CHAPTER III
EVENING AT THE RED MILL
About this time Uncle Jabez began to wake up to the fact that his boatand the flour were gone.
"It's a dumbed shame, Jabez! an' I needed that flour like tunket," saidTimothy Lakeby, the storekeeper.
"Huh!" grunted the miller. "'Tain't nothin' out o' your pocket, Tim."
"But my customers air wantin' it."
"You lemme hev your boat, an' a boy to bring it back, an' we'll go righthum an' load ye up some more flour," groaned the miller. "That drattedBen will be back by thet time, I fancy. Ef he'd been ter the mill Iwouldn't hev been dependent upon my niece ter help row that old boat."
"Too heavy for her--too heavy for her, Jabe," declared Joe Bascom.
"Huh! is thet so?" snapped the miller. He could grumble to Ruth himself,but he would not stand for any other person's criticism of her. "Lemmetell ye, she worked her passage all right. An' I vum! I b'lieve thet'twas me, myself, thet run the old tub on the rock."
"Aside from the flour, Jabez," said the storekeeper, "'tain't much of aloss. But you an' Ruthie might ha' both been drowned."
"I would, if it hadn't been for her," declared the miller, with moreenthusiasm than he usually showed. "She held my head up when I wasknocked out--kinder. Ye see this cut in my head?"
"Ye got out of it lucky arter all, then," said Bascom.
"Ya-as," drawled the miller. "But I ain't feelin' so pert erbout losin'thet boat an' the flour."
"But see how much worse it might have been, Uncle," suggested Ruth,timidly. "If it hadn't been for that boy----"
"What did he say his name was?" interrupted Timothy.
"Roberto."
"Yah!" said Bascom. "Thet's a Gypsy name, all right! I'd like ter gotholt on him."
"I wish I could have thanked him," sighed Ruth.
"If you see him ag'in, Joe," said the miller, "don't you bother about apeck o' summer apples. I'll pay for them," he added, with a suddenburst of generosity. "Of course--in trade," he added.
He could move about now, and the gash in his head had ceased bleeding.It was a warm evening, and neither Ruth nor her uncle were likely totake cold from their ducking. But her clothing clung to her in anuncomfortable manner, and the girl was anxious to get back to the mill.
Timothy Lakeby routed out a clerk and sent him with them in the lighterboat that was moored at the store landing. Ruth begged to pull an oaragain, and her uncle did not forbid her. Perhaps he still felt a littleweak and dazed.
He kept speaking of Roberto, the Gypsy boy. "Strong as an ox, thatfeller," he said. "Wisht I had a man like him at the mill. Ben ain'twuth his salt."
"Oh, I'm sure, Uncle Jabez, Ben is very faithful and good," urged Ruth.
"Wal, a feller that could carry me like that young man done--he's jestanother Sandow, _he_ is," said Uncle Jabez.
They easily got across the river in the storekeeper's lighter boat, andRuth displayed her oarsmanship to better advantage, for the oars werelighter. The miller noted her work and grunted his approval.
"I vum! they _did_ teach ye suthin' at thet school 'sides folderrols,didn't they?" he said.
Ruth asked the store clerk if he knew anything about the Gypsies.
"Why, yes, Miss. I hear they are camping 'way up the river--up near thelakes, beyond Minturn's Dam. You know that's a wild country up there."
Ruth remembered. She had been a little way in that direction with herfriends, Tom and Helen Cameron, in their auto. Minturn Dam had burst twoyears before, and done much damage, but was now repaired.
"That is a long way from here," she suggested to the clerk.
"Yes'm. But Romany folks is gret roamers--thet's why they're called'Romany,' mebbe," was the reply. "And I guess that black-eyed rascal isa wild one."
"Never mind. He got me out o' the river," mumbled Uncle Jabez.
They brought the boat to the mill landing in safety, and Ben appeared,having returned from town and put up the mules. He gazed in blankamazement at the condition of his employer and Ruth.
"For the good land!" exclaimed Ben; but he got no farther. He was not atalkative young man, and it took considerable to wake him up to asexciting an expression as the above.
"You kin talk!" snarled Uncle Jabez. "If you'd been here to help me, Iwouldn't ha' lost our boat and the flour."
The miller fairly _ached_ when he thought of his losses, and he had tolay the blame on somebody.
"Now you help me git four more sacks over to Tim Lakeby's----"
Ruth would not hear of his going back before he changed his clothing andhad something put upon the cut in his head. After a little arguing, itwas agreed that Ben and the clerk should ferry the flour across to thestore, and then the clerk would bring Ben back.
"Goodness sakes alive!" shrieked Aunt Alvirah, when she saw them comeonto the porch, still dripping. "What you been doing to my pretty, JabezPotter?"
"Huh!" sniffed the miller. "Mebbe it's what she's been doing to _me_?"and he wreathed his thin lips into a wry grin.
Aunt Alvirah and Mercy must hear it all. The lame girl was delighted.She pointed her finger at the old man, who had now gotten into hisSunday suit and had a bandage on his head.
"Now, tell me, Dusty Miller, what do you think about girls being of someuse? Isn't Ruth as good as any boy?"
"She sartainly kep' me from drownin' as good as any boy goin'," admittedthe old man. "But that was only chancey, as ye might say. When it comesto bein' of main use in the world----Wal, it ain't gals thet makes thewheels go 'round!'
"And don't you really think, Uncle, that girls are any use in theworld?" asked Ruth, quietly. She had come out upon the dimly lit porch(this was after their supper) in season to hear the miller's finalobservation.
"Ha!" ejaculated Jabez. Perhaps he had not intended Ruth to hear justthat. "They're like flowers, I reckon--mighty purty an' ornamental; butthey ain't no manner o' re'l use!"
Mercy fairly snorted, but she was too wise to say anything farther.Ruth, however, continued:
"That seems very unfair, Uncle. Many girls are 'worth their salt,' asyou call it, to their families. Why can't _I_ be of use to you--in time,of course?"
"Ha! everyone to his job," said Uncle Jabez, brusquely. "You kin be ofgre't help to your Aunt Alviry, no doubt. But ye can't take a sack offlour on your shoulders an' throw it inter a waggin--like Ben there. Orlike that Roberto thet lugged me ashore to-night. An' I'm some weight, Ibe."
"And is that all the kind of help you think you'll ever need, Uncle?"demanded Ruth, with rising emotion.
"I ain't expectin' ter be helpless an' want nussin' by no gal--not yetawhile," said Uncle Jabez, with a chuckle. "Gals is a gre't expense--agre't expense."
"Now, Jabez! ye don't mean thet air," exclaimed the little old woman,coming from the kitchen. She lowered herself into the little rockernearby, with her usual moan of, "Oh, my back! an' oh, my bones! Ye don'tmean ter hurt my pretty's feelin's, I know."
"She axed me!" exclaimed the miller, angrily. "I vum! ain't I spendin' afortun' on her schoolin' at that Briarwood Hall?"
"And didn't she save ye a tidy fortun' when she straightened out thatTintacker Mine trouble for ye, Jabez Potter?" demanded the old woman,vigorously. "An' the good Lord knows she's been a comfort an' help toye, right an' left, in season an' out, ever since she fust stepped footinter this Red Mill----What's she done for ye this very day, Jabez, asye said yourself?"
Aunt Alvirah was one of the very few people who dared to talk plainly tothe miller, when he was in one of his tempers. Now he growled out somerough reply, and strode into the house.
"You've driven him away, Auntie!" cried Ruth, under her breath.
"He'd oughter be driv' away," said the old woman, "when he's in thetmind."
"But what he says is true. I _am_ a great expense to him. I--I wish Icould earn my own way through school."
"Don't ye worry, my pretty. Jabez Potter's bark is wuss than his bite."
"But the bark hurts, just the same."
"He ought to be whipped!" hissed Mercy, in her most unmerciful tone."I'd like to whip him, till all the dust flew out of his Dusty Millerclothes--so I would!"
"Sh!" commanded Ruth, recovering her self-command again and fightingback the tears. "Just as Aunt Alvirah observes, he doesn't mean half ofwhat he says."
"It hurts just the same--you said it yourself," declared the lame girl,with a snap.
"I want to be independent, anyway," said Ruth, with some excitement. "Iwant an education so I can _do_ something. I'd like to cultivate myvoice--the teacher says it has possibilities. Mr. Cameron is going tolet Helen go as far as she likes with the violin, and she doesn't _have_to think about making her way in the world."
"Gals ain't content now to sit down after gittin' some schoolin'--I kinsee thet," sighed Aunt Alvirah. "It warn't so in my day. I never see thebeat of 'em for wantin' ter go out inter the worl' an' make alivin'--jes' like men."