She had always been quick at her books, and had stood well in the graded school of Darrowtown.  There was a schoolhouse up the road from the Red Mill—­ not half a mile away; this district school was a very good one and the teacher had called on Aunt Alvirah and Ruth liked her very much.

The flood had long since subsided and the repairs to the mill and the dam were under way.  Uncle Jabez grew no more pleasant, however, for the freshet had damaged his dam so that all the water had to be let out and he might go into midsummer with such low pressure behind the dam that he could not run the mill through the drouth.  This possibility, together with the loss of the cash-box, made him—­ even Aunt Alvirah admitted—­ “like a dog with a sore head.”  Nevertheless Ruth determined to speak to him about the school.

She chose an evening when the kitchen was particularly bright and homelike and her uncle had eaten his supper as though he very much enjoyed it.  There was no cash-box for him to be absorbed in now; but every evening he made countless calculations in an old ledger which he took to bed with him with as much care as he had the money-box.

Before he opened his ledger on this evening, however, Ruth stood beside him and put a hand upon his arm.

“Uncle,” she said, bravely, “can I go to school?”

He stared at her directly for a moment, from under his heavy brows; but her own gaze never wavered.

“How much schoolin’ do you want?” he demanded, harshly.

“If you please Uncle Jabez, all I can get,” replied Ruth.

“Ha!  Readin’, writin’, an’ mighty little ’rithmatic—­ we called ’em ’the three R’s ’—­ did for me when I was a boy.  The school tax they put onto me ev’ry year is something wicked.  And I never had chick nor child to go to their blamed old school.”

“Let me go, Uncle, and so get some of your money back that way,” Ruth said, quickly, and smiling in her little, birdlike way with her head on one side.

“Ha!  I don’t know about that,” he growled, shaking his head.  “I don’t see what I’ll be makin’ out of it.”

“Perhaps I can help you later, if you’ll let me learn enough,” she urged.  “I can learn enough arithmetic to keep your books.  I’ll try real hard.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said, again, eyeing her suspiciously.  “The little money I make I kin keep watch of—­ when I’m here to watch it, that is.  There ain’t no book-keeping necessary in my business.  And then—­ there’s your Aunt Alviry.  She needs you.”

“Don’t you go for to say that, Jabez,” interposed the old woman, briskly.  “That child’s the greatest help that ever was; but she can do all that’s necessary before and arter school, and on Saturdays.  She’s a good smart child, Jabez.  Let her have a chance to l’arn.”

“Ain’t no good ever come of books,” muttered the miller.

“Oh, Uncle!  Just let me show you,” begged the girl, in her earnestness clinging to his arm with both hands.