Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island | Page 6

he come pretty near killin' him. At least, Blent told it that way.
"So they took poor Uncle Pete into court, and they said he wasn't safe to be at large, and sent him to the county asylum. Then--well, there wasn't no manner o' use my stayin' around there. Rufe Blent warned me off the island. So I started out to hunt a job."
The details were rather vague, but Ruth felt a little diffident about asking for further particulars. Besides, it was not long before Uncle Jabez came home.
"What do ye reckon your Aunt Alvirah keeps that spare room for?" demanded the old miller, with his usual growl, when Ruth explained about Jerry. "For to put up tramps?"
"Oh, Uncle! he isn't just a tramp!"
"I'd like to know what ye call it, Niece Ruth?" grumbled Uncle Jabez.
"Think how he saved Jane Ann! That car was rolling right down the embankment. He pulled her through the window and almost the next moment the car slid the rest of the way to the bottom, and lots of people--people in the chairs next to her--were badly hurt. Oh, Uncle! he saved her life, perhaps."
"That ain't makin' it any dif'rent," declared Uncle Jabez. "He's a tramp and nobody knows anything about him. Why didn't Davison send him to the hospital? The doc's allus mixin' us up with waifs an' strays. He's got more cheek than a houn' pup----"
"Now, Jabez!" cried the little old lady, who had been bending over the stove. "Don't ye make yourself out wuss nor you be. That poor boy ain't doin' no harm to the bed."
"Makin' you more work, Alviry."
"What am I good for if it ain't to work?" she demanded, quite fiercely. "When I can't work I want ye sh'd take me back to the poor farm where ye got me--an' where I'd been these last 'leven years if it hadn't been for your charity that you're so 'fraid folks will suspect----"
"Charity!" broke in Uncle Jabez. "Ha! Yes! a fat lot of charity I've showed you, Alviry Boggs. I reckon I've got my money's wuth out o' you back an' bones."
The old woman stood as straight as she could and looked at the grim miller with shining eyes. Ruth thought her face really beautiful as she smiled and said, wagging her head at the gray-faced man:
"Oh, Jabez Potter! Jabez Potter! Nobody'll know till you're in your coffin jest how much good you've done in this world'--on the sly! An' you'll let this pore boy rest an' git well here before he has to go out an' hunt a job for hisself. For my pretty, here, tells me he ain't got no home nor no friends."
"Uh-huh!" grunted Uncle Jabez, and stumped away to the mill, fairly beaten for the time.
"He grumbles and grunts," observed Aunt Alvirah, shaking her head as she turned to her work again. "But out o' sight he's re'lly gettin' tender-hearted, Ruthie. An' I b'lieve you showed him how a lot. Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"
Before supper time a man on horseback came to the mill and cried a warning to the miller and his family: "Look out for your stables and pigpens. There's three beasts loose from those wrecked menagerie cars at the crossing, Jabez."
"Mercy on us! They ain't bound this way, are they?" demanded Uncle Jabez, with more anxiety than he usually showed.
"Nobody knows. You know, the piece of woods yonder is thick. The menagerie men lost them an hour ago. A big black panther--an ugly brute--and a lion and lioness. Them last two they say is as tame as kittens. But excuse me! I'd ruther trust the kittens," said the neighbor. Then he dug his heels in the sides of his horse and started off to bear the news to other residents along the road that followed this bank of the Lumano River.
Jabez shouted for Ben to hurry through his supper, and they closed the mill tight while the womenfolk tried to close all the shutters on the first floor of the cottage. But the "blinds" had not been closed on the east side of the house since they were painted the previous spring. Aunt Alviry was the kind of housekeeper who favored the morning sun and it always streamed into the windows of the guest room.
When they tried to close the outside shutters of those windows, one had a broken hinge that the painters had said nothing about. The heavy blind fell to the ground.
"Goodness me!" exclaimed Ruth, running back into the house. "That old panther could jump right into that room where Jerry is. But if we keep a bright light in there all night, I guess he won't--if he comes this way at all."
It was foolish, of course, to fear the coming of the marauding animal from the shattered circus car.