THE CATASTROPHE
This was the beginning of some little confidence between Ruth and
Uncle Jabez. He had not been quite so stern and unbending, even in his
passion, as before. He said nothing more about the lost cash-box--
Aunt Alviry dared not even broach the subject--but Ruth tried to show
him in quiet ways that she was sorry for his loss.
Uncle Jabez was not a gentle man, however; his voice being so seldom
heard did not make it the less rough and passionate. There were times
when, because of his black looks, Ruth did not even dare address him.
And there was one topic she longed to address him upon very much
indeed. She wanted to go to school.
She had always been quick at her books, and had stood well in the
graded school of Darrowtown. There was a schoolhouse up the road from
the Red Mill--not half a mile away; this district school was a very
good one and the teacher had called on Aunt Alvirah and Ruth liked her
very much.
The flood had long since subsided and the repairs to the mill and the
dam were under way. Uncle Jabez grew no more pleasant, however, for
the freshet had damaged his dam so that all the water had to be let
out and he might go into midsummer with such low pressure behind the
dam that he could not run the mill through the drouth. This
possibility, together with the loss of the cash-box, made him--even
Aunt Alvirah admitted--"like a dog with a sore head." Nevertheless
Ruth determined to speak to him about the school.
She chose an evening when the kitchen was particularly bright and
homelike and her uncle had eaten his supper as though he very much
enjoyed it. There was no cash-box for him to be absorbed in now; but
every evening he made countless calculations in an old ledger which he
took to bed with him with as much care as he had the money-box.
Before he opened his ledger on this evening, however, Ruth stood
beside him and put a hand upon his arm.
"Uncle," she said, bravely, "can I go to school?"
He stared at her directly for a moment, from under his heavy brows;
but her own gaze never wavered.
"How much schoolin' do you want?" he demanded, harshly.
"If you please Uncle Jabez, all I can get," replied Ruth.
"Ha! Readin', writin', an' mighty little 'rithmatic--we called 'em
'the three R's '--did for me when I was a boy. The school tax they
put onto me ev'ry year is something wicked. And I never had chick nor
child to go to their blamed old school."
"Let me go, Uncle, and so get some of your money back that way," Ruth
said, quickly, and smiling in her little, birdlike way with her head
on one side.
"Ha! I don't know about that," he growled, shaking his head. "I don't
see what I'll be makin' out of it."
"Perhaps I can help you later, if you'll let me learn enough," she
urged. "I can learn enough arithmetic to keep your books. I'll try
real hard."
"I don't know about that," he said, again, eyeing her suspiciously.
"The little money I make I kin keep watch of--when I'm here to watch
it, that is. There ain't no book-keeping necessary in my business. And
then--there's your Aunt Alviry. She needs you."
"Don't you go for to say that, Jabez," interposed the old woman,
briskly. "That child's the greatest help that ever was; but she can do
all that's necessary before and arter school, and on Saturdays. She's
a good smart child, Jabez. Let her have a chance to l'arn."
"Ain't no good ever come of books," muttered the miller.
"Oh, Uncle! Just let me show you," begged the girl, in her earnestness
clinging to his arm with both hands.
He looked down for a moment at her hands as though he would fling off
her hold. But he thought better of it, and waited fully a minute
before he spoke.
"You know your Aunt Alviry needs ye," he said. "If you kin fix it with
her, why I don't see as I need object."
"Will it be too much trouble for you to get my trunk, Uncle, so that I
can begin going to school next week?" Ruth asked.
"Ain't you got nothin' to wear to school?" he said. "It's dress; is
it? Beginning that trouble airly; ain't ye?"
He seemed to be quite cross again, and the girl looked at him in
surprise.
"Dear Uncle! You will get the trunk from the station, won't you?"
"No I won't," he said. "Because why? Because I can't."
"You can't?" she gasped, and even Aunt Alvirah looked startled.
"That's what I said."
"Why--why can't you?" cried Ruth. "Has something happened to my
trunk?"
"That's jest it--and it warn't no fault o' mine," said the miller. "I
got the trunk like I said I would and it was in the wagon when we came
down the hill yonder.
"Oh, oh!" gasped Ruth, her hands clasped. "You don't mean when you ran
the mules into the water, Uncle?"
"I had to get to my mill. I didn't know what was being done over
here," he said, uglily. "And didn't I lose enough? What's the loss of
some old rags, and a trunk, 'side of my money?"
He said it with such force, and with so angry a gesture, that she
shrank back from him. But her pain and disappointment were so strong
that she had to speak.
"And the trunk was washed out of the wagon, Uncle Jabez? It's gone?"
"That's what happened to it, I suppose," he grunted, and dropping his
head, opened the ledger and began to study the long lines of figures
there displayed. Not a word to show that he was sorry for her loss. No
appreciation of the girl's pain and sorrow. He selfishly hugged to him
the misfortune of his own loss and gave no heed to Ruth.
But Aunt Alvirah caught her hand as she passed swiftly. The old woman
carried the plump little hand to her lips in mute sympathy, and then
Ruth broke away even from her and ran upstairs to her room. There she
cast herself upon the bed and, with her sobs smothered in the pillows,
gave way to the grief that had long been swelling her heart to the
bursting point.