After the hearty breakfast was disposed of and the miller and his hired man had tramped out again, the old housekeeper and Ruth became more confidential.
“It sartain sure did please me,” said Aunt Alvirah, “when Jabez let me take in that trampin’ gal for a week an’ more. He paid her without a whimper, too. But, she did eat!”
“So he said,” chuckled Ruth.
“Yes. More’n a hired hand in thrashin’ time. I never seen her beat. But I reckon the poor little thing was plumb starved. They never feed ’em ha’f enough in them orphan ‘sylums, I don’t s’pect.”
“From an orphanage?” cried Ruth, with sudden interest born of her remembrance of the mysterious Sadie Raby.
“So I believe. She’d run away, I s’pect. I hadn’t the heart to blame her. An’ she was close-mouthed as a clam,” declared Aunt Alvirah.
“How did you come to get her?” queried the interested Ruth.
“She walked right up to the door. She’d been travelin’ far—ye could see that by her shoes, if ye could call ’em shoes. I made her take ’em off by the fire, an’ then I picked ’em up with the tongs—they was just pulp—and I pitched ’em onto the ash-heap.
“Well, she stayed that night, o’ course. It was rainin’. Your Uncle Jabez wouldn’t ha’ turned a dog out in sech weather. But he made me put her to bed on chairs here.
“It was plain she was delighted to have somebody to talk to—and as that somebody was ‘her pretty,’ the dear old soul was all the more joyful.