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Updated: May 16, 2025
"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.
"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.
Ben, the hired man, was out doing the chores and soon brought two brimming pails of milk into the milk-room. "Aunt Alviry will miss ye, Ruthie, when ye air gone back to school," Ben said bashfully, when Ruth, with capable air, began to strain the milk and pour it into the pans. "Poor Aunt Alvirah!" sighed Ruth. "I hope you help her all you can when I'm not here, Ben?"
Old Aunt Amy, nice sort of soul but " he touched his head significantly and heaved the heaviest sigh yet. "Do you mean to say that there is an aunt who isn't quite sane?" asked Callandar, surprised. "I don't say so. Some folks does. Alviry says she's a whole lot wiser than some of the rest of us." From the tone of this remark it was evident that Alviry's observation had been intended personally.
"Now really," said she, "I do wish the doctor was here. He does so dearly love badinage. That, and bridgework, is his forte." "And why isn't he here?" demanded my brother. "He's hunting our bay mare. It broke out of the barn this morning. I told him that I wouldn't disappoint Alviry for an ark full of bay mares. I knew she would count on me to help her entertain you gentlemen."
"I had forgotten Aunt Alviry," and he seemed quite pleased to remember her. "She keeps house for Uncle Jabez, I understand," Ruth continued. "But she isn't my aunt." "She is everybody's Aunt Alviry, I think," said Doctor Davison, encouragingly. For some reason this made Ruth feel better.
"Maybe," resignedly, "but he won't." "Make him, then! A sunstroke may be a very serious business. Your wife may be dead before you get back." The deep-set eyes turned to him slowly. There seemed something like a distant sparkle in their depths. "Don't get to worrying, stranger. It'll take more 'an a sunstroke to polish off Alviry." "Was she unconscious?" "Not so as you could notice."
She held Mercy's interest in the Red Mill and her life there. She told her of the broods of downy chicks that she cared for, and the butter-making, and the household tasks she was able to help Aunt Alviry about. "And don't you go to school?" demanded Mercy. "I am going now. I hope this spring and summer to prepare myself for entering the Cheslow High."
Uncle Jabez had a young man to help him in the mill. It was true, Aunt Alviry said, that Jasper Parloe had worked for some time at the Red Mill; but he was quarrelsome and Mr. Potter had declared he was not honest.
At the end of his meal her uncle spoke just once to Ruth. "You have l'arned to work, I see. Your Aunt Alviry has trouble with her back and bones. If you make yourself of use to her you can stay here. I expect all cats to catch mice around the Red Mill. Them that don't goes into the sluice. There's enough to do here. You won't be idle for want of work."
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