The young newcomer had learned a great deal about the big mill and the homestead, and about the work Aunt Alviry had to do, before the first meal was prepared.  She was of much assistance, too, and when Uncle Jabez came in, after washing at the pump, but bringing a cloud of flour with him on his clothes, the old woman was seated comfortably in her chair and Ruth “dished up the dinner.”

At the end of his meal her uncle spoke just once to Ruth.  “You have l’arned to work, I see.  Your Aunt Alviry has trouble with her back and bones.  If you make yourself of use to her you can stay here.  I expect all cats to catch mice around the Red Mill.  Them that don’t goes into the sluice.  There’s enough to do here.  You won’t be idle for want of work.”

And this was every word of his welcome, in a tone that showed neither interest nor care for the girl.  It was what help she could be and how much he could save by her.  It was plain enough that Uncle Jabez Potter was as saving as a person could possibly be.  There was none too much food on the table, and Ruth watched the ravenous hunger of the hired man, when he came in, with a feeling as though she were watching a half-starved dog at his meal.

Jabez Potter was not like the misers Ruth had read about, save in his personal appearance.  He was not well dressed, nor was he very clean.  But naturally the mill-dust would stick to him and to his clothing.  It seemed to have worked into the very texture of his skin during all the years he had controlled the mill, until he was all of a dead gray.

Sometimes there were half a dozen wagons or buggies waiting at the mill, and not all of them gave toll for their milling.  Ruth, in the afternoon, and because it had begun to rain and she could not go out, went into the mill to quench her curiosity regarding it.  She saw that there was a tiny office over the water, with a fireproof safe in it.  Her uncle brought the money he took from his customers and put it in a little locked, japanned box, which he kept upon a shelf.  The safe appeared to be full of ledgers.

Farther down the mill was a wide door and platform overhanging the water (this was below the dam) where flour and meal could be loaded upon barges for transportation to Osago Lake, some miles away.  There were great bins of wheat and corn, many elevator pipes, several mills turning all the time, grinding different grains, and a great corn-sheller that went by power, and which the young man fed when he had nothing else to do.

All the time the building trembled and throbbed, and this throbbing was communicated to the house.  As she sat with Aunt Alvirah, and sewed carpet-rags for a braided mat, the distant thunder of the mills and the trembling of the machinery made the whole house vibrate.

Late in the afternoon Ruth heard the honking of an auto horn and ran out upon the covered porch.  Between the scuds of rain that drove along the valley she saw the gray automobile coming slowly past the mill.  There was a man driving it now, and he stopped and let Helen Cameron out so that she could run up to great Ruth under the shelter of the porch.