Part 15 (1/2)

”Oh, his head is all healed up--you can just barely see the scar,”

Helen declared. ”And his arm is only a little tender. We think he got out of it very lucky indeed--thanks to Ruth here.”

”Yes, thanks to Ruth,” repeated the doctor, his eyes twinkling.

Ruth was ”on pins and needles,” as the saying is, for she very well remembered what the injured boy had murmured, in his half conscious state, when they brought him along the road on the stretcher. Had it been Jabez Potter who ran down Tom Cameron and forced him down the embankment with his motorcycle? This thought had been bobbing up in Ruth's mind ever since she had come to the Red Mill.

She had seen her uncle driving his team of mules in one of his reckless moods. She would never forget how the team tore down the long hill and was forced through the flood the day the Minturn dam had burst. Had Jabez Potter been driving through the dark road where Tom Cameron was hurt, in any such way as that, he would have run down a dozen cyclists without noticing them.

Fortunately Tom's injury had not been permanent. He was all right now.

Ruth felt that she must be loyal to her uncle and say nothing about her own suspicions; but as long as the matter was discussed between Helen and Doctor Davison she was anxious. Therefore she hurried their departure from the kind physician's office, by rising and saying:

”I think we would better go, Helen. You know how slow Tubby is, and perhaps I can give the little Curtis girl some pleasure by calling on her.”

”Without doubt she'll have pleasure,” observed Helen, somewhat bitingly. ”She is likely to scold and 'bullyrag' to her heart's content. You're such a meek thing that you'll let her.”

”If that's what gives her pleasure, Helen,” said Ruth, with a quiet smile, ”why, I guess I can stand it for an hour.”

Doctor Davison had risen likewise, and he went to the front door with them, his hand resting lightly on Ruth's shoulder.

”You have the right idea of it, Ruthie,” he said. ”Let Mercy take her pleasure in that way if it's all the pleasure she can get. But perhaps a better mind as well as a better body may come to the poor child in time.” Then to Ruth he added, more personally: ”Remember you have a friend in here behind the green lamps. Don't forget to come to him with any troubles you may have. Perhaps I do not look it, but I am something like a fairy G.o.dmother--I have a wonderful power of transmogrification. I can often turn dark clouds inside out and show you the silver on the other side.”

”I believe that, Doctor Davison,” she whispered, and squeezed his hand hard, running after Helen the next moment down the walk.

CHAPTER XVII

TORMENTING MERCY

After they had awakened Tubby and urged him into something resembling a trot they got into Cheslow proper by degrees. By the light of the very suns.h.i.+ny afternoon Ruth thought the town looked far prettier than any place she had ever seen. This side of the railroad the houses were mostly old-fas.h.i.+oned, and there were few stores. There were many lawns and pretty, old-time gardens, while the elms and maples met in green arches overhead so that many of the streets were like rustic tunnels, the sun sifting through the thick branches to make only a fine, lacework pattern upon the walks and driveway.

They crossed the railroad near the station and struck into Market Street. Ruth would not allow Helen to drive her directly to the Curtis cottage. She had remembered Doctor Davison's words, and she thought that perhaps Mercy Curtis might be looking from the window and see her visitor arrive in the pony cart. So she got down at the corner, promising to meet her friend at that spot in an hour.

She could see the pretty cottage belonging to the railroad station agent before she had walked far. Its garden on the side was already a bower. But the rustic arbor on which the grape vines were trained was not yet sufficiently covered to yield any shelter from the street; therefore Ruth did not expect to find it occupied.

Just before she reached the cottage, however, she saw two little girls ahead of her, hesitating on the walk. They were talking seriously together when Ruth approached within earshot, and she heard one say to the other:

”Now, she'll be there in the window. We mustn't notice her, no matter what she does or says. You know what mamma said.”

The other child was sobbing softly. ”But she made me, oh, such a face!

And she chopped her teeth at me just as though she'd bite me! I think she's the very hatefulest thing--”

”Hus.h.!.+ she's greatly to be pitied,” said the older sister, with an air and in a tone that showed she copied it from the ”grown-ups” whom she had heard discussing poor Mercy Curtis.

”I wish we'd gone 'round the other way,” complained the other child.

”Now, come on. You needn't look into the window and smile. I'll do that.”

”No,” said the little one, stubbornly. ”I'll go by on the opposite side of the way. And you must come, too, Anna. She--she'd bite me if she could get the chance.”

”Oh, well! Come on, little silly!” said her sister, and the two crossed over and Ruth, who watched them interestedly, saw them hurry by the cottage with scarcely a glance at the front windows.