“Yes,” she answered, and in another ten minutes the miserable refugee was being tenderly ministered to at Billie’s home by three of the most detested members of the Blue Bird Society.
Belle, looking still very unlike herself, lay in Billie’s little brass bed, propped up on pillows.
“How can you and Miss Campbell be so kind to me,” she was saying, “when you know how wicked I have been?”
“But you are sorry and that means everything,” answered Billie, who was sitting on the side of the bed, feeding her hot beef tea.
“When are the others coming?” asked the invalid.
“They have come. I was just going to tell you after you had finished the tea. Shall I call them?”
Belle nodded, and presently Miss Gray and Mary Price came into the room.
The Principal took the sick girl’s hand kindly.
“Speak out from the heart, Belle,” she said, “and don’t be afraid. You will be much happier when you get it off your mind.”
“I promise to, Miss Gray,” replied Belle meekly, gazing miserably at Mary, who looked pale and ill.
Miss Gray sat in a judicial looking armchair; Mary, with closed eyes, lay on a lounge near the fire, and Billie seated herself on the foot of the bed.
“I suppose,” began Belle, “it would be almost impossible for you to believe that a well brought up girl of decent family could be as wicked as I have been. When I finally realized what I had done I thought I would rather run away to South America with those terrible people than stay here and bear the shame of it all. But I thank heavens for the storm. The ship was not sailing for any good purpose. I feel sure of that.
“To begin at the beginning, perhaps you didn’t know how angry I was when you joined the Blue Birds, Billie? I hope I shall never be angry again. I was ill from it and I lay on my bed all afternoon planning a revenge on all the Blue Birds, but you, especially. I think I must have been insane with rage and mortification. I wanted to humiliate you, because I thought you had humiliated me before the whole school. I thought of dozens of ways of doing it, but the only plan that seemed good enough was to prove——”
She paused and bit her lip.
“To prove that you were—a—thief.”
There was a long silence. Nothing could be heard but the ticking of the little French clock on the mantel. Miss Gray had started and flushed crimson. She was only just now realizing what this confession must mean to the two girls.
“I asked Fannie Alta to help me because she was the only outsider in the class, but I never dreamed that she was a real thief, herself. She found out what it was I wanted her to do almost before I had half breathed it to myself, only she was afraid of Billie and put it on Mary. It was my twenty dollars she used, but we found the scheme didn’t work. Anyhow, she told it all over school and went so much farther than I had intended that I soon found myself too deeply involved to get out. She and her mother owned me, body and soul. I had to take Fannie with me everywhere I went, even to Mrs. St. Clair’s. I had to give her my clothes, and explain to mamma that she was my best friend. Her mother made me carry letters and messages back and forth. Once I had to go by myself all the way to Boulder Lane after dusk and meet a horrible creature who had only one eye and one arm. He gave me a letter for Mme. Alta. Another time I was to meet one of them, a man who helped him, up in the Sophomore class room of the High School. I didn’t go, because there was such a mist.”
Billie and Mary exchanged glances.
“He was the man who robbed us of the fifty dollars,” said Billie.
“Then whose fifty dollars was it I got?” demanded Miss Gray.
“My monthly allowance,” replied Billie.
“Foolish, foolish girls,” said the Principal. “But it was my own fault. I blame no one else, and perhaps I wouldn’t have believed the story just at that time.”
“Then,” continued Belle, “the most dreadful thing of all happened. These people were always in need of money. Everything they had seemed to go to some object. The one-eyed man, who was Fannie’s stepfather, was to get some high position in South America. She used to tell me what she was going to do when he was made Vice President, or something. When we went to the St. Clair’s, Fannie was almost unbearable. She made me give her my dress and I had to wear hers, and she insulted me at every turn. But I didn’t find out until after the party that her stepfather had been there dressed as a ghost. He wanted to rob Mrs. St. Clair. It was Fannie who took the necklace. She was to go back later and give it to him, so that if her bag was searched the next morning, when the necklace was missed, it wouldn’t be found. But she made me go back instead, after every one else was asleep, I supposed. It was terrible, when I found myself alone in the attic, with the necklace hidden under my wrapper. No one was there. The man must have been frightened and run away. Then I heard all of you come and I threw a sheet over me and hid in a far corner.”
“It was you, then?” exclaimed Billie.
“Yes, and when I met you and Mary I had the necklace with me and I didn’t think I had strength enough to get to my room. When we got home from Mrs. Ruggles’ next day and I found Fannie had been sent to town, I knew something had happened. I thought perhaps she might have taken the necklace with her, but the next morning, when you and Mary left before breakfast, I was certain that one of you had been accused.
“You never can understand how I suffered. And yet it was what I had planned when I was so angry. Late Monday afternoon Mr. Bangs, a detective, came to see me. He wrote across his card ‘Pierre Lafitte,’ and I was convinced then that he knew everything.”
“You did tell Fannie about the card that was in the box of jewels, then?”
Belle hung her head.
“Yes,” she said, at last. “In the very beginning, before I had learned to loathe her and myself so, I told it to Fannie.
“After Mr. Bangs had left,” she went on, “I hurried as fast as I could to Mme. Alta’s lodgings and told her that everything had been discovered. The husband came in while I was there and ordered her to leave at once. The ship was in the harbor, he said. I was ordered to go, too, and it really did seem best. I felt I should be disgraced if I stayed and I was too miserable to reason much, anyway. They were glad to go. They hated it here, and they were afraid to leave me, I suppose, for fear I would tell. Ever since they were almost caught in Smugglers’ Cave, they have been very careful.
“I have made a great many people suffer,” Belle went on, “Mary and Billie and Mrs. Price and Mrs. St. Clair, and I have suffered, too, perhaps more than any of you. But I have learned a great deal. I never knew before what a wicked, spoiled girl I was. Mamma and papa never denied me anything in my life. I have been indulged and petted until I have been nothing but a bundle of selfishness. When the ship was wrecked and we thought we were going to sink any minute the scales dropped entirely from my eyes and I saw myself as I really was. I knelt on the deck and prayed and prayed for forgiveness until they came and told me it was my turn to be taken to shore.
“You will forgive me, won’t you Mary? I will do everything I can to make up for the trouble and unhappiness I have caused you.”
Belle stretched out her arms toward Mary and tears flowed down her cheeks and splashed on the coverlid.
Miss Gray wiped her eyes and Billie’s face worked convulsively for a moment and she choked back a lump which would rise in her throat on occasions.
Mary came over and took Belle’s hands.
“Of course I forgive you, Belle,” she said, kissing the repentant girl on the lips.
“But I must ask your forgiveness, too, Mary,” cried Miss Gray. “I feel I am not fit to be the principal of the High School to have so misjudged you. It was only the strange way you acted about the fifty dollars which made me credit for a moment the stories that were told.”
When peace was entirely restored, Miss Gray took her departure. She did not return to the High School, but hurried to the livery stable, where she ordered a carriage and had herself driven straight to Mrs. St. Clair’s.
As Belle will not again appear in this story, you will perhaps be interested to know how sincere her reformation really was. Her mother and father scarcely recognized the pale, quiet girl who returned to them in another day. Her entire nature had been shaken by the experience, and for some time she was dazed and silent. But no one ever saw her angry again, and as if she wished to give some visible sign of her repentance, the red rubber curlers were thrown away and from that time she has worn her hair straight.
There was no evidence against Mme. Alta or Fannie, except what Belle Rogers could furnish, and they were finally allowed to go free. But they were not permitted to remain in quiet West Haven, where suspicious characters were not welcomed.
The police cared little for the music teacher and her daughter. The prize they looked for was Ruiz, the famous filibuster and desperado who had smuggled hundreds of rifles into Venezuela and had robbed and pillaged and even killed, but had never been caught.
Detective Bangs, standing on the shore, the day of the shipwreck, scanned eagerly the face of each sailor as he was drawn ashore. But Ruiz was not among them. It was supposed that he preferred death to arrest; for he remained on the sinking ship. But the sturdy little vessel clung desperately to the Serpent’s Fang until after sunset, and there are some who believe that Ruiz swam ashore with his one arm, which was as strong as iron, and is still at large somewhere working mischief and misfortune.
On the day after the departure of Mme. Alta and Fannie, Miss Gray called a meeting of the Faculty and pupils of West Haven High School. Mary Price was there and so was Billie, and in the gallery sat Mrs. Price between Mrs. St. Clair and Miss Campbell.
“I called this meeting,” said Miss Gray, “because I wanted to make an announcement to all of you at once, since the subject of the announcement concerns us all. We have recently had a very clever thief in our midst. She has robbed many of you and has brought unjust suspicion on some innocent persons by spreading reports. This girl has been dismissed from the school and from West Haven. She will never trouble us again.
“Some of us have suffered deeply for the last few weeks on account of this disgrace and scandal in the school, and I don’t mind confessing that I have been one of those persons. I know that you will all rejoice with me that the affair is concluded.
“I want to say further, that at a specially called meeting, the Board of Education has consented to add a new post to the school force. This position, which is that of private and confidential secretary to the principal and has a salary attached, is to be filled by Miss Mary Price. I hope you will all congratulate me on my good fortune in obtaining so competent and reliable an assistant.”
There was wild applause when this announcement was made and Mary, smiling and happy, with her three devoted friends about her, was obliged to rise and bow her blushing acknowledgments to her schoolmates.
The Motor Maids were gathered in Mrs. Brown’s sunny parlor around a cheerful driftwood fire. You may easily guess it was Saturday morning, because Nancy was darning stockings, Elinor was at the piano, Mary was reading, while Billie lay flat on her back on the hearth rug, her hands crossed under her head, thinking deeply.
“I wish people were not so careless of their diamond necklaces and things,” she observed, addressing the ceiling with some irritation. “Throwing them around in motor cars, giving them to the first person who comes along, and not caring to have them returned! It’s a nuisance——”
Suddenly the door was thrown violently open and Merry appeared.
“Mrs. Ruggles,” he announced, making a low bow.
Nancy did not take the trouble to turn around. Elinor went on playing and Mary reading. It was only one of Merry’s jokes, they thought. But Billie jumped up in amazement; for there actually stood Mrs. Ruggles in the flesh—very much in the flesh, in fact. She was dressed in decent black and wore a black bonnet, and Billie could not decide whether she resembled a queen disguised as a fish-wife or a fish-wife dressed as a lady.
“Why, it is Mrs. Ruggles,” cried Nancy, glancing over her shoulder. “Merry plays so many jokes that we can never tell when he is in earnest and when he isn’t. Do come in, Mrs. Ruggles. What brings you up to town so early?”
Mrs. Ruggles, who was slow of speech, did not reply at first. She moved into the room with the step of a grenadier and stood before Billie.
“Are you Miss Wilhelmina Campbell?” she asked.
“She is the same,” put in Merry, “but she’ll answer to the name of Billie.”
Billie nodded and smiled. She was really too much engaged in admiring Mrs. Ruggles to reply to her question.
Nancy pushed up an armchair.
“Please sit down, Mrs. Ruggles, and perhaps you will have a cookie or a cup of tea.”
“No, Miss Nancy, I am not hungry and I couldn’t eat anyway, until I finished what I have to say.”
“That’s right, Mrs. Ruggles. Get it off your system. Are you going to scold Billie?” cried Merry.
“No, my boy. I’m going to thank her. She’s a fine young lady. I have just seen Miss Campbell and she has told me.”
“Told you what?” asked Billie.
“Told me that you have kept the box of jewels as you promised.”
“But——” began Billie, a dozen thoughts flashing through her mind at once in tumultuous confusion.
She saw again the face of the sick woman at Mrs. Ruggles’, her long hair spread over the pillow like a mantel of black and the troubled dark eyes which gazed into hers for one brief moment.
“Then that was the automobile lady I saw in your bedroom?” she burst out.
“Yes,” replied the old woman. “That was my daughter, Maria.”
“Is Maria home again?” asked Elinor.
“I thought she had married a South American,” said Nancy.
“Maria is now a singer,” said Mrs. Ruggles proudly. “She has sung in Buenos Ayres and Paris, not in this country. Her husband was from Venezuela. He was very rich and he gave her many jewels. He loved her dearly for a few years, until he began to like something else better.”
The old woman paused. It was extremely difficult for her to speak at such great length when she was so unaccustomed to talking at all.
“My daughter is very beautiful and very clever. She will be a great singer. He was jealous of her singing. He wished to be great, too, and he became a politician. Gradually he spent all of his money in making trouble for the government of his country. He wished to bring about a war and make himself a ruler. My son, my daughter’s step brother, pushed him on. He was a bad boy, my only son. It is better that he should be dead. He was always in the thick of the fight. He couldn’t keep away. His arm was shot off; his eye put out. But nothing could stop him.”
“Was Ruiz really your son, John, who went away to sea so many years ago?” interrupted Nancy.
Mrs. Ruggles nodded.
“What happened next, Mrs. Ruggles?” demanded Billie.
“The next thing was that my Maria could not stand the life any longer. She came back to America with her jewels. They were all that was left of her husband’s fortune and those he wanted so much that he threatened her many times. If he had wished to use them for a good purpose and not for rifles to kill innocent people, Maria would have given them gladly. But he was too clever for her, that man. He followed on a fast steamer and caught up with her before she could get to me. He forced her to go with him in an automobile down the Shell Island road to meet John, my poor son, who was to take the jewels and sell them. Maria always carried her jewelry in a secret pocket inside of her skirt, but she had put it in a box that day and wrapped the box in her coat. Her husband did not know this. He thought she had it in the usual place. When they were upset going around a curve in the road my Maria was very seriously injured. She is still very lame. Her husband went away to get another car and you know the rest.
“When they found out in a few hours that she did not have the jewels they were very angry. She told them the truth: that she had given them to a young lady she had met, and asked her to take care of them. Although she did not have the name or address of this young lady, she knew they would be safe.”
“And Mr. Lafitte?” began Billie.
“He is an old friend, a lawyer who lives in Paris. She happened to have his card in her pocket. But he had just started to America and the letter she wrote, and your letter, came back here. That is how I happened to get your name at last, Miss Wilhelmina. Mr. Lafitte was with my daughter yesterday.”
“And what became of your son-in-law, Mrs. Ruggles?” asked Elinor.
“He died some weeks ago,” replied Mrs. Ruggles. “He was accidentally shot with one of his own rifles, which exploded and killed him. My son had his body sent to us and we laid him to rest in the old Sabater burying ground, where all my family is buried. It is better that he should have died. He only made trouble while he lived, not only for poor Maria, but for his country, where many have been killed with the rifles he has smuggled in. He was a good man until he got in with those revolutionists. And my poor son, my poor John, how much sorrow he has brought us——”
Billie wondered if Mrs. Ruggles really knew the extent of her poor son’s evil career. Perhaps she did, for the old woman’s face twitched nervously for a moment and she covered her eyes with her hand, as if she wished to hide her unhappiness from the young girls.
“Maria and I are going away for a long time,” she went on at last, with a rather shaky voice. “I will close the Inn. It is hard for me to leave home in my old age, but Maria wishes it, and it is better for me to be with her. Good-by and thank you,” she said simply, rising and taking Billie’s hand.
Billie stood on tiptoe and put her arms around Mrs. Ruggles’ neck.
“Good-by, Mrs. Ruggles,” she said. “I hope that your troubles are all over now and you and your daughter will be happy together.”
The old woman wiped her eyes. She could not speak when she said good-by to the other girls, but silently handed Billie a little package and hurried away.
The package, when unwrapped, proved to be a small box containing a pretty gold filigree necklace. Written on a card inside was this message:
“With my love and gratitude. This is a simple little necklace my father brought me once from a voyage to the East. I am fond of it and that is why I send it to you. Will you wear it sometimes and think of me? I shall never forget your kindness and loyalty.
“Maria Ruggles Cortina.”
And now we have reached the end of our tale. Those troublous first months of Billie Campbell’s early school days in West Haven are changed into happy, quiet times, with plenty of study and plenty of play. All doubts and mysteries are cleared up, and the Motor Maids, wholesome, nice girls, are none the worse for their adventures.
It is in their beloved “Comet” that we see them last, flashing down Main Street toward the open country.
Billie, like the good pilot she is, is seated at the wheel, her fine gray eyes ever on the lookout. Nancy is bubbling over with laughter and gaiety. Elinor, on the back seat, holds herself as proudly as a queen, and little Mary, with a grave smile on her face, looks out across the fields, her clear eyes, deep as pools, holding and reflecting, as ever, the beauty from without intensified by the purity of the spirit within.
The friendship of these four school girls was of the quality that outlives a single season and many adventures. It held them together, in fact, so closely that they often found themselves planning for an indefinite future of partnership and mutual pleasures. That they realized their anticipations to some extent at least is assured, for the next volume of this series, “The Motor Maids by Palm and Pine,” is a further account of their good times together.
THE END.
BOY AVIATORS’ SERIES
By Captain Wilbur Lawton
Absolutely Modern Stories for Boys
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The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua
Or, Leagued With Insurgents
The launching of this Twentieth Century series marks the inauguration of a new era in boys’ books—the “wonders of modern science” epoch. Frank and Harry Cheater, the BOY AVIATORS, are the heroes of this exciting, red-blooded tale of adventure by air and land in the turbulent Central American republic. The two brothers with their $10,000 prize aeroplane, the GOLDEN EAGLE, rescue a chum from death in the clutches of the Nicaraguans, discover a lost treasure valley of the ancient Toltec race, and in so doing almost lose their own lives in the Abyss of the White Serpents, and have many other exciting experiences, including being blown far out to sea in their air-skimmer in a tropical storm. It would be unfair to divulge the part that wireless plays in rescuing them from their predicament. In a brand new field of fiction for boys the Chester brothers and their aeroplane seem destined to fill a top-notch place. These books are technically correct, wholesomely thrilling and geared up to third speed.
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BOY AVIATORS’ SERIES
By Captain Wilbur Lawton
Absolutely Modern Stories for Boys
Cloth Bound
Price, 50c per volume
The Boy Aviators on Secret Service
Or, Working With Wireless
In this live-wire narrative of peril and adventure, laid in the Everglades of Florida, the spunky Chester Boys and their interesting chums, including Ben Stubbs, the maroon, encounter exciting experiences on Uncle Sam’s service in a novel field. One must read this vivid, enthralling story of incident, hardship and pluck to get an idea of the almost limitless possibilities of the two greatest inventions of modern times—the aeroplane and wireless telegraphy. While gripping and holding the reader’s breathless attention from the opening words to the finish, this swift-moving story is at the same time instructive and uplifting. As those readers who have already made friends with Frank and Harry Chester and their “bunch” know, there are few difficulties, no matter how insurmountable they may seem at first blush, that these up-to-date gritty youths cannot overcome with flying colors. A clean-cut, real boys’ book of high voltage.
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