Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures by Alice Emerson

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"I declare! I declare!" he murmured, over and over again. "It is better
than I thought. A variety of scene, already for the action to be put into
it! Splendid!"

"And I am sure," Ruth told him, "Uncle Jabez would not object to your
filming the old place. I could fix it for you. He is not so difficult when
once you know how to take him."

"I may ask your good offices in that matter," said Mr. Hammond. "But not
now. Of course, Grimes could work up something in short order to fit these
scenes here. He's excellent at that. But I think the subject is worthy of
better treatment. I'd like a really big story, treated artistically, and
one that would fit perfectly into the background of the Red Mill--nothing
slapdash and carelessly written, or invented on the spur of the moment by
a busy director----"

"Oh, Mr. Hammond!" cried Ruth, so excited now that she could no longer
keep silent. "I'd dearly love to write a moving picture scenario about the
old mill. And I've thought about it so much that I believe I could do
it."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Hammond, with one of his queer smiles. "Did you ever
write a scenario?"

"No, sir! but then, you know," said Ruth, naively, "one must always do a
thing for the first time."

"Quite true--quite true. So Eve said when she bit into the apple," and Mr.
Hammond chuckled.

"I would just _love_ to try it," the girl continued, taking her courage in
both hands. "I have a splendid plot--or, so I believe; and it is all about
the Red Mill. The pictures would _have_ to be taken here."

"Not in the winter, I fancy?" said Mr. Hammond.

"No, sir. When it is all green and leafy and beautiful," said Ruth,
eagerly.

"Then," said Mr. Hammond, more seriously, "I'd try my 'prentice hand, if I
were you, on something else. Don't write the Red Mill scenario now. Write
some thrilling but simple story, and let me read it first----"

"Oh, Mr. Hammond!" gasped Ruth, with clasped hands. "Will you really
_read_ it?"

"Of course I will," laughed the gentleman. "No matter how bad it is.
That's a promise. Here is my card with my private address upon it. You
send it directly to me, and the first time I am at home I will get it and
give it my best attention. That's a promise," he repeated.

"Oh, thank you, sir!" murmured Ruth delightedly, smiling and dimpling.

He pinched her cheek and his eyes grew serious for a moment. "I once knew
a girl much like you, Miss Ruth," he said. "Just as full of life and
enthusiasm. You are a tonic for old fogies like me."

"Old fogy!" repeated Ruth. "Why, I'm sure you are not old, Mr. Hammond."

"Never mind flattering me," he broke in, with assumed sternness. "Haven't
I already promised to read your scenario?"

"Yes, sir," said Ruth, demurely. "But you haven't promised to produce it."

"Quite so," and he laughed. "But _that_ only goes by worth. We will see
what a schoolgirl like you can do in writing a scenario. It will give you
practice so that you may be able to handle something really big about this
beautiful old place. You know, now that the most popular writers of the
day are turning their hands to movies, the amateur production has to be
pretty good to 'get by,' as the saying is."

"Oh! now you are trying to discourage me."

"No. Only warning you," Mr. Hammond said, with another laugh. "I'll send
you a little pamphlet on scenario preparation--it may help. And I hope to
read your first attempt before long."

"Thank you, sir," Ruth responded. "And if ever I write my Red Mill
scenario, I am going to write Miss Gray into it. She is just the one to
play the lead."

"And she is a good little actress I believe," said Mr. Hammond. "I knew
that Grimes had a girl that he wanted to push forward as the lead in this
company he has up here. I never like to interfere with my directors if I
can help it. But I will see that Miss Gray gets a square deal. She has had
good training in the legitimate drama, she is pretty, and she has pluck
and good breeding."

"That Mr. Grimes was horrid to her," repeated Ruth, casting a glance of
dislike at the man in the limousine.

"Oh, well, my dear, we cannot make people over in this world. That is
impossible. But I will take care that Hazel Gray gets a square deal.
_That's_ a promise, too, Ruth Fielding," and the gentleman laughed again.

CHAPTER VI

WHAT IS AHEAD?

While Ruth and Mr. Hammond had been walking about, the Camerons had come.
Tom's automobile was parked just beyond the moving picture magnate's
handsome limousine; and Tom had given more than one covetous glance at the
big car before going into the house.

When Ruth returned and entered the big and friendly kitchen after ushering
Mr. Hammond Into the sitting room again, she found the twins eagerly
listening to and talking to Miss Hazel Gray, who was leisurely eating a
late breakfast at the long table.

"Good morning, Ruth Fielding!" cried the guest, drawing her down to kiss
her cheek. "You are a _dear_. I've been telling your friends so. I fancy
one of them at least thoroughly agrees with me," and she cast a roguish
glance at Tom.

Tom blushed and Helen giggled. Ruth turned kind eyes away from Tom Cameron
and smiled upon Helen. "Yes," she said, demurely, "I am sure that Helen
has been singing my praises. The girls are beginning to call her 'Mr.
Boswell' at school. But I have heard complimentary words of you this
morning, Miss Gray."

"Oh!" cried the young actress. "From Mr. Hammond?"

"Yes."

"He is a lovely man," declared Hazel Gray, enthusiastically. "I have
always said so. If he would only make Grimes give me a square deal----"

"Those are the very words he used," interrupted Ruth, while Tom recovered
from his confusion and Helen from her enjoyment of her twin's
embarrassment. "He says you shall have a square deal."

While the young actress ate--and Aunt Alvirah heaped her plate, "killing
me with kindness!" Hazel Gray declared--the young folk chattered. Ruth saw
that Tom could scarcely keep his eyes off Miss Gray, and it puzzled the
girl of the Red Mill.

Afterward, when Miss Gray had gone out with Mr. Hammond, and Tom was out
of sight, Helen began to laugh. "Aren't boys funny?" she said to Ruth.
"Tom is terribly smitten with that lovely Hazel Gray."

"Smitten?" murmured Ruth.

"Of course. Don't say you didn't notice it. He hasn't had a 'crush' on any
girl before that I know of. But it's a sure-enough case of 'measles'
_this_ time. Busy Izzy tells me that most of the fellows in their class
at Seven Oaks have a 'crush' on some moving picture girl; and now Tom, I
suppose, will be cutting out of the papers every picture of Hazel Gray
that he sees, and sticking them up about his room. And she has promised to
send him a real cabinet photograph of herself in character in the
bargain," and Helen laughed again.

But Ruth could not be amused about this. She was disturbed.

"I didn't think Tom would be so silly," she finally said.

"Pooh! it's nothing. Bobbins and Tom are getting old enough to cast
sheep's eyes at the girls. Heretofore, Tommy has been crazy about the
slapstick comedians of the movies; but I rather admire his taste if he
likes this Hazel Gray. I really think she's lovely."

"So she is," Ruth said quite placidly. "But she is so much older than your
brother----"

"Pooh! only two or three years. But, of course, Ruth, it's nothing
serious," said the more worldly-wise Helen. "And boys usually are smitten
with girls some years older than themselves--at first."

"Dear me!" gasped Ruth. "How much you seem to know about such things,
Helen. _How did you find out?_"

At that Helen burst into laughter again. "You dear little innocent!" she
exclaimed. "You're so blind--blind as a bat! You never see the boys at
all. You look on Tom to-day just as though he were the same Tom that you
helped find the time he fell off his bicycle and was hurt by the roadside.
You remember? Ages and ages ago!"

But did Ruth look upon Tom Cameron in just that way? She said nothing in
reply to Tom's sister.

They came out of the house together and joined Mr. Hammond and Miss Gray
just as they were about to step into the limousine. Aunt Alvirah waved her
hand from the window.

"She's just lovely!" declared Miss Gray. "You should have met her, Mr.
Hammond."

"That pleasure is in reserve," said the gentleman, smiling. "I hope to see
the Red Mill again."

Tom came hurrying down to shake hands with Miss Gray. Ruth watched them
with some puzzlement of mind. Tom was undoubtedly embarrassed; but the
moving picture girl was too used to making an impression upon susceptible
minds to be much disturbed by Tom Cameron's worship.

Mr. Hammond looked out of the door of the limousine before he closed it.

"Remember, Ruth Fielding, I shall be on the lookout for what you promised
me."

"Oh, yes, sir!" Ruth cried, all in a flutter, for the moment having
forgotten the scenario she proposed to write.

"That's a promise!" he said again gaily, and closed the door. The big car
rolled away and left the three friends at the gateway.

"_What's_ a promise, Ruth Fielding?" demanded her chum, with immense
curiosity.

Ruth blushed and showed some confusion. "It's--it's a secret," she
stammered.

"A secret from _me_?" cried Helen, in amazement.

"I--I couldn't tell even you, dearie, just now," Ruth said, with sudden
seriousness. "But you shall know about it before anybody else."

"That Mr. Hammond is in it."

"Yes," admitted her chum. "That is just it. I don't feel that I can speak
to anybody about it yet."

"Oh! then it's _his_ secret?"

"Partly," Ruth said, her eyes dancing, for there and then, right at that
very moment, she fell upon the subject for the first scenario she intended
to submit to Mr. Hammond. It was "Curiosity"--a new version of Pandora's
Box.

Helen was such a sweet-tempered girl that her chum's little mystery did
not cause her more than momentary vexation.

Besides, their vacation time was now very short. Many things had to be
discussed about the coming semester. At its end, in June, Ruth and Helen
hoped to graduate from Briarwood Hall.

The thought of graduating from the school they loved so much was one of
mingled pleasure and pain. Old Briarwood! where they had had so much
fun--so many girlish sorrows--friends, enemies, struggles, triumphs,
failures and successes! Neither chum could contemplate graduation lightly.

"If we go to college together, it will never seem like Briarwood Hall,"
Helen sighed. "College will be so _big_. We shall be lost among so many
girls--some of them grown women!"

"Goodness!" laughed Ruth, suddenly, "we'll be almost 'grown women'
ourselves before we get through college."

"Oh, don't!" exclaimed Helen. "I don't want to think of _that_."

What was ahead of the chums did trouble them. Their future school life was
a mystery. There was no prophet to tell them of the exciting and really
wonderful things that were to happen to them at Briarwood during the
coming term.

CHAPTER VII

"SWEETBRIARS ALL"

"Oh, dear me!" complained Nettie Parsons, "I never can do it."

"'In the bright Lexicon of Youth, there is no such word as "fail,"'"
quoted Mercy Curtis, grandiloquently.

"That must be a pretty poor reference book to have in one's library,
then," said Helen, making fun of the old saying which the lame girl had
repeated. "How do we know--perhaps there are other important words left
out--_A bas le_ Lexicon of Youth!"

"Perseverence is the winning game, Nettie," Ruth said to the Southern
girl, cheerfully. "Stick to it."

"And if _then_ you can't make the sum come right, come to Aunt Ruthie and
_ask_. That's what _I_ do," confessed Ann Hicks, the ranch girl.

"Perseverence wins," quoth Helen.

"Oh, it does, does it?" cried Jennie Stone, called by the girls "Heavy,"
in a smothered tone, for her mouth was full of caramels. "Let me tell you
that old 'saw' is a joke. My little kid cousin proved that the other day.
She came to grandfather--who is just as full of maxims and bits of wisdom
as Helen seems to be to-day, and the kid said:

"'Grandpa, that's a joke about "If at first you don't succeed," isn't it?'

"And her grandfather answered, 'Certainly not. "Try, try again." That's
right.'

"'Huh!' said the kid, who is one of these Cynthia-of-the-minute'
youngsters, 'you're wrong, Grandpa. I've been working for an hour blowing
soapbubbles and trying to pin them on a clothes line in the nursery to
dry!' Perseverence didn't cut much of a figure in her case, did it?"
finished Heavy, with a chuckle.

The crowd of girls was in the big "quartette" room in the West Dormitory
of Briarwood Hall. The school had reopened only a week before, but all the
friends were hard at work. All but Ann Hicks and Nettie Parsons hoped to
graduate the coming June.

In the group, besides Ruth and Helen, were their room-mates, Mercy Curtis
and Ann Hicks; Jennie Stone; Mary Cox, the red-haired girl usually called
"The Fox;" and Nettie Parsons, "the sugar king's daughter," as she was
known to the school. She was the one really rich girl at Briarwood--and
one of the simplest in both manner and dress.

Nettie was backward in her studies, as was Ann Hicks. Nettie was a
lovable, sweet-tempered girl, who had several reasons for being very fond
of Ruth Fielding. Indeed, if the truth were told, not a girl in the
quartette that afternoon but had some particular reason for loving Ruth.

Ruth's life at the school had been a very active one; yet she had never
thrust herself forward. Although she had been the originator of the most
popular--now the only sorority in the school, the Sweetbriars, she had
refused to be its president for more than one term. All the older girls
were "Sweetbriars" now.

Mercy Curtis, who had a sweet voice, now commenced to sing the marching
song of the school, which had been adopted by the Sweetbriars and made
over into a special sorority song. Sitting on her bed, with her arms
clasped around her knees, the lame girl weaved back and forth as she sang:

"'At Briarwood Hall we have many a lark--
But one wide river to cross!
The River of Knowledge--its current dark--
Is the one wide river to cross!
Sweetbriars all-l!
One wide River of Knowledge!
Sweetbriars all-l!
One wide river to cross!

"'Sweetbriars come here, one by one--
But one wide river to cross!
There's lots of work, but plenty of fun,
With one wide river to cross!'"

"Altogether!" cried Heavy. "All join in!"

"The dear old chant!" said Helen, with a happy sigh.

Ruth had already taken up the chorus again, and her rich, full-throated
tones filled the room:

"'Sweetbriars all-l!
One wide River of Knowledge!
Sweetbriars all-l!
One wide river to cross!'"

"Once more!" exclaimed the girl from Montana, who could not herself sing a
note in harmony, but liked to hear the others. The chant continued:

"'Sweetbriars joining, two by two--
There's one wide river to cross!
Some so scared they daren't say 'Booh!'
To the one wide river to cross!"

"That was _us_, Ruthie!" broke off Helen, laughing. "Remember how scared
we were when we walked up the old Cedar Walk with The Fox, here, and
didn't know whether we were going to be met with a brass band or a ticket
to the guillotine?"

The Fox, otherwise Mary Cox, suddenly turned red. Ruth hastened to smooth
over her chum's rather tactless speech, for Mary had been a different girl
at that time from what she was now, and the memory of the hazing she had
visited on Ruth and Helen annoyed her.

"And what did meet us?" cried Ruth, dramatically. "Why, a poor, emaciated
creature standing at the steps of this old West Dormitory, complaining
that she would starve before supper if the bell did not sound soon. You
remember, Heavy?"

"And I feel that way now," said Jennie Stone in a hollow tone. "I don't
know what makes me so, but I am continually hungry at least three times a
day--and at regular intervals. I must see a physician about it."

"Aren't you afraid of the effect of eating so much, Jennie?" asked Helen,
gently.

"What's that? Is there a new disease?" asked the fleshy girl, trying to
express fear--which she never could do successfully in any such case.
Jennie had probably never been ill in her life save as the immediate
result of over-indulgence in eating.

"No, my dear," said Ruth Fielding's chum. "But they do tell me that eating
_too_ much may make one _fat_."

"Horrors!" ejaculated Jennie. "I can't believe you. Then that is what is
the matter with me! I thought I looked funny in the mirror. I must be
getting a wee bit plump."

"Plump!"

"Hear her!"

"She's the girl who went up in the balloon and came down 'plump!'"

The shouts that greeted Heavy's seriously put remark did not disturb the
fleshy girl at all. "That is exactly the trouble," she went on, quite
placidly. "And it cost me half a dollar yesterday."

"What's that?" asked somebody, curiously.

"Where?" asked another girl.

"In chapel. Didn't you see me trying to crawl through between the two rows
of seats? And I got stuck!"

"Did you have to pay Foyle the fifty cents to pry you out, Heavy?"
demanded Ann Hicks.

"No. I dropped the half dollar and tried to find it. I looked for it;
that's all I _could_ do. I was too fat to find it."

"Did you look good, Jennie?" asked Ruth, sympathetically.

"Did I look good?" repeated the fleshy girl, with scorn. "I looked as good
as a fat girl crawling around on all fours, ever _does_ look. What do you
think?"

The laugh at Jennie Stone's sally really cleared the room, for the warning
bell for supper sounded almost immediately. Heavy and Nettie, and all who
did not belong in the quartette room, departed. Then Mercy went tap, tap,
tapping down the corridor with her canes--"just like a silly woodpecker!"
as she often said herself; and Ann strode away, trying to hum the marching
song, but ignominiously falling into the doleful strains of the "Cowboy's
Lament" before she reached the head of the stairway.

"I really would like to know what that thing is you've been writing,
Ruth," remarked Helen, when they were alone. "All those sheets of
paper--Goodness! it's no composition. I believe you've been writing your
valedictory this early."

"Don't be silly," laughed Ruth. "I shall never write the valedictory of
this class. Mercy will do that."

"I don't care! Mrs. Tellingham considers you the captain of the graduating
class. So now!" cried loyal Helen.

"That may be; but Mercy is our brilliant girl--you know that."

"Yes--the poor dear! but how could she ever stand up before them all and
give an oration?"

"She _shall_!" cried Ruth, with emphasis. "She shall _not_ be cheated out
of all the glory she wins--or of an atom of that glory. If she is our
first scholar, she must, somehow, have all the honors that go with the
position."

"Oh, Ruthie! how can you overcome her natural dislike of 'making an
exhibition of herself,' as she calls it, and the fact that, really, a girl
as lame as she is, poor creature, could never make a pleasant appearance
upon the platform?"

"I do not know," Ruth said seriously. "Not now. But I shall think it out,
if nobody else _can_. Mercy shall graduate with flying colors from
Briarwood Hall, whether I do myself, or not!"

"Never mind," said Helen, laughing at her chum's emphasis. "At least the
valedictorian will hail from this dear old quartette room."

"Yes," agreed Ruth, looking around the loved chamber with a tender smile.
"What will we do when we see it no longer, Helen?"

"Oh, don't talk about it!" cried Helen, who had forgotten by this time
what she had started to question Ruth about. "Come on! We'll be late for
supper."

When her chum's back was turned, Ruth slipped out of her table drawer the
very packet of papers Helen had spoken about. The sheets had been
typewritten and were now sealed in a manila envelope, which was addressed
and stamped.

She hesitated all day about dropping the packet in the mailbag; but now
she took her courage in both hands and determined to send it to its
destination.

CHAPTER VIII

A NEW STAR

Ruth had actually been trying her "prentice hand," as Mr. Hammond had
called it, at the production of a moving picture scenario. It was the
first literary work she had ever achieved, although her taste in that
direction had been noted by Mrs. Tellingham and the under-instructors of
the school.

Oh! she would not have had any of them know what she had done in secret
since arriving at the Hall at the beginning of this term. She would not
let even Helen know about it.

"If it is a success--if Mr. Hammond produces it--_then_ I'll tell them,"
Ruth said to herself. "But if he tells me it is no good, then nobody shall
ever know that I was so foolish as to attempt such a thing."

Even after she had it all ready she hesitated some hours as to whether or
not she should send it to the address Mr. Hammond had given her. The
pamphlet he had promised to send her had not arrived, and Ruth had little
idea as to how a scenario should be prepared She had written much more
explanatory matter than was necessary; but she had achieved one thing at
least--she had been direct in the composition of her scenario and she had
the faculty of saying just what she meant, and that briefly. This concise
style was of immense value to her, as Ruth was later to learn.

Ruth managed to slip the big envelope addressed to Mr. Hammond into the
mailbag in the hall without spurring Helen's curiosity again. She had to
chuckle to herself over it, for it really was a good joke on her chum.

Unconsciously, Helen had given her the idea for this little allegorical
comedy which she had written. And how her friend would laugh if the
picture of "Curiosity" should be produced and they should see it on the
screen.

The girls crowded into the big dining room in an orderly manner, but with
some suppressed whispering and laughter on the part of the more giggling
kind. There were always some of the girls so full of spirits that they
could not be entirely repressed.

The long tables quickly filled up. There were few beginners at this time
of year, for most of the new scholars came to Briarwood Hall at the
commencement of the autumn semester.

There was one new girl at the table where Ruth and her particular friends
sat, over which Miss Picolet the little teacher of French, had nominal
charge. Nowadays, Miss Picolet's life was an easy one. She had little
trouble with even the more boisterous girls of the West Dormitory, thanks
to the Sweetbriars.

The new pupil beside the French teacher was Amy Gregg. She was a
colorless, flaxen-haired girl, with such light eyebrows and lashes that
Helen said her face looked like a blank wall.

She was a nervous girl, too; she pouted a good deal and seemed
dissatisfied. Of course, being a stranger, she was lonely as yet; but
under the rules of the Sweetbriars she was not hazed. The S.B.'s word had
become law in all such matters at Briarwood Hall.

After they were seated, Heavy Stone whispered to Ruth: "Isn't that Gregg
girl the most discontented looking thing you ever saw? Her face would sour
cream right now! I hope she doesn't overlook my supper and give me
indigestion."

"Behave!" was Ruth's only comment.

There was supposed to be silence until all were served and the teachers
began eating. The waitresses bustled about, light-footed and demure. Mrs.
Tellingham, who was present on this evening, overlooked all from the small
guest table, as it was called, placed at the head of the room on a
slightly raised platform.

Mrs. Tellingham, Ruth thought, was the loveliest lady in the world. The
girl of the Red Mill had never lost the first impression the preceptress
had made upon her childish mind and heart when she had come to Briarwood
Hall.

At last--just in time to save Heavy's life, it would seem--Miss Picolet
lifted her fork and the girls began to eat. A pleasant interchange of
conversation broke out:

"Did you hear what that funny little Pease girl said to Miss Brokaw in
physiology class yesterday?" asked Lluella Fairfax, who was across the
table from Ruth.

"No. What has the child said now? She's a queer little thing," Helen said,
before her chum could answer.

"She's rather dense, don't you know," put in Lluella's chum, Belle
Tingley.

"I'm not so sure of _that_," laughed Lluella. "Miss Brokaw became
impatient with little Pease and said:

"'It seems you are never able to answer a question, Mary; why is it?'

"'If I knew all the things you ask me, Miss Brokaw,' said Pease, 'my
mother wouldn't take the trouble to send me here.'"

"I'm sure _that_ doesn't prove the poor little kiddie a dunce," laughed
Ruth.

"Say! we have a dense one at this very table," hissed Heavy, a hand beside
her mouth so that the sound of her whisper would not travel to the head
of the table where Miss Picolet and the sullen looking new girl sat.

"What do you mean?" asked Belle, curiously.

"_Whom_ do you mean?" added Helen.

"That infant yonder," hissed the fleshy girl.

"What about her?" Ruth asked. "I'm rather sorry for that little Gregg. She
doesn't look happy."

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