a blessing to womankind.”
“I do not think I shall need that particular blessing,” Miss Cullam said, rather grimly. “But I believe I will accept your invitation, Ruth Fielding. Though perhaps it is not wise for instructors and pupils to spend their vacations together. The latter are likely to lose their fear of us – ”
“Oh, Miss Cullam! There isn’t one of us who has a particle of fear of you,” laughed Ruth.
“Ahem! that is why some of you do not stand so well in mathematics as you should,” said the teacher dryly.
That was a busy day; but the party Ruth was forming made all their plans, subject, of course, to agreement by their various parents and guardians. In one week they were to meet in New York, prepared to make the long journey by train to Yucca, Arizona, and from that point into the mountains on horseback.
Helen found time for a little private investigation; but it was not until she and Ruth were on the way home to Cheslow in the parlor car that she related her meager discoveries to her chum.
“What did you ever learn about Edie Phelps?” Helen asked.
“Oh! Edie? I had forgotten about her.”
“Well, I didn’t forget. The mystery piques me, as the story writers say,” laughed Helen. “Do you know that her father is an awfully rich man?”
“Why, no. Edith doesn’t make a point of telling everybody perhaps,” returned Ruth, smiling.
“No; she doesn’t. You’ve got to hand it to her for that. But, then, to blow about one’s wealth is about as crude a thing as one can do, isn’t it?”
“Well, what about Edith’s father?” asked Ruth, curiously.
“Nothing particular. Only he is one of our ‘captains of industry’ that the Sunday papers tell about. Makes oodles of money in mines, so I was told. Edith has no mother. She had a brother – ”
“Oh! is he dead?” cried Ruth, with sympathy.
“Perhaps he’d better be. He was rusticated from his college last year. It was quite a scandal. His father disowned him and he disappeared. Edith felt awfully, May says.”
“Too bad,” sighed Ruth.
“Why, of course, it’s too bad,” grumbled Helen. “But that doesn’t help us find out why Edie is so much interested in our going to Yucca; nor how she comes to be in correspondence with anybody in that far, far western town. What do you think it means, Ruthie?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” declared the girl of the Red Mill, shaking her head.
CHAPTER IV – A WEEK AT HOME
Mr. Cameron met the chums en route, and the next morning they arrived at Seven Oaks in time to see Tom receive his diploma from the military and preparatory school. Tom, black-eyed and as handsome in his way as Helen was in hers, seemed to have interest only in Ruth.
“Goodness me! that boy’s got a regular crush on you, Ruthie!” exclaimed Helen, exasperated. “Did you ever see the like?”
“Dear Tom!” sighed Ruth Fielding. “He was the very first friend – of my own age, I mean – that I found in Cheslow when I went there. I have to be good to Tommy, you know.”
“But he’s only a boy!” cried the twin sister, feeling herself to be years older than her brother after spending so many months at college.
“He was born the same day you were,” laughed Ruth.
“That makes no difference. Boys are never as wise or as old as girls – ”
“Until the girls slip along too far. Then they sometimes want to appear young instead of old,” said the girl of the Red Mill practically. “I suppose, in the case of girls who have not struck out for themselves and gone to college or into business or taken up seriously one of the arts, it is so the boys will continue to pay them attentions. Thank goodness, Helen! you and I will be able to paddle our own canoes without depending upon any ‘mere male,’ as Miss Cullam calls them, for our bread and butter.”
“You certainly can paddle your own boat,” Helen returned admiringly, leaving the subject of the “mere male.” “Father says you have become a smart business woman already. He approves of this venture you are going to make in the movies.”
But Uncle Jabez did not approve. Ruth had written to Aunt Alvirah regarding the manner in which she expected to spend the summer, and there was a storm brewing when she reached the Red Mill.
Set upon the bank of the Lumano River, the old red mill with the sprawling, comfortable story-and-a-half farmhouse attached, made a very pretty picture indeed – so pretty that already one of Ruth’s best scenarios had been filmed at the mill and people all over the country were able to see just how beautiful the locality was.
When Ruth got out of the automobile that had brought them all from the Cheslow station and ran up the shaded walk to the porch, a little, hoop-backed old woman came almost running to the door to greet her – a dear old creature with a face like a withered russet apple and very bright, twinkling eyes.
“Oh, my pretty! Oh, my pretty!” Aunt Alvirah cried. “I feared you never would come.”
“Why, Auntie!” Ruth murmured, taking Aunt Alvirah in her arms and leading her back to the low rocking chair by the window where she usually sat.
There was a rosy-cheeked country girl hovering over the supper table, who smiled bashfully at the college girl. Uncle Jabez, as he had promised, had hired somebody to relieve the little old woman of the heaviest of her housekeeping burdens.
“Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!” groaned Aunt Alvirah as she settled back into her chair. “Dear child! how glad we shall be to have you at home, if only for so short a while.”
“What does Uncle Jabez say?” whispered Ruth.
“He don’t approve, Ruthie. You know, he never has approved of your doing things that other gals don’t do.”
“But, Aunt Alvirah, other girls do do them. Can’t he understand that the present generation of girls is different from his mother’s generation?”
Aunt Alvirah wagged her head seriously. “I’m afraid not, my pretty. Jabez Potter ain’t one to l’arn new things easy. You know that.”
Ruth nodded thoughtfully. She expected a scene with the old miller and she was not disappointed. It came after supper – after Uncle Jabez had retired to the sitting-room to count his day’s receipts as usual; and likewise to count the hoard of money he always kept in his cash-box.
Uncle Jabez Potter was of a miserly disposition. Aunt Alvirah often proclaimed that the coming of his grand-niece to the Red Mill had barely saved the old man from becoming utterly bound up in his riches. Sometimes Ruth could scarcely see how he could have become more miserly than he already was.
“No, Niece Ruth, I don’t approve. You knowed I couldn’t approve of no sech doin’s as this you’re attemptin’. It’s bad enough for a gal to waste her money in l’arnin’ more out o’ books than what a man knows. But to go right ahead and do as she plumb pleases with five thousand dollars – or what ye’ve got left of it after goin’ off to college and sech
