Ruth Fielding At Sunrise Farm; What Became of the Raby Orphans

“This – this girl must go somewhere and dry herself,” hesitated Mrs. Steele, when next she spoke. “My! isn’t she a sight? Call one of the maids, someone – ”

“Oh, dear Mrs. Steele!” exclaimed Ruth, eagerly, “let me take Sadie upstairs and look after her. I am sure I have something she can put on.”

“So have I, if you haven’t,” interposed Helen. “And my clothes will come nearer fitting her than Ruth’s. Ruth is getting almost as fat as Heavy!”

“There is no need of either of you sacrificing your clothes,” said Mrs. Steele, slowly. “Of course, I have plenty of outgrown garments of my own daughters’ put away. Yes. You take care of her if you wish, Ruth, and I will hunt out the things.”

Here the strange girl interposed. She had been darting quick, shrewd glances about the hall at the girls and boys there gathered, and now she said:

“Ye don’t hafter do nothing for me. A little rainwater won’t hurt me – I ain’t neither sugar nor salt. All I wants to know is where them fresh air kids is stayin’. I ain’t afraid of the rain – it’s the thunder and lightning that scares me.”

“Goodness knows,” laughed Madge, “I guess the water wouldn’t hurt you. But we’ll fix you up a little better, I guess.”

“Let Ruth do it,” said Mrs. Steele, sharply. “She says she knows the girl.”

“She’s a friend of mine,” said the girl of the Red Mill, frankly. “You surely remember me, Sadie Raby?”

“Oh, I remember ye, Miss,” returned the runaway. “You was kind to me, too.”

“Come on, then,” said Ruth, briskly. “I’m only going to be kind to you again – and so is Mrs. Steele going to be kind. Come on!”

An hour later an entirely different looking girl appeared with Ruth in the big room at the top of the house which the visiting girls occupied. Some of them had come upstairs, for the tempest was over now, and were making ready for dinner by slow stages, it still being some time off, and there was nothing else to do.

“This is Sadie Raby, girls,” explained Ruth, quietly. “She is the sister of those cute little twins that are staying at the Caslons’ place. She has had a hard time getting here, and because she hasn’t seen Willie and Dickie for eight months, or more, she is very anxious to see them. They are all she has in the world.”

“And I reckon they’re a handful,” laughed Heavy. “Come on! tell us all about it, Sadie.”

It was because of the “terrible twins” that Ruth had gotten Sadie to talk at all. The girl, since leaving “them Perkinses,” near Briarwood, had had a most distressful time in many ways, and she was reticent about her adventures.

But she warmed toward Ruth and the others when she found that they really were sincerely interested in her trials, and were, likewise, interested in the twins.

“Them kids must ha’ growed lots since I seen ’em,” she said, wistfully. “I wrote a letter to a girl that works right near the orphanage. She wrote back that the twins was coming out here for a while. So I throwed up my job at Campton and hiked over here.”

“Dear me! all that way?” cried Helen, pityingly.

“I walked farther than that after I left them Perkinses,” declared Sadie, promptly. “I walked clean from Lumberton to Cheslow – followed the railroad most of the way. Then I struck off through the fields and went to a mill on the river, and worked there for a week, for an old lady. She was nice – ”

“I guess she is!” cried Ruth, quickly. “Didn’t you know that was my home you went to? And you worked for Aunt Alvirah and Uncle Jabez.”

No, Sadie had not known that. The little old woman had spoken of there being a girl at the Red Mill sometimes, but Sadie had not suspected the identity of that girl.

“And then, when you were still near Cheslow, my brother Tom, and his dog, rescued you from the tramps,” cried Helen.

“Was that your brother, Miss?” responded Sadie. “Well! he’s a nice feller. He got me a ride clear to Campton. I’ve been workin’ there and earnin’ my board and keep. But I couldn’t save much, and it’s all gone now.”

“But what do you really expect to do here?” asked Madge Steele, curiously.

“I gotter see them kids,” declared Sadie, doggedly. “Seems to me, sometimes, as though something would bust right inside of me here,” and she clutched her dress at its bosom, “if I don’t see Willie and Dickie. I thought this big house was likely where the fresh airs was.”

“I should say not!” murmured Madge.

“They’re all right – don’t you be afraid,” said Ruth, softly.

“I thought mebbe the folks that was keepin’ the kids would let me work for them,” said Sadie, presently. “For kids is a lot of trouble, and I’m used to ’em. The matron at the home said I had a way with young’uns.”

She told them a good deal more about her adventures within the next half hour, but Madge had left the room just after making her last speech. While the girls were still listening to the runaway, a maid rapped at the door.

“Mr. Steele will see this – this strange girl in the library,” announced the servant.

Sadie looked a little scared for a moment, and glanced wildly around the big room for some way of escape.

“Gee! I ain’t got to talk with that man, have I?” she whispered.

“He won’t bite you,” laughed Heavy.

“He’s just as kind as kind can be,” declared Helen.

“I’ll go down with you,” said Ruth, decisively. “You have plenty of friends now, Sadie. You mustn’t be expecting to run away all the time.”

Sadie Raby went with Ruth doubtfully. The latter was somewhat disturbed herself when she saw Mr. Steele’s serious visage.

“You’ll excuse me, Mr. Steele?” suggested Ruth, timidly. “But she is all alone – and I thought it would encourage her to have me here – ”

“That is like your kind heart, Ruth,” said the gentleman, nodding. “I don’t mind. Madge has told me her story. It seems that the child is rather wild – er – flighty, as it were. I suppose she wants to run away from us, too?”

“I ain’t figurin’ to stay here,” said Sadie, doggedly. “I’m obleeged to you, but this ain’t the house I was aimin’ for.”

“Humph! no. But I am not sure at all that you would be in good hands down there at Caslon’s.”

Ruth was sorry to hear him say this. But Sadie broke in with: “I don’t keer how they treat me as long as I’m with my brothers. And they are down there, this Ruth girl says.”

“Yes. I quite understand that. But we all have our duty to perform in this world,” said Mr. Steele, gravely. “I wonder that you have fallen in with nobody before who has seen the enormity of letting you run wild throughout the country. It is preposterous – wrong – impossible! I never heard of the like before – a child of your age tramping in the open.”

“I didn’t do no harm,” began Sadie, half fearful of him again.

“Of course it is not your fault,” said Mr. Steele, quickly. “But you were put in the hands of people who are responsible to the institution you came from for their treatment of you – ”

“Them Perkinses?” exclaimed Sadie, fearfully. “I won’t never go back to them – not while I’m alive I won’t! I don’t care! I jest won’t!”

She spoke wildly. She turned to run from the room and would have done so, had not Ruth been there to stop her and hold her in her arms.

CHAPTER XVII – THE BLACK DOUGLASS

“Oh, don’t frighten her, Mr. Steele!” begged Ruth, still holding the half wild girl. “You would not send her back to those awful people?”

“Tut, tut! I am no ogre, I hope,” exclaimed the gentleman, rather put out of countenance at this outburst. “I only mean the child well. Doesn’t she understand?”

“I won’t go back to them Perkinses, I tell you!” cried Sadie, with a stamp of her foot.

“It is not my intention to send you back. I mean to look up your record and the record of the people you were placed with – Perkins, is it? The authorities of the institution that had the care of you, should be made to be more careful in their selection of homes for their charges.

“No. I will keep you here till I have had the matter sifted. If those – those Perkinses, as you call them, are unfit to care for you, you shall certainly not go back to them, my girl.”

Sadie looked at him shrewdly. “But I don’t want to stay here, Mister,” she blurted out.

“My girl, you are not of an age when you should be allowed to choose for yourself. Others, older and wiser, must choose for you. I would not feel that I was doing right in allowing you to run wild again – ”

“I gotter see the twins – I jest gotter see ’em,” said Sadie, faintly.

“And whether that Caslon is fit to have charge of you,” bitterly added Mr. Steele, “I have my doubts.”

“Oh, surely, you will let her see her little brothers?” cried Ruth, pleadingly.

“We will arrange about that – ahem!” said Mr. Steele. “But I will communicate at once – by long distance telephone – with the matron of the institution from which she came, and they can send a representative here to talk with me – ”

“And take me back there?” exclaimed Sadie. “No, I sha’n’t! I sha’n’t go! So there!”

“Hoity-toity, Miss! Let’s have no more of it, if you please,” said the gentleman, sternly. “You will stay here for the present. Don’t you try to run away from me, for if you do, I’ll soon have you brought back. We intend to treat you kindly here, but you must not abuse our kindness.”

It was perhaps somewhat puzzling to Sadie Raby – this attitude of the very severe gentleman. She had not been used to much kindness in her life, and the sort that is forced on one is not generally appreciated by the wisest of us. Therefore it is not strange if Sadie failed to understand that Mr. Steele really meant to be her friend.

“Come away, Sadie,” whispered Ruth, quite troubled herself by the turn affairs had taken. “I am so sorry – but it will all come right in the end – ”

“If by comin’ right, Miss, you means that I am goin’ to see them twins, you can jest bet it will all come right,” returned Sadie, gruffly, when they were out in the hall. “For see ’em I will, an’ him, nor nobody else, won’t stop me. As for goin’ back to them Perkinses, or to the orphanage, we’ll see ‘bout that,” added Sadie, to herself, and grimly.

Ruth feared very much that Mr. Steele would not have been quite so stern and positive with the runaway, had it not been for his dislike for the Caslons. Had Sadie’s brothers been stopping with some other neighbor, would Mr. Steele have delayed letting the runaway girl go to see them?

“Oh, dear, me! If folks would only be good-natured and stop being so hateful to each other,” thought the girl of the Red Mill. “I just know that Mr. Steele would like Mr. Caslon a whole lot, if they really once got acquainted!”

The rain had ceased falling by this time. The tempest had rolled away into the east. A great rainbow had appeared and many of the household were on the verandas to watch the bow of promise.

It was too wet, however, to venture upon the grass. The paths and driveway glistened with pools of water. And under a big tree not far from the front of the house, it was discovered that a multitude of little toads had appeared – tiny little fellows no larger than one’s thumbnail.

“It’s just been rainin’ toads!” cried one of the younger Steele children – Bennie by name. “Come on out, Ruthie, and see the toads that comed down with the rainstorm.”

Tom Cameron had already come up to speak with Sadie. He shook hands with the runaway girl and spoke to her as politely as he would have to any of his sister’s friends. And Sadie, remembering how kind he had been to her on the occasion when the tramps attacked her near Cheslow, responded to his advances with less reluctance than she had to those of some of the girls.

For it must be confessed that many of the young people looked upon the runaway askance. She was so different from themselves!

Now that she was clean, and her hair brushed and tied with one of Ruth’s own ribbons, and she was dressed neatly, Sadie Raby did not look much different from the girls about her on the wide porch; but when she spoke, her voice was hoarse, and her language uncouth.

Had she been plumper, she would have been a pretty girl. She was tanned very darkly, and her skin was coarse. Nevertheless, given half the care these other girls had been used to most of their lives, and Sadie Raby would have been the equal of any.

Ruth came strolling back to the veranda, leaving Bennie watching the toads – which remained a mystery to him. He was a lively little fellow of six and the pet of the whole family.

As it chanced, he was alone out there on the drive, and the others were now strolling farther and farther away from him along the veranda. The boy ran out farther from the house, and danced up and down, looking at the rainbow overhead.

Thus he was – a pretty sight in the glow of the setting sun – when a sudden chorus of shouts and frightened cries arose from the rear of the house.

Men and maids were screaming. Then came the pounding of heavy hoofs.

Around the curve of the drive charged a great black horse, a frayed and broken lead-rope hanging from his arching neck, his eyes red and glowing, and his sleek black body all a-quiver with the joy of his escape.

“The Black Douglass!” ejaculated Tom Cameron, in horror, for the great horse was charging straight for the dancing child in the driveway.

It was the most dangerous beast upon Sunrise Farm – indeed, almost the only savage creature Mr. Steele had retained when he bought out the former owner of the stock farm and his stud of horses.

The Black Douglass was a big creature, with an uncertain temper, and was handled only by the most careful men in Mr. Steele’s employ. Somehow, on this occasion, the brute had been allowed to escape.

Spurring the gravel with his iron shod hoofs, the horse galloped straight at little Bennie. The child, suddenly made aware of his peril by the screams of his brothers and sisters, turned blindly, staggered a few steps, and fell upon his hands and knees.

Mr. Steele rushed from the house, but he was too far away. The men chasing the released animal were at a distance, too. Tom Cameron started down the steps, but Helen shrieked for him to return. Who was there to face the snorting, prancing beast?

There was a flash of a slight figure down the steps and across the sod. Like an arrow from a strong bow, Sadie Raby darted before the fallen child. Nor was she helpless. The runaway knew what she was about.

As she ran from the veranda, she had seized a parasol that was leaning against one of the pillars. Holding this in both hands, she presented it to the charging horse, opening and shutting it rapidly as she advanced.

She leaped across Bennie and confronted the Black Douglass. The flighty animal, seeing something before him that he did not at all understand, changed his course with a frightened snort, and dashed off across the lawn, cutting out great clods as he ran, and so around the house again and out of sight.

Mr. and Mrs. Steele were both running to the spot. The gentleman picked up the frightened Bennie, but handed him at once to his mother. Then he turned and seized the girl by her thin shoulders.

“My dear girl! My dear girl!” he said, rather brokenly, turning her so as to face him. “That was a brave thing to do. We can’t thank you enough. You can’t understand – ”

“Aw, it warn’t anything. I knowed that horse wouldn’t jump at us when he seen the umbrel’. Horses is fools that way,” said Sadie Raby, rather shamefacedly.

But when Mrs. Steele knelt right down in the damp gravel beside her, and with one arm around Bennie, put the other around the runaway and hugged her – hugged her tight– Sadie was quite overcome, herself.

Madge Steele was crying frankly. Bobbins came rushing upon the scene, and there was a general riot of exclamation and explanation.

“Say! you goin’ to let me see my brothers now?” demanded the runaway, who had a practical mind, if nothing more.

“Bob,” said his father, quickly, “you have the pony put in the cart and drive down there to Caslon’s and bring those babies up here.”

“Aw, Father! what’ll I tell Caslon?” demanded the big fellow, hesitatingly.

“Tell him – tell him – ” For a moment, it was true, that Mr. Steele was rather put to it for a reply. He found Ruth beside him, plucking his sleeve.

“Let me go with Bobbins, sir,” whispered the girl of the Red Mill. “I’ll know what to say to Mr. and Mrs. Caslon.”

“I guess you will, Ruth. That’s right. You bring the twins up here to see their sister.” Then he turned and smiled down at Sadie, and there were tears behind his eyeglasses. “If I have my way, young lady, your coming here to Sunrise Farm will be the best thing – for you and the twins – that ever happened in your young lives!”

CHAPTER XVIII – SUNDRY PLANS

Perhaps Sadie Raby would have been just as well pleased had Mr. Steele allowed her to go to the Caslons’ to see her brothers, instead of having them brought up the hill to Sunrise Farm. The gentleman, however, did not do this because he disliked Caslon; Sadie had saved Bennie from what might have been certain death, and the wealthy Mr. Steele was quite as grateful as he was obstinate.

He was determined to show his gratitude to the friendless girl in a practical manner. And the object of his gratitude would include her two little brothers, as well. Oh, yes! Mr. Steele proposed to make Sadie Raby glad that she had saved Bennie from the runaway horse.

The other girls and boys, beside the members of the Steele family, were anxious now to show their approval of Sadie’s brave deed. The wanderer was quite bewildered at first by all the attention she received.

She was such a different looking girl, too, as has been already pointed out, from the miserable little creature who had been found by Mr. Steele in the shrubbery, that it was not hard to develop an interest in Sadie Raby.

Encircled by the family and their young visitors on the veranda, Sadie again related the particulars of her life and experience – and it was a particularly sympathetic audience that listened to her. Mr. Steele drew out a new detail that had escaped Ruth, even, in her confidences with the strange child.

Although the “terrible twins” were unable to remember either father or mother – orphan asylums are not calculated to encourage such remembrances in infant minds – Sadie, as she had once said to Ruth, could clearly remember both her parents.

And although they had died in distant Harburg, where the children had been put into the orphanage, Sadie remembered that the family had removed to that city, soon after the twins were born, from no less a place than Darrowtown!

“Me, I got it in my head that mebbe somebody would remember pa and mom in Darrowtown, and would give me a chance. That’s another reason I come hiking clear over here,” said Sadie.

“We’ll hunt your friends up – if there are any,” Mr. Steele assured her.

Sadie looked at him shrewdly. “Say!” said she, “you treat me a whole lot nicer than you did a while ago. Do folks have to do somethin’ for your family before you forget to be cross with them?”

It certainly was a facer! Mr. Steele flushed a little and scarcely knew what to say in reply to this frank criticism. But at that moment the two-wheel cart came into sight with the pony on the trot, and Ruth and the twins waving their hands and shouting.

The meeting of the little chaps with their runaway sister was touching. The three Raby orphans were very popular indeed at Sunrise Farm just then.

Mr. Steele frankly admitted that this might be a case where custom could be over-ridden, and the orphanage authorities ignored.

“Whether those Perkins people she was farmed out to, were as harsh as she says – ” he began, when Ruth interrupted eagerly:

“Oh, sir! I can vouch for that. The man was an awful brute. He struck me with his whip, and I don’t believe Sadie told a story when she says he beat her.”

“I wish I’d been there,” ejaculated Tom Cameron, in a low voice, “when the scoundrel struck you, Ruth. I would have done something to him!”

“However,” pursued Mr. Steele, “the girl is here now and near to Darrowtown, which she says is her old home. We may find somebody there who knew the Rabys. At any rate, they shall be cared for – I promise you.”

“I know!” cried Ruth, suddenly. “If anybody will remember them, it’s Miss Pettis.”

“Another of your queer friends, Ruth?” asked Madge, laughing.

“Why – Miss True Pettis isn’t queer. But she knows about everybody who lives in Darrowtown, or who ever did live there – and their histories from away back!”

“A human encyclopedia,” exclaimed Heavy.

“She’s a lovely lady,” said Ruth, quietly, “and she’ll do anything to help these unfortunate Rabys – be sure of that.”

The late dinner was announced, and by that time the twins, as well as Sadie, had become a little more used to their surroundings. Willie and Dickie had been put into “spandy clean” overalls and shirts before Mrs. Caslon would let them out of her hands. They were really pretty children, in a delicate way, like their sister.

With so many about the long dining table, the meals at the Steele home at this time were like a continuous picnic. There was so much talking and laughter that Mr. and Mrs. Steele had to communicate with signs, for the most part, from their stations at either end of the table, or else they must send messages back and forth by one of the waitresses.

The twins and Sadie were down at Mrs. Steele’s end of the table on this occasion, with the girls all about them. Ruth and the others took a lot more interest in keeping the orphans supplied with good things than they did in their own plates.

That is, all but Heavy; of course she wasted no time in heaping her own plate. The twins were a little bashful at first; but it was plain that Willie and Dickie had been taught some of the refinements of life at the orphanage, as both had very good table manners.

They had to be tempted to eat, however, and finally Heavy offered to run a race with them, declaring that she could eat as much as both of the boys put together.

Dickie was just as silent in his sister’s presence as usual, his communications being generally in the form of monosyllables. But he was faithful in echoing Willie’s sentiments on any and every occasion – noticeably at chicken time. The little fellows ate the fricassee with appetite, but they refused the nice, rich gravy, in which the cook had put macaroni. Mrs. Steele urged them to take gravy once or twice, and finally Sadie considered that she should come to the rescue.

“What’s the matter with you kids?” she demanded, hoarsely, in an attempt to communicate with them aside. “Ye was glad ’nough to git chicken gravy on Thanksgivin’ at the orphanage – warn’t ye?”

“Yes, I know, Sadie,” returned Willie, wistfully. “But they never left the windpipes in it – did they, Dickie?”

“Nope,” responded Dickie, feelingly, likewise gazing at the macaroni askance.

It set the table in a roar and finally Willie and Dickie were encouraged to try some of the gravy, “windpipes” and all!

“They’re all right,” laughed Busy Izzy, greatly delighted. “They’re one – or two – of the seven wonders of the world – ”

“Pooh!” interrupted Heavy, witheringly, “You don’t even know what the seven wonders of the world are.”

“I can tell you one thing they’re not,” grinned Busy Izzy. “They’re not a baseball team, for there’s not enough of them. Now will you be good?”

Madge turned her head suddenly and ran right into Belle Tingley’s elbow, as Belle was reaching up to settle her hair-ribbon.

“Oh, oh! My eye! I believe you poked it out, Belle. You have such sharp elbows,” wailed Madge.

“You’ll have to see Doc. Blodgett at Lumberton,” advised Heavy, “and get your eye tended to. He’s a great old doctor – ”

“Why, I didn’t know he was an eye doctor,” exclaimed Madge. “I thought he was a chiropodist.”

“He used to be,” Heavy returned, with perfect seriousness. “He began at the foot and worked up, you see.”

Amid all the fun and hilarity, Mr. Steele called them to order. This was at the dessert stage, and there were tall cones of parti-colored ice cream before them, with great, heaping plates of cake.

“Can you give me a moment’s attention, girls and boys?” asked their host. “I want to speak about to-morrow.”

“The ‘great and glorious,’” murmured Heavy.

“We’ve all promised to be good, sir,” said Tom. “No pistols, or explosives, on the place.”