She was rather plump, happy of disposition, and with the kindest heart in the world. She made both friends and enemies. No person of real character can escape being disliked, now and then, by those of envious disposition.
Ruth Fielding succeeded, usually, in winning to her those who at first disliked her. And this, I claim, is a better gift than that of being universally popular from the start.
Ruth had come from her old home in Darrowtown, where her parents died, two years before, to the Red Mill on the Lumano River, where her great-uncle, Jabez Potter, the miller, was inclined at first to shelter her only as an object of his grudging charity. In the first volume of this series, however, entitled “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill; Or, Jasper Parloe’s Secret,” the girl found her way—in a measure, at least—to the uncle’s crabbed heart.
Uncle Jabez was a just man, and he considered it his duty, when Helen Cameron, Ruth’s dearest friend, was sent to Briarwood Hall to school, to send Ruth to the same institution. In the second volume, “Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall; Or, Solving the Campus Mystery,” was related the adventures, friendships, rivalries, and fun of Ruth’s and Helen’s first term at the old school.
In “Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp; Or, Lost in the Backwoods,” was told the adventures of Ruth and her friends at the Camerons’ winter camp during the Christmas holidays. At the end of the first year of school, they all went to the seaside, to experience many adventures in “Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point; Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway,” the fourth volume of the series.
A part of that eventful summer was spent by Ruth and her chums in Montana, and the girl of the Red Mill was enabled to do old Uncle Jabez such a favor that he willingly agreed to pay her expenses at Briarwood Hall for another year. This is all told in “Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch; Or, Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys.”
The girls returned to Briarwood Hall and in the sixth volume of the series, entitled “Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island; Or, The Old Hunter’s Treasure Box,” Ruth was privileged to help Jerry Sheming and his unfortunate old uncle in the recovery of their title to Cliff Island in Lake Tallahaska, while she and her friends had some thrilling and many funny adventures during the mid-winter vacation.
The second half of this school year was now old. The Easter recess was past and the girls were looking forward to the usual break-up in the middle of June. The hardest of the work for the year was over. Those girls who had been faithful in their studies prior to Easter could now take something of a breathing spell, and the S. B.’s were determined to initiate such candidates as had been on the waiting list for reception into the secrets of the most popular society in the school.
The shrouded door of the quartette room occupied by Ruth, Helen, Mercy, and Jane Ann Hicks, from Montana, was opened carefully again and again until the outer guard, Madge Steele, had admitted all the candidates and most of the members of the S. B. order who were expected.
Each girl was presented with at least half a big sour pickle from Heavy’s store; but really, the pickles had nothing to do with the initiation of the neophytes.