That’s how I came to be acquainted with your little dog. He was with your father on the train.”
“Why, Pop!” cried the eager boy. “You never told me a word about it. And you must know this girl.”
Mr. Ravell Bulson only grunted and scowled.
“What’s your name, girl?” cried the boy, curiously.
“I am Nan Sherwood,” the girl said, kissing him and then giving him a gentle push toward his father’s outstretched and impatient hand. “If I don’t see you again I shall often think of you. Be good to Buster.”
“You must tell me about being snowed up, Pop,” urged little Junior, as Nan turned away. “And I like that girl.”
“That isn’t much to tell–and _I_ don’t like her–nor any of her name,” snapped Mr. Bulson.
“But you’ll tell me about the snowed-up train?”
“Yes, yes!” cried his father, impatiently, anxious to get his lame son away from Nan’s vicinity. “I’ll tell you all about it.”
Nan was quite sure that the fat man would be ashamed to give his little son the full particulars of his own experience on the stalled train. The little chap, despite his affliction, was an attractive child and seemed to have inherited none of his father’s unhappy disposition.
“Good bye, Nan Sherwood!” he cried after the girl. “Come, Buster! Come, Buster! My, Pop! Buster likes that girl!”
“Well, I don’t,” declared the fat man, still scowling at Nan.
“Don’t you?” cried Junior. “That’s funny. I like her, and Buster likes her, and you don’t, Pop. I hope I’ll see you again, Nan Sherwood.”
His father almost dragged him away, the spaniel, on a leash, cavorting about the lame boy. Nan was amazed by the difference in the behavior of Mr. Bulson and his afflicted son.
“And won’t he be surprised when he learns that it wasn’t Papa Sherwood, after all, but that wicked negro porter, who stole his wallet and watch?” Nan mused. “I hope they find the man and punish him. But–it really does seem as though Mr. Bulson ought to be punished, too, for making my father so much trouble.”
Later “Nosey” Thompson _was_ captured; but he had spent all Mr. Bulson’s money in a drunken spree, and while intoxicated had been robbed of the watch. So, in the end, the quarrelsome fat man, who had so maligned Mr. Sherwood and caused him so much trouble, recovered nothing–not even his lost temper.
“Which must be a good thing,” was Bess Harley’s comment. “For if I had a temper like his, I’d want to lose it–and for good and all!”
“But there must be some good in that fat man,” Nan said, reflectively.
“Humph! Now find some excuse for _him_, Nan Sherwood!” said her chum.
“No. Not an excuse. He maligned Papa Sherwood and I can’t forgive him. But his little boy thinks the world of him, I can see; and Mr. Bulson is very fond of the little boy–‘Junior,’ as he calls him.”
“Well,” quoth Bess, “so does a tiger-cat love its kittens. He’s a gouty, grumpy old fellow, with an in-growing grouch. I couldn’t see a mite of good in him with a spyglass.”
Her chum laughed heartily at that statement. “Well, let us hope he will keep so far away from us after this that we will have to use a spyglass to see him at all.”
“And there’s another person who can stay away from us,” said Bess, suddenly.
“Who’s that?” queried Nan, looking up at the change in Bess’ voice.
“Linda Riggs. She’s coming this way,” Bess said, tartly.
This conversation occurred in the skating rink, and while Nan was having her skates strapped on by an attendant, for Walter Mason was not at the moment in sight.
The haughty daughter of the railroad president evidently proposed speaking with the chums from Tillbury. They had not seen her since the runaway and more than once Nan had wondered just what attitude Linda would take when they again met.
For Nan’s part, she would rather not have met the rich girl at all. She had no particular ill-feeling toward her now; although time was when Linda had done all in her power to hurt Nan’s reputation–and that not so very long past. But having actually helped to save the girl’s life, Nan Sherwood could not hold any grudge against Linda. Bess, on the other hand, bristled like an angry dog when she saw Linda approach.
Linda came skating along warily, and arrived at the chums’ bench by a series of graceful curves. She was rather a good skater, but more showy than firm on her skates.
“Oh, girls! I’m awful glad to see you,” Linda cried, boisterously–and that boisterousness doubtless was assumed to cover her natural embarrassment at meeting again the girl whom she had so injured. “I didn’t have time,” pursued Linda, hurriedly, “the other day, to thank you properly–or Walter–for helping me out of that sleigh. I _was_ scared.”
“I should think you would have been,” Bess said, rather grimly. “I’m sure I thought you would never get out of it alive.”
“Well,” repeated Linda, more doubtfully, for Nan had remained silent, “I wanted to thank you for what you did for me.”
“You needn’t thank me,” said Bess, sharply. “For I didn’t do a thing.”
“Well, Nan Sherwood did, I s’pose,” Linda observed, her color rising.
“You are heartily welcome if you think you need to thank me, Linda,” Nan said, quietly. “But Walter really did it all.”
“Of course!” said Linda, tossing her head, for Bess’ manner had rasped the rich girl, “I know it took Walter to do it. But I presumed you girls expected to be thanked, too,” and she turned sharply away.
“Oh, Bess! we ought not to have spoken as we did,” murmured Nan, contritely.
“Pooh! Let her go. Mean old thing!” exclaimed Bess. “And you didn’t say anything to get her mad. Crocodile tears! what did I tell you? Linda Riggs is a regular cat–“
“Both cat and crocodile?” giggled Nan. “Your natural history, Bess, honey, must be slightly twisted.”
“I’ve about got that girl’s number, just the same,” said Bess, slangily. “You wait, Nan. She’ll be just as mean when we get to Lakeview Hall as ever she was. Mark my word.”
“All right, Worthy Prophetess,” said Nan, seriously. “I mark thee well. But I am afraid we are in the wrong this time. We should have encouraged her attempt to be grateful.”
She had no idea–nor had Nan Sherwood herself–that it lay within Linda’s power, if it did in her wish, to injure Nan further. But Fate weaves strange webs of ordinary circumstances and that very evening Nan Sherwood came in close contact with Linda Riggs again, and the incident savored of a new peril, as keen as it was unexpected.
Walter was a minute late at the dinner table that night and as he slid into his seat beside Nan, after excusing himself to his mother and receiving her absolution in a smile, he whispered to Nan:
“What’s ‘on’ for after dinner?”
“I really do not know of anything, Walter,” she replied, smiling. “Don’t you suppose we girls ever want to keep quiet? This visit to your house has been one continual round of pleasure–“
“Yes. You get _your_ pleasure out of rescuing kids from the street, chasing runaway horses, hunting for runaway girls, and playing Sister of Charity to sick people. Say! your idea of pleasure, Nan Sherwood, is simply funny. Now, I’ve got something on for this evening, if you, and Bess, and Grace–and the kid, of course–want to go. But no crowd. My exchequer will not stand it.
“I’m running low in funds and father won’t let _me_ overdraw my allowance, although he lets Grace do it almost every month. He says a girl hasn’t any head for figures, anyway, and she’s to be excused.”
“Oh, my!” gasped Nan. “That maligns the sex. I ought not to allow that, Walter Mason.”
“Huh!” returned the boy, grinning. “Grace doesn’t mind how much the sex is maligned, I warrant, as long as father hands her out an extra five whenever she runs short.”
“But you haven’t told me what the scheme is for this evening,” Nan reminded him.
“Movies,” Walter said. “There’s a dandy new theatre opened on Halliburton Street. It isn’t far, and mother approves of the class of pictures they run. There are going to be some funny ones shown to-night, too. I’ll stand treat for you girls–but no more.”
“Dear me, Walter,” cried Nan. “You spend all your money on us girls.”
“It couldn’t go in a better cause,” retorted the generous boy, stoutly.
Permission for the evening’s outing was easily obtained, and the quintette of pleasure-seeking young folk hurried away immediately after dinner, so as to see the first show and get home early. Little Inez was as eager and excited as she could be over the prospect of seeing a real movie show.
“I seen some pictures once in a dance hall where a man let me sell me flowers,” she explained. “But, I never dared spend a nickel for no show. Me aunt would have scalped me–sure she would!”
Mr. Sherwood had seen Inez’s aunt that afternoon, at his little daughter’s request, and found that the woman dared make no objection as to their disposal of the child. In fact, she seemed a good deal relieved that kind friends had been raised for Inez.
The party arrived at the new picture palace to find a goodly crowd already assembled at the entrance. On this opening night there was a good deal of local interest shown, and the first picture was being finished when Nan Sherwood and her friends crowded into their seats.
“That’s a good picture, I warrant,” Walter said. “We want to stay and see that run over again. Ah-ha! here comes a Keynote Comedy. That will be a funny one, sure.”
“I like to laugh,” announced Inez, with her most serious air. “But I ain’t never had much time for it.”
“You poor little mite,” said Bess. “I should say you hadn’t. But you’ll laugh all right when you get home with us to Tillbury. Won’t she, Nan?”
“Of course she will,” agreed Nan, squeezing the little one close to her.
They did not, however, laugh much at the picture which followed. The reels did not seem to run very evenly. Either the operator was not an experienced one or there was something the matter with the machine. The flash-card, “Wait a minute, please,” appeared so frequently on the screen that the audience began to murmur, and some got up and went out.
There were others ready to take their places, and this continual changing of positions in the half-darkness of the house made a confusion that was hard to bear.
Nan and her friends moved over against the wall and another party came rustling in to take the seats in that row nearest to the aisle. Not until this crowd was seated did the party from the Mason house realize that it was anybody whom they knew.
Then Pearl Graves’ rather loud voice broke in upon Nan and Walter’s whispered conversation:
“Why! see who’s here?” she cried. “Hullo, Walter Mason. Who’s that you’ve got with you? Nan Sherwood, I’ll be bound. And Grace, and Bess Harley. Hullo, girls! Is the show any good?”
“For goodness’ sake!” interposed the sharp voice of the girl on the other side of Pearl. “Can’t we go anywhere without running up against that Nan Sherwood and her crowd?”
“Oh, you be still, Linda!” laughed good-natured Pearl. “You ought to be pleased as Punch to see Nan and Walter. Between them they just about saved your life when Granny Graves’ horses ran away with you the other day.”
Little Inez was on Nan’s other side and immediately Nan gave her attention to the child, leaving Walter free to talk with the new-comers if he chose.
“Did you like that picture, dear?” asked Nan of the little one.
“Hi! I liked it where the fat man slipped up on the soap at the top of the stairs and slid to the bottom where the scrub-woman left her tub of water. Do you ‘spect that was _real_ water, Nan Sherwood? He’d ha’ been drowned, wouldn’t he?”
“I guess it was real water,” laughed Nan. “But they wouldn’t let him be drowned in a picture.”
“I forget it’s a picture,” sighed little Inez, exhibiting thereby true dramatic feeling for the art of acting. To her small mind the pantomime seemed real.
Another reel was started. The projection of it flickered on the screen until it dazzled one’s eyes to try to watch it.
“Goodness!” gasped Pearl Graves. “I hope that won’t keep up.”
The excited little Hebrew who owned the theatre ran, sputtering, up the aisle, and climbed into the gallery to expostulate with the operator. There was an explosion of angry voices from the operator’s box when the proprietor reached it.
The reel was halted again–this time without the projection of the usual “Wait a minute, please,” card. The next instant there was another explosion; but not of voices.
A glare of greenish flame was projected from the box in the gallery where the machine was located–then followed a series of crackling, snapping explosions!
It was indeed startling, and there were a general craning of necks and excited whispering in the audience; but it might have gone no further had it not been for Linda Riggs.
It could not have been with malice–for the result swept Linda herself into the vortex of excitement and peril that followed; but the railroad president’s daughter shrieked at the loudest pitch of her voice:
“Fire! fire! We’ll all be burned to death! _Fire_!”
“Be still!” “Sit down!” were commands that instantly sounded from all parts of the house.
But the mischief was done, and Linda continued to shriek in apparently an abandonment of terror:
“_Fire! Fire!_”
Other nervous people took up the cry. Nearly half a thousand spectators were seated in the picture theatre and the smell of smoke was in their nostrils and the glare of fire above them.
For something, surely, was burning in the operator’s box. The danger of the inflammable film was in the minds of all. A surge of the crowd toward the main exit signaled the first panic.
The outgoing rush was met by those who (not understanding the commotion) had been waiting at the back for seats. These people would not give way easily as the frightened audience pushed up the main aisle.
Those at the sides escaped more easily, for there was an exit on either side of the audience room. In the case of Nan Sherwood and her party, however, they were in the worst possible position as far as quick escape went. By some oversight of the fire inspectors the seats on several front rows had been built close against the sidewalls, with no passage at that end of the rows for entrance or egress.
Bess was next to the wall, and she jumped up, crying: “Oh, come on, girls! let’s get out. Walter! I say, Walter! I’m frightened. Let us go.”
Grace was crying.
Nan hugged Inez close to her and looked to Walter, too, to extricate them from their situation. But Linda had reached across her cousin, Pearl Graves, and clawed at Walter in abject terror. “Oh, save me! save me, Walter!” she moaned. “I am _so_ afraid of fire–and in a place like this! Oh! oh!”
“Shut that girl’s mouth!” exclaimed one man from the front. “Stop that screaming! There is no danger! The fire is confined to the box, and that is made of sheet iron. We’re all right. Don’t crowd!”
The panic had, however, spread too far.
The mob struggled and fought at the main doors. The police had been summoned; but they could not get into the building through the main entrance, and the side exits were toward the rear. Several people were knocked down and trampled on. A pungent odor of burning filled the theatre; the crackling of the flames grew louder and louder.
Walter had his hands full with Linda and Pearl, who had become likewise panic-stricken. Nan pushed Grace and Bess back toward the wall.
“Stand right where you are. We mustn’t get in that crowd. We’ll be killed,” advised she, holding little Inez close to her.
“Save me! save me, Walter!” wailed Linda.
“I wish somebody would take this girl out of the way!” growled Walter Mason in much disgust, and far from gallant.
“Don’t leave me!” shrieked Linda.
People began madly to climb over the seats–and over one another–to reach the side exits.
“How ever will we get out, Nan?” demanded Bess Harley, with keen faith in her chum.
“Keep still. Let us wait,” urged Nan.
But at that instant red and yellow flames burst from the box where the picture projecting machine was housed. These flames began to lick up the furnishings of the balcony like so much tinder. Sparks and dense smoke were thrown off and both settled upon the struggling people below.
“Oh, Walter! Walter! We shall be burned,” cried his sister.
The boy had never yet neglected his timid sister’s cry. He somewhat rudely pushed Linda away and reached across Nan and Inez to seize Grace’s hand.
“Pluck up your courage, Sis!” he cried, his voice rising cheerfully above the turmoil. “We’ll get out all right.”
“But _how_?” demanded Bess, in great anxiety. “Oh! see those sparks fly!”
“I see,” said Nan, trying to speak calmly.
“They’re falling right on those poor people–do, do look!” gasped Bess.
There was an open space between the young folks from the Mason house and the crowd that was wedged into the exit at the head of the main aisle. Upon this mob was pouring smoke and sparks. The flames ate up the bunting with which the balcony rail and pillars were decorated. The burning cloth floated down upon the heads of the excited people and threatened to set the dresses of some afire.
Pearl Graves had actually fainted in her seat. Linda lay across her cousin, sobbing and groaning. The rest of their party, whoever they were, had deserted the two girls.
“What under the sun shall we do, Nan?” whispered Walter, and Nan read the words on his lips rather than heard them; for the burning theatre was by this time a scene of pandemonium.
CHAPTER XXX
A FRESH OUTLOOK
Nan had already made up her mind what they must do. Despite the spread of the fire–and the heat of the flames already scorched their faces–she saw there was no escape for them by the front door of the building. And the chair-backs shut them off from the side exit.
“Get over the seat-back, Walter,” Nan commanded. “Haul your sister and Bess over. I can climb over myself and take little Inez with me.”
“Don’t leave us to burn up!” shrieked Linda, wildly, starting up again. Her ears were keen enough.
“Pearl Graves has fainted,” Walter said, hesitatingly.
“If we could only break down these seat-backs,” cried Nan. “There are four rows between us and the side aisle.”
“We _can_ break them down,” responded Walter, and immediately flung his weight against the back of the chair in which he had been sitting, glad to have some line of positive action suggested to him.
The boy’s second attempt broke the back of the seat short off; it was built none too strong. He leaped over into the next row and quickly smashed his way through that.
“Come on, girls! I’ll get you out,” he cried, more cheerfully.
His sister and Bess climbed through the first aperture. Nan lifted Inez through and was about to follow, when Linda seized upon her jacket.
“You let me get out, Nan Sherwood!” she commanded, trying to pull Nan back.
“There is room enough–and time enough,” panted Nan, resisting. “I must look after Inez.”
“Let that young one go with Bess and Grace,” Linda said. “Somebody’s got to help me with Pearl. The silly has fainted.”
Nan saw that this was so. She adjured Bess to take care of Inez.
“Hi! I don’t need nobody ter take care o’ me,” cried that independent young lady. “I’m big enough to take care o’ myself. You come on, Nan Sherwood.”
“I’m coming,” promised Nan, slipping back to help with Pearl.
Instantly Linda pushed by and followed the other girls, leaving Nan alone with Pearl Graves. The girl had no intention of helping her cousin.
Walter was smashing one seat-back after another, and calling to the girls to follow. Bess had grabbed up Inez and now only Nan and Pearl were left behind.
The latter was really senseless. Shaking her–patting her hands–rubbing her forehead–all did no good. It seemed impossible for Nan Sherwood to arouse her.
The smoke came down upon them, thick and stifling. The others of her party were shut out of Nan Sherwood’s view. She heard them calling to each other, Walter shouting in advance. They thought Nan was coming, too.
Nan was dreadfully tempted to run. She was as frightened as she could be. She had a great terror of fire; ever since her experience with Cousin Tom in the forest fire, she had shuddered at the very thought of flames.
And here the heat of them almost overwhelmed her. The shrieks of the frantic throng at the main door of the theatre died away. She heard the shouted commands of the police and firemen–then the swish of water from the first pipe brought to play upon the flames. But they were all outside.
There was nobody near to help Nan Sherwood. She might easily have escaped by herself; but to leave this helpless girl whom Linda Riggs had abandoned–
Nan could not do that. She seized Pearl Graves by the shoulders and strove to drag her out of that row of seats and into the next. Although the main aide was now clear, she dared not try that way. Fire was raining down from the balcony into the back of the house.
Pearl was a larger and heavier girl than Nan. Strong as the latter was, and well developed from her athletic training, the older girl would have been a heavy charge for Nan at best. Now, with the smoke half smothering her, and Pearl a dead weight in her arms, Nan could scarcely drag her burden to the opening in the row of seats.
She struggled to it, however, and got the girl through the first row of chairs, tearing Pearl’s dress sadly in the effort and scratching her own ungloved hands. Nan was crying, too, as she struggled on; she was both frightened and unnerved.
But she stuck to her self-imposed task. She could hear no voices near her now. Nothing but the crackling of the flames and the crash of axes as the firemen wrecked the partition back of the balcony to get at the seat of the fire.
There was nobody to help Nan with her burden. A curtain of smoke shut off the firemen and policemen in the front of the house from the auditorium itself. The smoke grew thicker back there where the young girl struggled to reach the side exit.
Walter Mason and her other friends had escaped. Nan was glad of that. She did not even question why none of them came back to help her.
Nan did not know that the moment they appeared in the side alley, leading back to the rear of the theatre, a policeman with more zeal than good sense hustled them away from the door and would not let even Walter return when he found that Nan and Pearl were not with the party.
“Ye can’t go back in there, me laddy-buck,” declared the officer. “Is it crazy ye are? Phat’s in that the-a-tre will have to stay there, if it can’t git out be itself. Orders is ter let nobody inside.”
“But something’s happened to Nan!” cried Walter. “She and that other girl are perhaps overcome with the smoke. They’ll smother!”
“Be still, I tell yez,” commanded the officer, putting the boy back with one hand. “Orders is orders. Ye can’t go back.”
The situation quite overpowered Walter. He could not break through to help Nan and Pearl. His own sister was crying to him and begging him to come out of danger. Bess was screaming for Nan. Linda stood by, shaking with terror and cold. She doubtless realized that she had been the cause of the catastrophe.
And then, suddenly, little Inez broke away from Bess’s restraining hand, and darted toward the exit, out of which the smoke was now pouring. Walter sprang forward again, too. The police officer caught the boy with a strong hand and hurled him back with an emphatic word; but Inez ran right between the officer’s legs!
“Now, drat that young’un!” ejaculated the policeman, as Inez completely escaped him and disappeared under the pall of smoke.
“Oh, Inez! Come back! You’ll be smothered!” shrieked Grace.
If the child heard this cry she paid no attention. Fearless and wild, she was too used to having her own way to obey now. And, besides, in her own queer, half-tamed way, she loved Nan Sherwood.
Being so tiny, Inez was less affected by the smoke than those who were taller. The blundering policeman who essayed to follow her into the doorway, came staggering back, choking and blinded. Walter himself, springing forward when he thought the way was clear, was met by the rolling volume of pungent smoke, which filled his lungs and stifled him.
“Come back! Come back, Walter!” wailed his sister.
With smarting throat and tearful eyes the boy obeyed–not because he wanted to. The heat and smoke overpowered him. The policeman was still choking and gasping.
Then, of a sudden, Bess Harley emitted an excited cheer. “Here they are! Hooray!” she shrieked.
Out of the doorway plunged little Inez, one arm over her eyes to defend them from the stinging smoke; one hand pulling at Nan’s jacket, to guide her; for Nan came stumbling backward from the burning theatre, dragging Pearl Graves with her.
Both girls fell on the flagging as they reached the alley. The policeman and Walter raised Nan quickly. She did not lose consciousness; but she was scorched and breathless. Pearl, however, had not recovered her senses at all from the moment the shock had made her faint.
“She’s–she’s safe!” gasped Nan. “I covered her face so she should not breathe the smoke.”
“And you’re safe–you dear!” cried Bess, hugging her.
“And what a little trump that kid is,” cried Walter, taking Inez by the shoulders and lifting her suddenly into his arms. He implanted a kiss on the child’s smooched face, and put Inez down, laughing, when she struggled and cried out.
“Say, you’re too fresh, you are,” declared Inez. “Who told you you could kiss me? I don’t like boys–much–anyway.”
This made the other girls laugh. Walter aided Nan out of the alley. The policeman carried Pearl out into the back street and to the nearest drug store. There she was revived, and Linda telephoned for a taxi-cab to take them both home.
The rich girl had little to say to the Masons, or Nan and Bess. And certainly the four friends said nothing to her. They were convinced that there would have been no panic in the theatre had it not been for Linda Riggs; and her treatment of her own cousin had disgusted them all.
When Pearl had revived, being still very sick, the druggist gave her some medicine and then Linda took her home in the cab. Pearl knew, however, who had saved her from the fire. Bess Harley saw to it that there was no mistake about that.
“And we both owe our escape, I verily believe, to little Inez,” Nan said, laughing, and stroking the head of the waif fondly. “The dear little thing came right inside and found us in the smoke. I was almost out of breath.”
Pearl was quietly grateful to Nan, however, and she kissed Inez. When she went away in the cab Nan’s hand was the last she touched, and Nan knew that she had made a friend for life of Pearl Graves. Nan refused to allow the Masons or Bess to talk of the matter. They all walked home, and by the time they reached the Mason house were all more quiet and able to appear before Mrs. Mason as though nothing extraordinary had happened.
It was not until the next morning at breakfast time, indeed, that Walter’s and Grace’s parents learned of the fire in the new theatre. Not much damage had been done the house; but several people had been hurt; and the escape of Walter and his party had been really miraculous.
“Goodness me!” sighed Mrs. Mason. “I shall be afraid to have you young folk out of my sight for the remainder of this vacation. What scrapes you manage to get into!”
These busy winter holidays were drawing to a close, however. Grace and Walter Mason and their two visitors, as well as all of their neighborhood friends, who had occupied themselves most enjoyably and in a dozen different ways, were now scattering for the latter half of the school year.
Nan did not see Linda Riggs again while she remained in Chicago. Immediately following the fire in the picture theatre, the railroad president’s daughter went home. How she really felt toward Nan, the latter did not know; nor did this uncertainty bother her much.
Now that her father’s trouble with Mr. Ravell Bulson was cleared up, Nan did not worry over anything but the seemingly total disappearance of the runaways, Sallie and Celia or, as they preferred to be known, Lola Montague and Marie Fortesque.
Mr. Sherwood was still in town to settle matters with the automobile company, and would return to Tillbury with Nan and Bess and Inez. Walter and Grace tried to crowd into the last forty-eight hours of the chums’ stay all the good times possible, and the second night before Nan and Bess were to go home, a masquerade party was arranged at the Mason home. Of course, Mrs. Mason was the chief “patroness” of the affair and superintended the arrangements herself. So it was bound to be a success.
Nan needed some ribbons and a new pair of gloves at the last minute, and she ran out to get them herself. Trying shop after shop, just as the street lights were beginning to glimmer, she wandered some blocks away from the Mason house.
She reached a corner where there was a brilliantly lighted bakery beside a narrow and dark alley. Nan was looking for a shop where gloves were sold, not for a bakery; but some people coming out of the shop jostled her. She did not give the little group a second glance as they set off on their several ways from the bakeshop door.
Suddenly, she heard a voice say: “Oh, Sallie! they smell so good. I am as hungry as I can be.”
Nan fairly jumped. She wheeled quickly to see two girls–one quite tall and pretty, after a fashion–standing with a bag of cakes between them. The tall girl opened it while the shorter peered in hungrily.
“Goodness! Can it be–?”
Nan’s unspoken question was not completed, for out of the alley darted a street urchin of about Inez’s age, who snatched the bag of cakes out of the girl’s hand and ran, shrieking, back into the dark alley.
“Oh! the rascal!” gasped the taller of the two girls.
The other burst into tears–and they were very real tears, too! She leaned against the bakery wall, with her arm across her eyes, and sobbed.
“Oh, Marie, don’t!” begged the other, with real concern. “Suppose somebody sees you!”
“I don’t care if they do. And I _hate_ that name,–Marie!” choked the crying girl, desperately. “I won’t answer to it an–any more–so now! I want my own na–name.”
“Oh, dear, Celia! don’t be a baby.”
“I–I don’t care if I _am_ a baby. I’m hun–hun–hungry.”
“Well, we’ll buy some more cakes.”
“You can’t–you shouldn’t,” sobbed the other, weakly. “I haven’t any more money at all, and you have less than a dollar.”
Nan had heard enough. She did not care what these girls thought of her; they should not escape. She planted herself right before the two startled strangers and cried:
“You foolish, foolish things! You are starving for greasy baker’s cakes, when your fathers and mothers at home are just sitting down to lovely sliced ham and brown bread and biscuit and homemade preserves and cake–_and plenty of it all_! Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins, I think you are two of the most foolish girls I ever heard of!”
The crying girl stopped in surprise. The other tried to assume a very scornful air.
“Haven’t you made a mistake, Miss?” she said. “My name is Lola Montague and my friend is Miss Marie Fortesque.”
“Sure they are,” said the excited Nan. “I know they are your names, for you chose them yourselves. But I was at your house, Sallie Morton, the day of the big blizzard–the very day after you and Celia ran away. And if you’d seen how your mother cried, and how badly your father felt–
“And _your_ mother is worried to death about you, Celia Snubbins; and your father, Si, who is a dear old man, said he’d give everything he owned to get you back–“
“Oh, oh!” gasped Celia, and burst into tears again.
“Listen to this, Sallie Morton!” added Nan, rummaging in her shopping bag and bringing forth Mrs. Morton’s letter. She read some of the letter aloud to the girls.
“Now, Sallie, how dare you stay away from a mother like that? You’ve both just got to come with me. I should think you’d have found out by this time that neither of you will ever be famous as motion picture actresses.”
“We have!” gulped Celia, plucking up a little courage. “You know we have, Sallie. That Mr. Gray told us to go back and milk the cows–you know he did!”
Sallie, determined as she was, was softened by her mother’s letter. She said: “Well–if they’ll have us back, I s’pose we might as well go. But everybody will laugh at us, Celia.”
“Let ’em laugh!” cried her friend. “They won’t laugh any harder than those folk in that studio did when we tried to act for the movies.”
Their experience searching for work at the film studios all over Chicago had taught the two country girls something, at least. They had seen how poor people have to live in the city, and were going back to their country homes with an appreciation of how much better off they were there.
First, however, Nan forgot to buy her gloves; and instead took Sallie and Celia back to the Mason house with her. When she explained the situation to Walter and sent him out to telegraph to Mr. Morton, the boy laughingly nick-named the big Mason home, “The Wayfarers’ Inn.”
“If you stayed here a month longer, Nan Sherwood, you’d have the house filled with waifs and strays,” he declared.
Sallie and Celia that evening divided interest with the masquerade party. The next day at noon, however, the fathers of the two girls arrived and took them home.
The farmers were grateful–loquaciously so on Mr. Si Snubbins’ part–to Mr. and Mrs. Mason for housing the runaways over night; but neither could properly express the feeling he had for Nan Sherwood.
Mrs. Morton did that later in a letter, and Nan keeps that much-read letter to this very day in the secret box in which she locks her medal for bravery. She thinks a great deal more of the letter from the grateful farmer’s wife than she does of the Society’s medal.
Before Nan Sherwood returned to Tillbury she saw Jennie Albert again, and finally made a special call upon Madam, the famous film actress, to beg that kind, if rather thoughtless, woman, to take the girl under her own special and powerful protection.
Inez went to Tillbury and Mrs. Sherwood welcomed the waif just as Nan knew she would. While Nan was absent at school, her mother would have somebody to run errands and who would be cheerful company for her in “the little dwelling in amity.”
So we leave Nan Sherwood, looking toward her second term at Lakeview Hall, and about to renew her association with the girls and instructors there–looking forward, likewise, to hard study, jolly times, and a broadening opportunity for kindly deeds and pleasant adventures in her school life.