He looked down for a moment at her hands as though he would fling off her hold.  But he thought better of it, and waited fully a minute before he spoke.

“You know your Aunt Alviry needs ye,” he said.  “If you kin fix it with her, why I don’t see as I need object.”

“Will it be too much trouble for you to get my trunk, Uncle, so that I can begin going to school next week?” Ruth asked.

“Ain’t you got nothin’ to wear to school?” he said.  “It’s dress; is it?  Beginning that trouble airly; ain’t ye?”

He seemed to be quite cross again, and the girl looked at him in surprise.

“Dear Uncle!  You will get the trunk from the station, won’t you?”

“No I won’t,” he said.  “Because why?  Because I can’t.”

“You can’t?” she gasped, and even Aunt Alvirah looked startled.

“That’s what I said.”

“Why—­ why can’t you?” cried Ruth.  “Has something happened to my trunk?”

“That’s jest it—­ and it warn’t no fault o’ mine,” said the miller.  “I got the trunk like I said I would and it was in the wagon when we came down the hill yonder

“Oh, oh!” gasped Ruth, her hands clasped.  “You don’t mean when you ran the mules into the water, Uncle?”

“I had to get to my mill.  I didn’t know what was being done over here,” he said, uglily.  “And didn’t I lose enough?  What’s the loss of some old rags, and a trunk, ’side of my money?”

He said it with such force, and with so angry a gesture, that she shrank back from him.  But her pain and disappointment were so strong that she had to speak.

“And the trunk was washed out of the wagon, Uncle Jabez?  It’s gone?”

“That’s what happened to it, I suppose,” he grunted, and dropping his head, opened the ledger and began to study the long lines of figures there displayed.  Not a word to show that he was sorry for her loss.  No appreciation of the girl’s pain and sorrow.  He selfishly hugged to him the misfortune of his own loss and gave no heed to Ruth.

But Aunt Alvirah caught her hand as she passed swiftly.  The old woman carried the plump little hand to her lips in mute sympathy, and then Ruth broke away even from her and ran upstairs to her room.  There she cast herself upon the bed and, with her sobs smothered in the pillows, gave way to the grief that had long been swelling her heart to the bursting point.

CHAPTER XIII

 Butter and buttercups

Such little keepsakes as remained of her father and mother—­ their photographs, a thin old bracelet, her mother’s wedding ring, her father’s battered silver watch had fortunately been in Ruth’s bag.  Those keepsakes had been too precious to risk in the trunk and in the baggage car.  And how glad the girl was now that she had thus treasured these things.

But the loss of the trunk, with all her clothing —­ common though that clothing had been—­ was a disaster that Ruth could not easily get over.  She cried herself to sleep that night and in the morning came down with a woebegone face indeed.  Uncle Jabez did not notice her, and even Aunt Alvirah did not comment upon her swollen eyes and tear-streaked countenance.  But the old woman, if anything, was kinder than ever to her.