“I don’t know. Even if I did, I would not tell you, sir,” declared Ruth, recovering some of her natural courage now.
“Don’t ye sass me – nor don’t ye lie to me,” and this time he swung the cruel whip, until the long lash whipped around her skirts about at a level with her knees. It did not hurt her, but Ruth cringed and shrieked aloud again.
“Stop yer howling!” commanded Perkins. “Tell me about Sade Raby. Where’s she gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“Warn’t she right there in them bushes with you?”
“I shan’t tell you anything more,” declared Ruth.
“Ye won’t?”
The brute swung the blacksnake – this time in earnest. It cracked, and then the snapper laid along the girl’s forearm as though it were seared with a hot iron.
Ruth shrieked again. The pain was more than she could bear in silence. She turned to flee up the Cedar Walk, but Perkins shouted at her to stand.
“You try ter run, my beauty, and I’ll cut ye worse than that,” he promised. “You tell me about Sade Raby.”
Suddenly there came a hail, and Ruth turned in hope of assistance. Old Dolliver’s stage came tearing along the road, his bony horses at a hand-gallop. The old man, whom the girls of Briarwood Hall called “Uncle Noah,” brought his horses – and the Ark – to a sudden halt.
“What yer doin’ to that gal, Sim Perkins?” the old man demanded.
“What’s that to you, Dolliver?”
“You’ll find out mighty quick. Git out o’ here or you’ll git into trouble. Did he hurt you, Miss Ruth?”
“No-o – not much,” stammered Ruth, who desired nothing so much as to get way from the awful Mr. Perkins. Poor Sadie Raby! No wonder she had been forced to run away from “them Perkinses.”
“I’ll see you jailed yet, Sim, for some of your meanness,” said the old stage driver. “And you’ll git there quick if you bother Mis’ Tellingham’s gals – ”
“I didn’t know she was one ‘o them tony school gals,” growled Perkins, getting aboard his wagon again.
“Well, she is – an’ one ‘o the best of the lot,” said Dolliver, and he smiled comfortably at Ruth.
“Huh! whad-she wanter be in comp’ny of that brat ’o mine, then?” demanded Perkins, gathering up his reins.
“Oh! are you hunting that orphanage gal ye took to raise? I heard she couldn’t stand you and Ma Perkins no longer,” Dolliver said, with sarcasm.
“Never you mind. I’ll git her,” said Perkins, and whipped up his horses.
“Oh, dear, me!” cried Ruth, when he had gone. “What a terrible man, Mr. Dolliver.”
“Yah!” scoffed the old driver. “Jest a bag of wind. Mean as can be, but a big coward. Meanes’ folks around here, them Perkinses air.”
“But why were they allowed to have that poor girl, then?” demanded Ruth.
“They went a-fur off to git her. Clean to Harburg. Nobody knowed ’em there, I s’pose. Why, Ma Perkins kin act like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, if she wants to. But I sartainly am sorry for that poor little Sade Raby, as they call her.”
“Oh! I do pity her so,” said Ruth, sadly.
The old man’s eyes twinkled. Old Dolliver was sly! “Then ye do know suthin’ about Sade – jes’ as Perkins said?”
“She was here just now. I gave her something to eat – and a little money. You won’t tell, Mr. Dolliver?”
“Huh! No. But dunno’s ye’d oughter helped a runaway. That’s agin’ the law, ye see.”
“Would the law give that poor girl back to those ugly people?”
“I s’pect so,” said Dolliver, scratching his head. “Ye see, Sim Perkins an’ his wife air folks ye can’t really go agin’ – not much. Sim owns a good farm, an’ pays his taxes, an’ ain’t a bad neighbor. But they’ve had trouble before naow with orphans. But before, ’twas boys.”
“I just hope they all ran away!” cried Ruth, with emphasis.
“Wal – they did, by golly!” ejaculated the stage driver, preparing to drive on.
“And if you see this poor girl, you won’t tell anybody, will you, Mr. Dolliver?” pleaded Ruth.
“I jes’ sha’n’t see her,” said the man, his little eyes twinkling. “But you take my advice, Miss Fielding – don’t you see her, nuther!”
Ruth ran back to the school then – it was time. She could not think of her lessons properly because of her pity for Sadie Raby. Suppose that horrid man should find the poor girl!
Every time Ruth saw the red welt on her arm, where the whiplash had touched her, she wondered how many times Perkins had lashed Sadie when he was angry. It was a dreadful thought.
Although she had promised Sadie to keep her secret, Ruth wondered if she might not do the girl some good by telling Mrs. Tellingham about her. Ruth was not afraid of the dignified principal of Briarwood Hall – she knew too well Mrs. Grace Tellingham’s good heart.
She determined at least that if Sadie appeared at the end of the Cedar Walk the next day she would try to get the runaway girl to go with her to the principal’s office. Surely the girl should not run wild in the woods and live any way and how she could – especially so early in the season, for there was still frost at night.
When Ruth ran down the long walk between the cedar trees the next forenoon at ten, there was nobody peering through the bushes where Sadie Raby had watched the day before. Ruth went up and down the road, into the woods a little way, too – and called, and called. No reply. Nothing answered but a chattering squirrel and a jay who seemed to object to any human being disturbing the usual tenor of the woods’ life thereabout.
“Perhaps she’ll come this afternoon,” thought Ruth, and she hid the package of food she had brought, and went back to her classes.
In the afternoon she had no better luck. The runaway did not appear. The food had not been touched. Ruth left the packet, hoping sadly that the girl might find it.
The next morning she went again. She even got up an hour earlier than usual and slipped out ahead of the other girls. The food had been disturbed – oh, yes! But by a dog or some “varmint.” Sadie had not been to the rendezvous.
Hoping against hope, Ruth Fielding tacked a note in an envelope to the log on which she and Sadie had sat side by side. That was all she could do, save to go each day for a time to see if the strange girl had found the note.
There came a rain and the letter was turned to pulp. Then Ruth Fielding gave up hope of ever seeing Sadie Raby again. Old Dolliver told her that the orphan had never returned to “them Perkinses.” For this Ruth might be thankful, if for nothing more.
The busy days and weeks passed. All the girls of Ruth’s clique were writing back and forth to their homes to arrange for the visit they expected to make to Madge Steele’s summer home – Sunrise Farm. The senior was forever singing the praises of her father’s new acquisition. Mr. Steele had closed contracts to buy several of the neighboring farms, so that, altogether, he hoped to have more than a thousand acres in his estate.
“And, don’t you dare disappoint me, Ruthie Fielding,” cried Madge, shaking her playfully. “We won’t have any good time without you, and you haven’t said you’d go yet!”
“But I can’t say so until I know myself,” Ruth told her. “Uncle Jabez – ”
“That uncle of yours must be a regular ogre, just as Helen says.”
“What