Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures Part 13

"No. Nor for many other nights, if at all," the preceptress said firmly.

"The West Dormitory is badly damaged. Of course, no girl need expect to find much that belongs to her intact. I am sorry. What I can replace, I will. We must be cheerful and thankful that no life was lost."

"What did I tell you?" muttered the fleshy girl. "Those firemen from Lumberton always save the cellar."

"Now," said Mrs. Tellingham, "the girls belonging in the East Dormitory will form and march to their rooms. It is late enough. We must all get quiet for the night. The ruins will wait until morning to be looked at, so I must request you to go directly to bed."

Somebody started singing--and of course it was their favorite, "One Wide River," that they sang, beginning with the very first verse. The words of the last stanza floated back to the West Dormitory girls as the others marched across the campus:

"'Sweetbriars enter, ten by ten---- That River of Knowledge to cross!

They never know what happens then, With one wide river to cross!

One wide river!

One wide River of Knowledge!

One wide river!

One wide river to cross.'"

"But just the same it's no singing matter for us," grumbled Belle. "Turned out of our beds to sleep this way! And all we've lost!" She began to weep.

It was difficult for even Heavy to coax up a smile or to bring forth a new joke.

Ruth and her chums secured a corner of the great room, and they insisted that Mercy Curtis have the single cot that had been secured.

"I don't mind it much," Ann Hicks declared. "I've camped out so many times on the plains without half the comforts of this camp. Oh! I could tell you a lot about camping out that you Easterners have no idea of."

"Postpone it till to-morrow, please, Miss Hicks," said Miss Brokaw, dryly.

"It is time for you all to undress."

After they were between the sheets Helen crept over to Ruth and hid her face upon her chum's shoulder, where she cried a few tears.

"All my pretty frocks that Mrs. Murchiston allowed me to pick out! And my books! And--and----"

The tragic voice of Jennie Stone reached their ears: "Oh, girls! I've lost in the dreadful fire the only belt I could wear. It's a forty-two."

There was little laughter in the morning, however, when the girls went out-of-doors and saw the gaunt ruins of the dear old West Dormitory.

The roof had fallen in. Almost every pane of gla.s.s was broken. The walls had crumbled in places, and over all was a sheet of ice where the cascades from the firemen's hose had blanketed the ruins.

It needed only a glance to show that to repair the building was out of the question. The West Dormitory must be constructed as an entirely new edifice.

CHAPTER XI

ONE THING THE OLD DOCTOR DID

Every girl in Briarwood Hall was much troubled by the result of the fire.

The old rivalry between the East and the West Dormitories, that had been quite fierce at times and in years before, had died out under Ruth Fielding's influence.

Indeed, since the inception of the Sweetbriars a better spirit had come over the entire school. Mrs. Tellingham in secret spoke of this as the direct result of Ruth's character and influence; for although Ruth Fielding was not namby-pamby, she was opposed to every form of rude behavior, or to the breaking of rules which everyone knew to be important.

The old forms of hazing--even the "Masque of the Marble Harp," as it was called--were now no longer honored, save in the breach. The initiations of the Sweetbriars were novel inventions--usually of Ruth's active brain; but they never put the candidate to unpleasant or risky tasks.

There certainly were rivalries and individual quarrels and sometimes clique was arrayed against clique in the school. This was a school of upwards of two hundred girls--not angels.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Tellingham and the instructors noted with satisfaction how few disturbances they had to settle and quarrels to take under advis.e.m.e.nt. This cla.s.s of girls whom they hoped to graduate in June were the most helpful girls that had ever attended Briarwood Hall.

"The influence of Ruth and some of her friends has extended to our next cla.s.s as well," Mrs. Tellingham had said. "Nettie Parsons and Ann Hicks will be of a.s.sistance, too, for another year. I wish, however, that Ruth Fielding's example and influence might continue through _my_ time----I certainly do."

The girls of the East Dormitory held a meeting before breakfast and pa.s.sed resolutions requesting Mrs. Tellingham to rearrange their duo and quartette rooms so that as many as possible of the West Dormitory girls could be housed with them.

"We're all willing to double up," said Sarah Fish, who had become leader of the East Dormitory. "I'm perfectly willing to divide my bureau drawers, book-shelves, table and bed with any of you orphans. Poor things! It must be awful to be burned out."

"Some of us haven't much to put in bureau drawers or on bookshelves," said Helen, inclined to be lugubrious. "I--I haven't a decent thing to wear but what I have on right now. I unpacked my trunk clear to the very bottom layer."

However, as a rule, selfish considerations did not enter into the girls'

discussion of the fire. When they looked at the ruined building, they saw mainly the loss to the school. A loyalty is bred in the pupils of such an inst.i.tution as Briarwood Hall, which is only less strong than love of home and country.

A new structure to house a hundred girls would cost a deal of money.

There was no studying done before breakfast the morning after the fire; and at the tables the girls' tongues ran until Miss Brokaw declared the room sounded like a great rookery she had once disturbed near an old English rectory.

"I positively cannot stand it, young ladies," declared the nervous teacher, who had been up most of the night. "Such continuous chatter is enough to crack one's eardrums."

The girls really were too excited to be very considerate, although they did not mean to offend Miss Brokaw. If the window or an outer door was opened, the very tang of sour smoke on the air set their tongues off again about the fire.

Once in chapel, however, a rather solemn feeling fell upon them. The teacher whose turn it was to read, selected a psalm of grat.i.tude that seemed to breathe just what was in all their hearts. It gave thanks for deliverance from the terrors of the night and those of the noonday, for the Power that encircles poor humanity and shelters it from harm.

"We, too, have been sheltered," thought Ruth and her friends. "We have been guarded from the evil that flyeth by night and from the terror that stalketh at noonday. Surely G.o.d is our Keeper and Strength. We will not be afraid."

When Helen played one of the old, old hymns of the Church she brought such sweet tones from the strings of the violin that Miss Picolet hushed her accompaniment, surprised and delighted. And when they sang, Ruth Fielding's rich and mellow voice carried the air in perfect harmony.

When the hymn was finished the girls turned glowing faces upon Mrs.

Tellingham who, despite a sleepless night, looked fresh and sweet.

"For the first time in the history of Briarwood Hall as a school," she said, speaking so that all could hear her, "a really serious calamity has fallen."

"We are all determined upon one thing, I am sure," pursued Mrs.

Tellingham. "We will not worry about what is already done. Water that has run by the mill will never drive the wheel, you know. We will look forward to the rebuilding of the West Dormitory, and that as soon as it can possibly be done."

"Hoo-ray!" cried Jennie Stone, leading a hearty cheer.

"We will have the ruin of the old structure torn away at once."

The murmur of appreciation rose again from the girls a.s.sembled.

"I do not recall at this moment just how much insurance was on the West Dormitory; I leave those details to Doctor Tellingham, and he is now looking up the papers in the office. But I am sure there is ample to rebuild, and if all goes well, a new West Dormitory will rise in the place of these smoking ruins before our patrons and our friends come to our graduation exercises in June."

"Oh, bully!" cried Ann Hicks, under her breath. "I want Uncle Bill to see Briarwood at its very best."