"I see Miss Picolet coming this way. She won't approve of my talking with 'a strange young man' so long," laughed Ruth. "You let me know every few days where you are, Jerry?"
"Yes, ma'am, I will. And thank you kindly."
"You aren't out of funds? You have money?"
"I've got quite a little store," said Jerry, smiling. "Thanks to that nice black-eyed girl that I helped out of the car window."
"Oh! Ann Hicks. And she's being made much of, now, by the girls, because she knew how to fling a rope," cried Ruth, looking across the picnic ground to where her schoolmates were grouped.
"She's all right," said Jerry, enthusiastically. "They ought to be proud of her—them that was in that boat."
"It will break the ice for Ann," declared Ruth. "I am so glad. Now, I must run. Don't forget to write, Jerry. Good bye."
She gave him her hand and ran back to join her school friends. Ann had gone about putting up the children's swing and at first had paid little attention to the enthusiasm of the girls who had been saved from going over the dam. But she could not ignore them altogether.
"You're just the smartest girl I ever saw," Heavy declaimed. "We'd all be in the water, sure enough, if you hadn't got that rope to us. Come on, Ann! Be a sport. Do wear your laurels kindly."
"I'm just as 'dumb' about books as ever. Flinging that rope didn't make any difference," growled the western girl.