Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound Part 3

"Ugh!" shuddered his sister. "Don't talk about it any more. I don't want to know when you go up, Tommy. I should be beside myself all the time you were in the air."

So they talked about Ruth's chances of going home instead. After all, as she could be of no more use in Red Cross work for so long a time, the girl of the Red Mill began to look forward with some confidence to the home going.

As she had told her girl friends that very day when the hospital had been bombed and she had been hurt, the sweetest words in the ears of the exile are "homeward bound!" And she expected to be bound for home-for Cheslow and the Red Mill-in a very few weeks.

Her case had been reported to Paris headquarters; and whether she wished it or not, a furlough had been ordered and she would be obliged to sail from Brest on or about a certain date. The sea voyage would help her to recuperate; and by that time her shoulder would be out of the plaster cast in which Dr. Soutre had fixed it. Whether she desired to be so treated or not, the Red Cross considered her an invalid-a "_grande blessee_."

So, as the days pa.s.sed, Ruth Fielding gradually found that she suffered the idea of return to America with a better mind. The more she thought of going home, the more the desire grew in her soul to be there.

It was about this time that the letter came from Uncle Jabez Potter. A letter from Uncle Jabez seemed almost as infrequent as the blooming of a century plant.

It was delayed in the post as usual (sometimes it did seem as though the post-office department had almost stopped functioning!) and the writing was just as crabbed-looking as the old miller's speech usually was. Aunt Alvirah Boggs managed to communicate with "her pretty," as she always called Ruth, quite frequently; for although Aunt Alvirah suffered much in "her back and her bones"-as she expressed herself dolefully-her hands were not too crippled to hold a pen.

But Uncle Jabez Potter! Well, the letter itself will show what kind of correspondent the old miller was:

"My Dear Niece Ruth:

"It does not seem as though you was near enough to the Red Mill to ever get this letter; and mebbe you won't want to read it when you do get it. But I take my pen in hand just the same to tell you such news as there is and perticly of the fact that we have shut down.

This war is terrible and that is a fact. I wish often that I could have shouldered a gun-old Betsy is all right now, me having cleaned the cement out of her muzzle what your Aunt Alvirah put in it-and marched off to fight them Germans myself. It would have been money in my pocket if I had done that instead of trying to grind wheat and corn in this dratted old water-mill. Wheat is so high and flour is so low that I can't make no profit and so I have had to shut down the mill. First time since my great grandfather built it back in them prosperous times right after we licked the British that first time. This is an awful mean world we live in anyway. Folks are always making trouble. If it was not for them Germans you'd be home right now that your Aunt Alvirah needs you. You see, she has took to her bed, and Ben, the hired man, and me, don't know much what to do for her. Ain't no use trying to get a woman to come in to help, for all the women and girls have gone to work in the munitions factory down the river. Whole families have gone to work there and earn so much money that they ride back and forth to work in their own automobiles. It's a cussed shame.

"Your Aunt Alvirah talks about you nearly all the time. She's breaking up fast I shouldn't wonder and by the time this war is done I reckon she'll be laid away. Me not making any money now, we are likely to be pretty average poor in the future. When it is all outgo and no come-in the meal tub pretty soon gets empty. I reckon I would better sell the mules and I hope Ben will find him a job somewhere else pretty soon. He won't be discharged. Says he promised you he would stick to the old Red Mill till you come back from the war. But he's a eating me out of house and home and that's a fact.

"If it is so you can get away from that war long enough, I wish you'd come home and take a look at your Aunt Alvirah. It seems to me if she was perked up some she might get a new hold on life. As it is, even Doc Davidson says there ain't much chance for her.

"Hoping this finds you the same, and wis.h.i.+ng very much to see you back at the Red Mill, I remain,

"Yr. Obedient Servant, "J. Potter."

CHAPTER IV-TWO EXCITING THINGS

Uncle Jabez's letter and Tom Cameron arrived at the hospital at Clair on the very same day. This was the second visit the captain had made to see Ruth since her injury. At this time Helen and Jennie had returned to Paris and Ruth was almost ready to follow them.

"It reads just like the old fellow," Tom said, smiling, after having perused the letter. "Of course, as usual he has made a mountain of trouble out of a molehill of vexation. But I am sorry for Aunt Alvirah."

"The dear old soul!" sighed Ruth. "I begin to feel that my being bombed by the Hun may not have been an unmixed evil. Perhaps Aunt Alvirah-and Uncle Jabez, too-very much need me at home. And without the excuse of my broken shoulder I don't see how I could have got away from here."

"I wish I were going with you."

"What! To leave your regiment and all?"

"No, I do not want to leave until this war is finished. But I hate to think of your crossing the ocean alone."

"Pooh! I shall not be alone. Lots of other people will be on the boat with me, Tommy."

"But n.o.body who would have your safety at heart as I should," he told her earnestly. "You cannot help yourself very well if-if anything should happen."

"What will happen, do you suppose?" she demanded.

"There are still submarines in the sea," he said, grimly enough. "In fact, they are more prevalent just now than they were when you came over."

"You bother about my chances of meeting a submarine when you are planning to go up into the air with that Mr. Stillinger! You will be more likely to meet the Hun in the air than I shall in the water."

"Pooh! I am just going on a joy ride in an airplane. While you--"

"It is not just a joy ride I shall take, I admit, Tom," Ruth said, more seriously. "I do hate to give up my work here and go home. Yet this letter," and she tapped the missive from Uncle Jabez, "makes me feel that perhaps I have duties near the Red Mill."

"Uh-huh!" he grunted understandingly.

"You know I have been running around and having good times for a good many years. Aunt Alvirah is getting old. And perhaps Uncle Jabez should be considered, too."

"He's an awful old grouch, Ruth," said Tom Cameron, shaking his head.

"I know. But he really has been kind to me-in his way. And if he has had to close down the mill, and is making no money, he will surely feel pretty bad. Somebody must be there to cheer him up."

"He don't need to run that mill," said Tom shortly. "He has plenty of money invested in one way or another."

"But he doesn't think he is earning anything unless the mill runs and he sees the dollars increasing in his strong box. You know, he counts his ready cash every night before he goes to bed. It is almost all the enjoyment he has."

"He's a blessed old miser!" exclaimed her friend, "I don't see how you have stood him all these years, Ruthie."

"I really believe he loves me-in his way," returned the girl thoughtfully. "Poor Uncle Jabez! Well, I am beginning to feel that it was meant that I should go home to him and to Aunt Alvirah."

"Don't!" he exclaimed. "You'll make me wish to go home, too. And the way this war is now," said Tom, smiling grimly, "they really need all us fellows. The British and the French have fought Fritz so long and at such odds that I almost believe they are half scared of him. But you can't make our Buddies feel scared of a German. They have seen too many of them running delicatessen stores and saloons.

"Why, they have already sent some of their great shock troops against us in this sector. All the 'shock' they have given us you could put in your eye and still see from here to the G.o.ddess of Liberty in New York Harbor!"

"That's a bit of 'sw.a.n.k,' you know, Tom," said Ruth slyly.

"Wait! You'll see! Why, it's got to be a habit for the French and the British to retreat a little when the Germans pour in on top of them.

They think they lose fewer troops and get more of the Huns that way. But that isn't the way we Yankees have been taught to fight. If we once get the Huns in the open we'll start them on the run for the Rhine, and they won't stop much short of there."

"Oh, my dear boy, I hope so!" Ruth said. "But what will you be doing meanwhile? Getting into more and more danger?"

"Not a bit!"

"But you mean right now to take an air trip," Ruth said hastily. "Oh, my dear! I don't want to urge you not to; but do take care, if you go up with Ralph Stillinger. They say he is a most reckless flier."

"That is why he's never had a mishap. It's the airmen who are unafraid who seem to pull through all the tight places. It is when they lose their dash that something is sure to happen to them."

"We will hope," said Ruth, smiling with trembling lips, "that Mr.

Stillinger will lose none of his courage while you are up in the air with him."

"Pshaw! I shall be all right," Tom declared. "The only thing is, I am sorry that he has made the date for me so that I can't go down to Paris with you, and later see you aboard the s.h.i.+p at Brest. But this has been arranged a long time; and I must be with my boys when they go back from the rest camp to the front again."