The fact that Ruth was well grounded in the same studies that the scholars at this district school were engaged in, made a difficulty for her at the start.  But she did not know it then.  She only knew that Miss Cramp, seating her pupils according to their grade, sent her to an empty seat beside one of the largest girls—­ Julia Semple.

A good many of the girls stared at the new-comer with more than ordinary attention; but Julia immediately turned her back on her new seatmate.  Ruth did not, however, give Julia much attention at the time.  She was quite as bashful as most girls of her age; and, too, there were many things during that first session to hold her attention.  But at recess she found that Julia walked away from her without a word and that most of the girls who seemed to be in her grade kept aloof, too.  As a stranger in the school the girl from the Red Mill felt no little unhappiness at this evident slight; but she was too proud to show her disappointment.  She made friends with the younger girls and was warmly welcomed in their games and pastimes.

“Julia’s mad at you, you see,” one of her new acquaintances confided to Ruth.

“Mad at me?  What for?” asked the surprised new scholar.

“Why, that seat was Rosy Ball’s.  Rosy has gone away to see her sister married and she’s coming back to-morrow.  If you hadn’t come in to take her place, Rosy would have been let sit beside Julia again, of course, although like enough she’s fallen behind the class.  Miss Cramp is very strict.”

“But I didn’t know that.  I couldn’t help it,” cried Ruth.

“Just the same, Julia says she doesn’t like you and that you’re a nobody—­ that Jabe Potter has taken you in out of charity.  And Julia pretty nearly bosses everything and everybody around this school.  Her father, Mr. Semple, you see, is chairman of the school board.”

Her plain-spoken friend never realized how much she was hurting Ruth by telling her this.  Ruth’s pride kept her up, nor would she make further overtures toward friendship with her classmates.  She determined, during those first few days at the district school, that she would do her very best to get ahead and to win the commendation of her teacher.  There was a splendid high school at Cheslow, and she learned that Miss Cramp could graduate pupils from her school directly into the Cheslow High.  It was possible, the teacher assured her, for Ruth to fit herself for such advancement between that time and the fall term.

It seemed as though Ruth could never make her crotchety old uncle love her.  As time passed, the loss of his cash-box seemed to prey upon the miller’s mind more and more.  He never spoke of it in the house again; it is doubtful if he spoke of it elsewhere.  But the loss of the money increased (were that possible) his moroseness.  He often spoke to neither the girl nor Aunt Alvirah from sunrise to sunset.

But although Uncle Jabez was so moody and so unkind to her, in the little old woman, whose back and whose bones gave her so much trouble, Ruth found a loving and thoughtful friend.  Aunt Alvirah was as troubled at first about Ruth’s lack of frocks as the girl was herself.  But before Ruth had been attending school a week, she suddenly became very light-hearted upon the question of dress.