“Oh, Aunt Alvirah!  Think of me—­I am glad to be independent, too.”

“I know—­I know,” admitted Aunt Alvirah.  “But it’s hard on Jabez.  He was givin’ you the best eddication he could——­”

“Grumblingly enough, I am sure!” interposed Ruth, with a pout.  She could speak plainly to the little old woman, for Aunt Alvirah knew.

“Surely—­surely,” agreed the old lady.  “But it did him good, jest the same.  Even if he only spent money on ye for fear of what the neighbors would say.  Opening his pocket for your needs, my pretty, was makin’ a new man of Jabez.”

“Dear me!” exclaimed Ruth, thinking it rather hard.  “You want me to be poor again, Aunt Alvirah.”

“Only for your uncle’s sake—­only for his sake,” she reiterated.

“But he can do more for Mercy Curtis,” said Ruth.  “He has helped her quite a little.  He likes Mercy—­better than he does me, I think.”

“But he don’t have to help Mercy no more,” put in Aunt Alvirah, quickly.  “Haven’t you heard?  Mercy’s mother has got a legacy from some distant relative and now there ain’t a soul on whom Jabez Potter thinks he’s got to spend money.  It’s a terrible thing for Jabez—­Meed an’ it is, my pretty.

“Changes—­changes, all the time!  We were going on quite smooth and pleasant for a fac’.  And now——­Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!” and thus groaningly Aunt Alvirah finished her quite unusual complaint, for with all her aches and pains she was naturally a cheerful body.

CHAPTER V

“THAT’S A PROMISE”

The family at the Red Mill were early risers When the red, red sun threw his first rays across the frosty waters of the Lumano, Ruth Fielding’s casement was wide open and she was busily tripping about the kitchen where her Uncle Jabez had built the fire in the range before going to the mill.

Ben, the hired man, was out doing the chores and soon brought two brimming pails of milk into the milk-room.

“Aunt Alviry will miss ye, Ruthie, when ye air gone back to school,” Ben said bashfully, when Ruth, with capable air, began to strain the milk and pour it into the pans.

“Poor Aunt Alvirah!” sighed Ruth.  “I hope you help her all you can when I’m not here, Ben?”

“I jest do!” said the big fellow, heartily.  “T’tell the truth, Ruthie, sometimes I kin scarce a-bear Jabe Potter.  I wouldn’t work for him another month, I vow! if ’twasn’t for the old woman—­and—­and you.”

“Oh, thank you, Ben, for that compliment,” cried Ruth, dimpling and running into the kitchen to set back the coffee-pot in which the coffee was threatening to boil over.

The breakfast dishes were not dried when the raucous “honk! honk! honk!” of an automobile horn sounded without.  The machine stopped at the gate of the Potter house.

“My mercy! who kin that be?” demanded Aunt Alvirah, jerkily, and then settled back into her chair again by the window with a murmured, “Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!”