JUST A MATTER OF A DRESS
"Well, I really believe, Tommy Cameron!" cried his sister Helen, when
he overtook the girls and Reno, swinging the basket recklessly, "that
you are developing a love for low company. I don't see how you can
bear to talk with that Jasper Parloe."
"I don't see how I can, either," muttered Tom, and he was rather
silent--for him--until they were well off the road and the incident
at the bridge was some minutes behind them.
But the day was such a glorious one, and the fields and woods were so
beautiful, that no healthy boy could long be gloomy. Besides, Tom
Cameron had assured his sister that he thought Ruth Fielding "just
immense," and he was determined to give the girl of the Red Mill as
pleasant a time as possible.
He worked like a Trojan to gather buttercups, and after they had eaten
the luncheon old Babette had put up for them (and it was the very
nicest and daintiest luncheon that Ruth Fielding had ever tasted) he
told the girls to remain seated on the flat stone he had found for
them and weave the foundation for the pillow while he picked bushels
upon bushels of buttercups.
"You'll need a two-horse load, anyway to have enough for a pillow of
the size Nell has planned," he said, grinning. "And perhaps she'll
finish it if you help her, Ruth. She's always trying to do some big
thing and 'falling down' on it."
"That's not so, Master Sauce-box!" cried his sister.
Tom went off laughing, and the two girls set to work on the great mass
of buttercups they had already picked. They grew so large, and were so
dewey and golden, that a more brilliant bed of color one could scarce
imagine than the pillow, as it began to grow under the dexterous hands
of Helen and Ruth. And, being alone together now, they began to grow
confidential.
"And how does the Ogre treat you?" asked Helen. "I thought, when I
came this morning, that you had been feeling badly."
"I am not very happy," admitted Ruth.
"It's that horrid Ogre!" cried Helen.
"It isn't right to call Uncle Jabez names," said Ruth, quietly. "He is
greatly to be pitied, I do believe. And just now, particularly so."
"You mean because of the loss of that cash-box?"
"Yes."
"Do you suppose there was much in it?"
"He told me that it contained every cent he had saved in all these
years."
"My!" cried Helen. "Then he must have lost a fortune! He has been a
miser for forty years, so they say."
"I do not know about that," Ruth pursued. "He is harsh and--and he
seems to be very selfish. He--he says I can go to school, though."
"Well, I should hope so!" cried Helen.
"But I don't know that I can go," Ruth continued, shaking her head.
"For pity's sake I why not?" asked her friend.
Then, out came the story of the lost trunk. Nor could Ruth keep back
the tears as she told her friend about Uncle Jabez's cruelty.
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Helen, almost weeping herself. "The mean, mean
thing! No, I won't call him Ogre again; he isn't as good as an Ogre.
I--I don't know what to call him!"
"Calling him names won't bring back my trunk, Helen," sobbed Ruth.
"That's so. I--I'd make him pay for it! I'd make him get me dresses
for those that were lost."
"Uncle is giving me a home; I suppose he will give me to wear all that
he thinks I need. But I shall have to wear this dress to school, and
it will soon not be fit to wear anywhere else."
"It's just too mean for anything, Ruth! I just wish--"
What Miss Cameron wished she did not proceed to explain. She stopped
and bit her lip, looking at her friend all the time and nodding. Ruth
was busily wiping her eyes and did not notice the very wise expression
on Helen's face.
"Look out! here comes Tom," whispered Helen, suddenly, and Ruth made a
last dab at her eyes and put away her handkerchief in a hurry.
"Say! ain't you ever going to get that thing done?" demanded Tom.
"Seems to me you haven't done anything at all since I was here last."
The girls became very busy then and worked swiftly until the pillow
was completed. By that time it was late afternoon and they started
homeward. Ruth separated from Helen and Tom at the main road and
walked alone toward the Red Mill. She came to the bridge, which was at
the corner of her uncle's farm, and climbed the stile, intending to
follow the path up through the orchard to the rear of the house--the
same path by which she and her friends had started on their little
jaunt in the morning.
The brook which ran into the river, and bounded this lower end of Mr.
Potter's place, was screened by clumps of willows. Just beyond the
first group of saplings Ruth heard a rough voice say:
"And I tell you to git out! Go on the other side of the crick, Jasper
Parloe, if ye wanter fish. That ain't my land, but this is."
"Ain't ye mighty brash, Jabe?" demanded the snarling voice of Parloe,
and Ruth knew the first speaker to be her uncle. "Who are yeou ter
drive me away?"
"The last time ye was at the mill I lost something--I lost more than
I kin afford to lose again," continued Uncle Jabez. "I don't say ye
took it. They tell me the flood took it. But I'm going to know the
right of it some time, and if you know more about it than you ought--"
"What air ye talkin' about, Jabe Potter?" shrilled Parloe. "I've lost
money by you; ye ain't never paid me for the last month I worked for
ye."
"Ye paid yerself--ye paid yerself," said Jabe, tartly. "And if ye
stole once ye would again--"
"Now stop right there, Jabe Potter!" cried Parloe, and Ruth knew that
he had stepped closer to Mr. Potter, and was speaking in a trembling
rage. "Don't ye intermate an' insinerate; for if ye do, I kin fling
out some insinerations likewise. Yeou jest open yer mouth about me
stealin' an' I'll put a flea in old man Cameron's ear. Ha! Ye know
what I mean. Better hev a care, Jabe Potter--better hev a care!"
There was silence. Her uncle made no reply, and Ruth, fearing she
would be seen, and not wishing to be thought an eavesdropper (although
the conversation had so surprised and terrified her that she had not
thought what she did, before) the girl ran lightly up the hill,
leaving the two old men to their wrangle. When Uncle Jabez came in to
supper that evening his scowl was heavier than usual, if that were
possible, and he did not speak to either Ruth or Aunt Alvirah all the
evening.