Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures | Page 9

her low chair, with a groan of
"Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" smiled indulgently at Tom's gloomy
face.
"What is the matter, Mister Tom?" she asked. "Truly, you look as
colicky as Amos Dodge--an' they do say he lived on sour apples!"
Tom had to laugh at this; but it was rather a rueful laugh. "I don't know
what is coming over these girls--Ruth and my sister," he said, "They're
beginning to put on airs like grown ladies. Cracky! they used to be
some fun."
"Growin' up, Mister Tom--growin' up. So's my pretty. I hate to see it,
but ye can't fool Natur'--no, sir! Natur' says to these young things:
'Advance!' an' they've jest got to march, I reckon," and Aunt Alvirah
sighed, too. Then her little, bird-like eyes twinkled suddenly and she
chuckled. "Jest the same," she added, in a whisper, "Ruth got out all her
doll-babies the other day and played with 'em jest like she was ten
years old."
"Ho, ho!" cried Tom, his face clearing up. "I guess she's only making
believe to be grown up, after all!"

Helen came finally and they left Tom alone in the kitchen to change his
clothes. Then the Camerons hurried away, for it was close to supper
time. Both Helen and Tom were greatly interested in the moving
picture actress; but she had fallen into a doze and they could not bid her
good-bye.
"But I'm going to run down in the morning to see how she is," Tom
announced. "I'll see her before she goes away. She's a plucky one, all
right!"
"Humph!" thought Ruth, when the automobile had gone, "Tom seems
to have been wonderfully taken with that Miss Gray's appearance."
When Jabez Potter came in from the mill and found the strange girl in
the best bed he was inclined to criticize. He was a tall, dusty, old man,
for whom it seemed a hard task ever to speak pleasantly. Aunt Alvirah,
when she was much put out with him, said he "croaked like a raven!"
"Gals, gals, gals!" he grumbled. "This house seems to be nigh full of
'em when you air to home, Niece Ruth."
"And empty enough of young life, for a fac', when my pretty is away,"
put in Aunt Alvirah.
Ruth, not minding her Uncle Jabez's strictures, went about setting the
supper table with puckered lips, whistling softly. This last was an
accomplishment she had picked up from Tom long ago.
"And whistling gals is the wust of all!" snarled Jabez Potter, from the
sink, where he had just taken his face out of the soapsuds bath he
always gave it before sitting down to table. "I reckon ye ain't forgot
what I told ye:
"'Whistlin' gals an' crowin' hens Always come to some bad ends!'"
"Now, Jabez!" remonstrated Aunt Alvirah.
But Ruth only laughed. "You've got it wrong, Uncle Jabez," she

declared. "There is another version of that old doggerel. It is:
"'Whistling girls and blatting sheep Are the two best things a farmer
can keep!'"
Then she went straight to him and, as his irritated face came out of the
huck towel, she put both arms around his neck and kissed him on his
grizzled cheek.
This sort of treatment always closed her Uncle Jabez's lips for a time.
There seemed no answer to be made to such an argument--and Ruth did
love the crusty old man and was grateful to him.
When the miller had retired to his own chamber to count and recount
the profits of the day, as he always did every evening, Aunt Alvirah
complained more than usual of the old man's niggardly ways.
"It's gittin' awful, Ruthie, when you ain't to home. He's ashamed to
have me set so mean a table when you air here. For he does kinder care
about what you think of him, my pretty, after all."
"Oh, Aunt Alvirah! I thought he was cured of little 'stingies.'"
"No, he ain't! no, he ain't!" cried the old lady, sitting down with a groan.
"Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! I tell ye, my pretty, I have to steal out
things a'tween meals to Ben sometimes, or that boy wouldn't have half
enough to eat. Jabez has had a new padlock put on the meat-house door,
and I can't git a slice of bacon without his knowin' on it."
"That is ridiculous!" exclaimed Ruth, who had less patience now than
she once had for her great uncle's penuriousness. She was positive that
it was not necessary.
"Ree-dic'lous or not; it's so," Aunt Alvirah asserted. "Sometimes I feel
like I was a burden on him myself."
"You a burden, dear Aunt Alvirah!" cried Ruth, with tears in her eyes.
"You would be a blessing, not a burden, in anybody's house. Uncle

Jabez