Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie Part 17

"But that's Curly!" whispered Helen, fiercely.

"I am sure of it."

"And did you see how he looked? Why, the boy is in rags. He even looks much worse than when we last saw him-when he saved me from that deer at Norfolk," and Helen began to giggle at the recollection.

"Something has happened to poor Curly since then," said Ruth, with a sigh. "I guess he has found out that it is not so much fun to run away as he thought."

"The man said he was starving," sighed Helen.

"He certainly must have been having a hard time," Ruth returned. "I'll write to his grandmother again. Her answer to my letter written at Old Point Comfort has not arrived yet; but I think she ought to know that we have found Curly again."

"And tell her he is ragged and hungry. Maybe it will touch her heart,"

begged Helen. "But we ought to do something for him, Ruth."

"Maybe."

"Of course we should. Why not?"

"It might scare him away if he knew that anybody here had recognized him. It is such a coincidence that he should come right here to this Merredith plantation," Ruth said. "What do you suppose it means? Could he have known that we were coming here, and is he trying to find us?"

"Oh, Ruth! He'd know we would help him, wouldn't he?"

"I didn't think that Curly was the sort of boy to hunt up girl's help in any case," laughed Ruth.

"Don't laugh! it seems so cruel. Hungry!" breathed Helen.

"The boy is learning something," her chum said, with decision. "Now that he is really away from his grandmother, I hope this will teach him a lesson. I don't want any harm to come to Curly Smith; but if he learns that his home is better than a loose life among strangers, it will be a good thing."

"Why, Ruth!" gasped Helen. "You talk just as though the police were not looking for him."

"Hush! we won't tell everybody that," advised Ruth. "Probably they will never discover him here, in any case. His crime is not so great in the eyes of the law."

"I don't believe he ever did it!" cried Helen.

"Neither do I. It seems to me," Ruth said gravely, "that if he had helped those men commit the robbery, he would have gone away from Lumberton with them."

"That is so!"

"And he shows that he has no criminal friends, or he would not come so far-and all alone. Nor would he have been so forlorn and hungry, if he was willing to steal."

Ruth wrote her letter, as she promised; and she thought a good deal about the boy they had seen at the cotton warehouse. Suppose Curly Smith should take up his wanderings from this place? Suppose the warehouseman, Mr. Jimson, should discharge him? The man had spoken in rather an unfeeling way of the "little, hungry Yank," and Ruth did not know how good at heart the lanky, chin-whiskered man was.

She determined to do something to make it reasonably sure that Curly would remain on the Merredith plantation until she could hear from his grandmother. Possibly the trouble in Lumberton might be settled. If the railroad had not lost much money-provided it was really proved that Curly had recklessly helped the thieves-the matter might be straightened out if Mrs. Sadoc Smith would refund a portion of the money lost.

And by this time Ruth believed the boy's grandmother might be willing to do just that. It was very natural for her to announce in the first flush of her anger and shame, that she would have nothing more to do with her grandson, but Ruth was quite sure she loved him devotedly, and that her heart would soon be yearning for his graceless self.

Besides, when Mrs. Smith read the letter Ruth wrote, she would know that the wandering boy was in trouble and in poverty. As Helen begged her, Ruth had written these facts "strong." She had made out Curly's case to be as pitiful as possible, and she hoped for results from Lumberton.

Suppose, however, if a forgiving letter came from Mrs. Sadoc Smith, Curly could not then be found at the warehouse on the river side? Ruth thought of this during the heat of the day, when the family at the Big House rested. That siesta after luncheon seemed necessary here, in the warm, moist climate of the river-lands. Ruth awoke about three o'clock, with an idea for action in Curly Smith's case. She slipped out of the room without disturbing Helen.

Running downstairs she found that n.o.body had yet descended. Two of the liveried men rose yawning from the mahogany settees in the hall. A downstairs girl dozed with her head on her arms on the center table in one reception room.

"The castle of the Sleeping Beauty," murmured Ruth, smiling, and without speaking to any of the house servants, she ran out.

She knew the way to the stables and there were signs of life there. Two or three of the grooms were currying horses in the yard, and idly talking and laughing. One of them threw down the currycomb and brush and ran immediately to Ruth as she appeared at the bars.

Ruth recognized him as the boy who had held her horse while she mounted that morning, and she suspected immediately that he had been instructed to be at her beck and call if she expressed any desire for a mount. She asked him if that was so.

"Yes, ma'am. Patrick Henry say fo' me t' 'tend yo' if yo' rode."

"Can I ride out any time?" asked the girl.

He grinned at her widely. "Sho' kin, ma'am," he said. "Dat little bay mare wid de scah on her hip, she at yo' sarbice-an' so's Toby."

"You are Toby?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am."

"Then saddle the mare for me at once and-stay! can you go with me?"

"Positive got t' go wid yo', miss. Ab-so-lum-lute-ly," declared the negro, gravely. "Dem's ma 'structions f'om Patrick Henry."

"All right, Toby. I want to go back to that cotton warehouse where we stopped this morning. I forgot something."

"Ready in a pig's wink, Miss Ruth," declared the young negro, and ran off to saddle the bay mare and get, for himself, a wicked looking speckled mule.

The bay mare felt just as much refreshed by her siesta as Ruth did. She started when Ruth was in the saddle, seemingly with a determination to break her own record for speed. The girl of the Red Mill, her hat off, her hair flying, and her eyes and cheeks aglow, looked back to see what had become of Toby and the speckled mule.

But she need not have worried about them. Toby had no saddle, and only a rope bridle; but he clung to the mule like a limpet to a rock, with his great-toes between two ribs, "tick'lin' ob 'im up!" as he expressed it to the laughing Ruth, when at last she brought the mare to a halt in sight of the river.

"Dishyer mu-el," declared Toby, "I s'pec could beat out dat mare on a long lane; but I got t' hol' Mistah Mu-el in, 'cause Patrick Henry done tol' me hit ain' polite t' ride ahaid ob de quality."

He dropped respectfully to the rear when they started again, only calling out to Ruth the turns to take as they rode on. In half an hour they were in sight of the cotton warehouse.

It was just then that the girl almost drew her bay mare to a full stop.

It smote her suddenly that she had not made up her mind just how she should approach Curly Smith, the runaway.

CHAPTER XIV-RUTH FINDS A HELPER

The warehouse foreman, or "boss," was sunning himself on the end platform, just where the lap, lap, lap of the river drowsed upon his ear on one side, and the buzzing of the bees drowsed on the other. He started from his nap at the clatter of hoofs and beheld one of those "little Miss Yanks," as he privately called the visitors to Merredith, reining in her horse before him, with the grinning darkey a proper distance behind.

"Wal, I'll be whip-sawed!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Jimson, under his breath. Then aloud: "Mighty glad t' see yo', miss. It's a pretty evenin', ain't it?

What seems t' be the trouble?"

"Oh, no trouble at all," said the girl of the Red Mill, brightly. "I-I just thought I'd stop and speak to you."