UNCLE JABEZ IS EXCITED
So rapidly had all this taken place that the girls had remained in the
mill. But now Ruth, crying: "Aunt Alvirah will be frightened to death,
Helen!" led the way down the long passage and through the shed into
the kitchen porch. The water on this side of the building had swept up
the road and actually into the yard; but the automobile stood in a
puddle only and was not injured.
Aunt Alviry was sitting in her rocker by the window. The old woman was
very pale and wan. She had her Bible open on her knees and her lips
trembled in a smile of welcome when the girls burst into the room.
"Oh, my dears! my dears!" she cried. "I am so thankful to see you both
safe!" She started to rise, and the old phrase came to her lips: "Oh,
my back and oh, my bones!"
Then she rose and hobbled across the room. Her bright little, birdlike
eyes, that had never yet known spectacles, had seen something up the
Cheslow road.
"Who's this a-coming? For the land's sake, what recklessness! Is that
Jabez and his mules, Ruthie? Bless us and save us! what's he going to
try and do?"
The two girls ran to the door. Down the hill thundered a farm wagon
drawn by a pair of mules, said mules being on the dead run while their
driver stood in the wagon and snapped his long, blacksnake whip over
their ears. Such a descent of the hill was reckless enough in any
case; but now, at the foot, rolled the deep water. It had washed away
a little bridge that spanned what was usually a rill, but the banks of
this stream being overflowed for yards on either side, the channel was
at least ten feet deep.
It was Jabez Potter driving so recklessly down the hill from Cheslow.
"Oh, oh!" screamed the old lady. "Jabez will be killed! Oh, my back
and oh, my bones! Oh, deary, deary me!"
She had crossed the porch and was hobbling down the steps. Her
rheumatic twinges evidently caused her excruciating pain, but the fear
she felt for the miller's safety spurred her to get as far as the
fence. And there Ruth and Helen kept her from splashing into the muddy
water that covered the road.
"You can do no good, Aunt Alvirah!" cried Ruth.
"The mules are not running away with him, Mrs. Boggs," urged Helen.
"They'll kill him! He's crazy! It's his money--the poor, poor man!"
It was evident that Aunt Alvirah read the miller's excitement aright.
Ruth remembered the cash-box and wondered if it had been left in the
mill while her uncle went to Cheslow? However that might be, her
attention--indeed, the attention of everybody about the mill--was
held by the reckless actions of Mr. Potter.
It was not fifteen minutes after the wave had hit the mill and torn
away a part of the outer office wall and the loading platform, or
wharf, when the racing mules came down to the turbulent stream that
lay between the Cheslow road and the Red Mill. The frightened animals
would have balked at the stream, but the miller, still standing in the
wagon, coiled the whip around his head and then lashed out with it,
laying it, like a tongue of living fire, across the mules' backs.
They were young animals and they had been unused, until this day, to
the touch of the blacksnake. They leaped forward with almost force
enough to break out of their harness, but landing in the deep water
with the wagon behind them. So far out did they leap that they went
completely under and the wagon dipped until the body was full of
water.
But there stood the miller, upright and silent, plying the whip when
they came to the surface, and urging them on. Ruth had noticed before
this that Uncle Jabez was not cruel to his team, or to his other
animals; but this was actual brutality.
However, the mules won through the flood. The turgid stream was not
wide and it was not a long fight. But there was the peril of mules,
wagon and man being swept out into the main stream of the flood and
carried over the dam.
"He is awful! awful!" murmured Helen, in Ruth's ear, as they clung
together and watched the miller and his outfit come through and the
mules scramble out upon solid ground.
The miller had brought his half-mad team to the mill and pulled the
mules down right beside the Cameron's automobile. Already the young
fellow who worked for him had flown out of the mill to Jabez's
assistance. He seized the frightened mules by their bits.
"How much has gone, boy?" cried Jabez, in a strained, hoarse voice.
"Not much, boss. Only a part of the office an'--"
The miller was already in at the door. In a moment, it seemed, he was
back again, having seen the damage done by the flood to his building.
But that damage was comparatively slight. It should not have caused
the old man to display such profound despair.
He wrung his hands, tore off his hat and stamped upon it on the walk,
and behaved in such a manner that it was little wonder Helen Cameron
was vastly frightened. He seemed beside himself with rage and despair.
Ruth, herself torn by conflicting emotions, could not bear to see the
old man so convulsed with what seemed to be anguish of spirit, without
offering her sympathy. During this week that she had been at the Red
Mill it could not be said that she had gained Uncle Jabez's
confidence--that she had drawn close to him at all. But it was not
for a will on her part to do so.
The girl now left Aunt Alvirah and Helen on the porch and walked
straight down to the old man. She was beside him, with a hand upon his
arm, before he was aware of her coming.
He stared at her so angrily--with such an expression of rage and
hopelessness upon his face--that she was held speechless for a
moment.
"What do you know about it, girl?" he demanded, hoarsely.
"About what, Uncle?" she returned.
"The box--the cash-box--my money!" he cried, in a low voice. "Do you
know anything about it? Was it saved?"
"Oh, Uncle! We only got here in the automobile just in time to escape
the flood. The office was wrecked at that very moment. Was the box
there?"
"Gone! Gone!" he murmured, shaking his head; and turning on his heel,
he strode into the mill.
The boy had taken the mules around to the stable. Ruth hesitated, then
followed the old man into the mill. There Jabez confronted Tom
Cameron, sitting on a sack of meal and watching the turbid waters
falling over the dam.
"Ha! Young Cameron," muttered Uncle Jabez. "You didn't see the
cash-box, of course?"
"Where was it?" asked Tom, quietly.
"In that office--on a shelf, with an old coat thrown over it. I
believed it to be as safe there as in the house with nobody but an old
woman to guard it."
"Better put your money in the bank, sir," said Tom, coolly.
"And have some sleek and oily scoundrel steal it, eh?" snarled Uncle
Jabez.
"Well, the water stole it, I reckon," Tom said. "I'm sorry for you if
there was much money in the box. But I know nothing about it. Jasper
Parloe might have saved the box had he known about it; he was over
there by the office when the water tore away the wall."
"Jasper Parloe!" ejaculated Uncle Jabez, starting. "Was he here?"
"He wasn't here long," chuckled Tom. "He thought the mill was going
and he lit out in a hurry."
Uncle Jabez made another despairing gesture and walked away. Ruth
followed him and her hands closed upon the toil-hardened fist clenched
at his side.
"I'm sorry, Uncle," she whispered.
He suddenly stared down at her.
"There! I believe you be, child. But your being sorry can't help it
none. The money's gone--hard it come and it's hard to part with in
this way."
"Was it a large sum, Uncle?"
"All the ready cash I had in the world. Every cent I owned. That boy
said, put it in a bank. I lost money when the Cheslow Bank failed
forty year ago. I don't get caught twice in the same trap--no, sir!
I've lost more this time; but no dishonest blackleg will have the
benefit of it, that's sure. The river's got it, and nobody will ever
be a cent the better off for it. All! All gone!"
He jerked his hand away from Ruth's sympathetic pressure and walked
moodily away.