CHAPTER II.
CARRYING OUT HER PLAN.
"Of course I would dare," answered Ruby, positively. "I am not such a coward as you are, Ruthy. You see, even if your mamma would let you come over and stay at my house, so you could be in the plan, it would n't be of any use, for it would be just like you to get afraid as soon as it was dark, and then you would cry and want to go back into the house."
"I am afraid I would," Ruthy answered meekly, not resenting the accusation of cowardice. "I should think you would be afraid too, Ruby; and then what will your papa and mamma think when they find out in the night that you are gone."
"They won't find out," answered Ruby, easily disposing of that objection. "You see I shall wait till after they think I have gone to sleep to go out to my hut. I will get most undressed to-night at bed-time and then put my nightie on over the rest of my clothes, and when papa comes in to kiss me good-night he will never think of my getting up again. Then I will creep downstairs as softly as a mouse, and out into the yard. It will be such fun to roll up in the blankets, and pretend that they are the skins of wild animals, and I shall lie awake for ever so long listening to hear if any bears come around, or lions. Oh, it will be such fun," and Ruby's eyes sparkled. Ruthy looked troubled.
"I don't think it will be a bit nice," she said presently. "I don't believe your mamma would like it one single bit; and suppose somebody should carry you off when you are out there all by yourself."
"You just can't make me afraid, I guess, Ruthy Warren," sniffed Ruby, scornfully. "You are such a 'fraid-cat that you never want to do anything in all your life but play paper dolls. I might have known you would n't see what fun it is to play Swiss Family Robinson. Now don't you dare tell any one a single word about it. Remember you promised across your heart."
"I sha'n't tell," Ruthy answered, "but I do wish you would n't do it, Ruby. Why, I shall be as scared as anything if I wake up in the night and think that you are out there in your house all alone in the pitch dark. I should be so frightened if I was you that I would just scream and scream till some one heard me and came and got me."
"I would n't have such a baby as you to stay with me," Ruby said. "I am going to do it just as sure as anything, Ruthy Warren, and if you breathe a word of it to any one so I don't get let to do it, I will never, never speak to you again as long as I live and breathe."
"Of course I sha'n't tell when I promised," Ruthy replied, a little hurt at Ruby's doubting her word. "Maybe you won't do it after all, though. Perhaps when it gets dark you will be frightened."
"I never get frightened," Ruby said, tossing her head. "Now I must go home, Ruthy. Come and walk part way with me, won't you?"
"I'll ask mamma," Ruthy answered, and gathering up her paper dolls she ran into the house, coming back in a few minutes with two red-cheeked apples for the little girls to eat on their way, and permission to go as far as the corner with Ruby.
Ruby could talk and think of nothing but her great plan for the night, and Ruthy pleaded with her in vain to give it up. The little girl was so troubled about it that she wished Ruby had not told her about it. She did not see how she would ever be able to go to bed that night, and go to sleep, thinking of her little friend out alone in her little house down by the barn. In the bottom of her heart she wished that Ruby would be caught by Ann on her way out of the house, and prevented from carrying out her plan, but she did not dare whisper this wish to Ruby, as she knew how angry it would make her to think of her plans being thwarted.
By the time Ruby reached home another plan occurred to her busy brain. Nora was not far from right when she said that Ruby could think up more mischief than any three children could carry out. Suppose it should be cold in the night. Ruby could not quite remember what time in the year it was when the Swiss Family Robinson were shipwrecked, but she knew they had to make a fire. She would get some shavings and some little sticks, and get a fire all ready to light in her hut, and then if it should be cold, and she should want to light a fire, it would be all ready.
This new idea added a great charm to the thought of staying out there all night. She was quite sure that she would need a fire, and she bustled around very busily when she got home, gathering up shavings from the place where the carpenters had been at work, and getting little sticks to lay upon them so that the fire would burn up readily. Then she went back to the house, and going up into the spare room, took down the match-box from the tall chest of drawers, and carried it out to the hut where it would be all ready for the night. When this was done she felt as if she could hardly wait for the sun to go down and bedtime to come. She was so excited over her grand plan that her eyes shone like stars, and her cheeks were so flushed that when her father came in, he put his hand on her cheeks to see whether she had any fever. If he had only known what a naughty plan was in Ruby's mind, he would have been more sorry than to have had his little girl sick.
Of course I need not tell you that Ruby knew just how wrong it was to plan something which she knew very well her father and mother would not permit for a moment if they knew of it. But in all the years that you have known her she had not grown any less self-willed, I am sorry to say, and so she thought of nothing but of getting her own way, whether it was naughty or not.
The longest day will have an end at last, and though it seemed to Ruby as if a day had never passed so slowly, yet finally the sun went down. Ruby had had her supper, had kissed mamma good-night, and bed-time had come. She took off her shoes, and her dress, and then slipping her little white night-dress on over her other clothes, she scrambled into bed, and waited for her papa to come and kiss her good-night, her heart beating so loudly with excitement that she was afraid he would hear it, and wonder what was the matter with her. I think if it had been her mother who had come in she would have wondered why only Ruby's dress and shoes were to be seen, and why the little girl had such a flushed, guilty look, and held the bed-clothes tucked up so tightly under her chin; but Ruby's papa did not notice any of these things, so Ruby was not hindered from carrying out her naughty plan.
She waited for what seemed to her a very long time, and then she heard the wheels of her father's buggy going out of the yard, and knew he had gone somewhere to see a patient. She was glad, for that made one person less who would be likely to hear her when she went out. Her mamma she was sure would not hear her, for her door was closed, and if she could only get past the kitchen door without Ann discovering her, she would be safe. When she could not hear any one stirring, she got up and crept softly over to the door. The house was very still, so even the rustle of her night-dress seemed to make a noise as she stepped along the hall. Down the stairs she crept like a little thief, and at last she reached the door. Ann had been sitting with her back to the kitchen door reading when Ruby went past, so she had not noticed the little figure gliding along.
Ruby stepped through the open door out upon the back porch. It was dark, and the noise of the tree toads and frogs seemed to make it more lonely than she had thought it would be. For a moment she was almost willing to give up her plan and go back to bed like a good little girl, but then she thought of Ruthy, and how she would hate to confess to her the next day that she had given up her plan after all; so she went on. Ruby was not inclined to be timid about anything, so, although it did not seem as delightful as she had imagined it would, yet she was not afraid as she ran down the yard to her little house. She was glad, however, that it was not upon a desert island. It was very nice to know that she was not surrounded by great rolling waves on every side, and that if she wished to go back to her home and her mother she could do so in a very few minutes.
She crept into her hut, and finding the bedclothes rolled herself up in them. Oh, why was n't it as nice as she had thought it would be? Ruby was provoked with herself for wishing that she was back in the house curled up in her own little bed, instead of being out here in the night alone. She would not give up and go back, though, she said over and over again to herself. No; she had said that she would stay out all night, and she meant to keep her word, whether she liked it or not.
If Ruby had only been half as determined to keep her good resolutions as she was to keep her bad ones, she would never have found herself in such scrapes.
She rolled herself up in a little ball and drew the blanket closely about her,—not because she was cold, but because it seemed less lonesome. While she was listening to all the music of a summer's night, she fell asleep, and dreamed a very remarkable dream about sleeping in a nest swung from a cocoanut-tree, with a monkey for a bed-fellow.
In the mean time very unexpected events were taking place at the house. A little while after Ruby's father had gone out to see his patient a carriage drove up from the station with a visitor.
It was Ruby's Aunt Emma, who had come to make a visit of a few days, and who had written to say that she was coming, but had only discovered at the last moment that her letter had not been mailed in time for her brother to receive it before her arrival.
After she had had a little talk with Ruby's mother, she was very impatient to see her little niece.
"I wish I could have reached here in time to see her before she went to sleep," she said.
"I am afraid if she woke up now and found you were here she would not go to sleep again all night," said Ruby's mother.
"I won't wake her, but I will just go and peep at her while she is asleep," said Aunt Emma; and lighting a candle, she followed Ann into the room where Ruby was supposed to be fast asleep in her trundle-bed.
Of course there was no Ruby there. The little girl was curled up in her blankets out in the yard, under her little tent of boards; and there was only a little crumpled place in the pillow to show where her head had nestled.
"Why, where can she be, I wonder?" said Ann in surprise.
"Hush! don't let her mother hear, or she will be worried," said Aunt Emma, who knew how easily the invalid would be alarmed. "Perhaps she has gone downstairs to get a drink of water or something."
"No, I am sure she has n't been downstairs, for I have been sitting right there in the kitchen all the evening," said Ann, positively. "Oh, Miss Emma, she has got to be the witchiest girl ever you did see. She's always up to some piece of mischief or another, and it's more than any one but her mother can do to keep her in order. I try my best, but it ain't any use at all. She does just as she likes for all of me, unless I tell her father; and then it worries him so that I don't like to, when he has so much else on his mind."
"I should like to know where she is now," said Miss Emma, looking very much puzzled. "There comes her father," she went on, as she heard the sound of wheels coming into the yard. "Perhaps he will know." She went downstairs softly, and met the doctor who, was very much surprised at this unexpected visitor. After he had told her how glad he was to see her, she told him that Ruby was not upstairs in her bed, and that Ann did not know where she was, and asked him if he knew what had become of the little girl.
He looked very anxious.
"Why, no, I have not the least idea," he said gravely. "I kissed her good-night just before I went out to make a call, and she was all right in her bed then. I do not see what could have become of her. I hope we can keep it from her mother, or she will be sadly frightened if she hears Ruby is not to be found at this hour of the night."
Of course no one could imagine where Ruby had gone, and although they hunted all over the house, there was not a trace of the little girl to be seen.
"Perhaps she has been walking in her sleep," suggested Aunt Emma. "She may have wandered downstairs and out into the yard while she was asleep, and been too frightened when she woke up to know how to find her way back into the house. I have heard of children doing such things."
"But she could n't have gone past the door without my seeing her," said Ann, very positively. "I have been sitting right there in the kitchen all the evening, and I am sure I would have heard her, if she had gone past. I never knew Ruby to walk in her sleep; but then I would n't say she might n't have done it this time, only I know she did n't walk past the kitchen door and go out that way."
"Could she have gone out the front door?" asked Aunt Emma.
The doctor shook his head.
"No; that would be too heavy for her to open alone, after it was locked up for the night. I fastened it myself before I went out, and it is fastened now; so she could not have gone out that way. There is her mother calling. I hope she will not ask for Ruby. She must not have this anxiety if we can spare her."