CHAPTER VIII

A Strange Visitor

IT was the next day after her surprise party that Ruth was running after Stray who had wriggled under the gate and had scampered down the street with Ruth in hot pursuit and calling:

"Stray, Stray, naughty dog, come back."

The little girl knew that he would probably come back in his own good time, but she and Billy did not like him to associate with certain evilly disposed curs around in the next street, and moreover, he was still such a little fellow, ready to make friends with any one who encouraged a friendship, that they were afraid he might be picked up and carried off. Fast though Ruth's legs hurried, Stray's four carried him faster, but his career came to a full stop when a man coming in an opposite direction caught him and held him fast till Ruth ran up panting.

"Oh, thank you for catching Stray," she said. "He is only in fun, of course, but we don't like him to get into the next street; there are so many bad dogs there."

"And you must look out for his morals," returned the man, lifting himself from where he was bending over holding the squirming Stray. "What's your name?" he asked sharply and dropping his jocose tone while he bent a keen look upon the child.

"Ruth Henrietta Brackenbury," came the reply promptly enough.

The man drew in his breath sharply. "Ruth," he said, "that was her name too, and I think she would have looked much like you."

"Your little girl, do you mean? Is she—is she dead?" Ruth asked.

"I am afraid so."

"Oh, don't you know?"

The man shook his head and walked along by Ruth's side as she dragged the unwilling Stray toward home. "Do you live near here?" he asked presently.

"Yes, just around the corner. We used to live in that big house," she nodded toward the white pillars which showed between the russet brown leaves of the oaks.

"And why did you leave there?" asked the man pleasantly.

"The major died, and Aunt Hester didn't have enough money to live there, so she and Billy and I came to the little brown house. It is a nice little house, only it isn't very big."

"Billy is your brother?"

"No, not exactly; he is almost though," returned Ruth a little doubtfully. She did not want to seem to deny Billy. "His name is Billy Beatty," she added.

"I suppose then he is a nephew of your aunt as you are her niece."

"Yes." Ruth felt that this was quite the truth.

"Your aunt's name is Brackenbury, then, or is it Beatty?" asked the man abruptly after a few minutes' silence.

"It is Brackenbury." Ruth wondered at the many questions. "This is where I live," she told him when they had reached the gate. "Goodbye. Thank you very much for helping me catch Stray."

Then, as the man stood looking at her with that same searching expression, she felt impelled to ask: "What was your little girl's name?"

"It wasn't my own little girl of whom I was thinking, but of the child of my dead brother, my little niece, Ruth Mayfield, who might well have looked like you."

Very pale and with eyes burning, Ruth backed away, then turned and fled into the house giving but one backward fearful look. The man looked after her thoughtfully for a moment and then slowly moved away.

Ruth ran through the kitchen to her own little room which opened out of it. She took off her hat and coat and threw them on the bed; then she crowded herself behind a chair into a corner as if she would get out of sight of and as far away as possible from every one. She felt much as she did when a certain bad dream haunted her. In it she was always fleeing from a crazy man who pursued her with a sword. She was troubled and afraid. Mayfield, that was her own name before she had been given that of Brackenbury. She crouched in her corner thinking, thinking.

Who was this man? Not her father, of course, because he had said it was his niece of whom she reminded him. Any relatives that she might have had she remembered but vaguely. She had a dim recollection of a grandmother, of a Christmas day when she was about three years old and when uncles and aunts had given her presents, but a child forgets such things very soon, and relationships are difficult to grasp at a tender age.

Of course, this man might be her own uncle or perhaps there were other little Ruth Mayfields in the world. At all events, she determined to say nothing about the man to Miss Hester or Billy, for a great fear was in her heart that he might want to take her away. If he did attempt such a thing and she were warned of it, she reflected that she would hide somewhere till he gave up the search.

She sat long in her corner pondering over these dreadful possibilities till it began to grow dusk and she heard Miss Hester stirring about the kitchen, making ready for supper. Then duty called her; she must set the table, and she crept out blinking as she faced the light in the room.

"What a little mouse you have been. Were you asleep, Ruth?" said Miss Hester as she came in.

"No, Aunt Hester," returned the child soberly, "I was only thinking."

"You were so quiet that I didn't even know you were in the house. How long have you been in? I was just thinking of sending Billy to hunt you up. No wonder Dr. Peaslee calls you Miss Mouse, you slip around just like one."

"I've been in—oh, I don't know just how long. It wasn't a bit dark when I came."

"I saw you running after Stray and that was my last glimpse of you."

"I came right back; pretty soon I mean, and then I came in the house after I had shut Stray in the wood-shed. I must go let him out, poor doggie. He was so miserable, Aunt Hester, for he knew he was being punished for running away."

Just then Billy came in, Stray at his heels. The dog nosed Ruth fawningly with much wagging of tail and twisting of body as if trying to become on good terms with her again. Presently a knock at the front door sent Billy to answer.

He came back directly. "A gentleman wants to see you, Aunt Hester," he reported.

Ruth started and looked around tremblingly. "What does he look like?" she whispered when Miss Hester had left the room.

"I couldn't see very well," Billy answered.

"Was he tall, and did he wear a gray overcoat? Oh, Billy—" She paused.

"What's the matter? You look like something was after you," said Billy.

"Maybe something is," returned Ruth.

"Oh, you silly," Billy spoke contemptuously. "Do you hear a mouse, or what is the matter?"

"No, I don't hear anything, but—oh, never mind, I'll tell you some time."

"You girls are always getting up some mystery," said the boy. "Say, I'm awful hungry, and that man is stayin' the mischief of a time. What do you suppose he wants?"

Ruth hesitated, then she fixed her solemn eyes upon Billy. "He wants me, I expect," she said impressively.

Billy gave her a look. "Say, look here, what are you up to? Is it some sort of make-believe like you and Lucia are always playing?"

"No, it isn't. Come over here by the wood-box, Billy, and I'll tell you if you promise not to breathe it to a soul."

"All right. Fire ahead."

"Cross your heart you won't tell."

Billy went through the ceremony with due solemnity, and then Ruth poured forth her surprising story ending with, "And so, I'm awfully afraid he has come to take me away."

"Maybe he's got loads of money," returned the practical Billy. "And maybe he's got a fine house and a horse and carriage and all that."

"Oh, I don't believe that, and anyhow, do you suppose if he has that I would want to leave Aunt Hester?" The same passionate love and loyalty that Ruth had given her mother she was beginning to bestow upon Miss Hester. "Besides," she went on, "I'm named Brackenbury now, and I can't have two names any more."

"Oh, well, don't let's suppose any more till we know for sure," said Billy. "Perhaps it isn't the same man at all, and, if it is, perhaps he wouldn't want you to leave here. Say, don't let's wait for her to come out to supper. I'm half-starved and we won't have time for our lessons before bedtime if we don't begin soon. You can keep the tea hot, can't you?"

"Yes, of course. We might eat our supper, I suppose, and then we can wash up the dishes we have soiled and let Aunt Hester's stand."

This they concluded to do, and it was well they did, for nearly two hours passed before the door closed behind the stranger, and the children had finished studying their lessons when Miss Hester returned to them.

Billy was nodding over his spelling-book but Ruth's eyes were big and bright. She put down her geography and ran to Miss Hester, clasped her waist and looked up into her face with pleading eyes. Miss Hester stooped to kiss her, but she gave no explanation of her visitor's errand.

"You ate your supper?" she said. "That was right. I didn't realize how late it was."

She drunk a cup of tea and ate a bit of bread as if she were not aware of what she was doing, her face very thoughtful meanwhile. After her meal, she sat still lost in thought, Ruth watching her furtively.

Presently Miss Hester roused herself. "It is time you children were in bed," she said. "Run along, Billy, you look sleepy enough to drop off on the stairs. Come, Ruth."

She arose to give Billy his good-night kiss after which he stumbled up the stairway, and then she sat down again and held out her arms to Ruth who threw herself into them and hid her face. "You knew, my little girl, didn't you?" said Miss Hester, softly. "I saw that you did as soon as I came in."

Ruth's arms went tight around her neck. "Will he take me away? Will he, Aunt Hester?" she began to sob. "Oh, don't let him. Don't."

Miss Hester drew a long sigh, and held the child closer. "It is a difficult question, my little girl," she said.

"But—but, I am your own little girl. I am named Brackenbury. You said so. You told me you were just exactly the same as my mother and my mother wouldn't let me go. Oh, no, she would never have done it."

"And I shall not, if I can help it, dear. We will not talk of it to-night. I am to see your uncle again. One thing is sure, you shall not leave me unless you are willing to go."

"Then I never will." Ruth pressed her cheek against Miss Hester's. "I am yours, yours, your little girl, and nobody else's. My name is Ruth Henrietta Brackenbury. It is. It is."

"It surely is. Come, do not think about it any more to-night. You shall stay with me always, always, if after your uncle has talked to you it seems to be the thing that you most want to do."

Ruth felt sure that no amount of talking could shake her decision, and, if it depended upon herself, she need have no fears, so she felt comforted. "He is my real uncle then," she said.

"Yes, I think there is no doubt of it. Come, come, you must go to bed. Billy is probably asleep before this."

But though to bed Ruth went, it was not to go to sleep. Her eyes seemed propped wide open. There were a hundred questions she wanted to ask, and she was sure that she could never wait till morning to ask them. She heard the rockers of Miss Hester's chair going squeaky-squeak, squeaky-squeak upon a loose board in the floor. She wondered if she were at work upon the buttonholes she disliked so much, or what she was doing.

After what seemed to her hours of lying still, listening to the monotonous squeak, Ruth crept out of bed and stole to the door. Miss Hester, her head against the back of the chair, her eyes fixed on space was still rocking back and forth. Her hands held no work, her supper dishes stood unwashed. Such a condition of affairs displayed an unusual state of mind. Miss Hester was never idle and to leave one's supper dishes unwashed was a sign that something far beyond the ordinary must be the matter. If it were certain that Ruth was not to leave her adopted mother, why this anxious countenance, these troubled eyes and unsmiling mouth? The child crept nearer.

The slight noise she made aroused Miss Hester. "Why, child," she said, "what are you doing up? You should have been asleep long ago."

"I couldn't go to sleep," Ruth replied. "My eyes would pop open. I counted ever so many, up to a thousand, I think, and I tried to see sheep jumping over a fence, like you did that time you told the doctor you couldn't sleep, but I just wanted to ask you so many questions that I couldn't think of anything else."

"Get my big shawl to wrap around you and come satisfy your curiosity, if that is what is troubling you," said Miss Hester, smiling.

Ruth padded back to Miss Hester's room, found the shawl and trailed back with the fringe tickling her bare ankles. She climbed into Miss Hester's lap and stuck her feet out toward the stove in which a fire still burned.

"I want to know first," she began, "how that man knows he is my uncle."

"He was attracted to you by your likeness to your father and the name of Ruth. When he left you, he went back to the hotel and inquired into your history. Mrs. Green of course knew all about you and gave him a full account of how you came to be my little girl."

"When she told him that he ought to have been satisfied," Ruth commented. "He oughtn't to have come here bothering us. What did he do it for, when he knew I truly belonged to you?"

"Because he had promised your father to try to find you and your mother. He traced you both to Elder Street and learned that your mother had died there and that you had been taken away."

"What's become of my father, and why didn't he come back to us?" Ruth spoke resentfully.

"He meant to come, your uncle said, but he had a hard time of it and was not one to be very successful in this world. He was taken ill out west and, when he knew he could not live, he sent word to your uncle who went out and stayed with him till he died. Before that, your father had written to your mother but his letter was returned. It was just before he died that your uncle promised to find you and your mother, and if either were living to do all he could for you."

"Your uncle said that up to that time he had no idea that his brother had left home. He had not heard from him for two or three years, for they lived quite far apart, and your uncle, being a successful man, had no patience with your father who was unsuccessful. He felt that your father had been extravagant in spending all the money which had been left him by his father, and told him he must shift for himself. Do you understand all this, Ruth?"

"Yes, I think so. Mother said father wasn't a bad man."

"No, I don't think he was, only foolish and extravagant, with no idea of business. Instead of living simply on the income from his money, he lived beyond his means, invested his money foolishly and lost it all. Then with the idea that he could make another fortune, he left home only to become worse off and to die among strangers."

"I suppose," said Ruth sagely, after a short silence, "that he didn't like to come home till he had some money to bring mother, and he never came because he hadn't any to bring."

"That is about the way it was."

"It wasn't very kind, though, to leave mother alone," said Ruth. "I think he ought to have stayed to take care of her or else he ought to have taken us with him."

"It would seem so, dear, but I think he couldn't bear to have your mother earning money to support him. It would have been another to feed. Before he went away, she was earning a little by writing for newspapers."

Ruth nodded. She remembered the constant writing interrupted by the haunting cough. She sat thinking it all over. After a time she turned suddenly. "One more to feed does make a difference; Billy says so."

"Yes, I am sorry to say it does," returned Miss Hester with a sigh.

"Then I don't think father was so very wrong," said the child maturely. "I can love him and be sorry for him if that is why he went away, and I think that is the way mother felt, too. She knew he meant to come back. I will go to bed now, Aunt Hester."

She slipped down from Miss Hester's lap, but, as she trailed through the door to her room, she stopped.

"There's one more thing I'd like to ask, Aunt Hester. When is the man—my uncle, coming to see me?"

"To-morrow."

"How did he happen to come here to look for me?"

"He wasn't looking for you, but you happened to come in his way while he was in the town on business. He says, though, that he never has failed to look for you everywhere he has been. Now, is that all? You will not want to get up in the morning."

Ruth nodded gravely and crept into bed again, her mind full of old memories and new thoughts.