Ruth Fielding Down East | Page 5

sobbed the girl suddenly.
"Oh, Ruth! don't give way like this," he urged, with rather a boyish fear of a girl's tears.
"I've given way already," she choked. "I just feel that I'll never be able to put that scenario into shape again. And I'd written Mr. Hammond so enthusiastically about it."
"Oh! Then he knows all about it!" said Tom. "That is more than any of us do. You wouldn't tell us a thing."
"And I didn't tell him. He doesn't know the subject, or the title, or anything about it. I tell you, Tom, I had such a good idea----"
"And you've got the idea yet, haven't you? Cheer up! Of course you can do it over."
"Suppose," demanded Ruth quickly, "this thief that has got my manuscript should offer it to some producer? Why! if I tried to rewrite it and bring it out, I might be accused of plagiarizing my own work."
"Jimminy!"
"I wouldn't dare," said Ruth, shaking her head. "As long as I do not know what has become of the scenario and my notes, I will not dare use the idea at all. It is dreadful!"
The rain was now falling less torrentially. The tempest was passing. Soon there was even a rift in the clouds in the northwest where a patch of blue sky shone through "big enough to make a Scotchman a pair of breeches," as Aunt Alvirah would say.
"We'd better go up to the house," sighed Ruth.
"I'll go right around to the neighbors and see if anybody has noticed a stranger in the vicinity," Tom suggested.
"There's Ben! Do you suppose he has seen anybody?"
A lanky young man, his clothing gray with flour dust, came from the back door of the mill and hastened under the dripping trees to reach the porch of the farmhouse. He stood there, smiling broadly at them, as Ruth and Tom hurriedly crossed the yard.
"Good day, Mr. Tom," said Ben, the miller's helper. Then he saw Ruth's troubled countenance. "Wha--what's the matter, Ruthie?"
"Ben, I've lost something."
"Bless us an' save us, no!"
"Yes, I have. Something very valuable. It's been stolen."
"You don't mean it!"
"But I do! Some manuscript out of the summer-house yonder."
"And her gold-mounted fountain pen," added Tom. "That would tempt somebody."
"My goodness!"
Ben could express his simple wonderment in a variety of phrases. But he seemed unable to go beyond these explosive expressions.
"Ben, wake up!" exclaimed Ruth. "Have you any idea who would have taken it?"
"That gold pen, Ruthie? Why--why---- A thief!"
"Old man," said Tom with suppressed disgust, "you're a wonder. How did you guess it?"
"Hush, Tom," Ruth said. Then: "Now, Ben, just think. Who has been around here to-day? Any stranger, I mean."
"Why--I dunno," said the mill hand, puckering his brows.
"Think!" she commanded again.
"Why--why----old Jep Parloe drove up for a grinding."
"He's not a stranger."
"Oh, yes he is, Ruthie. Me nor Mr. Potter ain't seen him before for nigh three months. Your uncle up and said to him, 'Why, you're a stranger, Mr. Parloe.'"
"I mean," said Ruth, with patience, "anybody whom you have never seen before--or anybody whom you might suspect would steal."
"Well," drawled Ben stubbornly, "your uncle, Ruthie, says old Jep ain't any too honest."
"I know all about that," Ruth said. "But Parloe did not leave his team and go down to the summer-house, did he?"
"Oh, no!"
"Did you see anybody go down that way?"
"Don't believe I did--savin' you yourself, Ruthie."
"I left a manuscript and my pen on the table there. I ran out to meet Tom and Helen when they came."
"I seen you," said Ben.
"Then it was just about that time that somebody sneaked into that summer-house and stole those things."
"I didn't see anybody snuck in there," declared Ben, with more confidence than good English.
"Say!" ejaculated Tom, impatiently, "haven't you seen any tramp, or straggler, or Gypsy--or anybody like that?"
"Hi gorry!" suddenly said Ben, "I do remember. There was a man along here this morning--a preacher, or something like that. Had a black frock coat on and wore his hair long and sort o' wavy. He was shabby enough to be a tramp, that's a fact. But he was a real knowledgeable feller--he was that. Stood at the mill door and recited po'try for us."
"Poetry!" exclaimed Tom.
"To you and Uncle Jabez?" asked Ruth.
"Uh-huh. All about 'to be or not to be a bean--that is the question.' And something about his having suffered from the slung shots and bow arrers of outrageous fortune--whatever that might be. I guess he got it all out of the Scriptures. Your uncle said he was bugs; but I reckoned he was a preacher."
"Jimminy!" muttered Tom. "A derelict actor, I bet. Sounds like a Shakespearean ham."
"Goodness!" said Ruth. "Between the two of you boys I get a very strange idea of this person."
"Where did he go, Ben?" Tom asked.
"I didn't watch him. He only hung around a little while. I think