CHAPTER IX
RUTH'S LITTLE PLOT
The punt was in shallow water and the girls who had ventured into itwithout oars were perfectly safe before any of the teachers arrived. Withthem came Ruth and Helen, and some of the other juniors and seniors. Heavytook the stump.
"Now! you see what she did?" cried the stout girl, seizing Ann in her armsthe moment she could get ashore. "If she hadn't known how to fling alasso, and rope a steer, she'd never have been able to send that rope tous.
"Three cheers for Ann Hicks, the girl from the ranch, who knows what to dowhen folks are drowning in Buchane Pond! One--two--three----"
The cheers were given with a will. Several of the girls who had treatedthe western girl so meanly about the dunce cap had been in the boat, andthey asked Ann to shake hands. They were truly repentant, and Ann couldnot refuse their advances.
But the western girl was still doubtful of her standing with her mates,and went back to play with the little ones. Meanwhile she showed Ruthwhere Jerry Sheming stood at one side, and the girl from the Red Mill ranto him eagerly.
"I am delighted to see you!" she exclaimed, shaking Jerry's rough hand. "Iwas afraid I wouldn't be able to find you after you left the mill. And Iwanted to."
"I'm glad of your interest in me, Miss Ruth," he said, "but I ain't got nocall to expect it. Mr. Potter was pretty kind to me, and he kept me aslong as there was work there."
"But you haven't got to tramp it, now?"
"Only to look for a steady job. I--I come over this way hopin' I'd hit itat Lumberton. But they're discharging men at the mills instead of hiringnew ones."
"And I expect you'd rather work in the woods than anywhere else?"suggested Ruth.
"Why--yes, Miss. I love the woods. And I got a good rifle and shotgun, andI'm a good camp cook. I can't get a guide's license, but I could go asassistant--if anybody would take me around Tallahaska."
"Suppose I could get you a job working right where you've always lived--atCliff Island?" she asked, eagerly.
"What d'ye mean--Cliff Island?" he demanded, flushing deeply. "I wouldn'twork for that Rufus Blent--nor he wouldn't have me."
"I don't know anything about the man," said Ruth, smiling. "But one of mychums has invited me to go to Cliff Island for the Christmas holidays. Herfather has bought the place and is building a lodge there."
"Good lands!" ejaculated Jerry.
"Isn't that a coincidence?" Ruth commented. "Now, you wouldn't refuse ajob with Mr. Tingley; would you?"
"Tingley--is that the name?"
"Yes. Perhaps I can get him, through Belle, to hire you. I'll try. Wouldyou go back?"
"In a minute!" exclaimed Jerry.
"Then I'll try. You see, in four or five weeks, we'll be going thereourselves. I think it would just be jolly to have you around, for you knowall about the island and everything."
"Yes, indeed, ma'am," agreed Jerry. "I'd like the job."
"So you must write me every few days and let me know where you are. Mrs.Tellingham won't mind--I'll explain to her," Ruth said, earnestly. "I amnot quite sure that I can go myself, yet. But I'll know for sure in a fewdays. And I'll see if Belle won't ask her father to give you work at CliffIsland. Then, in your off time, you can look for that box your unclelost. Don't you see?"
"Oh, Miss! I guess that's gone for good. Near as I could make out o' UnclePete, the landslide at the west end of the island buried his treasure boxa mile deep! It was in one o' the little caves, I s'pose."
"Caves? Are there caves on the island?"
"Lots of 'em. Big ones as well as small. If Uncle Pete wasn't plumb crazy,he had his money and papers in a hide-out that I'd never found."
"I see Miss Picolet coming this way. She won't approve of my talking with'a strange young man' so long," laughed Ruth. "You let me know every fewdays where you are, Jerry?"
"Yes, ma'am, I will. And thank you kindly."
"You aren't out of funds? You have money?"
"I've got quite a little store," said Jerry, smiling. "Thanks to that niceblack-eyed girl that I helped out of the car window."
"Oh! Ann Hicks. And she's being made much of, now, by the girls, becauseshe knew how to fling a rope," cried Ruth, looking across the picnicground to where her schoolmates were grouped.
"She's all right," said Jerry, enthusiastically. "They ought to be proudof her--them that was in that boat."
"It will break the ice for Ann," declared Ruth. "I am so glad. Now, I mustrun. Don't forget to write, Jerry. Good bye."
She gave him her hand and ran back to join her school friends. Ann hadgone about putting up the children's swing and at first had paid littleattention to the enthusiasm of the girls who had been saved from goingover the dam. But she could not ignore them altogether.
"You're just the smartest girl I ever saw," Heavy declaimed. "We'd all bein the water, sure enough, if you hadn't got that rope to us. Come on,Ann! Be a sport. _Do_ wear your laurels kindly."
"I'm just as 'dumb' about books as ever. Flinging that rope didn't makeany difference," growled the western girl.
"I don't care if you don't know your 'A.B., abs,'" cried one of the girlswho had taken a prominent part in the dunce cap trick. "You make meawfully ashamed of myself for being so mean to you. Please forgive us all,Ann--that's a good girl."
Ann was awkward about accepting their apologies; and yet she was notnaturally a bad-tempered girl. She was just different from them all--andfelt the difference so keenly!
This sudden reversal of feeling, and their evident offer of friendliness,made her feel more awkward than ever. She remained very glum while at thepicnic grounds.
But, as Ruth had said, the incident served to break the ice. Ann hadgotten her start. Somebody beside the "primes" gave her "the glad hand andthe smiling eye." Briarwood began to be a different sort of place for theranch girl.
There were plenty of the juniors who looked down on her still; but she had"shown them" once that she could do something the ordinary eastern girlcould not do and Ann was on the _qui vive_ for another chance to "makegood" along her own particular line.
She grew brighter and more self-possessed as the term advanced. Herlessons, too, she attacked with more assurance.
A few days after Thanksgiving Ruth received a letter in Aunt Alvirah'scramped hand-writing which assured her that Uncle Jabez would make noobjection to her accepting the invitation to go to Cliff Island for theholidays.
"And I'll remind him of it in time so't he can send you a Christmasgoldpiece, if the sperit so moves him," wrote Aunt Alvirah, in herold-fashioned way. "But do take care of yourself, my pretty, in the middleof that lake."
In telling Belle how happy she was to accept the invitation for thefrolic, Ruth diffidently put forward her request that Mr. Tingley giveJerry Sheming a job.
"I am quite sure he is a good boy," she told Belle. "He has worked for myuncle, and Uncle Jabez praised him. Now, Uncle Jabez doesn't praise fornothing."
"I'll tell father about this Jerry--sure," laughed Belle. "You're an oddgirl, Ruth. You're always trying to do something for somebody."
"Trying to do somebody for somebody, maybe," interposed Mercy, in hersharp way. "Ruth uses her friends for her own ends."
But Ruth's little plot worked. A fortnight after Thanksgiving she was ableto write to Jerry, who had found a few days' work near the school, that hecould go back to Cliff Island and present himself to Mr. Tingley'sforeman. A good job was waiting for him on the island where he had livedso long with his uncle, the old hunter.