But Aunt Alvirah caught her hand as she passed swiftly. The old woman carried the plump little hand to her lips in mute sympathy, and then Ruth broke away even from her and ran upstairs to her room. There she cast herself upon the bed and, with her sobs smothered in the pillows, gave way to the grief that had long been swelling her heart to the bursting point. CHAPTER XIII BUTTER AND BUTTERCUPS Such little keepsakes as remained of her father and mother--their photographs, a thin old bracelet, her mother's wedding ring, her father's battered silver watch had fortunately been in Ruth's bag. Those keepsakes had been too precious to risk in the trunk and in the baggage car. And how glad the girl was now that she had thus treasured these things. But the loss of the trunk, with all her clothing --common though that clothing had been--was a disaster that Ruth could not easily get over. She cried herself to sleep that night and in the morning came down with a woebegone face indeed. Uncle Jabez did not notice her, and even Aunt Alvirah did not comment upon her swollen eyes and tear-streaked countenance. But the old woman, if anything, was kinder than ever to her. It was Saturday, and butter day. Uncle Jabez owned one cow, and since Ruth had come to the mill it was her work twice a week to churn the butter. The churn was a stone crock with a wooden dasher and Ruth had just emptied in the thick cream when Helen Cameron ran in. "Oh, Ruth!" she cried. "You're always busy--especially if I chance to want you at all particularly." "If you will be a drone yourself, Helen, you must expect to be always hunting company," laughed Ruth. "Just what is troubling Miss Cameron at present?" "We're going to dress the Cove Chapel for to-morrow. You know, I told you our guild attends to the decoration of the chapel and I've just set my heart on making a great pillow of buttercups. The fields are full of them. And Tom says he'll help. Now, you'll come; won't you?" "If I come for buttercups it will have to be after the butter comes!" returned Ruth, laughing. She had begun to beat the dasher up and down and little particles of cream sprayed up through the hole in the cover of the jar, around the handle of the dasher. Helen looked on with growing interest. "And is that the way to make butter?" she asked. "And the cream's almost white. Our butter is yellow--golden. Just as golden as the buttercups. Do you color it?" "Not at this time of year. I used to help Miss True make butter. She had a cow. She said I was a good butter maker. You see, it's all in the washing after the butter comes. You wait and see." "But I want to pick buttercups--and Tom is waiting down by the bridge." "Can't help it. Butter before buttercups," declared Ruth, keeping the dasher steadily at work. "And then, Aunt Alvirah may want me for something else before dinner." "We've got dinner with us--or, Tom has. At least, Babette put us up a basket of lunch."