Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall Part 17

The cowering girls clung to each other and waited breathlessly. Mary opened the door. There stood the abashed Belle Tingley, her plate in one hand, the gilded vase in the other, and beside her was the tiny figure of Mademoiselle Picolet, who looked very stern indeed at The Fox.

"I might have expected _you_ to be a ringleader in such an escapade as this, Miss c.o.x," she said, sharply, but in a low voice. "I very well knew, Miss c.o.x, when the new girls came this fall that _you_ were determined to contaminate them if you could. Every girl here will remain in her seat after prayers in the chapel to-morrow morning.

Remember!"

She whipped out a notebook and pencil and evidently wrote Mary c.o.x's name at the head of her list. The Fox was furiously red and furiously angry.

"I might have known you would be spying on us, Miss Picolet," she said, bitingly. "Suppose some of us should play the spy on _you_, Miss Picolet, and should run to Mrs. Tellingham with what we might discover?"

"Go to your room instantly!" exclaimed the French teacher, with indignation. "You shall have an extra demerit for _that_, Miss!"

Yet Ruth, who had been watching the teacher's face intently, saw that she became actually pallid, that her lips seemed to be suddenly blue, and the countless little wrinkles that covered her cheeks were more prominent than ever before.

Mary c.o.x flounced out and disappeared. The teacher pointed to the chums' waste-basket and said to Bell, the unfaithful sentinel:

"Empty your plate in that receptacle, Miss Tingley. Spill the contents of that vase in the bowl. Now, Miss, to your room."

Belle obeyed. So she made each girl, as she called her name and wrote it in her book, throw away the remains of her feast, and pour out the chocolate. One by one they were obliged to do this and then walk sedately to their rooms. Jennie Stone was caught on the way out with a most suggestive bulge in her loose blouse, and was made to disgorge a chocolate layer cake which she had sought to "save" when the unexpected attack of the enemy occurred.

"Fie, for shame, Miss Stone!" exclaimed the French teacher. "That a young lady of Briarwood Hall should be so piggish! Fie!"

But it was after all the other girls had gone and Ruth and Helen were left alone with her, that the little French teacher seemed to really show her disappointment over the infraction of the rules by the pupils under her immediate charge.

"I hoped for better things of you two young ladies," she said, sorrowfully. "I feared for the influence over you of certain minds among the older scholars; but I believed you, Ruth Fielding, and you, Helen Cameron, to be too independent in character to be so easily led by girls of really much weaker wills. For one may _will_ to do evil, or to do good, if one chooses. One need not _drift_.

"Miss Fielding! take that basket of broken food and go down to the bas.e.m.e.nt and empty it in the bin. Miss Cameron, _you_ may go to bed again. I will wait and see you so disposed. _Alons_!"

But before Ruth could get out of the room, and while Helen was hastily preparing for bed, Miss Picolet noticed something "bunchy" under Ruth's spread. She walked to the bedside and s.n.a.t.c.hed back the coverlet. The still untasted viands were revealed.

"Ah-ha!" exclaimed the French teacher. "At once! into the basket with these, if you will be so kind, Miss Fielding."

Had Heavy seen those heaps of goodies thus disposed of she must have groaned in actual misery of spirit! But Helen, being quick in her preparations for bed, hopped into her own couch before Miss Picolet turned around to view that corner of the room, and with Helen under the bedclothes the hidden dainties (though she _did_ mash some of them) were not revealed to the eye of the teacher, who stood grimly by the door as Ruth marched gravely forth with the basket of broken food.

For a minute or two Helen was as silent as Miss Picolet; then she ventured in a very small voice:

"Miss Picolet--if you please?"

"Well, Mademoiselle?" snapped the little lady.

"May I tell you that my chum Ruth had nothing to do with this infringement of the school rules? That the feast was all mine; that she merely partook of it because we roomed together? That she had nothing to do with the planning of the frolic?"

"Well?"

"I thought perhaps that you might believe otherwise," said Helen, softly, "as you made Ruth remove the--the provisions," said Helen.

"And really, she isn't at all to blame."

"She cannot be without blame," declared Miss Picolet, yet less harshly than she had spoken before. "An objection from her would have stopped the feast before it began--is it not, Miss Cameron?"

"But she is not so _much_ to blame, Miss Picolet," repeated Helen.

"Of that we shall see," returned the little lady, and waited by the door until Ruth returned from the bas.e.m.e.nt. "Now to bed!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Picolet. "Wait in chapel after prayers. I really hoped the girls of my dormitory would not force me to call the attention of the Preceptress to them because of demerits this half--and I did not believe the trouble would start with two young ladies who had just arrived."

So saying, she departed. But Helen whispered Ruth, before she got in bed, to help remove the remaining goodies to the box in the closet.

"At least, we have saved this much from the wreck," chuckled Helen.

Ruth, however, was scarcely willing to admit that that the salvage would repay them for the black marks both surely had earned.

CHAPTER XVII

GOODY TWO-STICKS

To tell the truth the young ladies of the West Dormitory who attended Helen's sub-rosa supper looked pretty blue when the rest of the school filed out of chapel and left them sticking, like limpets, to their seats. Mrs. Tellingham looked just as stern as Helen imagined she could look, when she ended a whispered conference with Miss Picolet, and stood before the culprits.

"Being out of bed at all hours, and stuffing one's self with all manner of indigestible viands, is more than a crime against the school rules, young ladies," she began. "It is a crime against common sense.

Besides, I take a pride in the fact that Briarwood Hall supplies a sufficient and a well-served table. Fruit at times between meals is all very well. But a sour pickle and a piece of angel cake at eleven or twelve o'clock at night would soon break down the digestive faculties of a second Samson.

"However," she added grimly, "that will bring its own punishment. I need not trouble myself about this phase of the matter. But that distinct rules of the school have been broken cannot be ignored. Each of you who were visitors at the study of Misses Fielding and Cameron last evening after hours will have one demerit to work off by extra exercises in Latin and French.

"Miss c.o.x!"

She spoke so sharply that The Fox hopped up quickly, knowing that she was especially addressed.

"It is reported to me by Miss Picolet that you spoke to her in a most unladylike manner. You have two demerits to work off, instead of one."

Mary c.o.x ruffled up instantly. She flounced into her seat and threw her book aside.

"Miss c.o.x," repeated the Preceptress, sharply, "I do not like your manner. Most of these girls are younger than you, and you are their leader. I believe you are all members of the Up and Doing Club. Have a care. Let your club stand for something besides infractions of the rules, I beg. And, when you deliberately insult the teacher who has charge of your dormitory, you insult _me_."

"I suppose I'm to be given no opportunity of answering Miss Picolet's report, or accusation?" cried Mary Fox. "I don't call it fair----"

"Silence!" exclaimed the Preceptress. "You may come to me after session this afternoon. Miss Cameron may work off a full demerit, and before the Christmas Holidays, for being the prime mover in this orgy, I am told about," said Mrs. Tellingham, bitingly. "I understand there are some extenuating circ.u.mstances in the case of Ruth Fielding. She will have one-half mark against her record--to be worked off, of course. And, young ladies, I hope this will be the last time I shall see you before me for such a matter. You are relieved for cla.s.ses."

Two unexpected things happened to Ruth Fielding that morning. As they came out from breakfast she came face to face with Mary c.o.x, and the older girl "cut" her plainly. She swept by Ruth with her head in the air and without returning the latter's nod, and although Ruth did not care much about Mary c.o.x, the unkindness troubled her. The Fox had such an influence over Helen!

The second surprising happening was the receipt of a letter from Mercy Curtis, the lame girl. Dr. Davison's protege wrote:

"Dear Ruth:

"Mrs. Kimmons, next door, is trundling her twin babies--awfully homely little mites--up and down her long piazza in my wheel-chair. To what base uses have the mighty fallen! Do you know what your Uncle Jabez--Dusty Miller--has done? He had waiting for me when I got home from the sanitarium a pair of the loveliest ebony crutches you ever saw--with silver ferrules! I use 'em when I go out for a walk. Fancy old miserable, withered, crippled me going out for a walk! Of course, it's really a hobble yet--I hobble-gobble like a rheumatic goblin; but I may do better some day. The doctors all say so.

"And now I'm going to surprise you, Ruth Fielding. I'm coming to see you--not for a mere 'how-de-do-good-bye' visit; but to stay at Briarwood Hall a while. Dr. Cranfew (he's the surgeon who helped me so much) is at Lumberton and he says I can try school again. Public school he doesn't approve of for me. I don't know how they are going to 'rig' it for me, Ruth--such wonderful things happen to me all the time! But Dr. Davison says I am coming, and when he says a thing is going to happen, it happens. Like my going to the Red Mill that time.

"And isn't old Dusty Miller good to me, too? He stops to see me every Sat.u.r.day when he is in town. They miss you a lot at the Red Mill, Ruthie. I have been out once behind Dr. Davison's red and white mare, to see Aunt Alviry. We just gabbled about you all the time. Your pullets are laying. Tell Helen 'Hullo!' for me. I expect to see you soon, though--that is, if arrangements can be made to billet me with somebody who doesn't mind having a Goody Two-Sticks around.