Ruth Fielding At Sunrise Farm; What Became of the Raby Orphans

“Only the cannon,” interposed Bobbins. “You’re going to let us salute with that; eh, Pa?”

“I’m not sure that I shall,” returned his father, “if you do not give me your attention, and keep silent. We are determined to have a safe and sane Fourth on Sunrise Farm. But at night we will set off a splendid lot of fireworks that I bought last week – ”

“Oh, fine, Pa! I do love fireworks,” cried Madge.

“The girls are as bad as the boys, Mother,” said Mr. Steele, shaking his head. “What I wanted to say,” he added, raising his voice, “was that we ought to invite these little chaps – these brothers of Sadie Raby – to come up at night to see our show.”

“Oh, let’s have all the fresh airs, Pa!” cried Madge, eagerly. “What a good time they’d have.”

“I – don’t – know,” said her father, soberly, looking at his wife. “I am afraid that will be too much for your mother.”

“Mr. Caslon has some fireworks for the children,” broke in Ruth, timidly. “I happen to know that. And Tom was going down to buy ten dollar’s worth more to put with what Mr. Caslon has.”

“Humph!” said Mr. Steele.

“You see, some of us thought we’d give the little folk a good time down there, and it wouldn’t bother you and Mrs. Steele, sir,” Ruth hastened to explain.

“Well, well!” exclaimed the gentleman, not very sharply after all, “if those Caslons can stand the racket, I guess mother and I can – eh, mother?”

“We need not have them in the house,” said Mrs. Steele. “We can put tables on the veranda, and give them ice cream and cake after the fireworks. Get the men to hang Chinese lanterns, and so forth.”

“Bully!” cried the younger Steeles, in chorus, and the visitors to Sunrise Farm were quite delighted, too, with this suggestion.

CHAPTER XIX – A SAFE AND SANE FOURTH?

Of course, somebody had to go to the Caslons and explain all this, and that duty devolved upon Ruth. Naturally, permission had to be sought of the farmer and his wife before the “fresh air kids” could be carried off bodily to Sunrise Farm.

It was decided that the ten dollars, of which Tom had taken charge, should be spent for extra bunting and lanterns to decorate with, and to buy little gifts for each of the fresh airs to find next his or her plate on the evening of the Fourth.

Therefore, Tom started again for Darrowtown right after breakfast, and Ruth rode with him in the high, two-wheeled cart.

Ruth had two important errands. One was in Darrowtown. But the first stop, at Mr. Caslon’s, troubled her a little.

How would the farmer and his wife take the idea of the Steeles suddenly patronizing the fresh air children? Were the Caslons anything like Mr. Steele himself, in temperament, Ruth’s errand would not be a pleasant one, she knew.

The orphans ran out shrieking a welcome when Tom drove into the yard of the house under the hill. Where were the “terrible twins”? Had their sister really come to see them? Were Willie and Dickie coming back to the orphanage at all?

These and a dozen other questions were hurled at Ruth. Some of the bigger girls remembered Sadie Raby and asked a multitude of questions about her. So the girl of the Red Mill contented herself at first with trying to reply to all these queries.

Then Mrs. Caslon appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands of dish-water, and the old farmer himself came from the stables. Their friendly greeting and smiling faces opened the way for Ruth’s task. She threw herself, figuratively speaking, into their arms.

“I know you are both just as kind as you can be,” said Ruth, eagerly, “and you won’t mind if I ask you to change your program a little to-day for the youngsters? They want to give them all a good time up at Sunrise Farm.”

“Good land!” exclaimed Mrs. Caslon. “Not all of them?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Ruth, and she sketched briefly the idea of the celebration on the hill-top, including the presents she and Tom were to buy in Darrowtown for the kiddies.

“My soul and body!” exclaimed the farmer’s wife. “That lady, Mis’ Steele, don’t know what she’s runnin’ into, does she, Father?”

“I reckon not,” chuckled Mr. Caslon, wagging his head.

“But you won’t mind? You’ll let us have the children?” asked Ruth, anxiously.

“Why – ” Mrs. Caslon looked at the old gentleman. But he was shaking all over with inward mirth.

“Do ’em good, Mother – do ’em good,” he chuckled – and he did not mean the fresh air children, either. Ruth could see that.

“It’ll be a mortal shame,” began Mrs. Caslon, again, but once more her husband interrupted:

“Don’t you fuss about other folks, Mother,” he said, gravely. “It’ll do ’em good – mebbe – as I say. Nothin’ like tryin’ a game once by the way. And I bet twelve little tykes like these ’uns will keep that Steele man hoppin’ for a while.”

“But his poor wife – ”

“Don’t you worry, Mrs. Caslon,” Ruth urged, but wishing to laugh, too. “We girls will take care of the kiddies, and Mrs. Steele sha’n’t be bothered too much.”

“Besides,” drawled Mr. Caslon, “the woman’s got a good sized family of her own – there’s six or seven of ’em, ain’t there?” he demanded of Ruth.

“Eight, sir.”

“But that don’t make a speck of difference,” the farmer’s wife interposed. “She’s always had plenty of maids and the like to look out for them. She don’t know – ”

“Let her learn a little, then,” said Mr. Caslon, good naturedly enough. “It’ll do both him and her good. And it’ll give you a rest for a few hours, Mother.

“Besides,” added Mr. Caslon, with another deep chuckle, “I hear Steele has been rantin’ around about takin’ the kids to board just for the sake of spitin’ the neighbors. Now, if he thinks boardin’ a dozen young’uns like these is all fun – ”

“Don’t be harsh, John,” urged Mrs. Caslon.

“I ain’t! I ain’t!” cried the farmer, laughing again. “But they’re bitin’ off a big chaw, and it tickles me to see ’em do it.”

It was arranged, therefore, that the orphans should be ready to go up to Sunrise Farm that afternoon. Then Ruth and Tom drove to Darrowtown. They had a fast horse, and got over the rough road at a very good pace.

Tom drove first around into the side street where Miss True Pettis’s little cottage was situated.

“You dear child!” was the little spinster’s greeting. “Are you having a nice time with your rich friends at Sunrise Farm? Tell me all about them – and the farm. Everybody in Darrowtown is that curious!”

Tom had driven away to attend to the errands he could do alone, so Ruth could afford the time to visit a bit with her old friend. The felon was better, and that fact being assured, Ruth considered it better to satisfy Miss Pettis regarding the Sunrise Farm folk before getting to the Raby orphans.

And that was the way to get to them, too. For the story of the tempest the day before, and the appearance of Sadie Raby, the runaway, and her reunion with the twins, naturally came into the tale Ruth had to tell – a tale that was eagerly listened to and as greatly enjoyed by the Darrowtown seamstress, as one can well imagine.

“Just like a book – or a movie,” sighed Miss Pettis, shaking her head. “It’s really wonderful, Ruthie Fielding, what’s happened to you since you left us here in Darrowtown. But, I always said, this town is dead and nothing really happens here!”

“But it’s lovely in Darrowtown,” declared Ruth. “And just to think! Those Raby children lived here once.”

“No?”

“Yes they did. Sadie was six or seven years old, I guess, when they left here. Tom Raby was her father. He was a mason’s helper – ”

“Don’t you tell me another thing about ’em!” cried Miss Pettis, starting up suddenly. “Now you remind me. I remember them well. Mis’ Raby was as nice a woman as ever stepped – but weakly. And Tom Raby —

“Why, how could I forget it? And after that man from Canady came to trace ’em, too, only three years ago. Didn’t you ever hear of it, Ruth?”

“What man?” asked Ruth, quite bewildered now. “Are – are you sure it was the same family? And who would want to trace them?”

“Lemme see. Listen!” commanded Miss Pettis. “You answer me about these poor children.”

And under the seamstress’s skillful questioning Ruth related every detail she knew about the Raby orphans – and Mr. Steele, in her presence, had cross-questioned Sadie exhaustively the evening before. The story lost nothing in Ruth’s telling, for she had a retentive memory.

“My goodness me, Ruthie!” ejaculated the spinster, excitedly. “It’s the same folks – sure. Why, do you know, they came from Quebec, and there’s some property they’ve fell heir to – property from their mother’s side – Oh, let me tell you! Funny you never heard us talkin’ about that Canady lawyer while you was livin’ here with me. My!”

CHAPTER XX – THE RABY ROMANCE

Miss True Pettis thrilled with the joy of telling the romance. The little seamstress had been all her life entertaining people with the dry details of unimportant neighborhood happenings. It was only once in a long while that a story like that of the Rabys’ came within her ken.

“Why, do you believe me!” she said to Ruth, “that Mis’ Raby came of quite a nice family in Quebec. Not to say Tom Raby wasn’t a fine man, for he was, but he warn’t educated much and his trade didn’t bring ’em more’n a livin’. But her folks had school teachers, and doctors, and even ministers in their family – yes, indeed!

“And it seems like, so the Canady lawyer said, that a minister in the family what was an uncle of Mis’ Raby’s, left her and her children some property. It was in what he called ‘the fun’s’ – that’s like stocks an’ bonds, I reckon. But them Canadians talk different from us.

“Well, I can remember that man – tall, lean man he was, with a yaller mustache. He had traced the Rabys to Darrowtown, and he saw the minister, and Deacon Giles, and Amoskeag Lanfell, askin’ did they know where the Rabys went when they moved away from here.

“I was workin’ for Amoskeag’s wife that day, so I heard all the talk,” pursued Miss Pettis. “He said – this Canady lawyer did – that the property amounted to several thousand dollars. It was left by the minister (who had no family of his own) to his niece, Mis’ Raby, or to her children if she was dead.

“Course they asked me if I knowed what became of the family,” said the spinster, with some pride. “It bein’ well known here in Darrowtown that I’m most as good as a parish register – and why wouldn’t I be? Everybody expects me to know all the news. But if I ever did know where them Rabys went, I’d forgot, and I told the lawyer man so.

“But he give me his card and axed me to write to him if I ever heard anything further from ’em, or about ’em. And I certain sure would have done so,” declared Miss Pettis, “if it had ever come to my mind.”

“Have you the gentleman’s card now, Miss True?” asked Ruth, eagerly.

“I s’pect so.”

“Will you find it? I know Mr. Steele is interested in the Rabys, and he can communicate with this Canadian lawyer – ”

“Now! ain’t you a bright girl?” cried the spinster. “Of course!”

She at once began to hustle about, turning things out of her bureau drawers, searching the cubby holes of an old maple “secretary” that had set in the corner of the kitchen since her father’s time, discovering things which she had mislaid for years – and forgotten – but not coming upon the card in question right away.

“Of course I’ve got it,” she declared. “I never lose anything – I never throw a scrap of anything away that might come of use – ”

And still she rummaged. Tom came back with the cart and Ruth had to go shopping. “But do look, Miss Pettis,” she begged, “and we’ll stop again before we go back to the farm.”

Tom and she were some time selecting a dozen timely, funny, and attractive nicknacks for the fresh airs. But they succeeded at last, and Ruth was sure the girls would be pleased with their selections.

“So much better than spending the money for noise and a powder smell,” added Ruth.

“Humph! the kids would like the noise all right,” sniffed Tom. “I heard those little chaps begging Mr. Caslon for punk and firecrackers. That old farmer was a boy himself once, and I bet he got something for them that will smell of powder, beside the little tad of fireworks he showed me.”

“Oh! I hope they won’t any of them get burned.”

“Kind of put a damper on the ‘safe and sane Fourth’ Mr. Steele spoke about, eh?” chuckled Tom.

Miss Pettis was looking out of the window and smiling at them when they arrived back at the cottage. She held in her hand a yellowed bit of pasteboard, which she passed to the eager Ruth.

“Where do you suppose I found it, Ruthie?” she demanded.

“I couldn’t guess.”

“Why, stuck right into the corner of my lookin’-glass in my bedroom. I s’pose I have handled it every day I’ve dusted that glass for three year, an’ then couldn’t remember where it was. Ain’t that the beatenes’?”

Ruth and Tom drove off in high excitement. She had already told Master Tom all about the Raby romance – such details as he did not already know – and now they both looked at the yellowed business card before Ruth put it safely away in her pocket:

Mr. Angus MacDoroughSolicitor13, King Crescent, Quebec

“Mr. Steele will go right ahead with this, I know,” said Tom, nodding. “He’s taken a fancy to those kids – ”

“Well! he ought to, to Sadie!” cried Ruth.

“Sure. And he’s a generous man, after all. Too bad he’s taken such a dislike to old Caslon.”

“Oh, dear, Tom! we ought to fix that,” sighed Ruth.

“Crickey! you’d tackle any job in the world, I believe, Ruthie, if you thought you could help folks.”

“Nonsense! But both of them – both Mr. Steele and Mr. Caslon – are such awfully nice people – ”

“Well! there’s not much hope, I guess. Mr. Steele’s lawyer is trying to find a flaw in Caslon’s title. It seems that, way back, a long time ago, some of the Caslons got poor, or careless, and the farm was sold for taxes. It was never properly straightened out – on the county records, anyway – and the lawyer is trying to see if he can’t buy up the interest of whoever bought the farm in at that time – or their heirs – and so have some kind of a basis for a suit against old Caslon.”

“Goodness! that’s not very clear,” said Ruth, staring.

“No. It’s pretty muddy. But you know how some lawyers are. And Mr. Steele is willing to hire the shyster to do it. He thinks it’s all right. It’s business.”

“Your father wouldn’t do such a thing, Tom!” cried Ruth.

“No. I hope he wouldn’t, anyway,” said Master Tom, wagging his head. “But I couldn’t say that to Bobbins when he told me about it, could I?”

“No call to. But, oh, dear! I hope Mr. Steele won’t be successful. I do hope he won’t be.”

“Same here,” grunted Tom. “Just the same, he’s a nice man, and I like him.”

“Yes – so do I,” admitted Ruth. “But I’d like him so much more, if he wouldn’t try to get the best of an old man like Mr. Caslon.”

The Raby matter, however, was a more pleasant topic of conversation for the two friends. The big bay horse got over the ground rapidly – Tom said the creature did not know a hill when he saw one! – and it still lacked half an hour of noon when they came in sight of Caslon’s house.

The orphans were all in force in the front yard. Mr. Caslon appeared, too.

That yard was untidy for the first time since Ruth had seen it. And most of the untidiness was caused by telltale bits of red, yellow, and green paper. Even before the cart came to the gate, Ruth smelled the tang of powder smoke.

“Oh, Tom! they have got firecrackers,” she exclaimed.

“So have I – a whole box full – under the front seat,” chuckled Tom. “What’s the Fourth without a weeny bit of noise? Bobbins and I are going to let them off in a big hogshead he’s found behind the stable.”

“You boys are rascals!” breathed Ruth. “Why! there are the twins!”

Sadie’s young brothers ran out to the cart. Mr. Caslon appeared with a good-sized box in his arms, too.

“Just take this – and the youngsters – aboard, will you, young fellow?” said the farmer. “Might as well have all the rockets and such up there on the hill. They’ll show off better. And the twins was down for the clean clo’es mother promised them.”

It was a two-seated cart and there was plenty of room for the two boys on the back seat. Mr. Caslon carefully placed the open box in the bottom of the cart, between the seats. The fireworks he had purchased had been taken out of their wrappings and were placed loosely in the box.

“There ye are,” said the farmer, jovially. “Hop up here, youngsters!”

He seized Willie and hoisted him into the seat. But Dickie had run around to the other side of the cart and clambered up like a monkey, to join his brother.

“All right, sir,” said Tom, wheeling the eager bay horse. It was nearing time for the latter’s oats, and he smelled them! “Out of the way, kids. They’ll send a wagon down for you, all right, after luncheon, I reckon.”

Just then Ruth happened to notice something smoking in Dickie’s hand.

“What have you there, child?” she demanded. “Not a nasty cigarette?”

He held out, solemnly, and as usual wordlessly, a smoking bit of punk.

“Where did you get that? Oh! drop it!” cried Ruth, fearing for the fireworks and the explosives under the front seat. She meant for Dickie to throw it out of the wagon, but the youngster took the command literally.

He dropped it. He dropped it right into the box of fireworks. Then things began to happen!

CHAPTER XXI – A VERY BUSY TIME

“Oh, Tom!” shrieked Ruth, and seized the boy’s arm. The bay horse was just plunging ahead, eager to be off for the stable and his manger. The high cart was whirled through the gateway as the first explosion came!

Pop, pop, pop! sputter – BANG!

It seemed as though the horse leaped more than his own length, and yanked all four wheels of the cart off the ground. There was a chorus of screams in the Caslons’ dooryard, but after that first cry, Ruth kept silent.

The rockets shot out of the box amidships with a shower of sparks. The Roman candles sprayed their varied colored balls – dimmed now by daylight – all about the cart.

Tom hung to the lines desperately, but the scared horse had taken the bit in his teeth and was galloping up the road toward Sunrise Farm, quite out of hand.

After that first grab at Tom’s arm, Ruth did not interfere with him. She turned about, knelt on the seat-cushion, and, one after the other, swept the twins across the sputtering, shooting bunch of fireworks, and into the space between her and Tom and the dashboard.

Providentially the shooting rockets headed into the air, and to the rear. As the big horse dashed up the hill, swinging the light vehicle from side to side behind him, there was left behind a trail of smoke and fire that (had it been night-time) would have been a brilliant spectacle.

Mr. Caslon and the orphans started after the amazing thing tearing up the road – but to no purpose. Nothing could be done to stop the explosion now. The sparks flew all about. Although Mr. Caslon had bought a wealth of small rockets, candles, mines, flower-pots, and the like, never had so many pieces been discharged in so short a time!

It was sputter, sputter, bang, bang, the cart vomiting flame and smoke, while the horse became a perfectly frenzied creature, urged on by the noise behind him. Tom could only cling to the reins, Ruth clung to the twins, and all by good providence were saved from an overturn.

All the time – and, of course, the half-mile or more from Caslons’ to the entrance to the Steele estate, was covered in a very few moments – all the time Ruth was praying that the fire-crackers Tom had bought and hidden under the front seat would not be ignited.

The reports of the rockets, and the like, became desultory. Some set pieces and triangles went off with the hissing of snakes. Was the explosion over?

So it seemed, and the maddened horse turned in at the gateway. The cart went in on two wheels, but it did not overturn.

The race had begun to tell on the bay. He was covered with foam and his pace was slackening. Perhaps the peril was over – Ruth drew a long breath for the first time since the horse had made its initial jump.

And then – with startling suddenness – there was a sputter and bang! Off went the firecrackers, package after package. A spark had burned through the paper wrapper and soon there was such a popping under that front seat as shamed the former explosions!

Had the horse been able to run any faster, undoubtedly he would have done so; but as the cart went tearing up the drive toward the front of the big house, the display of fireworks, etc., behind the front seat, and the display of alarm on the part of the four on the seat, advertised to all beholders that the occasion was not, to say the least, a common one.

The cart itself was scorched and was afire in places, the sputtering of the fire-crackers continued while the horse tore up the hill. Tom had bought a generous supply and it took some time for them all to explode.

Fortunately the front drop of the seat was a solid panel of deal, or Ruth’s skirt might have caught on fire – or perhaps the legs of the twins would have been burned.

As for the two little fellows, they never even squealed! Their eyes shone, they had lost their caps in the back of the cart, their short curls blew out straight in the wind, and their cheeks glowed. When the runaway appeared over the crest of the hill and the crowd at Sunrise Farm beheld them, it was evident that Willie and Dickie were enjoying themselves to the full!

Poor Tom, on whose young shoulders the responsibility of the whole affair rested, was braced back, with his feet against the footboard, the lines wrapped around his wrists, and holding the maddened horse in to the best of his ability.

Bobbins on one side, and Ralph Tingley on the other, ran into the roadway and caught the runaway by the bridle. The bay was, perhaps, quite willing to halt by this time. Mr. Steele ran out, and his first exclamation was:

“My goodness, Tom Cameron! you’ve finished that horse!”

“I hope not, sir,” panted Tom, rather pale. “But I thought he’d finish us before he got through.”

By this time the explosions had ceased. Everything of an explosive nature – saving the twins themselves – in the cart seemed to have gone off. And now Willie ejaculated:

“Gee! I never rode so fast before. Wasn’t it great, Dickie?”

“Yep,” agreed Master Dickie, with rather more emphasis than usual.

Sister Sadie appeared from the rear premises, vastly excited, too, but when she lifted the twins down and found not a scratch upon them, she turned to Ruth with a delighted face.

“You took care of them just like you loved ’em, Miss,” she whispered, as Ruth tumbled out of the cart, too, into her arms. “Oh, dear! don’t you dare get sick – you ain’t hurt, are you?”

“No, no!” exclaimed Ruth, having hard work to crowd back the tears. “But I’m almost scared to death. That – that young one!” and she grabbed at Dickie. “What did you drop that punk into the fireworks for?”

“Huh?” questioned the imperturbable Dickie.

“Why didn’t you throw that lighted punk away?” and Ruth was tempted to shake the little rascal.

But instantly the voluble Willie shouldered his way to the front. “Gee, Miss! he thought you wanted him to drop it right there. You said so. An’ – an’ – Well, he didn’t know the things in the box would go off of themselves. Did you Dickie?”

“Nope,” responded his twin.

“Do forgive ’em, Miss Ruth,” whispered Sadie Raby. “I wouldn’t want Mr. Steele to get after ’em. You know – he can be sumpin’ fierce!”

“Well,” sighed Ruth Fielding, “they’re the ‘terrible twins’ right enough. Oh, Tom!” she added, as young Cameron came to her to shake hands.

“You’re getting better and better,” said Tom, grinning. “I’d rather be in a wreck with you, Ruthie – of almost any kind – than with anybody else I know. Those kids don’t even know what you saved them from, when you dragged ’em over the back of that seat.”

“Sh!” she begged, softly.

“And it’s a wonder we weren’t all blown to glory!”

“It was a mercy we were not seriously hurt,” agreed Ruth.

But then there was too much bustle and general talk for them to discuss the incident quietly. The horse was led away to the stable and there attended to. Fortunately he was not really injured, but the cart would have to go to the painter’s.