Part 21 (1/2)

Doesn't she understand?”

”I won't go back to them Perkinses, I tell you!” cried Sadie, with a stamp of her foot.

”It is not my intention to send you back. I mean to look up your record and the record of the people you were placed with-Perkins, is it? The authorities of the inst.i.tution that had the care of you, should be made to be more careful in their selection of homes for their charges.

”No. I will keep you here till I have had the matter sifted. If those-those Perkinses, as you call them, are unfit to care for you, you shall certainly not go back to them, my girl.”

Sadie looked at him shrewdly. ”But I don't want to stay here, Mister,”

she blurted out.

”My girl, you are not of an age when you should be allowed to choose for yourself. Others, older and wiser, must choose for you. I would not feel that I was doing right in allowing you to run wild again--”

”I gotter see the twins-I jest _gotter_ see 'em,” said Sadie, faintly.

”And whether that Caslon is fit to have charge of you,” bitterly added Mr. Steele, ”I have my doubts.”

”Oh, surely, you will let her see her little brothers?” cried Ruth, pleadingly.

”We will arrange about that-ahem!” said Mr. Steele. ”But I will communicate at once-by long distance telephone-with the matron of the inst.i.tution from which she came, and they can send a representative here to talk with me--”

”And take me back there?” exclaimed Sadie. ”No, I sha'n't! I sha'n't go!

So there!”

”Hoity-toity, Miss! Let's have no more of it, if you please,” said the gentleman, sternly. ”You will stay here for the present. Don't you try to run away from me, for if you do, I'll soon have you brought back. We intend to treat you kindly here, but you must not abuse our kindness.”

It was perhaps somewhat puzzling to Sadie Raby-this att.i.tude of the very severe gentleman. She had not been used to much kindness in her life, and the sort that is forced on one is not generally appreciated by the wisest of us. Therefore it is not strange if Sadie failed to understand that Mr. Steele really meant to be her friend.

”Come away, Sadie,” whispered Ruth, quite troubled herself by the turn affairs had taken. ”I am so sorry-but it will all come right in the end--”

”If by comin' right, Miss, you means that I am goin' to see them twins, you can jest _bet_ it will all come right,” returned Sadie, gruffly, when they were out in the hall. ”For see 'em I will, an' _him_, nor n.o.body else, won't stop me. As for goin' back to them Perkinses, or to the orphanage, we'll see 'bout that,” added Sadie, to herself, and grimly.

Ruth feared very much that Mr. Steele would not have been quite so stern and positive with the runaway, had it not been for his dislike for the Caslons. Had Sadie's brothers been stopping with some other neighbor, would Mr. Steele have delayed letting the runaway girl go to see them?

”Oh, dear, me! If folks would only be good-natured and stop being so hateful to each other,” thought the girl of the Red Mill. ”I just _know_ that Mr. Steele would like Mr. Caslon a whole lot, if they really once got acquainted!”

The rain had ceased falling by this time. The tempest had rolled away into the east. A great rainbow had appeared and many of the household were on the verandas to watch the bow of promise.

It was too wet, however, to venture upon the gra.s.s. The paths and driveway glistened with pools of water. And under a big tree not far from the front of the house, it was discovered that a mult.i.tude of little toads had appeared-tiny little fellows no larger than one's thumbnail.

”It's just been rainin' toads!” cried one of the younger Steele children-Bennie by name. ”Come on out, Ruthie, and see the toads that comed down with the rainstorm.”

Tom Cameron had already come up to speak with Sadie. He shook hands with the runaway girl and spoke to her as politely as he would have to any of his sister's friends. And Sadie, remembering how kind he had been to her on the occasion when the tramps attacked her near Cheslow, responded to his advances with less reluctance than she had to those of some of the girls.

For it must be confessed that many of the young people looked upon the runaway askance. She was so different from themselves!

Now that she was clean, and her hair brushed and tied with one of Ruth's own ribbons, and she was dressed neatly, Sadie Raby did not _look_ much different from the girls about her on the wide porch; but when she spoke, her voice was hoa.r.s.e, and her language uncouth.

Had she been plumper, she would have been a pretty girl. She was tanned very darkly, and her skin was coa.r.s.e. Nevertheless, given half the care these other girls had been used to most of their lives, and Sadie Raby would have been the equal of any.