Ruth Fielding Down East Part 17

Ruth will tell you all about it."

"Perhaps we had better let Colonel Marchand and Jennie have this honeymoon car," Ruth said doubtfully.

"Humph!" her chum observed, "I begin to believe it will be just as much a honeymoon car with you and Tom in it as with that other couple. 'Bless you, my children!'"

She ran back to the big car with this saucy statement. Tom grinned, slipped behind the wheel, and started the roadster slowly.

"It must be," he observed in his inimitable drawl, "that Sis has noticed that I'm fond of you, Ruthie."

"Quite remarkable," she rejoined cheerfully. "But the war isn't over yet, Tommy-boy. And if our lives are spared we've got to finish our educations and all that. Why, Tommy, you are scarcely out of short pants, and I've only begun to put my hair up."

"Jimminy!" he grumbled, "you do take all the starch out of a fellow. Now tell me how you got gas. What happened?"

Everybody has been to Boston, or expects to go there some time, so it is quite immaterial what happened to the party while at the Hub. They only remained two days, anyway, then they started off alongsh.o.r.e through the pleasant old towns that dot the coast as far as Cape Ann.

They saw the ancient fishing ports of Marblehead, Salem, Gloucester and Rockport, and then came back into the interior and did not see salt water again until they reached Newburyport at the mouth of the Merrimac.

The weather remained delightfully cool and sunshiny after that heavy tempest they had suffered in the hills, and they reached Portsmouth and remained at a hotel for three days when it rained again. The young folks chafed at this delay, but Aunt Kate declared that a hotel room was restful after jouncing over all sorts of roads for so long.

"They never will build a car easy enough for auntie," Jennie Stone declared. "I tell pa he must buy some sort of airship for us----"

"Never!" cried Aunt Kate in quick denial. "Whenever I go up in the air it will be because wings have sprouted on my shoulder blades. And I should not call an aeroplane easy riding, in any case."

"At least," grumbled Tom, "you can spin along without any trouble with country constables, and _that's_ a blessing."

For on several occasions they had had arguments with members of the police force, in one case helping to support a justice and a constable by paying a fine.

They did not travel on Sunday, however, when the constables reap most of their harvest, so they really had little to complain of in that direction.

Nor did they travel fast in any case.

After the rainy days at Portsmouth, the automobile party ran on with only minor incidents and no adventures until they reached Portland. There Ruth telegraphed to Mr. Hammond that they were coming, as in her letter, written before they left Cheslow, she had promised him she would.

Herringport, the nearest town to the moving picture camp at Beach Plum Point, was at the head of a beautiful harbor, dotted with islands, and with water as blue as that of the Bay of Naples. When the two cars rolled into this old seaport the party was welcomed in person by Mr. Hammond, the president and producing manager of the Alectrion Film Corporation.

"I have engaged rooms for you at the hotel here, if you want them," he told Ruth, after being introduced to Aunt Kate and Colonel Marchand, the only members of the party whom he had not previously met.

"But I can give you all comfortable bunks with some degree of luxury at the camp. At least, we think it luxurious after our gold mining experience in the West. You will get better cooking at the Point, too."

"But a camp!" sighed Aunt Kate. "We have roughed it so much coming down here, Mr. Hammond."

"There won't be any black ants at this camp," said her niece cheerfully.

"Only sand fleas," suggested the wicked Tom.

"You can't scare me with fleas," said Jennie. "They only hop; they don't wriggle and creep."

"My star in the 'Seaside Idyl,' Miss Loder, demanded hotel accommodations at first. But she soon changed her mind," Mr. Hammond said. "She is now glad to be on the lot with the rest of the company."

"It sounds like a circus," Aunt Kate murmured doubtfully.

"It is more than that, my dear Madam," replied the manager, laughing.

"But these young people----"

"If Aunt Kate won't mind," said Ruth, "let us try it, while she remains at the Herringport Inn."

"I'll run her back and forth every day for the 'eats'," Tom promptly proposed.

"My duty as a chaperon----" began the good woman, when her niece broke in with:

"In numbers there is perfect safety, Auntie. There are a whole lot of girls down there at the Point."

"And we have chaperons of our own, I a.s.sure you," interposed Mr. Hammond, treating Aunt Kate's objection seriously. "Miss Loder has a cousin who always travels with her. Our own Mother Paisley, who plays character parts, has daughters of her own and is a lovely lady. You need not fear, Madam, that the conventions will be broken."

"We won't even crack 'em, Aunt Kate," declared Helen rouguishly. "I will watch Jen like a cat would a mouse."

"Humph!" observed the plump girl, scornfully. "_This_ mouse, in that case, is likely to swallow the cat!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE HERMIT

"Now, tell me, Miss Ruth," said Mr. Hammond, having taken the girl of the Red Mill into his own car for the short run to Beach Plum Point, "what is this trouble about your new scenario? You have excited my curiosity during all these months about the wonderful script, and now you say it is not ready for me."

"Oh, Mr. Hammond!" exclaimed Ruth, "I fear it will never be ready for you."

"Nonsense! Don't lose heart. You have merely come to one of those thank-you-ma'ams in story writing that all authors suffer. Wait. It will come to you."

"No, no!" sighed Ruth. "It is nothing like that. I had finished the scenario. I had it all just about as I wanted it, and then----"

"Then what?" he asked in wonder at her emotion.

"It--it was stolen!"

"Stolen?"

"Yes. And all my notes--everything! I--I can't talk about it. And I never could write it again," sobbed Ruth. "It is the best thing I ever did, Mr.

Hammond."

"If it is better than 'The Heart of a Schoolgirl', or 'The Forty-Niners', or 'The Boys of the Draft', then it must be some scenario, Miss Ruth. The last two are still going strong, you know. And I have hopes of the 'Seaside Idyl' catching the public fancy just when we are all getting rather weary of war dramas.

"If you can only rewrite this new story----"

"But Mr. Hammond! I am sure it has been stolen by somebody who will make use of it. Some other producer may put it on the screen, and then my version would fall flat--if no worse."

"Humph! And you have been so secret about it!"