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Ruth FieldingIn Moving Pictures
OR
HELPING THE DORMITORY FUND
BYALICE B. EMERSON
AUTHOR OF "RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL," "RUTHFIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND," ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Books for Girls
BY ALICE B. EMERSON
RUTH FIELDING SERIES
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret.
RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL Or, Solving the Campus Mystery.
RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP Or, Lost in the Backwoods.
RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway.
RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH Or, Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys.
RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND Or, The Old Hunter's Treasure Box.
RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM Or, What Became of the Baby Orphans.
RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES Or, The Missing Pearl Necklace.
RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES Or, Helping the Dormitory Fund
RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE Or, Great Times in the Land of Cotton.
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CUPPLES & LEON CO., PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK.
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
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RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
Printed in U.S.A.
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IN THE ITALIAN GARDEN SCENES, THE SENIORS AND JUNIORS WEREUSED Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. NOT IN THE SCENARIO 1 II. THE FILM HEROINE 9 III. AT THE RED MILL 18 IV. A TIME OF CHANGE 28 V. "THAT'S A PROMISE" 36 VI. WHAT IS AHEAD? 46 VII. "SWEETBRIARS ALL" 52 VIII. A NEW STAR 60 IX. THE DEVOURING ELEMENT 67 X. GAUNT RUINS 76 XI. ONE THING THE OLD DOCTOR DID 84 XII. "GREAT OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW" 90 XIII. THE IDEA IS BORN 100 XIV. AT MRS. SADOC SMITH'S 108 XV. A DAWNING POSSIBILITY 117 XVI. THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG 125 XVII. ANOTHER OF CURLY'S TRICKS 134XVIII. THE FIVE-REEL DRAMA 141 XIX. GREAT TIMES 153 XX. A CLOUD ARISES 161 XXI. HUNTING FOR AMY 168 XXII. DISASTER THREATENS 176XXIII. PUTTING ONE'S BEST FOOT FORWARD 183 XXIV. "SEEING OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US" 190 XXV. AUNT ALVIRAH AT BRIARWOOD HALL 201
RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
CHAPTER I
NOT IN THE SCENARIO
"What in the world are those people up to?"
Ruth Fielding's clear voice asked the question of her chum, Helen Cameron,and her chum's twin-brother, Tom. She turned from the barberry bush shehad just cleared of fruit and, standing on the high bank by the roadside,gazed across the rolling fields to the Lumano River.
"What people?" asked Helen, turning deliberately in the automobile seat tolook in the direction indicated by Ruth.
"Where? People?" joined in Tom, who was tinkering with the mechanism ofthe automobile and had a smudge of grease across his face.
"Right over the fields yonder," Ruth explained, carefully balancing thepail of berries. "Can't you see them, Helen?"
"No-o," confessed her chum, who was not looking at all where Ruth pointed.
"Where are your eyes?" Ruth cried sharply.
"Nell is too lazy to stand up and look," laughed Tom. "I see them. Why!there's quite a bunch--and they're running."
"Where? Where?" Helen now demanded, rising to look.
"Oh, goosy!" laughed Ruth, in some vexation. "Right ahead. Surely you cansee them now?"
"Oh," drawled Tom, "sis wouldn't see a meteor if it fell into her lap."
"I guess that's right, Tommy," responded his twin, in some scorn. "Neitherwould you. Your knowledge of the heavenly bodies is very small indeed, Ifear. What do they teach you at Seven Oaks?"
"Not much about anything celestial, I guarantee," said Ruth, slyly. "Oh!there those folks go again."
"Goodness me!" gasped Helen. "Where _are_ these wonderful persons? Oh! Isee them now."
"Whom do you suppose they are chasing?" demanded Tom Cameron. "Or, who ischasing _them_?"
"That's it, Tommy," scoffed his sister. "I understand you have taken upnavigation with the other branches of higher mathematics at Seven Oaks;and now you want to trouble Ruth and me with conundrums.
"Are we soothsayers, that we should be able to explain, off-hand," pursuedHelen, "the actions of such a crazy crowd of people as those----Do lookthere! that woman jumped right down that sandbank. Did you ever?"
"And there goes another!" Ruth exclaimed.
"Likewise a third," came from Tom, who was quite as much puzzled as werethe girls.
"One after the other--just like Brown's cows," giggled Helen. "Isn't thatfunny?"
"It's like one of those chases in the moving pictures," suggested Tom.
"Why, of course!" Ruth cried, relieved at once. "That's exactly what itis," and she scrambled down the bank with the pail of barberries.
"What is _what_?" asked her chum.
"Moving pictures," Ruth said confidently. "That is, it will be a film intime. They are making a picture over yonder. I can see the camera-man offat one side, turning the crank."
"Cracky!" exclaimed Tom, grinning, "I thought that was a fellow with ahand-organ, and I was looking for the monkey."
"Monkey, yourself," cried his sister, gaily.
"Didn't know but that he was playing for those 'crazy creeters'--as yourAunt Alvirah would call them, Ruthie--to dance by," went on Tom. "Come on!I've got this thing fixed up so it will hobble along a little farther.Let's take the lane there and go down by the river road, and see what it'sall about."
"Good idea, Tommy-boy," agreed Ruth, as she got into the tonneau and satdown beside Helen.
"Fancy! taking moving pictures out in the open in mid-winter," Helenremarked. "Although this is a warm day."
"And no snow on the ground," chimed in Ruth. "Uncle Jabez was saying lastevening that he doesn't remember another such open winter along theLumano."
"Say, Ruthie, how does your Uncle Jabez treat you, now that you are abloated capitalist?" asked Helen, pinching her chum's arm.
"Oh, Helen! don't," objected Ruth. "I don't feel puffed up at all--onlyvastly satisfied and content."
"Hear her! who wouldn't?" demanded Tom. "Five thousand dollars inbank--and all you did was to use your wits to get it. We had just as gooda chance as you did to discover that necklace and cause the arrest of theold Gypsy," and the young fellow laughed, his black eyes twinkling.
"I never shall feel as though the reward should all have been mine," Ruthsaid, as Tom prepared to start the car.
"Pooh! I'd never worry over the possession of so much money," said Helen."Not I! What does it matter how you got it? But you don't tell us whatyour Uncle Jabez thinks about it."
"I can't," responded Ruth, demurely.
"
Why not?"
"Because Uncle Jabez has expressed no opinion--beyond his usual grunt. Itdoesn't really matter how the dear man feels," pursued Ruth Fielding,earnestly. "I know how _I_ feel about it. I am no longer a 'charitychild'----"
"Oh, Ruthie! you never were _that_," Helen hastened to say.
"Oh, yes I was. When I first came to the Red Mill you know Uncle Jabezonly took me in because I was a relative and he felt that he _had_ to."
"But you helped save him a lot of money," cried Helen. "And there was thatTintacker Mine business. If you hadn't chanced to find The Fox's brotherout there in the wilds of Montana, and nursed him back to health, youruncle would never have made a penny in _that_ investment."
Helen might have gone on with continued vehemence, had not Ruth stoppedher by saying:
"That makes no difference in my feelings, my dear. Each quarter UncleJabez has had to pay out a lot of money to Mrs. Tellingham for my tuition.And he has clothed me, and let me spend money going about with you 'richerfolks,'" and Ruth laughed rather ruefully. "I feel that I should not haveallowed him to do it. I should have remained at the Red Mill and helpedAunt Alvirah----"
"Pooh! Nonsense!" ejaculated Tom, as the spark ignited and the enginebegan to rumble.
"You shouldn't be so popular, Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill," chantedHelen, leaning over to kiss her chum's flushed cheek.
"Look out for the barberries!" cried Ruth.
"I reckon you don't want to spill them, after working so hard to getthem," Tom said, as the automobile lurched forward.
"I certainly do not," Ruth admitted. "I scratched my hands all up gettingthe bucket full. Just fancy finding barberries still clinging to thebushes in such quantities this time of the year."
"What good are they?" queried Helen, selecting one gingerly and putting itinto her mouth.
"Oh! Aunt Alvirah makes the loveliest pies of them--with huckleberries,you know. Half and half."
"Where'll you find huckleberries this time of year?" scoffed Tom. "On thebushes too?"
"In glass jars down cellar, sir," replied Ruth, smartly. "I did help pickthose and put them up last summer, in spite of all the running around wedid."
"Beg pardon, Miss Fielding," said Tom. "Go on. Tell us some more recipes.Makes my mouth water."
"O-o-oh! so will these barberries!" exclaimed Helen, making a wry face."Just taste one, Tommy."
"Many, many thanks! _Good_-night!" ejaculated her brother, "I knowbetter. But those barberries properly prepared with sugar make a mightynice drink in summer. Our Babette makes barberry syrup, you know."
"Ugh! It doesn't taste like these," complained his sister. "Oh, folks!there are those foolish actors again."
"_Now_ what are they about?" demanded Ruth.
"Look out that you don't bring the car into the focus of the camera, Tom,"his sister warned him. "It will make them awfully mad."
"Don't fret. I have no desire to appear in a movie," laughed Tom.
"But I think _I_ would like to," said his sister. "Wouldn't you, Ruth?"
"I--I don't know. It must be awfully interesting----"
"Pooh!" scoffed Tom. "What will you girls get into your heads next? Andthey don't let girls like you play in movies, anyway."
"Oh, yes, they do!" cried his sister. "Some of the greatest stars in thefilm firmament are nothing more than schoolgirls. They have what they call'film charm.'"
"Think you've got any of that commodity?" demanded Tom, with cheerfulimpudence.
"I don't know----Oh, Ruth, look at that girl! Now, Tommy, see there! Thatgirl isn't a day older than we."
"Too far away to make sure," said Tom, slowly. Then, the next moment, heejaculated: "What under the sun is she doing? Why! she'll fall off thattree-trunk, the silly thing!"
The slender girl who had attracted their attention had, at the command ofthe director of the picture, scrambled up a leaning sycamore tree whichoverhung the stream at a sharp angle. The girl swayed upon the bare trunk,balancing herself prettily, and glanced back over her shoulder.
Tom had brought the car to a stop. When the engine was shut off they couldhear the director's commands:
"That's it, Hazel. Keep that pose. Got your focus, Carroll?" he called tothe camera man. "Now--ready! Register fear, Miss Hazel. Say! act as thoughyou _meant_ it! Register fear, I say--just as though you expected to fallinto the water the next moment. Oh, piffle! Not at all like it! not at_all_ like it!"
He was a dreadfully noisy, pugnacious man. Finally the girl said:
"If you think I am not scared, Mr. Grimes, you are very much mistaken. I_am_. I expect to slip off here any moment----Oh!"
The last was a shriek of alarm. What she was afraid would happen came topass like a flash. Her foot slipped, she lost her balance, and the nextinstant was precipitated into the river!