Alice B Emerson

Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island Alice B Emerson

Publisher Marketing: A September morning has dawned, with only a vague tang of autumn in the air. In the green old dooryard at the Red Mill, under the spreading shade trees, two girls are shelling a great basket of dried lima beans for the winter's store. The smaller, black-haired girl begins the conversation. "Suppose Jane Ann doesn't come, Ruth?" "You mean on this morning train?" responded the plumper and more mature-looking girl, whose frank face was particularly attractive. "Yes." "Then Tom said he would go back to meet the evening train-and we'll go with him," said Ruth Fielding, with a smile. "But I could not go this morning and leave poor Aunt Alvirah all these beans to shell." "Of course not," agreed her friend, promptly. "And Jane Ann won't feel offended by our not meeting her at Cheslow, I know." "No, indeed, Helen," laughed Ruth. "Jane Ann Hicks is altogether too sensible a girl." "Sensible about everything but her name," commented Helen Cameron, making a little face. "And one can scarcely blame her. It is ugly," Ruth responded, with a sigh. "Jane Ann Hicks! Dear, dear! how could her Uncle Bill be so thoughtless as to name her that, when she was left, helpless, to his care?" "He didn't realize that fashions in names change-like everything else," observed Helen, briskly.