Ruth Fielding Down East Part 3

"I mean," said Ruth, with patience, "anybody whom you have never seen before--or anybody whom you might suspect would steal."

"Well," drawled Ben stubbornly, "your uncle, Ruthie, says old Jep ain't any too honest."

"I know all about that," Ruth said. "But Parloe did not leave his team and go down to the summer-house, did he?"

"Oh, no!"

"Did you see anybody go down that way?"

"Don't believe I did--savin' you yourself, Ruthie."

"I left a ma.n.u.script and my pen on the table there. I ran out to meet Tom and Helen when they came."

"I seen you," said Ben.

"Then it was just about that time that somebody sneaked into that summer-house and stole those things."

"I didn't see anybody snuck in there," declared Ben, with more confidence than good English.

"Say!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tom, impatiently, "haven't you seen any tramp, or straggler, or Gypsy--or anybody like that?"

"Hi gorry!" suddenly said Ben, "I do remember. There was a man along here this morning--a preacher, or something like that. Had a black frock coat on and wore his hair long and sort o' wavy. He was shabby enough to be a tramp, that's a fact. But he was a real knowledgeable feller--he was that.

Stood at the mill door and recited po'try for us."

"Poetry!" exclaimed Tom.

"To you and Uncle Jabez?" asked Ruth.

"Uh-huh. All about 'to be or not to be a bean--that is the question.' And something about his having suffered from the slung shots and bow arrers of outrageous fortune--whatever that might be. I guess he got it all out of the Scriptures. Your uncle said he was bugs; but I reckoned he was a preacher."

"Jimminy!" muttered Tom. "A derelict actor, I bet. Sounds like a Shakespearean ham."

"Goodness!" said Ruth. "Between the two of you boys I get a very strange idea of this person."

"Where did he go, Ben?" Tom asked.

"I didn't watch him. He only hung around a little while. I think he axed your uncle for some money, or mebbe something to eat. You see, he didn't know Mr. Potter."

"Not if he struck him for a hand-out," muttered the slangy Tom.

"Oh, Ben! don't you know whether he went toward Cheslow--or where?" cried Ruth.

"Does it look probable to you," Tom asked, "that a derelict actor---- Oh, Jimminy! Of course! _He_ would be just the person to see the value of that play script at a glance!"

"Oh, Tom!"

"Have you no idea where he went, Ben?" Tom again demanded of the puzzled mill hand.

"No, Mister Tom. I didn't watch him."

"I'll get out the car at once and hunt all about for him," Tom said quickly. "You go in to Helen and Aunt Alvirah, Ruth. You'll be sick if you let this get the best of you. I'll find that miserable thief of a ham actor--if he's to be found." He added this last under his breath as he ran for the shed where he had sheltered his automobile.

CHAPTER IV

THE CRYING NEED

Tom Cameron chased about the neighborhood for more than two hours in his fast car hunting the trail of the man who he had decided must be a wandering theatrical performer. Of course, this was a "long shot," Tom said; but the trampish individual of whom Ben had told was much more likely to be an actor than a preacher.

Tom, however, was able to find no trace of the fellow until he got to the outskirts of Cheslow, the nearest town. Here he found a man who had seen a long-haired fellow in a shabby frock coat and black hat riding toward the railroad station beside one of the farmers who lived beyond the Red Mill.

This was following the tempest which had burst over the neighborhood at mid-afternoon.

Trailing this information farther, Tom learned that the shabby man had been seen about the railroad yards. Mr. Curtis, the railroad station master, had observed him. But suddenly the tramp had disappeared. Whether he had hopped Number 10, bound north, or Number 43, bound south, both of which trains had pulled out of Cheslow within the hour, n.o.body could be sure.

Tom returned to the Red Mill at dusk, forced to report utter failure.

"If that b.u.m actor stole your play, Ruth, he's got clear way with it," Tom said bluntly. "I'm awfully sorry----"

"Does that help?" demanded his sister snappishly, as though it were somewhat Tom's fault. "You go home, Tom. I'm going to stay with Ruthie to-night," and she followed her chum into the bedroom to which she had fled at Tom's announcement of failure.

"Jimminy!" murmured Tom to the old miller who was still at the supper table. "And we aren't even sure that that fellow did steal the scenario."

"Humph!" rejoined Uncle Jabez. "You'll find, if you live to be old enough, young feller, that women folks is kittle cattle. No knowing how they'll take anything. That pen cost five dollars, I allow; but them papers only had writing on 'em, and it does seem to me that what you have writ once you ought to be able to write again. That's the woman of it. She don't say a thing about that pen, Ruthie don't."

However, Tom Cameron saw farther into the mystery than Uncle Jabez appeared to. And after a day or two, with Ruth still "moping about like a moulting hen," as the miller expressed it, the young officer felt that he must 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.