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

CHAPTER XI—TOBOGGANING IN JUNE

The visitors were delighted. Every minute they saw something to exclaim over. A pair of beautifully spotted coach dogs raced down the drive, and cavorted about the coach, eagerly welcoming them.

When they finally topped the hill and came out upon the tableland on which the house and the main buildings of Sunrise Farm stood, they received a welcome indeed.

There was a big farm bell hung to a creaking arm in the water-tower beside the old colonial dwelling. The instant the leaders’ ears topped the rise, and while yet the coach was a long way off, several youngsters swung themselves on the bell-rope, and the alarm reverberated across the hills and valleys in no uncertain tone.

Beside this, a cannon that was something bigger than a toy, “spoke” loudly on the front lawn, and a flag was run up the pole set here in a prominent place before the house. Mr. and Mrs. Steele stood on the broad veranda, between the main pillars, to receive them, and when the coach drew up with a flourish, the horde of younger Steeles—Madge’s and Bob’s brothers and sisters, whom the big sister called “steel filings”—charged around from the bell-tower. There were four or five of the younger children, all seemingly about of an age, and they made as much confusion as an army.

“Welcome to Sunrise, girls and boys,” said Mr. Steele, who was a short, brisk, chubby man, with an abrupt manner, but with an unmistakably kind heart, or he would not have sanctioned the descent of this horde of young folk upon the place. “Welcome to Sunrise! We want you all to have a good time here. The place is open to you, and all Mother Steele begs is that you will not break your necks or get into any other serious trouble.”

Mrs. Steele was much taller than her husband; it was positive that Madge and Bobbins got their height from her side of the family. All the younger Steele seemed chubby and round like their father.

Everybody seemed so jolly and kind that it was quite surprising to see how the faces of both Mother and Father Steele, as well as their children, changed at the long lunch table, half an hour later, when the name of Caslon, the neighboring farmer, was mentioned.

“What d’ye think they have been telling me at the stables, Pa?” cried Bobbins, when there was a lull in the conversation so that he could be heard from his end of the table to his father’s seat.

“I can’t say. What?” responded Mr. Steele.

“About those Caslons. What do you suppose they’re going to do now?”

“Ha!” exclaimed the gentleman, his face darkening. “Nothing you have heard could surprise me.”

“I bet this does,” chuckled Bob. “They are going to take a whole raft of fresh air kids to board. What do you know about that? Little ragamuffins from some school, or asylum, or hospital, or something. Won’t they make a mess all over this hill?”

“Ha! he’s done that to spite me,” exclaimed Mr. Steele. “But I’ll post my line next to his, and if those young ones trespass, I’ll see what my lawyer in Darrowtown can do about it.”

“It shows what kind of people those Caslons are,” said Mrs. Steele, with a sigh. “Of course, they know such a crowd of children will be very annoying to the neighbors.”

“And we’re the only neighbors,” added Bob.

“Seems to me,” said Madge, slowly, “that I have heard the Caslons always do take a bunch of fresh air children in the summer.”

“Oh, I fancy he is doing it this year just to spite us,” said her father, shortly. “But I’ll show him——”

He became gloomy, and a cloud seemed to fall upon the whole table for the remainder of the meal. It was evident that nothing the neighboring farmer could do would be looked upon with favorable eyes by the Steeles.

Ruth did not comment upon the situation, as some of the other girls did out of hearing of their hosts. It did seem too bad that the Steeles should drag this trouble with a neighbor into the public eye so much.

The girl of the Red Mill could not help but remember the jovial looking old farmer and his placid wife, and she felt sure they were not people who would deliberately annoy their neighbors. Yet, the Steeles had taken such a dislike to the Caslons it was evident they could see no good in the old farmer and his wife.

The Steeles had come directly from the city and had brought most of their servants with them from their city home. They had hired very few local men, even on the farm. Therefore they were not at all in touch with their neighbors, or with any of the “natives.”

Mr. Steele was a city man, through and through. He had not even lived in the country when he was a boy. His own children knew much more about out-of-doors than he, or his wife.

The host was a very successful business man, had made money of late years, and wished to spend some of his gains now in laying out the finest “gentleman’s farm” in that quarter of the State. To be balked right at the start by what he called “a cowhide-booted old Rube” was a cross that Mr. Steele could not bear with composure.

The young folks, naturally (save Ruth), were not much interested in the controversy between their hosts and the neighboring farmer. There was too much fun going on for both girls and boys to think of much beside.

That afternoon they overran the house and stables, numbered the sheep, watched the tiny pigs and their mothers in the clover-lot, were delighted with the colts that ran with their mothers in the paddock, played with the calves, and got acquainted in general with the livestock of Sunrise Farm.

“Only we haven’t goats,” said Bobbins. “I’ve been trying to get father to buy some Angoras. Old Caslon has the best stock anywhere around, and father says he won’t try to buy of him. I’d like to send off for a good big billy-goat and turn him into Caslon’s back pasture. I bet there’d be a fight, for Caslon’s got a billy that’ll chase you just as soon as he’d wink.”

“We’d better keep out of that pasture, then,” laughed one of the girls.

“Oh, father’s forbidden us trespassing on Caslon’s land. We’d like to catch him on our side of the line, that’s all!”

“Who—Mr. Caslon, or the billy?” asked Tom, chuckling.

“Either one,” said Bob, shaking his head threateningly.

Everyone was in bed early that night, for all were tired; but the boys had a whispered colloquy before they went to sleep in their own big room at the top of the house, and Bob tied a cord to his big toe and weighted the other end so that it would drop out of the window and hang just about head-high above the grass.

The first stableman up about the place ran over from the barns and gave Master Bob’s cord a yank, according to instructions, and pretty nearly hauled that ingenious chap out of bed before the eastern sky was even streaked with light.

“Gee! have we got to get up now?” demanded Busy Izzy, aroused, as were the other boys, by Bobbins dancing about the floor and rubbing his toe. “Somebody has been foolin’ you—it’s nowheres near morning.”

“Bet a dog jumped up and bit that string you hung out of the window,” chuckled Tom Cameron.

He looked at his watch and saw that it really was after four o’clock.

“Come on, then!” Tom added, rolling Ralph Tingley out of bed. “We must do as we said, and surprise the girls.”

“Sh!” commanded Bobbins. “No noise. We want to slide out easy.”

With much muffled giggling and wrestling, they dressed and made their way downstairs. The maids were just astir.

The boys had something particular to do, and they went to work at it very promptly, under Tom Cameron’s leadership. Behind one of the farther barns was a sharp, but smooth slope, well sodded, which descended to the line of the farm that adjoined Mr. Caslon’s. There, at the bottom, the land sloped up again to the stone wall that divided the two estates.

It was a fine place for a slide in winter, somebody had said; but Tom’s quick wit suggested that it would be a good place for a slide in summer, too! And the boys had laid their plans for this early morning job accordingly.

Before breakfast they had built a dozen barrel-stave toboggans—each long enough to hold two persons, if it was so desired.

Tom and Bobbins tried them first and showed the crowd how fine a slide it really was down the long, grassy bank. The most timid girl in the crowd finally was convinced that it was safe, and for several hours, the shrieks of delight and laughter from that hillside proved that a sport out of season was all the better appreciated because it was novel.

Over the broad stone wall was the pasture in which Caslon kept his flock of goats. Beautiful, long-haired creatures they were, but the solemn old leader of the flock stamped his feet at the curious girls and boys who looked over the wall, and shook his horns.

Somewhere, along by the boundary of the two estates, Bob said there was a spring, and Ruth and Helen slipped off by themselves to find it. A wild bit of brush pasture soon hid them from the view of their friends, and as they went over a small ridge and down into the deeper valley, the laughter and shouting of those at the slide gradually died away behind them.

The girls had to cross the stone wall to get at the spring, and they did not remember that in doing so they were “out of bounds.” Bob had said nothing about the spring being on the Caslon side of the boundary.

Once beside the brook, Helen must needs explore farther. There were lovely trees and flowering bushes, and wild strawberries in a small meadow that lured the two girls on. They were a long way from the stone fence when, of a sudden, a crashing in the bushes behind them brought both Ruth and Helen to their feet.

“My! what’s that?” demanded Helen.

“Sounds like some animal.”

Ruth’s remark was not finished.

“The goat! it’s the old billy!” sang out Helen, and turned to run as the horned head of the bewhiskered leader of the Angora herd came suddenly into view.

CHAPTER XII—A NUMBER OF INTRODUCTIONS

Both girls had practiced on the ladders in the school gymnasium and they quickly swung themselves up into the tree. The goat arrived almost on the instant, too. At once he leaped up with his fore-feet against the bole of the tree.

“My goodness me!” gasped Helen. “He’s going to climb it, too.”

“You know goats can climb. They’re very sure-footed,” said her chum.

“I know all that,” admitted Helen. “But I didn’t suppose they could climb trees.”

The goat gave up that attempt, however, very soon. He had no idea, it seemed, of going away and leaving his treed victims in peace.

He paced around and around the cedar, casting wicked glances at the girls’ dangling feet, and shaking his horns in a most threatening way. What he would do to them if he got a chance would “be a-plenty,” Helen declared.

“Don’t you suppose he’ll get tired, bye and bye?” queried her chum, despondently.

“He doesn’t look as though he ever got wearied,” returned Helen. “What a savage looking beast he is! And such whiskers!”

“I wouldn’t make fun of him,” advised Ruth, timidly. “I believe he understands—and it makes him madder! Oh! see him!”

Mr. Goat, impatient of the delay, suddenly charged the tree and banged against it with his horns in a desperate attempt to jar down the girls perched above.

“Oh, the foolish billy!” cooed Helen. “We’re not ripe enough to drop off so easily. But he thinks we are.”

“You can laugh,” complained Ruth. “But I don’t think this is much fun.”

“Not for the goat, anyway. He is getting so angry that he may have apoplexy. Let’s shout. Maybe the boys will hear us.”

“Not ‘way down here, I fear,” returned Ruth. “We can’t hear a sound from them. But let’s try.”

They raised their voices in unison, again and again. But there came no reply, save that a number of Mr. Billy Goat’s lady friends came trooping through the brush and looked up at the girls perched so high above them.

“Bla-a-a-t! bla-a-a-at!” quoth the chorus of nannies.

“The same to you, and many of them!” replied Helen, bowing politely.

“Look out! you’ll fall from the limb,” advised Ruth, much worried.

“And what a fall would then be there, my countrymen!” sighed Helen. “Say, Ruth! did you ever notice before what an expressive countenance a goat has? Now, Mr. Billy, here, looks just like a selectman of a country school board—long whiskers and all.”

“You stop making fun of him,” declared Ruth, shaking her head. “I tell you it makes him mad.”

    “Goaty,  goaty,  go  away,
    Come  again  some  other  day,
    Ruthie  and  Helen  want  to  get  down  and  play!”

sang Helen Cameron, with a most ridiculous expression.

“We’ll never get down unless somebody comes to drive that beast away,” cried Ruth, in disgust.

“And I bet nobody comes over to this end of the farm for days at a time.”

“That’s it! keep on! make it just as bad as you can,” groaned Ruth. “Do you know it will soon be luncheon time, Helen?”

“But that won’t bother Mr. Goat. He hopes to lunch off us, I guess.”

“But we can’t stay here, Helen!” cried Ruth, in despair.

“You have my permission to hop right down, my dear, and make the closer acquaintance of Sir Capricornus, and all the harem. Ex-cuse me! I think after due consideration I will retain my lofty perch—— Ugh!”

“You came pretty near slipping off that time!” exclaimed Ruth. “I wouldn’t be too funny, if I were you.”

“Maybe you are right,” agreed her friend, in a more subdued tone. “Dear me! let us call again, Ruth!”

So both girls again raised their voices. This time there was a response, but not from the direction of the stone wall they had crossed to reach the spring.

“Hello!” called a jovial sounding voice. “Hello up there!”

“Hello yourself!” shouted Helen. “Oh, do, do come and drive away these awful goats.”

There was a hearty laugh at this reply, and then a man appeared. Ruth had guessed his identity before ever he came in view. It was the portly Mr. Caslon.

“Well, well, my dears! how long have you been roosting up there?” he demanded, laughing frankly at them. “Get out, you rascal!”

This he said to the big goat, who started for him with head lowered. Mr. Caslon leaped nimbly to one side and whacked the goat savagely across the back with his knobby stick. The goat kept right on down the hillside, evidently having had enough of that play, and the nannies followed, bleating.

“You can come down now, young ladies,” said the farmer. “But I wouldn’t come over into this pasture to play much. The goats don’t like strangers.”

“We had no business to come here at all, but we forgot,” explained Ruth, when both she and her chum had descended from the tree. “We were warned not to come over on this side of the line.”

“Oh, indeed? you’re from up on the hill-top?” he asked.

“We are visiting Madge Steele—yes,” said Helen, looking at him curiously.

“Ah! I saw all you young folk going by yesterday. You should have a fine time about here,” said the farmer, smiling broadly. “And, aside from the temper of the goats, I don’t mind you all coming over here on my land if you like.”

The girls thanked him warmly for rescuing them from their predicament, and then ran up the hill to put the stone wall between them and the goats before there was more trouble.

“I like him,” said Helen, referring to Mr. Caslon.

“So do I,” agreed Ruth. “And it’s too bad that Mr. Steele and he do not understand each other.”

Although their escapade with the goats was a good joke—and a joke worth telling to the crowd—Ruth decided that it would be just as well to say nothing about it, and she told Helen so.

“I expect you are right,” admitted her chum. “It will only cause comment because we went out of bounds, and became acquainted with Mr. Caslon. But I’m glad the old goat introduced us,” and she laughed and tossed her head.

So they joined their friends, who had gotten tired by this time of tobogganing in June, and they all trooped up the hill again to the house. It was growing warm, and the hammocks and lounging chairs in the shade of the verandas attracted them until noon.

After luncheon there was tennis and croquet on the lawns, and toward evening everybody went driving, although not in the yellow coach this time.

The plans for the following day included a long drive by coach to a lake beyond Darrowtown, where they had a picnic lunch, and boated and fished and had a glorious time in general.

Bobbins drove as before, but there were two men with the party to do the work and look after the horses, and Mrs. Steele herself was present to have an oversight of the young folk.

Bob Steele was very proud of his ability to drive the four-in-hand, and when they swung through Darrowtown on the return trip, with the whip cracking and Tom tooting the horn, many people stopped to observe the passing of the turnout.

Every other team got out of their way—even the few automobiles they passed. But when they got over the first ridge beyond the town and the four horses broke into a canter, Mrs. Steele, who sat up behind her son on this journey, suddenly put a hand upon his shoulder and called his attention to something ahead in the road.

“Do have a care, my son,” she said. “There has been an accident there—yes? Don’t drive too fast——”

“By jiminy!” ejaculated Ralph Tingley. “That’s a breakdown, sure enough.”

“A farm wagon. There’s a wheel off,” cried Ann Hicks, leaning out from the other end of the seat the better to see.

“And who are all those children in blue?” demanded Mercy Curtis, looking out from below. “There’s such a lot of them! One, two, three, four, five—— Goodness me! they jump about so like fleas that I can’t count them!”

“Why, I bet I know what it is,” drawled Bobbins, at last. “It’s old Caslon and his load of fresh airs. He was going to town to meet them to-day, I believe. And he’s broken down before he’s half way home with them—and serves him good and right!”

CHAPTER XIII—“THE TERRIBLE TWINS”

“Well—now—Mother——”

But she stopped him with: “At any rate, you must halt and offer him help. And those children—I hope none of them has been hurt.”

“Pooh! you couldn’t hurt kids like those,” declared Bob.

But he brought the horses down to a walk and the yellow coach approached the scene of the accident at a temperate pace.

The big farm-wagon, the body of which had been filled with straw for the youngsters to ride in, had been pulled to the side of the road out of the way of passing vehicles. It was clear that the smashed wheel was past repair by any amateur means, for several spokes were broken, and the hub was split.

The youngsters whom Mr. Caslon had taken aboard at the railway station in Darrowtown were dancing about and yelling like wild Indians. As the coach came nearer, the excited party upon it could more carefully count the blue-clad figures, and it was proved that there were twelve.

Six girls were in blue gingham frocks, all alike, and all made “skimpy” and awkward looking. The six boys were in new blue overalls and cotton shirts. The overalls seemed all of one size, although the boys were not. They must have been purchased at the store of one size, and whether a boy was six, or twelve, he wore the same number.

Each of the children, too, carried a more or less neatly made up parcel, the outer covering of which was a blue and white bandanna, and the contents of which was the change of clothing the institution allowed them.

“What a terrible noise they make!” sighed Mrs. Steele. “And they are perfect little terrors, I suppose. But they are clean.”

They had not been out of the sight of the institution nurse long enough to be otherwise, for she had come as far as Darrowtown with them. But they were noisy, sure enough, for each one was trying to tell his or her mates how he or she felt when the wheel crashed and the wagon went over.

“I reckon I oughtn’t to have risked that wheel, after all,” said Mr. Caslon, doffing his hat to Mrs. Steele, but smiling broadly as he looked up from his examination of the wheel.

“Whoa, Charlie! Don’t get too near them heels, youngsters. Charlie an’ Ned are both old duffers like me; but you can’t fool around a horse’s legs without making him nervous.

“And don’t pull them reins. I don’t want ’em to start right now.... Yes, ma’am. I’ll haf ter lead the horses home, and that I don’t mind. But these young ones—— Now, let that whip lay right where it is, young man! That’s right.

“You see, ma’am,” he proceeded, quite calmly despite all that was going on about him, and addressing himself to Mrs. Steele, “it’s too long a walk for the little ones, and I couldn’t tote ’em all on the backs of the horses——

“Now, you two curly heads there—what do you call ’em?”

“The Terrible Twins!” quoth two or three of the other orphans, in chorus.

“I believe ye! I believe ye! They jest bile over, they do. Now, you two boys,” he added, addressing two youngsters, very much alike, about of a height, and both with short, light curly hair, “never mind tryin’ to unharness Charlie and Ned. I’ll do that.

“Ye see, ma’am, if you could take some of the little ones aboard——” he suggested to Mrs. Steele.

The coach was well filled, yet it was not crowded. The girls began to call to the little folks to get aboard even before Mrs. Steele could speak.

“There’s lots of room up here,” cried Ruth, leaning from her end of the seat and offering her hand. The twins ran at once to climb up and fought for “first lift” by Ruth.

“Oh, yes! they can get aboard,” said Mrs. Steele. “All there is room for.”

And the twelve “fresh airs” proved very quickly that there was room for them all. Ruth had the “terrible twins” on the seat with her in half a minute, and the others swarmed into, or on top of, the coach almost as quickly.

“There now! that’s a big lift, I do declare,” said the farmer, hanging the chains of the horses’ traces upon the hames, and preparing to lead the pair along the road.

“My wife will be some surprised, I bet,” and he laughed jovially. “I’m certain sure obleeged to ye, Mis’ Steele. Neighbors ought to be neighborly, an’ you air doin’ me a good turn this time—yes, ma’am!”

“Now, you see,” growled Bob, as the four coach horses trotted on, “he’ll take advantage of this. We’ve noticed him once, and he’ll always be fresh.”

“Hush, my son!” whispered Mrs. Steele. “Little pitchers have big ears.”

“Huh!” exclaimed one of the wriggling twins, looking up at the lady sideways like a bird. “I know what that means. We’re little pitchers—Dickie an’ me. We’ve heard that before—ain’t we, Dickie?”

“Yep,” announced his brother, nodding wisely.

These two were certainly wise little scamps! Willie did most of the talking, but whatever he said his brother agreed to. Dickie being so chary with speech, possibly his brother felt that he must exercise his own tongue the more, for he chattered away like a veritable magpie, turning now and then to demand:

“Ain’t that so, Dickie?”

“Yep,” vouchsafed the echo, and, thus championed, Willie would rattle on again.

Yes. They was all from the same asylum. There were lots more of boys and girls in that same place. But only twelve could get to go to this place where they were going. They knew boys that went to Mr. Caslon’s last year.

“Don’t we, Dickie?”

“Yep.”

No. They didn’t have a mama or papa. Never had had any. But they had a sister. She was a big girl and had gone away from the asylum. Some time, when they were big enough, they were going to run away from the asylum and find her.

“Ain’t we, Dickie?”

“Yep.”

Whether the other ten “fresh airs” were as funny and cute as the “terrible twins,” or not, Ruth Fielding did not know, but both she and Mrs. Steele were vastly amused by them, and continued to be so all the way to the old homestead under the hill where the children had come to spend a part of the summer with Mr. and Mrs. Caslon.

CHAPTER XIV—“WHY! OF COURSE!”

“Well, they’ll have their hands full with all those young ones,” laughed Madge Steele, breaking in upon her father, perhaps because she did not wish him to reveal any further to her guests his ideas upon this topic.

“What under the sun can they do it for?” demanded Lluella Fairfax.

“Just think of troubling one’s self with a parcel of ill-bred children like those orphanage kids,” added Belle Tingley.

“Oh, they do it just to bother the neighbors, of course,” growled Bobbins, who naturally believed all his father said, or thought, to be just right.

“They take a world of trouble on themselves, then, to spite their neighbors,” laughed Mercy Curtis, in her sharp way. “That’s cutting one’s nose off to spite one’s face, sure enough!”

“Goodness only knows why they do it,” began Madge, when Ruth, who could keep in no longer, now the topic had become generally discussed among the young people, exclaimed:

“Both the farmer and his wife look to be very kindly and jolly sort of people. I am sure they have no idea of troubling other folk with the children they take to board. They must be, I think, very charitable, as well as very fond of children.”

“Trust Ruth for seeing the best side of it,” laughed Heavy.

“And the right side, too, I bet,” murmured Tom Cameron.

“We’ll hope so,” said Mr. Steele, rather grimly. “But if Caslon lets them trespass on my land, he’ll hear about it, sharp and plenty!”

Now, it so happened, that not twenty-four hours had passed before the presence of the “fresh air kids” was felt upon the sacred premises of Sunrise Farm. It was very hot that next day, and the girls remained in the shade, or played a desultory game of tennis, or two, or knocked the croquet balls around a bit, refusing to go tramping through the woods with the boys to a pond where it was said the fish would bite.

“So do the mosquitoes—I know them,” said Mercy Curtis, when the boys started. “Be honest about it, now; I bet you get ten mosquito bites to every fish-bite. Tell us when you get back.”

Late in the afternoon the rural mail carrier was due and Ruth, Helen, Madge and Heavy started for the gate on the main road where the Steeles had their letter box.

A little woolly dog ran after Madge—her mother’s pet. “Come on, Toodles!” she said, and then all four girls started to race with Toodles down to the gate.

Suddenly Toodles spied something more entertaining to bark at and caper about than the girls’ skirts. A cat was slipping through the bushes beside the wall, evidently on the trail of some unconscious bird. Toodles, uttering a glad “yap, yap, yap!” started for the cat.

Two tousled, curly heads appeared at the gateway. Below the uncapped heads were two thin bodies just of a size, clothed in shirts and overalls of blue.

“Hello, kiddies!” said Heavy. “How did you get here?”

“On our feet—didn’t we, Dickie?” responded Master Willie.

“Yep,” said Dickie.

“Oh, dear me! Toodles will hurt that cat!” cried Madge. “One of you boys run and save her—save kitty!” she begged.

But as the youngsters started off as per direction, the cat turned savagely upon Toodles. She snarled like a wildcat, leaped for his fur-covered back, and laid in with her claws in a way that made the pup yell with fright and pain.

“Oh, never mind the cat! Help Toodles! Help Toodles!” wailed Madge, seeing her pet in such dire trouble.

The youngsters stopped with disgust, as Toodles went kiting up the hill, yelping.

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Willie. “Toodles don’t need helpin’. Did’ye ever see such a dog? What he needs is a nurse—don’t he, Dickie?”

“Yep,” declared the oracular Dickie, with emphasis.

Heavy dropped down on the grass and rolled. As the cat had quickly returned from the chase, Madge and Helen joined her. It was too funny. The “terrible twins” were just slipping out of the gate, when Ruth called to them.

“Don’t go yet, boys. Are you having a good time?”

“We ain’t allowed in here,” said Willie.

“Who told you so?”

“The short, fat man with the squinty eyes and the cane,” declared Willie, in a matter of fact way.

“Short—fat—squinty—— My goodness! I wonder if he can mean my father?” exclaimed Madge, inclined to be offended.

“But you can stand there and talk with us,” said Ruth, strolling toward the boys. “So you are having a nice time at Mr. Caslon’s?”

“Bully—ain’t we, Dickie?”

“Yep,” agreed the echo.

“And you won’t be glad to go back to the orphanage when you have to leave here?”

“Say, who ever was glad to go to a ’sylum?” demanded Willie, with scorn.

“And you can’t remember any other home, either of you?” asked Ruth, with pity.

“Huh! we ’member just the same things. Our ages is just alike, they be,” said Willie, with scorn.

“They have you there, Ruth,” chuckled Heavy.

Ruth Fielding was really interested in the two youngsters. “And you are all alone in the world?” she pursued.

“Nope. We gotter sister.”

“Oh! so you said.”

“And it’s so, too. She used ter be at the ’sylum,” explained Willie. “But they sent her off to live with somebody. And we was tried out by a lady and a gentleman, too; but we was too much work for the lady. We made too much extry washin’,” said Willie, solemnly.

“My goodness me!” exclaimed Ruth, suddenly. “What are your names?”

“I’m Willie; he’s Dickie.”

“But Willie and Dickie what?” demanded the startled Ruth.

“No, ma’am. It ain’t that. It’s Raby,” declared the youngster, coolly. “And our sister, she’s Sadie Raby. She’s awful smart and some day, she told us, she’s goin’ to come an’ steal us from the ‘sylum, and then we’ll all live together and keep house.”

“Will you hear this, Helen?” demanded Ruth, eagerly, to her chum who had run to her.

“Why, of course! we might have known as much, if we had been smart. These are the twins Sadie told you about. And we never guessed!”

CHAPTER XV—THE TEMPEST

What means they had, they joyfully divided with the youngsters they had taken to board. The Caslons had no living children; indeed, the two they had had, years ago, died while they were yet babies. This Mrs. Caslon confided to Ruth.

“It left an empty place in our hearts,” she said, softly, “that nothing but other little children can fill. John has missed them fully as much as I have. Yes; he lets these little harum-scarums pull him around, and climb all over him, and interfere with his work, and take up his time a good deal. Yes, I know the place looks a sight, inside the house and out, when they go away.

“But for a few weeks every year we have a host of young things about us, and it keeps our hearts young. The bother of ’em, and the trouble of ’em, is nothing to the good they do us both. Ah, yes!

“Yes, I’ve often thought of keeping one or two of them for good. There’s a-many pretty ones, or cunning ones, we’d like to have had. But then—think of the disappointment of the rest of the darlings!

“And it would have narrowed down our sympathy—mine and John’s,” proceeded Mrs. Caslon, shaking her head gently. “We’d have centered all our love and longin’ into them we took for keeps, just as we centered all our interest in the two little ones God lent us for a little while, long ago.

“Havin’ a number of ’em each year, and almost always different ones, has been better, I guess—better for all hands. It keeps John and me interested more, and we try to make them so happy here that each poor, unfortunate orphan will go away and remember his or her summer here for the rest of their lives.

“And they do have so little to be happy over, these orphans—and it takes so very little to make them happy.

“If I had money—much money,” continued the farmer’s wife, clasping her hands, fervently, “I’d move many orphan asylums, and such like, out of the close, hot cities, where the little ones are cramped for room and air, and put each of them on a farm—a great, big farm. City’s no place for children to grow up—’specially those that have no fathers and mothers.

“You can’t tell me but that these young ones miss their parents less here on this farm than they do back in the brick building they live in most of the year,” concluded the good woman, earnestly.

Ruth quite fell in love with the old lady—who did not appear so very old, after all. Perhaps she had kept her heart young in serving these “fresh air” orphans, year after year. And Mr. Caslon seemed a very happy, jolly sort of man, too.

The two girls stole away quite frequently to watch the youngsters play, or to teach them new means of entertaining themselves, or to talk with the farmer’s wife. But they did not wish the other girls, and the Steeles, to know where they went on these occasions.

Their host, who was the nicest kind of a man in every other way, seemed determined to look upon Caslon as his enemy; and Mr. Steele was ready to do anything he could to oust the old couple from their home.

“Pshaw! a man like Caslon can make a good living anywhere,” Mr. Steele declared. “His crops just grow for him. He’s an A-1 farmer—I’d like to find as good a one before next year, to superintend my whole place. He’s just holding out for a big price for his farm, that’s all he’s doing. These hayseeds are money-mad, anyway. I haven’t offered him enough for his old farm, that’s all.”

Ruth doubted if this were true. The Caslon place was one of the oldest homesteads in that part of the State, and the house had been built by a Caslon. Mr. Steele could not appreciate the fact that there was a sentiment attached to the farmer’s occupancy of his old home.

The Caslons had taken root here on this side-hill. The farmer and his wife were the last of the name; they had nobody to will it to. But they loved every acre of the farm, and the city man’s money did not look good enough to them.

Ruth Fielding hungered to straighten out the tangle. She wished she might make Mr. Steele understand the old farmer’s attitude. Was there not, too, some way of settling the controversy in a way satisfactory to both parties?

Meanwhile the merry party of young folk at Sunrise Farm was busy every waking hour. There were picnics, and fishing parties, and games, and walks, and of course riding galore, for Mr. Steele had plenty of horses.

Ruth and Helen privately worked up some interest among the girls and boys visiting the farm, in a celebration on the Fourth for the fresh air children. Ruth had learned that the farmer had purchased some cheap fireworks and the like for the entertainment of the orphans; but Ruth and her chum wanted to add to his modest preparations.

Ten dollars was raised, and Tom Cameron took charge of the fund. He was to ride into town the afternoon before the Fourth to make the purchases, but just about as he was to start, a thunderstorm came up.

Mr. Steele, who was a nervous man, forbade any riding or driving with that threatening cloud advancing over the hills. The lightning played sharply along the edges of the cloud and the thunder rolled ominously.

“You youngsters don’t know what a tempest is like here in the hills,” said Mr. Steele. “Into the house—all of you. Take that horse and cart back to the stables, Jackson. If Tom wants to go to town, he’ll have to wait until the shower is over—or go to-morrow.”

“All right, sir,” agreed young Cameron, cheerfully. “Just as you say.”

“Are all those girls inside?” sharply demanded Mr. Steele. “I thought I saw the flutter of a petticoat in the shrubbery yonder.”

“I’ll see,” said Tom, running indoors.

Nervous Mr. Steele thought he saw somebody there behind the bushes, before he heard from Tom. It had already begun to rain in big drops, and suddenly there was a flash of lightning and a report seemingly right overhead.

The host turned up his coat collar, thrust his cap over his ears, and ran out across the lawn toward the path behind the shrubbery. It led to a summer house on the side lawn, but this was a frail shelter from such a tempest as this that was breaking over the hill.

Mr. Steele saw the flutter of a skirt ahead, and dashed along the path, the rain pelting him as he ran.

“Come back here! Come to the house, you foolish girl!” he cried, and popped into the summer house just as the clouds seemed to open above and the rain descend in a flood.

It was so dark, and Mr. Steele was so blinded for a moment, that he could scarcely see the figure of whom he was in search. Then he beheld a girl crouching in a corner, with her hands over her ears to shut out the roar of the thunder and her eyes tightly closed to shut out the lightning.

“For mercy’s sake! get up and come into the house. This place will be all a-flood in a minute,” he gasped.

Suddenly, as he dragged the girl to her feet by one shoulder, he saw that she was not one of the house party at all. She was a frail, shrinking girl, in very dirty clothing, and her face and hands were scratched and dirty, too. A regular ragamuffin she appeared.

“Why—why, where did you come from?” demanded Mr. Steele.

The girl only stuttered and stammered, looking at him fearfully.

“Come on! never mind who you are,” he sputtered. “This is no place for you in this tempest. Come into the house!”

He set out on a run again for the front veranda, dragging her after him. The girl did not cry, although she was certainly badly frightened by the storm.

They reached the door of the big house, saturated. Here Mr. Steele turned to her again.

“Who are you? What are you doing around here, anyway?” he demanded.

“Ain’t—ain’t this the place where they got a bunch of fresh air kids?” asked the girl.

“What?” gasped Mr. Steele. “I should say not! Are you one of those young ones Caslon has taken to board to the annoyance of the whole neighborhood? Ha! what were you doing trespassing on my land?”

“I ain’t neither!” returned the girl, pulling away her hand. “You lemme be.”

“I forbade any of you to come up here——”

“I ain’t neither,” reiterated the girl. “An’ I don’t know what you mean. I jest got there. And I’m lookin’ for the place where the fresh air kids stay.”

In the midst of this the door was drawn open and Mrs. Steele and some of the girls appeared.

“Do come in, Father,” she cried. “Why! you’re soaking wet. And that child! bring her in, whoever she is. Oh!”

Another flash of lightning made them all cower—all but Ruth Fielding, who had crept forward to look over Mrs. Steele’s shoulder. Now she dashed out and seized the bedrabbled looking stranger by the hand.

“Why, Sadie Raby! who’d ever expect to see you here? Come in! do let her come in out of the storm, Mrs. Steele. I know who she is,” begged Ruth.

CHAPTER XVI—THE RUNAWAY

“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

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.