CHAPTER XVII
JOHN, THE HERMIT'S, CONTRIBUTION
A man with bushy hair, a pencil stuck over his ear, and wearing anink-stained apron, met them in the office of the _Harpoon_. This was EzraPayne, editor and publisher of the weekly news-sheet, and this was hisbusiest day. The _Harpoon_, Ruth had learned, usually went into the mailson this day.
"Tut, tut! I see. Is this a joke?" Mr. Payne pursed his lips and wrinkledhis brow in uncertainty.
"A whole edition, Miss? Wall, I dunno. I do have hard work selling all theedition some weeks. But I have reg'lar subscribers----"
"This will not interfere with your usual edition of the _Harpoon_," shehastened to assure him.
"How's that, Miss?"
"I want to buy an edition of one copy."
"One copy!"
"Yes, sir. I want something special printed in one paper. Then you cantake it out and print your regular edition."
"Tut, tut! I see. Is this a joke?" Mr. Payne asked, his eyes beginning totwinkle.
"It is the biggest joke you ever heard of," declared Ruth.
"And who's the joke on?"
"Wait and see what I write," Ruth said, sitting down at the battered olddesk where he labored over his editorials and proofsheets.
Opening a copy of the last week's _Harpoon_ that lay there, she was ableto see the whole face of the paper.
"I've got the inside run off," said Mr. Payne, still doubtfully. "So youcan't run anything on the second and third pages."
"Oh, I want the most prominent place for my item," laughed Ruth. "Frontpage, top column---- Here it is!"
He bent over her. Tom stared in wonder, too, as Ruth pointed to an itemunder a certain heading at the top of the middle column of the front pageof the sheet.
"That is just where I want my item to appear," she said briskly to theeditor. "You run that--that department there every week?"
"Oh, yes, Miss. The people expect it. You know how folks are. They lookfor those items first of all in a country paper."
"Yes. It is so. One of the New York dailies is still printed with thathuman foible in mind. It caters to this very curiosity that your_Harpoon_ caters to."
"Yes, Miss. You're right. Most folks have the same curiosity, city orcountry. Shakespeare spoke of the 'seven ages of man'; but there are onlythree of particular interest--to womankind, anyway; and they are all_here_."
"There you go! Slurring the women," she laughed. "Or do you speakcompliments?"
"I guess the women have it right," chuckled Mr. Payne. "Now, what is ityou want me to print in one paper for you?"
Ruth drew a scratch pad to her and scribbled rapidly for a couple ofminutes. Then she passed the page to the newspaper proprietor.
Mr. Payne read it, stared at her, pursed his lips, and then read it again.Suddenly he burst into a cackle of laughter, slapping his thigh in highdelight.
"By gravy!" he chortled, "that's a good one on the dominie. By gravy! waittill I tell----"
"Don't you tell anybody, Mr. Payne," interrupted Ruth, smiling, butfirmly. "I am buying your secrecy as well as your edition of _one copy_."
"I get you! I get you!" declared the old fellow. "This is to be on theq.t.?"
"Positively."
"You sit right here. The front page is all made up on the stone,Marriages, Births, Death Notices, and all. I'll set the paragraph andslip it in at the top o' the column. My boy is out, but this young man canhelp me lift the page into the press. She's all warmed up, and I was goingto start printing when Edgar comes back from breakfast."
He grabbed the piece of copy and went off into the printing room,chuckling. Half an hour later the first paper came from the press, andRuth and Tom bent over it. The item the girl had written was plainlyprinted in the position she had chosen on the front page of the _Harpoon_.
"Now, you are to keep still about this," Ruth said, threatening Mr. Paynewith a raised finger.
"I don't know a thing about it," he promised, pocketing the bill she tookfrom her purse, and in high good humor over the joke.
Tom helped him take the front page from the press again. The printerunlocked the chase, and removed and distributed the three lines he had setup at Ruth's direction.
The crowd from Beach Plum Point came over in the cars about noontime. AuntKate had remained at the inn on this morning, and she and Ruth walked tothe "location," which was a beautiful old shaded front yard at the far endof the village.
Helen and Jennie had come with the real actors, and were to appear in thepicture. The story related incidents at a Sunday-school picnic, and mostof the comedy had already been filmed on the lot.
The scene around the long sewing table under the trees, when the ladies'aid was at work with needle and tongue, should be the principal incidentof this reel devoted to the picnic.
The heroine, to the amazement of the village gossips, has run away withthe schoolmaster and married him in the next county. A certain characterin the picture runs in with this bombshell of news and explodes it in themidst of the group about the sewing table.
The day before this point had failed to make much impression upon theamateur members of the company engaged in this typical scene. TheHerringport ladies were not at all interested in such a thing happening tothe town's schoolmaster, for to tell the truth the local schoolmaster wasan old married man with a house full of children and nothing at allromantic about him.
Ruth took Mr. Hooley aside and showed him the copy of the _Harpoon_ shehad had printed, and whispered to him her idea of the change in the actionof the scenario. He seized upon the scheme--and the paper--with gusto.
"You are a jewel, Miss Fielding!" he declared. "If this doesn't make thoseold tabbies come to life and act naturally, nothing ever will!"
Ruth left the matter in the director's hands and retired from thelocation. She had no intention herself of appearing in the picture. Shefound Mr. Hammond sitting in his automobile in a state of good-humor.
"You seem quite sure that the work will go better to-day, Mr. Hammond,"Ruth observed, with curiosity as to the reason for his apparent enjoyment.
"Whether it does or not, Miss Ruth," he responded. "There is somethingthat I fancy is going to be more than a little amusing."
He tapped a package wrapped in a soiled newspaper which lay on the seatbeside him. "Thank goodness, I can still enjoy a joke."
"What is the joke? Let me enjoy it, too," she said.
"With the greatest of pleasure. I'll let you read it, if you like--as youdid those other scenarios."
"What! Is it a movie story?" she asked.
"So I am assured. It is the contribution of John, the hermit. He broughtit to me just before we started over here this morning. Poor old codger!Just look here, Miss Ruth."
Mr. Hammond turned back the loose covering of the package on theautomobile seat. Ruth saw a packet of papers, seemingly of roughly trimmedsheets of wrapping paper and of several sizes. At the top of the uppersheet was the title of the hermit's scenario. It was called "Plain Mary."She glanced down the page, noting that it was written in a large, upright,hand and with an indelible pencil.
Ruth Fielding had not the least idea that she was to take any particularinterest in this picture-story. She smiled more because Mr. Hammond seemedso amused than for any other reason. Secretly she thought that most ofthese moving picture people were rather unkind to the strange old man wholived alone on the seaward side of the Beach Plum Point.
"Want to read it over?" Mr. Hammond asked her. "I would consider it afavor, for I've got to go back and try to catch up with my correspondence.I expect this is worse than those you skimmed through yesterday."
Ruth did not hear him. Suddenly she had seen something that had not atfirst interested her. She read the first few lines of the opening, and sawnothing in them of importance. It was the writing itself that struck her.
"Why!" she suddenly gasped.
She was reminded of something that she had seen before. This writing----
"Let me go back t
o the camp with you, Mr. Hammond," she said, slippinginto the seat and taking the packet of written sheets into her lap. "I--Iwill look through this scenario, if you like. There is something downthere on the Point that I want."
"Sure. Be glad to have your company," he said, letting in his clutch afterpushing the starter. "We're off."
Ruth did not speak again just then. With widening eyes she began to devourthe first pages of the hermit's manuscript.