A TIME OF CHANGE
Tom Cameron looked funny enough in some of the miller's garments; but he
was none the worse for his bath in the river. He, too, had been dosed with
hot tea by Aunt Alvirah, though he made a wry face over it.
"Never you mind, boy," Ruth told him, laughing. "It is better to have a
bad taste in your mouth for a little while than a sore throat for a week."
"Hear! hear the philosopher!" cried Tom. "You'd think I was a tender
little blossom."
"You know, you _might_ have the croup," suggested Ruth, wickedly.
"Croup! What am I--a kid?" demanded Tom, half angry at this suggestion. He
had begun to notice that his sister and Ruth were inclined to set him down
as a "small boy" nowadays.
"How is it," Tom asked his father one day, "that Helen is all grown up of
a sudden? _I'm_ not! Everybody treats me just as they always have; but
even Colonel Post takes off his hat to our Helen on the street with
overpowering politeness, and the other men speak to her as though she were
as old as Mrs. Murchiston. It gets _me_!"
Mr. Cameron laughed; but he sighed thereafter, too. "Our little Helen _is_
growing up, I expect. She's taken a long stride ahead of you, Tommy, while
you've been asleep."
"Huh! I'm just as old as she is," growled Tom. "But _I_ don't feel grown
up."
And here was Ruth Fielding holding the same attitude toward him that his
twin did! Tom did not like it a bit. He was a manly fellow and had always
observed a protective air with Ruth and his sister. And, all of a sudden,
they had become young ladies while he was still a boy.
"I wish Nell would come back with my duds," he grumbled. "I have a good
mind to walk home in these things of the miller's."
"And be taken for an animated scarecrow on the way?" laughed Ruth. "Better
'bide a wee,' Tommy. Sister will get here with your rompers pretty soon.
Have patience."
"Now you talk just like Bobbins' sister. Behave, will you?" complained
Tom.
Ruth tripped out of the room to peep at the guest, and Aunt Alvirah
hobbled in and, letting herself down into her low chair, with a groan of
"Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" smiled indulgently at Tom's gloomy face.
"What is the matter, Mister Tom?" she asked. "Truly, you look as colicky
as Amos Dodge--an' they do say he lived on sour apples!"
Tom had to laugh at this; but it was rather a rueful laugh. "I don't know
what is coming over these girls--Ruth and my sister," he said, "They're
beginning to put on airs like grown ladies. Cracky! they used to be some
fun."
"Growin' up, Mister Tom--growin' up. So's my pretty. I hate to see it, but
ye can't fool Natur'--no, sir! Natur' says to these young things:
'Advance!' an' they've jest got to march, I reckon," and Aunt Alvirah
sighed, too. Then her little, bird-like eyes twinkled suddenly and she
chuckled. "Jest the same," she added, in a whisper, "Ruth got out all her
doll-babies the other day and played with 'em jest like she was ten years
old."
"Ho, ho!" cried Tom, his face clearing up. "I guess she's only making
believe to be grown up, after all!"
Helen came finally and they left Tom alone in the kitchen to change his
clothes. Then the Camerons hurried away, for it was close to supper time.
Both Helen and Tom were greatly interested in the moving picture actress;
but she had fallen into a doze and they could not bid her good-bye.
"But I'm going to run down in the morning to see how she is," Tom
announced. "I'll see her before she goes away. She's a plucky one, all
right!"
"Humph!" thought Ruth, when the automobile had gone, "Tom seems to have
been wonderfully taken with that Miss Gray's appearance."
When Jabez Potter came in from the mill and found the strange girl in the
best bed he was inclined to criticize. He was a tall, dusty, old man, for
whom it seemed a hard task ever to speak pleasantly. Aunt Alvirah, when
she was much put out with him, said he "croaked like a raven!"
"Gals, gals, gals!" he grumbled. "This house seems to be nigh full of 'em
when you air to home, Niece Ruth."
"And empty enough of young life, for a fac', when my pretty is away," put
in Aunt Alvirah.
Ruth, not minding her Uncle Jabez's strictures, went about setting the
supper table with puckered lips, whistling softly. This last was an
accomplishment she had picked up from Tom long ago.
"And whistling gals is the wust of all!" snarled Jabez Potter, from the
sink, where he had just taken his face out of the soapsuds bath he always
gave it before sitting down to table. "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!'"
Then she went straight to him and, as his irritated face came out of the
huck towel, she put both arms around his neck and kissed him on his
grizzled cheek.
This sort of treatment always closed her Uncle Jabez's lips for a time.
There seemed no answer to be made to such an argument--and Ruth _did_ love
the crusty old man and was grateful to him.
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."
"Oh, Aunt Alvirah! I thought he was cured of _little_ 'stingies.'"
"No, he ain't! no, he ain't!" cried the old lady, sitting down with a
groan. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! I tell ye, my pretty, I have to
steal out things a'tween meals to Ben sometimes, or that boy wouldn't have
half enough to eat. Jabez has had a new padlock put on the meat-house
door, and I can't git a slice of bacon without his knowin' on it."
"That is ridiculous!" exclaimed Ruth, who had less patience now than she
once had for her great uncle's penuriousness. She was positive that it was
not necessary.
"Ree-dic'lous or not; it's _so_," Aunt Alvirah asserted. "Sometimes I feel
like I was a burden on him myself."
"_You_ a burden, dear Aunt Alvirah!" cried Ruth, with tears in her eyes.
"You would be a blessing, not a burden, in anybody's house. Uncle Jabez
was very fortunate indeed to get you to come here to the Red Mill."
"I dunno--I dunno," groaned the old lady. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!
I'm a poor, rheumaticky creeter--and nobody but Jabez would have taken me
out o' the poorhouse an' done for me as he has."
"You mean, you have done for him!" cried Ruth, in some passion. "You have
kept his house for him, and mended for him, and made a home for him, for
years. And I doubt if he has ever thanked you--not _once_!"
"But I have thanked him, deary," said Aunt Alvirah, sweetly. "And I do
thank him, same as I do our Father in Heaven, ev'ry day of my life, for
takin' me away from that poorfarm an' makin' an independent woman of me
a'gin. Oh, Jabez ain't all bad. Fur from it, my pretty--fur from it!
"Now that you ain't no more beholden to him for your eddication, an' all,
he is more pennyurious than ever--yes he is! For Jabez's sake, I could
almost wish you hadn't got all that money you did, for gittin' back the
lady's necklace. Spendin' money breeds the itch for spendin' more. Since
you wrote him that you was goin' to pay all your school bills, Jabez
Potter is cured of the little itch of _that_ kind he ever had."
"Oh, Aunt Alvirah! Think of me--I am glad to be independent, too."
"I know--I know," admitted Aunt Alvirah. "But it's hard on Jabez. He was
givin' you the best eddication he could----"
"Grumblingly enough, I am sure!" interposed Ruth, with a pout. She could
speak plainly to the little old woman, for Aunt Alvirah _knew_.
"Surely--surely," agreed the old lady. "But it did him good, jest the
same. Even if he only spent money on ye for fear of what the neighbors
would say. Opening his pocket for _your_ needs, my pretty, was makin' a
new man of Jabez."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Ruth, thinking it rather hard. "You want me to be
poor again, Aunt Alvirah."
"Only for your uncle's sake--only for his sake," she reiterated.
"But he can do more for Mercy Curtis," said Ruth. "He has helped her quite
a little. He likes Mercy--better than he does me, I think."
"But he don't have to help Mercy no more," put in Aunt Alvirah, quickly.
"Haven't you heard? Mercy's mother has got a legacy from some distant
relative and now there ain't a soul on whom Jabez Potter thinks he's _got_
to spend money. It's a terrible thing for Jabez--Meed an' it is, my
pretty.
"Changes--changes, all the time! We were going on quite smooth and
pleasant for a fac'. And _now_----Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" and thus
groaningly Aunt Alvirah finished her quite unusual complaint, for with all
her aches and pains she was naturally a cheerful body.