said Mercy. ""Great oaks from little acorns grow," and a fine idea will sprout from the germ of Ruth"s suggestion, I have no doubt."
It did; but not at all in the way any of them expected. The whole school was called together after recitations on this afternoon, which was several days following the fire. The teachers had no part in the a.s.sembly, least of all Mrs. Tellingham.
But the older girls--all of them S.B."s--were very much in earnest; and from them the younger pupils, of course, took their cue. The West Dormitory must be built--and within the time originally specified by Mrs.
Tellingham when she had thought the insurance would fully pay for the work of reconstruction.
Many girls, it seemed, had already written home begging contributions to the fund which they expected would be raised for the new building. Some even were ready to offer money of their very own toward the amount necessary to start the work.
Even Ruth agreed to this first effort to get money. She pledged a hundred dollars herself and Nettie Parsons quietly put down the same sum as her own personal offering.
"Oh, gracious, goodness, me, girls!" gasped Jennie Stone, who had been figuring desperately upon a sheet of paper. "Wait till I get this sum done; then I can tell you what I will give. There! Can it be possible?"
"What is it, Jennie?" asked Belle Tingley, looking over her shoulder.
"Why! look at all those figures. Are you weighing the sun or counting the hairs of the sun-dogs?"
"Don"t laugh," begged the plump girl. "This is a serious matter. I"ve been figuring up what I should probably have spent for candy from now till June if I"d been left to my own will."
"What is it, Heavy?" asked somebody. "I wager it would pay for erecting the new dormitory without the rest of us putting up a cent."
"No," said the plump girl, gravely. "But it figures up to a good round sum. I never would have believed it! Girls, I"ll give fifty dollars."
"Oh, Heavy! you _never_ could eat so much sweets before graduation,"
gasped one.
"I could; but I sha"n"t," declared Miss Stone, with continued gravity.
"I"ll practise self-denial."
With all the fun and joking, the girls of Briarwood Hall were very much in earnest. They elected a committee of five--Ruth, Nettie, Lluella, Sarah Fish and Mary c.o.x--to have charge of the collection of the fund, and to go immediately to Mrs. Tellingham and show her what money was already promised and how much more could be expected within ten days.
There was enough, they knew, to warrant the preceptress in having the work of tearing away the ruins begun. Meanwhile, the girls were each urged to think up some new way of earning money, and as a committee of the whole to try to invent a novel scheme of including the whole school in a plan whereby much money might be raised.
"How we"re to do it, n.o.body knows," said Helen gloomily, walking along beside Ruth after the meeting. "I expected _you_ would have just the thing to suggest."
"I wish I had," her chum returned thoughtfully.
"Mercy says, "Great oaks from little acorns grow"----"
They turned into the hall and saw that the mail had been distributed. Ruth was handed a letter with Mr. Hammond"s name upon it. She had almost forgotten the moving picture man and her own scenario, in these three or four very busy days.
Ruth eagerly tore the envelope open. A green slip of paper fluttered out.
It was a check for twenty-five dollars from the Alectrion Film Corporation. With it was a note highly praising Ruth"s first effort at scenario writing for moving pictures.
"What is it?" demanded Helen. "You look so funny. There"s no--n.o.body dead?"
"Do I look like that?" asked Ruth. "Far from it! Just look at these, dear," and she thrust both the note and the check into Helen"s hands. "I believe I"ve struck it!"