Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill Part 10

He wrung his hands, tore off his hat and stamped upon it on the walk, and behaved in such a manner that it was little wonder Helen Cameron was vastly frightened. He seemed beside himself with rage and despair.

Ruth, herself torn by conflicting emotions, could not bear to see the old man so convulsed with what seemed to be anguish of spirit, without offering her sympathy. During this week that she had been at the Red Mill it could not be said that she had gained Uncle Jabez's confidence--that she had drawn close to him at all. But it was not for a will on her part to do so.

The girl now left Aunt Alvirah and Helen on the porch and walked straight down to the old man. She was beside him, with a hand upon his arm, before he was aware of her coming.

He stared at her so angrily--with such an expression of rage and hopelessness upon his face--that she was held speechless for a moment.

"What do you know about it, girl?" he demanded, hoa.r.s.ely.

"About what, Uncle?" she returned.

"The box--the cash-box--my money!" he cried, in a low voice. "Do you know anything about it? Was it saved?"

"Oh, Uncle! We only got here in the automobile just in time to escape the flood. The office was wrecked at that very moment. Was the box there?"

"Gone! Gone!" he murmured, shaking his head; and turning on his heel, he strode into the mill.

The boy had taken the mules around to the stable. Ruth hesitated, then followed the old man into the mill. There Jabez confronted Tom Cameron, sitting on a sack of meal and watching the turbid waters falling over the dam.

"Ha! Young Cameron," muttered Uncle Jabez. "You didn't see the cash-box, of course?"

"Where was it?" asked Tom, quietly.

"In that office--on a shelf, with an old coat thrown over it. I believed it to be as safe there as in the house with n.o.body but an old woman to guard it."

"Better put your money in the bank, sir," said Tom, coolly.

"And have some sleek and oily scoundrel steal it, eh?" snarled Uncle Jabez.

"Well, the water stole it, I reckon," Tom said. "I'm sorry for you if there was much money in the box. But I know nothing about it. Jasper Parloe might have saved the box had he known about it; he was over there by the office when the water tore away the wall."

"Jasper Parloe!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Uncle Jabez, starting. "Was he here?"

"He wasn't here long," chuckled Tom. "He thought the mill was going and he lit out in a hurry."

Uncle Jabez made another despairing gesture and walked away. Ruth followed him and her hands closed upon the toil-hardened fist clenched at his side.

"I'm sorry, Uncle," she whispered.

He suddenly stared down at her.

"There! I believe you be, child. But your being sorry can't help it none. The money's gone--hard it come and it's hard to part with in this way."

"Was it a large sum, Uncle?"

"All the ready cash I had in the world. Every cent I owned. That boy said, put it in a bank. I lost money when the Cheslow Bank failed forty year ago. I don't get caught twice in the same trap--no, sir!

I've lost more this time; but no dishonest blackleg will have the benefit of it, that's sure. The river's got it, and n.o.body will ever be a cent the better off for it. All! All gone!"

He jerked his hand away from Ruth's sympathetic pressure and walked moodily away.

CHAPTER XII

THE CATASTROPHE

This was the beginning of some little confidence between Ruth and Uncle Jabez. He had not been quite so stern and unbending, even in his pa.s.sion, as before. He said nothing more about the lost cash-box-- Aunt Alviry dared not even broach the subject--but Ruth tried to show him in quiet ways that she was sorry for his loss.

Uncle Jabez was not a gentle man, however; his voice being so seldom heard did not make it the less rough and pa.s.sionate. There were times when, because of his black looks, Ruth did not even dare address him.

And there was one topic she longed to address him upon very much indeed. She wanted to go to school.

She had always been quick at her books, and had stood well in the graded school of Darrowtown. There was a schoolhouse up the road from the Red Mill--not half a mile away; this district school was a very good one and the teacher had called on Aunt Alvirah and Ruth liked her very much.

The flood had long since subsided and the repairs to the mill and the dam were under way. Uncle Jabez grew no more pleasant, however, for the freshet had damaged his dam so that all the water had to be let out and he might go into midsummer with such low pressure behind the dam that he could not run the mill through the drouth. This possibility, together with the loss of the cash-box, made him--even Aunt Alvirah admitted--"like a dog with a sore head." Nevertheless Ruth determined to speak to him about the school.

She chose an evening when the kitchen was particularly bright and homelike and her uncle had eaten his supper as though he very much enjoyed it. There was no cash-box for him to be absorbed in now; but every evening he made countless calculations in an old ledger which he took to bed with him with as much care as he had the money-box.

Before he opened his ledger on this evening, however, Ruth stood beside him and put a hand upon his arm.

"Uncle," she said, bravely, "can I go to school?"

He stared at her directly for a moment, from under his heavy brows; but her own gaze never wavered.

"How much schoolin' do you want?" he demanded, harshly.

"If you please Uncle Jabez, all I can get," replied Ruth.

"Ha! Readin', writin', an' mighty little 'rithmatic--we called 'em 'the three R's '--did for me when I was a boy. The school tax they put onto me ev'ry year is something wicked. And I never had chick nor child to go to their blamed old school."

"Let me go, Uncle, and so get some of your money back that way," Ruth said, quickly, and smiling in her little, birdlike way with her head on one side.

"Ha! I don't know about that," he growled, shaking his head. "I don't see what I'll be makin' out of it."

"Perhaps I can help you later, if you'll let me learn enough," she urged. "I can learn enough arithmetic to keep your books. I'll try real hard."

"I don't know about that," he said, again, eyeing her suspiciously.

"The little money I make I kin keep watch of--when I'm here to watch it, that is. There ain't no book-keeping necessary in my business. And then--there's your Aunt Alviry. She needs you."

"Don't you go for to say that, Jabez," interposed the old woman, briskly. "That child's the greatest help that ever was; but she can do all that's necessary before and arter school, and on Sat.u.r.days. She's a good smart child, Jabez. Let her have a chance to l'arn."

"Ain't no good ever come of books," muttered the miller.

"Oh, Uncle! Just let me show you," begged the girl, in her earnestness clinging to his arm with both hands.

He looked down for a moment at her hands as though he would fling off her hold. But he thought better of it, and waited fully a minute before he spoke.

"You know your Aunt Alviry needs ye," he said. "If you kin fix it with her, why I don't see as I need object."

"Will it be too much trouble for you to get my trunk, Uncle, so that I can begin going to school next week?" Ruth asked.

"Ain't you got nothin' to wear to school?" he said. "It's dress; is it? Beginning that trouble airly; ain't ye?"