“I want to see Sally,” said Ruth, smiling.
“Huh!” grunted Bill, with a glance at the big box of candy the Eastern girl held so carefully before her. “You kin see her all right. That red head of hers shines like a beacon in the night. And I’ll speak to Lem.”
Ruth rode her pony close to one of the open windows of the little schoolhouse. She could see that the benches and desks had been all moved out—probably stacked in a lean-to at the end of the house. The floor had been swept and mopped up and the girls were helping Sally trim the walls and certain pictures which hung thereon with festoons of colored paper. One girl was polishing the lamp chimneys, and another was filling and trimming the lamps themselves.
“Oh, hullo!” said the storekeeper’s daughter, seeing Ruth at the window, and leaving her work to come across the room. “You’re one of those young ladies stopping at Silver Ranch, aren’t you?”
“No,” said Ruth, smiling. “I’m one of the girls visiting Jane Ann. I hope you are going to invite us to your party here. We shall enjoy coming, I am sure.”
“Guess you won’t think much of our ball,” returned Sally Dickson. “We’re plain folk. Don’t do things like they do East.”
“How do you know what sort of parties we have at home?” queried Ruth, laughing at her. “We’re not city girls. We live in the country and get our fun where we can find it, too. And perhaps we can help you have a good time—if you’ll let us.”
“Well, I don’t know,” began Sally, yet beginning to smile, too; nobody could be grouchy and stare into Ruth Fielding’s happy face for long.
“What do you do for music?”
“Well, one of the boys at Chatford’s got a banjo and old Jim Casey plays the accordion—when he’s sober. But the last time the music failed us, and one of the boys tried to whistle the dances; but one feller that was mad with him kept showing him a lemon and it made his mouth twist up so that he couldn’t keep his lips puckered nohow.”