"I hope you will find your brother ever so mach better," cried Ruth, as her friend ran down the walk again.
"You'll see him come by here to-morrow, if it quits raining," returned Helen, over her shoulder.
But it did not stop raining that night, nor for a full week. The scuds of rain, blowing across the river, slapped sharply against the side of the house, and against Ruth's window all night. She did not sleep that first night as well as she had in the charitable home of the station master and his good wife. The evening meal had been as stiff and unpleasant as the noon meal. The evening was spent in the same room—the kitchen. Aunt Alviry knitted and sewed; Uncle Jabez pored over certain accounts and counted money very softly behind the uplifted cover of the japanned cash-box that he had brought in from the mill.
She got in time to know that cash-box very well indeed. It often came into the house under Uncle Jabez's arm at dinner, too. He scarcely seemed willing to trust it out of his sight. And Ruth was sure that he locked himself into his room with it at night.
A loaded shotgun lay upon rests over the kitchen door all the time, and there was a big, two-barreled, muzzle-loading pistol on the stand beside Uncle Jabez's bed. Ruth was much more afraid of these loaded weapons than she was of burglars. But the old man evidently expected to be attacked for his wealth at some time although, Aunt Alvirah told her, nobody had ever troubled him in all the years she had lived at the Red Mill.
So it was not fear of marauders that kept Ruth so wakeful on this first night under her uncle's roof. She thought of all the kind friends she had left in Darrowtown, and her long journey here, and her cold welcome to what she supposed would be her future home. Without Helen, and without Aunt Alvirah, she knew she would have gotten up, put on her clothing, packed her bag, and run away in the rain to some other place. She could not have stood Uncle Jabez alone.
Jabez Potter was hoarding up something besides money, too. Ruth did not understand this until it had already rained several days, and the roaring of the waters fretting against the river banks and against the dam, had become all but deafening in her ears.
Then, during a lull in the storm, and on the afternoon that Tom Cameron was taken home from Dr. Davison's, the old doctor himself stopped at the mill and shouted for Jabez to come out. The doctor drove a very fast red and white mare and had difficulty in holding her in, for she was eager to be moving.
Uncle Jabez came out and seemed to look upon the doctor in no very friendly way. Ruth, standing at the open door of the kitchen, could hear Dr. Davison's voice plainly.
"Jabez," he said, "do you know how the river is at Minturn?"
"No," returned the miller, briefly.
"It's higher than it's ever been. That dam is not safe. Why don't you let your water out so that, if Minturn should break, she'd have free sweep here and so do less damage below? Let this small flood out and when the greater one comes there'll be less danger of a disaster."
"And howdoI know the Minturn dam will burst, Dr. Davison?" asked Mr. Potter, tartly.
"You don't know it. I'm only advising that precaution."
"And if it don't burst I'll have my pains for my trouble—and no water for the summer, perhaps. They wouldn't let me have water later, if I needed it."
"But you're risking your own property here."
"And it's mine to risk, Dr. Davison," said Potter, in his sullen way.
"But there are other people to think of—"
"I don't agree with you," interrupted the miller. "I have enough to do to attend to my own concerns. I don't bother about other people's business."
"Meaning that Idowhen I speak to you about the water; eh?" said the old doctor, cheerfully. "Well, I've done my duty. You'll learn some time, Jabez."
He let out the impatient mare then, and the mud spattered from his wheels as he flew up the road toward Cheslow.
The rain could not last forever; Nature must cease weeping some time. Just as girls, far away from their old homes and their old friends, must cease wetting their pillows with regretful tears after a time, and look forward to the new interests and new friends to which they have come.
Not that Ruth wept much. But the rainy days of that first week were necessarily trying. On Saturday, however, came a clear day. The sun shone, the drenched trees shook themselves, and the wind came and blew softly and warmly through their branches to dry the tender foliage. The birds popped out of their hiding-places and began to sing and chirp as though they never could be glad enough for this change in the weather.
There was so much to see from the kitchen door at the Red Mill that Ruth did not mind her work that morning. She had learned now to help Aunt Alvirah in many ways. Not often did the old lady have to go about moaning her old refrain:
"Oh, my back and oh, my bones! Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"
The housework was all done and the kitchen swept and as neat as a new pin when the gay tooting of the Cameron automobile horn called Ruth to the porch. There was only Helen on the front seat of the car; but in the tonneau was a bundled-up figure surmounted by what looked to be a scarlet cap which Ruth knew instantly must be Tom's. Ruth did not know many boys and, never having had a brother, was not a little bashful. Besides, she was afraid Tom Cameron would make much of her connection with his being found on the Wilkins Corners road that dark night, after his accident.
And there was another thing that made Ruth feel diffident about approaching the boy. She had borne it all the time in her mind, and the instant she saw Tom in the automobile it bobbed up to the surface of her thought again.
"It was Jabe Potter—he did it."
So, for more reasons than one, Ruth approached the motor car with hesitation.
"Oh, Ruth!" cried Helen, putting out a gauntleted hand to her. "So this horrid rain has not washed you away? You won't like the Red Mill if the weather keeps this way. And how do you get on?" she added, lowering her voice. "How about the Ogre?"
"He has not ground me into bread-flour yet," responded Ruth, smiling.
"I see he hasn't. You're just as plump as ever, so he hasn't starved you, either. Now, Ruth, I want you to know my brother Tom, whom you have met before without his having been aware of it at the time," and she laughed again.
Tom's left arm was in a sling, and the scarlet bandage around his head made him look like a pirate; but he grinned broadly at Ruth and put out his lean brown hand.
"When I heard about you, Miss Fielding, I knew you were a spunky one," he said. "And anybody that Reno takes to, the way she did to you, is all right. Besides, Nell is just spoons on you already, and Nell, like Reno, doesn't take to every girl."
"The doctor said an outing in the car wouldn't hurt Tom," went on Helen, "and we're going to run up the valley road a way. Now Ruth Fielding, you get your hat and coat and come with us."
"I don't know that I may," Ruth said, timidly.
"I'll believe that he is an ogre then, and that you are kept a prisoner in this awful castle," cried Helen.
"I'd love to go," murmured Ruth.
"Then run and ask," urged her friend, while Tom added, good-naturedly:
"Yes, why not come along? Don't be afraid of Nell's driving. She handles the car all right."
Ruth knew that Uncle Jabez had gone to town. She had a feeling that he did not like the Camerons and might oppose her friendliness with them. But he was not at hand now to interfere with her innocent pleasures. She went in and asked Aunt Alvirah if she could take the ride.
"Why not, child? You've been the very best helpmate ever an old woman had—Oh, my back and oh, my bones! Run along and have your fun, deary. You need not be back till supper time. You have earned your little outing, that's sure and sartain."
Before Helen had picked her up on the road to the Red Mill that first day, Ruth had never ridden in a motor car. On that occasion they had traveled very slowly, while the girls talked. But now, when she was seated beside her new friend, Helen ran the auto on its high gear, and they shot away up the level river road at a pace that almost took Ruth's breath away.
"Up here among the foothills is the big Minturn Pond Dam," Tom said, leaning forward to speak to their guest. "It's twenty miles above your uncle's dam and is a deal bigger. And some say it is not safe—Wait, Nell! Slow down so that we can see the face of the dam from the Overlook."
The speed of the car was immediately reduced under Helen's manipulation, and then she swerved it into a short side road running toward the river, and they came out upon a little graveled plaza in the center of a tiny park, which gave a splendid view of the valley in both directions.
But the young people in the motor car turned their eyes to the west. There the face of the Minturn dam could be discerned; and even as they looked at it they seemed to see it changing—dissolving, covered with mist, and spouting geysers of what at first seemed like smoke. But it was Tom who realized the truth.
"She's burst!" he cried. "The old dam's burst! There she goes in a dozen places!"
Although they were several miles down the valley, the thunder of the bursting masonry now echoed in their ears. And up from the bottom of the wall, near its center, a great geyser spouted. In a moment the wall crumbled and they saw tons upon tons of the masonry melt away. The waters of the pond burst through in a solid flood and charged down the valley, spreading wider and wider as it charged on, and bearing upon its crest every light and unstable structure found in its path.
It was a startling—a terrifying sight. No wonder the two girls cried out in alarm and clung together. The sight of the charging flood fascinated them.
But then they were aroused—and that within the first half minute of their terror—by Tom. He was trying, crippled as he was, to climb over into their seat.
"What are you doing, you foolish boy?" cried Helen. "Sit down."
"We've got to get out of here!" muttered the excited youth.
"Why, we are safe here. The water will never rise to this height."
"I know it! I know it!" groaned Tom, falling back in his seat and paling because of the pain from his arm, which he had twisted. "But don't yousee?There are many down the valley who won't know of this until too late. Why, they can't see it at the bridge—at Culm Falls—until the flood is right upon them."
"It's true!" gasped Helen. "What shall we do?"
"We must warn them—we can warn them, can't we?" demanded Ruth. "This car runs so fast—you control it so well, Helen. Can't we warn them?"
"Try it, Sis!" shouted Tom. "You can do it!"
And already his sister, setting her teeth hard upon her lower lip, was backing and turning the motor car. In twenty seconds they were dashing off upon the track over which they had so recently come—on the road down the valley with the flood following fast behind them.
The two girls on the front seat of the flying automobile were not prepared for racing. Of course, Ruth Fielding had no proper automobile outfit, and Helen had not expected such an emergency when she had started with her crippled brother for this afternoon run. She had no goggles, nor any mask; but she had the presence of mind to raise the wind-shield.
Already they could have heard the steady roaring of the advancing flood had not the racing motor car drowned all other sounds. There was, however, no need to look behind; they knew the wave was there and that it was sweeping down the valley of the Lumano with frightful velocity.
Indeed, they were not at all sure for those first few miles whether they were traveling as fast as the flood, or not. Suppose the wave should reach and sweep away the bridge before they could cross the river? The thought was in the mind of both Helen and Ruth, whether Tom, on the rear seat, considered it or not. When they finally shot out of the woods and turned toward the toll-bridge, all glanced around. From here the upper reaches of the Lumano were plainly revealed. And extending clear across the valley was the foam-crested wave charging down upon the lowlands, but a number of miles away.
Here was the first house, too. They saw a man and woman and several children out front, staring at the automobile as it raced down the road. Perhaps they had been called from the house by the vibration of the bursting dam.
Tom sprang up in the car and pointed behind him, yelling:
"The flood! The flood!"
It is doubtful if they heard what he said; and they, too, were on a knoll and likely out of the reach of the water. But the three in the automobile saw the whole family turn and run for the higher ground behind their house. They understood the peril which menaced the whole valley.
In a flash the auto had turned the bend in the river road, and the occupants saw the toll-bridge and the peaceful hamlet of Culm Falls. There was no stir there. The toll-bridge keeper was not even out of his cottage, and the light and flimsy gates were down across the driveway at either end of the bridge. The bend in the river hid the advancing wall of water. Perhaps, too, it deadened the sound of the bursting dam and the roar of the waters.
There was another house at the bend. Helen tooted the automobile horn as though it had gone crazy. The raucous notes must of a certainty have awakened anybody but the Seven Sleepers. But the three in the car saw no sign of life about the premises. Helen had started to slow down; but Tom stopped her with a hand on her arm.
"Not here! Not here!" he yelled. "Get across the river first, Nell! That wave is coming!"
Indeed it was. And the toll-bridge keeper did not appear, and the gates were shut. But Helen Cameron was excited now and her racing blood was up. She never hesitated at the frail barrier, but drove straight through it, smashing the gate to kindling wood, and smashing their own wind shield as well.
Out ran the toll-man then; but they were half way across the bridge; he could barely have raised the other gate had he set about it instantly. So they went through that, too, leaving him bawling and shrieking after them, but soon to learn by looking up the river what Tom meant by his excited words as the motor car swept by.
Helen slowed down at the smithy. There were several men there and a number of wagons. The trio in the car screamed at them: "The dam has burst! The flood is coming!" and then started up again and swept through the little village, looking back to see the group at the smithy running in all directions to give the alarm.
Now the road, clear to the Red Mill and beyond, ran within sight of the river. The mill was all of ten miles away. The valley was low here and as far as they could see ahead it broadened considerably on this side of the Lumano. But the hills arose abruptly on the farther bank and all the force and mass of the flood must sweep across these meadows.
As the car moved on, Helen tooted the horn constantly. Its blasts alone should have warned people of what threatened, without Tom's frantic shouts and gesticulations. They were obliged, however, to slow down before several houses to make the occupants understand their danger.
They were not half way to the Red Mill when the roar of the advancing tidal wave was apparent even above the noise of the auto. Then they saw the crest of the flood appear around the bend and the already heavily burdened waters dashed themselves upon the toll-bridge. It crumpled up and disappeared like a spider-web bridge, and the flood rolled on, the wave widening and overflowing the lowlands behind the automobile.
Ahead of them now upon the road there was a single foot-passenger—a man carrying a heavy basket. He seemed so far from the higher ground, and so determined to keep to the road, that Ruth cried out and laid her hand upon Helen's arm. The latter nodded and shut off the engine so that the automobile ran down and almost stopped by this pedestrian.
"Here, you!" shouted Tom, from the tonneau. "Get in here quick! There's no time to lose!"
Much of what he said was lost in the roaring of the waters; but the fellow understood him well enough, and scrambled into the car with his basket. It was Jasper Parloe, and the old man was shaking as with palsy.
"My goodness gracious!" he croaked, falling back in the seat as the car darted away again. "Ain't this awful? Ain't this jest awful?"
He was too scared, one would have supposed, to think of much else than the peril of the flood sweeping the valley behind them; yet he stared up at Tom Cameron again and again as the auto hurried them on toward the safety of the higher ground about the Red Mill, and there was something very sly in his look.
"Ye warn't hurt so bad then, arter all, was ye, Master Cameron?" he croaked.
"I reckon I shall live to get over it," returned the boy, shortly.
"But no thanks to Jabe Potter—heh? Ha! I know, I know!"
Tom stared in return angrily, but the old man kept shaking his head and smiling up at him slily and in such a significant way that, had the boy not been so disturbed by what was going on behind them, he certainly would have demanded to know what the old fellow meant.
But the car was getting close to the long hill that mounted to the crest on which the Red Mill stood. How much better would it have been for Jabez Potter and all concerned had he taken Doctor Davison's advice and let out the water behind his dam! But now he was not even at home to do anything before the thousands upon thousands of tons of water from the Minturn reservoir swept through the Red Mill dam.
They saw the foaming, yellow water spread over the country behind them; but within half a mile of the mill it gathered into narrower compass again because of the nature of the land, and the wave grew higher as it rushed down upon Potter's dam. The motor car puffed up the hill and halted before the mill door.
"Will we be safe here, Tom?" cried Helen, as pale as a ghost now, but too brave to give way. "Are we safe?"
"We're all right, I believe," said Tom.
Jasper Parloe was already out of the car and ran into the mill. Only the hired man was there, and he came to the door with a face whiter than it was naturally made by the flour dust.
"Come in, quick!" he cried to the young people. "This mill can't go—it's too solid."
Beyond the Red Mill the ground was low again; had the Camerons tried to keep on the road for home the flood would have overtaken the car. And to take the road that branched off for Cheslow would have endangered the car, too. In a few seconds the knoll on which the mill stood was an island!
The girls and Tom ran indoors. They could hardly hear each other shout during the next few minutes. The waters rose and poured over the dam, and part of it was swept out. Great waves beat upon the river-wall of the mill. And then, with a tearing crash of rent timbers and masonry, the front of the little office and the storeroom, built out over the river, was torn away.
From that quarter Jasper Parloe ran, yelling wildly. Ruth saw him dart out of the far door of the mill, stooping low and with his coat over his head as though he expected the whole structure to fall about his ears.
But only that wall and the loading platform for the boats were sliced off by the flood. Then the bulk of the angry waters swept past, carrying all sorts of debris before it, and no farther harm was done to the mill, or to Mr. Potter's other buildings.
So rapidly had all this taken place that the girls had remained in the mill. But now Ruth, crying: "Aunt Alvirah will be frightened to death, Helen!" led the way down the long passage and through the shed into the kitchen porch. The water on this side of the building had swept up the road and actually into the yard; but the automobile stood in a puddle only and was not injured.
Aunt Alviry was sitting in her rocker by the window. The old woman was very pale and wan. She had her Bible open on her knees and her lips trembled in a smile of welcome when the girls burst into the room.
"Oh, my dears! my dears!" she cried. "I am so thankful to see you both safe!" She started to rise, and the old phrase came to her lips: "Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"
Then she rose and hobbled across the room. Her bright little, birdlike eyes, that had never yet known spectacles, had seen something up the Cheslow road.
"Who's this a-coming? For the land's sake, what recklessness! Is that Jabez and his mules, Ruthie? Bless us and save us! what's he going to try and do?"
The two girls ran to the door. Down the hill thundered a farm wagon drawn by a pair of mules, said mules being on the dead run while their driver stood in the wagon and snapped his long, blacksnake whip over their ears. Such a descent of the hill was reckless enough in any case; but now, at the foot, rolled the deep water. It had washed away a little bridge that spanned what was usually a rill, but the banks of this stream being overflowed for yards on either side, the channel was at least ten feet deep.
It was Jabez Potter driving so recklessly down the hill from Cheslow.
"Oh, oh!" screamed the old lady. "Jabez will be killed! Oh, my back and oh, my bones! Oh, deary, deary me!"
She had crossed the porch and was hobbling down the steps. Her rheumatic twinges evidently caused her excruciating pain, but the fear she felt for the miller's safety spurred her to get as far as the fence. And there Ruth and Helen kept her from splashing into the muddy water that covered the road.
"You can do no good, Aunt Alvirah!" cried Ruth.
"The mules are not running away with him, Mrs. Boggs," urged Helen.
"They'll kill him! He's crazy! It's his money—the poor, poor man!"
It was evident that Aunt Alvirah read the miller's excitement aright. Ruth remembered the cash-box and wondered if it had been left in the mill while her uncle went to Cheslow? However that might be, her attention—indeed, the attention of everybody about the mill—was held by the reckless actions of Mr. Potter.
It was not fifteen minutes after the wave had hit the mill and torn away a part of the outer office wall and the loading platform, or wharf, when the racing mules came down to the turbulent stream that lay between the Cheslow road and the Red Mill. The frightened animals would have balked at the stream, but the miller, still standing in the wagon, coiled the whip around his head and then lashed out with it, laying it, like a tongue of living fire, across the mules' backs.
They were young animals and they had been unused, until this day, to the touch of the blacksnake. They leaped forward with almost force enough to break out of their harness, but landing in the deep water with the wagon behind them. So far out did they leap that they went completely under and the wagon dipped until the body was full of water.
But there stood the miller, upright and silent, plying the whip when they came to the surface, and urging them on. Ruth had noticed before this that Uncle Jabez was not cruel to his team, or to his other animals; but this was actual brutality.
However, the mules won through the flood. The turgid stream was not wide and it was not a long fight. But there was the peril of mules, wagon and man being swept out into the main stream of the flood and carried over the dam.
"He is awful! awful!" murmured Helen, in Ruth's ear, as they clung together and watched the miller and his outfit come through and the mules scramble out upon solid ground.
The miller had brought his half-mad team to the mill and pulled the mules down right beside the Cameron's automobile. Already the young fellow who worked for him had flown out of the mill to Jabez's assistance. He seized the frightened mules by their bits.
"How much has gone, boy?" cried Jabez, in a strained, hoarse voice.
"Not much, boss. Only a part of the office an'—"
The miller was already in at the door. In a moment, it seemed, he was back again, having seen the damage done by the flood to his building. But that damage was comparatively slight. It should not have caused the old man to display such profound despair.
He wrung his hands, tore off his hat and stamped upon it on the walk, and behaved in such a manner that it was little wonder Helen Cameron was vastly frightened. He seemed beside himself with rage and despair.
Ruth, herself torn by conflicting emotions, could not bear to see the old man so convulsed with what seemed to be anguish of spirit, without offering her sympathy. During this week that she had been at the Red Mill it could not be said that she had gained Uncle Jabez's confidence—that she had drawn close to him at all. But it was not for a will on her part to do so.
The girl now left Aunt Alvirah and Helen on the porch and walked straight down to the old man. She was beside him, with a hand upon his arm, before he was aware of her coming.
He stared at her so angrily—with such an expression of rage and hopelessness upon his face—that she was held speechless for a moment.
"What do you know about it, girl?" he demanded, hoarsely.
"About what, Uncle?" she returned.
"The box—the cash-box—my money!" he cried, in a low voice. "Do you know anything about it? Was it saved?"
"Oh, Uncle! We only got here in the automobile just in time to escape the flood. The office was wrecked at that very moment. Was the box there?"
"Gone! Gone!" he murmured, shaking his head; and turning on his heel, he strode into the mill.
The boy had taken the mules around to the stable. Ruth hesitated, then followed the old man into the mill. There Jabez confronted Tom Cameron, sitting on a sack of meal and watching the turbid waters falling over the dam.
"Ha! Young Cameron," muttered Uncle Jabez. "Youdidn't see the cash-box, of course?"
"Where was it?" asked Tom, quietly.
"In that office—on a shelf, with an old coat thrown over it. I believed it to be as safe there as in the house with nobody but an old woman to guard it."
"Better put your money in the bank, sir," said Tom, coolly.
"And have some sleek and oily scoundrel steal it, eh?" snarled Uncle Jabez.
"Well, the water stole it, I reckon," Tom said. "I'm sorry for you if there was much money in the box. But I know nothing about it. Jasper Parloe might have saved the box had he known about it; he was over there by the office when the water tore away the wall."
"Jasper Parloe!" ejaculated Uncle Jabez, starting. "Washehere?"
"He wasn't here long," chuckled Tom. "He thought the mill was going and he lit out in a hurry."
Uncle Jabez made another despairing gesture and walked away. Ruth followed him and her hands closed upon the toil-hardened fist clenched at his side.
"I'm sorry, Uncle," she whispered.
He suddenly stared down at her.
"There! I believe you be, child. But your being sorry can't help it none. The money's gone—hard it come and it's hard to part with in this way."
"Was it a large sum, Uncle?"
"All the ready cash I had in the world. Every cent I owned. That boy said, put it in a bank. I lost money when the Cheslow Bank failed forty year ago. I don't get caught twice in the same trap—no, sir! I've lost more this time; but no dishonest blackleg will have the benefit of it, that's sure. The river's got it, and nobody will ever be a cent the better off for it. All! All gone!"
He jerked his hand away from Ruth's sympathetic pressure and walked moodily away.
This was the beginning of some little confidence between Ruth and Uncle Jabez. He had not been quite so stern and unbending, even in his passion, as before. He said nothing more about the lost cash-box—Aunt Alviry dared not even broach the subject—but Ruth tried to show him in quiet ways that she was sorry for his loss.
Uncle Jabez was not a gentle man, however; his voice being so seldom heard did not make it the less rough and passionate. There were times when, because of his black looks, Ruth did not even dare address him. And there was one topic she longed to address him upon very much indeed. She wanted to go to school.
She had always been quick at her books, and had stood well in the graded school of Darrowtown. There was a schoolhouse up the road from the Red Mill—not half a mile away; this district school was a very good one and the teacher had called on Aunt Alvirah and Ruth liked her very much.
The flood had long since subsided and the repairs to the mill and the dam were under way. Uncle Jabez grew no more pleasant, however, for the freshet had damaged his dam so that all the water had to be let out and he might go into midsummer with such low pressure behind the dam that he could not run the mill through the drouth. This possibility, together with the loss of the cash-box, made him—even Aunt Alvirah admitted—"like a dog with a sore head." Nevertheless Ruth determined to speak to him about the school.
She chose an evening when the kitchen was particularly bright and homelike and her uncle had eaten his supper as though he very much enjoyed it. There was no cash-box for him to be absorbed in now; but every evening he made countless calculations in an old ledger which he took to bed with him with as much care as he had the money-box.
Before he opened his ledger on this evening, however, Ruth stood beside him and put a hand upon his arm.
"Uncle," she said, bravely, "can I go to school?"
He stared at her directly for a moment, from under his heavy brows; but her own gaze never wavered.
"How much schoolin' do you want?" he demanded, harshly.
"If you please Uncle Jabez, all I can get," replied Ruth.
"Ha! Readin', writin', an' mighty little 'rithmatic—we called 'em 'the three R's '—did for me when I was a boy. The school tax they put onto me ev'ry year is something wicked. And I never had chick nor child to go to their blamed old school."
"Let me go, Uncle, and so get some of your money back that way," Ruth said, quickly, and smiling in her little, birdlike way with her head on one side.
"Ha! I don't know about that," he growled, shaking his head. "I don't see what I'll be makin' out of it."
"Perhaps I can help you later, if you'll let me learn enough," she urged. "I can learn enough arithmetic to keep your books. I'll try real hard."
"I don't know about that," he said, again, eyeing her suspiciously. "The little money I make I kin keep watch of—when I'm here to watch it, that is. There ain't no book-keeping necessary in my business. And then—there's your Aunt Alviry. She needs you."
"Don't you go for to say that, Jabez," interposed the old woman, briskly. "That child's the greatest help that ever was; but she can do all that's necessary before and arter school, and on Saturdays. She's a good smart child, Jabez. Let her have a chance to l'arn."
"Ain't no good ever come of books," muttered the miller.
"Oh, Uncle! Just let me show you," begged the girl, in her earnestness clinging to his arm with both hands.
He looked down for a moment at her hands as though he would fling off her hold. But he thought better of it, and waited fully a minute before he spoke.
"You know your Aunt Alviry needs ye," he said. "If you kin fix it with her, why I don't see as I need object."
"Will it be too much trouble for you to get my trunk, Uncle, so that I can begin going to school next week?" Ruth asked.
"Ain't you got nothin' to wear to school?" he said. "It's dress; is it? Beginning that trouble airly; ain't ye?"
He seemed to be quite cross again, and the girl looked at him in surprise.
"Dear Uncle! You will get the trunk from the station, won't you?"
"No I won't," he said. "Because why? Because I can't."
"You can't?" she gasped, and even Aunt Alvirah looked startled.
"That's what I said."
"Why—why can't you?" cried Ruth. "Has something happened to my trunk?"
"That's jest it—and it warn't no fault o' mine," said the miller. "I got the trunk like I said I would and it was in the wagon when we came down the hill yonder.
"Oh, oh!" gasped Ruth, her hands clasped. "You don't mean when you ran the mules into the water, Uncle?"
"I had to get to my mill. I didn't know what was being done over here," he said, uglily. "And didn't I lose enough? What's the loss of some old rags, and a trunk, 'side of my money?"
He said it with such force, and with so angry a gesture, that she shrank back from him. But her pain and disappointment were so strong that she had to speak.
"And the trunk was washed out of the wagon, Uncle Jabez? It's gone?"
"That's what happened to it, I suppose," he grunted, and dropping his head, opened the ledger and began to study the long lines of figures there displayed. Not a word to show that he was sorry for her loss. No appreciation of the girl's pain and sorrow. He selfishly hugged to him the misfortune of his own loss and gave no heed to Ruth.
But Aunt Alvirah caught her hand as she passed swiftly. The old woman carried the plump little hand to her lips in mute sympathy, and then Ruth broke away even from her and ran upstairs to her room. There she cast herself upon the bed and, with her sobs smothered in the pillows, gave way to the grief that had long been swelling her heart to the bursting point.
Such little keepsakes as remained of her father and mother—their photographs, a thin old bracelet, her mother's wedding ring, her father's battered silver watch had fortunately been in Ruth's bag. Those keepsakes had been too precious to risk in the trunk and in the baggage car. And how glad the girl was now that she had thus treasured these things.
But the loss of the trunk, with all her clothing —common though that clothing had been—was a disaster that Ruth could not easily get over. She cried herself to sleep that night and in the morning came down with a woebegone face indeed. Uncle Jabez did not notice her, and even Aunt Alvirah did not comment upon her swollen eyes and tear-streaked countenance. But the old woman, if anything, was kinder than ever to her.
It was Saturday, and butter day. Uncle Jabez owned one cow, and since Ruth had come to the mill it was her work twice a week to churn the butter. The churn was a stone crock with a wooden dasher and Ruth had just emptied in the thick cream when Helen Cameron ran in.
"Oh, Ruth!" she cried. "You're always busy—especially if I chance to want you at all particularly."
"If you will be a drone yourself, Helen, you must expect to be always hunting company," laughed Ruth. "Just what is troubling Miss Cameron at present?"
"We're going to dress the Cove Chapel for to-morrow. You know, I told you our guild attends to the decoration of the chapel and I've just set my heart on making a great pillow of buttercups. The fields are full of them. And Tom says he'll help. Now, you'll come; won't you?"
"If I come for buttercups it will have to be after the butter comes!" returned Ruth, laughing.
She had begun to beat the dasher up and down and little particles of cream sprayed up through the hole in the cover of the jar, around the handle of the dasher. Helen looked on with growing interest.
"And isthatthe way to make butter?" she asked. "And the cream's almost white. Our butter is yellow—golden. Just as golden as the buttercups. Do you color it?"
"Not at this time of year. I used to help Miss True make butter. She had a cow. She said I was a good butter maker. You see, it's all in the washing after the butter comes. You wait and see."
"But I want to pick buttercups—and Tom is waiting down by the bridge."
"Can't help it. Butter before buttercups," declared Ruth, keeping the dasher steadily at work. "And then, Aunt Alvirah may want me for something else before dinner."
"We've got dinner with us—or, Tom has. At least, Babette put us up a basket of lunch."
"Oh! A picnic!" cried Ruth, flushing with pleasure. This visit had driven out of her mind —for the time, at least—her trouble of overnight.
"I'm going to ask Aunt Alviry for you," went on Helen, and skipped away to find the little old woman who, despite the drawback of "her back and her bones" was a very neat and particular housekeeper. She was back in a few moments.
"She says you can go, just as soon as you get the butter made. Now, hurry up, and let us get into the buttercup field, which is a whole lot nicer than the butter churn and—Oh! it smells much nicer, too. Why, Ruth, that cream actually smells sour!"
"I expect it is sour," laughed her friend. "Didn't you know that sweet butter comes from sour cream? And that most nice things are the result of hard work? The sweet from the bitter, you know."
"My! how philosophical we are this morning. Isn't that butterevercoming?"
"Impatience! Didn't you ever have to wait for anything you wanted in your life?"
"Why, I've got to wait till next fall before I go to Briarwood Hall. That's a rhyme, Ruthie; it's been singing itself over and over in my mind for days. I'm really going to boarding school in the autumn. It's decided. Tom is going to the military academy on the other side of Osago Lake. He'll be within ten miles of Briarwood."
Ruth's face had lost its brightness as Helen said this. The word "school" had brought again to the girl's mind her own unfortunate position and Uncle Jabez's unkindness.
"I hope you will have a delightful time at Briarwood," Ruth said, softly. "I expect I shall miss you dreadfully."
"Oh, suppose the Ogre should send you to school there, too!" cried Helen, with clasped hands. "Wouldn't that be splendid!"
"That would be beyond all imagination," said Ruth, shaking her head. "I—I don't know that I shall be able to attend the balance of the term here."
"Why not?" demanded Helen. "Won't he let you?"
"He has said I could." Ruth could say no more just then. She hid her face from her friend, but made believe that it was the butter that occupied her attention. The dasher began to slap, slap, slap suggestively in the churn and little particles of beaten cream began to gather on the handle of the dasher.
"Oh!" cried Helen. "It's getting hard!"
"The butter is coming. Now a little cold water to help it separate. And then you shall have a most delicious glass of buttermilk."
"No, thank you!" cried Helen. "They say it's good for one to drink it. But I never do like anything that's good for me."
"Give it tome,Ruth," interposed another voice, and Tom put a smiling face around the corner of the well. "I thought you were never coming, Miss Flyaway," he said, to his sister.
"Butter before buttercups, young man," responded Helen, primly. "We must wait for Ruth to—er—washthe butter, is it?"
"Yes," said her friend, seriously, opening the churn and beginning to ladle out the now yellow butter into a wooden bowl.
"May I assist at the butter's toilet?" queried Tom, grinning.
"You may sit down and watch," said his sister, in a tone intended to quell any undue levity on her brother's part.
Ruth had rolled her sleeves above her elbows, so displaying her pretty plump arms, and now worked and worked the butter in cold water right "from the north side of the well" as though she were kneading bread. First she had poured Tom a pitcher of the fresh buttermilk, and given him a glass. Even Helen tasted a little of the tart drink.
"Oh, it's ever so nice, I suppose," she said, with a little grimace; "but I much prefer my milk sweet."
Again and again Ruth poured off the milky water and ran fresh, cold water upon her butter until no amount of kneading and washing would subtract another particle of milk from the yellow ball. The water was perfectly clear.
"Now I'll salt it," she said; "and put it away until this afternoon, and then I'll work it again and put it down in the butter-jar. When I grow up and get rich I am going to have a great, big dairy; with a herd of registered cattle, and I'm going to make all the butter myself."
"And Tom's going to raise horses. He's going to own a stock farm—so he says. You'd better combine interests," said Helen, with some scorn. "I like horses to ride, and butter to eat, but—well, I prefer buttercups just now. Hurry up, Miss Slow-poke! We'll never get enough flowers for a pillow."
So Ruth cleaned her face, taking a peep into the glass in the kitchen to make sure, before going out to her friends. Tom looked at her with plain approval, and Helen jumped up to squeeze her again.
"No wonder Aunt Alvirah calls you 'pretty creetur'," she whispered in Ruth's ear. "For that's what youare." Then to Tom: "Now young man, have you the lunch basket?"
"What there is left of it is in charge of Reno down at the bridge," he replied, coolly.
They found the huge mastiff lying with the napkin-covered basket between his forepaws, on the grass by the water side. Reno was growling warningly and had his eyes fixed upon a figure leaning upon the bridge railing.
"That there dawg don't seem ter take to me," drawled Jasper Parloe, who was the person on the bridge. "He needn't be afraid.Iwouldn't touch the basket."
"You won't be likely to touch it while Reno has charge of it," said Tom, quietly, while the girls passed on swiftly. Neither Ruth nor Helen liked to have anything to do with Parloe. When Tom released Reno from his watch and ward, the dog trotted after Ruth and put his nose into her hand.
"Ye been up ter the mill, hev ye?" queried Parloe, eyeing Tom Cameron aslant, "ye oughter be gre't friends with Jabe Potter. Or has he squared hisself with ye?"
"Say, Mister Parloe," said Tom, sharply, "you've been hinting something about the miller every time you've seen me lately.
"Only since yeou was knocked down that bank inter the gully, an' yer arm an' head hurt. There warn't nothin' about Jabe ter interest yeou afore that," returned Parloe, quickly.
Tom flushed suddenly and he looked at the old fellow with new interest.
"Just what do you mean?" he asked, slowly.
"Ye know well enough. Your dad, Tom Cameron, is mighty riled up over your bein' hurt. I heered him say that he'd give a ten-dollar note ter know who it was drove by ye that night and crowded ye inter the ditch. Would you give more than that not ter have it known who done it?"
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Tom, angrily.
"I guess ye like this here gal that's cone to live on Jabez, purty well; don't ye—yeou an' yer sister?" croaked old Parloe. "Wal, if your dad an' the miller gits inter a row—comes ter a clinch, as ye might say—yeou an' yer sister won't be let ter hev much ter do with Ruth, eh, now?"
"I don't know thatthat'sso," Tom said doggedly.
"Oh, yes, ye do. Think it over. Old Jabe will put his foot right down an' he'll stop Ruth havin' anything ter do with ye—ye know it! Wal, now; think it over. I got a conscience, I have," pursued Parloe, cringing and rubbing his hands together, his sly little eyes sparkling. "I r'ally feel as though I'd oughter tell yer dad who it was almost run ye down that night and made ye fall into the gully."
"You mean, you'd like to handle Dad's ten dollars!" cried Tom, angrily.
Parloe smirked and still rubbed his hands together. "Don't matter a mitewhoseten dollars I handle," he said, suggestively. "Your ten dollars would be jest as welcome to me as your Dad's, Master Cameron."
"Ten dollars is a lot of money," said Tom.
"Yes. It's right smart. I could make use of it I'm a poor man, an' I could use it nicely," admitted the sly and furtive Parloe.
"I haven't got so much money now," growled the boy.
"Yeou kin get it, I warrant."
"I suppose I can." He drew his purse from his pocket. "I've got three dollars and a half here. I'll have the rest for you on Monday."
"Quite correct," said Jasper Parloe, clutching eagerly at the money. "I'll trust ye till then—oh,yes! I'll trust ye till then."
"Well, I really believe, Tommy Cameron!" cried his sister Helen, when he overtook the girls and Reno, swinging the basket recklessly, "that you are developing a love for low company. I don't see how you can bear to talk with that Jasper Parloe."
"I don't see how I can, either," muttered Tom, and he was rather silent—for him—until they were well off the road and the incident at the bridge was some minutes behind them.
But the day was such a glorious one, and the fields and woods were so beautiful, that no healthy boy could long be gloomy. Besides, Tom Cameron had assured his sister that he thought Ruth Fielding "just immense," and he was determined to give the girl of the Red Mill as pleasant a time as possible.
He worked like a Trojan to gather buttercups, and after they had eaten the luncheon old Babette had put up for them (and it was the very nicest and daintiest luncheon that Ruth Fielding had ever tasted) he told the girls to remain seated on the flat stone he had found for them and weave the foundation for the pillow while he picked bushels upon bushels of buttercups.
"You'll need a two-horse load, anyway to have enough for a pillow of the size Nell has planned," he said, grinning. "And perhaps she'll finish it if you help her, Ruth. She's always trying to do some big thing and 'falling down' on it."
"That's not so, Master Sauce-box!" cried his sister.
Tom went off laughing, and the two girls set to work on the great mass of buttercups they had already picked. They grew so large, and were so dewey and golden, that a more brilliant bed of color one could scarce imagine than the pillow, as it began to grow under the dexterous hands of Helen and Ruth. And, being alone together now, they began to grow confidential.
"And how does the Ogre treat you?" asked Helen. "I thought, when I came this morning, that you had been feeling badly."
"I am not very happy," admitted Ruth.
"It's that horrid Ogre!" cried Helen.
"It isn't right to call Uncle Jabez names," said Ruth, quietly. "He is greatly to be pitied, I do believe. And just now, particularly so."
"You mean because of the loss of that cash-box?"
"Yes."
"Do you suppose there was much in it?"
"He told me that it contained every cent he had saved in all these years."
"My!" cried Helen. "Then he must have lost a fortune! He has been a miser for forty years, so they say."
"I do not know about that," Ruth pursued. "He is harsh and—and he seems to be very selfish. He—he says I can go to school, though."
"Well, I should hope so!" cried Helen.
"But I don't know that Icango," Ruth continued, shaking her head.
"For pity's sake I why not?" asked her friend.
Then, out came the story of the lost trunk. Nor could Ruth keep back the tears as she told her friend about Uncle Jabez's cruelty.
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Helen, almost weeping herself. "The mean, mean thing! No, I won't call him Ogre again; he isn't as good as an Ogre. I—I don't know what to call him!"
"Calling him names won't bring back my trunk, Helen," sobbed Ruth.
"That's so. I—I'd make him pay for it! I'd make him get me dresses for those that were lost."
"Uncle is giving me a home; I suppose he will give me to wear all that he thinks I need. But I shall have to wearthisdress to school, and it will soon not be fit to wear anywhere else."
"It's just too mean for anything, Ruth! I just wish—"
What Miss Cameron wished she did not proceed to explain. She stopped and bit her lip, looking at her friend all the time and nodding. Ruth was busily wiping her eyes and did not notice the very wise expression on Helen's face.
"Look out! here comes Tom," whispered Helen, suddenly, and Ruth made a last dab at her eyes and put away her handkerchief in a hurry.
"Say! ain't you ever going to get that thing done?" demanded Tom. "Seems to me you haven't done anything at all since I was here last."
The girls became very busy then and worked swiftly until the pillow was completed. By that time it was late afternoon and they started homeward. Ruth separated from Helen and Tom at the main road and walked alone toward the Red Mill. She came to the bridge, which was at the corner of her uncle's farm, and climbed the stile, intending to follow the path up through the orchard to the rear of the house—the same path by which she and her friends had started on their little jaunt in the morning.
The brook which ran into the river, and bounded this lower end of Mr. Potter's place, was screened by clumps of willows. Just beyond the first group of saplings Ruth heard a rough voice say:
"And I tell you to git out! Go on the other side of the crick, Jasper Parloe, if ye wanter fish. That ain't my land, but this is."
"Ain't ye mighty brash, Jabe?" demanded the snarling voice of Parloe, and Ruth knew the first speaker to be her uncle. "Who are yeou ter drive me away?"
"The last time ye was at the mill I lost something—I lost more than I kin afford to lose again," continued Uncle Jabez. "I don't say ye took it. They tell me the flood took it. But I'm going to know the right of it some time, and if you know more about it than you ought—"
"What air ye talkin' about, Jabe Potter?" shrilled Parloe. "I've lost money by you; ye ain't never paid me for the last month I worked for ye."
"Ye paid yerself—ye paid yerself," said Jabe, tartly. "And if ye stole once ye would again—"
"Now stop right there, Jabe Potter!" cried Parloe, and Ruth knew that he had stepped closer to Mr. Potter, and was speaking in a trembling rage. "Don't ye intermate an' insinerate; for if ye do, I kin fling out some insinerations likewise. Yeou jest open yer mouth aboutmestealin' an' I'll put a flea in old man Cameron's ear. Ha! Ye know what I mean. Better hev a care, Jabe Potter—better hev a care!"
There was silence. Her uncle made no reply, and Ruth, fearing she would be seen, and not wishing to be thought an eavesdropper (although the conversation had so surprised and terrified her that she had not thought what she did, before) the girl ran lightly up the hill, leaving the two old men to their wrangle. When Uncle Jabez came in to supper that evening his scowl was heavier than usual, if that were possible, and he did not speak to either Ruth or Aunt Alvirah all the evening.
Ruth thought it all over, and she came to this conclusion: Uncle Jabez had given his permission—albeit a grumpy one—and she would begin school on Monday. The black cloth dress that was so shabby and would look so odd and proverty-stricken among the frocks of the other girls (for shehadwatched them going to and from school, and already knew some of them to speak to) would have to be worn, if possible, through the term. Perhaps Uncle Jabez might notice how shabby she looked, finally, and give her something more appropriate to wear. Especially as it had been through him that her other frocks were lost.
But it was not an easy thing to face a whole schoolroom full of girls and boys—and most of them strangers to her—looking so "dowdyish." Ruth's love of pretty things was born in her. She had always taken pride in her appearance, and she felt her shortcomings in this line quicker and more acutely than most girls of her age.
She faced the school on Monday morning and found it not so hard as she had supposed. Miss Cramp welcomed her kindly, and put her through quite a thorough examination to decide her grade. The Darrowtown schools had been so good that Ruth was able to take a high place in this one, and the teacher seated her among the most advanced of her pupils, although Ruth was younger than some of them.
The fact that Ruth was well grounded in the same studies that the scholars at this district school were engaged in, made a difficulty for her at the start. But she did not know it then. She only knew that Miss Cramp, seating her pupils according to their grade, sent her to an empty seat beside one of the largest girls—Julia Semple.
A good many of the girls stared at the new-comer with more than ordinary attention; but Julia immediately turned her back on her new seatmate. Ruth did not, however, give Julia much attention at the time. She was quite as bashful as most girls of her age; and, too, there were many things during that first session to hold her attention. But at recess she found that Julia walked away from her without a word and that most of the girls who seemed to be in her grade kept aloof, too. As a stranger in the school the girl from the Red Mill felt no little unhappiness at this evident slight; but she was too proud to show her disappointment. She made friends with the younger girls and was warmly welcomed in their games and pastimes.
"Julia's mad at you, you see," one of her new acquaintances confided to Ruth.
"Mad at me? What for?" asked the surprised new scholar.
"Why, that seat was Rosy Ball's. Rosy has gone away to see her sister married and she's coming back to-morrow. If you hadn't come in to take her place, Rosy would have been let sit beside Julia again, of course, although like enough she's fallen behind the class. Miss Cramp is very strict."
"But I didn't know that. I couldn't help it," cried Ruth.
"Just the same, Julia says she doesn't like you and that you're a nobody—that Jabe Potter has taken you in out of charity. And Julia pretty nearly bosses everything and everybody around this school. Her father, Mr. Semple, you see, is chairman of the school board."
Her plain-spoken friend never realized how much she was hurting Ruth by telling her this. Ruth's pride kept her up, nor would she make further overtures toward friendship with her classmates. She determined, during those first few days at the district school, that she would do her very best to get ahead and to win the commendation of her teacher. There was a splendid high school at Cheslow, and she learned that Miss Cramp could graduate pupils from her school directly into the Cheslow High. It was possible, the teacher assured her, for Ruth to fit herself for such advancement between that time and the fall term.
It seemed as though Ruth could never make her crotchety old uncle love her. As time passed, the loss of his cash-box seemed to prey upon the miller's mind more and more. He never spoke of it in the house again; it is doubtful if he spoke of it elsewhere. But the loss of the money increased (were that possible) his moroseness. He often spoke to neither the girl nor Aunt Alvirah from sunrise to sunset.
But although Uncle Jabez was so moody and so unkind to her, in the little old woman, whose back and whose bones gave her so much trouble, Ruth found a loving and thoughtful friend. Aunt Alvirah was as troubled at first about Ruth's lack of frocks as the girl was herself. But before Ruth had been attending school a week, she suddenly became very light-hearted upon the question of dress.
"Now, don't you fret about it, deary," said Aunt Alviry, wagging her head knowingly. "Gals like you has jest got ter hev frocks, an' the good Lord knows it, jest the same as He knows when a sparrer falls. There'll be a way pervided—there'll be a way pervided. Ef I can't make ye a purty dress, 'cause o' my back an' my bones, there's them that kin. We'll hev Miss 'Cretia Lock in by the day, and we'll make 'em."
"But, dear," said Ruth, wonderingly, "how will we get the goods—and the trimmings—and pay Miss Lock for her work?"
"Don't you fret about that. Jest you wait and see," declared Aunt Alvirah, mysteriously.
Ruth knew very well that the old woman had not a penny of her own. Uncle Jabez would never have given her a cent without knowing just what it was for, and haggling over the expenditure then, a good deal. To his view, Aunt Alviry was an object of his charity, too, although for more than ten years the old woman had kept his house like wax and had saved him the wages of a housekeeper.
This very day, on coming home from school, Ruth had met Doctor Davison coming away from the Red Mill. She thought the red and white mare, that was so spirited and handsome, had been tied to the post in front of the kitchen door, and that the physician must have called upon Aunt Alvirah.
"So this is the young lady who wouldn't stop at my house but went to Sam Curtis' to stay all night," he said, holding in the mare and looking down at Ruth. "And you haven't been past the gate with the green eyes since?"
"No, sir," Ruth said, timidly. "I have never even been to town."
"No. Or you would not have failed to see the Curtises again. At least, I hope you'll see them. Mercy has never ceased talking about you."
"The lame girl, sir?" cried Ruth, in wonder. "Why, she spoke awfully unkindly to me, and I thought her mother only thought I would feel bad and wanted to smooth it over, when she asked me to come again."
"No," said the doctor, seriously, shaking his head. "Nobody knows Mercy like her mother. That's not to be expected. She's a poor, unfortunate, cramp-minded child. I've done what I can for her back—she has spinal trouble; but I can do little for Mercy's twisted and warped mind. She tells me she has cramps in her back and legs and I tell her she has worse cramps in her mind. Bright! Why, child, she knows more than most grown folks. Reads every book she can get hold of; there is scarcely a child in the Cheslow High School who could compete with her for a month in any study she had a mind to take hold of. But," and the doctor shook his head again, "her mind's warped and cramped because of her affliction."
"I pitied her," said Ruth, quietly.
"But don't tell her so. Go and see her again—that's all. And mind you don't come to town without turning in at the gate with the green eyes;" and so saying he let the eager mare out and she swiftly carried him away.
It was after this Aunt Alvirah seemed so confident that a way would be provided for Ruth to get the frocks that she so sadly needed. On the very next day, when Ruth came home from school, she found the little old lady in a flutter of excitement.
"Now, Ruthie," she whispered, "you mustn't ask too many questions, and I'll surely tell ye a gre't secret, child."
"It must be something very nice, Aunt Alviry, or you'd never be like this. What is it?"
"Now Ruthie, you mustn't ask too many questions, I tell you. But to make no secret of it, for secrets I do despise, somebody's made you a present."
"Made me a present?" gasped Ruth.
"Now, careful about questions," warned Aunt Alvirah. "I told you that a way would be pervided for you to have frocks. And it is true. You are a-goin' to have 'em."
"Auntie! New frocks!"
"Just as good as new. Ev'ry bit as good as new. Somebody that's—that's seen ye, deary, and knows how badly you want to go to school, and that you need dresses, has given you three."
"My goodness me!" cried Ruth, clasping her hands. "Notthree?"
"Yes, my dear. And they're jest as good as new—about. 'Cretia Lock won't be two days fixin' 'em over to fit you. And you won't mind, deary, if the little girl who wore them before you is—is—Well, deary, she won't never want them any more."
"Oh, my dear!" cried Ruth. "Three frocks all at once! And—and I'm not to ask who gave them to me?"
"That's it. You're not to ask that. I'll git 'em and show you—Oh, my back and oh, my bones! Oh, my back and oh, my bones!" the old lady added, starting from her chair and hobbling out of the room.
Ruth was so amazed that she hardly knew what her other feelings at the moment might be. But there had sprung into her mind, full-fledged, the suspicion that Doctor Davison had been the donor of the frocks. Perhaps he had had a little girl sometime, who had died. For Ruth had quite decided, from what Aunt Alvirah said, that the girl who had formerly worn the frocks in question was no longer upon earth.
Aunt Alvirah returned in a short time with such a pile of pretty colors over her arm that Ruth gasped with delight, she couldn't help it The dresses were all nice ginghams, each of a different color, nicely trimmed and delightfully made. They were not too fancy for school wear, and they were good, practical frocks.
Ruth had worn her little black and white frocks at school while she was still in Darrowtown, and had she remained longer Miss True Pettis would have helped her to make other frocks in colors. It is a sad thing to see a child in black, or black and white, and Ruth's father had been dead now six months.
"Ye needn't be scart at the colors, child," said old Aunt Alviry. "Here's this pretty lavender. We'll make that over first. 'Cretia Lock will be here to-morrow and we'll make a big beginnin'."
"But what will uncle say?" gasped Ruth, almost bursting with questions, but being debarred from asking the most important ones.
"Don't you fret about your Uncle Jabez. He ain't got nothin' ter do with it," declared the little old woman, firmly. "Nor he won't say nothin'."
Which was very true. Uncle Jabez seldom spoke to his niece now. His moodiness grew upon him as time passed. And in the evening, as he sat over his endless calculations at the kitchen table, the girl and the old woman scarcely dared speak to each other save in whispers.
Miss Lock worked three days, instead of two, at the Red Mill, helping Aunt Alvirah "dress-make." How she was paid, Ruth did not know; but she feared that the pennies Aunt Alvirah saved from her egg and chicken money had done this. However, the shabby black frock was put away and Ruth blossomed out into as pretty an appearance as any girl attending Miss Cramp's school.
But she did not make friends among her classmates. Julia Semple had such influence that she seemed to have set all the girls of the higher class in the district school against Ruth. Julia herself could not pass Ruth without tossing her head and staring at her haughtily; and sometimes she would whisper to her companions and look at the girl from the Red Mill in so scornful a way that Ruth could not help feeling uncomfortable.
Indeed, Ruth would have lacked almost all young company had it not been for Helen Cameron and Tom. Tom didn't think much of "playing with girls;" but he could always be depended upon to do anything Ruth and Helen wanted him to. Helen was at the Red Mill often after Ruth's school hours, and seldom did a Saturday pass that the two chums did not spend at least half the day together. Aunt Alvirah declared Ruth should have Saturday afternoons to herself, and often Helen came in her little pony carriage and drove Ruth about the country. There was a fat old pony named Tubby that drew the phaeton, and Tubby jogged along the pleasant country roads with them in a most delightfully gypsyish way.
One Saturday afternoon they went to town. Ruth had never seen Cheslow save on the night of her arrival and on the following morning, when she had started directly after breakfast at the station master's house to walk to the Red Mill.
"Why, you'll like Cheslow," declared Helen, in her enthusiastic way. "It's just as pretty as it can be—you'll love it! I often drive in to shop, and sometimes Mrs. Murchiston goes with me. Get up, Tubby!"
Tubby had to be urged incessantly; exertion was not loved by him. He would rather walk than trot; he would rather stand than walk; and he always had the appearance of being asleep—save when he was at his manger.
Ruth remembered that she had been warned not to go past "the gate with the green eyes" and she told Helen of her promise to Doctor Davison.
"Oh, splendid!" cried her chum. "I don't know anybody whom I like to call upon in Cheslow ahead of Doctor Davison. It's almost as good as having him come to see you when you're sick."
"But I don't think," Ruth objected, "that it's any fun to haveanydoctor come to see one on business."
"You don't half mind being ill when Doctor Davison calls," declared Helen, with unabated enthusiasm. "And when you call there! Well," concluded Helen, with a sigh of anticipation, "you'll soon know whatthatmeans. He's got a colored Mammy for cook who makes the most wonderful jumbles and cakes that you ever tasted—they about melt in pour mouth!"
Ruth soon had the opportunity of judging Mammy 'Liza's goodies for herself, for the doctor was at home, and the girls had scarcely become seated in his consultation room when a little colored girl with her wool "done" in innumerable pigtails, like tiny horns, and sticking out all over her brown head in every direction, came in with a tray on which was a plate piled high with fancy cakes and two tall glasses of yellow-gold beaten egg and milk with a dust of nutmeg floating upon the surface of each glassful.
"'Liza done sez as how yo'-all might be hongry aftah yo' ride," said the child, timidly, and then darted out of the room before Ruth and Helen could thank her.
They were munching the goodies when Doctor Davison came smilingly in.
"That's Mammy 'Liza all over," he said, shaking his head, but with his dark eyes twinkling. "I try to keep my young folk in good digestion and she is bound to make a patient of everybody who comes to see me. Cookies and cakes and sweets are what she believes girls live for; or else she is trying to make customers for my nasty drugs."
Doctor Davison seemed to have plenty of time to give to the society of young folk who called upon him. And he showed an interest in Ruth and her affairs which warmed our heroine's heart. He wanted to know how she got along at school, and if it was true that she was trying to "make" the High by the opening of the fall term.
"Not that I want any of my young folk to travel the road to knowledge too steadily, or travel it when their bodily condition is not the best. But you are strong and well, Ruthie, and you can do a deal that other girls of your age would find irksome. I shall be proud if you prepare to enter the High at your age."
And this made Ruth feel more and more sure that Doctor Davison had taken interest enough in her career at school to supply the pretty frocks, one of which she was then wearing. But Aunt Alvirah had warned her that the frocks were to remain a mystery by the special request of the donor, and she could not ask the good old doctor anything about them. His interest in her progress seemed to infer that he expected Ruth to accomplish a great deal in her school, and the girl from the Red Mill determined not to disappoint him.