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Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound / A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils by Alice B. Emerson
"And you once said, Heavy Stone, that you did not believe a poilu could love a fat girl!"
Helen said it in something like awe. While Ruth's tea-urn bubbled cozily three pair of very bright eyes were bent above a tiny, iridescent spark which adorned the "heart finger" of the plumper girl's left hand.
There is something about an engagement diamond that makes it sparkle and twinkle more than any other diamond. You do not believe that? Wait until you wear one on the third finger of your left hand yourself!
These three girls, who owned all the rings and other jewelry that was good for them, continued to adore this newest of Jennie Stone's possessions until the tea water boiled over. Ruth Fielding arose with an exclamation of vexation, and corrected the height of the alcohol blaze and dropped in the "pinch" of tea.
It was mid-afternoon, the hour when a cup of tea comforts the fagged nerves and inspires the waning spirit of womankind almost the world over. These three girls crowded into Ruth Fielding's little cell, even gave up the worship of the ring, to sip the tea which the hostess soon poured into the cups.
"The cups are nicked; no wonder," sighed Ruth. "They have traveled many hundreds of miles with me, girls. Think! I got them at Briarwood--"
"Dear old Briarwood Hall," murmured Jennie Stone.
"You're in a dreadfully sentimental mood, Jennie," declared Helen Cameron with some scorn. "Is that the way a diamond ring affects all engaged girls?"
"Oh, how fat I was in those days, girls! And how I did eat!" groaned the girl who had been known at boarding school as "Heavy Stone," and seldom by any other name among her mates.
"And you still continue to eat!" ejaculated Helen, the slimmest of the three, and a very black-eyed girl with blue-black hair and a perfect complexion. She removed the tin wafer box from Jennie's reach.
"Those are not real eats," complained the girl with the diamond ring. "A million would not add a thousandth part of an ounce to my pounds."
"Listen to her!" gasped Helen. "If Major Henri Marchand could hear her now!"
"He is a full colonel, I'd have you know," declared Jennie Stone. "And in charge of his section. In our army it is the Intelligence Department-Secret Service."
"That is what Tom calls the 'Camouflage Bureau.' Colonel Marchand has a nice, sitting-down job," scoffed Helen.
"Colonel Marchand," said Ruth Fielding, gravely, "has been through the enemy's lines, and with his brother, the Count Allaire, has obtained more information for the French Army, I am sure, than most of the brave men belonging to the Intelligence Department. Nobody can question his courage with justice, Jennie."
"You ought to know!" pouted the plumper girl. "You and my colonel have tramped all over the French front together."
"Oh, no! There were some places we did not go to," laughed Ruth.
"And just think," cried Helen, "of her leaving us here in this hospital, Heavy, while she went off with your Frenchman to look for Tom, my own brother! And she would not tell me a word about it till she was back with him, safe and sound. This Ruthie Fielding of ours--"
"Tut, tut!" said Ruth, shaking her chum a little, and then kissing her. "Don't be jealous, Helen."
"It's not I that should be jealous. It is Heavy's friend with whom you went over to the Germans," declared Helen, tossing her head.
"And Jennie had not even met Major Marchand-that was! 'Colonel,' I should say," said Ruth. "Oh, girls! so much has happened to us all during these past few months."
"During the past few years," said the plump girl sepulchrally. "Talking about your cracked and chipped china," and she held up her empty cup to look through it. "I remember when you got this tea set, Ruthie. Remember the Fox, and all her chums at Briarwood, and how mean we treated you, Ruthie?"
"Oh, don't!" exclaimed Helen. "I treated my Ruthie mean in those days, too-sometimes."
"Goodness!" drawled their friend, who was in the uniform of the Red Cross worker and was a very practical looking, as well as pretty, girl. "Don't bring up such sad and sorrowful remembrances. This tea is positively going to your heads and making you maudlin. Come! I will give you a toast. You must drink your cup to it-and to the very dregs!"
"'Dregs' is right, Ruth," complained Jennie, peering into her cup. "You never will strain tea properly."
"Pooh! If you do," scoffed Helen, "you never have any leaves left with which to tell your fortune."
"'Fortune!' Superstitious child!" Then Jennie added in a whisper: "Do you know, Madame Picolet knows how to tell fortunes splendidly with tea-grounds. She positively told me I was going to marry a tall, dark, military man, of noble blood, and who had recently been advanced in the service."
"Goodness! And who could not have told you the same after having seen your Henri following you about the last time he had leave in Paris?" laughed Helen. Then she added: "The toast, Ruthie! Let us have it, now the cups are filled again."
Ruth stood up, smiling down upon them. She was not a large girl, but in her uniform and cap she seemed very womanly and not a little impressive.
"Here's to the sweetest words the exile ever hears," said she softly, her eyes suddenly soft and her color rising: "'Homeward bound!' Oh, girls, when shall we see America and all our friends and the familiar scenes again? Cheslow, Helen! And the dear, dear old Red Mill!"
She drank her own toast to the last drop. Then she shrugged her pretty shoulders and put her serious air aside. Her eyes sparkled once more as she exclaimed:
"On my own part, I was only reminiscing upon the travels of this old tea set. Back and forth from the dear old Red Mill to Briarwood Hall, and all around the country on our vacations. To your Lighthouse Point place, Jennie. To your father's winter camp, Helen. And out West to Jane's uncle's ranch, and down South and all! And then across the ocean and all about France! No wonder the teacups are nicked and the saucers cracked."
"What busy times we've had, girls," agreed Helen.
"What busy times Ruth has had," grumbled Jennie. "You and I, Nell, come up here from Paris to visit her now and then. Otherwise we would never hear a Boche shell burst, unless there is an air raid over Paris, or the Germans work their super-gun and smash a church!"
"Ruth is so brave," sighed Helen.
"Cat's foot!" snapped Ruth. "I'm just as scared as you are every time I hear a gun. Oh!"
To prove her statement, that cry burst from her lips involuntarily. There was an explosion in the distance-whether of gun or bomb, it was impossible to say.
"Oh, Ruth!" cried Helen, clasping her hands. "I thought you wrote us that our boys had pushed the Germans back so far that the guns could scarcely be heard from here?"
"Must be some mistake about that," muttered Jennie, with her mouth full of tea-wafers. "There goes another!"
Ruth Fielding had risen and went to the narrow window. After the second explosion a heavy siren began to blow a raucous alarm. Nearer aerial defense guns spoke.
"Oh, girls!" exclaimed Ruth, "it is an air raid. We have not had one before for weeks-and never before in broad day!"
"Oh, dear me! I wish we hadn't come," Helen said, trembling. "Let us find a cave vo?tée. I saw signs along the main street of this village as we drove through."
"There is a bomb proof just back of the hospital," said Ruth, and then another heavy explosion drowned what else she might have said.
Her two visitors dropped their teacups and started for the door. But Ruth did not turn from the window. She was trying to see-to mark the direction of the Boche bombing machine that was deliberately seeking to hit the hospital of Clair.
"Come, Ruthie!" cried Helen, looking back.
"I don't know that I should," the other girl said slowly. "I am in charge of the supplies. I may be wanted at any moment. The nurses do not run away from the wards and leave their poor blessés at such a time--"
Another thundering explosion fairly shook the walls of the hospital. Jennie and Helen shrieked aloud. They were not used to anything like this. Their months of war experience had been gained mostly in Paris, not so near the front trenches. A bombing raid was a tragedy to them. To Ruth Fielding it was an incident.
"Do come, Ruthie!" cried her chum. "I am frightened to death."
"I will go downstairs with you--"
The sentence was never finished. Out of the air, almost over their heads, fell a great, whining shell. The noise of it before it exploded was like a knife-thrust to the hearts of the frightened girls. Jennie and Helen clung to each other in the open doorway of Ruth's cell. Their braver companion had not left the window.
Then came the shuddering crash which rocked the hospital and all the taller buildings about it!
Clair had been bombed many times since the Boche hordes had poured down into France. But never like this, and previous bombardments had been for the most part at night. The aerial defense guns were popping away at the enemy; the airplanes kept up a clatter of machine-gun fire; the alarm siren added to the din.
But that exploding shell drowned every other sound for the moment. The whole world seemed to rock. A crash of falling stones and shattered glass finally rose above the dying roar of the explosion.
And then the window at which Ruth Fielding stood sprang inward, glass and frame together, the latter in a grotesque twisted pattern of steel rods, the former in a million shivered pieces.
Smoke, or steam, or something, filled the cell for a minute and blinded Helen Cameron and Jennie Stone. This cloud cleared, and struggling up from the floor just outside the doorway, where the shock had flung them, the two terrified girls uttered a simultaneous cry.
Ruth Fielding lay on her face upon the floor of her cell. A great, jagged tear in her apron and dress revealed her bared shoulder, all blood-smeared. And half across her body lay a slab of gray stone that had been the sill of the window!
Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest by Alice B. Emerson
Alice B. Emerson was a pseudonym used by a number of writers hired by the conglomerate Stratemeyer Syndicat to make popular kids books, especially for young girls. These include the Beth Gordon and Ruth Fielding series.
Alice B. Emerson was a pseudonym used by a number of writers hired by the conglomerate Stratemeyer Syndicat to make popular kids books, especially for young girls. These include the Beth Gordon and Ruth Fielding series.
Ruth, Helen, and Tom watch a moving picture company film scenes near the Red Mill. As they watch, the starring actress, Hazel Gray, falls into the river and is swept downstream. Ruth and her friends rescue Miss Gray and take her to the Red Mill to recover. The next day, Ruth meets the producer, Mr. Hammond, who promises to read Ruth's scenario when she impulsively confides that she is planning to write one. Soon after the friends return to school, the East Dormitory burns and is a complete loss. All of the girls housed in that building, including Ruth and her friends, lose all of their possessions. It is soon learned that Dr. Tellingham allowed the insurance to lapse, and there is no money to rebuild the dormitory. In the meantime, Ruth submits her scenario to Mr. Hammond and is thrilled when he accepts it. After her scenario is accepted, Ruth gets a wonderful idea about how she can help the school raise money to rebuild the dormitory. In the Italian garden scenes, the seniors and juniors were used. Ruth calls a meeting of all of the students and suggests her idea of writing a moving picture scenario that will be filmed on the campus. The proceeds from the film would go towards rebuilding the dormitory. In this way, all of the girls would contribute to the fund, since they would be the extras in the film. This idea is met with enthusiasm, and Ruth soon gains Mr. Hammond's approval.
Two years ago, Ricky found himself coerced into marrying Emma to protect the woman he cherished. From Ricky's perspective, Emma was despicable, resorting to underhanded schemes to ensure their marriage. He maintained a distant and cold attitude toward her, reserving his warmth for another. Yet, Emma remained wholeheartedly dedicated to Ricky for more than ten years. As she grew weary and considered relinquishing her efforts, Ricky was seized by a sudden fear. Only when Emma's life teetered on the edge, pregnant with Ricky's child, did he recognize-the love of his life had always been Emma.
To the public, she was the CEO's executive secretary. Behind closed doors, she was the wife he never officially acknowledged. Jenessa was elated when she learned that she was pregnant. But that joy was replaced with dread as her husband, Ryan, showered his affections on his first love. With a heavy heart, she chose to set him free and leave. When they met again, Ryan's attention was caught by Jenessa's protruding belly. "Whose child are you carrying?!" he demanded. But she only scoffed. "It's none of your business, my dear ex-husband!"
It was supposed to be a marriage of convenience, but Carrie made the mistake of falling in love with Kristopher. When the time came that she needed him the most, her husband was in the company of another woman. Enough was enough. Carrie chose to divorce Kristopher and move on with her life. Only when she left did Kristopher realize how important she was to him. In the face of his ex-wife’s countless admirers, Kristopher offered her 20 million dollars and proposed a new deal. “Let’s get married again.”
Rena got into an entanglement with a big shot when she was drunk one night. She needed Waylen's help while he was drawn to her youthful beauty. As such, what was supposed to be a one-night stand progressed into something serious. All was well until Rena discovered that Waylen's heart belonged to another woman. When his first love returned, he stopped coming home, leaving Rena all alone for many nights. She put up with it until she received a check and farewell note one day. Contrary to how Waylen expected her to react, Rena had a smile on her face as she bid him farewell. "It was fun while it lasted, Waylen. May our paths never cross. Have a nice life." But as fate would have it, their paths crossed again. This time, Rena had another man by her side. Waylen's eyes burned with jealousy. He spat, "How the hell did you move on? I thought you loved only me!" "Keyword, loved!" Rena flipped her hair back and retorted, "There are plenty of fish in the sea, Waylen. Besides, you were the one who asked for a breakup. Now, if you want to date me, you have to wait in line." The next day, Rena received a credit alert of billions and a diamond ring. Waylen appeared again, got down on one knee, and uttered, "May I cut in line, Rena? I still want you."
After hiding her true identity throughout her three-year marriage to Colton, Allison had committed wholeheartedly, only to find herself neglected and pushed toward divorce. Disheartened, she set out to rediscover her true self-a talented perfumer, the mastermind of a famous intelligence agency, and the heir to a secret hacker network. Realizing his mistakes, Colton expressed his regret. "I know I messed up. Please, give me another chance." Yet, Kellan, a once-disabled tycoon, stood up from his wheelchair, took Allison's hand, and scoffed dismissively, "You think she'll take you back? Dream on."
Sawyer, the world's top arms dealer, stunned everyone by falling for Maren—the worthless girl no one respected. People scoffed. Why chase a useless pretty face? But when powerful elites began gathering around her, jaws dropped. "She's not even married to him yet—already cashing in on his power?" they assumed. Curious eyes dug into Maren's past... only to find she was a scientific genius, a world-renowned medical expert, and heiress to a mafia empire. Later, Sawyer posted online. "My wife treats me like the enemy. Any advice?"