CHAPTER XXV--THE ORPHANS' FORTUNE

A great deal happened at Sunrise Farm before these later occurrences which so delighted Ruth Fielding. The excitement of the loss of the six "fresh airs" was not easily forgotten. Whenever any of the orphans was on the Sunrise premises again, they had a bodyguard of older girls or boys who kept a bright lookout that nothing unusual happened to them.

As for the twins, Sadie took them in hand with a reformatory spirit that amazed Willie and Dickie. Those two youngsters were kept at Sunrise Farm and put in special charge of Sadie. Thus Mr. Steele had the three Raby orphans under his own eye until he could hear from Canada, and from the orphanage, and learn all the particulars of the fortune that might be in store for them.

After a bit Willie and Dickie found the watchfulness of their sister somewhat irksome.

"Say!" the talkative twin observed, "you ain't got no reason to be so sharp on us, Sadie Raby. _You_ run away your ownself--didn't she, Dickie?"

"Yep," agreed the oracular one.

"An' we don't want no gal follerin' us around and tellin' us to 'stop' all the time--do we, Dickie?"

"Nope."

"We're big boys now," declared Willie, strutting like the young bantam he was. "There ain't nothin' goin' to hurt us. We're too big----"

"What's that on your finger---- No! the other one?" snapped Sadie, eyeing Willie sharply.

"Scratch," announced the boy.

"Where'd you get it?"

"I--I cut it on the cat," admitted Willie, with less bombast.

"Humph! you're a big boy--ain't you? Don't even know enough to let the cat alone--and I hope her claw done you some good. Come here an' let me borrer Miss Ruth's peroxide bottle and put some on it. Cat's claws is poison," said Sadie. "You ain't so fit to get along without somebody watchin' you as ye think, kid. Remember that, now."

"We don't want no gal trailin' after us all the time!" cried Willie, angrily. "An' we ain't goin' to stand it," and he kicked his bare toe into the sand to express the emphasis that his voice would not vent.

"Humph!" said Sadie, eyeing him sideways, meanwhile trimming carefully a stout branch she had broken from the lilac bush. "So you want to be your own boss, do you, Willie Raby?"

"We _be_ our own boss--ain't we, Dickie?"

For the first time, the echo of Dickie's agreement failed to materialize. Dickie was eyeing that lilac sprout--and looked from that to his sister's determined face. He backed away several feet and put his hands behind him.

"And so you ain't goin' to mind me--nor Miss Ruth--nor Mr. Steele--nor Mr. Caslon--nor nobody?" proceeded Sadie, more earnestness apparent in each section of her query.

Her hand reached out suddenly and gripped Willie by the shoulder of his shirt. He tried to writhe out of her grasp, but his sister's muscles were hardened, and she was twice as strong as Willie had believed. The lilac sprout was raised.

"So you're too big to mind anybody, heh?" she queried.

"Yes, we be!" snarled the writhing Willie. "Ain't we, Dickie?"

"No, we're not!" screamed his twin, suddenly, refusing to echo Willie's declaration. "Don't hit him, Sade! Oh, don't!" and he cast himself upon his sister and held her tight about the waist. "We--we'll be good," he sobbed.

"How about it, Willie Raby?" demanded the stern sister, without lowering the stick. "Are you goin' to mind and be good?"

Willie stared, tried to writhe away, saw it was no use, and capitulated. "Aw--yes--if _he's_ goin' to cry about it," he grumbled. He said it with an air intimating that Dickie was, after all, quite a millstone about his neck and would always be holding him back from deeds of valor which Willie, himself, knew he could perform.

However, the twins behaved pretty well after that. They remained with Sadie at Sunrise Farm, for the whole Steele family had become interested in them.

The inquiries Mr. Steele set afoot resulted, in a short time, in information of surprising moment to the three Raby orphans. The old inquiry which had brought the lawyer, Mr. Angus MacDorough, to Darrowtown three years before, was ferreted out by another lawyer engaged by Mr. Steele.

It was found that Mr. MacDorough had, soon after his visit to the States in the matter of the Raby fortune, been stricken ill and, after a long sickness, had died. His affairs had never been straightened out, and his business was still in a chaotic state.

However, it was found beyond a doubt that Mr. MacDorough had been engaged to search out the whereabouts of Mrs. Tom Raby and her children by the administrators of the estate of Mrs. Raby's elderly relative, now some time deceased.

Nearly two thousand dollars in American money had been left as a legacy to the Rabys. In time this property was put into Mr. Steele's care to hold in trust for the three orphans--and it was enough to promise them all an education and a start in life.

Had it not been so, Mr. and Mrs. Steele would have felt sufficiently in Sadie's debt, because of her having saved little Bennie Steele from the hoofs of the Black Douglass, to have made the girl's way--and that of the twins--plain before them, until they were grown.

How much Ruth Fielding and her chum, Helen, were delighted by all this can be imagined. Sadie held an almost worshipful attitude toward Ruth; Ruth had been her first real friend when she ran away from "them Perkinses."

That Ruth and her chum bore the affairs of the Raby orphans in mind, and continued to have many other and varied interests, as well as a multitude of adventures during the summer, will be explained in the next volume of our series, to be entitled: "Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies; Or, The Missing Pearl Necklace."

Meanwhile, the visit to Sunrise Farm came to a glorious close. The belated Fourth of July was celebrated on the evening of the fifth, in a perfectly "safe and sane" manner by the burning of the wealth of fireworks that Mr. Steele had supplied.

The days that followed to the end of the stay of the girls of Briarwood Hall and their brothers, were filled with delightful incidents. Picnics, fishing parties, tramps over the hills, rides, games on the lawn, and many other activities occupied the delightful hours at Sunrise Farm.

"This surely is the nicest place I ever was at," Busy Izzy admitted, on the closing day of the party. "If I have as good a time the rest of the summer, I won't mind going back to school and suffering for eight months in the year."

"Hear! hear!" cried Heavy Jennie Stone. "And the eats!"

"And the rides," said Mercy Curtis, the lame girl. "Such beautiful rides through the hills!"

"And such a fine time watching those fresh airs to see that they didn't kill themselves," added Tom Cameron, with a grimace.

"Don't say a word against the poor little dears, Tommy," urged his sister. "Suppose _you_ had to live in an for orphanage all but four weeks in the year?"

"Tom is only fooling," Ruth said, quietly. "I know him. He enjoyed seeing the children have a good time, too."

"Oh! if you say so, Miss Fielding," said Tom, laughing and bowing to her, "it must be so."

The big yellow coach, with the four prancing horses, came around to the door. Bobbins mounted to the driver's seat and gathered up the ribbons. The visitors climbed aboard.

Ruth stood up and waved her hand to the rest of the Steele family, and Sadie and the twins gathered on the porch.

"We've had the finest time ever!" she cried. "We love you all for giving us such a nice vacation. And we're going to cheer you----"

And cheer they did. At the noise, the leaders sprang forward and the yellow coach rolled away. Ruth, laughing, sat down suddenly beside her chum, and Helen hugged her tight.

"We always have a dandy time when we go anywhere with _you_, Ruth," she declared. "For you always take your 'good times' with you."

And perhaps Helen Cameron had made a very important discovery.

THE END

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End of Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding At Sunrise Farm, by Alice B. Emerson