“Hi, Jabe!” called Jasper, in his cracked voice.  “Hi, Jabe!  Here’s a grindin’ for ye.  And for massy’s sake don’t take out a double toll as you us’ally do.  Remember I’m a poor man—­ I ain’t got lashin’s of money like you to count ev’ry night of my life—­ he, he, he!”

The boy had appeared at the mill door first, and he stepped down and would have taken the bag of grain out of the wagon, had not the miller himself suddenly appeared and said, in his stern way: 

“Let it be.”

“Hi, Jabe!” cackled Jasper.  “Don’t be mean about it.  He’s younger than me, or you.

Let him shoulder the sack into the mill.”

“The sack isn’t coming into the mill,” said Jabez, shortly.

“What? what?” cried Parloe.  “You haven’t retired from business; have you, miller?  Ye ain’t got so wealthy that ye ain’t goin’ to grind any more?”

“I grind for those whom it pleases me to grind for,” said the miller, sternly.

“Then take in the bag, boy,” said Jasper, still grinning.

But Mr. Potter waved the boy away, and stood looking at Jasper with folded arms and a heavy frown upon his face.

“Come, come, Jabe! you keep a mill.  You grind for the public, you know,” said Jasper.

“I grind no more for you,” rejoined the miller.  “I have told you so.  Get you gone, Jasper Parloe.”

“No,” said the latter, obstinately.  “I am going to have my meal.”

“Not here,” said the miller.

“Now, that’s all nonsense, Jabe,” exclaimed Jasper Parloe, wagging his head.  “Ye know ye can’t refuse me.”

“I do refuse you.”

“Then ye’ll take the consequences, Jabe—­ ye’ll take the consequences.  Ye know very well if I say the word to Mr. Cameron—­”

“Get away from here!” commanded Potter, interrupting.  “I want nothing to do with you.”

“You mean to dare me; do ye, Jabe?” demanded Jasper, with an evil smile.

“I don’t mean to have anything to do with a thief,” growled the miller, and turning on his heel went back into the mill.

It was just then that Ruth spied the automobile coming down the road with Tom Cameron at the steering wheel.  Ruth bobbed into the house in a hurry, with a single wave of her hand to Tom, for she was not yet quite ready.  When she came down five minutes later, with a fresh ribbon in her hair and one of the new frocks that she had never worn before looking its very trimmest, Jasper Parloe had alighted from his ramshackle wagon and was talking with Tom, who still sat in the automobile.

And as Ruth stood in the porch a moment, while Aunt Alvirah proudly looked her over to see that she was all right, the girl saw by the expression on Tom’s face that whatever Parloe talked about was not pleasing the lad in the least.

She saw, too, that Tom pulled something from his pocket hastily and thrust it into Parloe’s hand.  The old man chuckled slily, said something else to the boy, and then turned away and climbed into his wagon again.  He drove away as Ruth ran down the path to the waiting auto.