"He says here," said Helen, glancing through the moving picture man"s letter again, "that he wants you to try another. Oh! and he says that in a few days he is coming to Lumberton with a company to take some films."
"So he does! Oh, goody!" cried Ruth. "I"ll see him, then, and talk right to him. He is an awfully rich man--so Hazel Gray told me. We"ll get him interested in the dormitory fund, anyway, and then, whether I can write a five-reel drama well enough or not, maybe he can find somebody who will put it into shape," Ruth added.
"Why, my dear!" exclaimed her chum, with scorn. "If you have written _one_ moving picture, of course you can another."
Which did not follow at all, Ruth was sure.
"We"ll have to ask Mrs. Tellingham," said Helen, with sudden doubt. "Maybe she will not approve."
"Oh! I hope she will," cried Ruth. "But we must put it up to the girls themselves, first of all. They must all be in it. All must have an interest--all must take part. Otherwise it will not accomplish the end we are after."
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Helen, finally waking up. "Of course! this is the very thing you wanted, Ruthie--to give every girl something to do that is important toward earning the money for the building of the new dormitory."
"That"s it, my dear. We all must appear, and do our part. School scenes, recreation scenes, athletic scenes in the gym; marching in our graduation procession; initiating candidates into the S.B. sorority; Old Noah"s Ark with the infants arriving at the beginning of the year; the dance we always have in the big hall at holiday time--just a great, big picture of what boarding school girls do, and how they live, breathe and have their being!"
"Oh, jolly!" gasped Helen, taking fire from her friend"s enthusiasm. "Say!
the girls are going to be just about crazy over this, Ruth. You will be the most popular girl in the school."
"I hope not!" gasped Ruth, in real panic. "I"m not doing this for any such purpose. Don"t be singing my praises all the time, Helen. The girls will get sick and tired to death of hearing about "wonderful me." We all want to do something to help Mrs. Tellingham and the school. That"s all there is to it. Now, _do_ be sensible."
They were not long in taking the girls at large into their confidence.
When it was known that Ruth Fielding had actually written one scenario for a film, which had been accepted, paid for, and would be produced, naturally the enthusiasm over the idea of having a reproduction of school life at Briarwood filmed, became much greater than it might otherwise have been. As a whole, the girls of Briarwood Hall were in a mood to work together for the fund.
"No misunderstandings," said Jennie Stone, firmly. "We don"t want to make the sort of mistake the rural constable did when he came along by the riverside and saw a face floating on the water. "Come out o" that!" he says. "You know there ain"t no bathing allowed around here." And the face in the water answered: "Excuse me, officer; I"m not bathing--I"m only drowning!"
"We"ve all got to pull together," the plump girl continued, very much in earnest. "No hanging back--no squabbling over little things. If Ruth Fielding can write a picture play we must all do our prettiest in acting in it. Why! I"d play understudy to a baby elephant in a circus for the sake of helping build the new dormitory."
Already Mrs. Tellingham and the doctor had been informed by the girls"
executive committee of the sums both actually raised by the girls, and promised, toward the dormitory fund. It had warranted the good lady"s signing contracts for the removal of the wreckage of the burned building, at least. The way would soon be cleared for beginning work on a new structure.
Offers of money came pouring in from the parents interested in the success of Briarwood Hall; and some of the checks already received by Mrs.
Tellingham were for substantial sums. But this proposal of Ruth"s for all the girls to help in the increase of the fund, pleased Mrs. Tellingham more than anything else.
She read Ruth"s brief sketch of the plot she had originated for the school play, and approved it. "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" was forthwith put into shape to show Mr. Hammond when he came to Lumberton, that event being expected daily.
About this time the girls of Briarwood Hall were so excited and interested over the moving picture idea that they scarcely had time for their studies and usual work.
CHAPTER XIV
AT MRS. SADOC SMITH"S
Mrs Tellingham, wise in the ways of girls, had foreseen the excitement and disturbance in the placid current of Briarwood life, and made plans following the fire to counteract the evil influences of just this disturbance. The girls who hoped to graduate from the school in the coming June must have more quiet--must have time to study and to think.
The younger girls, if they fell behind in their work, could make it up in the coming terms. Not so Ruth Fielding and her friends, so the wise school princ.i.p.al had distributed them, after the destruction of the West Dormitory, in such manner that they would be free from the hurly-burly of the general school life.
A few, like Mercy Curtis (who could not easily walk back and forth from any outside lodging), Mrs. Tellingham kept in her own apartment. But the greater number of the graduating cla.s.s was distributed among neighbors who--in most cases--were not averse to accepting good pay for rooms which could only be let to summer boarders and were, at this time of year, never occupied.
The Briarwood Hall preceptress allowed her girls to go only where she could trust the land-ladies to have some oversight over their lodgers. And the girls themselves were bound in honor to obey the rules of the school, whether on the Briarwood premises or not.
Visiting among the outside scholars was forbidden, and the girls studying for graduation had their hours more to themselves than they would have had in the school.
Special chums were able to keep together in most instances. Ruth, Helen and Ann Hicks went to live at Mrs. Sadoc Smith"s; and there was room in the huge front room on the second floor of her rambling old house, for Mercy, too, had it been wise for the lame girl to lodge so far from the school.
Mrs. Smith got the girls up in season in the morning to reach the dining hall at Briarwood by breakfast-time; and she saw to it, likewise, that their light went out at ten o"clock in the evening. These were her instructions from Mrs. Tellingham, and Mrs. Sadoc Smith was rather a grim person, who did her duty and obeyed the law.
There being an extra couch, Ruth persuaded her friends to agree to the coming of a fourth girl into the lodging. And this fourth girl, oddly enough, was not one of the graduating cla.s.s, or even one of the girls whom they had chummed with before.
It was the new girl, Amy Gregg! Amy Gregg, whom n.o.body seemed to want, and who seemed to be the loneliest figure and the most sullen girl who had ever come to Briarwood Hall!
"Of course, you"d pick up some sore-eyed kitten," complained Ann Hicks.
"That child has a fully-developed grouch against the whole world, I verily believe. What do you want her for, Ruthie?"
"I don"t want her," said Ruth promptly.
"Well! of all the girls!" gasped Helen. "Then _why_ ask Mrs. Tellingham to let her come here?"
"Because she ought to be with somebody who will look out for her," Ruth said.
She did not tell her mates about it, but Ruth had heard some whispers regarding the origin of the fire that had burned down the West Dormitory, and she was afraid Amy would be suspected.
The older girl had reason to know that Mrs. Tellingham had questioned Amy regarding the candle she had obtained from Miss Scrimp"s store. The girl had emphatically denied having left the candle burning on leaving her room to go to supper on the fatal evening.
The girls had begun, after a time, to ask questions about the origin of the fire. They knew it had started on the side of the corridor where Amy Gregg had roomed. They might soon suspect the truth.
"If they do, good-bye to all little Gregg"s peace of mind!" Ruth thought, for she knew just how cruel girls can be, and Amy did not readily make friends.
Although Ruth and her room-mates tried to make the flaxen-haired girl feel at home at Mrs. Sadoc Smith"s, Amy remained sullen, and seemed afraid of the older girls. She was particularly unpopular, too, because she was the only girl who had refused to write home to tell of the fire and ask for a contribution to the dormitory fund.
Amy Gregg seemed to be afraid to talk of the fire and refused to give even a dollar toward the rebuilding of the dormitory. "It isn"t _my_ fault that the old thing burned down. I lost all my clothes and books," she announced. "I think the school ought to pay _me_ some money, instead."
After saying this before her room-mates at Mrs. Smith"s, all but Ruth dropped her.
"Sullen little thing," said Helen, with disgust.
"Not worth bothering with," rejoined Ann.
The only person to whom Amy Gregg seemed to take a fancy was Mrs. Smith"s scapegrace grandson, Henry. Henry was the wildest boy there was anywhere about Briarwood Hall. He was always getting into trouble, and his grandmother was forever chastising him in one way or another.
n.o.body in the neighborhood knew him as "Henry." He was called "that Smith boy" by the grown folk; by his mates he was known as "Curly."
Ruth felt that Curly never would have developed into such a mischievous and wayward youth had it not been for his grandmother.
When a little boy Henry had come to live with Mrs. Sadoc Smith. Mrs. Smith did not like boys and she kept Henry in kilts until he was of an age when most lads are looking forward to long trousers. She made him wear Fauntleroy suits and kept his hair in curls down his back--mola.s.ses colored curls that disgusted the boy mightily. Finally he hired another boy for ten cents and a gla.s.s agate to cut the curls off close to his head, and he stole a pair of long trousers, a world too wide for him, from a neighbor"s line. He then set out on his travels, going in an empty freight car from the Lumberton railroad yards.
But he was caught and brought back, literally "by the scruff of his neck;"