CHAPTER III

GOOD OLD TIMES

Ruth drew in great lungfuls of the fresh air. Her next thought was for Aunt Alvirah and her school friends. She gave Tom’s arm a tug and started around toward the front of the theater.

“If any of them are hurt!” Tom heard her murmur, as he followed.

“Take it easy,” warned the young fellow, seeing that the girl was dizzy and weak from her terrible experience. “We will go round to the front of the theater. Probably all our crowd have found their way to the street by this time.”

As a matter of fact, when Tom and Ruth reached the street they found that the theater had been practically emptied. Crowds had already gathered curiously about the smoke-ridden place. Cheslow’s limited police force was trying noisily and rather ineffectually to keep people back. The local fire engines had also arrived and firemen were taking their lines of hose and chemical fire extinguishers into the theater. Smoke, there seemed to be in plenty but scarcely any flames.

Those who had constituted the audience were breaking up into small, shaken groups, some wending their way homeward, intent upon reaching shelter and safety as soon as possible.

Small children were wailing heart-brokenly, women were half hysterical, the men were white and nervous.

But when Ruth’s eager eyes, searching, descried her own party, all together and unharmed, as far as she could see, her relief knew no bounds.

She saw them before they discovered her.

Aunt Alvirah and Uncle Jabez were the center of the crowd of excited and gesticulating young folks. The latter seemed trying to soothe and comfort the little old woman, but Aunt Alvirah’s quick, dark eyes darted unceasingly in all directions.

When she discovered Ruth and Tom pushing eagerly through the crowd a loud and tremulous cry broke from her old lips.

“My pretty!” she cried. “My pretty!”

The next moment Ruth’s arms were about the little old woman in a hug hard enough and wild enough to break every bone in the frail old body. However, it is doubtful if Aunt Alvirah would have cared at the moment how many bones she lost as long as Ruth had been returned to her.

“I must say this is a fine show you staged, Ruth Fielding!” remarked Jennie Marchand, regarding Ruth reproachfully. “Trying to exterminate us all as soon as we arrive in Cheslow!”

Ruth laughed unsteadily.

“It wasn’t the most cordial reception in the world,” she admitted dryly. “But I didn’t have a hand in it, girls, honest!”

“Didn’t you, now?” It was Mary Cox who spoke with scathing sarcasm.

“Compared to some of those scenes in your picture, Ruth Fielding,” laughed Nettie Parsons, “this fire scene held no thrills at all.”

“It held enough for me,” sighed Mercy Curtis. “It tore a rent in my dress that will never come right again.”

“As long as it didn’t tear a rent in you,” said Helen gayly, “you needn’t complain, my dear.”

The young folks watched the firemen come and go. Only one stream was turned on and several chemical extinguishers were brought into play, and that was all.

“More smoke than anything,” remarked one of the boys.

“Gee, but what an explosion!” remarked another. “I thought the roof was going off!”

Gradually the excitement died down and the crowd was considerably thinned out.

“And now,” suggested Chess, who had been silent much longer than usual--probably due to shock--“what do you all say to some eats? I myself am possessed of a hollow void that will require considerable attention on my part to fill.”

“How vulgar!” sniffed Helen. “Girls, don’t you envy me?”

“It begins to look,” said Jennie Marchand, “as though my wedding present to you would be a large, fat and freshly-edited cook book.”

“Jennie,” sighed Chess ecstatically, “you certainly are a friend of mine!”

Ruth cut short the interchange of nonsense by suggesting that Aunt Alvirah should be taken somewhere out of the chill of the damp night air. Uncle Jabez, having had enough excitement for one night, announced that he was going home. But Helen would not hear of his returning so soon, knowing that Aunt Alvirah would think it her duty to go back to the Red Mill with him.

Then Ruth was given her second big surprise of the evening.

“We’ve arranged a real party for you, Ruth Fielding, at the hotel,” Mercy Curtis announced gleefully, laughing eyes on Ruth’s astonished face. “_You_ are to be the guest of honor. Aunt Alvirah is to sit on your right hand and no one is allowed to go home.”

“Until the feast is nothing but a sweet memory,” finished Jennie with a sigh.

Every one laughed and in the general merriment no one noticed Uncle Jabez’ muttered complaints. They hustled him with Aunt Alvirah into Tom’s car.

Ruth lingered before the theater with Nettie Parsons and Barclay Clayton, who was acting as her escort for the evening.

“Some films in the storeroom exploded,” said Barclay--popularly known as “Bark”--as he followed the direction of Ruth’s gaze to the now almost deserted theater. “Some men were talking about it before you and Tom showed up. Not much fire--mostly smoke.”

Ruth nodded. Firemen had easily conquered the small blaze resulting from the explosion and were now leaving the deserted building.

“I hope no one was seriously hurt,” Nettie said, as the three, responding to urgent calls from the rest of the party, crossed the pavement. “It was certainly a panic for a while.”

“It is lucky,” said Ruth soberly, “that some one wasn’t killed.”

When the party reached the Cheslow hotel and were ushered into the private dining room that Ruth’s chums had engaged for the evening in honor of the grand occasion, the excitement and the distressing events of the evening were almost forgotten.

Aunt Alvirah forgot all about the ache in her back and bones of which she had complained monotonously for many years. Even Uncle Jabez brightened perceptibly at sight of the good and plentiful food and set to upon the tempting viands with a will.

“Your picture was a wonder, Ruth,” Mercy Curtis called across from her side of the table. “From now on it will be my one ambition to take a trip to your north country.”

“It must be wonderful to have all those thrilling adventures,” sighed The Fox. “For goodness’ sake, don’t give me any more nuts, Charles,” she said to the attentive young man on her right hand. “Before you know it, I shall turn into one!”

“Turn?” queried Jennie, with an insulting emphasis not missed by Miss Cox, who merely made a face at her in reply.

Ruth said suddenly from her place of honor at the head of the long table:

“Girls, this is so exactly like old times that I feel I must be dreaming. You can’t any of you be real!”

“Gaze upon the fast-disappearing food, Ruth, and behold the refutation of your dream,” chuckled Jennie Marchand. “Phantoms never ate like these. Pass me a pickle some one, ere I starve!”

“Anyway,” Ruth persisted, “now that I have you all here in Cheslow, you shan’t get away easily! Isn’t that so, Aunt Alvirah?”

The latter nodded cordially, though Uncle Jabez was seen to glance up sharply at his niece.

“There isn’t anything you want, my pretty, that I don’t want, too,” said the little old woman simply.

Ruth squeezed her hand beneath the table and said so softly that no one else could hear:

“We will have some one in from the village to help. You shan’t have any more work, Auntie.”

Helen was speaking, and with an emphasis that caught Ruth’s attention.

“If you think you are going to have the girls all to yourself, Ruth Fielding, you never were more mistaken in all the course of your eventful career. I intend to do some entertaining, too!”

Ruth was about to make some laughing reply when the door opened suddenly. Every one turned toward the sound. Ruth gave a little gasp of surprise and delight. She rose quickly and went forward with outstretched hands.

“Mr. Hammond! Well, this is my night of surprises!”

Mr. Hammond was immediately dragged to the table and a waiter was directed to bring another plate for him at once.

“I hoped to reach Cheslow in time for the run-off of your picture,” the president of the Alectrion Film Corporation said, his face ruddier and pleasanter than ever. “I wanted particularly to hear your address. But I was detained by business that would not be put off.”

“It was good of you to come at all,” said Ruth, hospitably making sure that his plate was well filled with good things.