"All the ready cash I had in the world. Every cent I owned. That boy said, put it in a bank. I lost money when the Cheslow Bank failed forty year ago. I don't get caught twice in the same trap--no, sir! I've lost more this time; but no dishonest blackleg will have the benefit of it, that's sure. The river's got it, and nobody will ever be a cent the better off for it. All! All gone!" He jerked his hand away from Ruth's sympathetic pressure and walked moodily away. CHAPTER XII THE CATASTROPHE This was the beginning of some little confidence between Ruth and Uncle Jabez. He had not been quite so stern and unbending, even in his passion, as before. He said nothing more about the lost cash-box-- Aunt Alviry dared not even broach the subject--but Ruth tried to show him in quiet ways that she was sorry for his loss. Uncle Jabez was not a gentle man, however; his voice being so seldom heard did not make it the less rough and passionate. There were times when, because of his black looks, Ruth did not even dare address him. And there was one topic she longed to address him upon very much indeed. She wanted to go to school. She had always been quick at her books, and had stood well in the graded school of Darrowtown. There was a schoolhouse up the road from the Red Mill--not half a mile away; this district school was a very good one and the teacher had called on Aunt Alvirah and Ruth liked her very much. The flood had long since subsided and the repairs to the mill and the dam were under way. Uncle Jabez grew no more pleasant, however, for the freshet had damaged his dam so that all the water had to be let out and he might go into midsummer with such low pressure behind the dam that he could not run the mill through the drouth. This possibility, together with the loss of the cash-box, made him--even Aunt Alvirah admitted--"like a dog with a sore head." Nevertheless Ruth determined to speak to him about the school. She chose an evening when the kitchen was particularly bright and homelike and her uncle had eaten his supper as though he very much enjoyed it. There was no cash-box for him to be absorbed in now; but every evening he made countless calculations in an old ledger which he took to bed with him with as much care as he had the money-box. Before he opened his ledger on this evening, however, Ruth stood beside him and put a hand upon his arm. "Uncle," she said, bravely, "can I go to school?" He stared at her directly for a moment, from under his heavy brows; but her own gaze never wavered. "How much schoolin' do you want?" he demanded, harshly. "If you please Uncle Jabez, all I can get," replied Ruth. "Ha! Readin', writin', an' mighty little 'rithmatic--we called 'em 'the three R's '--did for me when I was a boy. The school tax they put onto me ev'ry year is something wicked. And I never had chick nor child to go to their blamed old school."