Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures; Or, Helping the Dormitory Fund

WHAT IS AHEAD?

While Ruth and Mr. Hammond had been walking about, the Camerons had come. Tom's automobile was parked just beyond the moving picture magnate's handsome limousine; and Tom had given more than one covetous glance at the big car before going into the house.

When Ruth returned and entered the big and friendly kitchen after ushering Mr. Hammond Into the sitting room again, she found the twins eagerly listening to and talking to Miss Hazel Gray, who was leisurely eating a late breakfast at the long table.

"Good morning, Ruth Fielding!" cried the guest, drawing her down to kiss her cheek. "You are a dear. I've been telling your friends so. I fancy one of them at least thoroughly agrees with me," and she cast a roguish glance at Tom.

Tom blushed and Helen giggled. Ruth turned kind eyes away from Tom Cameron and smiled upon Helen. "Yes," she said, demurely, "I am sure that Helen has been singing my praises. The girls are beginning to call her 'Mr. Boswell' at school. But I have heard complimentary words of you this morning, Miss Gray."

"Oh!" cried the young actress. "From Mr. Hammond?"

"Yes."

"He is a lovely man," declared Hazel Gray, enthusiastically. "I have always said so. If he would only make Grimes give me a square deal——"

"Those are the very words he used," interrupted Ruth, while Tom recovered from his confusion and Helen from her enjoyment of her twin's embarrassment. "He says you shall have a square deal."

While the young actress ate—and Aunt Alvirah heaped her plate, "killing me with kindness!" Hazel Gray declared—the young folk chattered. Ruth saw that Tom could scarcely keep his eyes off Miss Gray, and it puzzled the girl of the Red Mill.

Afterward, when Miss Gray had gone out with Mr. Hammond, and Tom was out of sight, Helen began to laugh. "Aren't boys funny?" she said to Ruth. "Tom is terribly smitten with that lovely Hazel Gray."

"Smitten?" murmured Ruth.

"Of course. Don't say you didn't notice it. He hasn't had a 'crush' on any girl before that I know of. But it's a sure-enough case of 'measles' this time. Busy Izzy tells me that most of the fellows in their class at Seven Oaks have a 'crush' on some moving picture girl; and now Tom, I suppose, will be cutting out of the papers every picture of Hazel Gray that he sees, and sticking them up about his room. And she has promised to send him a real cabinet photograph of herself in character in the bargain," and Helen laughed again.

But Ruth could not be amused about this. She was disturbed.

"I didn't think Tom would be so silly," she finally said.

"Pooh! it's nothing. Bobbins and Tom are getting old enough to cast sheep's eyes at the girls. Heretofore, Tommy has been crazy about the slapstick comedians of the movies; but I rather admire his taste if he likes this Hazel Gray. I really think she's lovely."

"So she is," Ruth said quite placidly. "But she is so much older than your brother——"

"Pooh! only two or three years. But, of course, Ruth, it's nothing serious," said the more worldly-wise Helen. "And boys usually are smitten with girls some years older than themselves—at first."

"Dear me!" gasped Ruth. "How much you seem to know about such things, Helen. How did you find out?"

At that Helen burst into laughter again. "You dear little innocent!" she exclaimed. "You're so blind—blind as a bat! You never see the boys at all. You look on Tom to-day just as though he were the same Tom that you helped find the time he fell off his bicycle and was hurt by the roadside. You remember? Ages and ages ago!"

But did Ruth look upon Tom Cameron in just that way? She said nothing in reply to Tom's sister.

They came out of the house together and joined Mr. Hammond and Miss Gray just as they were about to step into the limousine. Aunt Alvirah waved her hand from the window.

"She's just lovely!" declared Miss Gray. "You should have met her, Mr. Hammond."

"That pleasure is in reserve," said the gentleman, smiling. "I hope to see the Red Mill again."

Tom came hurrying down to shake hands with Miss Gray. Ruth watched them with some puzzlement of mind. Tom was undoubtedly embarrassed; but the moving picture girl was too used to making an impression upon susceptible minds to be much disturbed by Tom Cameron's worship.

Mr. Hammond looked out of the door of the limousine before he closed it.

"Remember, Ruth Fielding, I shall be on the lookout for what you promised me."

"Oh, yes, sir!" Ruth cried, all in a flutter, for the moment having forgotten the scenario she proposed to write.

"That's a promise!" he said again gaily, and closed the door. The big car rolled away and left the three friends at the gateway.

"What's a promise, Ruth Fielding?" demanded her chum, with immense curiosity.

Ruth blushed and showed some confusion. "It's—it's a secret," she stammered.

"A secret from me?" cried Helen, in amazement.

"I—I couldn't tell even you, dearie, just now," Ruth said, with sudden seriousness. "But you shall know about it before anybody else."

"That Mr. Hammond is in it."

"Yes," admitted her chum. "That is just it. I don't feel that I can speak to anybody about it yet."

"Oh! then it's his secret?"

"Partly," Ruth said, her eyes dancing, for there and then, right at that very moment, she fell upon the subject for the first scenario she intended to submit to Mr. Hammond. It was "Curiosity"—a new version of Pandora's Box.

Helen was such a sweet-tempered girl that her chum's little mystery did not cause her more than momentary vexation.

Besides, their vacation time was now very short. Many things had to be discussed about the coming semester. At its end, in June, Ruth and Helen hoped to graduate from Briarwood Hall.

The thought of graduating from the school they loved so much was one of mingled pleasure and pain. Old Briarwood! where they had had so much fun—so many girlish sorrows—friends, enemies, struggles, triumphs, failures and successes! Neither chum could contemplate graduation lightly.

"If we go to college together, it will never seem like Briarwood Hall," Helen sighed. "College will be so big. We shall be lost among so many girls—some of them grown women!"

"Goodness!" laughed Ruth, suddenly, "we'll be almost 'grown women' ourselves before we get through college."

"Oh, don't!" exclaimed Helen. "I don't want to think of that."

What was ahead of the chums did trouble them. Their future school life was a mystery. There was no prophet to tell them of the exciting and really wonderful things that were to happen to them at Briarwood during the coming term.

"SWEETBRIARS ALL"

"Oh, dear me!" complained Nettie Parsons, "I never can do it."

"'In the bright Lexicon of Youth, there is no such word as "fail,"'" quoted Mercy Curtis, grandiloquently.

"That must be a pretty poor reference book to have in one's library, then," said Helen, making fun of the old saying which the lame girl had repeated. "How do we know—perhaps there are other important words left out—A bas le Lexicon of Youth!"

"Perseverence is the winning game, Nettie," Ruth said to the Southern girl, cheerfully. "Stick to it."

"And if then you can't make the sum come right, come to Aunt Ruthie and ask. That's what I do," confessed Ann Hicks, the ranch girl.

"Perseverence wins," quoth Helen.

"Oh, it does, does it?" cried Jennie Stone, called by the girls "Heavy," in a smothered tone, for her mouth was full of caramels. "Let me tell you that old 'saw' is a joke. My little kid cousin proved that the other day. She came to grandfather—who is just as full of maxims and bits of wisdom as Helen seems to be to-day, and the kid said:

"'Grandpa, that's a joke about "If at first you don't succeed," isn't it?'

"And her grandfather answered, 'Certainly not. "Try, try again." That's right.'

"'Huh!' said the kid, who is one of these Cynthia-of-the-minute' youngsters, 'you're wrong, Grandpa. I've been working for an hour blowing soapbubbles and trying to pin them on a clothes line in the nursery to dry!' Perseverence didn't cut much of a figure in her case, did it?" finished Heavy, with a chuckle.

The crowd of girls was in the big "quartette" room in the West Dormitory of Briarwood Hall. The school had reopened only a week before, but all the friends were hard at work. All but Ann Hicks and Nettie Parsons hoped to graduate the coming June.

In the group, besides Ruth and Helen, were their room-mates, Mercy Curtis and Ann Hicks; Jennie Stone; Mary Cox, the red-haired girl usually called "The Fox;" and Nettie Parsons, "the sugar king's daughter," as she was known to the school. She was the one really rich girl at Briarwood—and one of the simplest in both manner and dress.

Nettie was backward in her studies, as was Ann Hicks. Nettie was a lovable, sweet-tempered girl, who had several reasons for being very fond of Ruth Fielding. Indeed, if the truth were told, not a girl in the quartette that afternoon but had some particular reason for loving Ruth.

Ruth's life at the school had been a very active one; yet she had never thrust herself forward. Although she had been the originator of the most popular—now the only sorority in the school, the Sweetbriars, she had refused to be its president for more than one term. All the older girls were "Sweetbriars" now.

Mercy Curtis, who had a sweet voice, now commenced to sing the marching song of the school, which had been adopted by the Sweetbriars and made over into a special sorority song. Sitting on her bed, with her arms clasped around her knees, the lame girl weaved back and forth as she sang:

"'At Briarwood Hall we have many a lark—
But one wide river to cross!
The River of Knowledge—its current dark—
Is the one wide river to cross!
Sweetbriars all-l!
One wide River of Knowledge!
Sweetbriars all-l!
One wide river to cross!

"'Sweetbriars come here, one by one—
But one wide river to cross!
There's lots of work, but plenty of fun,
With one wide river to cross!'"

"Altogether!" cried Heavy. "All join in!"

"The dear old chant!" said Helen, with a happy sigh.

Ruth had already taken up the chorus again, and her rich, full-throated tones filled the room:

"'Sweetbriars all-l!
One wide River of Knowledge!
Sweetbriars all-l!
One wide river to cross!'"

"Once more!" exclaimed the girl from Montana, who could not herself sing a note in harmony, but liked to hear the others. The chant continued:

"'Sweetbriars joining, two by two—
There's one wide river to cross!
Some so scared they daren't say 'Booh!'
To the one wide river to cross!"

"That was us, Ruthie!" broke off Helen, laughing. "Remember how scared we were when we walked up the old Cedar Walk with The Fox, here, and didn't know whether we were going to be met with a brass band or a ticket to the guillotine?"

The Fox, otherwise Mary Cox, suddenly turned red. Ruth hastened to smooth over her chum's rather tactless speech, for Mary had been a different girl at that time from what she was now, and the memory of the hazing she had visited on Ruth and Helen annoyed her.

"And what did meet us?" cried Ruth, dramatically. "Why, a poor, emaciated creature standing at the steps of this old West Dormitory, complaining that she would starve before supper if the bell did not sound soon. You remember, Heavy?"

"And I feel that way now," said Jennie Stone in a hollow tone. "I don't know what makes me so, but I am continually hungry at least three times a day—and at regular intervals. I must see a physician about it."

"Aren't you afraid of the effect of eating so much, Jennie?" asked Helen, gently.

"What's that? Is there a new disease?" asked the fleshy girl, trying to express fear—which she never could do successfully in any such case. Jennie had probably never been ill in her life save as the immediate result of over-indulgence in eating.

"No, my dear," said Ruth Fielding's chum. "But they do tell me that eating too much may make one fat."

"Horrors!" ejaculated Jennie. "I can't believe you. Then that is what is the matter with me! I thought I looked funny in the mirror. I must be getting a wee bit plump."

"Plump!"

"Hear her!"

"She's the girl who went up in the balloon and came down 'plump!'"

The shouts that greeted Heavy's seriously put remark did not disturb the fleshy girl at all. "That is exactly the trouble," she went on, quite placidly. "And it cost me half a dollar yesterday."

"What's that?" asked somebody, curiously.

"Where?" asked another girl.

"In chapel. Didn't you see me trying to crawl through between the two rows of seats? And I got stuck!"

"Did you have to pay Foyle the fifty cents to pry you out, Heavy?" demanded Ann Hicks.

"No. I dropped the half dollar and tried to find it. I looked for it; that's all I could do. I was too fat to find it."

"Did you look good, Jennie?" asked Ruth, sympathetically.

"Did I look good?" repeated the fleshy girl, with scorn. "I looked as good as a fat girl crawling around on all fours, ever does look. What do you think?"

The laugh at Jennie Stone's sally really cleared the room, for the warning bell for supper sounded almost immediately. Heavy and Nettie, and all who did not belong in the quartette room, departed. Then Mercy went tap, tap, tapping down the corridor with her canes—"just like a silly woodpecker!" as she often said herself; and Ann strode away, trying to hum the marching song, but ignominiously falling into the doleful strains of the "Cowboy's Lament" before she reached the head of the stairway.

"I really would like to know what that thing is you've been writing, Ruth," remarked Helen, when they were alone. "All those sheets of paper—Goodness! it's no composition. I believe you've been writing your valedictory this early."

"Don't be silly," laughed Ruth. "I shall never write the valedictory of this class. Mercy will do that."

"I don't care! Mrs. Tellingham considers you the captain of the graduating class. So now!" cried loyal Helen.

"That may be; but Mercy is our brilliant girl—you know that."

"Yes—the poor dear! but how could she ever stand up before them all and give an oration?"

"She shall!" cried Ruth, with emphasis. "She shall not be cheated out of all the glory she wins—or of an atom of that glory. If she is our first scholar, she must, somehow, have all the honors that go with the position."

"Oh, Ruthie! how can you overcome her natural dislike of 'making an exhibition of herself,' as she calls it, and the fact that, really, a girl as lame as she is, poor creature, could never make a pleasant appearance upon the platform?"

"I do not know," Ruth said seriously. "Not now. But I shall think it out, if nobody else can. Mercy shall graduate with flying colors from Briarwood Hall, whether I do myself, or not!"

"Never mind," said Helen, laughing at her chum's emphasis. "At least the valedictorian will hail from this dear old quartette room."

"Yes," agreed Ruth, looking around the loved chamber with a tender smile. "What will we do when we see it no longer, Helen?"

"Oh, don't talk about it!" cried Helen, who had forgotten by this time what she had started to question Ruth about. "Come on! We'll be late for supper."

When her chum's back was turned, Ruth slipped out of her table drawer the very packet of papers Helen had spoken about. The sheets had been typewritten and were now sealed in a manila envelope, which was addressed and stamped.

She hesitated all day about dropping the packet in the mailbag; but now she took her courage in both hands and determined to send it to its destination.

A NEW STAR

Ruth had actually been trying her "prentice hand," as Mr. Hammond had called it, at the production of a moving picture scenario. It was the first literary work she had ever achieved, although her taste in that direction had been noted by Mrs. Tellingham and the under-instructors of the school.

Oh! she would not have had any of them know what she had done in secret since arriving at the Hall at the beginning of this term. She would not let even Helen know about it.

"If it is a success—if Mr. Hammond produces it—then I'll tell them," Ruth said to herself. "But if he tells me it is no good, then nobody shall ever know that I was so foolish as to attempt such a thing."

Even after she had it all ready she hesitated some hours as to whether or not she should send it to the address Mr. Hammond had given her. The pamphlet he had promised to send her had not arrived, and Ruth had little idea as to how a scenario should be prepared She had written much more explanatory matter than was necessary; but she had achieved one thing at least—she had been direct in the composition of her scenario and she had the faculty of saying just what she meant, and that briefly. This concise style was of immense value to her, as Ruth was later to learn.

Ruth managed to slip the big envelope addressed to Mr. Hammond into the mailbag in the hall without spurring Helen's curiosity again. She had to chuckle to herself over it, for it really was a good joke on her chum.

Unconsciously, Helen had given her the idea for this little allegorical comedy which she had written. And how her friend would laugh if the picture of "Curiosity" should be produced and they should see it on the screen.

The girls crowded into the big dining room in an orderly manner, but with some suppressed whispering and laughter on the part of the more giggling kind. There were always some of the girls so full of spirits that they could not be entirely repressed.

The long tables quickly filled up. There were few beginners at this time of year, for most of the new scholars came to Briarwood Hall at the commencement of the autumn semester.

There was one new girl at the table where Ruth and her particular friends sat, over which Miss Picolet the little teacher of French, had nominal charge. Nowadays, Miss Picolet's life was an easy one. She had little trouble with even the more boisterous girls of the West Dormitory, thanks to the Sweetbriars.

The new pupil beside the French teacher was Amy Gregg. She was a colorless, flaxen-haired girl, with such light eyebrows and lashes that Helen said her face looked like a blank wall.

She was a nervous girl, too; she pouted a good deal and seemed dissatisfied. Of course, being a stranger, she was lonely as yet; but under the rules of the Sweetbriars she was not hazed. The S.B.'s word had become law in all such matters at Briarwood Hall.

After they were seated, Heavy Stone whispered to Ruth: "Isn't that Gregg girl the most discontented looking thing you ever saw? Her face would sour cream right now! I hope she doesn't overlook my supper and give me indigestion."

"Behave!" was Ruth's only comment.

There was supposed to be silence until all were served and the teachers began eating. The waitresses bustled about, light-footed and demure. Mrs. Tellingham, who was present on this evening, overlooked all from the small guest table, as it was called, placed at the head of the room on a slightly raised platform.

Mrs. Tellingham, Ruth thought, was the loveliest lady in the world. The girl of the Red Mill had never lost the first impression the preceptress had made upon her childish mind and heart when she had come to Briarwood Hall.

At last—just in time to save Heavy's life, it would seem—Miss Picolet lifted her fork and the girls began to eat. A pleasant interchange of conversation broke out:

"Did you hear what that funny little Pease girl said to Miss Brokaw in physiology class yesterday?" asked Lluella Fairfax, who was across the table from Ruth.

"No. What has the child said now? She's a queer little thing," Helen said, before her chum could answer.

"She's rather dense, don't you know," put in Lluella's chum, Belle Tingley.

"I'm not so sure of that," laughed Lluella. "Miss Brokaw became impatient with little Pease and said:

"'It seems you are never able to answer a question, Mary; why is it?'

"'If I knew all the things you ask me, Miss Brokaw,' said Pease, 'my mother wouldn't take the trouble to send me here.'"

"I'm sure that doesn't prove the poor little kiddie a dunce," laughed Ruth.

"Say! we have a dense one at this very table," hissed Heavy, a hand beside her mouth so that the sound of her whisper would not travel to the head of the table where Miss Picolet and the sullen looking new girl sat.

"What do you mean?" asked Belle, curiously.

"Whom do you mean?" added Helen.

"That infant yonder," hissed the fleshy girl.

"What about her?" Ruth asked. "I'm rather sorry for that little Gregg. She doesn't look happy."

"Say!" chuckled Heavy. "She tried for an hour yesterday to coax electricity into the bulb over her table, and then went to Miss Scrimp and asked for a candle. She got the candle, and burned it until one of the other girls looked in (you know she's not 'chummed' with anybody yet) and showed her where the push-button was in the wall. And at that," finished Heavy, grinning broadly, "I'm not sure that she understood how the 'juice' was turned on. She must have come from the backwoods."

"Hush!" begged Ruth. "Don't let her think we're laughing at her."

"Miss Scrimp's very strict about candles and oil lamps," said Nettie. "We use them a lot in the South."

"That old house of yours in 'So'th Ca'lina' must be a funny old place, Nettie," said Heavy.

"It isn't ours," Nettie said. "The cotton plantation belongs to Aunt Rachel. She was born on it—the Merredith Place. We usually go there for the early summer, and then either come No'th, or into the mountains of Virginia until cool weather. My own dear old Louisiana home isn't considered healthy for us during the extreme hot weather. It is too damp and marshy."

"'Way down Souf in de land ob cotton—
Cinnamon seed an' sandy bottom!'"

hummed Heavy. "Oh! I wish I was in Dixie—right now."

"Wait till my Aunt Rachel comes up here," Nettie promised. "I'm going to beg an invitation for you girls to visit Merredith."

"But it will be hot weather, then," said Heavy; "and I don't want to miss Light-house Point."

"And I'm just about crazy to get back to Silver Ranch," said Ann Hicks.

"Me for Cliff Island," cried Belle Tingley. "No land of cotton for mine, this summer."

"When is your aunt coming, Nettie?" asked Ruth.

"To see you graduate, my dear," replied the Southern girl, smiling. "And wait till she meets you, Ruthie Fielding! She'll near about love you to death!"

"Oh, everybody loves Ruth. Why shouldn't they?" cried Belle.

"But everybody doesn't give her a fortune, as Nettie's Aunt Rachel did," laughed Heavy.

Ruth wished they would not talk so much about that money; but, of course, she could not stop them. She made no rejoinder, but looked across the room and out at the upper pane of one of the long windows. It was deep dusk now without. The evening was clear, with a rising wind moaning through the trees on the campus.

Tony Foyle, the old gardener and general handy man, was only now lighting the lamps along the walks.

"There's a funny red star," Ruth said to Helen. "It can't be that Mars is rising there."

"Where?" queried her chum, lazily, scarcely raising her eyes to look. Helen was not interested in astronomy.

Nobody else was attracted by the red spark Ruth saw. Against the dusky sky it grew swiftly A new star——

"It is fire!" gasped Ruth, softly, rising on trembling limbs. "And it is in the West Dormitory!"

THE DEVOURING ELEMENT

Not even Helen heard Ruth's whispered words. She went on calmly with her supper when her chum arose from her seat.

Ruth quickly controlled herself. The word "fire" would start a panic on the instant, although both dormitories were across the campus from the main hall.

The girl of the Red Mill erased from her countenance all expression of the fear which gripped her; but about her heart she felt a pressure like that of a tight band. Her knees actually knocked together; she was thankful they were invisible just then.

When she started up the room toward Mrs. Tellingham's table Ruth walked steadily enough. Some of the girls looked after her in surprise; but it was not an uncommon thing for a girl to leave her seat and approach the preceptress.

Mrs. Tellingham looked up with a smile when she saw Ruth coming. She always had a smile for the girl of the Red Mill.

The preceptress, however, was a sharp reader of faces. Her own expression of countenance did not change, for other girls were looking; but she saw that something serious had occurred.

"What is it, Ruth?" she asked, the instant her low whisper could reach Ruth's ear.

The girl, looking straight at her, made the letters "F-I-R-E" with her lips. But she uttered no sound. Mrs. Tellingham understood, however, and demanded:

"Where?"

"West Dormitory, Mrs. Tellingham," said Ruth, coming closer.

"Are you positive?"

"I can see it from my seat. On the second floor. In one of the duo rooms at this side."

Ruth spoke these sentences in staccato; but her voice was low and she preserved an air of calmness.

"Good girl!" murmured Mrs. Tellingham. "Go out quietly and then run and tell Tony. Do you know where he is?"

"Lighting the lamps," whispered Ruth.

"Good. Tell him to go right up there and see what can be done. Warn Miss Scrimp. I will telephone to town, and Miss Brokaw will take charge and march the pupils to the big hall to call the roll. I hope nobody is in the dormitories."

Mrs. Tellingham had pushed back her chair and dropped her napkin; but her movements, though swift, were not alarming. She passed out by a rear door which led to the kitchens, while Ruth walked composedly down the room to the main exit.

"Hey! what's the matter, Ruthie?" called Heavy, in a low tone. "Whose old cat's in the well?"

Ruth appeared not to hear her. Miss Brokaw, a very capable woman, came into the dining hall as Ruth passed out. Miss Brokaw stepped to the monitor's desk at one side and tapped on the bell.

"Oh, mercy!" gasped Heavy, the incorrigible. "She's shut us off again. And I haven't had half enough to eat."

"Rise!" said Miss Brokaw, after a moment of waiting. "Immediately, girls. Miss Stone, you will come, too."

A murmur of laughter rose at Jennie Stone's evident intention to linger; but Heavy always took admonition in good part, and she arose smiling.

"Monitors to their places," commanded Miss Brokaw. "You will march to the big hall. It is Mrs. Tellingham's request. She will have something of importance to say to you."

The big hall was on the other side of the building, and from its windows nothing could be seen of either dormitory.

Meanwhile, Ruth, once alone in the hall, had bounded to the chief entrance of the building and opened one leaf of the heavy door. It was a crisp night and the frost bit keenly. The wind fluttered her skirt about her legs.

She stopped for no outer apparel, however, but dashed out upon the stone portico, drawing the door shut behind her. That act alone saved the school from panic; for it she had left the door ajar, when the girls filed out into the entrance hall from the dining room some of them would have been sure to see the growing red glow on the second floor of the West Dormitory.

To Ruth the fire seemed to be filling the room in which it had apparently started. There was no smoke as yet; but the flames leaped higher and higher, while the illumination grew frightfully.

A spark of light coming into being at the far end of the campus near the East Dormitory, showed Ruth where Tony Foyle then was. He was not likely to see the fire as yet, for in lighting the campus lamps he followed a route that kept his back to the West Dormitory until he turned to come back.

Like an arrow from the bow the young girl ran toward the distant gardener. She took the steps of the little Italian garden in the center of the campus in two flying leaps, passed the marble maiden at the fountain, and bounded up to the level of the campus path again without stopping.

"Tony! Oh, Tony!" she called breathlessly.

"Shure now, phat's the matter widyer?" returned the old Irishman, querulously. "Phy! 'tis Miss Ruth, so ut is. Phativer do be the trouble, me darlin'?"

He was very fond of Ruth and would have done anything in his power for her. So at once Tony was exercised by her appearance.

"Phativer is the matter?" he repeated.

"Fire!" blurted out Ruth, able at last to speak. The keen night air had seemed for the moment fairly to congest her lungs and render her speechless and breathless.

"That's that?" cried Tony. "'Fire,' says you? An' where is there fire save in the furnaces and the big range in the kitchen——"

He had turned, and the red glare from the room on the second floor of the West Dormitory came into his view.

"There it is!" gasped Ruth, and just then the tinkle of breaking glass betrayed the fact that the heat of the flames was bursting the panes of the window.

"Fur the love of——Begorra! I'll git the hose-cart, an' rouse herself an' the gals in the kitchen——"

Poor Tony, so wildly excited that he dropped the little "dhudeen" he was smoking and did not notice that he stepped on it, galloped away on rheumatic legs. At this hour there was no man on the premises but the little old Irishman, who cared for the furnaces until the fireman and engineer came on duty at seven in the morning.

Ruth was quite sure that neither Tony nor "herself" (by this name he meant Mrs. Foyle, the cook) or any of the kitchen girls, could do a thing towards extinguishing the fire. But she remembered that Miss Scrimp, the matron, must be in the threatened building, and the girl dashed across the intervening space and in at the door.

There was not a sound from upstairs—no crackling of flames. Ruth would never have believed the dormitory was afire had she not seen the fire outside.

The girl ran down the corridor to Miss Scrimp's room, and burst in the door like a young hurricane. The matron was at tea, and she leaped up in utter amazement when she saw Ruth.

"For the good land's sake, Ruthie Fielding!" she ejaculated. "Whatever is the matter with you?"

"Fire!" cried Ruth. "One of the rooms on the next floor—front—is all afire! I saw it from the dining hall! Mrs. Tellingham has telephoned for the department at Lumberton——"

With a shriek of alarm, Miss Scrimp picked up the little old "brown Betty" teapot off the hearth of her small stove, and started out of the room with it—whether with the expectation of putting out the fire with the contents of the pot, or not, Ruth never learned.

But when the lady was half way up the first flight of stairs the flames suddenly burst through the doorframe, and Miss Scrimp stopped.

"That candle!" she shrieked. "I knew I had no business to give that girl that candle."

"Who?" asked Ruth.

"That infant—Amy Gregg her name is. I'll tell Mrs. Tellingham——"

"But please don't tell anybody else, Miss Scrimp," begged Ruth. "It will be awful for Amy if it becomes generally known that she is at fault."

"Well, now," said the matron more calmly, coming down the stairs again. "You are right, Ruthie—you thoughtful child. We can't do a thing up there," she added, as she reached the lower floor again. "All we can do is to take such things out as we can off this floor," and she promptly marched out with the little tea-pot and deposited it carefully on the grassplot right where somebody would be sure to step on it when the firemen arrived.

Miss Scrimp prided herself upon having great presence of mind in an emergency like this. A little later Ruth saw the good woman open her window and toss out her best mirror upon the cement walk.

Miss Picolet came flying toward the burning building, chattering about her treasures she had brought from France. "Le Bon Dieu will not let to burn up my mothair's picture—my harp—my confirmation veil—all, all I have of my youth left!" chattered the excited little Frenchwoman, and because of her distress and her weakness, Ruth helped remove the harp and likewise the featherbed on which the French teacher always slept and which had come with her from France years before.

By the time these treasures were out of the house a crowd came running from the main building—Mrs. Foyle, some of the kitchen girls and waitresses, Tony dragging the hose cart, and last of all Dr. Tellingham himself.

The good old doctor was the most absent minded man in the world, and the least useful in a practical way in any emergency. He never had anything of importance to do with the government of the school; but he sometimes gave the girls wonderfully interesting lectures on historical subjects. He wrote histories that were seldom printed save in private editions; but most of the girls thought the odd old gentleman a really wonderful scholar.

He was in dishabille just now. He had run out in his dressing-gown and carpet slippers, and without his wig. That wig was always awry when he was at work, and it was a different color from his little remaining hair, anyway. But without the toupé at all he certainly looked naked.

"Go back, that's a dear man!" gasped Mrs. Foyle, turning the doctor about and heading him in the right direction. "Shure, ye air not dacently dressed. Go back, Oi say. Phat will the young ladies be thinkin' of yez? Ye kin do no good here, dear Dochter."

This was quite true. He could do no good. And, as it turned out later, the unfortunate, forgetful, short-sighted old gentleman had already done a great deal of harm.

GAUNT RUINS

Ruth Fielding felt a strong desire to return to the threatened building, and to make her way upstairs to that old quartette room she and her chums had occupied for so long. There were so many things she desired to save.

Not alone were there treasures of her own, but Ruth knew of articles belonging to her chums that they prized highly. It seemed actually wicked to stand idle while the hot flames spread, creating a havoc that nobody could stay.

Why! if the firemen did not soon appear, the whole West Dormitory would be destroyed.

The burst of smoke and flame into the corridor at the top of the front flight of stairs shut off any attempt to reach the upper stories from this direction. And although the back door of the building was locked, Ruth knew she could run down the hall, past Miss Scrimp's already gutted room, and up the rear stairway.

But when she started into the building again, Miss Scrimp screamed to her:

"Come out of that, you reckless girl! Don't dare go back for anything more of mine or Miss Picolet's. If we lose them, we lose them; that's all."

"But I might get some things of my own—and some belonging to the other girls."

"Don't dare go into the building again," commanded Miss Scrimp. "If you do, Ruthie Fielding, I'll report you to Mrs. Tellingham."

"Shure, she won't go in and risk her swate life," said Mrs. Foyle. "Come back, now, darlin'. 'Tis a happy chance that none o' the young leddies bes up there in thim burnin' rooms, so ut is."

"Oh, dear me! oh, dear me!" gasped Miss Picolet. "I presume it is posi-tive that there is nobody up there? Were all the mesdemoiselles at supper this evening?"

"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Tellingham's own voice. "Miss Brokaw has called the roll and there is none missing but our Ruthie. And now you would better run back, my dear," she added to Ruth. "You have no wrap or hat. I fear you will take cold."

"I never noticed it," confessed Ruth. "I guess the excitement kept me warm. But oh! how awful It is to see the old dormitory burn—and all our things in it."

"We cannot help it," sighed the principal. "Go up to the hall with the other girls, my dear. Here come the firemen. You may be hurt here."

The galloping of horses, blowing of horns, and shouting of excited men, now became audible. The glare of the fire could probably be seen by this time clear to Lumberton, and half the population of the suburbs on this side of the town would soon be on the scene.

Not until the firemen actually arrived did the girls in the big hall know what had happened. There had been singing and music and a funny recitation by one girl, to while away the time until Mrs. Tellingham appeared. Just as Ruth came in, her chum had her violin under her chin and was drawing sweet sounds from the strings, holding the other girls breathless.

But the violin music broke off suddenly and several girls uttered startled cries as the first of the fire trucks thundered past the windows.

"Oh!" shrieked somebody, "there is a fire!"

"Quite true, young ladies!" exclaimed Miss Brokaw, tartly. "And it is not the first fire since the world began. Ruth has just come from it. She will tell you what it is all about."

"Oh, Ruth!" cried Helen. "Is it the dormitory?"

"Give her time to speak," commanded the teacher.

"Which dormitory?" cried Heavy Stone.

"Now, be quiet—do," begged Ruth, stepping upon the platform, and controlling herself admirably. "Don't scream. None of us can do a thing. The firemen will do all that can be done"

"They'll about save the cellar. They always do," groaned the irrepressible Heavy.

"It is our own old West Dormitory," said Ruth, her voice shaking. "Nothing can be taken from the rooms upstairs. Only some of Miss Scrimp's and Miss Picolet's things were saved."

"Oh, dear me!" cried Helen. "We're orphans then. I'm glad I had my violin over here!"

"Is everything going to be really burned up?" demanded Heavy. "You don't mean that, Ruth Fielding?"

"I hope not. But the fire has made great head-way."

"Oh! oh! oh!" were the murmured exclamations.

"Won't our dormitory burn, too?" demanded one of the East Dormitory girls.

But there was no danger of that. The wisdom of erecting the two dormitories so far apart, and so far separated from the other buildings, was now apparent. Despite the high wind that prevailed upon this evening, there was no danger of any other building around the campus being ignited.

Miss Brokaw had some difficulty in restoring order. Several of the girls were in tears; their most valued possessions were even then, as Heavy said, "going up in smoke."

Very soon practical arrangements for the night were under way. Unable to do anything to help save the burning structure, Mrs. Tellingham had returned to the main building, and the maids from the kitchen were soon bringing in cots and spare mattresses and arranging them about the big hall for the use of the girls.

The East Dormitory girls were asked to sit forward. ("The goats were divided from the sheep," Helen said.) Then the houseless girls were allowed to "pitch camp," as it were.

"It is just like camping out," cried Belle Tingley.

"Only there's no scratchy and smelly balsam for beds, and our clothes won't get all stuck up with chewing gum," said Lluella Fairfax.

"Chewing gum! Hear the girl," scoffed Ann Hicks. "You mean spruce gum."

"Isn't that about the same?" demanded Lluella, with some spirit. "You chew it, don't you?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't chew spruce gum unless it was first properly prepared. I tried it once," replied Ann, "and got my jaws so gummed up that I might as well have had the lockjaw."

"It is according to what season you get the gum," explained Helen. "Now, see here, girls: We ought to have a name for this camp."

"Oh, oh!"

"Quite so!"

"'Why not?" were some of the responses to this suggestion.

"Let's call it 'Sweet Dreams,'" said one girl. "That's an awfully pretty name for a camp, I think. We called ours that, last summer on the banks of the Vingie River."

"Ya-as," drawled Heavy. "Over across from the soap factory. I know the place. 'Sweet Dreams,' indeed! Ought to have called it 'Sweet Smells,'"

"I think 'Camp Loquacity' will fit this camp better," Ruth said bluntly. "We all talk at once. Goodness! how does one person ever get a sheet smooth on a bed?"

Helen came to help her, and just then Mrs. Tellingham herself appeared in the hall.

"I am glad to announce, girls," she said, with some cheerfulness, "that the fire is under control."

"Oh, goody!" cried Heavy. "Can we go over there to sleep to-night?"

"No. Nor for many other nights, if at all," the preceptress said firmly. "The West Dormitory is badly damaged. Of course, no girl need expect to find much that belongs to her intact. I am sorry. What I can replace, I will. We must be cheerful and thankful that no life was lost."

"What did I tell you?" muttered the fleshy girl. "Those firemen from Lumberton always save the cellar."

"Now," said Mrs. Tellingham, "the girls belonging in the East Dormitory will form and march to their rooms. It is late enough. We must all get quiet for the night. The ruins will wait until morning to be looked at, so I must request you to go directly to bed."

Somebody started singing—and of course it was their favorite, "One Wide River," that they sang, beginning with the very first verse. The words of the last stanza floated back to the West Dormitory girls as the others marched across the campus:

"'Sweetbriars enter, ten by ten——
That River of Knowledge to cross!
They never know what happens then,
With one wide river to cross!
One wide river!
One wide River of Knowledge!
One wide river!
One wide river to cross.'"

"But just the same it's no singing matter for us," grumbled Belle. "Turned out of our beds to sleep this way! And all we've lost!" She began to weep. It was difficult for even Heavy to coax up a smile or to bring forth a new joke.

Ruth and her chums secured a corner of the great room, and they insisted that Mercy Curtis have the single cot that had been secured.

"I don't mind it much," Ann Hicks declared. "I've camped out so many times on the plains without half the comforts of this camp. Oh! I could tell you a lot about camping out that you Easterners have no idea of."

"Postpone it till to-morrow, please, Miss Hicks," said Miss Brokaw, dryly. "It is time for you all to undress."

After they were between the sheets Helen crept over to Ruth and hid her face upon her chum's shoulder, where she cried a few tears.

"All my pretty frocks that Mrs. Murchiston allowed me to pick out! And my books! And—and——"

The tragic voice of Jennie Stone reached their ears: "Oh, girls! I've lost in the dreadful fire the only belt I could wear. It's a forty-two."

There was little laughter in the morning, however, when the girls went out-of-doors and saw the gaunt ruins of the dear old West Dormitory.

The roof had fallen in. Almost every pane of glass was broken. The walls had crumbled in places, and over all was a sheet of ice where the cascades from the firemen's hose had blanketed the ruins.

It needed only a glance to show that to repair the building was out of the question. The West Dormitory must be constructed as an entirely new edifice.

ONE THING THE OLD DOCTOR DID

Every girl in Briarwood Hall was much troubled by the result of the fire. The old rivalry between the East and the West Dormitories, that had been quite fierce at times and in years before, had died out under Ruth Fielding's influence.

Indeed, since the inception of the Sweetbriars a better spirit had come over the entire school. Mrs. Tellingham in secret spoke of this as the direct result of Ruth's character and influence; for although Ruth Fielding was not namby-pamby, she was opposed to every form of rude behavior, or to the breaking of rules which everyone knew to be important.

The old forms of hazing—even the "Masque of the Marble Harp," as it was called—were now no longer honored, save in the breach. The initiations of the Sweetbriars were novel inventions—usually of Ruth's active brain; but they never put the candidate to unpleasant or risky tasks.

There certainly were rivalries and individual quarrels and sometimes clique was arrayed against clique in the school. This was a school of upwards of two hundred girls—not angels.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Tellingham and the instructors noted with satisfaction how few disturbances they had to settle and quarrels to take under advisement. This class of girls whom they hoped to graduate in June were the most helpful girls that had ever attended Briarwood Hall.

"The influence of Ruth and some of her friends has extended to our next class as well," Mrs. Tellingham had said. "Nettie Parsons and Ann Hicks will be of assistance, too, for another year. I wish, however, that Ruth Fielding's example and influence might continue through my time——I certainly do."

The girls of the East Dormitory held a meeting before breakfast and passed resolutions requesting Mrs. Tellingham to rearrange their duo and quartette rooms so that as many as possible of the West Dormitory girls could be housed with them.

"We're all willing to double up," said Sarah Fish, who had become leader of the East Dormitory. "I'm perfectly willing to divide my bureau drawers, book-shelves, table and bed with any of you orphans. Poor things! It must be awful to be burned out."

"Some of us haven't much to put in bureau drawers or on bookshelves," said Helen, inclined to be lugubrious. "I—I haven't a decent thing to wear but what I have on right now. I unpacked my trunk clear to the very bottom layer."

However, as a rule, selfish considerations did not enter into the girls' discussion of the fire. When they looked at the ruined building, they saw mainly the loss to the school. A loyalty is bred in the pupils of such an institution as Briarwood Hall, which is only less strong than love of home and country.

A new structure to house a hundred girls would cost a deal of money.

There was no studying done before breakfast the morning after the fire; and at the tables the girls' tongues ran until Miss Brokaw declared the room sounded like a great rookery she had once disturbed near an old English rectory.

"I positively cannot stand it, young ladies," declared the nervous teacher, who had been up most of the night. "Such continuous chatter is enough to crack one's eardrums."

The girls really were too excited to be very considerate, although they did not mean to offend Miss Brokaw. If the window or an outer door was opened, the very tang of sour smoke on the air set their tongues off again about the fire.

Once in chapel, however, a rather solemn feeling fell upon them. The teacher whose turn it was to read, selected a psalm of gratitude that seemed to breathe just what was in all their hearts. It gave thanks for deliverance from the terrors of the night and those of the noonday, for the Power that encircles poor humanity and shelters it from harm.

"We, too, have been sheltered," thought Ruth and her friends. "We have been guarded from the evil that flyeth by night and from the terror that stalketh at noonday. Surely God is our Keeper and Strength. We will not be afraid."

When Helen played one of the old, old hymns of the Church she brought such sweet tones from the strings of the violin that Miss Picolet hushed her accompaniment, surprised and delighted. And when they sang, Ruth Fielding's rich and mellow voice carried the air in perfect harmony.

When the hymn was finished the girls turned glowing faces upon Mrs. Tellingham who, despite a sleepless night, looked fresh and sweet.

"For the first time in the history of Briarwood Hall as a school," she said, speaking so that all could hear her, "a really serious calamity has fallen."

"We are all determined upon one thing, I am sure," pursued Mrs. Tellingham. "We will not worry about what is already done. Water that has run by the mill will never drive the wheel, you know. We will look forward to the rebuilding of the West Dormitory, and that as soon as it can possibly be done."

"Hoo-ray!" cried Jennie Stone, leading a hearty cheer.

"We will have the ruin of the old structure torn away at once."

The murmur of appreciation rose again from the girls assembled.

"I do not recall at this moment just how much insurance was on the West Dormitory; I leave those details to Doctor Tellingham, and he is now looking up the papers in the office. But I am sure there is ample to rebuild, and if all goes well, a new West Dormitory will rise in the place of these smoking ruins before our patrons and our friends come to our graduation exercises in June."

"Oh, bully!" cried Ann Hicks, under her breath. "I want Uncle Bill to see Briarwood at its very best."

"But the dear old ivy never can be replaced," Mercy Curtis murmured to Ruth.

"We shall endeavor," went on Mrs. Tellingham, smiling, "to repeat in the new building all the advantages of the old. We shall have everything replaced, if possible, exactly as it was before the fire."

"There was a big inkspot on my rug," muttered Jennie Stone. "Bet they can't get that just in the same place again."

"You homeless girls must, in the meanwhile, possess your souls with patience. The younger girls who had quarters in the West Dormitory will be made comfortable in the East. But you older girls must be cared for in a different way.

"Some few I shall take into my own apartments, or otherwise find room for in the main building here. Some, however, will have to occupy quarters outside the school premises until the new building is constructed and ready for occupancy. Arrangements for these quarters I have already made. And now we can separate for our usual classes and work, with the feeling that all will come out right and that the new dormitory will be built within reasonable time."

She ceased speaking. The door near the platform suddenly opened and "the old doctor" as the girls called the absent-minded husband of their preceptress, hastily entered.

He stumbled up to the platform, waving a number of papers in his hand. He stammered so that he could hardly speak at first, and he gave no attention to the amazed girls in the audience.

"Mrs. Tellingham! Mrs. Tellingham!" he ejaculated. "I have made a great mistake—an unpardonable error! In renewing the insurance for the various buildings I overlooked that for the West Dormitory and its contents. The insurance on that ran out a week ago. There was not a dollar on it when it burned last night!"

"GREAT OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW"

Mercy Curtis was one of the older girls quartered in Mrs. Tellingham's suite. She told her close friends how Doctor Tellingham walked the floor of the inner office and bemoaned his absent-mindedness that had brought disaster upon Mrs. Tellingham and the whole school.

"I know that Mrs. Tellingham is becoming more worried about the doctor than about the lapsed insurance," said Mercy. "Of course, he's a foolish old man without any more head than a pin! But why did she leave the business of renewing the insurance in his charge, in the first place?"

"Oh, Mercy!" protested Ruth.

"No more head than a pin!" repeated Nettie Parsons, in horror. "Why! who ever heard the like? He writes histories! He must be a very brainy man."

"Who ever reads them?" grumbled Mercy.

"They look awfully solid," confessed Lluella Fairfax. "Did you ever look at the whole row of them in the office bookcase?"

Jennie Stone began to giggle. "I don't care," she said, "the doctor may be a great historian; but his memory is just as short as it can be. Do you know what happened only last half when he and Mrs. Tellingham were invited to the Lumberton Association Ball?"

"What was it?" asked Helen.

"I suppose it is something perfectly ridiculous, or Heavy wouldn't have remembered it," Ruth suggested.

"Thank you!" returned the plump girl, making a face. "I have a better memory than Dr. Tellingham, I should hope."

"Come on! tell the joke, Heavy," urged Mary Cox.

"Why, when he came into the office ready to escort Mrs. Tellingham to the ball, Mrs. T. criticised his tie. 'Do go back, Doctor, and put on a black tie,' she said. You know, he's the best natured old dear in the world," Jennie pursued, "and he went right back into his bedroom to make the change. They waited, and they waited, and then they waited some more," chuckled Jennie. "The doctor did not reappear. So Mrs. Tellingham finally went to his bedroom and opened the door. She saw that the old doctor, having removed the tie she didn't like, had continued the process of undressing, and just as Mrs. Tellingham looked in, he climbed placidly into bed."

"I can believe that," said Ann Hicks, when the laughter had subsided.

"And I can believe that both he and Mrs. Tellingham are just as worried about the destruction of the dormitory as they can be," Nettie added. "All their money is invested in the school, is it not?"

"Except that invested in the doctor's useless histories," said Mercy, who was inclined to be most unmerciful of speech on occasion.

"Is there nobody to help them rebuild?" asked Ann, tentatively.

"Not a soul," declared Ruth.

"I believe I'll write to Uncle Bill Hicks. He'll help, I know," said Ann. "Next to Heavy's Aunt Kate, Uncle Bill thinks that the finest woman on this footstool is Mrs. Tellingham."

"And I'll ask papa for some money," Nettie said quickly. "I had that in mind from the first."

"My father will give some," Helen said.

"We'll write to Madge Steele," said Belle. "Her father might help, too."

"I guess all our folks will be willing to help," Lluella Fairfax added.

"And," said Jennie, "here's Ruth, with a fortune in her own right."

But Ruth did not make any rejoinder to Jennie's remark and that surprised them all; for they knew Ruth Fielding was not stingy.

"We are going about this thing in the wrong way, girls," she said quietly. "At least, I think we are."

"How are we?" demanded Helen. "Surely, we all want to help Mrs. Tellingham."

"And Old Briarwood," cried Belle Tingley.

"And all the students of our Alma Mater will want to join in," maintained Lluella.

"Now you've said it!" cried Ruth, with a sudden smile. "Every girl who is now attending the dear old Hall will want to help rebuild the West Dormitory."

"All can give their mites, can't they?" demanded Jennie. "And the rich can give of their plenty."

"That is just it," Ruth went on, still seriously. "Nettie's father will give a good sum; so will Helen's; so will Mr. William Hicks, who is one of the most liberal men in the world. Therefore, the little gifts of the other girls' parents will look terribly small."

"Oh, Ruth! don't say that our folks can't give," cried Jennie, whose father likewise was rich.

"It is not in my province to say who shall, or who shall not give," declared Ruth, hastily. "I only want to point out to you girls that if the rich give a great deal the poorer will almost be ashamed to give what they can."

"That's right," said Mary Cox, suddenly. "We haven't much; so we couldn't give much."

The girls looked rather troubled; but Ruth had not finished. "There is another thing," she said. "If all your fathers give to the dormitory fund, what will you girls personally give?"

"Oh! how's that, Ruth?" cried Helen.

"Say," drawled Jennie Stone, the plump girl, "we're not all fixed like you, Ruth—with a bank account to draw on."

Ruth blushed; but she did not lose her temper. "You don't understand what I mean yet," she said. "Either I am particularly muddy in my suggestions, or you girls are awfully dense to-day."

"How polite! how polite!" murmured Jennie.

"What I am trying to get at," Ruth continued earnestly, "is the fact that the rebuilding of the West Dormitory should interest us girls more than anybody else in the world, save Mrs. Tellingham."

"Well—doesn't it?" demanded Mary Cox, rather sharply.

"Does it interest us all enough for each girl to be willing to do something personally, or sacrifice something, toward the new building?" asked Ruth.

"I getcha, Steve!" exclaimed the slangy Jennie.

"Oh, dear me, Ruthie! we are dense," said Nettie. "Of course! every girl should be able to do as much as the next one. Otherwise there may be hard feelings."

"Secret heartburnings," added Helen.

"Of course," Mercy said, "Ruth would see that side of it. I don't expect my folks could give ten dollars toward the fund; but I should want to do as much as any girl here. Nobody loves Briarwood Hall more than I do," added the lame girl, fiercely.

"I believe you, dear," Ruth said. "And what we want to do is to invent some way of earning money in which every girl will have her part, and do her part, and feel that she has done her full share in rebuilding the West Dormitory."

"Hurrah!" cried Jennie. "That's the talk! I tell you, Ruth, you are the only bright girl in this school!"

"Thank you," said Ruth. "You cannot flatter me into believing that."

"But what's the idea, dear?" demanded Helen, eagerly. "You have some nice invention, I am sure. You always do have."

"Another base flatterer!" cried Ruth, laughing gaily. "I believe you girls say such things just to jolly me along, and so that you will not have to exercise any gray matter yourselves."

"Oh! oh!" groaned Jennie. "How ungrateful."

"Of course you have something to suggest?" Nettie said.

"No, not a thing. My idea is, merely, that we start something that every girl in the school can have her share in. Of course, that does not cut out contributions from those who have money to spare; but the new building must be erected by the efforts of the girls of Briarwood Hall as——"

"As a bunch of briars," chuckled Jennie. "Isn't that a sharp one?"

"Just as sharp as you are, my dear," said Helen.

"You know what that means, Heavy," said Mary Cox. "You're all curves."

"Oh! ouch! I know that hurt me," declared the plump girl, altogether too good-natured to be offended by anything her mates said to her.

"So that's how it is," Ruth finished "Call the girls together. Put the idea before them. Let's hear from everybody, and see which girl has the best thought along this line. We want a way of making money in which everyone can join."

"I—don't—see," complained Nettie, "how you are going to do it."

"Never mind. Don't worry," said Mercy. "'Great oaks from little acorns grow,' and a fine idea will sprout from the germ of Ruth's suggestion, I have no doubt."

It did; but not at all in the way any of them expected. The whole school was called together after recitations on this afternoon, which was several days following the fire. The teachers had no part in the assembly, least of all Mrs. Tellingham.

But the older girls—all of them S.B.'s—were very much in earnest; and from them the younger pupils, of course, took their cue. The West Dormitory must be built—and within the time originally specified by Mrs. Tellingham when she had thought the insurance would fully pay for the work of reconstruction.

Many girls, it seemed, had already written home begging contributions to the fund which they expected would be raised for the new building. Some even were ready to offer money of their very own toward the amount necessary to start the work.

Even Ruth agreed to this first effort to get money. She pledged a hundred dollars herself and Nettie Parsons quietly put down the same sum as her own personal offering.

"Oh, gracious, goodness, me, girls!" gasped Jennie Stone, who had been figuring desperately upon a sheet of paper. "Wait till I get this sum done; then I can tell you what I will give. There! Can it be possible?"

"What is it, Jennie?" asked Belle Tingley, looking over her shoulder. "Why! look at all those figures. Are you weighing the sun or counting the hairs of the sun-dogs?"

"Don't laugh," begged the plump girl. "This is a serious matter. I've been figuring up what I should probably have spent for candy from now till June if I'd been left to my own will."

"What is it, Heavy?" asked somebody. "I wager it would pay for erecting the new dormitory without the rest of us putting up a cent."

"No," said the plump girl, gravely. "But it figures up to a good round sum. I never would have believed it! Girls, I'll give fifty dollars."

"Oh, Heavy! you never could eat so much sweets before graduation," gasped one.

"I could; but I sha'n't," declared Miss Stone, with continued gravity. "I'll practise self-denial."

With all the fun and joking, the girls of Briarwood Hall were very much in earnest. They elected a committee of five—Ruth, Nettie, Lluella, Sarah Fish and Mary Cox—to have charge of the collection of the fund, and to go immediately to Mrs. Tellingham and show her what money was already promised and how much more could be expected within ten days.

There was enough, they knew, to warrant the preceptress in having the work of tearing away the ruins begun. Meanwhile, the girls were each urged to think up some new way of earning money, and as a committee of the whole to try to invent a novel scheme of including the whole school in a plan whereby much money might be raised.

"How we're to do it, nobody knows," said Helen gloomily, walking along beside Ruth after the meeting. "I expected you would have just the thing to suggest."

"I wish I had," her chum returned thoughtfully.

"Mercy says, 'Great oaks from little acorns grow'——"

They turned into the hall and saw that the mail had been distributed. Ruth was handed a letter with Mr. Hammond's name upon it. She had almost forgotten the moving picture man and her own scenario, in these three or four very busy days.

Ruth eagerly tore the envelope open. A green slip of paper fluttered out. It was a check for twenty-five dollars from the Alectrion Film Corporation. With it was a note highly praising Ruth's first effort at scenario writing for moving pictures.

"What is it?" demanded Helen. "You look so funny. There's no—nobody dead?"

"Do I look like that?" asked Ruth. "Far from it! Just look at these, dear," and she thrust both the note and the check into Helen's hands. "I believe I've struck it!"

"Struck what?" demanded her puzzled chum.

"'Great oaks from little acorns grow' sure enough! Eureka! I have it," Ruth cried. "I believe I know how we all—every girl in Briarwood—can help earn the money to rebuild the West Dormitory."