"Tell me how she can dodge that woman, then," demanded Tom.
"Ah!" murmured Henri Marchand. "She have arrive'."
Miss Timmins appeared at the door behind Bella. The spectators heard the girl's shriek. The housekeeper struck at her with the clothes stick. And then----
"Talk about movie stunts!" shouted Tom Cameron, for the frightened Bella leaped like a cat upon the haymow door and swung outward with nothing more stable than air between her and the ground, more than thirty feet below!
Helen Cameron and Jennie Stone shrieked in unison when Miss Susan Timmins' niece cast herself out of the haymow upon the plank door and swung as far as the door would go upon its creaking hinges. Ruth seized Tom's wrist in a nervous grip, but did not utter a word. Aunt Kate turned away and covered her eyes with her hands that she might not see the reckless child fall--if she did fall.
"Name of a name!" murmured Henri Marchand. "_Au secours!_ Come, Tom, _mon ami_--to the rescue!"
He turned and ran lightly along the hall and down the stairs. But Tom went through the window, almost as precipitately as had Bella Pike herself, and so over the roof of the kitchen ell and down the trumpet-vine trellis.
Tom was in the yard and running to the barn before Marchand got out of the kitchen. Several other people, early as the hour was, appeared running toward the rear premises of Drovers' Tavern.
"See that crazy young one!" some woman shrieked. "I know she'll kill herself yet."
"Stop that!" commanded Tom, looking up and shaking a threatening hand at Miss Timmins.
For in her rage the woman was trying to strike her niece with the stick, as Bella clung to the door.
"Mind your own business, young man!" snapped the virago. "And go back and put the rest of your clothes on. You ain't decent."
Tom was scarcely embarrassed by this verbal attack. The case was too serious for that. Miss Timmins struck at the girl again, and only missed the screaming Bella by an inch or so.
Helen and Jennie screamed in unison, and Ruth herself had difficulty in keeping her lips closed. The cruel rage of the hotel housekeeper made her quite unfit to manage such a child as Bella, and Ruth determined to interfere in Bella's behalf at the proper time.