Part 20 (1/2)

Here the strange girl interposed. She had been darting quick, shrewd glances about the hall at the girls and boys there gathered, and now she said:

”Ye don't hafter do nothing for me. A little rainwater won't hurt me-I ain't neither sugar nor salt. All I wants to know is where them fresh air kids is stayin'. I ain't afraid of the rain-it's the thunder and lightning that scares me.”

”Goodness knows,” laughed Madge, ”I guess the water wouldn't hurt you.

But we'll fix you up a little better, I guess.”

”Let Ruth do it,” said Mrs. Steele, sharply. ”She says she knows the girl.”

”She's a friend of mine,” said the girl of the Red Mill, frankly. ”You surely remember me, Sadie Raby?”

”Oh, I remember ye, Miss,” returned the runaway. ”You was kind to me, too.”

”Come on, then,” said Ruth, briskly. ”I'm only going to be kind to you again-and so is Mrs. Steele going to be kind. Come on!”

An hour later an entirely different looking girl appeared with Ruth in the big room at the top of the house which the visiting girls occupied.

Some of them had come upstairs, for the tempest was over now, and were making ready for dinner by slow stages, it still being some time off, and there was nothing else to do.

”This is Sadie Raby, girls,” explained Ruth, quietly. ”She is the sister of those cute little twins that are staying at the Caslons' place. She has had a hard time getting here, and because she hasn't seen Willie and d.i.c.kie for eight months, or more, she is very anxious to see them. They are all she has in the world.”

”And I reckon they're a handful,” laughed Heavy. ”Come on! tell us all about it, Sadie.”

It was because of the ”terrible twins” that Ruth had gotten Sadie to talk at all. The girl, since leaving ”them Perkinses,” near Briarwood, had had a most distressful time in many ways, and she was reticent about her adventures.

But she warmed toward Ruth and the others when she found that they really were sincerely interested in her trials, and were, likewise, interested in the twins.

”Them kids must ha' growed lots since I seen 'em,” she said, wistfully.

”I wrote a letter to a girl that works right near the orphanage. She wrote back that the twins was coming out here for a while. So I throwed up my job at Campton and hiked over here.”

”Dear me! all that way?” cried Helen, pityingly.

”I walked farther than that after I left them Perkinses,” declared Sadie, promptly. ”I walked clean from Lumberton to Cheslow-followed the railroad most of the way. Then I struck off through the fields and went to a mill on the river, and worked there for a week, for an old lady.

She was nice--”

”I guess she is!” cried Ruth, quickly. ”Didn't you know that was _my_ home you went to? And you worked for Aunt Alvirah and Uncle Jabez.”

No, Sadie had not known that. The little old woman had spoken of there being a girl at the Red Mill sometimes, but Sadie had not suspected the ident.i.ty of that girl.

”And then, when you were still near Cheslow, my brother Tom, and his dog, rescued you from the tramps,” cried Helen.

”Was that your brother, Miss?” responded Sadie. ”Well! he's a nice feller. He got me a ride clear to Campton. I've been workin' there and earnin' my board and keep. But I couldn't save much, and it's all gone now.”

”But what do you really expect to do here?” asked Madge Steele, curiously.

”I gotter see them kids,” declared Sadie, doggedly. ”Seems to me, sometimes, as though something would bust right inside of me here,” and she clutched her dress at its bosom, ”if I don't see Willie and d.i.c.kie.

I thought this big house was likely where the fresh airs was.”