CHAPTER VIII--THE NEAREST DUTY

The county drive for Red Cross funds had been a great success; and many people declared that Ruth's work had been that which had told the most in the effort. Uncle Jabez inspired many of the more parsimonious of the county to follow his lead in giving to the cause. And, of course, "The Boys of the Draft" was making money for the Red Cross all over the country, as well as in and about Cheslow.

After Tom Cameron went back to camp Ruth's longing for real service in the war work fairly obsessed her mind. She could, of course, offer herself to do some unimportant work in France, paying her own transportation and expenses, and become one of that small army of women who first went over, many of whom were more ornamental, if the truth were told, than useful in the grim work that was to follow.

But the girl of the Red Mill, as she told Tom Cameron, wished to make whatever she did count. Yet she was spurred by no inordinate desire for praise or adulation. Merely she wanted to feel that she actually was doing her all for Uncle Sam.

Being untrained in nursing it could not be hospital work--not of the usual kind. Ruth wanted something that her capabilities fitted. Something she could do and do well. Something that was of a responsible nature and would count in the long run for the cause of humanity.

Meanwhile she did not refuse the small duties that fell to her lot. She was always ready to "jump in" and do her share in any event. Helen often said that her chum's doctrinal belief was summed up in the quotation from the Sunday school hymn: "You in your small corner, and I in mine!"

One day at the Cheslow chapter it was said that there was need of somebody who could help out in the supply department of the State Headquarters in Robinsburg. A woman or girl was desired who would not have to be paid a salary, and preferably one who could pay her own living expenses.

"That's me!" exclaimed Ruth to Helen. "I certainly can fill that bill."

"But it really amounts to nothing, dear," her chum said doubtfully. "It seems a pity to waste your brain and perfectly splendid ideas for organization and the like in such a position."

"Fiddle-de-dee!" ejaculated Ruth, quoting Uncle Jabez. "Nobody has yet appreciated my 'perfectly splendid ideas of organization,'" and she repeated the phrase with some scorn, "so I would better put forward some of my more simple talents. I have a good head for figures, I can letter packages, I can even stick stamps on letters and do other office work. My capabilities will not be strained. And, then," she added, "I feel that in State Headquarters I may be in a better position to 'grab off' something really worth while."

"'Johannah on the spot,' as it were?" said Helen. "But you'll have to go down there to live, Ruthie."

"The Y. W. C. A. will take me in, I am sure," declared her friend. "I am not afraid of being alone in a great city--at my age and with my experience!"

She telephoned to Robinsburg and was told to come on. Naturally, by this time, the heads of the State Red Cross, at least, knew who Ruth Fielding was.

But every girl who had raised a large sum of money for the cause was not suited to such work as was waiting for her at headquarters. She knew that she must prove her fitness.

Helen took her over in the car the next morning and was inclined to be tearful when they separated.

"Just does seem as though I couldn't get on without you, Ruthie!" she cried.

"Why, you are worse than poor Aunt Alvirah! Every time I go away from home she acts as though I might never come back again. And as for you, Helen Cameron, you have plenty to do. You have my share of Red Cross work in Cheslow to do as well as your own. Don't forget that."

Headquarters was a busy place. The very things Ruth told Helen she could do, she did do--and a multitude besides. Everything was systematized, and the work went on in a businesslike manner. Everybody was working hard and unselfishly.

At least, so Ruth at first thought. Then, before she had been there two days, she chanced into another department upon an errand and came face to face with Mrs. Rose Mantel, the woman in black.

"Oh! How d'do!" said the woman with her set smile. "I heard you were coming here to help us, Miss Fielding. Hope you'll like it."

"I hope so," Ruth returned gravely.

She had very little to say to the woman in black, although the latter, as the days passed, seemed desirous of ingratiating herself into the college girl's good opinion. But that Mrs. Mantel could not do.

It seemed that Mrs. Mantel was an expert bookkeeper and accountant. She confided to Ruth that, before she had married and "dear Herny" had died, she had been engaged in the offices of one of the largest cotton brokerage houses in New Orleans. She still had a little money left from "poor Herny's" insurance, and she could live on that while she was "doing her bit" for the Red Cross.

Ruth made no comment. Of a sudden Mrs. Mantel seemed to have grown patriotic. No more did she repeat slanders of the Red Cross, but was working for that organization.

Ruth Fielding would not forbid a person "seeing the light" and becoming converted to the worthiness of the cause; but somehow she could not take Mrs. Mantel and her work at their face value.

Gradually, as the weeks fled, Ruth became acquainted with others of the busy workers; with Mr. Charles Mayo, who governed this headquarters and seldom spoke of anything save the work--so she did not know whether he had a family, or social life, or anything else but just Red Cross.

There was a Mr. Legrand, whom she did not like so well. He seemed to be a Frenchman, although he spoke perfect English. He was a dark man with steady, keen eyes behind thick lenses, and, unusual enough in this day, he wore a heavy beard. His voice was a bark, but it did not seem that he meant to be unpleasant.

Legrand and a man named José, who could be nothing but a Mexican, often were with the woman in black--both in the offices and out of them. Ruth took her meals at a restaurant near by, although she roomed in the Y. W. C. A. building, as she said she should. In that restaurant she often saw the woman in black dining with her two cavaliers, as Ruth secretly termed Legrand and José.

It was a trio that the girl of the Red Mill found herself interested in, but with whom she wished to have nothing to do.

All sorts and conditions of people, however, were turning to Red Cross work. "Why," Ruth asked herself, "criticize the intentions of any of them?" She felt sometimes as though her condemnation of Mrs. Mantel, even though secret, was really wicked.

But in the bookkeeping and accounting department--handling the funds that came in, as well as the expense accounts--a dishonest person might do much harm to the cause. And Ruth knew in her heart that Mrs. Mantel was not an honest woman.

Her tale that day at the Ladies' Aid Society, in Cheslow, had been false--strictly false. The woman knew it at the time, and she knew it now. Ruth was sure that every time Mrs. Mantel looked at her with her set smile she was thinking that Ruth had caught her in a prevarication and had not forgotten it.

Yet the girl of the Red Mill felt that she could say nothing about Mrs. Mantel to Mr. Mayo, or to anybody else in authority. She had no proved facts.

Besides, she had never been so busy before in all her life, and Ruth Fielding was no sluggard. It seemed as though every moment of her waking hours was filled and running over with duties.

She often worked long into the evening in her department at the Red Cross bureau. She might have missed the folks at home and her girl friends more had it not been for the work that crowded upon her.

One evening, as she came down from the loft above the business office where she had been working alone, she remarked that there was a light in the office. Mrs. Mantel and her assistants did not usually work at night.

The door stood ajar. Ruth looked in with frank curiosity. She saw Mr. José, the black-looking Mexican, alone in the room. He had taken both of the chemical fire extinguishers from the wall--one had hung at one end of the room and the other at the other end--and was doing something to them. Repairing them, perhaps, or merely cleaning them. He sat there cheerfully whistling in a low tone and manipulating a polishing rag, or something of the kind. He had a bucket beside him.

"I wonder if he can't sleep nights, and that is why he is so busily engaged?" thought Ruth, as she went on out of the building. "I never knew of his being so workative before."

But the matter made no real impression on her mind. It was a transitory thought entirely. She went to her clean little cell in the Y. W. C. A. home and forgot all about Mr. José and the fire extinguishers.