Ruth Fielding Down East | Page 3

nor anywhere in the
place. Even the two fat notebooks had disappeared, and, too, the
gold-mounted pen the girl of the Red Mill had been using. All, all
seemed to have been swept out of the summer-house.
CHAPTER II
THE MYSTERY OF IT
For half a minute Tom Cameron did not know just what to do for Ruth.
Then the water spilled out of the angry clouds overhead and bade fair to
drench them.
He half carried Ruth into the summer-house and let her rest upon a
bench, sitting beside her with his arm tenderly supporting her shoulders.
Ruth had begun to sob tempestuously.
Ruth Fielding weeping! She might have cried many times in the past,
but almost always in secret. Tom, who knew her so well, had seen her
in dangerous and fear-compelling situations, and she had not wept.
"What is it?" he demanded. "What have you lost?"
"My scenario! All my work gone!"
"The new story? My goodness, Ruth, it couldn't have blown away!"
"But it has!" she wailed. "Not a scrap of it left. My notebooks--my pen!
Why!" and she suddenly controlled her sobs, for she was, after all, an

eminently practical girl. "Could that fountain pen have been carried
away by the windstorm, too?"
"There goes a barrel through the air," shouted Tom. "That's heavier
than a fountain pen. Say, this is some wind!"
The sound of the dashing rain now almost drowned their voices. It
sprayed them through the porous shelter of the vines and latticework so
that they could not sit on the bench.
Ruth huddled upon the table with Tom Cameron standing between her
and the drifting mist of the storm. She looked across the rain-drenched
yard to the low-roofed house. She had first seen it with a home-hungry
heart when a little girl and an orphan.
How many, many strange experiences she had had since that time,
which seemed so long ago! Nor had she then dreamed, as "Ruth
Fielding of the Red Mill," as the first volume of this series is called,
that she would lead the eventful life she had since that hour.
Under the niggard care of miserly old Jabez Potter, the miller, her great
uncle, tempered by the loving kindness of Aunt Alvirah Boggs, the
miller's housekeeper, Ruth's prospects had been poor indeed. But
Providence moves in mysterious ways. Seemingly unexpected chances
had broadened Ruth's outlook on life and given her advantages that few
girls in her sphere secure.
First she was enabled to go to a famous boarding school, Briarwood
Hall, with her dearest chum, Helen Cameron. There she began to make
friends and widen her experience by travel. With Helen, Tom, and
other young friends, Ruth had adventures, as the titles of the series of
books run, at Snow Camp, at Lighthouse Point, at Silver Ranch, on
Cliff Island, at Sunrise Farm, with the Gypsies, in Moving Pictures, and
Down in Dixie.
With the eleventh volume of the series Ruth and her chums, Helen
Cameron and Jennie Stone, begin their life at Ardmore College. As
freshmen their experiences are related in "Ruth Fielding at College; Or,

The Missing Examination Papers." This volume is followed by "Ruth
Fielding in the Saddle; Or, College Girls in the Land of Gold," wherein
Ruth's first big scenario is produced by the Alectrion Film Corporation.
As was the fact with so many of our college boys and girls, the World
War interfered most abruptly and terribly with Ruth's peaceful current
of life. America went into the war and Ruth into Red Cross work
almost simultaneously.
In "Ruth Fielding in the Red Cross; Or, Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam,"
the Girl of the Red Mill gained a very practical experience in the work
of the great peace organization which does so much to smooth the
ravages of war. Then, in "Ruth Fielding at the War Front; Or, The Hunt
for the Lost Soldier," the Red Cross worker was thrown into the very
heart of the tremendous struggle, and in northern France achieved a
name for courage that her college mates greatly envied.
Wounded and nerve-racked because of her experiences, Ruth was sent
home, only to meet, as related in the fifteenth volume of the series,
"Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound; Or, A Red Cross Worker's Ocean
Perils," an experience which seemed at first to be disastrous. In the end,
however, the girl reached the Red Mill in a physical and mental state
which made any undue excitement almost a tragedy for her.
The mysterious disappearance of the moving picture scenario, which
had been on her heart and mind for months and which she had finally
brought, she believed, to a successful termination, actually shocked
Ruth Fielding. She could not control herself for the moment.
Against Tom Cameron's uniformed shoulder she sobbed frankly. His
arm