With his duties as man of the house thus brought to his mind, Billy demurred. Perhaps after all, his place was here.
"If I only wasn't another mouth," Ruth went on, "or if I were a dog like Stray and could live on scraps, or if I were a cat and could catch mice."
"Then nobody would want you," said Billy.
"Indeed they would then. There are ever so many people who like cats if you don't. Aunt Hester does and so do I and so does Lucia. Oh dear, I should hate to give up Lucia. I wish I ought not to go instead of oughting to go."
"Maybe you'll like it awful much," said Billy, encouragingly. "Maybe your uncle has lots of boys and girls and you'll have fun with them."
"No, he hasn't. He has only one little boy about five years old. Billy, promise me on your sacred word and honor that you will come and get me just as soon as you begin to keep store, or, if Aunt Hester gets the claim, before that."
Billy nodded gravely. He wished it were not right to tell Ruth that it would be best for her to leave them. He felt that he would miss her sadly and that one small boy in the house with a grave elderly woman would not have as agreeable a time as when a youthful comrade like Ruth was on hand to take an interest in small matters beneath the notice of their elders.
Ruth had always a lively imagination and was vastly amusing at times. To be sure, she was very often absorbed in her doll or in Lucia Field, but, at other times, she and Billy had most exciting plays in which she was almost as good fun as a boy, he told her. He thought of all this now, but his loyalty to Miss Hester and his practical bent made him repeat:
"I guess you'll have to go, Ruth."
But Ruth had been thinking, too. "I'll go, but I'm not going to promise to stay. I'm coming back the first chance I get. If I find a thousand dollars that nobody wants, or if I do something like saving a train from running off the track, and they give me a whole lot of money for it, or if—or if—the claim comes out all right, I'll come straight back, so I just won't think that I'm going for good, and I am going in now to tell Aunt Hester so."