CHAPTER XXIII
PUTTING ONE'S BEST FOOT FORWARD
Amy Gregg's escapade created a lot of excitement at Briarwood Hall.Inasmuch as it affected Ruth, the whole school was in a flutter about it.
Helen and Ann had come to the Hall, late for breakfast, and spread thenews in the dining hall. They were both sure, by Ruth's actions and thedoctor's first noncommittal report, that Amy had some contagious disease.Curly had made a deal of the sore throat Amy had confessed to.
"And if that's so," Helen said, almost in tears, "poor Ruth will bequarantined for weeks."
"Why, Helen, how will she graduate?" gasped Lluella.
"She won't! She can't!" declared Ruth's chum. "It will be dreadful!"
"I say!" cried Jennie, thoroughly alarmed. "We musn't let her stay thereand nurse that young one. Why! what ever would we do if Ruthie Fieldingdidn't graduate?"
"The class would be without a head," declared Mercy.
"It would be without a heart, at least--and a great, big one overflowingwith love and tenderness," cried Nettie Parsons, wiping her eyes.
"I don't want any more breakfast," said Jennie, pushing her plate away."Don't talk like that, Nettie. You'll get me to crying too. And thatalways spoils my digestion."
"If Ruth isn't with us when we get our diplomas, I'm sure I don't wantany!" exclaimed Mary Cox. And she meant it, too. Mary Cox believed thatshe owed her brother's life to Ruth Fielding, and although she was notnaturally a demonstrative girl, there was nobody at Briarwood Hall whoadmired the girl of the Red Mill more than Mary.
In fact, the threat of disaster to Ruth's graduation plans cast a pall ofgloom over the school. The moving pictures were forgotten; Amy Gregg'spart in the destruction of the West Dormitory ceased to be a topic ofconversation. Was Ruth Fielding going to be held in quarantine? grew to bea more momentous question than any other.
Ruth, however, was only absent from her accustomed haunts for two days.The second day she remained to attend the patient because Amy begged sohard to have her stay.
In her weakness and pain the sullen, secretive girl had turnedinstinctively to the one person who had been uniformly gentle and kind toher throughout all her trouble. Nothing that Amy had done or said, hadturned Ruth from her; and the barriers of girl's nature and of her evilpassions were broken down.
It was not, perhaps, wholly Amy Gregg's fault that her disposition was sowarped. She had received bad advice from some aunts, who had likewise setthe child a bad example in their treatment of Mr. Gregg's second wife,when he had brought her home to be a mother to Amy.
The poor child suffered so much from the effect of the poison ivy that theother girls, and not alone those of her own grade, "just _had_ to be sorryfor Amy," as Mary Pease said.
"To think!" said that excitable young girl. "She might even lose hereyesight if she's not careful. My! it must be dreadful to get poisonedwith that nasty ivy. I'll be afraid to go into the woods the wholesummer."
Of course, it took time for these sentiments to circulate through theschool, and for a better feeling for Amy Gregg to come to the surface; butthe poor girl was laid up for two weeks in Mrs. Sadoc Smith's bestbedroom, and a fortnight is a long time in a girls' boarding school. Atleast, it sometimes seems so to the pupils.
What helped change the girls' opinion of Amy, too, was the fact that Mrs.Tellingham announced in chapel one morning that Mr. Gregg had sent hischeck for five hundred dollars toward the rebuilding of the dormitory,the walls of which now were completed, and the roof on.
She spoke, too, of the reason Amy had left her candle burning in herlonely room in the old West Dormitory that fatal evening. "We failed inour duty, both as teachers and fellow-pupils," Mrs. Tellingham said. "Ihope that no other girl who enters Briarwood Hall will ever be neglectedand left alone as Amy Gregg was, no matter what the new comer'sdisposition or attitude toward us may be."
To hear the principal take herself to task for lack of foresight andkindness to a new pupil, made a deep impression upon the school at large,and when Amy Gregg appeared on the campus again she was welcomed withgentleness by the other girls. Although Amy Gregg still doubted and shrankfrom them for some time, before the end of the term she had her chums, andwas one of a set whose bright, particular star was her one-time enemy,Mary Pease.
Meanwhile, the older girls--the seniors who were to graduate--had a newproblem. The films for "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" were reported almostready. Mr. Hammond was to release them as soon as he could, in order tobring all the aid to the dormitory fund possible before the end of thesemester.
Now the query was, "How is the picture to be advertised?" Merely theordinary billing in front of the picture playhouses and on the displayboards, was not enough. An interest must be stirred of a deeper andbroader nature than that which such a casual manner of advertising couldbe expected to engender.
"How'll we do it?" demanded Jennie, with as much solemnity as it waspossible for her rosy, round face to express. "We should invent somecatch-phrase to introduce the great film--something as effective as 'Goodevening! have you used Higgin's Toothpaste?' or, 'You-must-have-apound-cake.' You know, something catchy that will stick in people'sminds."
"It has taken years and years to make some of those catchy trademarksuniversal," objected Ruth, seriously. "Our advertising must be done in ahurry."
"Well, we've got to put our best foot forward, somehow," declared Helen."Everybody must be made to know that the Briarwood girls have a show oftheir own--a five-reel film that is a corker----"
"Hear! hear!" cried Belle. "Wait till the censor gets hold of _that_word."
"Quite right," agreed Ruth. "Let us be lady-like, though the heavensfall!"
"And still be natural?" chuckled Jennie. "Impossible!"
"Her best foot forward--one's best foot forward." Mary Cox kept repeatingHelen's remark while the other girls chattered. Mary had a talent fordrawing. "Say!" she suddenly exclaimed. "I could make a dandy poster withthat for a text."
"With what for a text?" somebody asked.
"'Putting One's Best Foot Forward,'" declared Mary Cox, and suddenlyseizing charcoal and paper, she sketched the idea quickly--a smartlydressed up-to-date Briarwood girl with her right foot advanced--and thatfoot, as in a foreshortened photograph--of enormous size.
The poster took with the girls immensely. There was something chic aboutthe figure, and the face, while looking like nobody in particular, was acomposite of several of the girls. At least, it was an inspiration on thepart of Mary Cox, and when Mrs. Tellingham saw it, she approved.
"We'll just send this 'Big Foot Girl' broadcast," cried Helen, who wasproud that her spoken word had been the inspiration for Mary's clevercartoon. "Come on! we'll have it stamped on our stationery, and write toeveryone we know bespeaking their best attention when they see the posterin their vicinity."
"And we'll have new postcards made of Briarwood Hall, with Mary's figureprinted on the reverse," Sarah Fish said.
They sent a proof of the poster to Mr. Hammond, and to his billing of"The Heart of a Schoolgirl" he immediately added "The Briarwood Girl withHer Best Foot Forward." Locally, during the next few weeks, this posterbecame immensely popular.
The campaign of advertising did not end with Mary's poster--no, indeed! Inevery way they could think of the girls of Briarwood Hall spread thetidings of the forthcoming release of the school play.
Lumberton's advertising space was plastered with the Briarwood Girl andwith other billing weeks before the film could be seen. As every movingpicture theatre in the place clamored for the film, Mr. Hammond hadrefused to book it with any. The Opera House was engaged for three daysand nights, a high price for tickets asked, and it was expected that agoodly sum would be raised for the dormitory right at home.
However, before the picture of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" came to town,something else happened in the career of Ruth Fielding of the Red Millwhich greatly influenced her future.