The person on the deck had halted almost opposite the window. Ruth knew now that the steamer must be well across the Five Fathom Bank, with the Delaware Lightship behind them and the Fenwick Lightship not far ahead. To the west was the wide entrance to Delaware Bay, and the land was now as far away from them as it would be at any time during the trip.

She peered out quietly. There stood the curly-haired boy again, leaning on the rail, and looking wistfully off to the distant shore.

Was it Henry Smith? Was he the boy who had come aboard the boat in girl’s clothes? And if so, what would he do when the boat docked at Old Point Comfort and the detectives appeared? They would probably have a good description of the boy wanted, and could pick him out of the crowd going ashore.

Ruth was almost tempted to speak to the boy—to whisper to him. Had she been sure it was Curly she would have done so, for she knew him so well. But, as before, his face was turned away from her.

He moved on, and Ruth softly slid back the blind and stole to bed again, for the third time bumping her head. “My! if this keeps on, I’ll be all lumps and hollows like an outline map of the Rocky Mountains,” she whimpered, and then cuddled down under the sheet and lay looking out of the open window.

The sea air blew softly in and cooled her flushed cheeks. The odor of the roses was not so oppressive, and after a time she dropped to sleep. When she awoke it was because of the change in the temperature some time before dawn. The moon was gone; but there was a faint light upon the water.

Helen moved in the berth above. “Hullo, up there!” whispered Ruth.

“Hullo, down there!” was the quick reply. “What ever made me wake up so early?”

“Because you want to get up early,” replied Ruth, this time sliding out of her berth so adroitly that she did not bump her head.

Helen came tumbling down, skinning her elbow and landing with a thump on the floor. “Gracious to goodness—and all hands around!” she ejaculated. “Talk about sleeping on a shelf in a Pullman car! Why, that’s ‘Home Sweet Home’ to this. I came near to breaking my neck.”

“Come on! scramble into your clothes,” said Ruth, already at the wash basin.

Helen peered out. “Why—oh, my!” she said, shivering and holding the lacy neck of her gown about her. “It’s da-ark yet. It must be midnight.”

“It is ten minutes to four o’clock,” said Ruth promptly. She had studied the route and knew it exactly. “That is Chincoteague Island Light yonder. That’s where those cunning little ponies that Madge Steele’s father had at Sunrise Farm came from.”

“Wha-at?” yawned Helen. “Did they come from the light?”

“No, goosy! from the island. They are bred there.”

Ten minutes later the chums were out on the open deck. They raced forward to see if they could see the sun. His face was still below the sea, but a flush along the edge of the horizon announced his coming.

“Oh, see yonder!” cried Helen. “See the shore! How near! And the long line of beaches. What’s that white line outside the yellow sand?”

“The surf,” Ruth said. “And that must be Hog Island Light. How faint it is. The sun is putting it out.”

“It’s a long way ahead.”

“Yes. We won’t pass that till almost six o’clock. Oh, Helen! there comes the sun.”

“What’s that?” asked Helen, suddenly seizing her chum’s wrist. “Did you hear it?”

“That splash? The men are washing decks.”

“It is a man overboard!” murmured Helen.

“More likely a big fish jumping,” said the practical Ruth.

The girls hung over the rail, looking shoreward, and tried in the uncertain light to see if there was any object floating on the water. If Helen expected to see a black spot like the head of a swimmer, she was disappointed.

But she did see—and so did Ruth—a lazy fishing smack drifting by on the tide. They could almost have thrown a stone aboard of her.

There seemed to be a little excitement aboard the smack. Men ran to and fro and leaned over the rail. Then the girls thought they saw the smackmen spear something, or possibly somebody, with a boathook and haul their prize aboard.

“I believe somebody did fall overboard from this steamer, and those fishermen have picked him up,” Helen declared.

The girls watched the sunrise and the shore line for another hour or more and then went in to breakfast. When they came back to the open deck the steamer was flying past the coast of the lower Peninsula, and Cape Charles Lightship courtesied to her on the swells.

Far, far in the distance they saw the staff of the Cape Henry Light. The steamer soon turned her prow to pass between these two points of land, known to seamen as the Capes of Virginia, which mark the entrance to Chesapeake Bay.

Their fair trip down the coast from New York was almost ended and the chums began to pick up their things in the stateroom and repack their bags.

CHAPTER V—THE NEWSPAPER ACCOUNT

“Of course you will. You always do,” said Ruth drily. “You certainly are one of the fortunate ones in this world, Helen, dear.”

“How am I?”

“Because,” Ruth said, laughing, “all you ever will do in any emergency will be to roll those pretty eyes of yours and look helpless, and somebody will come to your rescue.”

“Lucky me, then!” sighed her friend. “How green the grass is on the shore, Ruth—and how blue the water. Isn’t this one lovely morning?”

“And a beautiful place we are going to. That’s the fort yonder—the largest in the United States, I shouldn’t wonder.”

As the steamer drew in closer to the dock those passengers who were not going on to Norfolk got their hand baggage together and pressed toward the forward lower deck, from which they would land at the Point. The girls followed suit; but as they came out of their stateroom there was the omnipresent colored man, in his porter’s uniform now, ready to take the bags.

Ruth and Helen let him take the bags, though they were very well able to carry them, for he was insistent. The stewardess—a comfortable looking old “aunty” in starched cap and apron—was likewise bobbing courtesies to them as they went through the saloon. Helen’s ready purse drew the colored population of that boat as a honey-pot does bees.

As they descended to the lower deck, suddenly the queer looking school teacher, with the short hair and funny clothes, faced them. The purser had evidently been trying to pacify her, but now he gave it up.

“You mean to tell me that you won’t demand to have these girls examined—searched?” cried the angry woman. “They may have taken my ticket for fun, but it’s a serious matter and they are now afraid to give it up. I know ’em—root and branch!”

“Do you know these two young ladies?” demanded the purser, in surprise.

“Yes; I know their kind. I have been teaching girls just like ’em for fifteen years. They’re up to all kinds of mischief.”

“Oh, madam!” cried the purser, “that is strong language. I cannot hold these young ladies on your say-so. You have no evidence. Nor do I believe they have your ticket in their possession.”

“Of course you’d take their side!” sniffed the woman.

“I am on the side of innocence always. If you care to get into trouble by speaking to the police, you will probably find two policemen waiting on the dock as we go ashore. They are after that disguised boy who came aboard.”

The woman tossed her head and strode away, after glaring again at the embarrassed girls. The purser said, gently:

“I am very sorry, young ladies, that you have been annoyed by that person. And I am glad that you did not let the offence make us any more trouble. Of course, she had no right to speak of you and to you as she has.

“I believe she is to be pitied, however. I learn that she is going on a trip South for her health, after a particularly arduous year’s work. She is, as she intimates, a teacher in a big girl’s boarding school in New England. She is probably not a favorite with her pupils at best, and is now undoubtedly broken down nervously and not quite responsible for what she says and does.”

Then the purser continued, smiling: “Perhaps you can imagine that her pupils have not tried to make her life pleasant. I have a daughter about your age who goes to such a school, and I know from her that sometimes the girls are rather thoughtless of an instructor’s comfort—if they dislike her.”

“Oh, that is true enough, I expect,” Ruth admitted. “See how they used to treat little Picolet!” she added to Helen.

“I guess no girl would fall in love with this horrid creature who says we stole her ticket.”

“She is not of a lovable disposition, that is sure,” agreed the purser. “Her name is Miss Miggs. I hope you will not see her again.”

“Oh! you don’t suppose she will try to make trouble for us ashore?” Ruth cried.

“I will see that she does not. I will speak to the officers who I expect are awaiting the boat’s arrival. They have already communicated with us by wireless about that boy.”

“Wireless!” cried Helen. “And we didn’t know you had it aboard. I certainly would have thanked Tom for those roses. And then, Ruth! Just think of telegraphing by wireless!”

“Sorry you missed that, young ladies. The instrument is in Room Seventy,” said the purser, bustling away.

“‘Too late! too late! the villain cried!’” murmured Helen. “We missed that.”

“Never mind,” said Ruth, smiling. “If we go back to New York by boat we can hang around the wireless telegraph room all the time and you can send messages to all your friends.”

“No I can’t,” said Helen shortly.

“Why not?”

“Because I won’t have any money left by that time,” Helen declared ruefully. “Goodness! how much it does cost to travel.”

“It does, I guess, if you practise such generosity as you have practised,” said Ruth. “Do use a little judgment, Helen. You tip recklessly, and you buy everything you see.”

“No,” declared her chum. “There’s one thing I’ve seen that I wouldn’t buy if it was selling as cheap as ‘two bits,’ as these folks say down here.”

“What’s that?” asked Ruth, with a laugh.

“That old maid school marm from New England,” Helen replied promptly.

“Poor thing!” commented Ruth.

“There you go! Pitying her already! How do you know that she won’t try to have us arrested?”

“Goodness! we’ll hope not,” said Ruth, as they surged toward the gangway with the rest of the disembarking passengers, the boat having already docked.

The crowd came out into the sunshine of a perfect morning upon a bustling dock. There was a goodly crowd from the hotels to see the newcomers land. Some of the passengers were met by friends; but neither Nettie Parsons nor her aunt were in sight.

The porter who carried the girls’ bags, however, handed them over to a hotel porter and evidently said a good word for them to that functionary; for he was very attentive and led the chums out of the crowd toward the broad veranda of the hotel front.

Ruth and Helen had sharp eyes, and they saw two plain-clothes men standing by to watch the forthcoming passengers.

“The officers looking for that boy,” whispered Ruth.

“Oh, dear! do you suppose he was Curly?”

“I don’t know. I must write to Mrs. Smith as soon as we get to the hotel.”

The chums had traveled considerably by land, and had ventured into more than one hotel; but never alone. When they had gone to Montana to visit Ann Hicks, Ann’s Uncle Bill had been with them and had looked after the transportation matters. And in going into the Adirondacks they had traveled in a private car.

The porter took them immediately to a reception parlor, and took Mrs. Parson’s card that she had given Ruth to the hotel manager. The manager came himself to greet the girls. Mrs. Parsons’ name was evidently well known at this hotel.

“At this time of year there is a choice of rooms at your disposal,” he said. “I will show you the suite Mrs. Parsons usually has; but if the rooms assigned you are not satisfactory, we can accommodate you elsewhere.”

As they went up to the rooms Helen whispered: “Don’t you feel kind of bridey?”

“Kind of what?” gasped her chum.

“Why, as though you were on your bridal tour?” said Helen. “We’ve got on brand new clothes, and everybody treats us as though we were queens.”

“Maybe you feel that you are a queen,” giggled Ruth. “But not me. If you are a bride, Helen Cameron, where is the gloom?”

“Gloom?” repeated Helen. “Do you mean groom?”

“Not in your case,” sniffed Ruth. “He will be a ‘gloom’ all right, the way you make the money fly. See how you tipped that fellow below just now. He’s standing in a trance, looking at that dollar yet.”

“I—I didn’t have anything smaller,” confessed the culprit.

“Well, you ought to have had change.”

“My! do you want me to do as the old lady said she did when going to church? She always carried some buttons in her purse, for then, if she had run out of change, when the contribution box was passed she’d still have something to drop in.”

Ruth went off into a gale of laughter. “I wonder how that darkey would have looked if you had contributed a button to him.”

The manager here threw open a door which gave entrance upon two big rooms, with a bathroom between, the windows opening upon a balcony. To the girls it seemed a most delightful place—so high and airy—and such a view!

“Oh, this will be lovely,” Ruth assured him. “And are Mrs. Parsons’ rooms yonder?”

“Right through that door,” replied the man. “There are the buttons. Ring for any attendance you may need. If everything is not perfectly satisfactory, young ladies, let me know.”

He bowed himself out. Helen performed several stately steps about the first room. “I tell you, my dear, we are very important. Nettie’s Aunt Rachel is a dear! Or are all people down here in Dixie as polite as this person with the side whiskers?”

“Why! I think people are kind to us almost everywhere,” said Ruth, laying off her hat and coat.

“What shall we do first?” asked Helen.

“I told you. I am going right down to the ladies’ writing room—I saw it as we came through the lower floor—and write to Mrs. Smith. If Curly did run away, we know where he is.”

“Do we?” asked Helen, doubtfully.

“Why—I——Well, he was aboard that steamer, I am sure,” Ruth said.

“Is he now?” asked Helen. “I believe he went overboard and was picked up by that fishing boat.”

“Goodness! do you really believe so?”

“I am quite positive that the disguised boy did just that,” said Helen, nodding her dark head confidently.

“Well, I can tell Mrs. Smith nothing about that; it would only scare her. But I want her to write to me as soon as she can and tell me if Curly is at home. Poor boy! what ever would become of him if he ran away?”

“And with the police after him!” Helen added. “I am sure he never committed any real crime.”

“So am I sure. But he was always playing jokes and was up to all kinds of mischief. He was bound to get into trouble,” Ruth said, with a sigh. “Everybody around there disliked him so.”

Ruth went downstairs and easily found the writing room. Outside was a periodical and newspaper stand. The New York morning papers had just arrived and Ruth bought one before she entered the writing room. Before beginning the letter to Mrs. Sadoc Smith, she opened the paper and almost the first brief article she noticed was the following:

“A police launch followed the New Union S.S. Pocahontas yesterday afternoon as far as the Narrows, and plain-clothes men James Morrisy, B. Phelps, Schwartz and Rockheimer, boarded her to search for a boy from up-state who has created a stir in the vicinity of Lumberton.

“It is reported that Henry Smith, fifteen years old, tall for his age, curly, chestnut hair, small features, especially girlish face, is accused of helping a pair of tramps rob the Lumberton railroad station. The tramps escaped on a hand-car with their booty. The local police went after Henry, who lives with his grandmother, Mrs. Sadoc Smith, his only relative, an eminently respectable woman. Henry locked himself in his room, and while his grandmother was urging him to come out and give himself up to the police, he slid out of the window and over the shed roof, dropping to the ground—the old path to the circus grounds and the bright and early Independence Day celebration.

“Henry Smith left home with some money and a new pair of boots. The boots and his other male attire he seems to have exchanged for female garb at a hotel in Albany. Henry masquerades as a girl very effectively, it is said.

“The Albany police were just too late in reaching the hotel, but later had reason to know that Henry had come on to New York by train. Detective Morrisy and his squad missed the fugitive at the Grand Central Terminal. Through the good offices of a taxicab driver, Henry was traced to the New Union pier, where he was supposed to have boarded the Pocahontas.

“The detectives, however, did not find Henry Smith thereon, neither in female garb nor in his proper habiliments. The police at Old Point Comfort and Norfolk have been notified to watch for the boy. His grandmother, Mrs. Sadoc Smith, declares she will disinherit her grandson.”

CHAPTER VI—ALL IN THE RAIN

“And his grandmother says she will disinherit him. That’s really cruel! I dare not tell her what I think when I write,” Ruth said. “But I will tell her how Curly is being hounded by the police, and that he jumped overboard.”

“Sure he did! He’s an awfully brave boy,” Helen declared.

“I’m not sure that he’s to be praised for that kind of bravery. It was a perilous chance he took. I wonder where he will go—what he will do? Goodness! what a boy!”

“He’s all right,” urged Helen, with admiration. “I don’t believe the police will ever catch him.”

“But what will become of him?”

“If we come across him again, we’ll help him,” said Helen, with confidence.

“That’s not likely. I can’t even tell Mrs. Smith where he has gone. We don’t know.”

“Let’s go out and make sure that he wasn’t taken by the police here, or at Norfolk.”

“How will you find out?”

“At the dock. Somebody will know.”

“You go. I’ll write to Mrs. Smith. Don’t get lost,” said Ruth, drawing paper and envelopes toward her and preparing to write the missive.

It was growing dark before Ruth finished the letter—and that should not have been, for it was not yet noon! She looked up and then ran to the window. A storm cloud was sweeping down the bay and off across Hampton Roads. Over in Norfolk it was raining—a sharp shower. But it did not look as though it would hit the Point.

While Ruth was looking out Helen came running into the writing room, greatly excited. “Oh, come on, Ruthie!” she cried. “I’ve got a man who will take us for a drive all around the Point and around the fortress.”

“In what?” asked Ruth, doubtfully.

“Well, I’d call it a barouche. It’s an old thing; but he’s such a nice, old darkey, and——”

“How much have you already paid him, my dear?” asked Ruth, interrupting.

“Well—I——Oh! don’t be so inquisitive!”

“And I thought you went to inquire whether they had arrested that boy?”

“Oh! didn’t I tell you?” said Helen. “They didn’t get him. Neither here nor at Norfolk. I asked the man on the dock. Then this nice, old colored man in such a funny livery, asked me to ride with him. He’s been driving white folks around here, he says, ever since the war.”

“What war? The War with Spain?” asked Ruth, tartly. “I begin to believe that there must be some sign on you, my dear, which tells these fellows that you have money and can be easily parted from it.”

“Now, Ruthie——”

“That is true. Well! we’ll get our hats——”

“Don’t need anything of the kind. Or wraps, either. It’s lovely out.”

“But that black cloud?”

“What do you mean, Ruthie? My hack driver?” giggled Helen.

“Nonsense, you naughty child! That thunder storm.”

“The driver says it won’t come over here. Let’s go.”

“All right,” Ruth finally said. “I know you have already paid him and we must get some return for your money.”

“What a terribly saving creature you are,” scoffed Helen. “I begin to believe that you have caught Uncle Jabez’s disease, living with him there in the Red Mill. There! Oh, Ruth! I didn’t mean that. I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for anything.”

But she had effectually closed Ruth’s lips upon the subject of the waste of money. Her chum’s countenance was rather serious as they went out upon the great veranda, which had a sweep wider than the face of the Capitol at Washington. Below them was a decrepit old carriage, drawn by a horse, the harness of which was repaired in more than one place with rope. The smart equipages made this ramshackle old vehicle look older than Noah’s Ark at Briarwood Hall.

Helen was enormously amused by the looks of the old rattletrap and the funny appearance of the driver. The latter was an aged negro with a gray poll and gaps in his teeth when he grinned. He wore a tall hat such as the White House coachman is pictured as wearing in Lincoln’s day. The long-tailed coat he wore had once been blue, but was now faded to a distinct maroon shade, saving a patch on the small of his back which had retained much of its original color by being sheltered against the seat-back.

The vest and trousers this nondescript wore were coarse white duck, but starched and ironed, and as white as the snow. The least said about his shoes the better, and a glimpse Ruth had of one brown shank, as the old man got creakingly down to politely open the barouche door for them, assured her that he wore no hose at all.

“Do get in,” giggled Helen. “Did you ever see such a funny old thing?”

“It looks as if it would fall to pieces,” objected Ruth.

“He assures me it won’t. I don’t care if everybody is laughing at us.”

“Neither do I. But I believe it is going to rain.”

“Nothing more than a little shower, if any,” Helen said, and popped into the carriage. Ruth, rather doubtful still, followed her. Amid a good deal of amusement on the part of the company on the verandas, the rattling equipage rolled away.

They rode along the edge of the fortress moat and past the officer’s quarters, and so around the entire fortress and across the reservation into the country. The old man sat very stiff and upright in his seat, flourished his whip over his old horse in a grand manner, and altogether made as brave an appearance as possible.

The knock-kneed horse dragged its feet over the highway with a shuffle that made Ruth nervous. She liked a good horse. This one moved so slowly, and the turnout was altogether so ridiculous, that Ruth did not know whether to join Helen in laughing at it, or get out and walk back.

Suddenly, however, a drizzle of rain began to fall. It was not unexpected, for the clouds were still black and a chill breeze had blown up.

“We’ll have to go back, Uncle,” cried Helen to the driver.

“Wait a minute—wait a minute,” urged the old man. “Ah’ll git right down an’ fix dat hood. Dat’ll shelter yo’ till we gits back t’ de hotel—ya-as’m.”

“You should not have encouraged us to come out with you when it was sure to rain,” said Ruth, rather tartly for her.

“Sho’ ‘nuff, missy—sho’ ‘nuff,” cackled the old darkey. “But ’twas a great temptation.”

“What was a great temptation?”

“To earn a dollar. Dollars come skeerce like nowadays, for Unc’ Simmy. He kyan’t keep up wid dese yere taxum-cabs an’ de rich folks’ smart conveyances—no’m!” and the old negro chuckled as though poverty, too, were a humorous thing.

He began to fuss with the hood of the carriage, which was supposed to pull up and shelter the occupants. But it would not “stay put,” as Helen laughingly said, and the summer shower began to patter harder on the unprotected girls.

“You’d better not mind it, Mr. Simmy,” Helen said, “and drive us back at once. We’re bound to get wet anyway.”

“Dey calls me Unc’ Simmy, missy—ma frien’s do,” said the old man, rheumatically climbing to his seat again. “An’ Ah ain’t gwine t’ drib yo’ back to de hotel in de face ob dishyer shower, an’ git all yo’ fin’ry wet. No’m! Yo’ leab’ Unc’ Simmy ‘lone fo’ a-gittin’ yo’ to shelter ’twill de storm passes ober.”

He touched up the old horse with the whiplash, and the creature really broke into a knock-kneed trot, Unc’ Simmy meanwhile singing a broken accompaniment to the shuffling pace of his steed:

    “‘On  Jor-dy-an’s  sto’my  bank  I  stand
            An’  cas’  a  wishful  eye
    T’  Can-ny-an’s  bright  an’  glo-ree-ous  land—
            Ma’  ho-o-me  ’twill  be,  bymeby!’

Dis ain’ gwine t’ be much ob a shower, missy. We turns in yere.“

They had passed several smart looking dwellings—villas they might better be called—and more than one old, Southern house with high pillars in front and an air of decayed gentility about them.

Unc’ Simmy swung his steed through a ruined gateway where the Virginia creeper and honeysuckle hid the gateposts and wall. There was a small wooden structure like a gate-keeper’s cottage, much out of repair. The shingles on the roof had curled in the hot sun’s rays till they resembled clutching fingers; some of the siding-strips in the peak, far out of ordinary reach, hung and flapped by one nail; some bricks were missing from the chimney-top; the house had not been painted for at least two decades. The porch on the front was sheltered by climbing vines, and there were many old-fashioned flowers in neatly kept beds before the little house. But the girls did not see much of the front of the cottage just then, for the old horse went by and up the lane at a clumsy gallop. The rain was coming down faster.

“Where for pity’s sake is he taking us?” Ruth demanded.

“I don’t care—it’s fun,” gasped Helen, cowering before the rain drops.

Behind the cottage was a small barn—evidently built much more recently than the house. The wide door was swung open and hooked back and Unc’ Simmy drove inside.

“Dar we is!” he cried exultantly. “Ah’ll jes’ take yo’ all in t’ visit wid’ Miss Catalpa while Ah fixes dishyer kerrige so it’ll take yo’ back to de P’int dry—ya-as’m.”

“‘Miss Catalpa,’ no less!” murmured Helen in Ruth’s ear. “That sounds like a real darkey name, doesn’t it? I wonder if she’s an old aunty—or mammy, do they call them?”

But Ruth was interested in another phase of the matter. “Won’t the lady object to unexpected visitors, Uncle Simmy?” she asked.

“Lor’ bress yo’! no, honey,” he said, helping her out of the sheltered carriage, and then Helen in turn. “Yo’ come right in wid me. Miss Catalpa’s on de front po’ch. She likes t’ hear de drummin’ ob de rain, she say—er—he, he, he! W’ite folks sho’ do have funny sayin’s, don’t dey?”

“Then Miss Catalpa is white!” gasped Helen to Ruth, as the old darkey led the way across the back yard to the cottage.

They reached the shelter of the front veranda just as the rain “came down in buckets,” as Helen declared. The chums had never seen it rain so hard before. And the thunder of it on the porch roof drowned all other sound. Unc’ Simmy was grinning at them and saying something; they could see his lips moving; but they could not hear a word.

In the half dusk of the vine-sheltered porch they saw him gesticulating and they looked toward the other end. There was a low table and a sewing basket. In a low rocker, swinging to and fro, and crooning a song perhaps, for her lips were moving as her needles flashed back and forth in the soft wool she was knitting, was a fair, pink-cheeked little lady, her light brown hair rippling away from her brow and over her ears in some old-fashioned and forgotten style, but which was very becoming to the wearer.

Her ear was turned toward their end of the porch, and she was smiling. Evidently, in spite of the drumming of the hard rain, she had distinguished their coming; but her eyes had the unmistakable look of those who live in darkness.

The little lady was blind.

CHAPTER VII—MISS CATALPA

She was dressed very plainly in gingham; but every flaunce was starched and ironed beautifully, and the lace in the low-cut neck of the cheap gown and at the wrists, was valuable and ivory-hued with age.

The negro cleared his voice and said, with great respect, removing his ancient hat as he did so:

“De young ladies done tak’ refuge yere wid’ yo’ w’ile it shower so hard, Miss Catalpa. I tell ’em yo’ don’t mind dem comin’ in t’ res’. Yo’ knows Unc’ Simmy dribes de quality eround de P’int nowadays.”

“Oh, yes, Simmy. I know,” said Miss Catalpa, with a little sigh. “It isn’t as it used to be befo’ we had to take refuge, too, in this old gatehouse. It is a refuge both in sun and rain fo’ us. How do you do, my dears? I know you are young ladies—and I love the young. And I fancy you are from the No’th, too?”

And Helen and Ruth had not yet said a word! The subtle appreciation of the blind woman told her much that astonished the girls.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Ruth, striving to keep her voice from shaking, for the pity she felt for the lady gripped her at the throat. “We are two schoolgirls who have come down to Dixie to play for a few weeks after our graduation from Briarwood Hall.”

“Indeed? I went to school fo’ a while at Miss Chamberlain’s in Washington. Hers was a very select young ladies’ school. But, re’lly, you know, had my po’ eyes not been too weak to study, the family exchequer could scarcely stand the drain,” and she laughed, low and sweetly. “The Grogan fortunes had long been on the wane, you see. No men to build them up again. The war took everything from us; but the heaviest blow of all was the killin’ of our men.”

“It must have been terrible,” said Ruth, “to lose one’s brothers and fathers and cousins by bullet and sword.”

“Yes, indeed!” sighed the lady. “Not that I can remembah it, child! No more than you can. I’m not so old as all that,” and she laughed merrily. “The Grogan plantation was gone, of course, long before I saw the light. But my father was a broken man, disabled by the campaigns he went through.”

“Isn’t it terrible?” whispered Helen to her chum, for it sounded to the unsophisticated girl like a tale of recent happenings.

Miss Catalpa smiled, turning her sightless eyes up to them. “There’s only Unc’ Simmy and I left now. My lawyer, Kunnel Wildah, tells me there is barely enough left to keep us in this po’ place till I’m called to my long rest,” said the lady devoutly.

“But my wants are few. Uncle Simmy does for me most beautifully. He is the last of the family servants—bo’n himself on the old plantation. This was the gateway to the Grogan Place—and it was a mile from the house,” and she laughed again—pleasantly, sweetly, and as carefree in sound as a bird’s note. “The limits of the estate have shrunk, you see.”

“It must be dreadful to have been rich, and then fall into poverty,” Helen said, commiseratingly.

“Why, honey,” said Miss Catalpa, cheerfully, “nothin’ is dreadful in this wo’ld if we look at it right. All trials are sent for our blessin’, if we take them right. Even my blindness,” she added simply. “It must have been for my good that I was deprived of the boon of sight ten years ago—just when almost the last bit of money left to me seemed to have been lost. And I expect if I hadn’t foolishly cried so much over the failure of the Needles Bank where the money was, and which seemed to be a total wreck, I would not have been totally blind. So the doctors tell me.”

“Dear, dear!” murmured Helen, wiping her own eyes.

“But then, you see, there was enough saved from the wreckage after all to keep me alive,” and Miss Catalpa smiled again. “All that troubles me is what will become of Uncle Simmy when I am gone. He insists on ‘dribin de quality’, as he calls it, and so earns a little something for himself. That livery he wears is the old Grogan livery. I expect it is a good deal faded by now,” she laughed, adding: “Our old barouche, too! He insists on taking me out in it every pleasant Sunday. I can feel that the cushions are ragged and that the wheels wobble. Po’ Uncle Simmy! Ah! here he is. Surely, Simmy, the rain hasn’t stopped?”

“No’m, Miss Catalpa,” said the old negro, appearing and bowing again. “But mebbe ‘twon’t stop soon, an’ deseyer young ladies want t’ git back fo’ luncheon at de hotel. I done fix’ dat hood, misses. ‘Twell keep yo’ dry.”

Ruth took the lady’s hand again. “I am glad to have met you,” she said, her voice quite firm now. “If we stay long enough at the Point, may we come and see you again?”

“Sho’ly! Sho’ly, my dear,” she said, drawing Ruth down to kiss her cheek. “I love to have you young people about me. Take good care of them, Uncle Simmy.”

“Ya-as’m, Miss Catalpa— Ah sho’ will.”

She kissed Helen, too, and possibly felt the tears on the girl’s cheek. She patted the hand she held and whispered: “Don’t weep for me, my dear. I am going to a better and a brighter world some day, I know. I am not through with this one yet—and I love it. There is nothing to weep for.”

“And if I were she I’d not only cry my eyes blind, but I’d cry them out!” whispered Helen to Ruth, as they followed the old coachman.

When they were out of ear-shot of the Lady of the Gatehouse Ruth asked: “Who keeps house for Miss Grogan, Uncle Simmy?”

“Fo’ Miss Catalpa?” ejaculated the negro. “Sho’, missy, she don’t need nobody but Unc’ Simmy.”

“There is no woman servant?”

“Lor’ bress yo’,” chuckled the black man, “ain’t been no money to pay sarbents since dat Needleses’ Bank done busted. Nebber did hear tell o’ sech a bustification as dat. Dar warn’t re’lly nottin’ lef’ fo’ de rats in de cellar. Das wot Kunnel Wildah say.”

Ruth looked at the old man seriously and with a glance that saw right into the white soul that dwelt in his very black and crippled body: “Who launders her frocks so beautifully—and your trousers, Unc’ Simmy?” was her innocent if somewhat impudent question.

“Ma ol’ woman done hit till she up an’ died ’bout eight ’r nine years ago,” said the coachman.

“And you have done it all since?”

“Oh, ya-as’m! ya-as’m!” exclaimed Unc’ Simmy, briskly. “Miss Catalpa wouldn’t feel right if she knowed anybody else did fo’ her but me—No’m!”

Helen had gone ahead. The old man, his eyes lowered, stood before Ruth in the rain. The girl opened her purse quickly, selected a five dollar bill, and thrust it into his hand.

“Thank you, Unc’ Simmy,” she said firmly. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

A tear found a wrinkle in Unc’ Simmy’s lined face for a sluiceway; but the darkey was still smiling. “Lor’ bress you’, honey!” he murmured. “I dunno wot Unc’ Simmy would do if ‘twarn’t fo’ yo’ rich folks from de Norf. Ah got a lot to t’ank you-uns for ’sides ma freedom! An’ so’s Miss Catalpa,” he added, “on’y she don’t know it.”

“Come along, Ruth!” cried Helen, hopping into the old carriage, the cover of which was now lifted and tied into place. Then, when Ruth joined her and Unc’ Simmy climbed to his seat and spread the oilcloth over his knees, she added, in a whisper: “I saw you, Ruth Fielding! Five dollars! Talk about me being extravagant. Why, I gave him only two dollars for the whole ride.”

“It was worth five to meet Miss Catalpa, wasn’t it?” returned her chum, placidly. And in her own mind she was already thinking up a scheme by which the faithful old negro should be more substantially helped in his lifework of caring for his blind mistress.

CHAPTER VIII—UNDER THE UMBRELLA

“Except this old friend sitting up in front of us,” Ruth said, smiling.

“Yes. Isn’t he an old dear?” whispered Helen. “But I wonder if he shows his Miss Catalpa off to all the Northern people who come to the Point?”

Ruth was silent on this matter. Helen did not suspect yet what Ruth had discovered—that Unc’ Simmy was the sole support of the little, blind lady; and Ruth thought she would not tell her chum just now. She wanted to think of some way of materially helping both the old coachman and the Lady of the Gatehouse.

Suddenly Helen uttered a squeal of surprise, and grabbed her friend’s arm:

“Do look there, Ruth Fielding! Whom does that look like?”

Ruth came to her side of the carriage and craned her head out of the window to look forward. In the roadway on that side, a few yards ahead of the ambling horse, strode a figure in the rain that could not be mistaken. So narrow and mannish was the pedestrian that a stranger would scarcely think it a woman. The skirt clung to the rail-like limbs, while the straight coat and silk hat helped to make Miss Miggs look extremely like a man.

“And wet! That’s no name for it,” giggled Helen. “She’s saturated right to the bone—and plenty of bone she has to be saturated to. Let’s give her three cheers as we go by, Ruth.”

“You horrid girl! nothing of the kind,” cried Ruth Fielding, quite exercised. “We must take her in with us—the carriage will hold three. Unc’ Simmy!”

“You’re the greatest girl,” groaned Helen. “You might return good for evil for a year with this person and it would do no good.”

“It always does good,” responded Ruth. “Unc’ Simmy!”

“To whom, I’d like to know?” demanded Helen.

“To me,” snapped Ruth, and this time when she raised her voice she made the old darkey hear.

“Ya-as’m! ya-as’m!” he cried, turning and pulling the old horse down to a welcome walk.

“Let that lady get in here, Unc’ Simmy. We’ll take her to the hotel.”

“Sho’ nuff! Sartainly,” agreed the coachman, and with a flourish he stopped beside the woman who was fairly wading through a muddy river.

The rain was coming down harder again. It did not thunder and lightning much, but the rainfall was fairly appalling to these visitors from the North.

“Do get in, quick!” cried Ruth, opening the low door and peering out from the semi-gloom of the hood.

The school teacher from New England understood instantly what the invitation meant. She plunged toward the carriage and was half inside before she saw who had rescued her from the deluge.

“Get in! get in!” urged Ruth. “Unc’ Simmy will take us right to the hotel.”

Miss Miggs fairly snorted. “What! you? I wouldn’t ride with you in this carriage if we were in the middle of the Atlantic!”

She backed out and stepped right into a puddle of water as deep as her ankles! The excited scream she gave made Helen burst into suppressed laughter. Hearing the girl, the woman glared at her in a way that excited the laughter of the careless Helen to an even greater height.

“Oh, drive on! drive on!” she gasped. “Let her swim if she wants to.”

But Unc’ Simmy would not do this unless Ruth said so. He looked down at the half submerged school teacher from his seat and exclaimed:

“Wal, now! das one foolish woman, das sho’ is! Why don’ she git under kiver when she’s ‘vited t’ do so?”

Just then a new actor appeared on the scene. A big umbrella came into view and its bearer crossed the road, splashing through the accumulated water without regard to the wetting of his own feet and legs.

He gave the half-submerged woman a hand and drew her out to the side of the road, and upon a comparatively dry spot. He had some difficulty with the umbrella just then and raised it high enough for the two girls in the carriage to see his face.

“Oh, Ruthie, look there!” whispered Helen, as the horse started forward. “See who it is!”

“It’s Curly—it’s surely Curly Smith,” muttered Ruth.

“That’s what I tell you,” whispered Helen, fiercely. “And now we can’t speak to him.”

“Not with that Miss Miggs in the way. She is mean enough to tell the police who he is.”

“Never mind,” cried Helen, exultantly, “he got ashore from the fishing boat.”

“But I wonder if he has any money left—and what he will do now. The police may still be looking for him.”

“Oh, a boy as smart as he is would never get caught by the police,” declared Helen, in delight. “I only wish I could speak to him and tell him how glad I am he escaped arrest.”

“You’re an awful-talking girl,” sighed Ruth, as the old horse jogged on. “I wish I could get him to go back to his grandmother—and go back to show the people up there that he is innocent.”

“That does all very well to talk about, Ruth Fielding!” cried Helen. “But suppose he can’t prove himself innocent? Do you want the poor boy to go to jail and stay there the rest of his life?”

CHAPTER IX—SUNSHINE AT THE GATEHOUSE

“I want to see Miss Catalpa again—don’t you?” returned her chum. “And I would not go to the gatehouse with anybody but Unc’ Simmy. It would be impudent to do so.”

“Oh—yes! that’s so,” admitted Helen. “Come on to luncheon. I have Heavy Stone’s appetite, right now!”

“If so, what will poor Heavy do?” asked Ruth, smiling. “This must be about the time she wishes to exercise her own appetite at Lighthouse Point. Would you deprive her, my dear, of any gastronomic pleasure?”

“Woo-o-o!” blew Helen, making a noise like a whistle. “All ashore that’s going ashore! What big words you do use, Ruth. At any rate, let us partake of the eatables supplied by this hostlery. Come on!”

But they went up to their rooms first to “prink and putter” as Tom always called it.

“Dear old Tom!” sighed his twin. “How I miss him. And what fun we’d have if he were along. Sorry Nettie’s Aunt Rachel doesn’t like boys enough to have made up a mixed party.”

“You’re the only ‘mixed’ party I see around here,” laughed Ruth. “But I wish Tom were here. He’d know just how to get at Curly Smith and do something for him.”

“That’s right! I wish he were here,” sighed Helen.

“Never mind,” laughed Ruth. “Don’t let it take away that famous appetite you just claimed to have. Come on.”

The girls went down and ventured into one of the dining rooms. A smiling colored waiter—“at so much per smile,” as Ruth whispered—welcomed them at the door and seated them at rather a large table. This had been selected for them because their party would soon be augmented.

And this, in fact, happened before night. The girls were lolling in content and happiness upon the veranda when the train came in bringing among other passengers Mrs. Parsons and Nettie.

Mrs. Parsons was a dark-haired and olive-skinned lady, who had been a famous beauty in her youth, and a belle in her part of South Carolina. Rachel Merredith had been quite famous, indeed, in several social centers, and she was well known in Washington and Richmond, as well as in the more Southern cities.

She greeted Helen kindly, but warmly kissed Ruth, having become an admirer of the girl of the Red Mill some time before.

“Here’s my clever little girl,” she said, in her soft, drawling way. “I declare! Ev’ry time I put on my necklace I think of you, Ruthie Fielding, and how greatly beholden to you I am. I tell Nettie, here, that when she receives our heirloom at her coming-out party, she will thank you, too.”

“I don’t have to wait till then, Aunt Rachel!” cried Nettie, squeezing the plump shoulders of the girl of the Red Mill. “Isn’t it nice to see you both again? How jolly!”

“That’s a new word Nettie got up No’th,” said her Aunt Rachel. “Tell me, dears: Have they treated you right, here at the hotel?”

The girls assured her that the management had been very kind to them. Then the question was asked: What had they done to kill time?

Helen rattled off a dozen things she and Ruth had dabbled in that afternoon—or, “evening” as the Virginians say; but it was Ruth who mentioned their ride in the rain with old Unc’ Simmy.

“To the gatehouse? Where is that?” asked Aunt Rachel, lazily.

Between bursts of laughter Helen tried to tell her about the queer old negro and his dilapidated turnout; but it was Ruth who softly explained to Mrs. Parsons about Miss Catalpa and the faithful old darkey’s relations to her.

“Grogan?” repeated the lady. “Yes, yes, I remember the name. Who doesn’t? Major Grogan, her father, was a famous leader in the Lost Cause. Oh, dear me, Ruthie! We are still so poor in the South that the family of many a hero has come down to want. Catalpa Grogan? And you say she is blind?”

“She said we might come again and see her before we left the Point,” suggested Ruth, gently.

Mrs. Rachel Parsons looked at her understandingly. “Quite right, my dear. We will go. I will find out about this lawyer, Colonel Wilder, and he can probably tell me all we need to know. She and the old negro shall be helped—that is the least we can do.”

So, the next morning, all in the glorious sunshine that is usually the weather condition at Old Point Comfort, the party climbed into Unc’ Simmy’s old barouche and set out on the drive. Mrs. Parsons accepted the dilapidated turnout as quite a matter of course.

“Don’t fret about me, girls,” she said, when Helen said that they should have taken a different equipage.

Ruth had already begun to get the “slant” of the Southern mind. The Southerners respected themselves, and were inordinately proud of their name and blood; but they could cheerfully go without many of the conveniences of life which Northerners would consider a distinct privation. Poverty among them was no disgrace; rather, it was to be expected. They cheerfully made the best of it, and enjoyed what good things they had without allowing caviling care to corrode their pleasure.

The sunshine drenched them as they rolled over the now dusty road, as the rain had drenched the chums the day before. Yonder was the hole beside the roadway into which Miss Miggs had been half submerged, and from which she was rescued by the unfortunate Curly Smith.

Helen hilariously related this incident to Nettie and her aunt. But, warned by Ruth, she said nothing about the identity of the boy.

“I hope we shall not meet that woman again,” Ruth said, with a sigh. “She surely would make a scene, Mrs. Parsons. You don’t know how mean she can be.”

“And a school teacher?” was the reply. “Fancy!”

They arrived at the gatehouse and Ruth begged Unc’ Simmy to stop and ask if Miss Catalpa would receive them.

“Give her my card, too, boy,” said Mrs. Parsons, as the smiling old man climbed down from his seat.

“Ya-as’m! ya-as’m!” said Unc’ Simmy, rolling his eyes, for he saw that Mrs. Parsons was “one of de quality,” as he expressed it. “Sho’ will.”

They were not kept waiting long. Miss Grogan was too much the lady to strive for effect. She received them, as she had the girls, on her porch; but this time in the sunshine.

It was a beautiful old front yard, hidden by an untrimmed hedge from the highway; and the end of the porch where the blind woman sat was now dressed with several old chairs that her guests might sit down. It was likely that Unc’ Simmy had brought these out himself, foretelling that there would be visitors.

“I am glad to see you,” Miss Catalpa said. She remembered Ruth and Helen when she clasped their hands, distinguishing between them, although she had “seen” them but once.

To Mrs. Parsons she confessed: “These young girls came in the rain and cheered me up. I love the young. Don’t you, ma’am?”

“I do,” sighed Aunt Rachel. “I’d give anything for my own youth.”

“No, no,” returned Miss Catalpa, shaking her head. “Life gets better as we grow mellow. That’s what I tell them all. I do not regret my youth, although ’twas spent comparatively free from care. And now——”

She waved the knitting in her hand, and laughed—her low, bird-like call. “The good Lord will provide. He always has.”

Mrs. Parsons, being a Southerner herself, could talk confidentially to Miss Catalpa. It seemed that several names were known to them in common; and the visitor from South Carolina learned how and where to find the particular “Kunnel Wildah” who had the disposal of Miss Catalpa’s affairs in his hands.

The party had a very pleasant visit with the blind woman. Unc’ Simmy appeared suddenly before them, his coachman’s coat and gloves discarded, and a rusty black coat in place of the livery. He bore a tray with high, beautifully thin, tinkling glasses of lemonade, with a sprig of mint in each.

“Nobody makes lemonade quite like Uncle Simmy,” Miss Catalpa said kindly, and the old negro’s face shone like a polished kitchen range at the praise. It was evident that he fairly worshiped his mistress.

The visitors left at last. Helen understood now why they had come. That afternoon the girls were left to their own devices while Mrs. Parsons sought out Colonel Wilder and made some provision for helping in the support of Miss Catalpa and her old servant.

“No, my dear,” she said to Ruth. “You may help a little; but not much. Wait until you become a self-supporting woman—as you will be, I know. Then you can have the full pleasure of helping other people as you desire. I can only enjoy it because my cotton fields have made me rich. When we use money that has been left to us, or given to us in some way, for charitable purposes, we lose the sweeter taste of giving away that which we have actually earned.

“And I thank you, my dear,” she added, “for giving me the opportunity of helping Miss Grogan and Uncle Simmy.”