Ruth Fielding Down East | Page 7

do something to change the atmosphere of the Red Mill
farmhouse.
"Our morale has gone stale, girls," he declared to his sister and Ruth.
"Worrying never did any good yet."
"That's a true word, Sonny," said Aunt Alvirah, from her chair. "'Care
killed the cat.' my old mother always said, and she had ten children to
bring up and a drunken husband who was a trial. He warn't my father.
He was her second, an' she took him, I guess, 'cause he was ornamental.
He was a sign painter when he worked. But he mostly advertised King
Alcohol by painting his nose red.
"We children sartain sure despised that man. But mother was faithful to
her vows, and she made quite a decent member of the community of
that man before she left off. And, le's see! We was talkin' about cats,
warn't we?"
"You were, Aunty dear," said Ruth, laughing for the first time in
several days.
"Hurrah!" said Tom, plunging head-first into his idea. "That's just what
I wanted to hear."
"What?" demanded Helen.
"I have wanted to hear Ruth laugh. And we all need to laugh. Why, we
are becoming a trio of old fogies!"
"Speak for yourself, Master Tom," pouted his sister.
"I do. And for you. And certainly Ruth is about as cheerful as a funeral
mute. What we all need is some fun."
"Oh, Tom, I don't feel at all like 'funning,'" sighed Ruth.
"You be right, Sonny," interjected Aunt Alvirah, who sometimes forgot

that Tom, as well as the girls, was grown up. She rose from her chair
with her usual, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! You young folks
should be dancing and frolicking----"
"But the war, Auntie!" murmured Ruth.
"You'll neither make peace nor mar it by worriting. No, no, my pretty!
And 'tis a bad thing when young folks grow old before their time."
"You're always saying that, Aunt Alvirah," Ruth complained. "But how
can one be jolly if one does not feel jolly?"
"My goodness!" cried Tom, "you were notoriously the jolliest girl in
that French hospital. Didn't the poilus call you the jolly American? And
listen to Grandmother Grunt now!"
"I suppose it is so," sighed Ruth. "But I must have used up all my fund
of cheerfulness for those poor blessés. It does seem as though the font
of my jollity had quite dried up."
"I wish Heavy Stone were here," said Helen suddenly. "She'd make us
laugh."
"She and her French colonel are spooning down there at Lighthouse
Point," scoffed Ruth--and not at all as Ruth Fielding was wont to speak.
"Say!" Tom interjected, "I bet Heavy is funny even when she is in
love."
"That's a reputation!" murmured Ruth.
"They are not at Lighthouse Point. The Stones did not go there this
summer, I understand," Helen observed.
"I am sorry for Jennie and Colonel Marchand if they are at the Stones'
city house at this time of the year," the girl of the Red Mill said.
"Bully!" cried Tom, with sudden animation. "That's just what we will
do!"

"What will we do, crazy?" demanded his twin.
"We'll get Jennie Stone and Henri Marchand--he's a good sport, too, as
I very well know--and we'll all go for a motor trip. Jimminy Christmas!
that will be just the thing, Sis. We'll go all over New England, if you
like. We'll go Down East and introduce Colonel Marchand to some of
our hard-headed and tight-fisted Yankees that have done their share
towards injecting America into the war. We will----"
"Oh!" cried Ruth, breaking in with some small enthusiasm, "let's go to
Beach Plum Point."
"Where is that?" asked Helen.
"It is down in Maine. Beyond Portland. And Mr. Hammond and his
company are there making my 'Seaside Idyl.'"
"Oh, bully!" cried Helen, repeating one of her brother's favorite phrases,
and now quite as excited over the idea as he. "I do so love to act in
movies. Is there a part in that 'Idyl' story for me?"
"I cannot promise that," Ruth said. "It would be up to the director. I
wasn't taking much interest in this particular picture. I wrote the
scenario, you know, before I went to France. I have been giving all my
thought to----
"Oh, dear! If we could only find my lost story!"
"Come on!" interrupted Tom. "Let's not talk about that. Will you write
to Jennie Stone?"
"I will. At once," his sister declared.
"Do. I'll take it to the post office and send it special delivery. Tell her to
wire her answer, and let it be 'yes.' We'll take both cars. Father won't
mind."
"Oh, but!" cried Helen. "How about a chaperon?"

"Oh, shucks! I wish you'd marry some nice fellow, Sis, so that we'd
always have a chaperon on tap and handy."