The shoulder had to be put in a cast; but the healing of the cuts and
bruises on Ruth Fielding's back was a small matter. Only----
"It's all over for me, girls," she groaned, as her two friends
commiserated with her. "The war might just as well end to-morrow, as far
as I am concerned. I can help no longer."
For Major Soutre, the head surgeon, had said:
"After the plaster comes off it will be then eight weeks, Mademoiselle,
before it will be safe for you to use your arm and shoulder in any way
whatsoever."
"So my work is finished," she repeated, wagging a doleful head upon her
pillow.
"Poor dear!" sighed Jennie. "Don't you want me to make you something
nice to eat?"
"Mercy on us, Heavy!" expostulated Helen, "just because you work in a
diet kitchen, don't think that the only thing people want when they are
sick is something to eat." "It's the principal thing," declared the
plump girl stubbornly. "And Colonel Marchand says I make _heavenly_
broth!"
Helen sniffed disdainfully.
Ruth laughed weakly; but she only said:
"Tom says the war will be over by Christmas. I don't know whether it is
he or General Pershing that has planned out the finish of the Germans.
However, if it is over by the holidays, I shall be unable to do anything
more for the Red Cross. They will send me home. I have done my little,
girls."
"'Little!" exclaimed Helen. "You have done much more than Jennie and I,
I am sure. We have done little or nothing compared with your services,
Ruthie."
"Hold on! Hold on!" exclaimed Jennie Stone gruffly, pulling a paper out
of her handbag. "Wait just a minute, young lady. I will not take a back
seat for anybody when it comes to statistics of work. Just listen here.
These are some of the things _I_ have done since I joined up with that
diet kitchen outfit. I have tasted soup and broth thirty-seven thousand
eight hundred and three times. I have tasted ten thousand, one hundred
and eleven separate custards. I have tasted twenty thousand ragouts--many
of them of rabbit, and I am always suspicious that the rabbit may have
had a long tail--ugh! Baked cabbage and cheese, nine thousand, seven
hundred and six----"
"Jennie! Do stop! How _could_ you eat so much?" demanded Helen in
horror.
"Bless you! the poilus did the eating; I only did the seasoning and
tasting. It's _that_ keeps me so fat, I do believe. And then, I have
served one million cups of cocoa."
"Why don't you say a billion? You might as well."
"Because I can't count up to a billion. I never could," declared the
fleshy girl. "I never was top-hole at mathematics. You know that."
They tried to cheer Ruth in her affliction; but the girl of the Red Mill
was really much depressed. She had always been physically, as well as
mentally, active. And at first she must remain in bed and pose as a
regular invalid.
She was thus posing when Tom Cameron got a four-days' leave and came
back as far as Clair, as he always did when he was free. It was so much
nearer than Paris; and Helen could always run up here and meet him,
where Ruth had been at work. The chums spent Tom's vacations from the
front together as much as possible.
When Mr. Cameron, who had been in Europe with a Government commission,
had returned to the United States, he had laughingly left Helen and Tom
in Ruth's care.
"But he never would have entrusted you children to my care," sighed the
girl of the Red Mill, "if he had supposed I would be so foolish as to
get a broken shoulder."
"Quite," said Tom, nodding a wise head. "One might have supposed that if
an aerial shell hit your shoulder the shell would be damaged, not the
shoulder."
"It was the stone window-sill, they say," murmured Ruth contritely.
"Sure. Dad never supposed you were such a weak little thing. Heigh-ho!
We never know what's going to happen in this world. Oh, I say!" he
suddenly added. "I know what's going to happen to me, girls."
"What is it, Captain Tom?" his sister asked, gazing at him proudly.
"They are not going to make you a colonel right away, are they, like
Jennie's beau?"
"Not yet," admitted her brother, laughing. "I'm the youngest captain in
our division right now. Some of 'em call me 'the infant,' as it is. But
what is going to happen to me, I'm going up in the air!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Jennie Stone. "I should say that was a rise in the
world."
"You are never going into aviation, Tom?" screamed Helen.
"Not exactly. But an old Harvard chum of mine, Ralph Stillinger, is
going to take me up. You know Stillinger. Why, he's an ace!"
"And you are crazy!" exclaimed his sister, rather tartly. "Why do you
want to risk your life so carelessly?"
Tom chuckled; and even Ruth laughed weakly. As though Tom had not risked
his life a hundred times already on the battle front! If he were not
exactly reckless, Tom Cameron possessed that brand of courage owned only
by those who do not feel fear.
"I don't blame Tommy," said Jennie Stone. "I'd like to try 'aviating'
myself; only I suppose nothing smaller than a Zeppelin could take me
up."
"Will you really fly, Tom?" Ruth asked.
"Ralph has promised me a regular circus--looping the loop, and spiraling,
and all the tricks of flying."
"But you won't fly into battle?" questioned Helen anxiously. "Of course
he won't take you over the German lines?"
"Probably not. They don't much fancy carrying amateurs into a fight. You
see, only two men can ride in even those big fighting planes with the
liberty motors; and both of them should be trained pilots, so that if
anything happens to the man driving the machine, the other can jump in
and take his place."
"Ugh!" shuddered his sister. "Don't talk about it any more. I don't want
to know when you go up, Tommy. I should be beside myself all the time
you were in the air."
So they talked about Ruth's chances of going home instead. After all, as
she could be of no more use in Red Cross work for so long a time, the
girl of the Red Mill began to look forward with some confidence to the
home going.
As she had told her girl friends that very day when the hospital had
been bombed and she had been hurt, the sweetest words in the ears of the
exile are "homeward bound!" And she expected to be bound for home--for
Cheslow and the Red Mill--in a very few weeks.
Her case had been reported to Paris headquarters; and whether she wished
it or not, a furlough had been ordered and she would be obliged to sail
from Brest on or about a certain date. The sea voyage would help her to
recuperate; and by that time her shoulder would be out of the plaster
cast in which Dr. Soutre had fixed it. Whether she desired to be so
treated or not, the Red Cross considered her an invalid--a "_grande
blessée_."
So, as the days passed, Ruth Fielding gradually found that she suffered
the idea of return to America with a better mind. The more she thought
of going home, the more the desire grew in her soul to be there.
It was about this time that the letter came from Uncle Jabez Potter. A
letter from Uncle Jabez seemed almost as infrequent as the blooming of a
century plant.
It was delayed in the post as usual (sometimes it did seem as though the
post-office department had almost stopped functioning!) and the writing
was just as crabbed-looking as the old miller's speech usually was. Aunt
Alvirah Boggs managed to communicate with "her pretty," as she always
called Ruth, quite frequently; for although Aunt Alvirah suffered much
in "her back and her bones"--as she expressed herself dolefully--her hands
were not too crippled to hold a pen.
But Uncle Jabez Potter! Well, the letter itself will show what kind of
correspondent the old miller was:
"My Dear Niece Ruth:
"It does not seem as though you was near enough to the Red Mill to
ever get this letter; and mebbe you won't want to read it when you
do get it. But I take my pen in hand just the same to tell you such
news as there is and perticly of the fact that we have shut down.
This war is terrible and that is a fact. I wish often that I could
have shouldered a gun--old Betsy is all right now, me having cleaned
the cement out of her muzzle what your Aunt Alvirah put in it--and
marched off to fight them Germans myself. It would have been money
in my pocket if I had done that instead of trying to grind wheat and
corn in this dratted old water-mill. Wheat is so high and flour is
so low that I can't make no profit and so I have had to shut down
the mill. First time since my great grandfather built it back in
them prosperous times right after we licked the British that first
time. This is an awful mean world we live in anyway. Folks are
always making trouble. If it was not for them Germans you'd be home
right now that your Aunt Alvirah needs you. You see, she has took to
her bed, and Ben, the hired man, and me, don't know much what to do
for her. Ain't no use trying to get a woman to come in to help, for
all the women and girls have gone to work in the munitions factory
down the river. Whole families have gone to work there and earn so
much money that they ride back and forth to work in their own
automobiles. It's a cussed shame.
"Your Aunt Alvirah talks about you nearly all the time. She's
breaking up fast I shouldn't wonder and by the time this war is done
I reckon she'll be laid away. Me not making any money now, we are
likely to be pretty average poor in the future. When it is all outgo
and no come-in the meal tub pretty soon gets empty. I reckon I would
better sell the mules and I hope Ben will find him a job somewhere
else pretty soon. He won't be discharged. Says he promised you he
would stick to the old Red Mill till you come back from the war. But
he's a eating me out of house and home and that's a fact.
"If it is so you can get away from that war long enough, I wish
you'd come home and take a look at your Aunt Alvirah. It seems to me
if she was perked up some she might get a new hold on life. As it
is, even Doc Davidson says there ain't much chance for her.
"Hoping this finds you the same, and wishing very much to see you
back at the Red Mill, I remain,
"Yr. Obedient Servant,
"J. Potter."