Part 2 (2/2)
”Oh, Uncle! you're not badly hurt, are you?”
”Ha--hum! I dunno,” stuttered the miller, and sat up. He rubbed his forehead and brought his hand, with a little blood upon it, back to the level of his eyes. ”I vum!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with more interest than before. ”I must ha' cracked my head some. Why was it I didn't drown?”
”This little missy, here,” said the black-eyed youth, quickly. ”_She_ saved you, Mister. She held your head above water till I come.”
”Why--why----Niece Ruth! you did _that_?”
”Oh, it was nothing, Uncle Jabez! I am so glad you are not hurt worse.
This boy really saved you. He brought you ash.o.r.e.”
”Who be ye, young man?” asked the miller. ”I'm obleeged to ye--if what my niece says is true.”
”Oh, I am named Roberto. You need not to thank--no!” exclaimed the stranger, suddenly getting up and looking all about.
”But it was very brave of him,” declared Ruth, and she seized the boy's hand. ”I--I am so glad you were near.”
”Here's Tim and Joe Bascom coming,” said Uncle Jabez, who was facing the store.
Instantly Roberto, as he called himself, jerked his hand from Ruth's grasp. He had seen the men coming, too, and without a word he turned and fled back into the woods.
”Why--why----” began Ruth, in utter surprise.
”What's the matter with that feller?” demanded Uncle Jabez, just as the storekeeper and Farmer Bascom arrived.
”I seen the feller, Jabe,” said the latter, eagerly. ”He's one o' them blamed Gypsies. I run him out o' my orchard only yisterday.”
CHAPTER III
EVENING AT THE RED MILL
About this time Uncle Jabez began to wake up to the fact that his boat and the flour were gone.
”It's a dumbed shame, Jabez! an' I needed that flour like tunket,” said Timothy Lakeby, the storekeeper.
”Huh!” grunted the miller. ”'Tain't nothin' out o' your pocket, Tim.”
”But my customers air wantin' it.”
”You lemme hev your boat, an' a boy to bring it back, an' we'll go right hum an' load ye up some more flour,” groaned the miller. ”That dratted Ben will be back by thet time, I fancy. Ef he'd been ter the mill I wouldn't hev been dependent upon my niece ter help row that old boat.”
”Too heavy for her--too heavy for her, Jabe,” declared Joe Bascom.
”Huh! is thet so?” snapped the miller. He could grumble to Ruth himself, but he would not stand for any other person's criticism of her. ”Lemme tell ye, she worked her pa.s.sage all right. An' I vum! I b'lieve thet 'twas me, myself, thet run the old tub on the rock.”
”Aside from the flour, Jabez,” said the storekeeper, ”'tain't much of a loss. But you an' Ruthie might ha' both been drowned.”
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