THE SPELLING BEE
In spite of the fact that the big girls at the district school, led by
Julia Semple, whose father was the chairman of the board of trustees,
had very little to say to Ruth Fielding, and shunned her almost
altogether outside of the schoolroom, Ruth was glad of her chance to
study and learn. She brought home no complaints to Aunt Alvirah
regarding the treatment she received from the girls of her own class,
and of course uncle Jabez never spoke to her about her schooling, nor
she to him.
At school Ruth pleased Miss Cramp very much. She had gradually worked
her way toward the top of the class--and this fact did not make her
any more friends. For a new scholar to come into the school and show
herself to be quicker and more thorough in her preparation for
recitations than the older scholars naturally made some of the latter
more than a little jealous.
Up to this time Ruth had never been to the big yellow house on the
hill--"Overlook," as Mr. Macy Cameron called his estate. Always
something had intervened when Ruth was about to go. But Helen and Tom
insisted upon the very next Saturday following the girls' trip to
Cheslow as the date when Ruth must come to the big house to luncheon.
The Camerons lived all of three miles from the Red Mill; otherwise
Ruth would in all probability have been to her chum's home before.
Tom agreed to run down in the machine for his sister's guest at
half-past eleven on the day in question, and Ruth hurried her tasks as
much as possible so as to be all ready when he appeared in the big
drab automobile. She even rose a little earlier, and the way she flew
about the kitchen and porch at her usual Saturday morning tasks was,
as Aunt Alvirah said, "a caution." But before Tom appeared Ruth saw,
on one of her excursions into the yard, the old, dock-tailed, bony
horse of Jasper Parloe drawing that gentleman in his rickety wagon up
to the mill door.
"Hi, Jabe!" called Jasper, in his cracked voice. "Hi, Jabe! Here's a
grindin' for ye. And for massy's sake don't take out a double toll as
you us'ally do. Remember I'm a poor man--I ain't got lashin's of
money like you to count ev'ry night of my life--he, he, he!"
The boy had appeared at the mill door first, and he stepped down and
would have taken the bag of grain out of the wagon, had not the miller
himself suddenly appeared and said, in his stern way:
"Let it be."
"Hi, Jabe!" cackled Jasper. "Don't be mean about it. He's younger than
me, or you. Let him shoulder the sack into the mill."
"The sack isn't coming into the mill," said Jabez, shortly.
"What? what?" cried Parloe. "You haven't retired from business; have
you, miller? Ye ain't got so wealthy that ye ain't goin' to grind any
more?"
"I grind for those whom it pleases me to grind for," said the miller,
sternly.
"Then take in the bag, boy," said Jasper, still grinning.
But Mr. Potter waved the boy away, and stood looking at Jasper with
folded arms and a heavy frown upon his face.
"Come, come, Jabe! you keep a mill. You grind for the public, you
know," said Jasper.
"I grind no more for you," rejoined the miller. "I have told you so.
Get you gone, Jasper Parloe."
"No," said the latter, obstinately. "I am going to have my meal."
"Not here," said the miller.
"Now, that's all nonsense, Jabe," exclaimed Jasper Parloe, wagging his
head. "Ye know ye can't refuse me."
"I do refuse you."
"Then ye'll take the consequences, Jabe--ye'll take the consequences.
Ye know very well if I say the word to Mr. Cameron--"
"Get away from here!" commanded Potter, interrupting. "I want nothing
to do with you."
"You mean to dare me; do ye, Jabe?" demanded Jasper, with an evil
smile.
"I don't mean to have anything to do with a thief," growled the
miller, and turning on his heel went back into the mill.
It was just then that Ruth spied the automobile coming down the road
with Tom Cameron at the steering wheel. Ruth bobbed into the house in
a hurry, with a single wave of her hand to Tom, for she was not yet
quite ready. When she came down five minutes later, with a fresh
ribbon in her hair and one of the new frocks that she had never worn
before looking its very trimmest, Jasper Parloe had alighted from his
ramshackle wagon and was talking with Tom, who still sat in the
automobile.
And as Ruth stood in the porch a moment, while Aunt Alvirah proudly
looked her over to see that she was all right, the girl saw by the
expression on Tom's face that whatever Parloe talked about was not
pleasing the lad in the least.
She saw, too, that Tom pulled something from his pocket hastily and
thrust it into Parloe's hand. The old man chuckled slily, said
something else to the boy, and then turned away and climbed into his
wagon again. He drove away as Ruth ran down the path to the waiting
auto.
"Hullo, Tom!" she cried. "I told you I wouldn't keep you waiting
long."
"How-do, Ruth," he returned; but it must be confessed that he was not
as bright and smiling as usual, and he looked away from Ruth and after
Parloe the next moment.
As the girl reached the machine Uncle Jabez came to the mill door
again. He observed Ruth about to get in and he came down the steps and
strode toward the Cameron automobile. Jasper Parloe had clucked to his
old nag and was now rattling away from the place.
"Where are you going, Ruth?" the miller demanded, sternly eyeing Tom
Cameron, and without returning the lad's polite greeting.
"She is going up to our house to lunch with my sister, Mr. Potter,"
Tom hastened to say before Ruth could reply.
"She will do nothing of the kind," said Uncle Jabez, shortly. "Ruth,
go back to the house and help your Aunt Alvirah. You are going about
too much and leaving your aunt to do everything."
This was not so, and Ruth knew very well that her uncle knew it was
not so. She flushed and hesitated, and he said:
"Do you hear me? I expect to be obeyed if you remain here at the Red
Mill. Just because I lay few commands upon you, is no reason why you
should consider it the part of wisdom to be disobedient when I do give
an order."
"Oh, Uncle! do let me go," begged Ruth, fairly crying. "Helen has been
so kind to me--and Aunt Alvirah did not suppose you would object.
They come here--"
"But I do not propose that they shall come here any more," declared
Uncle Jabez, in the same stern tone. "You can drive on, young man. The
less I see of any of you Camerons the better I shall like it."
"But, Mr. Potter--" began Tom.
The old man raised his hand and stopped him.
"I won't hear any talk about it. I know just how much these Camerons
have done for you," he said to Ruth. "They've done enough--altogether
too much. We will stop this intimacy right here and now. At least, you
will not go to their house, Ruth. Do as I tell you--go in to your
Aunt Alviry."
Then, as the weeping girl turned away, she heard him say, even more
harshly than he had spoken to her: "I don't want anything to do with
people who are hand and glove with that Jasper Parloe. He's a thief--
a bigger thief, perhaps, than people generally know. At least, he's
cost me enough. Now, you drive on and don't let me see you or your
sister about here again."
He turned on his heel and went back to the mill without giving Tom
time to say a word. The boy, angry enough, it was evident from his
expression of countenance, hesitated several minutes after the miller
was gone. Once he arose, as though he would get out of the car and
follow Jabez into the mill. But finally he started the engine, turned
the car, and drove slowly away.
This was a dreadful day indeed for the girl of the Red Mill. Never in
her life had she been so hurt--never had she felt herself so ill-used
since coming to this place to live. Uncle Jabez had never been really
kind to her; but aside from the matter of the loss of her trunk he had
never before been actually cruel.
He could have selected no way that would have hurt her more keenly. To
refuse to let her go to see the girl she loved--her only close friend
and playmate! And to refuse to allow Helen and Tom to come here to see
her! This intimacy was all (and Ruth admitted it now, in a torrent of
tears, as she lay upon her little bed) that made life at the Red Mill
endurable. Had she not met Helen and found her such a dear girl and so
kind a companion, Ruth told herself now that she never could have
borne the dull existence of this house.
She heard Aunt Alvirah's halting step upon the stair and before the
old woman reached the top of the flight, Ruth plainly heard her
moaning to herself: "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" Thus groaning and
halting, Aunt Alvirah came to Ruth's door and pushed it open.
"Oh, deary, deary, me!" she whispered, limping into the room.
"Don't-ee cry no more, poor lamb. Old Aunt Alviry knows jest how it
hurts--she wishes she could bear it for ye! Now, now, my pretty
creetur--don't-ee take on so. Things will turn out all right yet.
Don't lose hope."
She had reached the bed ere this and had gathered the sobbing girl
into her arms. She sat upon the side of the bed and rocked Ruth to and
fro, with her arms about her. She did not say much more, but her
unspoken sympathy was wonderfully comforting.
Aunt Alvirah did not criticise Uncle Jabez's course. She never did.
But she gave Ruth in her sorrow all the sympathy of which her great
nature was capable. She seemed to understand just how the girl felt,
without a spoken word on her part. She did not seek to explain the
miller's reason for acting as he did. Perhaps she had less idea than
had Ruth why Jabez Potter should have taken such a violent dislike to
the Camerons.
For Ruth half believed that she held the key to that mystery. When she
came to think it over afterward she put what she had heard between the
two old men--Jabez and Parloe--down at the brook, with what had
occurred at the mill just before Tom Cameron had come in sight; and
putting these two incidents together and remembering that Jasper
Parloe had overheard Tom in his delirium accuse the miller of being
the cause of his injury, Ruth was pretty sure that in that combination
of circumstances was the true explanation of Uncle Jabez's cruel
decision.
Ruth was not the girl to lie on her bed and weep for long. She was
sensible enough to know very well that such a display of
disappointment and sorrow would not better the circumstances. While
she remained at the Red Mill she must obey Uncle Jabez, and his
decisions could not be controverted. She had never won a place near
enough to the miller's real nature to coax him, or to reason with him
regarding this gruff decision he had made. She had to make up her mind
that, unless something unexpected happened to change Uncle Jabez, she
was cut off from much future association with her dear chum, Helen
Cameron.
She got up in a little while, bathed her face and eyes, and kissed
Aunt Alvirah warmly.
"You are a dear!" she declared, hugging the little old woman. "Come! I
won't cry any more. I'll come down stairs with you, Auntie, and help
get dinner."
But Ruth could eat none herself. She did not feel as though she could
even sit at the table with Uncle Jabez that noon, and remained outside
while the miller ate. He never remarked upon her absence, or paid her
the least attention. Oh, how heartily Ruth wished now that she had
never come away from Darrowtown and had never seen the Red Mill.
The next Monday morning the rural mail carrier brought her a long
letter from Helen. Uncle Jabez had not said anything against a
correspondence; indeed, Ruth did not consider that he had more than
refused to have the Camerons come to see her or she to return their
visits. If she met them on the road, or away from the house, she did
not consider that it would be disobeying Uncle Jabez to associate with
Helen and Tom.
This letter from Helen was very bitter against the miller and wildly
proposed that Ruth should run away from the Red Mill and come to
Overlook to live. She declared that her papa would not object--
indeed, that everybody would warmly welcome the appearance of Ruth
Fielding "even if she came like a tramp "; and that Tom would linger
about the Red Mill for an hour or two every evening so that Ruth could
slip out and communicate with her friends, or could be helped away if
she wanted to leave without the miller's permission.
But Ruth, coming now to consider her situation more dispassionately,
simply wrote a loving letter in reply to Helen's, entrusting it to the
post, and went on upon her usual way, helping Aunt Alviry, going to
school, and studying harder than ever. She missed Helen's
companionship vastly; she often wet her pillow with tears at night
(and that was not like Ruth) and felt very miserable indeed at times.
But school and its routine took up a deal of the girl's thought. Her
studies confined her more and more as the end of the term approached.
And in addition to the extra work assigned the girl at the Red Mill by
Miss Cramp, there was a special study which Ruth wished to excel in.
Miss Cramp was old-fashioned enough to believe that spelling was the
very best training for the mind and the memory and that it was a
positive crime for any child to grow up to be a slovenly speller. Four
times a year Miss Cramp held an old-fashioned "spelling-bee" at the
schoolhouse, on designated Friday evenings; and now came the last of
the four for this school year.
Ruth had never been an extra good speller, but because her kind
teacher was so insistent upon the point, the girl from the Red Mill
put forth special efforts to please Miss Cramp in this particular. She
had given much spare time to the study of the spelling book, and
particularly did she devote herself to that study now that she hadn't
her chum to associate with.
The spelling-bees were attended by the parents of the pupils and all
the neighbors thereabout, and Helen wrote that she and Tom were going
to attend on the evening in question and that Tom said he hoped to see
Ruth "just eat up those other girls" when it came to spelling. But
Ruth Fielding much doubted her cannibalistic ability in this line.
Julia Semple had borne off the honors on two occasions during the
winter, and her particular friend Rosa Ball, had won the odd trial.
Now it was generally considered that the final spelling-bee would be
the occasion of a personal trial of strength between the two friendly
rivals. Either Julia or Rosa must win.
But Ruth was the kind of a person who, in attempting a thing, did her
very best to accomplish it. She had given some time and thought to the
spelling book. She was not likely to "go down" before any easy, or
well-known word. Indeed, she believed herself letter perfect in the
very hardest page of the spelling-book some time before the fateful
evening.
"Oh, perhaps you think you know them all, Ruth Fielding!" exclaimed
one of the little girls one day when the spelling-bee was being
discussed at recess. "But Miss Cramp doesn't stick to the speller. You
just wait till she tackles the dictionary."
"The dictionary!" cried Ruth.
"That's what Miss Cramp does," the child assured her. "If she can't
spell them down out of the speller, she begins at the beginning of the
dictionary and gives words out until she finds one that floors them
all. You wait and see!"
So Ruth thought it would do no harm to study the dictionary a little,
and taking her cue from what the little girls said, she remained in
between sessions and began with "aperse," committing to memory as well
as she could those words that looked to be "puzzlers." Before the day
of the spelling-bee she believed that, if Miss Cramp didn't go beyond
the first letter of the alphabet, she would be fairly well grounded in
the words as they came in rotation.
Ruth knew that every other pupil in the school would have friends in
the audience that evening save herself. She wished that Aunt Alvirah
could have attended the spelling-bee; but of course her back and her
bones precluded her walking so far, and neither of them dared ask
Uncle Jabez to hitch up and take them to the schoolhouse in his wagon.
The schoolhouse was crowded, all the extra seats that could be
provided were arranged in rows, and, it being a mild evening, the men
and bigger boys stood outside the open windows. There was a great
bustle and whispering until Miss Cramp's tinkling bell called the
audience as well as the pupils to order.
The scholars took their places according to their class standing in a
long row around the room. As one was spelled down he or she took a
seat again, and so the class was rapidly thinned out, for many of the
little folk missed on the very easiest words in the speller. Ruth
stood within ten pupils of the head of the line at the beginning and
when the spelling began she had an encouraging smile and nod from
Helen, who, with her brother, sat where they could see the girl from
the Red Mill Ruth determined to do her best.