Ruth Fielding At Sunrise Farm Part 20

Here the strange girl interposed. She had been darting quick, shrewd glances about the hall at the girls and boys there gathered, and now she said:

"Ye don't hafter do nothing for me. A little rainwater won't hurt me-I ain't neither sugar nor salt. All I wants to know is where them fresh air kids is stayin'. I ain't afraid of the rain-it's the thunder and lightning that scares me."

"Goodness knows," laughed Madge, "I guess the water wouldn't hurt you.

But we'll fix you up a little better, I guess."

"Let Ruth do it," said Mrs. Steele, sharply. "She says she knows the girl."

"She's a friend of mine," said the girl of the Red Mill, frankly. "You surely remember me, Sadie Raby?"

"Oh, I remember ye, Miss," returned the runaway. "You was kind to me, too."

"Come on, then," said Ruth, briskly. "I'm only going to be kind to you again-and so is Mrs. Steele going to be kind. Come on!"

An hour later an entirely different looking girl appeared with Ruth in the big room at the top of the house which the visiting girls occupied.

Some of them had come upstairs, for the tempest was over now, and were making ready for dinner by slow stages, it still being some time off, and there was nothing else to do.

"This is Sadie Raby, girls," explained Ruth, quietly. "She is the sister of those cute little twins that are staying at the Caslons' place. She has had a hard time getting here, and because she hasn't seen Willie and d.i.c.kie for eight months, or more, she is very anxious to see them. They are all she has in the world."

"And I reckon they're a handful," laughed Heavy. "Come on! tell us all about it, Sadie."

It was because of the "terrible twins" that Ruth had gotten Sadie to talk at all. The girl, since leaving "them Perkinses," near Briarwood, had had a most distressful time in many ways, and she was reticent about her adventures.

But she warmed toward Ruth and the others when she found that they really were sincerely interested in her trials, and were, likewise, interested in the twins.

"Them kids must ha' growed lots since I seen 'em," she said, wistfully.

"I wrote a letter to a girl that works right near the orphanage. She wrote back that the twins was coming out here for a while. So I throwed up my job at Campton and hiked over here."

"Dear me! all that way?" cried Helen, pityingly.

"I walked farther than that after I left them Perkinses," declared Sadie, promptly. "I walked clean from Lumberton to Cheslow-followed the railroad most of the way. Then I struck off through the fields and went to a mill on the river, and worked there for a week, for an old lady.

She was nice--"

"I guess she is!" cried Ruth, quickly. "Didn't you know that was _my_ home you went to? And you worked for Aunt Alvirah and Uncle Jabez."

No, Sadie had not known that. The little old woman had spoken of there being a girl at the Red Mill sometimes, but Sadie had not suspected the ident.i.ty of that girl.

"And then, when you were still near Cheslow, my brother Tom, and his dog, rescued you from the tramps," cried Helen.

"Was that your brother, Miss?" responded Sadie. "Well! he's a nice feller. He got me a ride clear to Campton. I've been workin' there and earnin' my board and keep. But I couldn't save much, and it's all gone now."

"But what do you really expect to do here?" asked Madge Steele, curiously.

"I gotter see them kids," declared Sadie, doggedly. "Seems to me, sometimes, as though something would bust right inside of me here," and she clutched her dress at its bosom, "if I don't see Willie and d.i.c.kie.

I thought this big house was likely where the fresh airs was."

"I should say not!" murmured Madge.

"They're all right-don't you be afraid," said Ruth, softly.

"I thought mebbe the folks that was keepin' the kids would let me work for them," said Sadie, presently. "For kids is a lot of trouble, and I'm used to 'em. The matron at the home said I had a way with young'uns."

She told them a good deal more about her adventures within the next half hour, but Madge had left the room just after making her last speech.

While the girls were still listening to the runaway, a maid rapped at the door.

"Mr. Steele will see this-this strange girl in the library," announced the servant.

Sadie looked a little scared for a moment, and glanced wildly around the big room for some way of escape.

"Gee! I ain't got to talk with that man, have I?" she whispered.

"He won't bite you," laughed Heavy.

"He's just as kind as kind can be," declared Helen.

"I'll go down with you," said Ruth, decisively. "You have plenty of friends now, Sadie. You mustn't be expecting to run away all the time."

Sadie Raby went with Ruth doubtfully. The latter was somewhat disturbed herself when she saw Mr. Steele's serious visage.

"You'll excuse me, Mr. Steele?" suggested Ruth, timidly. "But she is all alone-and I thought it would encourage her to have me here--"

"That is like your kind heart, Ruth," said the gentleman, nodding. "I don't mind. Madge has told me her story. It seems that the child is rather wild-er-flighty, as it were. I suppose she wants to run away from us, too?"

"I ain't figurin' to stay here," said Sadie, doggedly. "I'm obleeged to you, but this ain't the house I was aimin' for."

"Humph! no. But I am not sure at all that you would be in good hands down there at Caslon's."

Ruth was sorry to hear him say this. But Sadie broke in with: "I don't keer how they treat me as long as I'm with my brothers. And _they_ are down there, this Ruth girl says."

"Yes. I quite understand that. But we all have our duty to perform in this world," said Mr. Steele, gravely. "I wonder that you have fallen in with n.o.body before who has seen the enormity of letting you run wild throughout the country. It is preposterous-wrong-impossible! I never heard of the like before-a child of your age tramping in the open."

"I didn't do no harm," began Sadie, half fearful of him again.

"Of course it is not your fault," said Mr. Steele, quickly. "But you were put in the hands of people who are responsible to the inst.i.tution you came from for their treatment of you--"

"Them Perkinses?" exclaimed Sadie, fearfully. "I won't never go back to them-not while I'm alive I won't! I don't care! I jest won't!"

She spoke wildly. She turned to run from the room and would have done so, had not Ruth been there to stop her and hold her in her arms.

CHAPTER XVII-THE BLACK DOUGLa.s.s

"Oh, don't frighten her, Mr. Steele!" begged Ruth, still holding the half wild girl. "You would not send her back to those awful people?"

"Tut, tut! I am no ogre, I hope," exclaimed the gentleman, rather put out of countenance at this outburst. "I only mean the child well.