RUBY AT SCHOOL

The Third Volume of the Ruby Series

BY

MINNIE E. PAULL

AUTHOR OF "RUTH AND RUBY," "RUBY'S UPS AND DOWNS,"
"PRINCE DIMPLE SERIES," "DOROTHY DARLING," ETC.

BOSTON
ESTES AND LAURIAT
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1894,
BY ESTES AND LAURIAT.


University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

RUBY AT SCHOOL.

CHAPTER I.

RUBY IN MISCHIEF.

It does seem quite too bad to begin a new Ruby book with Ruby in mischief the very first thing; and yet what can I do but tell you about it? for it is very probable that if she had not been in this particular piece of mischief, this story would never have been written. "Nobody but Ruby would ever have thought of such a thing," Ann exclaimed, when it was discovered, and it really did seem as if Ruby thought of naughty things to do that would never have entered any one else's head.

Ruby had certainly been having one of her "bad streaks," as Nora called her particularly mischievous times, and perhaps this was because Ruby had been left to herself more than she had ever been in all her life before.

Mamma was sick, and she was only able to have Ruby come into her room when the little girl was willing to be very quiet and move about gently, so as not to disturb her; and she knew very little of what Ruby was about in the long hours which she spent in play.

All summer Ruby had been running wild, coming into the house only to eat her meals, or towards evening nestling down beside mamma, to talk to her for a little while about what she had been doing all day. I am afraid it was not very often that Ruby told her of the many things she had been doing of which she knew mamma would not approve at all.

When Ruby went over to Mrs. Warren's house to visit Ruthy, Mrs. Warren tried to have her do as she wished her own little girl to do, but she found it a very much harder matter to govern quick-tempered, impulsive Ruby than it was to guide her own gentle little daughter, and she often sighed as she thought how distressed Ruby's mamma would be if she knew how self-willed and mischievous her little daughter was growing without her mother's care.

Ruby's papa was very busy with his patients, and when he was at home he spent most of his time in the invalid's room, so he did not have any idea how much the little girl needed some one to look after her, and see that she did not get into mischief.

Ann did her best to take care of Ruby, but she had more work to do than usual, so she had very little time to keep watch of the little girl; and besides, Ruby would not mind Ann unless she said she would tell Dr. Harper if Ruby was naughty, and Ann did not like to complain of Ruby if she could help it.

Altogether you can see that Ruby had a pretty good opportunity to be just as naughty as she wanted to be; and every day it did seem as if she thought of more mischievous things to do than she had ever done in all her life put together before.

Ruby was having a very nice time this afternoon all by herself. It would have been nicer to have had Ruthy to help her enjoy it, but Mrs. Warren was not willing to let Ruthy go over to Mrs. Harper's, now that there was no one to see what the two little girls were about. Ruthy could be trusted not to get into any mischief by herself, but sometimes she yielded to Ruby's coaxing when she had devised some piece of mischief, and then no one knew what the two little girls would do next.

Some carpenters had been at work down by the stable, building a new hen-house, and Ruby had made a playhouse for herself with the boards they had left. She had leaned them up against the low branch of an old tree, with Ann's help, for the boards were rather too heavy for her to move alone, and so she had a tent-shaped house of boards in which she thought it was great fun to play.

Ruby's favorite story was the "Swiss Family Robinson," and she thought that no greater happiness could befall any one than to be cast away upon a desert island. As long as there did not seem to be any prospect of a desert island before her, when the largest piece of water she had ever seen in her life was the small shallow pond where the boys got water-lilies in summer, and skated in winter, she thought the next best thing would be to live in this little house, and not go home at all, except to see her mother.

She was very sure that the rest of the family would not approve of this plan at all, so she did not say anything to them about it, but determined to try it and see how she liked it, without running any chances of being forbidden.

One day, when she knew Ann was busy up in her mother's room, and no one would see what she was doing, she ran up to the garret, and brought down a pair of blankets, an old comforter, and the little pillow that belonged to the crib in which she had slept when she was a baby. She carried all these out to her little playhouse in the yard, and has only just tucked away the last corner of the comforter out of sight, when she heard the sound of wheels as her father's buggy drove into the yard.

Ruby ran out to meet him, afraid that he might come and look into her little wooden tent, and see what she had taken from the house. She was very sure that he would not at all approve of her plan of spending the night out there alone. She slipped her hand into his, and walked up to the house with him, and then ran back to her play.

After dinner she chose a time when Nora would not be in the kitchen, and carried some provisions down to her little house; for though she wanted to imitate the Swiss Family Robinson as far as possible, she was not sure that she would be able to find meals for herself as readily as they did; so, though biscuits and cookies were not at all the sort of food shipwrecked people generally eat, she thought that she had better lay in a supply of them, particularly as there were no kindly cocoanut or bread-fruit trees growing at hand.

She filled her apron with the crisp fresh cookies which Ann had just made, and with biscuit from the stone crock, and then spying a little turnover which she was sure Ann had made for her, she added that to her store.

It began to look quite like a castaway's tent, Ruby imagined, as she sat down in her little house and looked around. To be sure, you would hardly expect any one wrecked upon a desert island to have such a comfortable roof of boards over his head, and certainly one would not find a supply of warm, dry bed-clothing at hand, nor fresh cookies; but Ruby was quite satisfied, and she thought it would be great fun to spend the night out there all by herself, and imagine herself in the midst of a forest all alone. She shut her eyes, and as the wind rustled the branches of the tree, she pretended that she heard the waves breaking upon the shore of her desert island, and that chattering monkeys were jumping about over her head in the branches of great palm and tall cocoanut-trees.

If Ruthy could only be cast away with her it would be ever so much nicer, for then she would not have to enjoy it all by herself; but she reflected that it was just as well that Ruthy could not come over and play, for she probably would be afraid to sleep out there, and would cry and want to go into the house just when the play grew the most interesting.

No thought of fear entered venturesome Ruby's mind. It would be an easy matter for her to slip out of the house after she was supposed to be fast asleep in her trundle bed, which was not beside her mother's bed any longer, but in a room by itself. Ruby did not know that the the last thing her father did every night before he went to bed, was to go and take a look at his little girl, and see that she was sleeping comfortably; and very often he went into her room in the evening, soon after she had gone to sleep.

Of course she knew that she was going to do a naughty thing, but I am sorry to say that Ruby did not very often let that interfere with anything she wanted to do now, she had her own way so much.

She was so excited over her plan for the night that she was very quiet all the rest of the afternoon, and Ann said rather suspiciously,—

"You're up to some new mischief, Ruby Harper, I'll venture, or you would never be so quiet all at once. I know you. Now do be a good girl, and don't keep worrying your poor ma so about you."

"Never you mind what I am going to do," answered Ruby, pertly, and just then Ann saw that her cookies were missing.

"Well, where on earth are all my cookies?" she exclaimed. "Now, Ruby Harper, you tell me this very minute what you have been doing with them. I know just as well as anything that you never ate such a lot as that, and I don't see what you could have been doing with them. You go and get them and fetch them back to me right away."

Ruby made a face at her and darted away. She was not going to bring the cookies back nor tell where they were. What would she do when she was shipwrecked if she did not have a store of provisions in her hut, as she called her little house.

She knew it would not do to tell Nora about her plan, and she was so full of it that she felt as if she could not keep it to herself any longer, so she ran over to Ruthy's house.

She found Ruthy playing with her paper dolls on the wide back porch, and for a few minutes she pretended that she had come over to see her paper nieces and nephews, for the children always called themselves aunts to each other's dolls.

"Oh, I have got a plan to tell you about, Ruthy," she said presently. "I don't want any one to hear me telling you about it, so let's go down under the apple-tree, with the dolls."

Ruthy gathered up her children, and in a few moments the two little girls were sitting side by side on the low bench, which Ruthy's father had put there just for their comfort.

"It's the grandest plan," began Ruby.

"Am I in it, too?" asked Ruthy, half wistfully and half fearfully. She always liked to be in Ruby's plans, and felt a little left out when her little friend wanted to do without her, and yet sometimes Ruby's plans were so very extraordinary that she did not enjoy helping to carry them out at all.

"Well, you could be in it, only you see you can't very well," Ruby answered in a rather mixed up fashion.

"Why can't I?" Ruthy asked.

"Well, I'll tell you all about it, and then you will see that you couldn't very well," Ruby answered. "But first of all you must promise me honest true, black and blue, that you will never, never breathe a word of it to any one."

"Not even to mamma?" asked Ruthy, who always felt better when she told her mother all about everything.

"No, not to anyone in all the wide world," Ruthy answered. "I won't tell you a single word unless you promise, and you will be awfully sorry if I don't tell you, for this is the most splendid plan I ever made up in all my life. It is just like a book."

Ruthy's curiosity overcame her scruples about knowing something which she could not tell her mother.

"All right, I won't tell a single person," she said, earnestly. "Tell me what it is."

"Promise across your heart," Ruby insisted, for just then the little girls had a fashion of thinking that promising across their hearts made a promise more binding than any other form of words.

"I promise, honest true, black and blue, 'crost my heart," Ruthy said very earnestly, and then the two heads were put close together while Ruby whispered her wonderful secret.

No one could have heard them, not even the birds in their nests up in the tree, if she had spoken aloud, but a secret always seemed so delightfully mysterious when it was whispered, that she rarely told one aloud.

"I am going to be cast away on a desert island," she said, and Ruthy's blue eyes opened to their widest extent.

"Why, how can you, when there is n't any desert island anywhere near here for miles and miles?" she exclaimed.

"Oh, you are so stupid," Ruby exclaimed impatiently. "Of course I mean to pretend I am cast away. I am going to pretend that down by the barn is a desert island, and that little house I have built with boards is my hut, and I am going to sleep out there all by myself to-night, and I have some provisions and everything all ready."

"But will you dare stay out there all alone when it gets dark?" asked Ruthy in awed tones, feeling quite satisfied that she was left out of this plan, for she knew she should never dare to do such a thing, no matter how much Ruby might want her to join her.

CHAPTER II.

CARRYING OUT HER PLAN.

"Of course I would dare," answered Ruby, positively. "I am not such a coward as you are, Ruthy. You see, even if your mamma would let you come over and stay at my house, so you could be in the plan, it would n't be of any use, for it would be just like you to get afraid as soon as it was dark, and then you would cry and want to go back into the house."

"I am afraid I would," Ruthy answered meekly, not resenting the accusation of cowardice. "I should think you would be afraid too, Ruby; and then what will your papa and mamma think when they find out in the night that you are gone."

"They won't find out," answered Ruby, easily disposing of that objection. "You see I shall wait till after they think I have gone to sleep to go out to my hut. I will get most undressed to-night at bed-time and then put my nightie on over the rest of my clothes, and when papa comes in to kiss me good-night he will never think of my getting up again. Then I will creep downstairs as softly as a mouse, and out into the yard. It will be such fun to roll up in the blankets, and pretend that they are the skins of wild animals, and I shall lie awake for ever so long listening to hear if any bears come around, or lions. Oh, it will be such fun," and Ruby's eyes sparkled. Ruthy looked troubled.

"I don't think it will be a bit nice," she said presently. "I don't believe your mamma would like it one single bit; and suppose somebody should carry you off when you are out there all by yourself."

"You just can't make me afraid, I guess, Ruthy Warren," sniffed Ruby, scornfully. "You are such a 'fraid-cat that you never want to do anything in all your life but play paper dolls. I might have known you would n't see what fun it is to play Swiss Family Robinson. Now don't you dare tell any one a single word about it. Remember you promised across your heart."

"I sha'n't tell," Ruthy answered, "but I do wish you would n't do it, Ruby. Why, I shall be as scared as anything if I wake up in the night and think that you are out there in your house all alone in the pitch dark. I should be so frightened if I was you that I would just scream and scream till some one heard me and came and got me."

"I would n't have such a baby as you to stay with me," Ruby said. "I am going to do it just as sure as anything, Ruthy Warren, and if you breathe a word of it to any one so I don't get let to do it, I will never, never speak to you again as long as I live and breathe."

"Of course I sha'n't tell when I promised," Ruthy replied, a little hurt at Ruby's doubting her word. "Maybe you won't do it after all, though. Perhaps when it gets dark you will be frightened."

"I never get frightened," Ruby said, tossing her head. "Now I must go home, Ruthy. Come and walk part way with me, won't you?"

"I'll ask mamma," Ruthy answered, and gathering up her paper dolls she ran into the house, coming back in a few minutes with two red-cheeked apples for the little girls to eat on their way, and permission to go as far as the corner with Ruby.

Ruby could talk and think of nothing but her great plan for the night, and Ruthy pleaded with her in vain to give it up. The little girl was so troubled about it that she wished Ruby had not told her about it. She did not see how she would ever be able to go to bed that night, and go to sleep, thinking of her little friend out alone in her little house down by the barn. In the bottom of her heart she wished that Ruby would be caught by Ann on her way out of the house, and prevented from carrying out her plan, but she did not dare whisper this wish to Ruby, as she knew how angry it would make her to think of her plans being thwarted.

By the time Ruby reached home another plan occurred to her busy brain. Nora was not far from right when she said that Ruby could think up more mischief than any three children could carry out. Suppose it should be cold in the night. Ruby could not quite remember what time in the year it was when the Swiss Family Robinson were shipwrecked, but she knew they had to make a fire. She would get some shavings and some little sticks, and get a fire all ready to light in her hut, and then if it should be cold, and she should want to light a fire, it would be all ready.

This new idea added a great charm to the thought of staying out there all night. She was quite sure that she would need a fire, and she bustled around very busily when she got home, gathering up shavings from the place where the carpenters had been at work, and getting little sticks to lay upon them so that the fire would burn up readily. Then she went back to the house, and going up into the spare room, took down the match-box from the tall chest of drawers, and carried it out to the hut where it would be all ready for the night. When this was done she felt as if she could hardly wait for the sun to go down and bedtime to come. She was so excited over her grand plan that her eyes shone like stars, and her cheeks were so flushed that when her father came in, he put his hand on her cheeks to see whether she had any fever. If he had only known what a naughty plan was in Ruby's mind, he would have been more sorry than to have had his little girl sick.

Of course I need not tell you that Ruby knew just how wrong it was to plan something which she knew very well her father and mother would not permit for a moment if they knew of it. But in all the years that you have known her she had not grown any less self-willed, I am sorry to say, and so she thought of nothing but of getting her own way, whether it was naughty or not.

The longest day will have an end at last, and though it seemed to Ruby as if a day had never passed so slowly, yet finally the sun went down. Ruby had had her supper, had kissed mamma good-night, and bed-time had come. She took off her shoes, and her dress, and then slipping her little white night-dress on over her other clothes, she scrambled into bed, and waited for her papa to come and kiss her good-night, her heart beating so loudly with excitement that she was afraid he would hear it, and wonder what was the matter with her. I think if it had been her mother who had come in she would have wondered why only Ruby's dress and shoes were to be seen, and why the little girl had such a flushed, guilty look, and held the bed-clothes tucked up so tightly under her chin; but Ruby's papa did not notice any of these things, so Ruby was not hindered from carrying out her naughty plan.

She waited for what seemed to her a very long time, and then she heard the wheels of her father's buggy going out of the yard, and knew he had gone somewhere to see a patient. She was glad, for that made one person less who would be likely to hear her when she went out. Her mamma she was sure would not hear her, for her door was closed, and if she could only get past the kitchen door without Ann discovering her, she would be safe. When she could not hear any one stirring, she got up and crept softly over to the door. The house was very still, so even the rustle of her night-dress seemed to make a noise as she stepped along the hall. Down the stairs she crept like a little thief, and at last she reached the door. Ann had been sitting with her back to the kitchen door reading when Ruby went past, so she had not noticed the little figure gliding along.

Ruby stepped through the open door out upon the back porch. It was dark, and the noise of the tree toads and frogs seemed to make it more lonely than she had thought it would be. For a moment she was almost willing to give up her plan and go back to bed like a good little girl, but then she thought of Ruthy, and how she would hate to confess to her the next day that she had given up her plan after all; so she went on. Ruby was not inclined to be timid about anything, so, although it did not seem as delightful as she had imagined it would, yet she was not afraid as she ran down the yard to her little house. She was glad, however, that it was not upon a desert island. It was very nice to know that she was not surrounded by great rolling waves on every side, and that if she wished to go back to her home and her mother she could do so in a very few minutes.

She crept into her hut, and finding the bedclothes rolled herself up in them. Oh, why was n't it as nice as she had thought it would be? Ruby was provoked with herself for wishing that she was back in the house curled up in her own little bed, instead of being out here in the night alone. She would not give up and go back, though, she said over and over again to herself. No; she had said that she would stay out all night, and she meant to keep her word, whether she liked it or not.

If Ruby had only been half as determined to keep her good resolutions as she was to keep her bad ones, she would never have found herself in such scrapes.

She rolled herself up in a little ball and drew the blanket closely about her,—not because she was cold, but because it seemed less lonesome. While she was listening to all the music of a summer's night, she fell asleep, and dreamed a very remarkable dream about sleeping in a nest swung from a cocoanut-tree, with a monkey for a bed-fellow.

In the mean time very unexpected events were taking place at the house. A little while after Ruby's father had gone out to see his patient a carriage drove up from the station with a visitor.

It was Ruby's Aunt Emma, who had come to make a visit of a few days, and who had written to say that she was coming, but had only discovered at the last moment that her letter had not been mailed in time for her brother to receive it before her arrival.

After she had had a little talk with Ruby's mother, she was very impatient to see her little niece.

"I wish I could have reached here in time to see her before she went to sleep," she said.

"I am afraid if she woke up now and found you were here she would not go to sleep again all night," said Ruby's mother.

"I won't wake her, but I will just go and peep at her while she is asleep," said Aunt Emma; and lighting a candle, she followed Ann into the room where Ruby was supposed to be fast asleep in her trundle-bed.

Of course there was no Ruby there. The little girl was curled up in her blankets out in the yard, under her little tent of boards; and there was only a little crumpled place in the pillow to show where her head had nestled.

"Why, where can she be, I wonder?" said Ann in surprise.

"Hush! don't let her mother hear, or she will be worried," said Aunt Emma, who knew how easily the invalid would be alarmed. "Perhaps she has gone downstairs to get a drink of water or something."

"No, I am sure she has n't been downstairs, for I have been sitting right there in the kitchen all the evening," said Ann, positively. "Oh, Miss Emma, she has got to be the witchiest girl ever you did see. She's always up to some piece of mischief or another, and it's more than any one but her mother can do to keep her in order. I try my best, but it ain't any use at all. She does just as she likes for all of me, unless I tell her father; and then it worries him so that I don't like to, when he has so much else on his mind."

"I should like to know where she is now," said Miss Emma, looking very much puzzled. "There comes her father," she went on, as she heard the sound of wheels coming into the yard. "Perhaps he will know." She went downstairs softly, and met the doctor who, was very much surprised at this unexpected visitor. After he had told her how glad he was to see her, she told him that Ruby was not upstairs in her bed, and that Ann did not know where she was, and asked him if he knew what had become of the little girl.

He looked very anxious.

"Why, no, I have not the least idea," he said gravely. "I kissed her good-night just before I went out to make a call, and she was all right in her bed then. I do not see what could have become of her. I hope we can keep it from her mother, or she will be sadly frightened if she hears Ruby is not to be found at this hour of the night."

Of course no one could imagine where Ruby had gone, and although they hunted all over the house, there was not a trace of the little girl to be seen.

"Perhaps she has been walking in her sleep," suggested Aunt Emma. "She may have wandered downstairs and out into the yard while she was asleep, and been too frightened when she woke up to know how to find her way back into the house. I have heard of children doing such things."

"But she could n't have gone past the door without my seeing her," said Ann, very positively. "I have been sitting right there in the kitchen all the evening, and I am sure I would have heard her, if she had gone past. I never knew Ruby to walk in her sleep; but then I would n't say she might n't have done it this time, only I know she did n't walk past the kitchen door and go out that way."

"Could she have gone out the front door?" asked Aunt Emma.

The doctor shook his head.

"No; that would be too heavy for her to open alone, after it was locked up for the night. I fastened it myself before I went out, and it is fastened now; so she could not have gone out that way. There is her mother calling. I hope she will not ask for Ruby. She must not have this anxiety if we can spare her."

CHAPTER III.

LOOKING FOR RUBY.

People who are sick are very quick to hear when anything is wrong, and as soon as the doctor opened the door of the sick-room, Ruby's mamma asked anxiously,—

"Is anything wrong with Ruby? Where is she?"

Just then the only possible explanation of her absence occurred to the doctor, and he answered,

"She is not in her bed, my dear, and I am afraid she has run away and gone over to Ruthy's to spend the night. You know she asked permission to stay all night the last time she went over there for supper, and I suppose she has made up her mind to go without permission. It is too bad in her to act this way and worry you. I will drive over after her right away, and bring her back in a few minutes."

"I don't believe she would go all the way up to Ruthy's after dark," said her mother, in anxious tones. "I am afraid something has happened to her, though I cannot imagine what it could be."

"Don't think about it till I bring her back safe and sound," said the doctor as he hurried away.

But it was a great deal easier to give this advice than to follow it. Ruby's mamma could not help worrying about her little girl, and while naughty little Ruby was curled up in her blankets, sleeping as sweetly as a little bird in its nest, her mamma was listening to the wheels of the doctor's buggy, rolling out of the yard, with a beating heart, and wondering what had happened to the little girl who had gone to bed not two hours ago.

It did not take very long to drive over to Ruthy's house, and the doctor did not wait to hitch staid old Dobbin, but jumped out and ran up the steps to the house, anxious to know whether Ruby was really there. Although he was quite sure that she must be, yet he was impatient to satisfy himself.

"Is Ruby here?" were his first words, when Mr. Warren opened the door.

"Why, no," Mr. Warren answered. "I don't think she has been here to-day."

"Oh, yes, she was here a little while this afternoon," said Mrs. Warren coming to the door. "Why, what is the matter, doctor? Is n't Ruby at home?"

"No, she went to bed all right, but a little while ago when her aunt came and went to look for her, she was gone," said the doctor, feeling as if he did not know now where to turn to look for the little runaway; for where could she possibly be at that time of night, if she had not come over to visit her little friend? "Where can the child be?"

"Is n't she in the house somewhere?" asked Mrs. Warren.

"No, we have looked through the house," the doctor answered. "I don't know what will become of her mother, if I have to go back without Ruby. No one could have come into the house and stolen her, that is certain, and yet I cannot conceive where she could have gone to at this hour in the evening. This is dreadful."

Neither Mr. Warren nor his wife could suggest any place to look for Ruby. It was certainly a very strange thing that she could have disappeared from her bed after dark, without any one knowing anything about it. The doctor got into his buggy again and started towards home, wondering what he should do when he had to tell Ruby's mother that her little girl could not be found.

If Ruby could have known what a heartache her father had, as he drove slowly homeward, dreading to take such sad news back with him, I am quite sure the little girl would have tried to be good, and not make those who loved her so anxious about her.

In the mean time, Ruby had stirred uneasily in her sleep, and at last when the owl who lived in the tall elm-tree close by, gave a long, mournful hoot, she awakened, and sat up, wondering, as she rubbed her eyes open, where she was.

The cool evening breeze fanned her face, and the stars looked down upon her, and all at once Ruby remembered where she had gone to sleep. In the very depths of her heart she wished that she was back again in her own little bed, with her head on her pillow, and the white spread drawn over her. It seemed so very, very desolate to be down here at the end of the garden all alone, with a long, dark walk before her if she should go back to the house; and she began to think that the Swiss Family Robinson had a better time than Robinson Crusoe, since they were all together, and poor Crusoe must often have been very lonely all by himself, before his man Friday came to live with him.

If Ruthy had only been there, Ruby thought she would have made a very good man Friday, but she was quite sure that nothing would have persuaded Ruthy to stay out of doors at night.

"I am not a little 'fraid-cat like Ruthy," said Ruby to herself, trying to pretend that she was not at all lonely nor frightened. "I would just as lief stay out here every night. I wonder what time it is. I guess it must be nearly morning. I was asleep just hours and hours, I think. I am dreadfully hungry, so it must be ever so long since I had my supper. I had better eat some provisions, maybe."

Ruby was not really very hungry, but she wanted to be as much like the Swiss Family Robinson as possible, so she sat up and sleepily nibbled at some cookies.

"I don't think these are very nice cookies," she said, as she tried to keep up the pretence that she was very hungry. "I wish they were cocoanuts. They would be ever so much nicer."

"I wish this was a big, tall cocoanut-tree," Ruby went on. "And that it was just full of cocoanuts, and that some monkeys had a nest in it, and would throw me down cocoanuts whenever I wanted one. It would hurt if they hit me on the head though. I guess I would have to live under another tree, so as to be sure the cocoanuts would n't drop on me. I wonder if monkeys live in nests. Of course they don't live in bird's-nests, but maybe they take sticks up into trees, and make little nests, and—and—"

Ruby nodded so hard that she woke up again. She had nearly gone to sleep sitting straight up, she was so sleepy.

"I don't want to go to sleep just yet," she said. "I am going to stay awake, so. I might just as well be in bed as keep asleep out here all the time. I guess I will make a fire, and then that will be just like a real castaway."

The sticks and matches were all ready, and Ruby struck a match and lighted the little fire. It was not a very large pile of sticks, and Ruby had not thought that it would make much of a blaze, but the shavings underneath, and the light, dry sticks upon the top, were very ready to take fire and make as large a blaze as they could, so Ruby was quite dismayed at the size of her fire.

She was a little frightened, too. She had made the fire in the front of her little house, and she could not get past it to go out. The fence made a strong back wall to the house, over which she could not climb, and she could not possibly get away from the smoke and heat without going so near the fire that she was sure her night-gown would take fire.

Suppose the boards that she used in making the house should take fire, what would become of her then. I do not wonder that Ruby was frightened when she looked at the little bonfire, crackling and snapping away as cheerily as if a frightened child was not watching it with tears in her eyes.

"Oh, I shall be all burned up," she cried. "And no one will ever know what became of me. My mamma will cry and cry and wonder where Ruby is, but she will never think that I came down here and made a fire, and burned myself all entirely up. Oh, oh, I do wish I had n't. I do wish I had n't. I wonder if I screamed and screamed for papa, whether he would come down and hear me and come down and get me out. Perhaps he could n't. I don't see how anybody could get past that dreadful blaze. He would just have to see me all burning up and he could n't do one thing to save me. Oh, how sorry he would be," and Ruby cried harder than ever at the thought of her father's distress.

The smoke made her eyes smart and sting, and it choked her so that she coughed and strangled, and I need not tell you that she would have given anything in the world to have been back in her own little bed again.

Just then papa drove through the gate, and you can imagine how much surprised he was to see a fire under some boards down at the end of the yard. He jumped out of the buggy and went down there as quickly as he could, to find out what it was.

He looked into the little house, and there beyond the fire, crying so hard that she did not see nor hear him, was the little girl he had been looking for.

"Why, Ruby!" he exclaimed in amazement; and Ruby looked up, as much surprised at finding her father there, as he had been a second before when he saw her.

"Oh, papa, papa, must I be all burned up?" she cried, but papa was already answering that question. He threw down the boards out of which Ruby had made her house, and striding past the fire, lifted her in his arms, and started up to the house with her.

He was so glad that he had found her, and could take her back to her mother safe and unharmed, that he forgot everything else, and of course, Ruby was happy at being in those strong arms, when she had been so sure that she was going to be burned up; and all the way up to the house she resolved, as she had so many times before, that she would surely, surely be good now, for whenever she was naughty, and did things that she knew would not please her father and mother, she always got into trouble, and was not half as happy as she would have been if she had tried to please them. After all, papas and mammas did know what was best for little girls.