fellow with newinterest.
"Just what do you mean?" he asked, slowly.
"Ye know well enough. Your dad, Tom Cameron, is mighty riled up overyour bein' hurt. I heered him say that he'd give a ten-dollar note terknow who it was drove by ye that night and crowded ye inter the ditch.Would you give more than that not ter have it known who done it?"
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Tom, angrily.
"I guess ye like this here gal that's cone to live on Jabez, purtywell; don't ye--yeou an' yer sister?" croaked old Parloe. "Wal, ifyour dad an' the miller gits inter a row--comes ter a clinch, as yemight say--yeou an' yer sister won't be let ter hev much ter do withRuth, eh, now?"
"I don't know that that's so," Tom said doggedly.
"Oh, yes, ye do. Think it over. Old Jabe will put his foot right downan' he'll stop Ruth havin' anything ter do with ye--ye know it! Wal,now; think it over. I got a conscience, I have," pursued Parloe,cringing and rubbing his hands together, his sly little eyessparkling. "I r'ally feel as though I'd oughter tell yer dad who itwas almost run ye down that night and made ye fall into the gully."
"You mean, you'd like to handle Dad's ten dollars!" cried Tom,angrily.
Parloe smirked and still rubbed his hands together. "Don't matter amite whose ten dollars I handle," he said, suggestively. "Your tendollars would be jest as welcome to me as your Dad's, Master Cameron."
"Ten dollars is a lot of money," said Tom.
"Yes. It's right smart. I could make use of it I'm a poor man, an' Icould use it nicely," admitted the sly and furtive Parloe.
"I haven't got so much money now," growled the boy.
"Yeou kin get it, I warrant."
"I suppose I can." He drew his purse from his pocket. "I've got threedollars and a half here. I'll have the rest for you on Monday."
"Quite correct," said Jasper Parloe, clutching eagerly at the money."I'll trust ye till then--oh, yes! I'll trust ye till then."
CHAPTER XIV
JUST A MATTER OF A DRESS
"Well, I really believe, Tommy Cameron!" cried his sister Helen, whenhe overtook the girls and Reno, swinging the basket recklessly, "thatyou are developing a love for low company. I don't see how you canbear to talk with that Jasper Parloe."
"I don't see how I can, either," muttered Tom, and he was rathersilent--for him--until they were well off the road and the incidentat the bridge was some minutes behind them.
But the day was such a glorious one, and the fields and woods were sobeautiful, that no healthy boy could long be gloomy. Besides, TomCameron had assured his sister that he thought Ruth Fielding "justimmense," and he was determined to give the girl of the Red Mill aspleasant a time as possible.
He worked like a Trojan to gather buttercups, and after they had eatenthe luncheon old Babette had put up for them (and it was the verynicest and daintiest luncheon that Ruth Fielding had ever tasted) hetold the girls to remain seated on the flat stone he had found forthem and weave the foundation for the pillow while he picked bushelsupon bushels of buttercups.
"You'll need a two-horse load, anyway to have enough for a pillow ofthe size Nell has planned," he said, grinning. "And perhaps she'llfinish it if you help her, Ruth. She's always trying to do some bigthing and 'falling down' on it."
"That's not so, Master Sauce-box!" cried his sister.
Tom went off laughing, and the two girls set to work on the great massof buttercups they had already picked. They grew so large, and were sodewey and golden, that a more brilliant bed of color one could scarceimagine than the pillow, as it began to grow under the dexterous handsof Helen and Ruth. And, being alone together now, they began to growconfidential.
"And how does the Ogre treat you?" asked Helen. "I thought, when Icame this morning, that you had been feeling badly."
"I am not very happy," admitted Ruth.
"It's that horrid Ogre!" cried Helen.
"It isn't right to call Uncle Jabez names," said Ruth, quietly. "He isgreatly to be pitied, I do believe. And just now, particularly so."
"You mean because of the loss of that cash-box?"
"Yes."
"Do you suppose there was much in it?"
"He told me that it contained every cent he had saved in all theseyears."
"My!" cried Helen. "Then he must have lost a fortune! He has been amiser for forty years, so they say."
"I do not know about that," Ruth pursued. "He is harsh and--and heseems to be very selfish. He--he says I can go to school, though."
"Well, I should hope so!" cried Helen.
"But I don't know that I can go," Ruth continued, shaking her head.
"For pity's sake I why not?" asked her friend.
Then, out came the story of the lost trunk. Nor could Ruth keep backthe tears as she told her friend about Uncle Jabez's cruelty.
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Helen, almost weeping herself. "The mean, meanthing! No, I won't call him Ogre again; he isn't as good as an Ogre.I--I don't know what to call him!"
"Calling him names won't bring back my trunk, Helen," sobbed Ruth.
"That's so. I--I'd make him pay for it! I'd make him get me dressesfor those that were lost."
"Uncle is giving me a home; I suppose he will give me to wear all thathe thinks I need. But I shall have to wear this dress to school, andit will soon not be fit to wear anywhere else."
"It's just too mean for anything, Ruth! I just wish--"
What Miss Cameron wished she did not proceed to explain. She stoppedand bit her lip, looking at her friend all the time and nodding. Ruthwas busily wiping her eyes and did not notice the very wise expressionon Helen's face.
"Look out! here comes Tom," whispered Helen, suddenly, and Ruth made alast dab at her eyes and put away her handkerchief in a hurry.
"Say! ain't you ever going to get that thing done?" demanded Tom."Seems to me you haven't done anything at all since I was here last."
The girls became very busy then and worked swiftly until the pillowwas completed. By that time it was late afternoon and they startedhomeward. Ruth separated from Helen and Tom at the main road andwalked alone toward the Red Mill. She came to the bridge, which was atthe corner of her uncle's farm, and climbed the stile, intending tofollow the path up through the orchard to the rear of the house--thesame path by which she and her friends had started on their littlejaunt in the morning.
The brook which ran into the river, and bounded this lower end of Mr.Potter's place, was screened by clumps of willows. Just beyond thefirst group of saplings Ruth heard a rough voice say:
"And I tell you to git out! Go on the other side of the crick, JasperParloe, if ye wanter fish. That ain't my land, but this is."
"Ain't ye mighty brash, Jabe?" demanded the snarling voice of Parloe,and Ruth knew the first speaker to be her uncle. "Who are yeou terdrive me away?"
"The last time ye was at the mill I lost something--I lost more thanI kin afford to lose again," continued Uncle Jabez. "I don't say yetook it. They tell me the flood took it. But I'm going to know theright of it some time, and if you know more about it than you ought--"
"What air ye talkin' about, Jabe Potter?" shrilled Parloe. "I've lostmoney by you; ye ain't never paid me for the last month I worked forye."
"Ye paid yerself--ye paid yerself," said Jabe, tartly. "And if yestole once ye would again--"
"Now stop right there, Jabe Potter!" cried Parloe, and Ruth knew thathe had stepped closer to Mr. Potter, and was speaking in a tremblingrage. "Don't ye intermate an' insinerate; for if ye do, I kin flingout some insinerations likewise. Yeou jest open yer mouth about mestealin' an' I'll put a flea in old man Cameron's ear. Ha! Ye knowwhat I mean. Better hev a care, Jabe Potter--better hev a care!"
There was silence. Her uncle made no reply, and Ruth, fearing shewould be seen, and not wishing to be thought an eavesdropper (althoughthe conversation had so surprised and terrified her that she had notthought what she did, before) the girl ran lightly up the hill,leaving the two old men to their wrangle. When Uncle Jabez came in tosupper that e
vening his scowl was heavier than usual, if that werepossible, and he did not speak to either Ruth or Aunt Alvirah all theevening.
CHAPTER XV
IN SCHOOL
Ruth thought it all over, and she came to this conclusion: Uncle Jabezhad given his permission--albeit a grumpy one--and she would beginschool on Monday. The black cloth