Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp | Page 6

said. "And Ruth Fielding was in it, of course--and did
her part in extricating you all from the mess, too, I'll be bound!
Whatever would we do without Ruth?" and he smiled and shook hands
with the miller's niece.
"I guess we were all equally scared. But it certainly was my fault that
the old bull bunted the hollow stump into the creek. So this boy can
thank me for getting him such a ducking," laughed Ruth.
"And who is he? Where does he come from?"
Ruth showed Mr. Cameron the stencil on the inside of the wallet.
"Isn't that funny, Father?" cried Helen. "Right where we are going--
Scarboro."
"If the wallet is his," muttered Mr. Cameron.
"What do you mean, sir?" questioned Ruth, quickly. "Do you think he
is a bad boy--that he has taken the wallet----"
"Now, now!" exclaimed Mr. Cameron, smiling at her again. "Don't
jump at conclusions, Mistress Ruth Fielding. I have no suspicion
regarding 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