CHAPTER XIII
BUTTER AND BUTTERCUPS
Such little keepsakes as remained of her father and mother--theirphotographs, a thin old bracelet, her mother's wedding ring, herfather's battered silver watch had fortunately been in Ruth's bag.Those keepsakes had been too precious to risk in the trunk and in thebaggage car. And how glad the girl was now that she had thus treasuredthese things.
But the loss of the trunk, with all her clothing --common though thatclothing had been--was a disaster that Ruth could not easily getover. She cried herself to sleep that night and in the morning camedown with a woebegone face indeed. Uncle Jabez did not notice her, andeven Aunt Alvirah did not comment upon her swollen eyes andtear-streaked countenance. But the old woman, if anything, was kinderthan ever to her.
It was Saturday, and butter day. Uncle Jabez owned one cow, and sinceRuth had come to the mill it was her work twice a week to churn thebutter. The churn was a stone crock with a wooden dasher and Ruth hadjust emptied in the thick cream when Helen Cameron ran in.
"Oh, Ruth!" she cried. "You're always busy--especially if I chance towant you at all particularly."
"If you will be a drone yourself, Helen, you must expect to be alwayshunting company," laughed Ruth. "Just what is troubling Miss Cameronat present?"
"We're going to dress the Cove Chapel for to-morrow. You know, I toldyou our guild attends to the decoration of the chapel and I've justset my heart on making a great pillow of buttercups. The fields arefull of them. And Tom says he'll help. Now, you'll come; won't you?"
"If I come for buttercups it will have to be after the butter comes!"returned Ruth, laughing.
She had begun to beat the dasher up and down and little particles ofcream sprayed up through the hole in the cover of the jar, around thehandle of the dasher. Helen looked on with growing interest.
"And is that the way to make butter?" she asked. "And the cream'salmost white. Our butter is yellow--golden. Just as golden as thebuttercups. Do you color it?"
"Not at this time of year. I used to help Miss True make butter. Shehad a cow. She said I was a good butter maker. You see, it's all inthe washing after the butter comes. You wait and see."
"But I want to pick buttercups--and Tom is waiting down by thebridge."
"Can't help it. Butter before buttercups," declared Ruth, keeping thedasher steadily at work. "And then, Aunt Alvirah may want me forsomething else before dinner."
"We've got dinner with us--or, Tom has. At least, Babette put us up abasket of lunch."
"Oh! A picnic!" cried Ruth, flushing with pleasure. This visit haddriven out of her mind --for the time, at least--her trouble ofovernight.
"I'm going to ask Aunt Alviry for you," went on Helen, and skippedaway to find the little old woman who, despite the drawback of "herback and her bones" was a very neat and particular housekeeper. Shewas back in a few moments.
"She says you can go, just as soon as you get the butter made. Now,hurry up, and let us get into the buttercup field, which is a wholelot nicer than the butter churn and--Oh! it smells much nicer, too.Why, Ruth, that cream actually smells sour!"
"I expect it is sour," laughed her friend. "Didn't you know that sweetbutter comes from sour cream? And that most nice things are the resultof hard work? The sweet from the bitter, you know."
"My! how philosophical we are this morning. Isn't that butter evercoming?"
"Impatience! Didn't you ever have to wait for anything you wanted inyour life?"
"Why, I've got to wait till next fall before I go to Briarwood Hall.That's a rhyme, Ruthie; it's been singing itself over and over in mymind for days. I'm really going to boarding school in the autumn. It'sdecided. Tom is going to the military academy on the other side ofOsago Lake. He'll be within ten miles of Briarwood."
Ruth's face had lost its brightness as Helen said this. The word"school" had brought again to the girl's mind her own unfortunateposition and Uncle Jabez's unkindness.
"I hope you will have a delightful time at Briarwood," Ruth said,softly. "I expect I shall miss you dreadfully."
"Oh, suppose the Ogre should send you to school there, too!" criedHelen, with clasped hands. "Wouldn't that be splendid!"
"That would be beyond all imagination," said Ruth, shaking her head."I--I don't know that I shall be able to attend the balance of theterm here."
"Why not?" demanded Helen. "Won't he let you?"
"He has said I could." Ruth could say no more just then. She hid herface from her friend, but made believe that it was the butter thatoccupied her attention. The dasher began to slap, slap, slapsuggestively in the churn and little particles of beaten cream beganto gather on the handle of the dasher.
"Oh!" cried Helen. "It's getting hard!"
"The butter is coming. Now a little cold water to help it separate.And then you shall have a most delicious glass of buttermilk."
"No, thank you!" cried Helen. "They say it's good for one to drink it.But I never do like anything that's good for me."
"Give it to me, Ruth," interposed another voice, and Tom put a smilingface around the corner of the well. "I thought you were never coming,Miss Flyaway," he said, to his sister.
"Butter before buttercups, young man," responded Helen, primly. "Wemust wait for Ruth to--er--wash the butter, is it?"
"Yes," said her friend, seriously, opening the churn and beginning toladle out the now yellow butter into a wooden bowl.
"May I assist at the butter's toilet?" queried Tom, grinning.
"You may sit down and watch," said his sister, in a tone intended toquell any undue levity on her brother's part.
Ruth had rolled her sleeves above her elbows, so displaying her prettyplump arms, and now worked and worked the butter in cold water right"from the north side of the well" as though she were kneading bread.First she had poured Tom a pitcher of the fresh buttermilk, and givenhim a glass. Even Helen tasted a little of the tart drink.
"Oh, it's ever so nice, I suppose," she said, with a little grimace;"but I much prefer my milk sweet."
Again and again Ruth poured off the milky water and ran fresh, coldwater upon her butter until no amount of kneading and washing wouldsubtract another particle of milk from the yellow ball. The water wasperfectly clear.
"Now I'll salt it," she said; "and put it away until this afternoon,and then I'll work it again and put it down in the butter-jar. When Igrow up and get rich I am going to have a great, big dairy; with aherd of registered cattle, and I'm going to make all the buttermyself."
"And Tom's going to raise horses. He's going to own a stock farm--sohe says. You'd better combine interests," said Helen, with some scorn."I like horses to ride, and butter to eat, but--well, I preferbuttercups just now. Hurry up, Miss Slow-poke! We'll never get enoughflowers for a pillow."
So Ruth cleaned her face, taking a peep into the glass in the kitchento make sure, before going out to her friends. Tom looked at her withplain approval, and Helen jumped up to squeeze her again.
"No wonder Aunt Alvirah calls you 'pretty creetur'," she whispered inRuth's ear. "For that's what you are." Then to Tom: "Now young man,have you the lunch basket?"
"What there is left of it is in charge of Reno down at the bridge," hereplied, coolly.
They found the huge mastiff lying with the napkin-covered basketbetween his forepaws, on the grass by the water side. Reno wasgrowling warningly and had his eyes fixed upon a figure leaning uponthe bridge railing.
"That there dawg don't seem ter take to me," drawled Jasper Parloe,who was the person on the bridge. "He needn't be afraid. I wouldn'ttouch the basket."
"You won't be likely to touch it while Reno has charge of it," saidTom, quietly, while the girls passed on swiftly. Neither Ruth norHelen liked to have anything to do with Parloe. When Tom released Renofrom his watch and ward, the dog trotted after Ruth and put his noseinto her hand.
"Ye been up ter the mill, hev ye?" queried Parloe, eyeing Tom Cameronaslant, "ye oughter be gre't friends with Jabe Potter. Or has hesquared hisself with ye?"
/> "Say, Mister Parloe," said Tom, sharply, "you've been hintingsomething about the miller every time you've seen me lately.
"Only since yeou was knocked down that bank inter the gully, an' yerarm an' head hurt. There warn't nothin' about Jabe ter interest yeouafore that," returned Parloe, quickly.
Tom flushed suddenly and he looked at the old
Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill; Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret Page 11
