Ruth Fielding at the War Front | Page 4

At first we meet Ruth Fielding as she approaches Cheslow and the Red
Mill beside the Lumano River, where Uncle Jabez, the miserly miller,
awaits her coming in no pleasant frame of mind. He is her only living
relative and he considers little Ruth Fielding a "charity child." She is
made to feel this by his treatment and by the way in which the girls in
the district school talk of her.
Ruth makes three friends from the start, however, who, in their several
ways, help her to endure her troubles. One is Aunt Alvirah Boggs, who
is nobody's relation but everybody's aunt, and whom Jabez Potter, the
miller, has taken from the poorhouse to keep his home tidy and
comfortable. Aunt Alvirah sees the good underlying miserly Uncle
Jabez's character when nobody else can. She lavishes upon the little
orphan girl all the love and affection that she would have given to her
own children had she been blessed with any.
Ruth's other two close friends were the Cameron twins, Helen and Tom,
the children of a wealthy storekeeper who lived not far from the Red
Mill. The early adventures of these three are all related in the first book
of the series, "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill."
One virtue of Uncle Jabez's, which shines as brightly in his rather
gloomy character as a candle in the dark, is that he always pays his
debts. If he considers he owes anybody anything he is not satisfied until
he pays it. Therefore, when Ruth recovers some money which had been
stolen from him, he is convinced that it is only right for him to pay her
tuition for at least a year at Briarwood Hall, where she goes to school
with Helen Cameron, while Tom goes to a boy's boarding school called
Seven Oaks.
The girls and Tom and his friends often got together for good times
during their school years, and, in successive volumes, we meet them in
winter adventures in the Northern woods at Snow Camp; in the summer
at Lighthouse Point; in Wyoming at Silver Ranch; in lakeside and
woodsy adventures on Cliff Island; enjoying most exciting weeks at

Sunrise Farm, where Ruth wins a reward of five thousand dollars in
aiding in the recovery of a pearl necklace stolen by the Gypsies. There
are volumes, too, telling of the serious loss by fire of a dormitory
building at Briarwood and how Ruth Fielding rebuilt it by the
production of a moving picture; of her vacation down in Dixie; of her
first year at Ardmore College, which she and Helen and several of her
Briarwood chums entered; then of Ruth Fielding in the saddle when she
went West again, this time for the production of a great picture entitled:
"The Forty-Niners."
With the entrance into the war of the United States, Tom Cameron
enlisted and went to France as a second lieutenant with the first
Expeditionary Force. Ruth and Helen went into Red Cross work,
leaving college before the end of their sophomore year for that purpose.
Ruth could not go as a nurse, but in the Supply Department she gained
commendation and when a supply unit of the Red Cross was sent to
France she went with it, while Helen went over with her father, who
was on a commission to the front. Once there, the black-eyed girl found
work to do in Paris while Ruth was enabled to be of use much nearer
the front.
Indeed, at the opening of the present story the girl of the Red Mill is at
work in the evacuation hospital at Clair, right behind a sector of the
battle line that had been taken over by General Pershing's forces. Tom
Cameron is with his regiment not many miles away. Indeed, his
company might be engaged in this very activity that had suddenly
broken out within sound, if not in sight, of Clair and the Chateau
Marchand.
There was reason for Ruth Fielding's gravity of countenance--and grave
it was, despite its natural cheerfulness of expression--for her interest in
Tom Cameron and his interest in her had long been marked by their
friends. Tom was in peril daily--hourly. It was no wonder that she
revealed the ravages of war upon her mind.
"Sh!" whispered Henriette. "Here comes Dolge, the gardener. Now that
Bessie is gone he is the oldest person Madame la Countess has in her

employ."
"I wonder what became of Bessie. Monsieur Lafrane told me she was
not apprehended with those men who helped her get away from the
chateau."
"It is a mystery. She had served Madame so many years. And then--at
the last--they say she was a spy for les Boches!"
Dolge appeared, with his toothless grin, at the round opening in the
postern.
"The little Hetty and