These thoughts troubled Ruth’s mind, sleeping and waking, all night. She refused to leave Curly; but she dozed a good deal of the time in the comfortable chair that the negro had brought her from the parlor downstairs.
Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Holloway came to speak to her, or to see how Curly was, all night long. Yet Ruth knew that both were working hard, with the negroes in their employ, to make all their guests comfortable.
Back of the hotel on slightly higher ground were the kitchens and quarters. To these rooms the stores were removed and breakfast was begun for all before six o’clock.
By that time the clouds had broken and the sun shone. But the river roared past the hotel at express speed. Jimson said he had never seen it so high, or so furious.
“There’s a big reservoir above yere, up the creek; I reckon it’s done busted its banks, or has overflowed, or something,” the boss of the warehouse said. “Never was so much water in this yere river at one time since Adam was a boy, I tell yo’.”
The girls came for Ruth before breakfast, and made her lie down for a nap. The two strange girls who had been put in their rooms were still in bed, and Ruth was not disturbed until the negroes began coming upstairs with trays of breakfast for the different rooms.
There was great hilarity then. There was no use in trying to serve the guests downstairs, for the dining room had a foot of water washing through one end of it, and the rear was several inches deep in a muddy overflow.
The two girls who had slept with them awoke when Ruth did, and all five of the girls, with Norma to wait upon them, made a merry breakfast. Ruth ran back then to see how Curly was being served. She found the boy alone, and nobody had thought to bring him any food save the grateful negro laborer.
“That coon’s all right,” said Curly, with satisfaction. “He got me half a fried chicken and some corn pone and sweet potatoes, and I’m feeling fine. All but my leg. Old Scratch! but that hurts like a good feller, Ruth Fielding.”
“Dear me!” said Ruth. “Don’t speak of the poor man as a ’coon.’ That’s an animal with four legs—and they eat them down here.”