CHAPTER V – “THE BOYS OF THE DRAFT”

“My goodness, Ruth Fielding!” demanded Helen, after reading the characteristic letter from Jennie Stone, “if she can go to France why can’t we?”

Helen’s changed attitude did not surprise her chum much. Ruth was quite used to Helen’s vagaries. The latter was very apt to declare against a course of action, for herself or her friends, and then change over night.

The thought of her twin brother going to war had at first shocked and startled Helen. Now she added:

“For you know very well, Ruth Fielding, that Tom Cameron should not be allowed to go over there to France all alone.”

“Goodness, Helen!” gasped the girl of the Red Mill, “you don’t suppose that Tom is going to constitute an Army of Invasion in his own person, and attempt to whip the whole of Germany before the rest of Uncle Sam’s boys jump in?”

“You may laugh!” cried Helen. “He’s only a boy – and boys can’t get along without somebody to look out for them. He never would change his flannels at the right time, or keep his feet dry.”

“I know you have always felt the overwhelming responsibility of Tom’s upbringing, even when he was at Seven Oaks and you and I were at Briarwood.”

“Every boy needs the oversight of some feminine eye. And I expect he’ll fall in love with the first French girl he meets over there unless I’m on the spot to warn him,” Helen went on.

“They are most attractive, I believe,” laughed Ruth cheerfully.

“‘Chic,’ as Madame Picolet used to say. You remember her, our French teacher at Briarwood?” Helen said.

“Poor little Picolet!” Ruth returned with some gravity. “Do you know she has been writing me?”

“Madame Picolet? You never said a word about it!”

“But you knew she returned to France soon after the war began?”

“Oh, yes. I knew that. But – but, to tell the truth, I hadn’t thought of her at all for a long time. Why does she write to you?”

“For help,” said Ruth quietly. “She has a work among soldiers’ widows and orphans – a very worthy charity, indeed. I looked it up.”

“And sent her money, I bet!” cried the vigorous Helen.

“Why – yes – what I felt I could spare,” Ruth admitted.

“And never told any of us girls about it. Think! All the Briarwood girls who knew little Picolet!” Helen said with some heat. “Why shouldn’t we have had a part in helping her, too?”

“My dear,” said her chum seriously, “do you realize how little interest any of us felt in the war until this last winter? And now our own dear country is in it and we must think of our own boys who are going, rather than of the needs of the French, or the British, or even the Belgians.”

“Oh, Ruth!” cried Helen suddenly, “perhaps Madame Picolet might help us to get over there.”

“Over to France?”

“I mean to get into some work in France. She knows us. She may have some influence,” said the eager Helen.

But Ruth slowly shook her head. “No,” she said. “If I go over there it must be to work for our own boys. They are going. They will need us. I want to do my all for Uncle Sam – for these United States – and,” she added, pointing to Uncle Jabez’s flag upon the pole in front of the Red Mill farmhouse, “for the blessed old flag. I am sorry for the wounded of our allies; but the time has come now for us to think of the needs of our own soldiers first. They are going over. First our regular army and the guard; then the boys of the draft.”

“Ah, yes! The boys of the draft,” sighed Helen.

Suddenly Ruth seized her chum’s wrist. “I’ve got it, Helen! That is it! ‘The boys of the draft.’”

“Goodness! What’s the matter with you now?” demanded Helen, wide-eyed.

“We will screen it. It will be great!” cried Ruth. “I’ll go and see Mr. Hammond at once. I can write the scenario in a few days, and it will not take long to film it. The story of the draft, and what the Red Cross can and will do for the boys over there. Put it on the screen and show it wherever a Red Cross drive is made during the next few months. We’ll do it, Helen!”

“Oh! Yes! We’ll – do – it!” gasped her chum breathlessly. “You mean that you will do it and that I haven’t the first idea of what it is you mean to do.”

“Of course you have. A big film called ‘The Boys of the Draft,’ taking a green squad right through their training from the very first day they are in camp. Fake the French and war scenes, of course, but show the spectators just what may and will happen over there and what the Red Cross will do for the brave hearts who fight for the country.”

Ruth was excited. No doubt of that. Her cheeks burned. Her eyes shone. She gestured vigorously.

“I know you don’t see it as I do, honey,” she added. “I can visualize the whole thing right now. And Helen!”

“Goodness, yes!” gasped Helen. “What now?”

“I’m going to make Uncle Jabez see it! You just see if I don’t.”

CHAPTER VI – THE PATRIOTISM OF THE PURSE

While she was yet at boarding school at Briarwood Hall Ruth had been successful in writing a scenario for the Alectrion Film Corporation. This is told of in “Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures.” Its production had been a matter to arouse both the interest and amazement of her friends. Mr. Hammond, the president of the film-producing company, considered her a genius in screen matters, and it was a fact that she had gained a very practical grasp of the whole moving picture business.

“The Heart of a Schoolgirl,” which Ruth had written under spur of a great need at Briarwood Hall, had practically rebuilt one of the dormitories which had been destroyed by fire at a time when the insurance on that particular building had run out.

One of her romantic scenarios had been screened at the Red Mill and on the picturesque Lumano and along its banks. Then, less than a year before, “The Forty-Niners” had been made; and during the succeeding winter this picture had been shown all over the country and, as the theatrical people say, “had played to big business.”

Ruth had bought stock in the corporation and was sometimes actually consulted now by Mr. Hammond and the heads of departments as to the policies of the concern. As the president of the corporation had already written her, the time was about ripe for another “big” film.

Ruth Fielding was expected to suggest the idea, at least, although the working out of the story would probably be left to the director in the field. He knew his people, his properties, and his locations. The bare skeleton of the story was what Mr. Hammond wanted.

Ruth’s success in making virile “The Forty-Niners” urged Mr. Hammond to hope for something as good from her now. And, like most composers of every kind, the real inspiration for the new reel wonder had leaped to life on the instant in her brain.

The idea of “The Boys of the Draft” came from her talk with her chum, Helen Cameron. Helen had a limited amount of pride in Ruth’s success on this occasion for, as she said, she had blunderingly “sicked Ruth on.” But, oddly enough, Ruth Fielding’s first interest in the success of the new picture was in what effect it might have upon Uncle Jabez Potter’s purse.

The drive for Red Cross contributions was on now all over the country. That effort confined to the county in which Cheslow and the Red Mill were located had begun early; but it had gone stumblingly. Indeed, as Helen said, if it was a drive, it was about like driving home the cows!

Mr. Cameron had expected much of Ruth and his own daughter among the farming people; but they were actually behind the collectors who worked in the towns. It was at a time in the year when the men of the scattered communities were working hard out of doors; and it is difficult to interest farmers in anything but their crops during the growing season. Indeed, it is absolutely necessary that they should give their main attention to those crops if a good harvest is to be secured.

But Ruth felt that she was failing in this work for the Red Cross just because she could not interest her uncle, the old miller, sufficiently in the matter. If she could not get him enthused, how could she expect to obtain large contributions from strangers?

After seeing a screen production of Ruth’s play of the old West Uncle Jabez had for the first time realized what a really wonderful thing the filming of such pictures was. He admitted that Ruth’s time was not being thrown away.

Then, he respected the ability of anybody who could make money, and he saw this girl, whom he had “taken in out of charity” as he had more than once said, making more money in a given time – and making it more easily – than he did in his mill and through his mortgages and mining investments.

If Uncle Jabez did not actually bow down to the Golden Calf, he surely did think highly of financial success. And he had begun to realize that all this education Ruth had been getting (quite unnecessary he had first believed) had led her into a position where she was “making good.”

Through this slant in Uncle Jabez’s mind the girl began to hope that she might encourage him to do much more for the cause her heart was so set on than he seemed willing to do. Uncle Jabez was patriotic, but his patriotism had not as yet affected his pocket.

As soon as Uncle Jabez knew that Ruth contemplated helping to make another picture he showed interest. He wanted to know about it, and he figured with Aunt Alvirah “how much that gal might make out’n her idees.”

“For goodness’ sake, Jabez Potter!” exclaimed the little old woman, “ain’t you got airy idee in your head ’cept money making?”

“I calc’late,” said the miller grimly, “that it’s my idees about money in the past has give me what I’ve got.”

“But our Ruthie is going to git up a big, patriotic picture – somethin’ to stir the hearts of the people when they think the boys air actually going over to help them French folks win the war.”

“I wish,” cried the old woman shrilly, “that I warn’t too old and too crooked, to do something myself for the soldiers. But my back an’ my bones won’t let me, Jabez. And I ain’t got no bank account. All I can do is to pray.”

The miller looked at her with his usual grim smile. Perhaps it was a little quizzical on this occasion.

“Do you calc’late to do any prayin’ about this here filum Ruth is going to make, ‘The Boys of the Draft’?” he asked.

“I sartinly be – for her success and the good it may do.”

“By gum! she’ll make money, then,” declared Uncle Jabez, who had unbounded faith in the religion Aunt Alvirah professed – but he did not.

Ruth, hearing this, developed another of her inspirational ideas. Uncle Jabez fell into a trap she laid for him, after having taken Mr. Hammond into her confidence regarding what she proposed doing.

“I reckon you’ll make a mint of money out’n this draft story,” the miller said one evening, when the actual work on the photographing of the film was well under way.

“I hope so,” admitted Ruth slowly. “But I am afraid some parts of it will have to be cut or changed because it would cost more than Mr. Hammond cares to put into it at this time. You know, the Alectrion Corporation is in the field with several big things, and it takes a lot of money.”

“Why don’t he borry it?” demanded the miller sharply.

“He never does that. The only way in which he accepts outside capital is to let moneyed men buy into a picture he is making, taking their chance along with the rest of us that the picture will be a success.”

“Yep. An’ if it ain’t a success?” asked the miller shrewdly.

“Then their money is lost.”

“Ahem! That’s a hard sayin’,” muttered the old man. “But if it does make a hit – like that Forty-Niner story of yourn, Niece Ruth – then the feller that buys in makes a nice little pile?”

“Our successes,” Ruth said with pride, “have run from fifty to two hundred per cent profit.”

“My soul! Two hunderd! Ain’t that perfec’ly scand’lous?” muttered Uncle Jabez. “An’ here jest last week I let Amos Blodgett have a thousand dollars on his farm at five an’ a ha’f per cent.”

“But that investment is perfectly safe,” Ruth said slyly.

“My soul! Yes. Blodgett’s lower forty’s wuth more’n the mortgage. But sech winnin’s as you speak of – ! Niece Ruth how much is needed to make this picture the kind of a picture you want it to be?”

She told him – as she and Mr. Hammond had already agreed. The idea was to divide the cost in three parts and let Uncle Jabez invest to the amount of one of the shares if he would.

“But, you see, Uncle Jabez, Mr. Hammond does not feel as confident as I do about ‘The Boys of the Draft,’ nor has he the same deep interest in the picture. I want it to be a success – and I believe it will be – because of the good it will do the Red Cross campaign for funds.”

“Humph!” grunted the miller. “I’m bankin’ on your winnin’ anyway.” And perhaps his belief in the efficacy of Aunt Alvirah Boggs’ prayers had something to do with his “buying into” the new picture.

The screening of the great film was rushed. A campaign of advertising was entered into and the fact that a share of the profits from the film was to be devoted to Red Cross work made it popular at once. But Uncle Jabez showed some chagrin.

“What’s the meanin’ of it?” he demanded. “Who’s goin’ to give his share of the profits to any Red Cross? Not me!”

“But I am, Uncle Jabez,” Ruth said lightly. “That was my intention from the first. But, of course, that has nothing to do with you.”

“I sh’d say not! I sh’d say not!” grumbled the miller. “I ain’t likely to git into a good thing an’ then throw the profit away. I sh’d say not!”

The film was shown in New York, in several other big cities, and in Cheslow simultaneously. Ruth arranged for this first production with the proprietor of the best movie house in the local town, because she was anxious to see it and could not spare the time to go to New York.

Mr. Hammond, as though inspired by Ruth’s example, telegraphed on the day of the first exhibition of the film that he would donate his share of the profits as well to the Red Cross.

“‘Nother dern fool!” sputtered Uncle Jabez. “Never see the beat. Wal! if you’n he both want to give ‘way a small fortune, it’s your own business, I suppose. All the less need of me givin’ any of my share.”

He went with Ruth to see the production of the film. Indeed, he would not have missed that “first night” for the world. The pretty picture house was crowded. It had got so that when anything from the pen of the girl of the Red Mill was produced the neighbors made a gala day of it.

Ruth Fielding was proud of her success. And she had nothing on this occasion to be sorry for, the film being a splendid piece of work.

But, aside from this fact, “The Boys of the Draft” was opportune, and the audience was more than usually sensitive. The very next day the first quota of the drafted boys from Cheslow would march away to the training camp.

The hearts of the people were stirred. They saw a faithful reproduction of what the boys would go through in training, what they might endure in the trenches, and particularly what the Red Cross was doing for soldiers under similar conditions elsewhere.

As though spellbound, Uncle Jabez sat through the long reel. The appeal at the end, with the Red Cross nurse in the hospital ward, the dying soldier’s head pillowed upon her breast while she whispered the comfort into his dulling ear that his mother would have whispered —

Ah, it brought the audience to its feet at the “fadeout” – and in tears! It was so human, so real, so touching, that there was little audible comment as they filed out to the soft playing of the organ.

But Uncle Jabez burst out helplessly when they were in the street. He wiped the tears from the hard wrinkles of his old face with frankness and his voice was husky as he declared:

“Niece Ruth! I’m converted to your Red Cross. Dern it all! you kin have ev’ry cent of my share of the profit on that picter – ev’ry cent!”