Ruthie

Contents

CHAPTER

PAGE

I Ruthie Comes to King Street School i

Chapter I

RUTHIE COMES TO KING STREET SCHOOL S Ruthie Blake paused at the stone steps of the

-^"lL square, brick building on King street, she felt as though she stood on the threshold of Adventure. Other girls in Holloway, that same September morning, had hesitated in the doorway with less pleasure; for them it meant an end to the long summer vacation, a beginning of the lesson-packed school year. But Ruthie felt no regret that vacation was at an end. For she was thirteen years old — going on fourteen, in fact — and she had never been to school in her life.

Her father was a construction engineer, and she and her mother had traveled with him all over the world; from sun-baked countries to lands where Ruthie had to go about muffled in furs and woolen dresses, while Harrington Blake built bridges and dams and railways. And now, at last, he had taken a position in the Holloway office, a position that permitted him to build his bridges and dams on great white sheets of paper, with all sorts of rulers and protractors and compasses, while other men traveled miles away to supervise the actual work. Harrington Blake, himself, was a little sorry to settle down to an unadventurous life in the house on Cedar street, but his daughter felt that adventure had really commenced for her.

For the first time in her life she was going to have friends of her own age.

In Singapore, there had been a girl whom Ruthie had liked immensely, but just as they had become really acquainted, her father had packed her off to South Africa. And in Pekin, the son of the American consul was exactly Ruthie’s age, and they had been great friends — until the trunks were brought forth again, and the Blake family took a boat for Australia.

But now traveling was at an end; her heavy trunk, that had been packed with toys and dresses from all parts of the world, lay empty in the attic of the house on Cedar street; her mother’s and father’s trunks were beside it. Ruthie hoped that when next they were used, they would be thick with cobwebs, dusty with age. Tokio and Benares, Rio de Janeiro and Vladivostok, Ruthie had taken as a matter of course. But Holloway, an ordinary American town, seemed a place of magic. Almost every one of the square, comfortable

RUTHIE COMES TO KING STREET houses held a girl or boy like herself ; in the weeks they had lived in their new home, although there had been no time to make friends, Ruthie had seen them — pinkcheeked girls on bicycles, boys playing on the tennis courts, boys and girls in the ice-cream store. And now at last . . .

Ruthie pushed open the heavy door and entered the corridor, walked quietly toward Room 12 A. The day before, her mother had come with her to the school, and she had been admitted and assigned to a room in the second year of King Street School. As she hurried down the hall, she looked at the other girls enviously; she noted their middy-blouses and skirts, their braided hair and stiff black ribbons. She realized with despair that her only resemblance to them was in her tanned face and arms — the Athenian sun is little different from the sun that shone on the Atlantic seashore that summer.

And they, in turn, looked at her, turned back to stare.

For Ruthie was undeniably different. Her little oval face was American enough, but her brown hair was caught by a round comb and cascaded about her shoulders in the manner of little French girls; her short stub-toed shoes could not have been bought in Holloway — or in New York, for that matter. The loose blouse that hung down over her brown silk skirt was of dull green crepe, embroidered by the native women of northern Africa; while Holloway girls looked at it in admiration and envy, Ruthie was wondering whether she could buy a middy-blouse in time to wear it to school the following day. The silver Burmese pin at her throat, with its dangling chains of silver beads, seemed to her an uninteresting thing before the plain gold bar-pins that caught the neckties of other girls to their middies.

The teacher’s chair in Room 12 A was empty, and there were only a few girls seated about, unpacking their leather bags, sharpening bright colored pencils, nibbling at their lunches. The clock by the door pointed to half past eight. Ruthie sighed happily and sank down in the chair to which Miss Orcutt had assigned her the day before.

Across the aisle, a girl smiled at her. She was a pretty, dark-eyed girl in a yellow dress, and Ruthie watched excitedly while she got up and came over to the seat behind her own.

“ You’re the girl who lives in the new house on the corner of Cedar and Marsh street, aren’t you? ” she asked.

RUTHIE COMES TO KING STREET §•

“ Yes.” Ruthie smiled because she could not think of anything else to say. She wanted to make friends with the dark-eyed girl, but she did not know how.

“ My name’s Peg Adams,” said the girl.

“ I’m Ruthie Blake.”

“ Yes, I know.”

Silence again, while the two girls smiled.

“ Want to walk around? ” Peg asked. “ We have loads of time. My sister Helen goes here — she’s in Four B, so I know a good bit about the school.”

They walked into the corridor together, stopped at the fountain for a drink of water. Through one of the many open doors they saw a small, black-eyed woman in a tight black dress, sitting at the teacher’s desk.

“ That’s Madame Renaud,” said Peg. “ We have her in French. Helen says she’s awfully strict, but the girls like her.”

Ruthie looked at Madame Renaud with interest.

“ Elle est tres vielle, n’est-ce pas? ” she asked, unconsciously lapsing into the other language that she had lisped along with her baby-English.

“ What? ” Peg asked.

Ruthie flushed. “ Oh — I didn’t mean to do that,” she said. Her whole past life seemed to rise up and conspire to make her different when she wanted more than anything in the world to be like the others, so like them that there would remain no personality of her own. “ I said that she’s quite old, isn’t she? ”

“Yes.” Peg looked at her new friend curiously. What a strange and interesting girl she was! For it was quite apparent that Ruthie had not tried to show off, that the sight of the little Frenchwoman had turned her thoughts as well as her tongue into French.

They walked along silently, and Peg opened a curtained door, while they peered into the assembly hall.

“That’s the Parthenon frieze around the ceiling,” explained Peg.

“ I know,” said Ruthie, “ I’ve seen it.”

“ Seen what? ”

“ The Parthenon. We were in Greece last winter.”

“In Greece! ”

“ Yes — Dad’s an engineer, and Mother and I travel around with him.”

Peg’s dark eyes widened. “ Don’t you hate settling down here then? ” she asked at length.

Ruthie shook her head until the round comb slipped from her long hair and fell to the floor. “ I love it! ” she said vehemently. “ You see, we’ve never been in one place very long, and I’ve never made any friends.”

RUTHIE COMES TO KING STREET

“ You mean you haven’t even one chum? ”

“ Just Mother and Dad.”

“ That’s not very nice. But you’ll make lots of friends here. Holloway is just — oh, there’s my chum! Moya! ”

Moya McMahon was as blonde as Peg was dark; her hair was as curly and long as Peg’s was short and straight. Her violet eyes, dark-lashed and wide open, were sparkling with merriment. She hurried toward them and kissed Peg.

“ This is Ruthie Blake, Moya. She’s just come to Holloway. Her father’s a — what’s your father, Ruthie? ”

“ A construction engineer.”

“ Yes — one of those. And she’s never lived anywhere more’n a week, so she doesn’t know anyone at all. And she’s seen the Parthenon.”

The mischief in Moya McMahon’s eyes seemed to overbrim as she laughed. “It’s something to be on speaking terms with the Parthenon, though,” she said. “ And she’ll know lots of people here. Going to stay in Holloway more’n a week? ”

Ruthie laughed. “ I’d like to stay here forever,” she said. “ But I know it will be all this year and probably longer. Dad promised me that. And Mother says it’s time I stayed in one place and learned something. I’ve never been to school, you see — just tutors sometimes.”

“ You haven’t missed much,” said Moya. “ But I suppose tutors are just as bad — they’re only sort of wandering teachers, aren’t they? ”

Ruthie nodded. The three girls continued the tour of the school together, followed by curious eyes, while Moya kept up a constant chatter about the things she had been doing and was going to do, about the teachers and girls they passed. She said good-morning respectfully to the statue of Hermes on the stairway landing, put her arm about the marble waist of the Psyche, and kissed her cold cheek, while Ruthie and Peg giggled delightedly. They had reached the physics laboratory on the third floor when a bell rang.

“I’ll beat you down! ” Moya said, and slid down the winding banister, while Ruthie and Peg hurried down the stairs. On the landing of the second floor they caught up with her, and found her confronted by one of the teachers. Moya’s cheeks were scarlet, but the mischief had not died from her eyes.

“ She said we’d got to remember that we were young ladies now,” Moya whispered, as they walked the rest

RUTHIE COMES TO KING STREET 9 of the way sedately. “ And that such childish pursuits as sliding down banisters were quite out of place in King Street School.”

Peg giggled.

“ But who is she? ” Ruthie asked. “ I mean — why does she care what you do? ”

“ She’s Miss Morton, the head English teacher,” Moya explained. “ There are two kinds of teachers, Ruthie. One kind wants to be friends — they’re great. But the other kind has a motto: Girls, whatever you’re doing, stop it! ”

They were still laughing when they entered Room 1 2 A. It was crowded with girls now, and Miss Orcutt, pretty and blonde, was seated at the desk, watching them. A second bell rang, and the whispering died away; Miss Orcutt turned over the papers on her desk, then she called the roll. Another silence.

“ When do we get our books? ” Ruthie asked, leaning toward Peg. Unconsciously she had lowered her voice to a whisper.

“ Do you wish to address the class, Ruth? ” asked Miss Orcutt.

The girls giggled, and Ruthie looked up in surprise. “ I was speaking to Peg,” she said.

IO RUTHIE

The small fat girl behind Peg grew pink, as she hid her face hastily in her handkerchief ; Miss Orcutt rapped on her desk and looked at Ruthie sharply.

“ Didn’t you hear the bell? ”

“The bell? Yes, I think I did hear something a while ago.”

“ Well? ”

Ruthie flushed, and suddenly Peg realized that she did not know very much about school after all.

“ There is to be no conversation of any kind after the nine o’clock bell,” Miss Orcutt announced. “ I thought you all knew that. Now I shall read from the Bible.”

Ruthie sat down again and Peg smiled at her comfortingly; across the room Moya McMahon made a face. Miss Orcutt’s voice was soft and gentle, and Ruthie leaned back in her seat contentedly, listening. Her face was puzzled, but suddenly it lighted up, as Miss Orcutt put down the Bible and there was silence again.

“ Oh, I know what you mean! ” Her voice, tinged with a slight English accent that she had picked up in India and the Straits Settlements, broke through the stillness. “ You mean that we’re not to say anything

RUTHIE COMES TO KING STREET u after nine o’clock unless you give us permission. Does that hold through all the day? ”

For a moment after she had finished speaking, the room was breathless. Then the entire class, including Miss Orcutt, broke out into laughter.

“ That’s exactly what I mean,” Miss Orcutt said finally, still laughing. “ If you want to say anything you must raise your hand.”

Ruthie’s hand shot up promptly, and Miss Orcutt nodded.

“ That’s the way the Malays do when they’re holding a council,” she explained eagerly. “ The chief gives the permission for conversation.”

The class giggled again. “ It’s like that,” Miss Orcutt agreed, her lips twitching. “ And I’m the chief, Ruthie.”

“ I see.” Ruthie’s head was whirling; school had really begun, and what a strange, interesting place it was!

The morning was taken up in hurrying from class-room to class-room, receiving books until arms ached, making the acquaintance of the various teachers. The luncheon bell came as a relief, and Ruthie and Peg and Moya linked arms and hurried past the great gymnasium into the lunch-room. It was a long, hall-like room, with gray walls; a counter ran about three sides, and girls were forming long lines at regular intervals.

“ Caramel cake first! ” said Moya. “ Or else you won’t get any. What care we for nourishment? ”

The cake and ice-cream line was much the longest, and after they had received that most important factor of their meal, Ruthie “ held ” a table, while the other two hurried off for a hot dish and sandwiches.

“ I’ve brought you some real Chinese rice! ” Moya said triumphantly. “ I just barely got it — today there is rice and Boston baked beans, but I knew — ”

“ Rice! ” said Ruthie. “Beans! Moya, I don’t think I shall ever eat another grain of rice as long as I live. You ought to stay in Pekin or Tokio or Singapore to get so tired of rice that you feel as though you were going to sprout with little green shoots if you went out in the rain. But beans! I’ve heard about Boston baked beans all my life, and I’ve never so much as seen them.”

Moya laughed. “ I’ll eat your rice then,” she said. “ There are loads of beans — we get so sick and tired of them — ”

“ Of beans? ” Ruthie asked incredulously.

RUTHIE COMES TO KING STREET 13

“ Of beans/' Moya said. “ Wait here and I’ll run and get you some, though.”

Ruthie ate ravenously, while the other two watched her in amusement.

“ Think of finding beans a treat!” said Peg. “ Ruthie, you are a goose! ”

Ruthie smiled and went on eating.

“ Elbert’s sick,” Moya said suddenly.

“ Who’s Elbert? ” asked Ruthie.

“ Professor Jordan — you’re taking Greek, aren’t you? ”

“ Yes — they’ve put me in the second year.”

“ Fine — so are we. We’ll all be in the same class. We had Elbert last year, and he’s a funny old duck.”

“ He’s so absent-minded that we’re always surprised when he puts both shoes on,” Peg explained. “ One day last year he came to class without his necktie — went around the whole day with his collar looking so funny and empty, and--”

“And then the next day,” Moya interrupted, “he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a bunch of shoestrings. Ruthie, you’ve never seen anything so funny! He blushed perfectly scarlet, just as if shoestrings were the most personal sort of article — like an

H

undershirt or something. I never saw such an embarrassed man in my life! ”

“ We had him a whole year,” continued Peg, “ and he doesn’t know any of us apart yet. He has cards with our names written on them, and he divides the class into thirds alphabetically and calls on us regularly — the first third, then the second, then the last.”

“ It’s awfully convenient,” said Moya. “ You see if you have a terribly important engagement the night before, you don’t have to study your Greek unless you know you’re going to be called on.”

They were still talking when the bell rang, and the afternoon session began. Peg and Moya walked home with Ruthie after school.

“Do you suppose I could get a middy like yours in Holloway? ” Ruthie asked.

“ I bought this one here,” Moya answered. “ But why? That blouse of yours is the prettiest, most different thing I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s just it. I don’t want to be different — I want to be just like the rest of you.”

“You couldn’t,” said Peg. “And you ought to thank your stars.”

“ If you really want it, I’ll lend you a middy,” said Moya. “ I have one I’ve never worn, but — ”

RUTHIE COMES TO KING STREET IJ

“ Oh, Moya! I’ll trade this waist for it! ”

“ Ruthie! It’s not fair.”

“ Oh, but it is. Please take it, Moya.”

So the exchange was made, and Moya’s fair hair hung over the African waist, while Ruthie’s hair, now in braids like the other girls’, fell over a starched, regulation middy-blouse.

Ruthie’s passion to be a perfectly average American girl became a joke with them as the weeks went on. She traded a pair of flowered Chinese hair-ribbons that the Holloway girls envied so much, for two plain brown taffeta ones; she rejected her blunt little French shoes of dark blue leather for ordinary brown oxfords.

“ My tennis sneakers are all full of holes — don’t you think you’d better punch your new ones with a penknife? ” Moya would say. And, “ I’ve got an ink-spot on my dress,” Peg would go on. “ Hurry up, Ruthie, and spill some ink on your blouse or else people will know you’ve been somewhere besides Holloway.”

Ruthie always smiled, but she continued steadily to discard everything that made her different; her vocabulary, her surprising knowledge of the world and its people, she could not discard. Still she read aloud more beautifully than any other girl — “ Mother and I have been so many places where there was no one to talk to that I’ve always read aloud,” she explained. “ Sometimes we didn’t have anything but Shakespeare and the Bible — I know I’ve read the Bible through aloud at least once.” And still she showed a most surprising lack of knowledge of arithmetic — ■“ I didn’t like it much, so I never bothered with it,” she apologized. Her writing and spelling were scarcely better than a primary school girl’s — but in geography and languages she was almost as well informed as her teachers.

And at the end of her first month at King Street School, outwardly, at least, Ruthie was like any other Holloway girl; she might have been melted and poured into the same mould.

Chapter II

THE ADVENTURERS’ CLUB ‘ ‘ T WISH today was Saturday,” Moya sighed, as the

A three girls walked together along King street. “ Three more days — school is getting awfully dull.”

Ruthie smiled. “ How I envy you, Moya ! ” she said. “ I know it’s the thing to do to be bored with school. I try just as hard as I can — all the time, in fact. But I can’t see it except as something exciting and wonderful. It’s so different from anything I’ve ever known.”

“ What a girl! ” Peg and Moya looked from one another to their friend in amusement.

Ruthie had met other girls, of course, during her month at the school, but the two chums were her favorites, and the three had soon become known to the school and to Holloway as inseparable. Almost everyone in the entire six grades knew Ruthie; stories about her were carried from room to room. Moya McMahon, too, was a school figure; she was the sort of girl whom her companions adore, and over whom her teachers alternately laugh and shake their heads. 17

Peg was known more because of her association with the other two; ever since kindergarten days she had been Moya’s shadow, and although it was the older girl who planned the startling bits of mischief for which they were famous in Holloway, the younger carried them out with imagination and daring.

Aileen Carter and Rose Delain were also favorites of Ruthie’s; Aileen was a tall serious girl, who was always hiding behind a book and a pair of enormous tortoise-rimmed glasses. Rose Delain was called by her friends “ that large girl,” or “ the stout girl over there,” but Rose herself had no hesitancy in admitting that she was fat. She was a veritable butter-ball of a girl, pink like a baby, with deep dimples in her cheeks. The story of her summer vacation was still a source of amusement to her class-mates; over and over again, with her throaty laugh, Rose related it.

She had gone to visit her grandmother in a small town where numerous aunts and cousins lived with their families. “ And every blessed one of them,” Rose would say, “ looked at me, and said, ‘ So this is Maria’s little girl. How healthy she is! How much do you weigh, dear? ’ ” And Rose, unblushingly, admitted her one hundred and forty-five pounds. “There was a lake,” she would go on with her story. “ Just a little

THE ADVENTURERS’ CLUB lake, with a raft and a diving-board. And do you know, every time I dived into it, the poor thing overflowed! ”

“ But school is dull,” agreed Peg, breaking the silence that had fallen. “ Can’t we do anything about it? ” She looked at Moya expectantly.

“ Of course we can,” Moya agreed promptly. “ That’s one of the most important reasons for school, Ruthie — to make you think of things to relieve the monotony. Develops the imagination. I wonder — ”

They walked along silently, while Moya knit her forehead in thought.

“ I know,” she broke out suddenly. “ We’ll have a club. Just us three. Sole purpose in life being to make things more exciting.”

“ What sort of a club? ” Ruthie and Peg asked together.

“ We’ll call it the Adventurers’ Club,” Moya^decided. “ There won’t be any officers — we’ll all be president. At least we’ll take turns. Each of us must plan and carry out one adventure a week. You’re first, Ruthie.”

“Me? Heavens!” Ruthie looked up, startled. “ Let’s— let’s all not go to school some school day,” she said.

“ Play hookey? That’s not an adventure/’ said Peg scornfully.

“ Isn’t it? I’ve always read about playing truant. But I don’t want to do it really — school is too much fun. Now don’t laugh.” She looked at them reproachfully. “It is fun for me, you see. Let’s — let’s go on a picnic.”

Moya burst out laughing. “ Ruthie Blake, you’re impossible! After all your travels to think that you can’t imagine anything more exciting than a picnic! ”

“ I’ll try,” Ruthie said meekly. “ But I’ve never been on a picnic. Or else I’ve been on a picnic all my life — we’ve certainly eaten in strange places. You think of something, Moya.”

“ But I thought of the club.”

“ All the more reason why you should plan the first adventure,” Peg said promptly. “ Isn’t it, Ruthie? ”

Ruthie nodded.

“ Elbert gets back today,” Moya said thoughtfully.

“You don’t call that an adventure, do you? Of course I’m glad to see the substitute go — Elbert’s lots more fun, but — ”

“ It will be an adventure,” Moya interrupted Peg. “Oh, what an adventure! ” She chuckled to herself.

“ Tell us,” begged Ruthie, but Moya shook her head.

THE ADVENTURERS’ CLUB

“ If I tell maybe you won’t do it. You’ll know soon enough.”

“ Please! ” said Peg.

“ No — you’ve got to wait.”

They waited impatiently. Mathematics class dragged even more than usual; the English hour was interminable.

“Tell us now,” Ruthie pleaded, as the three hurried through the corridor toward Professor Jordan’s room.

“ In about five minutes,” said Moya.

The bell rang, and Ruthie and Peg watched the president of the Adventurers’ Club closely. Whenever they caught her eye — and it was often — she giggled delightedly. Ruthie turned her eyes toward the tall, stooping man who faced them. This, then, was the absent-minded professor about whom she had heard so much. She decided quickly that she liked him; there was something pleasing and lovable about his wistful face. And he was to be the central figure of their first adventure!

He coughed, and his pale blue eyes roamed about the crowded room.

“ I am glad,” he said, “ to see that so many of you are taking advantage of this course.” He looked up mildly at Moya’s giggle. “ This is the largest class I have ever had/’ he went on. “ I like to see girls interested in the Greek language — the tendency these days is away from it, rather than toward it. Greek — ”

Ruthie listened, with one eye on Moya.

“ And now,” he said, having concluded the talk that he gave at the beginning of every school year, “ I will take the roll.”

The girls answered as he called out their names from the stack of cards before him; Peg and Moya were among them.

“ Are there any new girls? ”

Ruthie rose with the others and gave her name. As she sat down, her eyes grew wide and wondering. Moya was standing!

“ Name, please? ” Professor Jordan asked her absently.

Moya hesitated for a fraction of a second. “ Rosalind Park,” she said in a low voice.

A murmur ran about the room; the girls looked at one another in amazement. What was the irrepressible Moya attempting? Ruthie and Peg looked at her questioningly.

The professor squinted through his glasses for a

THE ADVENTURERS’ CLUB moment, then wrote the name on one of the blank cards. The rest of the hour passed quickly; books were distributed, the lesson for the next day was assigned. Ruthie and Peg were like young puppies straining at a leash until the bell rang. Then they rushed up to Moya excitedly, found her already surrounded by other girls, in the corridor.

“ What on earth — ” Peg began.

And — “ But, Moya! ” Ruthie said.

“ Adventure One,” said Moya, laughing. Her eyes were shining; she loved to be in the center of excitement. “ You all know how absent-minded Elbert is? ” The girls nodded. “ He didn’t know me from Adam — or Eve — when I stood up. So we’re going to invent a new girl, Rosalind Park, and carry her through the entire course.”

“ But, Moya — ” began Ruthie, once again.

“ It’s going to be more fun! ” said Moya. “ Girls — I want you to meet my friend, Rosalind Park.”

“ Delighted,” Rose Delain said, laughing.

“ Who’ll recite for her? ” Ruthie asked doubtfully.

“Us three. We’ll take turns — Elbert will never notice.”

“ Are you sure? ”

“ Of course. But that’s the excitement, anyway.”

Peg suddenly began to laugh, and the other girls joined her.

“ She’s in the second third,” Moya explained. “ She’ll be called on to recite the day after tomorrow. Who’ll take her? ”

“ I will,” Ruthie offered eagerly, before Peg could speak. “ I’ll be called on tomorrow, you see.”

By the next day, the entire Greek class had been introduced to Miss Park. Most of the girls were as amused and excited as the three “Adventurers”; Marion Allen, a small, serious girl, the president of the Greek Club, alone, disapproved the idea.

“ It’s lying, Moya,” she objected.

“ Of course it isn’t,” Moya denied. “ It’s just pretending. I don’t say I’m Rosalind — neither do Peg or Ruthie. We just recite for her. If Professor Jordan actually asked us, point-blank — why, that would be different.”

“ It’s acting a lie, though.”

“Nonsense — it’s a game.”

“ But it is! And because I know about it, I’m in it, too. I don’t think you ought to, Moya.”

Moya frowned. “ Don’t be a goody, Marion,” she said. “ You won’t have to recite for her.”

THE ADVENTURERS’ CLUB 25

Eventually she persuaded Marion at least to be silent on the subject of Rosalind, but when on Wednesday Professor Jordan called upon Miss Park to recite, there was a tense silence over the class-room, and Marion Allen looked out the window steadfastly.

“ Miss Park, I said,” Professor Jordan repeated, looking about the room. “ She isn’t absent, is she? 99 Ruthie rose to her feet excitedly.

Chapter III

R UTHIE’S heart thumped, as she began to translate. When she had finished, Professor Jordan looked at her with interest.

“ Excellent, Miss Park,” he said, in his rumbling voice. “ You are the new girl, aren’t you? ”

“Yes,” Ruthie answered faintly. At least that was true.

“ With whom have you studied Greek? ” he went on. The class-room was still breathless; rarely had he displayed such interest in anything.