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Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill

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<h3>CHAPTER XVI</h3> <h4>BEHIND THE GREEN LAMPS</h4> Aunt Alvirah returned in a short time with such a pile of pretty colors over her arm that Ruth gasped with delight, she couldn't help it The dresses were all nice ginghams, each of a different color, nicely trimmed and delightfully made. They were not too fancy for school wear, and they were good, practical frocks. Ruth had worn her little black and white frocks at school while she was still in Darrowtown, and had she remained longer Miss True Pettis would have helped her to make other frocks in colors. It is a sad thing to see a child in black, or black and white, and Ruth's father had been dead now six months. "Ye needn't be scart at the colors, child," said old Aunt Alviry. "Here's this pretty lavender. We'll make that over first. 'Cretia Lock will be here to-morrow and we'll make a big beginnin'." "But what will uncle say?" gasped Ruth, almost bursting with questions, but being debarred from asking the most important ones. "Don't you fret about your Uncle Jabez. He ain't got nothin' ter do with it," declared the little old woman, firmly. "Nor he won't say nothin'." Which was very true. Uncle Jabez seldom spoke to his niece now. His moodiness grew upon him as time passed. And in the evening, as he sat over his endless calculations at the kitchen table, the girl and the old woman scarcely dared speak to each other save in whispers. Miss Lock worked three days, instead of two, at the Red Mill, helping Aunt Alvirah "dress-make." How she was paid, Ruth did not know; but she feared that the pennies Aunt Alvirah saved from her egg and chicken money had done this. However, the shabby black frock was put away and Ruth blossomed out into as pretty an appearance as any girl attending Miss Cramp's school. But she did not make friends among her classmates. Julia Semple had such influence that she seemed to have set all the girls of the higher class in the district school against Ruth. Julia herself could not pass Ruth without tossing her head and staring at her haughtily; and sometimes she would whisper to her companions and look at the girl from the Red Mill in so scornful a way that Ruth could not help feeling uncomfortable. Indeed, Ruth would have lacked almost all young company had it not been for Helen Cameron and Tom. Tom didn't think much of "playing with girls;" but he could always be depended upon to do anything Ruth and Helen wanted him to. Helen was at the Red Mill often after Ruth's school hours, and seldom did a Saturday pass that the two chums did not spend at least half the day together. Aunt Alvirah declared Ruth should have Saturday afternoons to herself, and often Helen came in her little pony carriage and drove Ruth about the country. There was a fat old pony named Tubby that drew the phaeton, and Tubby jogged along the pleasant country roads with them in a most delightfully gypsyish way. One Saturday afternoon they went to town. Ruth had never seen Cheslow save on the night of her arrival and on the following morning, when she had started directly after breakfast at the station master's house to walk to the Red Mill. "Why, you'll like Cheslow," declared Helen, in her enthusiastic way. "It's just as pretty as it can beyou'll love it! I often drive in to shop, and sometimes Mrs. Murchiston goes with me. Get up, Tubby!" Tubby had to be urged incessantly; exertion was not loved by him. He would rather walk than trot; he would rather stand than walk; and he always had the appearance of being asleepsave when he was at his manger. Ruth remembered that she had been warned not to go past "the gate with the green eyes" and she told Helen of her promise to Doctor Davison. "Oh, splendid!" cried her chum. "I don't know anybody whom I like to call upon in Cheslow ahead of Doctor Davison. It's almost as good as having him come to see you when you're sick." "But I don't think," Ruth objected, "that it's any fun to have any doctor come to see one on business." "You don't half mind being ill when Doctor Davison calls," declared Helen, with unabated enthusiasm. "And when you call there! Well," concluded Helen, with a sigh of anticipation, "you'll soon know what that means. He's got a colored Mammy for cook who makes the most wonderful jumbles and cakes that you ever tastedthey about melt in pour mouth!" Ruth soon had the opportunity of judging Mammy 'Liza's goodies for herself, for the doctor was at home, and the girls had scarcely become seated in his consultation room when a little colored girl with her wool "done" in innumerable pigtails, like tiny horns, and sticking out all over her brown head in every direction, came in with a tray on which was a plate piled high with fancy cakes and two tall glasses of yellow-gold beaten egg and milk with a dust of nutmeg floating upon the surface of each glassful. "'Liza done sez as how yo'-all might be hongry aftah yo' ride," said the child, timidly, and then darted out of the room before Ruth and Helen could thank her. They were munching the goodies when Doctor Davison came smilingly in. "That's Mammy 'Liza all over," he said, shaking his head, but with his dark eyes twinkling. "I try to keep my young folk in good digestion and she is bound to make a patient of everybody who comes to see me. Cookies and cakes and sweets are what she believes girls live for; or else she is trying to make customers for my nasty drugs." Doctor Davison seemed to have plenty of time to give to the society of young folk who called upon him. And he showed an interest in Ruth and her affairs which warmed our heroine's heart. He wanted to know how she got along at school, and if it was true that she was trying to "make" the High by the opening of the fall term. "Not that I want any of my young folk to travel the road to knowledge too steadily, or travel it when their bodily condition is not the best. But you are strong and well, Ruthie, and you can do a deal that other girls of your age would find irksome. I shall be proud if you prepare to enter the High at your age." And this made Ruth feel more and more sure that Doctor Davison had taken interest enough in her career at school to supply the pretty frocks, one of which she was then wearing. But Aunt Alvirah had warned her that the frocks were to remain a mystery by the special request of the donor, and she could not ask the good old doctor anything about them. His interest in her progress seemed to infer that he expected Ruth to accomplish a great deal in her school, and the girl from the Red Mill determined not to disappoint him. When Helen told Doctor Davison where else they intended to call, he nodded understandingly. "That is," he added, "Ruth will call on Mercy while you do your shopping, Miss Cameron. Oh, yes! that is the better plan. You know very well that Mercy Curtis won't want to see you, Helen." "I don't know why not," said Helen, pouting. "I know she never treats anyone nicely, but I don't mind. If it does her good to do what Tom calls 'bully-ragging,' I can stand it as well as Ruthbetter, perhaps." "No," said the doctor, gravely. "I have told you before why you shouldn't call there. You have everything that Mercy can possibly desire. Comparisons with poor Mercy certainly are odious. Ruth, she knows, is not so fortunately placed in life as yourself. She is not so fortunately placed, indeed, as Mercy is. And Mercy is in an extremely nervous state just now, and I do not wish her to excite herself beyond reason." "Well, I declare," exclaimed Helen, but good-naturedly after all. "I don't like to be told I'm not wanted anywhere. But if you say so, I'll not go with Ruth to the house." Doctor Davison opened a new topic of conversation by asking after Tom. "Oh, his head is all healed upyou can just barely see the scar," Helen declared. "And his arm is only a little tender. We think he got out of it very lucky indeedthanks to Ruth here." "Yes, thanks to Ruth," repeated the doctor, his eyes twinkling. Ruth was "on pins and needles," as the saying is, for she very well remembered what the injured boy had murmured, in his half conscious state, when they brought him along the road on the stretcher. Had it been Jabez Potter who ran down Tom Cameron and forced him down the embankment with his motorcycle? This thought had been bobbing up in Ruth's mind ever since she had come to the Red Mill. She had seen her uncle driving his team of mules in one of his reckless moods. She would never forget how the team tore down the long hill and was forced through the flood the day the Minturn dam had burst. Had Jabez Potter been driving through the dark road where Tom Cameron was hurt, in any such way as that, he would have run down a dozen cyclists without noticing them. Fortunately Tom's injury had not been permanent. He was all right now. Ruth felt that she must be loyal to her uncle and say nothing about her own suspicions; but as long as the matter was discussed between Helen and Doctor Davison she was anxious. Therefore she hurried their departure from the kind physician's office, by rising and saying: "I think we would better go, Helen. You know how slow Tubby is, and perhaps I can give the little Curtis girl some pleasure by calling on her." "Without doubt she'll have pleasure," observed Helen, somewhat bitingly. "She is likely to scold and 'bullyrag' to her heart's content. You're such a meek thing that you'll let her." "If that's what gives her pleasure, Helen," said Ruth, with a quiet smile, "why, I guess I can stand it for an hour." Doctor Davison had risen likewise, and he went to the front door with them, his hand resting lightly on Ruth's shoulder. "You have the right idea of it, Ruthie," he said. "Let Mercy take her pleasure in that way if it's all the pleasure she can get. But perhaps a better mind as well as a better body may come to the poor child in time." Then to Ruth he added, more personally: "Remember you have a friend in here behind the green lamps. Don't forget to come to him with any troubles you may have. Perhaps I do not look it, but I am something like a fairy godmotherI have a wonderful power of transmogrification. I can often turn dark clouds inside out and show you the silver on the other side." "I believe that, Doctor Davison," she whispered, and squeezed his hand hard, running after Helen the next moment down the walk. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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