CHAPTER VI--ALL IN THE RAIN

Ruth Fielding was so much disturbed over the story of Curly Smith's escapade that she had to run and show the paper to Helen before she did anything else. And then the chums had to talk it all over, and exclaim over the boy's boldness, and the odd fact that _they_ should have seen him in his girl's apparel, and not have known him.

"After seeing him dressed up in Ann's old dress that time, too," sighed Helen. "The foolish boy!"

"But only think of his dropping off that shed roof. Do you know, Helen, it is twenty feet from the ground?"

"That reporter writes as though he thought it were a joke," Helen said. "Mean thing!"

"He never saw that shed," said Ruth.

"It is fortunate poor Curly didn't break his neck."

"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.