CHAPTER XXV--BACK HOME

Mrs. Rachel Parsons marveled at what the girls had done in raising money for Curly Smith. He would have money enough to keep him at the hospital until his leg was healed, and to spare.

Curly was not to be arrested. Deputy Sheriff Ricketts went with the party on the launch back to Georgetown, picking up his own lost launch by the way, uninjured, and saw the boy housed in a private room of the hospital. Then he, as well as Ruth, received news about Curly.

The letter from Mrs. Sadoc Smith at last arrived. In it the unhappy woman opened her heart to Ruth again and begged her to send or bring Curly home. It had been discovered that the boy had nothing to do with the robbery of the railroad station at Lumberton.

"And who didn't know that?" sniffed Helen. "Of course he didn't."

Mr. Ricketts, too, received information that called him off the case. "That there li'le Yankee boy ain't t' be arrested after all," he confessed to Ruth. "Guess he jest got in wrong up No'th. But yo'd better take him back with you when you go, Miss Ruth, He needs somebody to take care of him--sho' do!"

The river subsided and the girls went back to Merredith. They spent the next fortnight delightfully and then the chums from Cheslow got ready to start home. They could not take Curly with them; but he would be sent to New York by steamer just as soon as the doctors could get him upon crutches; and eventually the boy from Lumberton returned to his grandmother, a much wiser lad than when he left her home and care.

The days at Merredith, all things considered, had been very delightful. But the weather was growing very oppressive for Northerners. Ruth and Helen bade Mrs. Parsons and Nettie and everybody about the Big House, including Mr. Jimson, good-bye and caught the train for Norfolk. They had a day to wait there, and so they went across in the ferry to Old Point Comfort, found Unc' Simmy, and were driven out to the gatehouse to see Miss Catalpa.

"And we sho' done struck luck, missy," Unc' Simmy confided to Ruth. "Kunnel Wildah done foun' some mo' money b'longin' t' Miss Catalpa, an' it's wot he calls a 'nuity. It comes reg'lar, like a man's wages," and the old darkey's smile was beautiful to see.

"Now Miss Catalpa kin have mo' of the fixin's like she's use to. Glory!"

"He is the most unselfish person I have ever met," said Ruth to Helen. "It makes me ashamed to see how he thinks only of that dear blind woman."

Miss Catalpa welcomed the chums delightedly; and they took tea with her on the vine-shaded porch of the old gatehouse, Unc' Simmy doing the honors in his ancient butler's coat. It was a very delightful party, indeed, and Helen as well as Ruth went away at last hoping that she would some time see the sweet-natured Miss Catalpa again.

Three days later Mr. Cameron's automobile deposited Ruth at the Red Mill--her arrival so soon being quite unexpected to the bent old woman rocking and sewing in the cheerful window of the farmhouse kitchen.

When Ruth ran up the steps and in at the door, Aunt Alvirah was quite startled. She dropped her sewing and rose up creakingly, with a murmured, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" but she reached her thin arms out to clasp her hands at the back of Ruth Fielding's neck, and looked long and earnestly into the girl's eyes.

"My pretty's growing up--she's growing up!" cried Aunt Alvirah. "She ain't a child no more. I can't scurce believe it. What have you seen down South there that's made you so old-like, honey?"

"I guess it is not age, Aunt Alvirah," declared Ruth. "Maybe I have seen some things that have made me thoughtful. And have endured some things that were hard. And had some pleasures that I never had before."

"Just the same, my pretty!" crooned the old woman. "Just as thoughtful as ever. You surely have an old head on those pretty young shoulders. Oh, yes you have."

"And maybe that isn't a good thing to have, after all--an old head on young shoulders," thought Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill the night of her return, as she sat at her little chamber window and looked out across the rolling Lumano. "Helen is happier than I am; she doesn't worry about herself or anybody else.

"Now I'm worrying about what's to happen to me. Briarwood is a thing of the past. Dear, old Briarwood Hall! Shall I ever be as happy again as I was there?

"I see college ahead of me in the fall. Of course, my expenses for several years are assured. Mr. Hammond writes me that he will take another moving picture scenario. I have found out that my voice--as well as Helen's violin playing--can be coined. I am going to be self-supporting and that, as Mrs. Parsons says, is a heap of satisfaction.

"I need trouble Uncle Jabez no more for money. But I can't remain in idleness--that's 'agin nater,' to quote Aunt Alvirah. I know what I'll do! I'll--I'll go to bed!"

She arose from her seat with a laugh and began to disrobe. Ten minutes later, her prayers said and her hair in two neat plaits on the pillow, Ruth Fielding fell asleep.

THE END

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End of Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie, by Alice B. Emerson