"Yah!" snarled old Parloe. "We all know ye, Jabe Potter. We know what ye be." Potter turned away. He had not noticed the two girls in the automobile. But now Jasper Parloe saw them. "Ho!" he cried, "here's somebody else that will l'arn ter know ye, too. Didn't know you was ter hev comp'ny; did ye, Jabe? Here's yer niece, Jabe, come ter live on ye an' be an expense to ye," and so, chuckling and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his mean, sly face, Parloe drove on, leaving the miller standing with arms akimbo, and staring at Ruth, who was slowly alighting from the automobile with her bag.

Helen squeezed her hand tightly as she got out "Don't forget that we are your friends, Ruthie," she whispered. "I'm coming by again this afternoon when I drive over to the station for father. If--if anything happens you be out here--now remember!"

What could possibly happen to her, Ruth could not imagine. She was not really afraid of Uncle Jabez. She walked directly to him, as he stood there, staring gloomily, in front of the Red Mill. He was not only tall and stoop-shouldered, and very dusty; but his dusty eyebrows almost met over his light blue eyes. He was lantern-jawed, and it did seem as though his dry, shaven lips had never in all his life wrinkled into a smile. His throat was wrinkled and scraggy and his head was plainly very bald on top, for the miller's cap he wore did not entirely cover the bald spot.

"I am Ruth Fielding, from Darrowtown," she said, in a voice that she controlled well. "I have come to--to live with you, Uncle Jabez."

"Where was you last night?" demanded the miller, without so much as returning her greeting. "Was you with them Camerons?"

"I stayed all night with the station master," she said, in explanation.

"What time did you get to the station?"

Ruth told him. Never once did his voice change or his grim look relax.

"I mistook the time of the train," he said, without expressing any sorrow.

"I--I hope you will be glad to have me come," the said. "Miss True--"

"You mean that old maid that wrote to me?" he asked, harshly.

"Miss True Pettis. She said she thought you would like to have me here as we were so near related."

"Not so near related as some," was all he said in reply to this. After a moment, he added: "You can go along to the house yonder. Aunt Alviry will show you what to do."

Ruth could not have said another word just then without breaking down and weeping, so she only nodded and turned to walk up a path toward the house door.

"One thing," urged the old man, before she had gone far. She turned to look at him and he continued: "One thing I want you to understand, if you live here you have got to work. I don't like no laggards around me."

She could only nod again, for her heart seemed to be right in her throat, and the sting of the tears she wanted to shed, but could not, almost blinded her as she went on slowly to the house door.

CHAPTER VII

AUNT ALVIRAH'S BACK AND BONES

Ruth came to the kitchen door and found that the lower half was closed; but she could see over the upper panel that had been flung wide to let in the sweet Spring air and sunlight. A little old woman was stooping to brush the rag carpet with a whisk broom and dustpan, and as she hobbled around the big stove and around the table, which was already set neatly for dinner, she was crooning to herself:

"Oh, my back and oh, my bones! Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"

She was a very neat-looking old lady, with a kerchief crossed on her breast in the style of the old-fashioned Quakeresses. She was not much taller than Ruth herself, for when she stood upright--or as upright as she could stand--her eyes were just about on a level with Ruth's eyes looking in over the half door.

But the face of the old lady seemed, to the lonely, tear-filled girl, almost the gentlest, sweetest face she had ever seen, as it slowly smiled upon her. Aunt Alviry's welcome was like the daybreak.

"Bless us and save us!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed she, rising upright by degrees with her hand upon the back she had been apostrophizing. "If here isn't a pretty little creeter come to see her Aunt Alviry. How-de-do, girl?"

Ruth had set down her bag. Now she opened the door and stepped in. The smile of the old lady broke down every bit of fort.i.tude the girl had left and she walked directly into Aunt Alviry's arms and burst into tears.

"There! there! Deary, deary me!" murmured the little old lady, patting her shoulder. "Somebody has been treating you badly, I know. And you've come right to your Aunt Alviry for comfort. And you've come to the right place, my pretty girl, for I've got tons of comfort for ye."

She found a chair and lowered herself into it, not without the formula which Ruth had heard before, of "Oh, my back and oh, my bones!" Ruth dropped on her knees before her, hid her face in the old lady's lap, and had her cry out. Meanwhile Aunt Alvirah seemed to have taken in several things about her guest that were significant. She touched the stuff of which Ruth's gown was made, and nodded; even the black hair-ribbon did not go unnoticed.

"Now," said Ruth, rising after a few moments, "I guess that's all of that foolishness. I--I don't usually cry, Aunt Alvirah."

"Pshaw, now! I could tell that," said the old lady, comfortably.

"I am going right to work to help you," said the girl. "I can stoop better than you can."

"I expect you can, you pretty creeter," admitted the old lady.

Ruth had already taken the brush and pan and was at work upon the floor. The lady said: "You ain't familiar to me, child. You've lost some folks lately, I see. Do you live 'round here?"

The little girl stopped and looked up at her in surprise. "Why, don't you know about it?" she cried.

"Know about what, child?"

"Didn't you know I had come here to live with you?"

"Bless us and save us!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Aunt Alvirah. "How did that happen?"

"Didn't my uncle tell you?" cried Ruth, much more surprised than the old lady.

"Who's your uncle, child?"

"Why, Mr. Potter--Uncle Jabez."

So astonished did the old lady appear to be that she started from her chair and her e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n was changed to a moan of pain as she murmured her old formula: "Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"

"Jabez ain't said a word to me about it. Why should he take anybody to help me? Is he struck with the fear o' his latter end?"

She said this in no cross-grained way, but because she was so amazed.

She likewise stared harder and harder at her visitor.

"You ain't come from the poor farm, child?" she asked, finally.

The flush upon Ruth's cheek and the expression which came into her face told Aunt Alviry that she was wrong there.

"Not that you look like poorhouse breed--not at all. You're too pretty dressed and you're too well fed. I know what they be there, for I have been there myself. Yes, ma'am! Jabez Potter came after me to the poor farm. I was sickly, too. There's them that said he went to Doctor Davison first to find out if I was goin' to git well before he come arter me; but Jabez ain't never treated me noways but kind. Starn he is--by natur and by practice; an' clost he is in money matters.

But he's been good to an old woman without a home who warn't neither kith nor kin to him."

Ruth listened to the first good word she had heard of Uncle Jabez, and the speech comforted her somewhat. Perhaps there was something better within the rough husk of Uncle Jabez, after all.

"I did not live near here," Ruth said, quietly. "But my papa and mama did. I came from Darrowtown."

Aunt Alviry opened wide her bright brown eyes, and still stared in wonder.

"My mother's name was Mary Potter, and she was Mr. Potter's niece. So he is my great-uncle."

"Bless us and save us!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Aunt Alviry, again, shaking her head. "I never heard a word of it--never! I 'member Mary Potter, and a sweet, pretty child she was. But Jabez never had no fondness for any of his kin. You--you are all alone in the world, child?"