He seemed to be quite cross again, and the girl looked at him in surprise.

"Dear Uncle! You will get the trunk from the station, won't you?"

"No I won't," he said. "Because why? Because I can't."

"You can't?" she gasped, and even Aunt Alvirah looked startled.

"That's what I said."

"Why--why can't you?" cried Ruth. "Has something happened to my trunk?"

"That's jest it--and it warn't no fault o' mine," said the miller. "I got the trunk like I said I would and it was in the wagon when we came down the hill yonder.

"Oh, oh!" gasped Ruth, her hands clasped. "You don't mean when you ran the mules into the water, Uncle?"

"I had to get to my mill. I didn't know what was being done over here," he said, uglily. "And didn't I lose enough? What's the loss of some old rags, and a trunk, 'side of my money?"

He said it with such force, and with so angry a gesture, that she shrank back from him. But her pain and disappointment were so strong that she had to speak.

"And the trunk was washed out of the wagon, Uncle Jabez? It's gone?"

"That's what happened to it, I suppose," he grunted, and dropping his head, opened the ledger and began to study the long lines of figures there displayed. Not a word to show that he was sorry for her loss. No appreciation of the girl's pain and sorrow. He selfishly hugged to him the misfortune of his own loss and gave no heed to Ruth.

But Aunt Alvirah caught her hand as she pa.s.sed swiftly. The old woman carried the plump little hand to her lips in mute sympathy, and then Ruth broke away even from her and ran upstairs to her room. There she cast herself upon the bed and, with her sobs smothered in the pillows, gave way to the grief that had long been swelling her heart to the bursting point.

CHAPTER XIII

b.u.t.tER AND b.u.t.tERCUPS

Such little keepsakes as remained of her father and mother--their photographs, a thin old bracelet, her mother's wedding ring, her father's battered silver watch had fortunately been in Ruth's bag.

Those keepsakes had been too precious to risk in the trunk and in the baggage car. And how glad the girl was now that she had thus treasured these things.

But the loss of the trunk, with all her clothing --common though that clothing had been--was a disaster that Ruth could not easily get over. She cried herself to sleep that night and in the morning came down with a woebegone face indeed. Uncle Jabez did not notice her, and even Aunt Alvirah did not comment upon her swollen eyes and tear-streaked countenance. But the old woman, if anything, was kinder than ever to her.

It was Sat.u.r.day, and b.u.t.ter day. Uncle Jabez owned one cow, and since Ruth had come to the mill it was her work twice a week to churn the b.u.t.ter. The churn was a stone crock with a wooden dasher and Ruth had just emptied in the thick cream when Helen Cameron ran in.

"Oh, Ruth!" she cried. "You're always busy--especially if I chance to want you at all particularly."

"If you will be a drone yourself, Helen, you must expect to be always hunting company," laughed Ruth. "Just what is troubling Miss Cameron at present?"

"We're going to dress the Cove Chapel for to-morrow. You know, I told you our guild attends to the decoration of the chapel and I've just set my heart on making a great pillow of b.u.t.tercups. The fields are full of them. And Tom says he'll help. Now, you'll come; won't you?"

"If I come for b.u.t.tercups it will have to be after the b.u.t.ter comes!"

returned Ruth, laughing.

She had begun to beat the dasher up and down and little particles of cream sprayed up through the hole in the cover of the jar, around the handle of the dasher. Helen looked on with growing interest.

"And is that the way to make b.u.t.ter?" she asked. "And the cream's almost white. Our b.u.t.ter is yellow--golden. Just as golden as the b.u.t.tercups. Do you color it?"

"Not at this time of year. I used to help Miss True make b.u.t.ter. She had a cow. She said I was a good b.u.t.ter maker. You see, it's all in the washing after the b.u.t.ter comes. You wait and see."

"But I want to pick b.u.t.tercups--and Tom is waiting down by the bridge."

"Can't help it. b.u.t.ter before b.u.t.tercups," declared Ruth, keeping the dasher steadily at work. "And then, Aunt Alvirah may want me for something else before dinner."

"We've got dinner with us--or, Tom has. At least, Babette put us up a basket of lunch."

"Oh! A picnic!" cried Ruth, flushing with pleasure. This visit had driven out of her mind --for the time, at least--her trouble of overnight.

"I'm going to ask Aunt Alviry for you," went on Helen, and skipped away to find the little old woman who, despite the drawback of "her back and her bones" was a very neat and particular housekeeper. She was back in a few moments.

"She says you can go, just as soon as you get the b.u.t.ter made. Now, hurry up, and let us get into the b.u.t.tercup field, which is a whole lot nicer than the b.u.t.ter churn and--Oh! it smells much nicer, too.

Why, Ruth, that cream actually smells sour!"

"I expect it is sour," laughed her friend. "Didn't you know that sweet b.u.t.ter comes from sour cream? And that most nice things are the result of hard work? The sweet from the bitter, you know."

"My! how philosophical we are this morning. Isn't that b.u.t.ter ever coming?"

"Impatience! Didn't you ever have to wait for anything you wanted in your life?"

"Why, I've got to wait till next fall before I go to Briarwood Hall.

That's a rhyme, Ruthie; it's been singing itself over and over in my mind for days. I'm really going to boarding school in the autumn. It's decided. Tom is going to the military academy on the other side of Osago Lake. He'll be within ten miles of Briarwood."

Ruth's face had lost its brightness as Helen said this. The word "school" had brought again to the girl's mind her own unfortunate position and Uncle Jabez's unkindness.

"I hope you will have a delightful time at Briarwood," Ruth said, softly. "I expect I shall miss you dreadfully."

"Oh, suppose the Ogre should send you to school there, too!" cried Helen, with clasped hands. "Wouldn't that be splendid!"

"That would be beyond all imagination," said Ruth, shaking her head.

"I--I don't know that I shall be able to attend the balance of the term here."

"Why not?" demanded Helen. "Won't he let you?"

"He has said I could." Ruth could say no more just then. She hid her face from her friend, but made believe that it was the b.u.t.ter that occupied her attention. The dasher began to slap, slap, slap suggestively in the churn and little particles of beaten cream began to gather on the handle of the dasher.

"Oh!" cried Helen. "It's getting hard!"

"The b.u.t.ter is coming. Now a little cold water to help it separate.

And then you shall have a most delicious gla.s.s of b.u.t.termilk."

"No, thank you!" cried Helen. "They say it's good for one to drink it.

But I never do like anything that's good for me."

"Give it to me, Ruth," interposed another voice, and Tom put a smiling face around the corner of the well. "I thought you were never coming, Miss Flyaway," he said, to his sister.

"b.u.t.ter before b.u.t.tercups, young man," responded Helen, primly. "We must wait for Ruth to--er--wash the b.u.t.ter, is it?"