CHAPTER XXV--UNCLE JABEZ IS CONVERTED
It was some months afterward. The growing town of Cheslow had long sincedeveloped the moving picture fever, and two very nice theatres had beenbuilt.
One evening in the largest of these theatres an old, gray-faced andgrim-looking man sat beside a very happy, pretty girl and watched therunning off of the seven-reel feature, "The Forty-Niners."
If the old man came in under duress and watched the first flashes on thescreen with scorn, he soon forgot all his objections and sat forward inhis seat to watch without blinking the scenes thrown, one after another,on the sheet.
It really was a wonderfully fine picture. And thrilling!
"Hi mighty!" ejaculated Uncle Jabez Potter, unwillingly enough and underhis breath in the middle of the picture, "d'ye mean to say you done allthat, Niece Ruth?"
"I helped," said Ruth, modestly.
"Why, it's as natcheral as the stepstun, I swan!" gasped the miller. "Ican 'member hearin' many of the men that went out there in the airlydays tell about what it was like. This is jest like they said it was. Idon't see how ye did it--an' you was never born even, when them thingswas like that."
"Don't say that, Uncle Jabez," Ruth declared. "For I saw a little bit ofthe real thing. They write me that Freezeout Camp has taken on a newlease of life. Mr. Phelps says," and she blushed a little, but it wasdark and nobody saw it, "that we are all going to make a lot of moneyout of the Freezeout Ledge."
But Uncle Jabez Potter was not listening. He was enthralled again in thepicture of old days in the mining country. It seemed as though, at last,the old miller was converted to the belief that his grand-niece knew adeal more than he had given her credit for. To his mind, that she knewhow to make money was the more important thing.
The final flash of the film reflected on the screen passed and UncleJabez and Ruth rose to go. It was dark in the theatre and the girl ledthe old man out by the hand. Somehow he clung to her hand more tightlythan was usually his custom.
"'Tis a wonderful thing, Niece Ruth, I allow," he said when they cameout into the lamplight of Cheslow's main street. "I--I dunno. You youngfolks seems ter have got clean ahead of us older ones. There's thingsthat I ain't never hearn tell of, I guess."
Ruth Fielding laughed. "Why, Uncle Jabez," she said, "the world is justfull of such a number of things that neither of us knows much about thatthat's what makes it worth living in."
"I dunno; I dunno," he muttered. "Guess you've got to know most of 'emnow you've gone to that college."
"I am beginning to get a taste of some of them," she cried. "You know Ihave three more years to spend at Ardmore before I can take a degree."
"Huh! Wal, it don't re'lly seem as though knowin' so _much_ did a bodyany good in this world. I hev got along on what little they knockedinter my head at deestrict school. And I've made a livin' an' somethingmore. But I never could write a movin' picture scenario, that's true.And if there's so much money in 'em----"
"Mr. Hammond writes me that he's sure there is going to be a lot ofmoney in this one. The State rights are bringing the corporation inthousands. Of course, my share is comparatively small; but I feelalready amply paid for my six weeks spent in Arizona."
This, however, is somewhat ahead of the story. Uncle Jabez' conversionwas bound to be a slow process. When the party returned from the Westthe person gladdest to see Ruth Fielding was Aunt Alvirah.
The strong and vigorous girl was rather shocked to find the little oldwoman so feeble. She did not get around the kitchen or out of doorsnearly as actively as had been her wont.
"Oh, my back! an' oh, my bones! Seems ter me, my pretty," she said,sinking into her rocking chair, "that things is sort o' slippin' awayfrom me. I feel that I am a-growin' lazy."
"Lazy! You couldn't be lazy, Aunt Alvirah," laughed the girl of the RedMill.
"Oh, yes; I 'spect I could," said Aunt Alvirah, nodding. "This hereM'lissy your uncle's hired to help do the work, is a right capable girl.And she's made me lazy. If I undertake ter do a thing, she's therebefore me an' has got it done."
"You need to sit still and let others do the work now," Ruth urged.
"I dunno. What good am I to Jabez Potter? He didn't take me out o' thepoorhouse fifteen year or more ago jest ter sit around here an' playlady. No, ma'am!"
"Oh, Aunty!"
"I dunno but I'd better be back there."
"You'd better not let Uncle Jabez hear you say so," Ruth cried. "Maybe Idon't always know just how Uncle Jabez feels about me; but I know how helooks at _you_, Aunt Alvirah. Don't dare suggest leaving the Red Mill."
The little old woman looked at her steadily, and there were the scanttears of age in the furrows of her face.
"I shall be leavin' it some day soon, my pretty. 'Tis a beautiful placehere--the Red Mill. But there is a Place Prepared. I'm on my way there,Ruthie. But, thanks be, I kin cling with one hand to the happy yearshere because of you, while my other hand's stretched out for the feel ofa Hand that you can't see, my pretty. After all, Ruthie, no matter howwe live, or what we do, our livin' is jest a preparation for our dyin'."
Nor was this lugubrious. Aunt Alvirah was no long-visaged, unhappycreature. The other girls loved to call on her. Helen was at the RedMill this summer quite as much as ever. Jennie Stone and Rebecca Frayneboth visited Ruth after their return from Freezeout Camp.
It was a cheerful and gay life they led. There much much chatter of thehappenings at Freezeout, and of the work at the new gold mining camp.Min Peters' scrawly letters were read and re-read; her pertinentcomments on all that went on were always worth reading and weresometimes actually funny.
* * * * *
"I wish you could see pop," she wrote once. "I mean Mr. Henry JamesPeters. If ever there was a big toad in a little puddle, it's him!
"He's got a hat so shiny that it dazzles you when he's out in the sun.It's awful uncomfortable for him to wear, I know. But he wouldn't giveit up--nor the white vest and the dinky patent leather shoes he's got onright now--for all the gold you could name.
"And I'm getting as bad. I sit around in a flowery gown, and there's agirl come here to work in the hotel that's trimming my nails and fixingmy hands up something scandalous. Man-curing, she calls it.
"But the fine clothes has made another man of pop; and I expect they'llimprove yours truly a whole lot. When we get real used to them, sometimewe'll come East and see you. I can pretty near trust pop already to gointo a rumhole here without expecting to see him come out againorey-eyed.
"Not that he's shown any dispersition to drink again. He says hisposition is too important in the Freezeout Ledge Gold Mining Company forany foolishness. And I'll tell you right now, he's the only member ofthe company now that that Edie girl's gone home that ever is dressed upon the job. Mr. Phelps works like as though he'd been used to it all hislife.
"Let me tell you. _His_ pop's been out here to see him. 'Looking overprospects' he called it. But you bet you it was to see what sort of afigure his son was cutting here among sure-enough men.
"I reckon the old gentleman was satisfied. I seen them riding over thehills together, as well as wandering about the diggings. One night whilehe was here we had a big dance--a regular hoe-down--in the big hall.
"This here big-bug father of Mr. Royal danced with me. What do you knowabout that? 'What do you think of my son?' says he to me while we wasdancing.
"Says I: 'I think he's got almost as much sense as though he was bornedand brought up in Arizona. And he knows a whole lot more than most ofour boys does.' 'Why,' says he to me, 'you've got a lot of good senseyourself, ain't you?' I guess Mr. Royal had been cracking me up to hisfather at that.
"Mr. Phelps--the younger, I mean--takes dinner with us most every Sunday;and he treats me just as nice and polite as though I'd been used tohaving my hair done up and my hands man-cured all my life."
* * * * *
This letter arrived at the Red Mil
l on a day when Jennie and Rebeccawere there, as well as Helen and her twin. There was more to Min Peters'long epistle; but as Jennie Stone said:
"That's enough to show how the wind is blowing. Why, I had no idea thatPhelps boy would ever show such good sense as to 'shine up' to Min!"
"The dear girl!" sighed Ruth. "She has the making of a fine woman inher. I don't blame Royal Phelps for liking her."
"I imagine Edie took back a long tale of woe to her father and that hewent out there to 'look over' Min more than he did gold prospects,"Rebecca said, tartly. "Of course, she's awfully uncouth, and RoyalPhelps is a gentleman----"
"Thus speaks the oracle!" exclaimed Helen, briskly. "Rebecca believes inputting signs on the young men of our best families who go into suchregions: 'Beware the dog.'"
"Well, he is really nice," complained Rebecca, who could not easily becured of snobbishness.
"I hope there are others," announced Tom, swinging idly in the hammock.
"Fishing for compliments, I declare," laughed Jennie, poking him.
"Why, he's des the cutest, nicest 'ittle sing," cooed his sister,rocking the big fellow in the hammock.
"It's been an awful task for you to bring him up, Nell," drawled Jennie."But after all, I don't know but it's been worth while. He's almosthuman. If they'd drowned him when he was little and only raised you, Idon't know but it would have been a calamity."
"Oh, cat's foot!" snapped Tom, rising from the hammock with a bound."You girls mostly give me a woful pain. You're too biggity. Pretty soonthere won't be any comfort living in the world with you 'advancedwomen.' The men will have to go off to another planet and start all overagain.
"Who'll mend your socks and press your neckties?" laughed Ruth from herseat on the piazza railing.
"Thanks be! If there are no women the necessity for ties and socks willbe done away with. And certain sure most of you college girls will neverknow how to do either."
"Hear him!" cried Jennie.
"Infamous!" gasped Rebecca.
"You wait, young man," laughed his sister. "I'll make you pay for that."
But Tom recovered his temper and grinned at them. Then he glanced up atRuth.
"Come on down, Ruth, and take a walk, will you? Come off your perch."
The girl of the Red Mill laughed at him; but she did as he asked. "Comeon, I'm game."
"No more walks," groaned Jennie. "I scarcely cast a shadow now I'mgetting so thin. That saddle work in Arizona pulled me down till I'mscarcely bigger than a thread of cotton."
Ruth and Tom started off to go along the river road, the two who hadfirst been friends in Cheslow and around the Red Mill. There was a smileon Ruth's lips; but Tom looked serious. Neither of them dreamed of thestrenuous adventures the future held in store for them, as will berelated in our next volume, entitled "Ruth Fielding in the Red Cross;or, Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam."
The other young folks, remaining in the shaded farmyard, looked afterthem. Jennie jerked out:
"Mighty--nice--looking--couple, eh?"
Nobody made any rejoinder, but all three of Ruth's friends gazed afterher and her companion.
The couple had halted on the bridge. They were talking earnestly, andRuth rested one hand on the railing and turned to face the young man.His big brown hand covered hers, that lay on the rail. Ruth did notwithdraw it.
"Mated!" drawled Jennie Stone, and the others nodded understandingly.
THE END