CHAPTER XIX
GREAT TIMES
That was not so, however, and Helen and Ann soon blurted out the goodnews:
"It's a great success!"
"He's going to bring up the company next week and make the pictures at theHall!"
"He's been with Mrs. Tellingham all the afternoon planning when thepictures shall be taken, and how they shall be taken," Helen said. "Iguess it's _not_ a failure!"
"I should say not!" joined in Ann Hicks.
"Oh, girls!"
If it had not been for Ruth's long day in the open and the fact that hernerves had become much quieter, she could never have forced back the tearsof relief that answered so quickly these reassuring words.
Then a great flood of thankfulness welled up in her heart. She hadaccomplished something really worth while! Later, when she saw, on thescreen, the story she had written, she was to feel this gratitude and joyagain.
She went to bed that night and slept, as she had promised, until Mrs.Sadoc Smith knocked on the door for them all to rise. She got up with allthe oppression lifted from her mind, and wanted to race the other girls tothe Hall before breakfast.
"It won't do for you, young lady, to go gallavanting into the woods withCurly another day," said Helen, holding on to Ruth. "You're neither tohold nor to bind after such an expedition. I say, girls, let's all go withCurly next time."
Amy had been very sullen ever since the evening before. Now she snapped:"I guess Curly didn't want her--or any of us. Ruth just forced herselfupon him. He doesn't like girls."
"Bless the infant!" said Ann. "What's got her _now_?"
"Jealous of our Ruth, I declare!" laughed Helen.
Amy burst out crying and ran ahead, nor did the older girls see her at thebreakfast table. Ruth was sorry about this. She had only then begun to winAmy Gregg's confidence, and now she feared that the girl would be angrywith her.
That day, however, Ruth was too happy to think much about Amy Gregg.
Recitations went with a rush. Miss Brokaw even was disarmed, for allRuth's quickness and coolness seemed to have returned to her. She did notfail once and the strict teacher praised her.
Besides, there was a long conference with Mrs. Tellingham and Mr. Hammond.The scenario of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" was to be filmed at once.
"We will do our best to release it for first presentation in six weeks,"the producer said. "And I assure you that means some quick work. Yougirls," he added, to Ruth, "must do your prettiest when we take thepictures here. Your physical culture instructor will drill you inmarching, and forming the tableaux we require. Your exposition of thelegend of the Marble Harp is a clever bit of invention, Ruth, and in thepicture will make a hit, I am sure."
Of course Ruth was proud; why should she not be? But her head was notturned by all the flattering things that were said to her.
The girls adored her. The fact that they were all working in unison towardthe rebuilding of the dormitory, removed from the daily life andintercourse of the big boarding school one of its more unpleasantfeatures.
It was only natural that there should be cliques among two hundred girls.But now rivalries were put aside. All were striving for the same end. Someof the girls interested various societies in their home towns to holdfairs and bazaars for the benefit of Briarwood Hall.
Personal appeals were made directly to every girl on the alumni list--andsome of those "girls" now had girls of their own almost old enough toattend Briarwood.
By these methods the dormitory fund was swelled. In the results from themoving picture drama, however, was the possibility for the greatest help.Mrs. Tellingham risked rebuilding the dormitory on the same scale as theburned structure, because of Mr. Hammond's enthusiasm over Ruth'sachievement.
The days of early spring passed in swift procession now. It seemed thatthe longer the days grew, the faster they seemed to go. There were nothours enough in which to accomplish all that the girls, who looked towardgraduation in June, wished.
Even Jennie Stone worked harder and took her school tasks more seriouslythan ever before.
"But, see here!" she said to her mates one day, "here's some 'hot ones'Miss Brokaw has been handing the primes, and I believe they'd puzzle someof us big girls. Listen! 'What is longitude?' Sue Mellen came to me,puzzled, about _that_," chuckled Jennie, "and I told her longitude isthose lengthwise stripes on a watermelon."
"Oh, Heavy!" gasped Lluella. "How could you?"
"Didn't hurt me at all," proclaimed Jennie, calmly. "And I told her that a'ski' is what a Russian has on the end of his name. That quitesatisfiedski Miss Mellenski, whether it does Miss Brokawski or not!"
Mrs. Tellingham gave the school a serious talk the day before the filmcompany arrived to take the first pictures for Ruth's play. She read andexplained that part of the scenario in which the Briarwood girls wouldappear, and begged their serious co-operation with the director who wouldhave the making of the film in charge.
Ruth still shrank from seeing Mr. Grimes again; but she found that, whileengaged in the work of making these pictures, he behaved quite differentlyfrom the way he had acted the day she had first seen him on the bank ofthe Lumano river.
He was patient, but insistent. He knew just what effect he wanted andalways got it in the end. And Ruth and Helen told each other that, ugly ashe could be, Mr. Grimes was really a most wonderful director. They did notwonder that Hazel Gray expressed her desire to work under Mr. Grimes,harsh as he had been to her.
It was difficult for the girls--even for Ruth who had written thescenario--to follow the trend of the story of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl"by closely watching the taking of these scenes in and about BriarwoodHall; for they were not taken in proper rotation.
Mr. Grimes had his schedule before him and he skipped from one part of thestory's action to another in a most bewildering way, getting the scenesabout the school filmed in each "setting" in succession, rather thanfollowing the thread of the story.
Nor could Ruth judge the effect of the several pictures. She was too closeto them. There was no perspective.
Sometimes when Mr. Grimes seemed the most satisfied, Ruth could seenothing in that scene at all. Again he would make the participants go overand over a scene that seemed perfectly clear the first time.
Hazel Gray and several other professional performers were at Briarwood andhad their parts in the scenes with the schoolgirls. Hazel played theheroine of Ruth's drama, but Mr. Hammond had insisted upon Ruth herselfacting the part of the heroine's chum--a not unimportant role.
Ruth did not feel that she had histrionic ability; but she was so anxiousfor the moving picture to be a success, that she would have tried her verybest to suit Mr. Grimes in any role. She was surprised, however, when hewarmly praised her work in her one scene which was at all emotional.
"You naturally feel your part in this scene, Miss Fielding," he said. "Noteverybody could get the action before the camera so well."
"'Praise from Sir Hubert!'" whispered Hazel Gray, smiling at her youngfriend. "You should be proud."
Ruth was not quite sure whether she was proud of this unsuspected talentor not. She had written to Aunt Alvirah about her acting in the play, andthe good woman had warned her seriously against the folly of vanity andthe sin of frivolity. Aunt Alvirah had been brought up to doubt very muchthe morality of those who performed upon the stage for the amusement ofthe public.
What Mr. Jabez Potter thought of his niece's acting for the screen, evenhis opinion of her writing a play, was a sealed matter to Ruth; for theold miller, as Aunt Alvirah informed her, grew grumpier and more moroseall the time. "He is a caution to get along with," wrote Aunt AlvirahBoggs in her cramped handwriting. "I don't know what's going to become ofhim. You'd think he was weaned on wormwood and drunk nothing but bonesettea all his life long."
However, it must be confessed that Ruth Fielding's thoughts were not muchupon her Uncle Jabez or the Red Mill these days. The work of making thepictures occupied all her thought that was not taken up
with study.
Jennie Stone, Sarah Fish, Helen, Lluella and Belle, all appearedprominently in the "close up" scenes Mr. Grimes took. In the classroom,dining hall, the graduation march, and in the Italian garden scenes, mostof the seniors and juniors were used.
A splendid gymnasium scene pleased the girls, and views of the hand-ball,captain's-ball, tennis and basket-ball courts, with the girls in action,were bound to be spectacular, too.
These typical boarding school scenes closely followed the text of Ruth'splay. Hazel and Ruth were in them all; and on the tennis court Hazel andRuth played Helen and Sarah Fish a fast game, the former couple winning bysheer skill and pluck.
Ruth naturally had to neglect some duties. Discipline was more or lessrelaxed, and she lost sight of Amy Gregg.
One evening the smaller girl did not appear at Mrs. Sadoc Smith's aftersupper. Of late the other girls had let Amy Gregg alone and Ruth hadceased to watch her so carefully. But when darkness fell and Amy did notappear, Ruth telephoned to the school. Miss Scrimp, who answered the call,had not seen her. It was learned, too, that Amy had not been at the suppertable. Nobody had seen her depart, but it was a fact that she haddisappeared from Briarwood Hall sometime during the afternoon. Nor had shebeen near Mrs. Sadoc Smith's since early morning.