THE RED MILL
"Now, my name's Helen, and you are Ruth," declared Miss Cameron, when
she had carefully started the car once more. "We are going to be the
very best of friends, and we might as well begin by telling each other
all about ourselves. Tom and I are twins and he is an awful tease!
But, then, boys are. He is a good brother generally. We live in the
first yellow house on the right--up among the trees--beyond Mr.
Potter's mill--near enough so that we can run back and forth and see
each other just lots."
Ruth found herself warmly drawn toward this vivacious miss. Nor was
she less frank in giving information about herself, her old home, in
Darrowtown, that she still wore black for her father, and that she had
been sent by her friends to Uncle Jabez because he was supposed to be
better able to take care of and educate her. Helen listened very
earnestly to the tale, but she shook her head at the end of it.
"I don't know," she said. "I don't want to hurt your feelings, Ruthie.
But Jabez Potter isn't liked very well by people in general, although
I guess he is a good miller. He is stingy--"
"I must say it. He isn't given to kind actions, and I am surprised that
he should have agreed to take and educate you. Of course, he didn't
have to."
"I don't suppose he did have to," Ruth said, slowly. "And it wasn't as
though I couldn't have remained in Darrowtown. But Miss True Pettis--"
"Miss True?" repeated Helen, curiously.
"Short for Truthful. Her name is Rechelsea Truthful Tomlinson Pettis
and she is the dearest little old spinster lady--much nicer than her
name."
"Well!" ejaculated the amazed Helen.
"Miss True isn't rich. Indeed, she is very poor. So are Patsy Hope's
folks--Patsy is really Patricia, but that's too long for her. And all
the other folks that knew me about Darrowtown had a hard time to get
along, and most of them had plenty of children without taking another
that wasn't any kin to them," concluded Ruth, who was worldly wise in
some things, and had seen the harder side of life since she had opened
her eyes upon this world.
"But your uncle is said to be a regular miser," declared Helen,
earnestly. "And he is so gruff and grim! Didn't your friends know
him?"
"I guess they never saw him, or heard much about him," said Ruth,
slowly. "I'm sure I never did myself."
"But don't you be afraid," said the other, warmly. "If he isn't good
to you there are friends enough here to look out for you. I know
Doctor Davison thinks you are very brave, and Daddy will do anything
for you that Tom and I ask him to."
"I am quite sure I shall get on nicely with Uncle Jabez," she said.
"And then, there is Aunt Alvirah."
"Oh, yes. There is an old lady who keeps house for Mr. Potter. And she
seems kind enough, too. But she acts afraid of Mr. Potter. I don't
blame her, he is so grim."
The automobile, wheeling so smoothly over the hard pike, just then was
mounting a little hill. They came over the summit of this and there,
lying before them, was the beautiful slope of farming country down to
the very bank of the Lumano River. Fenced fields, tilled and untilled,
checkered the slope, with here and there a white farmhouse with its
group of outbuildings. There was no hamlet in sight, merely scattered
farms. The river, swollen and yellow with the Spring rains, swept upon
its bosom fence rails, hen-coops, and other flotsam of a Spring flood.
Yonder, at a crossing, part of the bridge had been carried away.
"If the dam at Minturn goes, we shall be flooded all through this low
land again," Helen Cameron explained. "I remember seeing this valley
covered with water once during the Spring. But we live on the shoulder
of Mount Burgoyne, and you see, even the mill sets on quite high
ground."
Ruth's eyes had already seen and lingered upon the mill. It was a
rambling structure, the great, splashing millwheel at the far end, the
long warehouse in the middle, and the dwelling attached to the other
end. There were barns, corn-cribs and other outbuildings as well, and
some little tillable land connected with the mill; and all the
buildings were vividly painted with red mineral paint, trimmed with
white. So bright and sparkling was the paint that it seemed to have
been put on over night.
"Mr. Potter is considered a good miller," said Helen, again; "and he
does not neglect his property. He is not miserly in that way. There
isn't a picket off the fence, or a hinge loose anywhere. He isn't at
all what you consider a miser must be and look like; yet he is always
hoarding money and never spends any. But indeed I do not tell you this
to trouble you, Ruthie. I want you to believe, my dear, that if you
can't stand it at Mr. Potter's you can stand it at Mr. Cameron's--and
you'll be welcome there.
"Our mother is dead. We talk of her a good deal, just as though she
were living and had gone on a little journey somewhere, and we should
see her again soon. God took her when Tom and I were only a few weeks
old; but Daddy has made himself our playfellow and dear, dear friend;
and there has always been Nurse Babette and Mrs. Murchiston--at
least, Mrs. Murchiston has been with us since we can remember. But
what Daddy says is law, and he said this morning that he'd like to
have a girl like you come to our house to be company for me. It gets
lonely for me sometimes, you see, for Tom doesn't want to play with
girls much, now he is so big. Perhaps next fall I'll go away to
boarding school--won't that be fun?"
"It will be fun for you, I hope, Helen," said Ruth, with rather a
wistful smile. "I don't know where I shall go to school."
"There is your uncle now!" exclaimed Miss Cameron. "See that man in
the old dusty suit?"
Ruth had already seen the tall, stoop-shouldered figure, who looked as
though he had been powdered with flour, coming down the short path
from one of the open doors of the mill to the road, where a little,
one horse wagon stood. He bore a bag of meal or flour on his shoulder
which he pitched into the wagon. The man on the seat was speaking as
the automobile came to a stop immediately behind the wagon.
"Jefers pelters! Ef there's one thing yeou know how to do, it's to
take toll, Jabe. Let the flour be poor, or good, there's little enough
of it comes back to the man that raises the wheat."
"You don't have to bring your wheat here, Jasper Parloe," said the
miller, in a strong, harsh voice. "There is no law compels ye."
"Yah!" snarled old Parloe. "We all know ye, Jabe Potter. We know what
ye be." Potter turned away. He had not noticed the two girls in the
automobile. But now Jasper Parloe saw them. "Ho!" he cried, "here's
somebody else that will l'arn ter know ye, too. Didn't know you was
ter hev comp'ny; did ye, Jabe? Here's yer niece, Jabe, come ter live
on ye an' be an expense to ye," and so, chuckling and screwing up his
mean, sly face, Parloe drove on, leaving the miller standing with arms
akimbo, and staring at Ruth, who was slowly alighting from the
automobile with her bag.
Helen squeezed her hand tightly as she got out "Don't forget that we
are your friends, Ruthie," she whispered. "I'm coming by again this
afternoon when I drive over to the station for father. If--if
anything happens you be out here--now remember!"
What could possibly happen to her, Ruth could not imagine. She was not
really afraid of Uncle Jabez. She walked directly to him, as he stood
there, staring gloomily, in front of the Red Mill. He was not only
tall and stoop-shouldered, and very dusty; but his dusty eyebrows
almost met over his light blue eyes. He was lantern-jawed, and it did
seem as though his dry, shaven lips had never in all his life wrinkled
into a smile. His throat was wrinkled and scraggy and his head was
plainly very bald on top, for the miller's cap he wore did not
entirely cover the bald spot.
"I am Ruth Fielding, from Darrowtown," she said, in a voice that she
controlled well. "I have come to--to live with you, Uncle Jabez."
"Where was you last night?" demanded the miller, without so much as
returning her greeting. "Was you with them Camerons?"
"I stayed all night with the station master," she said, in
explanation.
"What time did you get to the station?"
Ruth told him. Never once did his voice change or his grim look relax.
"I mistook the time of the train," he said, without expressing any
sorrow.
"I--I hope you will be glad to have me come," the said. "Miss True--"
"You mean that old maid that wrote to me?" he asked, harshly.
"Miss True Pettis. She said she thought you would like to have me here
as we were so near related."
"Not so near related as some," was all he said in reply to this. After
a moment, he added: "You can go along to the house yonder. Aunt Alviry
will show you what to do."
Ruth could not have said another word just then without breaking down
and weeping, so she only nodded and turned to walk up a path toward
the house door.
"One thing," urged the old man, before she had gone far. She turned to
look at him and he continued: "One thing I want you to understand, if
you live here you have got to work. I don't like no laggards around
me."
She could only nod again, for her heart seemed to be right in her
throat, and the sting of the tears she wanted to shed, but could not,
almost blinded her as she went on slowly to the house door.