“Aw, yes—I know. Mebbe I’d oughter have believed ye; but I dunno. Lots of folks has fooled me. Them Perkinses was as soft as butter when they came to take me away from the orphanage. But now they treat me as mean as dirt—yes, they do!”
“Oh, dear me! So you haven’t any mother or father?”
“Not a one,” confessed the other. “Didn’t I tell you I was took from an orphanage? Willie and Dickie was taken away by other folks. I wisht somebody would ha’ taken us all three together; but I’m mighty glad them Perkinses didn’t git the kids.”
She sighed with present contentment, and wiped her fingers on her skirt. For some moments Ruth had remained silent, listening to her. Now she had for the first time the opportunity of examining the strange girl.
It had been too dark for her to see much of her the night before. Now the light of day revealed a very unkempt and not at all attractive figure. She might have been twelve—possibly fourteen. She was slight for her age, but she might be stronger than she appeared to Ruth. Certainly she was vigorous enough.
She had black hair which was in a dreadful tangle. Her complexion was naturally dark, and she had a deep layer of tan, and over that quite a thick layer of dirt. Her hands and wrists were stained and dirty, too.
She wore no hat, raw as the weather was. Her ragged dress was an old faded gingham; over it she wore a three-quarter length coat of some indeterminate, shoddy material, much soiled, and shapeless as a mealsack. Her shoes and stockings were in keeping with the rest of her outfit.
Altogether her appearance touched Ruth Fielding deeply. This Raby girl was an orphan. Ruth remembered keenly the time when the loss of her own parents was still a fresh wound. Supposing no kind friends had been raised up for her? Suppose there had been no Red Mill for her to go to? She might have been much the same sort of castaway as this.
“Tell me who you are—tell me all about yourself—do!” begged the girl of the Red Mill, sitting down beside the other on the log. “I am an orphan as well as you, my dear. Really, I am.”
“Was you in the orphanage?” demanded the Raby girl, quickly.