Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island Part 10

RUTH'S LITTLE PLOT

The punt was in shallow water and the girls who had ventured into it without oars were perfectly safe before any of the teachers arrived. With them came Ruth and Helen, and some of the other juniors and seniors. Heavy took the stump.

"Now! you see what she did?" cried the stout girl, seizing Ann in her arms the moment she could get ash.o.r.e. "If she hadn't known how to fling a la.s.so, and rope a steer, she'd never have been able to send that rope to us.

"Three cheers for Ann Hicks, the girl from the ranch, who knows what to do when folks are drowning in Buchane Pond! One--two--three----"

The cheers were given with a will. Several of the girls who had treated the western girl so meanly about the dunce cap had been in the boat, and they asked Ann to shake hands. They were truly repentant, and Ann could not refuse their advances.

But the western girl was still doubtful of her standing with her mates, and went back to play with the little ones. Meanwhile she showed Ruth where Jerry Sheming stood at one side, and the girl from the Red Mill ran to him eagerly.

"I am delighted to see you!" she exclaimed, shaking Jerry's rough hand. "I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find you after you left the mill. And I wanted to."

"I'm glad of your interest in me, Miss Ruth," he said, "but I ain't got no call to expect it. Mr. Potter was pretty kind to me, and he kept me as long as there was work there."

"But you haven't got to tramp it, now?"

"Only to look for a steady job. I--I come over this way hopin' I'd hit it at Lumberton. But they're discharging men at the mills instead of hiring new ones."

"And I expect you'd rather work in the woods than anywhere else?"

suggested Ruth.

"Why--yes, Miss. I love the woods. And I got a good rifle and shotgun, and I'm a good camp cook. I can't get a guide's license, but I could go as a.s.sistant--if anybody would take me around Tallahaska."

"Suppose I could get you a job working right where you've always lived--at Cliff Island?" she asked, eagerly.

"What d'ye mean--Cliff Island?" he demanded, flus.h.i.+ng deeply. "I wouldn't work for that Rufus Blent--nor he wouldn't have me."

"I don't know anything about the man," said Ruth, smiling. "But one of my chums has invited me to go to Cliff Island for the Christmas holidays. Her father has bought the place and is building a lodge there."

"Good lands!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jerry.

"Isn't that a coincidence?" Ruth commented. "Now, you wouldn't refuse a job with Mr. Tingley; would you?"

"Tingley--is that the name?"

"Yes. Perhaps I can get him, through Belle, to hire you. I'll try. Would you go back?"

"In a minute!" exclaimed Jerry.

"Then I'll try. You see, in four or five weeks, we'll be going there ourselves. I think it would just be jolly to have you around, for you know all about the island and everything."

"Yes, indeed, ma'am," agreed Jerry. "I'd like the job."

"So you must write me every few days and let me know where you are. Mrs.

Tellingham won't mind--I'll explain to her," Ruth said, earnestly. "I am not quite sure that I can go myself, yet. But I'll know for sure in a few days. And I'll see if Belle won't ask her father to give you work at Cliff Island. Then, in your off time, you can look for that box your uncle lost. Don't you see?"

"Oh, Miss! I guess that's gone for good. Near as I could make out o' Uncle Pete, the landslide at the west end of the island buried his treasure box a mile deep! It was in one o' the little caves, I s'pose."

"Caves? Are there caves on the island?"

"Lots of 'em. Big ones as well as small. If Uncle Pete wasn't plumb crazy, he had his money and papers in a hide-out that I'd never found."

"I see Miss Picolet coming this way. She won't approve of my talking with 'a strange young man' so long," laughed Ruth. "You let me know every few days where you are, Jerry?"

"Yes, ma'am, I will. And thank you kindly."

"You aren't out of funds? You have money?"

"I've got quite a little store," said Jerry, smiling. "Thanks to that nice black-eyed girl that I helped out of the car window."

"Oh! Ann Hicks. And she's being made much of, now, by the girls, because she knew how to fling a rope," cried Ruth, looking across the picnic ground to where her schoolmates were grouped.

"She's all right," said Jerry, enthusiastically. "They ought to be proud of her--them that was in that boat."

"It will break the ice for Ann," declared Ruth. "I am so glad. Now, I must run. Don't forget to write, Jerry. Good bye."

She gave him her hand and ran back to join her school friends. Ann had gone about putting up the children's swing and at first had paid little attention to the enthusiasm of the girls who had been saved from going over the dam. But she could not ignore them altogether.

"You're just the smartest girl I ever saw," Heavy declaimed. "We'd all be in the water, sure enough, if you hadn't got that rope to us. Come on, Ann! Be a sport. _Do_ wear your laurels kindly."

"I'm just as 'dumb' about books as ever. Flinging that rope didn't make any difference," growled the western girl.

"I don't care if you don't know your 'A.B., abs,'" cried one of the girls who had taken a prominent part in the dunce cap trick. "You make me awfully ashamed of myself for being so mean to you. Please forgive us all, Ann--that's a good girl."

Ann was awkward about accepting their apologies; and yet she was not naturally a bad-tempered girl. She was just different from them all--and felt the difference so keenly!

This sudden reversal of feeling, and their evident offer of friendliness, made her feel more awkward than ever. She remained very glum while at the picnic grounds.

But, as Ruth had said, the incident served to break the ice. Ann had gotten her start. Somebody beside the "primes" gave her "the glad hand and the smiling eye." Briarwood began to be a different sort of place for the ranch girl.

There were plenty of the juniors who looked down on her still; but she had "shown them" once that she could do something the ordinary eastern girl could not do and Ann was on the _qui vive_ for another chance to "make good" along her own particular line.

She grew brighter and more self-possessed as the term advanced. Her lessons, too, she attacked with more a.s.surance.

A few days after Thanksgiving Ruth received a letter in Aunt Alvirah's cramped hand-writing which a.s.sured her that Uncle Jabez would make no objection to her accepting the invitation to go to Cliff Island for the holidays.

"And I'll remind him of it in time so't he can send you a Christmas goldpiece, if the sperit so moves him," wrote Aunt Alvirah, in her old-fas.h.i.+oned way. "But do take care of yourself, my pretty, in the middle of that lake."

In telling Belle how happy she was to accept the invitation for the frolic, Ruth diffidently put forward her request that Mr. Tingley give Jerry Sheming a job.

"I am quite sure he is a good boy," she told Belle. "He has worked for my uncle, and Uncle Jabez praised him. Now, Uncle Jabez doesn't praise for nothing."

"I'll tell father about this Jerry--sure," laughed Belle. "You're an odd girl, Ruth. You're always trying to do something for somebody."

"Trying to do somebody for somebody, maybe," interposed Mercy, in her sharp way. "Ruth uses her friends for her own ends."