"Well, Aunt Alvirah is growing old."
"Ye don't say!" snapped the miller. "And who ain't, I'd like to know?"
"Her rheumatism is much worse, and it will soon be winter."
"Say! what air ye tryin' to do?" he demanded. "Tellin' me these here puffictly obvious things! Of course she's gittin' older; and of course her rheumatiz is bound to grow wuss. Doctors ain't never yet found nothin' to cure rheumatiz. And winter us'ally follers fall – even in this here tarnation climate."
"Well, but the combination is going to be very bad for Aunt Alvirah," Ruth said gently, determined to pursue her idea to the finish, no matter how cross he appeared to be.
"Wal, is it my fault?" asked Uncle Jabez.
"It's nobody's fault," Ruth told him, shaking her head, and very serious. "But it's Aunt Alvirah's misfortune."
"Huh!"
"And we must do something about it."
"Huh! Must we? What, I'd like to have ye tell me?" said the old miller, eyeing Ruth much as one strange dog might another that he suspected was after his best marrow bone.
"We must get somebody to help her do the work while I am at college," Ruth said firmly.
The dull red flooded into Uncle Jabez's cheeks, and for once gave him a little color. His narrow eyes sparkled, too.
"There's one thing I've allus said, Niece Ruth," he declared hotly. "Ye air a great one for spending other folks' money."
It was Ruth's turn to flush now, and although she might not possess what Aunt Alvirah called "the Potter economical streak," she did own to a spark of the Potter temper. Ruth Fielding was not namby-pamby, although she was far from quarrelsome.
"Uncle Jabez," she returned rather tartly, "have I been spending much of your money lately?"
"No," he growled. "But ye ain't l'arnt how to take proper keer of yer own – trapsin' 'round the country the way you do."
She laughed then. "I'm getting knowledge. Some of it comes high, I have found; but it will all help me live."
"Huh! I've lived without that brand of l'arnin'," grunted Uncle Jabez.
Ruth looked at him amusedly. She was tempted to tell him that he had not lived, only existed. But she was not impudent, and merely went on to say:
"Aunt Alvirah is getting too old to do all the work here – "
"I send Ben in to help her some when she's alone," said the miller.
"And by so doing put extra work on poor Ben," Ruth told him, decidedly. "No, Aunt Alvirah must have another woman around, or a girl."
"Where ye goin' to find the gal?" snapped the miller. "Work gals don't like to stay in the country."
"She's found, I believe," Ruth told him.
"Huh?"
"This Maggie we just got out of the river. She has no job, she says, and she wants one. I believe she'll stay."
"Who's goin' to pay her wages?" demanded Uncle Jabez, getting back to "first principles" again.
"I'll pay the girl's wages, Uncle Jabez," Ruth said seriously. "But you must feed her. And she must be fed well, too. I can see that part of her trouble is malnutrition."
"Huh? Has she got some ketchin' disease?" Uncle Jabez demanded.
"It isn't contagious," Ruth replied drily. "But unless she is well fed she cannot be cured of it."
"Wal, there's plenty of milk and eggs," the miller said.
"But you must not hide the key of the meat-house, Uncle," and now Ruth laughed outright at him. "Four people at table means a depletion of your smoked meat and a dipping occasionally into the corned-beef barrel."
"Wal – "
"Now, if I pay the girl's wages, you must supply the food," his niece said, firmly, "Otherwise, Aunt Alvirah will go without help, and then she will break down, and then– "
"Huh!" grunted the miller. "I couldn't let her go back to the poorfarm, I s'pose?"
He actually made it a question; but Ruth could not see his face, for he had turned aside.
"No. She could not return to the poorhouse – after fifteen years!" exclaimed the girl. "Do you know what I should do?" and she asked the question warmly.
"Somethin' fullish, I allow."
"I should take her to Ardmore with me, and find a tiny cottage for her, and maybe she would keep house for Helen and me."
"That'd be jest like ye, Niece Ruth," he responded coolly. "You think you have all the money in the world. That's because ye didn't aim what ye got – it was give to ye."
The statement was in large part true, and for the moment Ruth's lips were closed. Tears stood in her eyes, too. She realized that she could not be independent of the old miller had not chance and kind-hearted and grateful Mrs. Rachel Parsons given her the bulk of the amount now deposited in her name in the bank.
Ruth Fielding's circumstances had been very different when she had first come to Cheslow and the Red Mill. Then she was a little, homeless, orphan girl who was "taken in out of charity" by Uncle Jabez. And very keenly and bitterly had she been made to feel during those first few months her dependence upon the crabbed old miller.
The introductory volume of this series, "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill, or, Jacob Parloe's Secret," details in full the little girl's trials and triumphs under these unfortunate conditions – how she makes friends, smooths over difficulties, and in a measure wins old Uncle Jabez's approval. The miller was a very honest man and always paid his debts. Because of something Ruth did for him he felt it to be his duty to pay her first year's tuition at boarding school, where she went with her new friend, Helen Cameron. In "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall," the Red Mill girl really begins her school career, and begins, too, to satisfy that inbred longing for independence which was so strong a part of her character.
In succeeding volumes of the "Ruth Fielding Series," we follow Ruth's adventures in Snow Camp, a winter lodge in the Adirondack wilderness; at Lighthouse Point, the summer home of a girl friend on the Atlantic coast; at Silver Ranch, in Montana; at Cliff Island; at Sunrise Farm; with the Gypsies, which was a very important adventure, indeed, for Ruth Fielding. In this eighth story Ruth was able to recover for Mrs. Rachel Parsons, an aunt of one of her school friends, a very valuable pearl necklace, and as a reward of five thousand dollars had been offered for the recovery of the necklace, the entire sum came to Ruth. This money made Ruth financially independent of Uncle Jabez.
The ninth volume of the series, entitled, "Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures; or, Helping the Dormitory Fund," shows Ruth and her chums engaged in film production. Ruth discovered that she could write a good scenario – a very good scenario, indeed. Mr. Hammond, president of the Alectrion Film Corporation, encouraged her to write others. When the West Dormitory of Briarwood Hall was burned and it was discovered that there had been no insurance on the building, the girls determined to do all in their power to rebuild the structure.
Ruth was inspired to write a scenario, a five-reel drama of schoolgirl life, and Mr. Hammond produced it, Ruth's share of the profits going toward the building fund. "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" was not only locally famous, but was shown all over the country and was even now, after six months, paying the final construction bills of the West Dormitory, at Briarwood.
In this ninth volume of the series, Ruth and Helen and many of their chums graduated from Briarwood Hall. Immediately after the graduation the girl of the Red Mill and Helen Cameron were taken south by Nettie Parsons and her Aunt Rachel to visit the Merredith plantation in South Carolina. Their adventures were fully related in the story immediately preceding the present narrative, the tenth of the "Ruth Fielding Series," entitled, "Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie; or, Great Times in the Land of Cotton."
Home again, after that delightful journey, Ruth had spent most of the remaining weeks