Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill | Page 8

say that you was what Jabe Potter was after?"
"Mr. Jabez Potter, who keeps the Red Mill, is my uncle," Ruth observed, with dignity.
"My goodness gracious me, Miss! He was here long before your train was due. He's kind of short in his speech, Miss. And he asked me if there was anything here for him, and I told him no. And he stumped out again without another word. Why, I thought he was looking for an express package, or freight. Never had an idea he was expectin' a niece!"
Ruth still looked at him earnestly. The man did not suspect, by her appearance, how hard a time she was having to keep the tears from overrunning those calm, gray eyes.
"And you expected to go out to the Red Mill to-night, Miss?" he continued. "They're country folk out there and they'd all be abed before you could get there, even if you took a carriage."
"I don't know that I have enough to pay for carriage hire," Ruth said, softly. "Is-- is there any place I can stop over night in the village? Then I can walk out in the morning."
"Why-- there's a hotel. But a young girl like you-- You'll excuse me, Miss. You're young to be traveling alone."
"Perhaps I haven't money enough to pay for a lodging there?" suggested Ruth. "I have a dollar. It was given me to spend as I liked on the way. But Miss True gave me such a big box of luncheon that I did not want anything."
"A dollar wouldn't go far at the Brick Hotel," murmured the station agent. He still stared at her, stroking his lean, shaven jaw. Finally he burst out with: "I tell you! We'll go home and see what my wife says."
At the moment the station began to jar with the thunder of a coming train and Ruth could not make herself heard in reply to his proposal. Besides, Sam Curtis hurried out on the platform. Nor was Ruth ready to assert her independence and refuse any kind of help the station master might offer. So she sat down patiently and waited for him.
There were one or two passengers only to disembark from this train and they went away from the station without even coming into the waiting room. Then Curtis came back, putting out the lights and locking his ticket office. The baggage room was already locked and Ruth's old trunk was in it.
"Come on now, girl-- What's your name?" asked Curtis.
"Ruth Fielding."
"Just so! Well, it's only a step to our house and wife will have supper waiting. And there's nobody else there save Mercy."
Ruth was a little curious about "Mercy"-- whether it referred to abounding grace, or was a person's name. But she asked no questions as they came out of the railroad station and Sam Curtis locked the door.
They did not cross the tracks this time, but went into the new part of the town. Turning a corner very soon as they walked up what Curtis said was Market Street, they reached, on a narrow side street, a little, warm-looking cottage, from almost all the lower windows of which the lamplight shone cheerfully. There was a garden beside it, with a big grape arbor arranged like a summer-house with rustic chairs and a table. The light shining on the side porch revealed the arbor to Ruth's quick eyes.
When they stepped upon this porch Ruth heard a very shrill and not at all pleasant voice saying-- very rapidly, and over and over again: "I don't want to! I don't want to! I don't want to!" It might have been a parrot, or some other ill-natured talking bird; only Ruth saw nothing of the feathered conversationalist when Sam opened the door and ushered her in.
"Here we are, wife!" he exclaimed, cheerfully. "And how's Mercy?"
The reiterated declaration had stopped instantly. A comely, kind-faced woman with snow-white hair, came forward. Ruth saw that she was some years younger than Curtis, and he was not yet forty. It was not Father Time that had powdered Mrs. Curtis' head so thickly.
"Mercy is-- Why, who's this?" she asked espying Ruth. "One of the girls come in to see her?"
Instantly the same whining, shrill voice began:
"I don't want her to see me! They come to stare at me! I hate 'em all! All girls do is to run and jump and play tag and ring-around-a-rosy and run errands, and dance! I hate 'em!"
This was said very, very fast-- almost chattered; and it sounded so ill-natured, so impatient, so altogether mean and hateful, that Ruth fell back a step, almost afraid to enter the pleasant room. But then she saw the white-haired lady's face, and it was so grieved, yet looked such a warm welcome to her, that she took heart and stepped farther in, so that