Ruby at School

Minnie E. Paull

Informations

• Publié par: famed
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 25
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ruby at School, by Minnie E. Paull This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Ruby at School Author: Minnie E. Paull Release Date: January 5, 2010 [EBook #30860] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUBY AT SCHOOL *** Produced by Al Haines [Transcriber's note: The source book was missing pages 145-6, and 159-160, and many of its illustrations. Should you happen to have this book, with the missing material, please email their scans to Project Gutenberg's (www.gutenberg.org) Errata reporting email address.] "SHE FILLED HER APRON WITH THE CRISP, FRESH COOKIES." RUBY AT SCHOOL The Third Volume of the Ruby Series BY MINNIE E. PAULL AUTHOR OF "RUTH AND RUBY," "RUBY'S UPS AND DOWNS," "PRINCE DIMPLE SERIES," "DOROTHY DARLING," ETC. BOSTON ESTES AND LAURIAT PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1894, BY ESTES AND LAURIAT. University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. RUBY IN MISCHIEF II. CARRYING OUT HER PLAN III. LOOKING FOR RUBY IV. CONSEQUENCES V. BOARDING-SCHOOL VI. PREPARATIONS VII. MORE PREPARATIONS VIII. READY IX. THE JOURNEY X. MAKING FRIENDS XI. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE XII. MAKING ACQUAINTANCE XIII. GETTING SETTLED XIV. SCHOOL XV. BEGINNING SCHOOL XVI. MAUDE'S TROUBLES XVII. LEARNING XVIII. MISADVENTURES XIX. SURPRISES XX. PERSIMMONS XXI. MAUDE XXII. SUNDAY AT SCHOOL XXIII. GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS XXIV. FINIS ILLUSTRATIONS. "SHE FILLED HER APRON WITH THE CRISP, FRESH COOKIES" . . . Frontispiece RUBY AND HER MOTHER (missing from book) RUBY MEETING MAUDE AT THE STATION (missing) RUBY WRITING A LETTER HOME "MRS. BOARDMAN WAS VERY PATIENT WITH THE SPOILED CHILD" (missing) MISS KETCHUM AND THE CATERPILLARS (missing) "OH, IT HAS DONE SOMETHING TO MY MOUTH!" (missing) READING THE INVITATION TO AGNES (missing) RUBY AT SCHOOL. CHAPTER I. RUBY IN MISCHIEF. It does seem quite too bad to begin a new Ruby book with Ruby in mischief the very first thing; and yet what can I do but tell you about it? for it is very probable that if she had not been in this particular piece of mischief, this story would never have been written. "Nobody but Ruby would ever have thought of such a thing," Ann exclaimed, when it was discovered, and it really did seem as if Ruby thought of naughty things to do that would never have entered any one else's head. Ruby had certainly been having one of her "bad streaks," as Nora called her particularly mischievous times, and perhaps this was because Ruby had been left to herself more than she had ever been in all her life before. Mamma was sick, and she was only able to have Ruby come into her room when the little girl was willing to be very quiet and move about gently, so as not to disturb her; and she knew very little of what Ruby was about in the long hours which she spent in play. All summer Ruby had been running wild, coming into the house only to eat her meals, or towards evening nestling down beside mamma, to talk to her for a little while about what she had been doing all day. I am afraid it was not very often that Ruby told her of the many things she had been doing of which she knew mamma would not approve at all. When Ruby went over to Mrs. Warren's house to visit Ruthy, Mrs. Warren tried to have her do as she wished her own little girl to do, but she found it a very much harder matter to govern quick-tempered, impulsive Ruby than it was to guide her own gentle little daughter, and she often sighed as she thought how distressed Ruby's mamma would be if she knew how self-willed and mischievous her little daughter was growing without her mother's care. Ruby's papa was very busy with his patients, and when he was at home he spent most of his time in the invalid's room, so he did not have any idea how much the little girl needed some one to look after her, and see that she did not get into mischief. Ann did her best to take care of Ruby, but she had more work to do than usual, so she had very little time to keep watch of the little girl; and besides, Ruby would not mind Ann unless she said she would tell Dr. Harper if Ruby was naughty, and Ann did not like to complain of Ruby if she could help it. Altogether you can see that Ruby had a pretty good opportunity to be just as naughty as she wanted to be; and every day it did seem as if she thought of more mischievous things to do than she had ever done in all her life put together before. Ruby was having a very nice time this afternoon all by herself. It would have been nicer to have had Ruthy to help her enjoy it, but Mrs. Warren was not willing to let Ruthy go over to Mrs. Harper's, now that there was no one to see what the two little girls were about. Ruthy could be trusted not to get into any mischief by herself, but sometimes she yielded to Ruby's coaxing when she had devised some piece of mischief, and then no one knew what the two little girls would do next. Some carpenters had been at work down by the stable, building a new hen-house, and Ruby had made a playhouse for herself with the boards they had left. She had leaned them up against the low branch of an old tree, with Ann's help, for the boards were rather too heavy for her to move alone, and so she had a tent-shaped house of boards in which she thought it was great fun to play. Ruby's favorite story was the "Swiss Family Robinson," and she thought that no greater happiness could befall any one than to be cast away upon a desert island. As long as there did not seem to be any prospect of a desert island before her, when the largest piece of water she had ever seen in her life was the small shallow pond where the boys got water-lilies in summer, and skated in winter, she thought the next best thing would be to live in this little house, and not go home at all, except to see her mother. She was very sure that the rest of the family would not approve of this plan at all, so she did not say anything to them about it, but determined to try it and see how she liked it, without running any chances of being forbidden. One day, when she knew Ann was busy up in her mother's room, and no one would see what she was doing, she ran up to the garret, and brought down a pair of blankets, an old comforter, and the little pillow that belonged to the crib in which she had slept when she was a baby. She carried all these out to her little playhouse in the yard, and has only just tucked away the last corner of the comforter out of sight, when she heard the sound of wheels as her father's buggy drove into the yard. Ruby ran out to meet him, afraid that he might come and look into her little wooden tent, and see what she had taken from the house. She was very sure that he would not at all approve of her plan of spending the night out there alone. She slipped her hand into his, and walked up to the house with him, and then ran back to her play. After dinner she chose a time when Nora would not be in the kitchen, and carried some provisions down to her little house; for though she wanted to imitate the Swiss Family Robinson as far as possible, she was not sure that she would be able to find meals for herself as readily as they did; so, though biscuits and cookies were not at all the sort of food shipwrecked people generally eat, she thought that she had better lay in a supply of them, particularly as there were no kindly cocoanut or bread-fruit trees growing at hand. She filled her apron with the crisp fresh cookies which Ann had just made, and with biscuit from the stone crock, and then spying a little turnover which she was sure Ann had made for her, she added that to her store. It began to look quite like a castaway's tent, Ruby imagined, as she sat down in her little house and looked around. To be sure, you would hardly expect any one wrecked upon a desert island to have such a comfortable roof of boards over his head, and certainly one would not find a supply of warm, dry bed-clothing at hand, nor fresh cookies; but Ruby was quite satisfied, and she thought it would be great fun to spend the night out there all by herself, and imagine herself in the midst of a forest all alone. She shut her eyes, and as the wind rustled the branches of the tree, she pretended that she heard the waves breaking upon the shore of her desert island, and that chattering monkeys were jumping about over her head in the branches of great palm and tall cocoanut-trees. If Ruthy could only be cast away with her it would be ever so much nicer, for then she would not have to enjoy it all by herself; but she reflected that it was just as well that Ruthy could not come over and play, for she probably would be afraid to sleep out there, and would cry and want to go into the house just when the play grew the most interesting. No thought of fear entered venturesome Ruby's mind. It would be an easy matter for her to slip out of the house after she was supposed to be fast asleep in her trundle bed, which was not beside her mother's bed any longer, but in a room by itself. Ruby did not know that the the last thing her father did every night before he went to bed, was to go and take a look at his little girl, and see that she was sleeping comfortably; and very often he went into her room in the evening, soon after she had gone to sleep. Of course she knew that she was going to do a naughty thing, but I am sorry to say that Ruby did not very often let that interfere with anything she wanted to do now, she had her own way so much. She was so excited over her plan for the night that she was very quiet all the rest of the afternoon, and Ann said rather suspiciously,— "You're up to some new mischief, Ruby Harper, I'll venture, or you would never be so quiet all at once. I know you. Now do be a good girl, and