“Oh, this will be lovely,” Ruth assured him. “And are Mrs. Parsons’ rooms yonder?”
“Right through that door,” replied the man. “There are the buttons. Ring for any attendance you may need. If everything is not perfectly satisfactory, young ladies, let me know.”
He bowed himself out. Helen performed several stately steps about the first room. “I tell you, my dear, we are very important. Nettie’s Aunt Rachel is a _dear_! Or are all people down here in Dixie as polite as this person with the side whiskers?”
“Why! I think people are kind to us almost everywhere,” said Ruth, laying off her hat and coat.
“I told you. I am going right down to the ladies’ writing room—I saw it as we came through the lower floor—and write to Mrs. Smith. If Curly _did_ run away, we know where he is.”
“Why—I——Well, he was aboard that steamer, I am sure,” Ruth said.
“Is he now?” asked Helen. “I believe he went overboard and was picked up by that fishing boat.”
“I am quite positive that the disguised boy did just that,” said Helen, nodding her dark head confidently.
“Well, I can tell Mrs. Smith nothing about that; it would only scare her. But I want her to write to me as soon as she can and tell me if Curly is at home. Poor boy! what ever would become of him if he ran away?”
“And with the police after him!” Helen added. “I am sure he never committed any real crime.”
“So am I sure. But he was always playing jokes and was up to all kinds of mischief. He was bound to get into trouble,” Ruth said, with a sigh. “Everybody around there disliked him so.”
Ruth went downstairs and easily found the writing room. Outside was a periodical and newspaper stand. The New York morning papers had just arrived and Ruth bought one before she entered the writing room. Before beginning the letter to Mrs. Sadoc Smith, she opened the paper and almost the first brief article she noticed was the following:
“A police launch followed the New Union S.S. _Pocahontas_ yesterday afternoon as far as the Narrows, and plain-clothes men James Morrisy, B. Phelps, Schwartz and Rockheimer, boarded her to search for a boy from up-state who has created a stir in the vicinity of Lumberton.
“It is reported that Henry Smith, fifteen years old, tall for his age, curly, chestnut hair, small features, especially girlish face, is accused of helping a pair of tramps rob the Lumberton railroad station. The tramps escaped on a hand-car with their booty. The local police went after Henry, who lives with his grandmother, Mrs. Sadoc Smith, his only relative, an eminently respectable woman. Henry locked himself in his room, and while his grandmother was urging him to come out and give himself up to the police, he slid out of the window and over the shed roof, dropping to the ground—the old path to the circus grounds and the bright and early Independence Day celebration.