The sun was a regular lie-abed on
this Autumn morning, banked about by soft clouds and
draperies of mist; but they glowed pink along the
horizon perhaps blushing for Old Sol’s
delinquency. The mist hung tenderly over the
river, too indeed, it masked the entire
Valley of the Lumano lying thick and dank
upon the marshes and the low meadows, but wreathed
more lightly about the farmhouses and their outbuildings,
and the fodder and haystacks upon the higher ground.
But suddenly the sun flung off the
bedclothes and leaped right into the sky. That
long, low bank of cloud that had been masking him,
melted away and the shreds of mist were burned up
in a hurry as his warm rays spread abroad, taking
the entire valley in their arms.
Farmhouses, where the kitchen chimney
smoke had been rising straightly into the air, immediately
put on a new bustle. Doors opened and shut.
There was the stamping of horses in the stables as
they crunched their corn; cows lowed as the milk-pails
rattled; sheep baa-a-ed in their folds, and the swine,
fearing that some other of the farm stock would get
their share of the breakfast, squealed in eager
anticipation.
On a knoll by the river side stood
the rambling buildings belonging to Jabez Potter,
who kept the Red Mill. The great wheel beside
the mill end of the main structure had not yet begun
to turn, but there was plenty of bustle about the
pleasant house.
The sun had scarcely popped up when
a very pretty, bright-looking girl ran out upon the
porch and gazed earnestly along the road that followed
the Lumano toward Osago Lake. She looked out
from under a shielding hand, for the sun was in her
eyes. Around the corner of the house came a
tall, dark-faced man whose long jaws were cleanly shaven
and deeply lined. His clothing was full of milldust
and it seemed to have been ground into his face for
so many years that it was now a part of the grain
and texture of his skin. He did not smile at
the girl as he said:
“You ain’t looking for
them yet; air you, Ruth? It’s much too
early. Help your Aunt Alviry put breakfast on
the table. She’ll hev it all to do when
you’re gone.”
The tone was stern, but the girl seemed
to be used to it, for her face did not cloud over,
and the smiles rippled about her mouth as she replied:
“I’m so full of happiness,
Uncle Jabez, that you mustn’t mind if I’m
looking for Helen and Tom ahead of time. It doesn’t
seem possible that I am actually going with them.”
“It seems real enough to me,”
grumbled Jabez Potter. “I hope you’ll
get enough out of it to pay us for all the trouble
and cost of your going that I do.”
But even this seemingly unkind speech
did not ruffle the girl’s temper.
“You wait and see, Uncle Jabez you
just wait and see,” she said, nodding to him.
“I’ll prove it the best investment you
ever made.”
He didn’t smile Jabez
Potter was not one of the smiling kind; but his face
relaxed and his eyes twinkled a little.
“I sha’n’t look
for cent. per cent. interest on my money, Niece Ruth,”
he said, and stumped into the house in his heavy boots.
Ruth Fielding, who had come to the
Red Mill only a few months before, having lost all
other relatives but her great-uncle, who owned the
mill, ran into the kitchen, too, where a little old
woman, with bent back and very bright eyes, was hovering
over the stove. The breakfast was ready to be
served and this little woman was pottering about,
muttering to herself a continual complaining phrase:
“Oh, my back and oh, my bones!”
Aunt Alvirah Boggs (who was everybody’s
Aunt Alvirah, but no blood relation to either Ruth
or her uncle) was not a morose person, however, despite
her rheumatic troubles. She smiled on Ruth and
patted her hand as the girl sat down beside her at
the table.
“Seems like we’d be lost
without our pretty leetle creetur about,” said
Aunt Alvirah. “I don’t see what the
old house will do without her.”
“I’ll be home at Thanksgiving if
Uncle will let me,” said Ruth, quickly, and
glancing at the old man; “and again at Christmas,
and at Easter. Why, the intervals will go like
that,” and she snapped her fingers.
“All this junketing up and down
the country will cost money, Niece Ruth,” admonished
Uncle Jabez.
He was, by nature, a very close and
careful man with money a reputed miser,
in fact. And that he did hoard up money, and
loved it for itself, must be confessed. When
he had lost a cash-box he kept in the mill, containing
money and other valuables, it had been a great trouble
to Uncle Jabez. But through a fortuitous train
of circumstances Ruth Fielding had recovered the cash-box
for him, with its contents untouched. It was
really because he considered himself in her debt for
this act, and that he prided himself upon paying his
debts, that Jabez Potter had come to agree that Ruth
should go away to school.
He had not done the thing in a niggardly
way, when once he gave his consent. Ruth’s
new trunk was at the Cheslow railroad station and in
it was an adequate supply of such frocks and necessities
as a girl of her age would need in the school to which
she was bound. Her ticket was bought, too, and
in her purse was a crisp ten-dollar note both
purse and money being a special present from Uncle
Jabez.
Ruth had learned that the miller was
by no means as grim as he looked, and she likewise
knew that now he was kindly disposed toward her and
really was doing a great deal for her. She was
determined to never be ungrateful to Uncle Jabez for
satisfying the greatest longing she had ever had to
go to Briarwood Hall, a boarding school.
Suddenly a young man put his head
in at the kitchen door, grinned, and said:
“They’re a-comin’, Miss Ruthie.
I see ’em up the road.”
Ruth jumped up at once and ran for her coat and hat.
“There, child!” cried
Aunt Alvirah, “ye haven’t eaten enough
breakfast to keep a fly alive. Lucky I’ve
got a good basket of lunch put up for ye. It’ll
be a long journey by train, boat, and stage
coach. You’ll be hungry enough before
ye git there Oh, my back and oh,
my bones!” she added, as she hobbled to the
dresser for the luncheon box.
Ruth flashed back into the room and cried to the youth
on the porch:
“Is the car really in sight, Ben?”
“It’s almost here, Miss.”
Indeed, they could hear the purring
of a motor-car coming up the river road. Ruth
flung her arms about Uncle Jabez’s neck, although
he did not rise from the table where he was methodically
putting his breakfast away as though nothing unusual
was happening.
“You’ve been a dear, good
uncle to me,” she whispered, “and I love
you for it. I’ll be careful of the money,
and I’ll get all the learning I can for the
money you pay out now just you see if I
don’t!”
“I ain’t sure that it’ll
do either of us much good,” grumbled Uncle Jabez,
and he did not even follow her to the door as she ran
out.
But Aunt Alvirah hobbled after her,
and pressed her close before she would let the girl
run down the walk.
“Blessin’s on ye, ye pretty
creetur,” she crooned over Ruth. “I’ll
think of ye ev’ry moment ye air away. This
is your home, Ruthie; ye ain’t got nary ’nother don’t
fergit that. And yer old A’nt Alviry’ll
be waitin’ for ye here, an’ jest longin’
for the time when ye come home.”
Ruth kissed her again and again.
Two excited young voices called to her from the automobile.
“Come on! Come on, Ruth. Do come
away!”
She kissed Aunt Alvirah once more,
waved her hand to bashful Ben, who was Uncle Jabez’s
man-of-all-work, and ran down to the waiting car.
In the seat beside the chauffeur was a bright-looking,
black-haired boy in a military uniform of blue, who
seized her lunch basket and handbag and put them both
in a safe place. In the tonneau was a plainly
dressed lady and a brilliantly pretty girl perhaps
a year older than Ruth. This young lady received
the girl from the Red Mill rapturously when she sprang
into the tonneau, and hugged her tightly as the car
started on. She was Ruth’s dearest friend,
Helen Cameron. It was her brother Tom in front,
and the lady was Mrs. Murchiston, who had been the
governess of the Cameron twins since their babyhood,
and was now to remain in the great house “Outlook” Mr.
Macy Cameron’s home, as housekeeper, while his
son and daughter were away at school.
For Tom was bound for Seven Oaks Military
Academy, and that was only ten miles, or so, this
side of Lumberton, near which was situated Briarwood
Hall, the boarding school which was the girls’
destination. Tom had attended Cheslow High School
for a year; but Ruth and Helen were about equally
advanced in their studies and expected to be both
roommates and classmates at the Hall.
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.
How much was to happen to her before
she saw the Red Mill again!