Chapter IX: Ruth in the Role of Heroine

The boys' stay was almost at an end. There had been a number of "last days," indeed, and Graham declared that he felt like a popular _prima donna_ with a farewell tour once a year. "Jack and I hate like the mischief to go," he acknowledged frankly, "but for all it's so jolly here, you can't exactly call it a walking tour, and that's what we set out for. So to-morrow is positively our last appearance."

They had been sitting around the fire in the front room when Graham made the announcement, and forthwith it was unanimously decided that the closing day of the boys' visit must be a red-letter occasion in the annals of the summer. Enough suggestions were offered to provide a week's entertainment for people who object to taking their pleasures strenuously. In addition to outlining plans for the morrow, it had been tacitly agreed to make the most of the present, and this had resulted in their sitting up very late and clearing among them several platters of fudge, which Amy had thoughtfully made ready. It was that fudge which Ruth recalled about five o'clock the next morning,--recalled with an aversion which by rapid degrees became loathing.

"I ought to have known better," thought poor Ruth, failing to find any especial consolation in the reflection that she herself was responsible for her present misery. "I didn't eat half as much as Amy, though." She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples and groaned. "It's Graham's last day, and I'm going to be sick and spoil everything."

She entertained herself for some moments by picturing the consternation with which her announcement would be received. "You'll have to go without me to-day. I've got such a headache that I can't do a thing." But, of course, they would not go without her. They would sit on the porch and discuss regretfully the good times they would have had if nothing had interfered.

All at once Ruth came to a magnificent resolve. She would not spoil the pleasure of Graham's last day. She would not allow the shadow of her indisposition to cloud the enjoyment of the others. She would bear her sufferings in silence. The resolution was such a relief that she almost fancied that the pain in her head was a little easier. She turned her pillow, pressed her hot cheek to its refreshing coolness, and proceeded to enjoy contemplating herself in the role of a heroine.

After two wretched hours in which the only alleviating feature was her heroic resolve that her suffering should affect no one but herself Ruth fell asleep. And almost immediately, as she thought with indignation, she was waked by Peggy, who stood over her, holding fast to her shoulder and shaking her vigorously at intervals, as she cried: "Oh, you sleepy-head! Aren't you ever going to get up?"

"Don't, Peggy!" Ruth's tone did not reflect the cheeriness of Peggy's greeting. She jerked away with a feeling of aggrieved resentment. To be shaken awake was something she had not bargained for, in mapping out her course of action. How her head did ache, to be sure. If Peggy had only let her sleep a couple of hours longer in all probability she would have felt much better.

But Peggy had no intention of letting anybody sleep. "Get up this minute, both of you," she insisted. "We've got oceans to do to-day, and everybody must hustle."

Ruth reluctantly obeying the summons, clutched the bed post to steady herself. Her head swam. The pain was fiercer, now that she was standing. It was all very well for Peggy to talk of hustling. Probably if her own head ached distractingly she would be satisfied with a less strenuous word.

"See you later, but not late, if you please." Peggy shot out of the room, and the door slammed to behind her breezy departure. Ruth started and shuddered. She had a feeling, which she would have recognized as unreasonable if she had stopped to analyze it, that she would have expected more consideration from Peggy.

But worse was coming. The boys had been invited to breakfast, in order that the day's festivities might begin as early as possible, and so ardent had been their response that Peggy found them on the porch when she came down-stairs. She threw the door open and gazed at them commiseratingly. "Hungry?"

"Starved," Graham looked at his watch and sighed. "We've been here a trifle over two hours."

"Nothing of the sort, Miss Peggy," exclaimed Jack. "It's hardly half an hour."

"Half an hour is bad enough. We all overslept. If you'd like, you may hurry things by setting the table, while I mix the griddle-cakes."

Graham smacked his lips. "Maple sirup?" he asked insinuatingly, and at Peggy's nod, he indulged in frantic demonstrations of delight. Jack looked at him disapprovingly. "From your actions I should judge you to be about eight years old."

"'Tis the griddle-cake doth make children of us all," parodied Graham recklessly, not at all abashed by his friend's criticism. "Come on, Jack. I'm going to set the table, and I shall need your housewifely aid."

When the girls came flocking down, the table was set, although not altogether in the conventional fashion, and from the kitchen issued the odor of frying pan-cakes, agreeable or otherwise, according to one's mood. Graham sniffed it as ecstatically as if it had been the fragrance of a rose-garden. Ruth hastily found her way to the open door, and tried to think of something beside food.

"Ruth!" It was Peggy's voice sounding from the kitchen. Ruth looked resolutely ahead, and did not move. There was Amy and Priscilla and Claire to choose from. If she didn't answer, Peggy would of course summon another assistant.

"Ruth!"

"Don't you hear Peggy calling you, Ruth?" Graham asked peremptorily. And again Ruth's mood was resentful. How unkind and unfeeling everybody seemed. The tears started to her eyes as she crossed the room. In the kitchen Peggy was turning cakes on the smoking griddle, her cheeks glowing from her exertion over the blazing fire.

"Here, Ruth. Watch these cakes, will you, while I see to the hash? I wonder if those boys have got enough dishes on the table to eat out of. And push back the coffee pot please. The coffee's done, anyway."

"Is breakfast nearly ready?" Graham put his head through the door. "I told you I was starving you remember, three-quarters of an hour back. Now the pangs of hunger are less cruel, but I'm gradually growing weaker."

"You're a pathetic figure for a famine sufferer," scoffed Peggy. "Oh, Ruth, that cake is burning."

"Upon my word, Ruth," exclaimed Graham, with mock severity, "that's inexcusable. Burning up a perfectly good pan-cake when your brother is suffering from hunger." It was of course, in keeping with the nonsense he had been talking all the morning, but to poor Ruth it seemed as if he were really finding fault.

"I'm doing the best I can," she replied rather sharply, and Peggy noticed the suppressed irritation of her tone and wondered. Then, as Graham advanced into the kitchen with the intention of helping to carry in the breakfast, Ruth backed into a corner and screamed.

"What on earth is the matter now?" Graham knew the answer to his question, even before he asked it, and was irritated. If it was amusing to make Ruth scream by pointing his finger in her direction, when he was in a teasing mood, it was extremely annoying to have her suspect him of such intentions when his conscience was altogether clear, when indeed, with Peggy as a witness, he had solemnly renounced all such diversions forever. "What are you making such a fuss about?" he insisted, as Ruth did not answer.

"You were going to tickle me."

"Nothing of the sort. Oh, say! The rest of those cakes are burning up. Peggy, you'd better get somebody to help you who will attend to her business."

Peggy saved the situation by telling Graham he could take in the hash, and that there was so much batter that a few scorched cakes would never be missed. "You carry in the coffee,--will you, Ruth?" said Peggy, and improved the opportunity to resume her former position by the griddle. Ruth understood the manoeuvre, and her heart swelled. Evidently Peggy thought she couldn't do anything right, not even turn a griddle-cake when it was brown. And Graham was actually cross. She began to think it did not pay to be heroic in order to spare the feelings of such inconsiderate people.

Poor Ruth could not eat. She sipped her coffee and played with her fork, expecting every moment that some one would notice that her food had not been touched and inquire the reason. To tell the truth, Ruth had reached the point where she would not have been averse to such an inquiry, and the attendant necessity of explanation. It was much pleasanter, she had decided, to have people know you were feeling sick, and trying to be brave about it, than to suffer in heroic silence, sustained only by your own sense of virtue. But, to her surprise and disappointment, no questions were asked. The gay party surrounding the breakfast-table was too engrossed with satisfying clamorous appetites, and discussing the day's program, to notice that one of the number was not eating. This confirmed Ruth's impression, that it was, after all, a selfish, if not a heartless world.

"Now, Peggy," began Priscilla, when the last plate of golden-brown cakes had failed to melt away after the fashion of their predecessors, "nobody can eat another thing. As long as you got the breakfast, Ruth and I will wash the dishes."

"And Claire and I will make the beds," said Amy, "while Peggy attends to the menagerie." Amy had always continued the disrespectful custom of referring to Peggy's poultry yard as the menagerie.

"It won't take me ten minutes to attend to the chickens and Hobo, too." Peggy left the table, and went blithely out to the small coop, shaped like a pyramid, with slats nailed across the front, where the yellow hen exercised maternal supervision over six chickens. Whether or not the thunder-storm was responsible, Mrs. Cole's foreboding regarding the other nine eggs had been justified by the outcome. But to make up for this disappointment, the six chickens which had hatched had turned out to be as downy and yellow and generally fascinating as the chickens favored by the artists who design Easter cards, and this agreeable surprise had enabled the optimistic Peggy to take an entirely cheerful view of the situation.

It was a shock to the others when a wailing cry came to their ears from the vicinity of the chicken coop. Priscilla, who was just filling her dish-pan with steaming water, set the kettle down so hastily as narrowly to escape scalding herself, and ran to the scene of the excitement. The others followed with the exception of Ruth, who was glad of the opportunity to drop into a chair and press her hands to her throbbing temples.

The cause of Peggy's cry of distress was at once apparent. She stood beside the coop, a motionless ball of down on her open palm. Below the yellow hen scratched blithely and clucked to her diminished family.

"She did it herself," cried the exasperated Peggy. "She deliberately stood on top of it and crushed the life out of it. When I came out it was too far gone to peep, and she was looking around as if she wondered where the noise had come from. But by the time I could make her move, the poor little thing was dead."

It was the general verdict that the conduct of the yellow hen was reprehensible in the extreme. The comments passed upon her would have been sufficient to make her wince, had she been a hen of any sensibility. But regardless of the disapproval so openly expressed, she continued to scratch and summon her brood, with every indication of being perfectly satisfied with herself.

"Six little Indians stole honey from a hive,
A busy bee got after one and then there were but five."

Peggy looked at Graham as if she did not know whether to laugh or be angry. Being Peggy, she, of course, settled the question in favor of the first-named alternative, though even as she dimpled, she told Graham severely that it was nothing to laugh about.

"As I understand it, the tragedy has only been hastened," said the teasing Graham. "You designed the chicken for the butcher, didn't you? And now let's feed this unnatural mother before she gets hungry and eats up the other five."

The appetite of the yellow hen was not the least impaired by the family disaster. She gobbled down her corn meal with a dispatch which argued indifference to the possibility that there might not be enough left for her offspring. Then while Peggy and Graham made ready a little grave for the victim of maternal clumsiness, the others flocked back to the house discussing the calamity. Reluctantly Ruth resumed her duties, and her sense of resentment grew rapidly, as she listened to the excited chatter of her companions. All this fuss about a dead chicken, and not a word of sympathy for her sufferings. Ruth was rapidly approaching the point of extreme unreasonableness.

A long walk was the first of the festivities scheduled for the eventful last day. The boys had discovered a view that they were very anxious to have the others see, and even Aunt Abigail, who was not a great success as a pedestrian, had decided to go along. Ruth was putting on her wide brimmed shade hat, when a wave of faintness swept over her, and for a minute everything turned black. Then she recovered herself, and saw a white face with unnaturally large eyes staring back at her from the mirror.

"I--I don't believe I'll go," said Ruth in an uncertain voice, in which there was no suggestion of heroism.

"Go?" Amy was down on her hands and knees, looking for a pin in the cracks of the floor. "Of course you'll go. Don't be grumpy."

Grumpy! And after she had endured so much to avoid casting a shadow over the spirits of the party. Ruth frowned on her, but in silence. It seemed to her that she had never before realized the amount of selfishness in the world. Nobody cared what she suffered. Her dearest friends, her own brother were prodigies of inconsiderateness. With an effort she kept back the burning tears of self pity, and tottered down the stairs, prepared to endure the martyrdom of a long walk under the July sun.

"Ruth," called Peggy from the pantry, "just help me with these sandwiches, will you?" They were coming home for the midday meal, but Peggy had determined to carry along a few sandwiches, as country-grown appetites seemed independent of the limitations of those appetites with which she was best acquainted.

Ruth rose to obey. But her indisposition was becoming more than a match for her will. She was half way across the room, when she halted, swayed, and crumpled up in a little helpless heap. Graham was too late to save her from falling, but he had her in his arms almost as soon as she touched the floor, and carried her to the couch, turning pale himself at the sight of her colorless face.

From all directions the girls came running. As usual, Peggy took command.

"She's fainted, Graham, that's all. Bring some water. We must get the sofa cushions out from under her head. Bring that palm-leaf fan, Amy. There, she's coming to already."

The eyelids of the forlorn heroine had indeed fluttered encouragingly. A moment later Ruth opened her eyes. As her languid gaze travelled around the circle of faces, she saw consternation written on each one. Peggy patted her hand tenderly.

"Don't try to speak, darling. You fainted, that's all."

"Could you drink a little water, dearie," coaxed Priscilla, bending over her, glass in hand.

"Here, let me lift her." Graham rushed forward, thankful for the opportunity to do something, as he found the sense of helplessness characteristic of his sex in all such crises extremely galling.

Ruth felt it incumbent on herself to relieve the general anxiety. "It's only one of my headaches," she explained faintly. "I ought to have given up to it. But I hated to spoil Graham's last day."

There was a little chorus of mingled disapproval and admiration. "You dear plucky thing!" cried Peggy. "And here I've been ordering you around all the morning. Those pan-cakes must have been torture."

"As if Jack and I wouldn't have waited over another day!" exclaimed Graham in a tone of disgust. "We'd rather have waited a week, than have you put yourself through like this," He smoothed her ruffled hair with awkward tenderness, and Amy, carried away by her emotions, fanned so vehemently that she tapped the patient on the nose, and was sharply reprimanded.

The tears Ruth had been holding back all the morning could no longer be restrained. They overran her trembling lids, and streamed down her cheeks. The little murmurs of soothing sympathy were redoubled, though Graham walked off quickly to the window and stood looking out with a stern, fixed gaze, as if the landscape had suddenly become of absorbing interest. But Ruth's tears were not wrung from her by suffering. They were tears of penitence and honest shame. How dear and kind every one was! How cruelly she had misjudged the world when she had called it inconsiderate. And the course of conduct which in the morning had seemed to her admirable and heroic, suddenly appeared foolish in the extreme. The faint tinge of color showing in her white cheeks was not an indication of returning strength so much as of mortification.

The departure of Jack and Graham was immediately put off till Ruth should be well enough to take part in the fun which was to serve as a climax to the visit. For the remainder of the day, Ruth found herself the centre of attraction in Dolittle Cottage. She lay at ease on the couch, with wet compresses on her forehead. The shutters were closed to keep out the sunshine. Every one walked on tiptoe, and spoke in subdued accents. Even the fly-away Dorothy sought the invalid at frequent intervals to murmur, "Poor Rufie! Poor Rufie," and to pat Ruth's arm with a sympathetic little hand. Now that it had gained its point, the headache decreased in severity, but had the pain been far more violent, Ruth would have minded it less than sundry pangs of conscience which would not allow her to forget that she really was undeserving of all this tender consideration.

By the end of the afternoon she was able to sit up and to share in the general excitement which welcomed Amy on her return from the village. Several days before, Amy had carried down a roll of films to be developed at the local photographer's, and was now bringing back a neat little package of prints. "Oh, the flash-light picture is here, isn't it?" exclaimed Ruth, to whose chair the package had been brought immediately, while the others stood around awaiting their turn. "I want to see that first."

Amy looked a trifle discomfited.

"Yes, it's here," she replied. "But the photographer said if I wanted to be a success I'd have to learn to flatter people more. He said that he learned that long ago."

The flash-light picture was certainly far from flattering. The brilliant light had caused every pair of eyes to roll heavenward, till only the whites were visible, so that the group looked not unlike a company of inmates of a blind asylum, posing for a photograph. But the missing eyes were not the only startling features of this remarkable picture. Several mouths were open to their widest extent, and except for the face of Jack Rynson, who was a young man with an unusual capacity for self-control, every countenance was convulsed by an agitation whose exciting cause was left to the imagination of the beholder.

Ruth laughed over the flash-light picture till she cried, and declared that it had almost cured her headache. When Graham helped her up the stairs that night, she startled him by leaning up against him to laugh again. "I was thinking of Claire's picture in the flash-light," she explained, as her brother looked down at her anxiously. "Poor Claire! I'm afraid she felt more like crying than laughing."

"'Tisn't every girl that's as plucky as my little sister," said Graham, tightening his clasp about her. Ruth's laughter ended abruptly. "Oh, don't, Graham," she pleaded, as if distressed by his praise. "If you only knew--" And there she stopped. It was quite enough for Ruth Wylie to know the true inwardness of that day; a day, Ruth was certain, that would never, never be duplicated in her experience.