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Nobody in the world had so deep an interest in the young girl as the little old woman who hobbled around the Red Mill kitchen. Therefore Mr. Cameron was determined that she should go to Briarwood. He fairly shamed Mr. Potter into hiring a woman to come in to do for Ben and himself while Aunt Alvirah was gone. "You ought to shut up your mill altogether and go yourself, Potter," declared Mr.
'Twarn't no train," objected Aunt Alvirah. "Trains warn't heard of then. Why, I can remember when the first railroad went through this part of the country and it cut right through Silas Bassett's farm. They told him he could go down to the tracks any time he felt like going to town, wave his hat, and the train would stop for him." "Well, wasn't that handy?" cried the girl. "It sounded good.
When the miller had retired to his own chamber to count and recount the profits of the day, as he always did every evening, Aunt Alvirah complained more than usual of the old man's niggardly ways. "It's gittin' awful, Ruthie, when you ain't to home. He's ashamed to have me set so mean a table when you air here. For he does kinder care about what you think of him, my pretty, after all."
"I reckon ye ain't forgot what I told ye: "'Whistlin' gals an' crowin' hens Always come to some bad ends!" "Now, Jabez!" remonstrated Aunt Alvirah. But Ruth only laughed. "You've got it wrong, Uncle Jabez," she declared. "There is another version of that old doggerel. It is: "'Whistling girls and blatting sheep Are the two best things a farmer can keep!"
Abby Drake," said the lost woman weakly. "We we all started out for huckleberries. And I never thought before how wicked I was to my little sister. But the storm burst such a terrible storm!" and the poor creature cowered close to Ruth as the thunder muttered again in the distance. "It is the voice of God " "Come along!" urged Ruth. "Lots of people have made the same mistake. So Aunt Alvirah says.
Soon there was even a rift in the clouds in the northwest where a patch of blue sky shone through "big enough to make a Scotchman a pair of breeches," as Aunt Alvirah would say. "We'd better go up to the house," sighed Ruth. "I'll go right around to the neighbors and see if anybody has noticed a stranger in the vicinity," Tom suggested. "There's Ben! Do you suppose he has seen anybody?"
Ruth stood up in the car as it rolled up the hill toward Cheslow and looked back at the Red Mill. She fluttered her handkerchief as long as she could see the little figure of Aunt Alvirah on the porch. Uncle Jabez came out and strode down the path to the mill. Then the car shot around a curve in the road and the scene was blotted out.
"Let 'em stay turned up what do you care?" suddenly growled Uncle Jabez. For the moment Ruth had forgotten his presence and she and Aunt Alvirah had been talking more loudly. They both fell suddenly silent and stared at him. "Are ye too proud to wear dresses that's give to ye?" demanded Uncle Jabez. "Ye ain't too proud to take food and shelter from me.
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.
One could get her letters when she came out of the dining-room, and on this Saturday both Ruth and Helen had letters. Miss Cramp, her old teacher, had written to Ruth very kindly. There was a letter, too, from Aunt Alvirah, addressed in her old-fashioned hand, and its contents shaky both as to spelling and grammar, but full of love for the girl who was so greatly missed at the Red Mill.
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