Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures by Alice Emerson

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"Say!" chuckled Heavy. "She tried for an hour yesterday to coax
electricity into the bulb over her table, and then went to Miss Scrimp and
asked for a candle. She got the candle, and burned it until one of the
other girls looked in (you know she's not 'chummed' with anybody yet) and
showed her where the push-button was in the wall. And at that," finished
Heavy, grinning broadly, "I'm not sure that she understood how the 'juice'
was turned on. She must have come from the backwoods."

"Hush!" begged Ruth. "Don't let her think we're laughing at her."

"Miss Scrimp's very strict about candles and oil lamps," said Nettie. "We
use them a lot in the South."

"That old house of yours in 'So'th Ca'lina' must be a funny old place,
Nettie," said Heavy.

"It isn't ours," Nettie said. "The cotton plantation belongs to Aunt
Rachel. She was born on it--the Merredith Place. We usually go there for
the early summer, and then either come No'th, or into the mountains of
Virginia until cool weather. My own dear old Louisiana home isn't
considered healthy for us during the extreme hot weather. It is too damp
and marshy."

"'Way down Souf in de land ob cotton--
Cinnamon seed an' sandy bottom!'"

hummed Heavy. "Oh! I wish I was in Dixie--right now."

"Wait till my Aunt Rachel comes up here," Nettie promised. "I'm going to
beg an invitation for you girls to visit Merredith."

"But it will be hot weather, then," said Heavy; "and I don't want to miss
Light-house Point."

"And I'm just about crazy to get back to Silver Ranch," said Ann Hicks.

"Me for Cliff Island," cried Belle Tingley. "No land of cotton for mine,
this summer."

"When is your aunt coming, Nettie?" asked Ruth.

"To see you graduate, my dear," replied the Southern girl, smiling. "And
wait till she meets you, Ruthie Fielding! She'll near about love you to
death!"

"Oh, everybody loves Ruth. Why shouldn't they?" cried Belle.

"But everybody doesn't give her a fortune, as Nettie's Aunt Rachel did,"
laughed Heavy.

Ruth wished they would not talk so much about that money; but, of course,
she could not stop them. She made no rejoinder, but looked across the room
and out at the upper pane of one of the long windows. It was deep dusk now
without. The evening was clear, with a rising wind moaning through the
trees on the campus.

Tony Foyle, the old gardener and general handy man, was only now lighting
the lamps along the walks.

"There's a funny red star," Ruth said to Helen. "It can't be that Mars is
rising _there_."

"Where?" queried her chum, lazily, scarcely raising her eyes to look.
Helen was not interested in astronomy.

Nobody else was attracted by the red spark Ruth saw. Against the dusky sky
it grew swiftly A new star----

"It is fire!" gasped Ruth, softly, rising on trembling limbs. "_And it is
in the West Dormitory_!"

CHAPTER IX

THE DEVOURING ELEMENT

Not even Helen heard Ruth's whispered words. She went on calmly with her
supper when her chum arose from her seat.

Ruth quickly controlled herself. The word "fire" would start a panic on
the instant, although both dormitories were across the campus from the
main hall.

The girl of the Red Mill erased from her countenance all expression of the
fear which gripped her; but about her heart she felt a pressure like that
of a tight band. Her knees actually knocked together; she was thankful
they were invisible just then.

When she started up the room toward Mrs. Tellingham's table Ruth walked
steadily enough. Some of the girls looked after her in surprise; but it
was not an uncommon thing for a girl to leave her seat and approach the
preceptress.

Mrs. Tellingham looked up with a smile when she saw Ruth coming. She
always had a smile for the girl of the Red Mill.

The preceptress, however, was a sharp reader of faces. Her own expression
of countenance did not change, for other girls were looking; but she saw
that something serious had occurred.

"What is it, Ruth?" she asked, the instant her low whisper could reach
Ruth's ear.

The girl, looking straight at her, made the letters "F-I-R-E" with her
lips. But she uttered no sound. Mrs. Tellingham understood, however, and
demanded:

"Where?"

"West Dormitory, Mrs. Tellingham," said Ruth, coming closer.

"Are you positive?"

"I can see it from my seat. On the second floor. In one of the duo rooms
at this side."

Ruth spoke these sentences in staccato; but her voice was low and she
preserved an air of calmness.

"Good girl!" murmured Mrs. Tellingham. "Go out quietly and then run and
tell Tony. Do you know where he is?"

"Lighting the lamps," whispered Ruth.

"Good. Tell him to go right up there and see what can be done. Warn Miss
Scrimp. I will telephone to town, and Miss Brokaw will take charge and
march the pupils to the big hall to call the roll. I hope nobody is in the
dormitories."

Mrs. Tellingham had pushed back her chair and dropped her napkin; but her
movements, though swift, were not alarming. She passed out by a rear door
which led to the kitchens, while Ruth walked composedly down the room to
the main exit.

"Hey! what's the matter, Ruthie?" called Heavy, in a low tone. "Whose old
cat's in the well?"

Ruth appeared not to hear her. Miss Brokaw, a very capable woman, came
into the dining hall as Ruth passed out. Miss Brokaw stepped to the
monitor's desk at one side and tapped on the bell.

"Oh, mercy!" gasped Heavy, the incorrigible. "She's shut us off again. And
I haven't had half enough to eat."

"Rise!" said Miss Brokaw, after a moment of waiting. "Immediately, girls.
Miss Stone, you will come, too."

A murmur of laughter rose at Jennie Stone's evident intention to linger;
but Heavy always took admonition in good part, and she arose smiling.

"Monitors to their places," commanded Miss Brokaw. "You will march to the
big hall. It is Mrs. Tellingham's request. She will have something of
importance to say to you."

The big hall was on the other side of the building, and from its windows
nothing could be seen of either dormitory.

Meanwhile, Ruth, once alone in the hall, had bounded to the chief
entrance of the building and opened one leaf of the heavy door. It was a
crisp night and the frost bit keenly. The wind fluttered her skirt about
her legs.

She stopped for no outer apparel, however, but dashed out upon the stone
portico, drawing the door shut behind her. That act alone saved the school
from panic; for it she had left the door ajar, when the girls filed out
into the entrance hall from the dining room some of them would have been
sure to see the growing red glow on the second floor of the West
Dormitory.

To Ruth the fire seemed to be filling the room in which it had apparently
started. There was no smoke as yet; but the flames leaped higher and
higher, while the illumination grew frightfully.

A spark of light coming into being at the far end of the campus near the
East Dormitory, showed Ruth where Tony Foyle then was. He was not likely
to see the fire as yet, for in lighting the campus lamps he followed a
route that kept his back to the West Dormitory until he turned to come
back.

Like an arrow from the bow the young girl ran toward the distant gardener.
She took the steps of the little Italian garden in the center of the
campus in two flying leaps, passed the marble maiden at the fountain, and
bounded up to the level of the campus path again without stopping.

"Tony! Oh, Tony!" she called breathlessly.

"Shure now, phat's the matter widyer?" returned the old Irishman,
querulously. "Phy! 'tis Miss Ruth, so ut is. Phativer do be the trouble,
me darlin'?"

He was very fond of Ruth and would have done anything in his power for
her. So at once Tony was exercised by her appearance.

"Phativer is the matter?" he repeated.

"Fire!" blurted out Ruth, able at last to speak. The keen night air had
seemed for the moment fairly to congest her lungs and render her
speechless and breathless.

"That's _that_?" cried Tony. "'Fire,' says you? An' where is there fire
save in the furnaces and the big range in the kitchen----"

He had turned, and the red glare from the room on the second floor of the
West Dormitory came into his view.

"There it is!" gasped Ruth, and just then the tinkle of breaking glass
betrayed the fact that the heat of the flames was bursting the panes of
the window.

"Fur the love of----Begorra! I'll git the hose-cart, an' rouse herself an'
the gals in the kitchen----"

Poor Tony, so wildly excited that he dropped the little "dhudeen" he was
smoking and did not notice that he stepped on it, galloped away on
rheumatic legs. At this hour there was no man on the premises but the
little old Irishman, who cared for the furnaces until the fireman and
engineer came on duty at seven in the morning.

Ruth was quite sure that neither Tony nor "herself" (by this name he meant
Mrs. Foyle, the cook) or any of the kitchen girls, could do a thing
towards extinguishing the fire. But she remembered that Miss Scrimp, the
matron, must be in the threatened building, and the girl dashed across the
intervening space and in at the door.

There was not a sound from upstairs--no crackling of flames. Ruth would
never have believed the dormitory was afire had she not seen the fire
outside.

The girl ran down the corridor to Miss Scrimp's room, and burst in the
door like a young hurricane. The matron was at tea, and she leaped up in
utter amazement when she saw Ruth.

"For the good land's sake, Ruthie Fielding!" she ejaculated. "Whatever is
the matter with you?"

"Fire!" cried Ruth. "One of the rooms on the next floor--front--is all
afire! I saw it from the dining hall! Mrs. Tellingham has telephoned for
the department at Lumberton----"

With a shriek of alarm, Miss Scrimp picked up the little old "brown Betty"
teapot off the hearth of her small stove, and started out of the room
with it--whether with the expectation of putting out the fire with the
contents of the pot, or not, Ruth never learned.

But when the lady was half way up the first flight of stairs the flames
suddenly burst through the doorframe, and Miss Scrimp stopped.

"That candle!" she shrieked. "I knew I had no business to give that girl
that candle."

"Who?" asked Ruth.

"That infant--Amy Gregg her name is. I'll tell Mrs. Tellingham----"

"But please don't tell anybody else, Miss Scrimp," begged Ruth. "It will
be awful for Amy if it becomes generally known that she is at fault."

"Well, now," said the matron more calmly, coming down the stairs again.
"You are right, Ruthie--you thoughtful child. We can't do a thing up
there," she added, as she reached the lower floor again. "All we can do is
to take such things out as we can off this floor," and she promptly
marched out with the little tea-pot and deposited it carefully on the
grassplot right where somebody would be sure to step on it when the
firemen arrived.

Miss Scrimp prided herself upon having great presence of mind in an
emergency like this. A little later Ruth saw the good woman open her
window and toss out her best mirror upon the cement walk.

Miss Picolet came flying toward the burning building, chattering about her
treasures she had brought from France. "Le Bon Dieu will not let to burn
up my mothair's picture--my harp--my confirmation veil--all, all I have of
my youth left!" chattered the excited little Frenchwoman, and because of
her distress and her weakness, Ruth helped remove the harp and likewise
the featherbed on which the French teacher always slept and which had come
with her from France years before.

By the time these treasures were out of the house a crowd came running
from the main building--Mrs. Foyle, some of the kitchen girls and
waitresses, Tony dragging the hose cart, and last of all Dr. Tellingham
himself.

The good old doctor was the most absent minded man in the world, and the
least useful in a practical way in any emergency. He never had anything of
importance to do with the government of the school; but he sometimes gave
the girls wonderfully interesting lectures on historical subjects. He
wrote histories that were seldom printed save in private editions; but
most of the girls thought the odd old gentleman a really wonderful
scholar.

He was in dishabille just now. He had run out in his dressing-gown and
carpet slippers, and without his wig. That wig was always awry when he
was at work, and it was a different color from his little remaining hair,
anyway. But without the toupe at all he certainly looked naked.

"Go back, that's a dear man!" gasped Mrs. Foyle, turning the doctor about
and heading him in the right direction. "Shure, ye air not dacently
dressed. Go back, Oi say. Phat will the young ladies be thinkin' of yez?
Ye kin do no good here, dear Dochter."

This was quite true. He could do no good. And, as it turned out later, the
unfortunate, forgetful, short-sighted old gentleman had already done a
great deal of harm.

CHAPTER X

GAUNT RUINS

Ruth Fielding felt a strong desire to return to the threatened building,
and to make her way upstairs to that old quartette room she and her chums
had occupied for so long. There were so many things she desired to save.

Not alone were there treasures of her own, but Ruth knew of articles
belonging to her chums that they prized highly. It seemed actually wicked
to stand idle while the hot flames spread, creating a havoc that nobody
could stay.

Why! if the firemen did not soon appear, the whole West Dormitory would be
destroyed.

The burst of smoke and flame into the corridor at the top of the front
flight of stairs shut off any attempt to reach the upper stories from this
direction. And although the back door of the building was locked, Ruth
knew she could run down the hall, past Miss Scrimp's already gutted room,
and up the rear stairway.

But when she started into the building again, Miss Scrimp screamed to
her:

"Come out of that, you reckless girl! Don't dare go back for anything more
of mine or Miss Picolet's. If we lose them, we lose them; that's all."

"But I might get some things of my own--and some belonging to the other
girls."

"Don't _dare_ go into the building again," commanded Miss Scrimp. "If you
do, Ruthie Fielding, I'll report you to Mrs. Tellingham."

"Shure, she won't go in and risk her swate life," said Mrs. Foyle. "Come
back, now, darlin'. 'Tis a happy chance that none o' the young leddies bes
up there in thim burnin' rooms, so ut is."

"Oh, dear me! oh, dear me!" gasped Miss Picolet. "I presume it is
_posi-tive_ that there is nobody up there? Were all the mesdemoiselles at
supper this evening?"

"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Tellingham's own voice. "Miss Brokaw has called the
roll and there is none missing but our Ruthie. And now _you_ would better
run back, my dear," she added to Ruth. "You have no wrap or hat. I fear
you will take cold."

"I never noticed it," confessed Ruth. "I guess the excitement kept me
warm. But oh! how awful It is to see the old dormitory burn--and all our
things in it."

"We cannot help it," sighed the principal. "Go up to the hall with the
other girls, my dear. Here come the firemen. You may be hurt here."

The galloping of horses, blowing of horns, and shouting of excited men,
now became audible. The glare of the fire could probably be seen by this
time clear to Lumberton, and half the population of the suburbs on this
side of the town would soon be on the scene.

Not until the firemen actually arrived did the girls in the big hall know
what had happened. There had been singing and music and a funny recitation
by one girl, to while away the time until Mrs. Tellingham appeared. Just
as Ruth came in, her chum had her violin under her chin and was drawing
sweet sounds from the strings, holding the other girls breathless.

But the violin music broke off suddenly and several girls uttered startled
cries as the first of the fire trucks thundered past the windows.

"Oh!" shrieked somebody, "there is a fire!"

"Quite true, young ladies!" exclaimed Miss Brokaw, tartly. "And it is not
the first fire since the world began. Ruth has just come from it. She will
tell you what it is all about."

"Oh, Ruth!" cried Helen. "Is it the dormitory?"

"Give her time to speak," commanded the teacher.

"Which dormitory?" cried Heavy Stone.

"Now, be quiet--do," begged Ruth, stepping upon the platform, and
controlling herself admirably. "Don't scream. None of us can do a thing.
The firemen will do all that can be done"

"They'll about save the cellar. They always do," groaned the irrepressible
Heavy.

"It is our own old West Dormitory," said Ruth, her voice shaking. "Nothing
can be taken from the rooms upstairs. Only some of Miss Scrimp's and Miss
Picolet's things were saved."

"Oh, dear me!" cried Helen. "We're orphans then. I'm glad I had my violin
over here!"

"Is everything going to be really burned up?" demanded Heavy. "You don't
mean _that_, Ruth Fielding?"

"I hope not. But the fire has made great head-way."

"Oh! oh! oh!" were the murmured exclamations.

"Won't our dormitory burn, too?" demanded one of the East Dormitory girls.

But there was no danger of that. The wisdom of erecting the two
dormitories so far apart, and so far separated from the other buildings,
was now apparent. Despite the high wind that prevailed upon this evening,
there was no danger of any other building around the campus being ignited.

Miss Brokaw had some difficulty in restoring order. Several of the girls
were in tears; their most valued possessions were even then, as Heavy
said, "going up in smoke."

Very soon practical arrangements for the night were under way. Unable to
do anything to help save the burning structure, Mrs. Tellingham had
returned to the main building, and the maids from the kitchen were soon
bringing in cots and spare mattresses and arranging them about the big
hall for the use of the girls.

The East Dormitory girls were asked to sit forward. ("The goats were
divided from the sheep," Helen said.) Then the houseless girls were
allowed to "pitch camp," as it were.

"It _is_ just like camping out," cried Belle Tingley.

"Only there's no scratchy and smelly balsam for beds, and our clothes
won't get all stuck up with chewing gum," said Lluella Fairfax.

"Chewing gum! Hear the girl," scoffed Ann Hicks. "You mean spruce gum."

"Isn't that about the same?" demanded Lluella, with some spirit. "You chew
it, don't you?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't chew spruce gum unless it was first properly
prepared. I tried it once," replied Ann, "and got my jaws so gummed up
that I might as well have had the lockjaw."

"It is according to what season you get the gum," explained Helen. "Now,
see here, girls: We ought to have a name for this camp."

"Oh, oh!"

"Quite so!"

"'Why not?" were some of the responses to this suggestion.

"Let's call it 'Sweet Dreams,'" said one girl. "That's an awfully pretty
name for a camp, I think. We called ours that, last summer on the banks of
the Vingie River."

"Ya-as," drawled Heavy. "Over across from the soap factory. I know the
place. 'Sweet Dreams,' indeed! Ought to have called it 'Sweet Smells,'"

"I think 'Camp Loquacity' will fit _this_ camp better," Ruth said bluntly.
"We all talk at once. Goodness! how does _one_ person ever get a sheet
smooth on a bed?"

Helen came to help her, and just then Mrs. Tellingham herself appeared in
the hall.

"I am glad to announce, girls," she said, with some cheerfulness, "that
the fire is under control."

"Oh, goody!" cried Heavy. "Can we go over there to sleep to-night?"

"No. Nor for many other nights, if at all," the preceptress said firmly.
"The West Dormitory is badly damaged. Of course, no girl need expect to
find much that belongs to her intact. I am sorry. What I can replace, I
will. We must be cheerful and thankful that no life was lost."

"What did I tell you?" muttered the fleshy girl. "Those firemen from
Lumberton always save the cellar."

"Now," said Mrs. Tellingham, "the girls belonging in the East Dormitory
will form and march to their rooms. It is late enough. We must all get
quiet for the night. The ruins will wait until morning to be looked at, so
I must request you to go directly to bed."

Somebody started singing--and of course it was their favorite, "One Wide
River," that they sang, beginning with the very first verse. The words of
the last stanza floated back to the West Dormitory girls as the others
marched across the campus:

"'Sweetbriars enter, ten by ten----
That River of Knowledge to cross!
They never know what happens then,
With one wide river to cross!
One wide river!
One wide River of Knowledge!
One wide river!
One wide river to cross.'"

"But just the same it's no singing matter for us," grumbled Belle. "Turned
out of our beds to sleep this way! And all we've lost!" She began to weep.
It was difficult for even Heavy to coax up a smile or to bring forth a new
joke.

Ruth and her chums secured a corner of the great room, and they insisted
that Mercy Curtis have the single cot that had been secured.

"I don't mind it much," Ann Hicks declared. "I've camped out so many times
on the plains without half the comforts of this camp. Oh! I could tell you
a lot about camping out that you Easterners have no idea of."

"Postpone it till to-morrow, please, Miss Hicks," said Miss Brokaw, dryly.
"It is time for you all to undress."

After they were between the sheets Helen crept over to Ruth and hid her
face upon her chum's shoulder, where she cried a few tears.

"All my pretty frocks that Mrs. Murchiston allowed me to pick out! And my
books! And--and----"

The tragic voice of Jennie Stone reached their ears: "Oh, girls! I've lost
in the dreadful fire the only belt I could wear. It's a forty-two."

There was little laughter in the morning, however, when the girls went
out-of-doors and saw the gaunt ruins of the dear old West Dormitory.

The roof had fallen in. Almost every pane of glass was broken. The walls
had crumbled in places, and over all was a sheet of ice where the cascades
from the firemen's hose had blanketed the ruins.

It needed only a glance to show that to repair the building was out of the
question. The West Dormitory must be constructed as an entirely new
edifice.

CHAPTER XI

ONE THING THE OLD DOCTOR DID

Every girl in Briarwood Hall was much troubled by the result of the fire.
The old rivalry between the East and the West Dormitories, that had been
quite fierce at times and in years before, had died out under Ruth
Fielding's influence.

Indeed, since the inception of the Sweetbriars a better spirit had come
over the entire school. Mrs. Tellingham in secret spoke of this as the
direct result of Ruth's character and influence; for although Ruth
Fielding was not namby-pamby, she was opposed to every form of rude
behavior, or to the breaking of rules which everyone knew to be important.

The old forms of hazing--even the "Masque of the Marble Harp," as it was
called--were now no longer honored, save in the breach. The initiations of
the Sweetbriars were novel inventions--usually of Ruth's active brain; but
they never put the candidate to unpleasant or risky tasks.

There certainly were rivalries and individual quarrels and sometimes
clique was arrayed against clique in the school. This was a school of
upwards of two hundred girls--not angels.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Tellingham and the instructors noted with satisfaction
how few disturbances they had to settle and quarrels to take under
advisement. This class of girls whom they hoped to graduate in June were
the most helpful girls that had ever attended Briarwood Hall.

"The influence of Ruth and some of her friends has extended to our next
class as well," Mrs. Tellingham had said. "Nettie Parsons and Ann Hicks
will be of assistance, too, for another year. I wish, however, that Ruth
Fielding's example and influence might continue through _my_ time----I
certainly do."

The girls of the East Dormitory held a meeting before breakfast and passed
resolutions requesting Mrs. Tellingham to rearrange their duo and
quartette rooms so that as many as possible of the West Dormitory girls
could be housed with them.

"We're all willing to double up," said Sarah Fish, who had become leader
of the East Dormitory. "I'm perfectly willing to divide my bureau drawers,
book-shelves, table and bed with any of you orphans. Poor things! It must
be awful to be burned out."

"Some of us haven't much to put in bureau drawers or on bookshelves," said
Helen, inclined to be lugubrious. "I--I haven't a decent thing to wear
but what I have on right now. I unpacked my trunk clear to the very bottom
layer."

However, as a rule, selfish considerations did not enter into the girls'
discussion of the fire. When they looked at the ruined building, they saw
mainly the loss to the school. A loyalty is bred in the pupils of such an
institution as Briarwood Hall, which is only less strong than love of home
and country.

A new structure to house a hundred girls would cost a deal of money.

There was no studying done before breakfast the morning after the fire;
and at the tables the girls' tongues ran until Miss Brokaw declared the
room sounded like a great rookery she had once disturbed near an old
English rectory.

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