thing?"

"Out with it, Niece Ruth," he ordered, eyeing her curiously. "I'll tell
ye if it's anything I already know."

"Well, Aunt Alvirah is growing old."

"Ye don't say!" snapped the miller. "And who ain't, I'd like to know?"

"Her rheumatism is much worse, and it will soon be winter."

"Say! what air ye tryin' to do?" he demanded. "Tellin' me these here
puffictly obvious things! Of course she's gittin' older; and of course
her rheumatiz is bound to grow wuss. Doctors ain't never yet found
nothin' to cure rheumatiz. And winter us'ally follers fall--even in this
here tarnation climate."

"Well, but the combination is going to be very bad for Aunt Alvirah,"
Ruth said gently, determined to pursue her idea to the finish, no matter
how cross he appeared to be.

"Wal, is it _my_ fault?" asked Uncle Jabez.

"It's nobody's fault," Ruth told him, shaking her head, and very
serious. "But it's Aunt Alvirah's misfortune."

"Huh!"

"And we must do something about it."

"Huh! Must we? What, I'd like to have ye tell me?" said the old miller,
eyeing Ruth much as one strange dog might another that he suspected was
after his best marrow bone.

"We must get somebody to help her do the work while I am at college,"
Ruth said firmly.

The dull red flooded into Uncle Jabez's cheeks, and for once gave him a
little color. His narrow eyes sparkled, too.

"There's one thing I've allus said, Niece Ruth," he declared hotly. "Ye
air a great one for spending other folks' money."

It was Ruth's turn to flush now, and although she might not possess what
Aunt Alvirah called "the Potter economical streak," she did own to a
spark of the Potter temper. Ruth Fielding was not namby-pamby, although
she was far from quarrelsome.

"Uncle Jabez," she returned rather tartly, "have I been spending much of
_your_ money lately?"

"No," he growled. "But ye ain't l'arnt how to take proper keer of yer
own--trapsin' 'round the country the way you do."

She laughed then. "I'm getting knowledge. Some of it comes high, I have
found; but it will all help me _live_."

"Huh! I've lived without that brand of l'arnin'," grunted Uncle Jabez.

Ruth looked at him amusedly. She was tempted to tell him that he had not
lived, only existed. But she was not impudent, and merely went on to
say:

"Aunt Alvirah is getting too old to do all the work here----"

"I send Ben in to help her some when she's alone," said the miller.

"And by so doing put extra wo