Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp | Page 6

the lad----How is the patient, Aunt Alviry?" he added, quickly, as the little old woman came hobbling out of the bedroom where the strange boy lay.
"Oh, my back, and oh, my bones!" said Aunt Alviry, under her breath. But she welcomed Mr. Cameron warmly enough, too. "He's getting on fine," she declared. "He'll be all right soon. I reckon he won't suffer none in the end for his wetting. I'm a-goin' to cook him a mess of gruel, for I believe he's hungry."
"Who is he, Aunt Alviry?" asked the gentleman. Aunt Alvirah Boggs was "everybody's Aunt Alviry," although she really had no living kin, and Mr. Jabez Potter had brought her from the almshouse ten years or more before to act as his housekeeper.
"Dunno," said Aunt Alvirah, shaking her head in answer to Mr. Cameron's question. "Ain't the first idee. You kin go in and talk to him, sir."
With the wallet in his hand and the three young folk at his heels, both their interest and their curiosity aroused, Mr. Cameron went into the passage and so came to the open door of the bedroom. Mr. Potter slept in a big, four-post bedstead, which was heaped high at this time of year with an enormous feather bed. Rolled like a mummy in the blankets, and laid on this bed, the feathers had plumped up about the vagabond boy and almost buried him. But his eyes were wide open--pale blue eyes, with light lashes and eyebrows, which gave his thin, white countenance a particularly blank expression.
"Heigho, my lad!" exclaimed Mr. Cameron, in his jolly way. "So your name is Jonas Hatfield, of Scarboro; is it?"
"No; sir; that was my father's name, sir," returned the boy in bed, weakly. "My name is Fred."
And then a brilliant flush suddenly colored his pale face. He half started up in bed, and the pale blue eyes flashed with an entirely different expression. He demanded, in a hoarse, unnatural voice:
"How'd' you find me out?"
Mr. Cameron shook his head knowingly, and laughed.
"That was a bit of information you were keeping to yourself--eh? Well, why did you carry your father's old wallet about with you, if you did not wish to be identified? Come, son! what harm is there in our knowing who you are?"
Fred Hatfield sank back in the feathers and weakly rolled his head from side to side. The blood receded from his cheeks, leaving him quite as pale as before. He whispered:
"I ran away."
"Yes. That's what I supposed," said Mr. Cameron, easily. "What for?"
"I--I can't tell you."
"What did you do?"
"I didn't say I did anything. I just got sick of it up there, and came away," the boy said, sullenly.
"Your father is dead?" asked the gentleman, shrewdly.
"Yes, sir."
"Got a mother?"
"Yes, sir."
"Doesn't she need you?"
"No, sir."
"Why not?"
"She's got Ez, and Peter, and 'Lias to work the farm. They're all older'n me. Then there's the two gals and Bob, who are younger. She don't need me," declared Fred Hatfield, doggedly.
"I don't believe a mother ever had so many children that she didn't sorely miss the one who was absent," declared Mr. Cameron, quietly. "Tell me how you came away down here,"
Brokenly the boy told his story--not an uncommon one. He had traveled most of the distance afoot, working here and there for farmers and storekeepers. He admitted that he had been some weeks on the road. His being in that hollow stump in Hiram Bassett's field was quite by accident. He was passing through the field, making for the main road, when he had seen Ruth, Helen, and Tom, and stepped behind the tree so as not to be observed.
"What made you so afraid of being seen by anyone?" demanded Mr. Cameron, at this point. "Do you think your folks are trying to find you?"
"I--I don't know," stammered the lad.
This was about all his questioner was able to get out of him.
"You'll be cared for here to-night--I'll speak to Mr. Potter," said Mr. Cameron. "And in the morning I'll decide what's to be done with you."
"Why, Dad! we're going----"
Tom had begun this speech when his father warned him with a look to be still.
"You'll be all right here," pursued Mr. Cameron, cheerfully. "Aunt Alviry and Ruth will look after you. Why! I wouldn't want better nurses if I was sick."
"But I'm not sick," said Fred Hatfield, as the little old woman hobbled in with a steaming bowl. His eyes were wolfish when he saw the gruel, however.
"No, you're not so sick but that a good, square meal would be your best medicine, I'll be bound," cried the gentleman, laughing.
He went out to the mill then and was gone some moments; when he returned he called Helen and Tom to come with him quickly to the car.
"Remember and be ready as early as nine o'clock, Ruth!" called Helen,