"Not worth bothering with," rejoined Ann.
The only person to whom Amy Gregg seemed to take a fancy was Mrs. Smith's scapegrace grandson, Henry. Henry was the wildest boy there was anywhere about Briarwood Hall. He was always getting into trouble, and his grandmother was forever chastising him in one way or another.
Nobody in the neighborhood knew him as "Henry." He was called "that Smith boy" by the grown folk; by his mates he was known as "Curly."
Ruth felt that Curly never would have developed into such a mischievous and wayward youth had it not been for his grandmother.
When a little boy Henry had come to live with Mrs. Sadoc Smith. Mrs. Smith did not like boys and she kept Henry in kilts until he was of an age when most lads are looking forward to long trousers. She made him wear Fauntleroy suits and kept his hair in curls down his back—molasses colored curls that disgusted the boy mightily. Finally he hired another boy for ten cents and a glass agate to cut the curls off close to his head, and he stole a pair of long trousers, a world too wide for him, from a neighbor's line. He then set out on his travels, going in an empty freight car from the Lumberton railroad yards.
But he was caught and brought back, literally "by the scruff of his neck;" and his grandmother was never ending in her talk about the escapade. The curls remained short, however. If she refused to give Curly twenty cents occasionally to have his hair cut, he would stick burrs or molasses taffy in the hair so that it had to be kept short.
There seemed an affinity between this scapegrace lad and Amy Gregg. Not that she possessed any abundance of spirit; but she would listen to Curly romance about his adventures by the hour, and he could safely confide all his secrets to Amy Gregg. Wild horses would not have drawn a word from her as to his intentions, or what mischief he had already done.
Curly was a tall, thin boy of fifteen, wiry and strong, and with a face as smooth and pink-and-white as a girl's. That he was so girlish looking was a sore subject with the boy, and whenever any unwise boy called him "Girly" instead of "Curly" it started a fight, there and then.
Henry was forbidden by his grandmother to bother the girls from Briarwood Hall in any way, and to make sure that he played no tricks upon them, when Ruth and her mates came to the house to lodge, Mrs. Smith housed Curly in a little, steep-roofed room over the summer kitchen.
It was a cold and uncomfortable place, he told Amy Gregg. Ruth heard him tell her so, but judged that it would not be wise to beg Mrs. Smith for other quarters for her grandson. She was not a woman to whom one could easily give advice—especially one of Ruth's age and inexperience.