BEHIND THE GREEN LAMPS
Aunt Alvirah returned in a short time with such a pile of pretty
colors over her arm that Ruth gasped with delight, she couldn't help
it The dresses were all nice ginghams, each of a different color,
nicely trimmed and delightfully made. They were not too fancy for
school wear, and they were good, practical frocks.
Ruth had worn her little black and white frocks at school while she
was still in Darrowtown, and had she remained longer Miss True Pettis
would have helped her to make other frocks in colors. It is a sad
thing to see a child in black, or black and white, and Ruth's father
had been dead now six months.
"Ye needn't be scart at the colors, child," said old Aunt Alviry.
"Here's this pretty lavender. We'll make that over first. 'Cretia Lock
will be here to-morrow and we'll make a big beginnin'."
"But what will uncle say?" gasped Ruth, almost bursting with
questions, but being debarred from asking the most important ones.
"Don't you fret about your Uncle Jabez. He ain't got nothin' ter do
with it," declared the little old woman, firmly. "Nor he won't say
nothin'."
Which was very true. Uncle Jabez seldom spoke to his niece now. His
moodiness grew upon him as time passed. And in the evening, as he sat
over his endless calculations at the kitchen table, the girl and the
old woman scarcely dared speak to each other save in whispers.
Miss Lock worked three days, instead of two, at the Red Mill, helping
Aunt Alvirah "dress-make." How she was paid, Ruth did not know; but
she feared that the pennies Aunt Alvirah saved from her egg and
chicken money had done this. However, the shabby black frock was put
away and Ruth blossomed out into as pretty an appearance as any girl
attending Miss Cramp's school.
But she did not make friends among her classmates. Julia Semple had
such influence that she seemed to have set all the girls of the higher
class in the district school against Ruth. Julia herself could not
pass Ruth without tossing her head and staring at her haughtily; and
sometimes she would whisper to her companions and look at the girl
from the Red Mill in so scornful a way that Ruth could not help
feeling uncomfortable.
Indeed, Ruth would have lacked almost all young company had it not
been for Helen Cameron and Tom. Tom didn't think much of "playing with
girls;" but he could always be depended upon to do anything Ruth and
Helen wanted him to. Helen was at the Red Mill often after Ruth's
school hours, and seldom did a Saturday pass that the two chums did
not spend at least half the day together. Aunt Alvirah declared Ruth
should have Saturday afternoons to herself, and often Helen came in
her little pony carriage and drove Ruth about the country. There was a
fat old pony named Tubby that drew the phaeton, and Tubby jogged along
the pleasant country roads with them in a most delightfully gypsyish
way.
One Saturday afternoon they went to town. Ruth had never seen Cheslow
save on the night of her arrival and on the following morning, when
she had started directly after breakfast at the station master's house
to walk to the Red Mill.
"Why, you'll like Cheslow," declared Helen, in her enthusiastic way.
"It's just as pretty as it can be--you'll love it! I often drive in
to shop, and sometimes Mrs. Murchiston goes with me. Get up, Tubby!"
Tubby had to be urged incessantly; exertion was not loved by him. He
would rather walk than trot; he would rather stand than walk; and he
always had the appearance of being asleep--save when he was at his
manger.
Ruth remembered that she had been warned not to go past "the gate with
the green eyes" and she told Helen of her promise to Doctor Davison.
"Oh, splendid!" cried her chum. "I don't know anybody whom I like to
call upon in Cheslow ahead of Doctor Davison. It's almost as good as
having him come to see you when you're sick."
"But I don't think," Ruth objected, "that it's any fun to have any
doctor come to see one on business."
"You don't half mind being ill when Doctor Davison calls," declared
Helen, with unabated enthusiasm. "And when you call there! Well,"
concluded Helen, with a sigh of anticipation, "you'll soon know what
that means. He's got a colored Mammy for cook who makes the most
wonderful jumbles and cakes that you ever tasted--they about melt in
pour mouth!"
Ruth soon had the opportunity of judging Mammy 'Liza's goodies for
herself, for the doctor was at home, and the girls had scarcely become
seated in his consultation room when a little colored girl with her
wool "done" in innumerable pigtails, like tiny horns, and sticking out
all over her brown head in every direction, came in with a tray on
which was a plate piled high with fancy cakes and two tall glasses of
yellow-gold beaten egg and milk with a dust of nutmeg floating upon
the surface of each glassful.
"'Liza done sez as how yo'-all might be hongry aftah yo' ride," said
the child, timidly, and then darted out of the room before Ruth and
Helen could thank her.
They were munching the goodies when Doctor Davison came smilingly in.
"That's Mammy 'Liza all over," he said, shaking his head, but with his
dark eyes twinkling. "I try to keep my young folk in good digestion
and she is bound to make a patient of everybody who comes to see me.
Cookies and cakes and sweets are what she believes girls live for; or
else she is trying to make customers for my nasty drugs."
Doctor Davison seemed to have plenty of time to give to the society of
young folk who called upon him. And he showed an interest in Ruth and
her affairs which warmed our heroine's heart. He wanted to know how
she got along at school, and if it was true that she was trying to
"make" the High by the opening of the fall term.
"Not that I want any of my young folk to travel the road to knowledge
too steadily, or travel it when their bodily condition is not the
best. But you are strong and well, Ruthie, and you can do a deal that
other girls of your age would find irksome. I shall be proud if you
prepare to enter the High at your age."
And this made Ruth feel more and more sure that Doctor Davison had
taken interest enough in her career at school to supply the pretty
frocks, one of which she was then wearing. But Aunt Alvirah had warned
her that the frocks were to remain a mystery by the special request of
the donor, and she could not ask the good old doctor anything about
them. His interest in her progress seemed to infer that he expected
Ruth to accomplish a great deal in her school, and the girl from the
Red Mill determined not to disappoint him.
When Helen told Doctor Davison where else they intended to call, he
nodded understandingly. "That is," he added, "Ruth will call on Mercy
while you do your shopping, Miss Cameron. Oh, yes! that is the better
plan. You know very well that Mercy Curtis won't want to see you,
Helen."
"I don't know why not," said Helen, pouting. "I know she never treats
anyone nicely, but I don't mind. If it does her good to do what Tom
calls 'bully-ragging,' I can stand it as well as Ruth--better,
perhaps."
"No," said the doctor, gravely. "I have told you before why you
shouldn't call there. You have everything that Mercy can possibly
desire. Comparisons with poor Mercy certainly are odious. Ruth, she
knows, is not so fortunately placed in life as yourself. She is not so
fortunately placed, indeed, as Mercy is. And Mercy is in an extremely
nervous state just now, and I do not wish her to excite herself beyond
reason."
"Well, I declare," exclaimed Helen, but good-naturedly after all. "I
don't like to be told I'm not wanted anywhere. But if you say so, I'll
not go with Ruth to the house."
Doctor Davison opened a new topic of conversation by asking after Tom.
"Oh, his head is all healed up--you can just barely see the scar,"
Helen declared. "And his arm is only a little tender. We think he got
out of it very lucky indeed--thanks to Ruth here."
"Yes, thanks to Ruth," repeated the doctor, his eyes twinkling.
Ruth was "on pins and needles," as the saying is, for she very well
remembered what the injured boy had murmured, in his half conscious
state, when they brought him along the road on the stretcher. Had it
been Jabez Potter who ran down Tom Cameron and forced him down the
embankment with his motorcycle? This thought had been bobbing up in
Ruth's mind ever since she had come to the Red Mill.
She had seen her uncle driving his team of mules in one of his
reckless moods. She would never forget how the team tore down the long
hill and was forced through the flood the day the Minturn dam had
burst. Had Jabez Potter been driving through the dark road where Tom
Cameron was hurt, in any such way as that, he would have run down a
dozen cyclists without noticing them.
Fortunately Tom's injury had not been permanent. He was all right now.
Ruth felt that she must be loyal to her uncle and say nothing about
her own suspicions; but as long as the matter was discussed between
Helen and Doctor Davison she was anxious. Therefore she hurried their
departure from the kind physician's office, by rising and saying:
"I think we would better go, Helen. You know how slow Tubby is, and
perhaps I can give the little Curtis girl some pleasure by calling on
her."
"Without doubt she'll have pleasure," observed Helen, somewhat
bitingly. "She is likely to scold and 'bullyrag' to her heart's
content. You're such a meek thing that you'll let her."
"If that's what gives her pleasure, Helen," said Ruth, with a quiet
smile, "why, I guess I can stand it for an hour."
Doctor Davison had risen likewise, and he went to the front door with
them, his hand resting lightly on Ruth's shoulder.
"You have the right idea of it, Ruthie," he said. "Let Mercy take her
pleasure in that way if it's all the pleasure she can get. But perhaps
a better mind as well as a better body may come to the poor child in
time." Then to Ruth he added, more personally: "Remember you have a
friend in here behind the green lamps. Don't forget to come to him
with any troubles you may have. Perhaps I do not look it, but I am
something like a fairy godmother--I have a wonderful power of
transmogrification. I can often turn dark clouds inside out and show
you the silver on the other side."
"I believe that, Doctor Davison," she whispered, and squeezed his hand
hard, running after Helen the next moment down the walk.