Part 4 (2/2)
She wore no hat, raw as the weather was. Her ragged dress was an old faded gingham; over it she wore a three-quarter length coat of some indeterminate, shoddy material, much soiled, and shapeless as a mealsack. Her shoes and stockings were in keeping with the rest of her outfit.
Altogether her appearance touched Ruth Fielding deeply. This Raby girl was an orphan. Ruth remembered keenly the time when the loss of her own parents was still a fresh wound. Supposing no kind friends had been raised up for her? Suppose there had been no Red Mill for her to go to?
She might have been much the same sort of castaway as this.
”Tell me who you are-tell me all about yourself-do!” begged the girl of the Red Mill, sitting down beside the other on the log. ”I am an orphan as well as you, my dear. Really, I am.”
”Was you in the orphanage?” demanded the Raby girl, quickly.
”Oh, no. I had friends--”
”You warn't never a reg'lar orphan, then,” was the sharp response.
”Tell me about it,” urged Ruth.
”Me an' the kids was taken to the orphanage just as soon as Mom died,”
said the girl, in quite a matter-of-fact manner. ”Pa died two months before. It was sudden. But Mom had been sickly for a long time-I can remember. I was six.”
”And how old are you now?” asked Ruth.
”Twelve and a half. They puts us out to work at twelve anyhow, so them Perkinses got me,” explained the child. ”I was pretty sharp and foxy when we went to the orphanage. The kids was only two and a half--”
”Both of them?” cried Ruth.
”Yep. They're twins, Willie and d.i.c.kie is. An' awful smart-an' pretty before they lopped off their curls at the orphanage. I was glad Mom was dead then,” said the girl, nodding. ”She'd been heart-broke to see 'em at first without their long curls.
”I dunno now-not rightly-just what's become of 'em,” went on the girl.
”Mebbe they come back to the orphanage. The folks that took 'em was nice enough, I guess, but the man thought two boys would be too much for his wife to take care of. She was a weakly lookin' critter.
”But the matron always said they shouldn't go away for keeps, unless they went together. My goodness me! they'd never be happy apart,” said the strange girl, wagging her head confidentially. ”And they're only nine now. There's three years yet for the matron to find them a good home. Ye see, folks take young orphans on trial. I wisht them Perkinses had taken _me_ on trial and then had sent me back. Or, I wisht they'd let the orphans take folks on trial instead of the other way 'round.”
”Oh, it must be very hard!” murmured Ruth. ”And you and your little brothers had to be separated?'
”Yep. And Willie and d.i.c.kie liked their sister Sade a heap,” and the girl suddenly ”knuckled” her eyes with her dirty hand to wipe away the tears. ”Huh! I'm a big baby, ain't I? Well! that's how it is.”
”And you really have run away from the people that took you from the orphanage, Sadie?”
”Betcher! So would you. Mis' Perkins is awful cross, an' he's crosser! I got enough--”
”Wouldn't they take you back at the orphanage?”
”Nope. No runaways there. I've seen other girls come back and they made 'em go right away again with the same folks. You see, there's a Board, or sumpin'; an' the Board finds out all about the folks that take away the orphans in the first place. Then they won't never own up that they was fooled, that Board won't. They allus say it's the kids' fault if they ain't suited.”
Suddenly the girl jumped up and peered through the bushes. Ruth had heard the thumping of horses' hoofs on the wet road.
”My goodness!” gasped Sadie Raby. ”Here's ol' Perkins hisself. He's come clean over this road to look for me. Don't you tell him--”
She seized Ruth's wrist with her claw-like little hand.
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