what is the good of having a thing if you don’t make use of it?” queried Ruth, stoutly.
Ruth was a girl with a mind of her own, and not even the carping criticisms of Aunt Sarah could turn her from her course if once she was convinced that what she did was right. Nor was she frightened by her schoolmates’ opinions – as note her friendship with Rosa Wildwood.
Bob Wildwood was a “character” in Milton. People smiled at him and forgave his peculiarities to a degree; but they could not respect him.
In the first place, Bob was a Southerner – and a Southerner in a New England town is just as likely to be misunderstood, as a Northerner in a Georgian town.
Bob and his daughter, Rosa, had drifted to Milton a couple of years previous. They had been “drifting” for most of the girl’s short life; but now Rosa was quite big enough to have some influence with her shiftless father, and they had taken some sort of root in the harsh New England soil, so different from their own rich bottom-lands of the South.
Besides, Rosa was in ill health. She was “weakly”; Bob spoke of her as having “a mis’ry in her chest.” Dr. Forsythe found that the girl had weak lungs, but he was sane and old-fashioned enough to scout the idea that she was in danger of becoming a victim of tuberculosis.
“If you go to work, Bob, and earn for her decent food and a warm shelter, she will pull through and get as hearty and strong as our Northern girls,” declared the doctor, sternly. “You say you lost her twin two years ago – ”
“But I didn’t done los’ Juniper by no sickness,” muttered Bob, shaking his head.
The Corner House girls thought Bob Wildwood a most amusing man, for he talked just like a darky (to their ears); but Uncle Rufus shook his head in scorn at Wildwood. “He’s jes’ no-’count white trash,” the old colored man observed.
However, spurred by the doctor’s threat, Bob let drink alone for the most part, and went to work for Rosa, his remaining daughter, who was just Ruth’s age and was in her class at High – when she was well enough to get there. In spite of her blood and bringing up, Rosa Wildwood had a quick and retentive mind and stood well in her classes.
Bob became a coal-heaver. He worked for Lovell & Malmsey. He drove a pair of mules without lines, ordering them about in a most wonderful manner in a tongue entirely strange to Northern teamsters; and he was black with coal-dust from week-end to week-end. Ruth said there only was one visible white part of Rosa’s father; that was the whites of his eyes.
The man must have loved his daughter very much, however; for it was his nature to be shiftless. He would have gone hungry and ragged himself rather than work. He now kept steadily at his job for Rosa’s sake.
On Monday Rosa was not at school, and coming home to luncheon at noon, Ruth ran half a block out of her way to find out what was the matter. Not alone was the tenement the Wildwoods occupied a very poor one, but Rosa was no housekeeper. It almost disgusted the precise and prim Ruth Kenway to go into the three-room tenement.
Rosa had a cold, and of course it had settled on her chest. She was just dragging herself around to get something hot for Bob’s dinner. Ruth made her go back to bed, and she finished the preparations.
When she came to make the tea, the Corner House girl was horrified to observe that the metal teapot had probably not been thoroughly washed out since the day the Wildwoods had taken up their abode in Milton.
“Paw likes to have the tea set back on the stove,” drawled Rosa, with her pleasant Southern accent. “When he gets a chance, he runs in and ‘takes a swig,’ as he calls it, out of the pot. He says it’s good for the gnawin’ in his stomach – it braces him up an’ is so much better than when he useter mix toddies,” said the girl, gratefully. “We’d have had June with us yet, if it hadn’t been for paw’s toddies.”
“Oh!” cried Ruth, startled. “I thought your sister June died?”
Rosa shook her head and the tears flowed into her soft eyes. “Oh, no. She went away. She couldn’t stand the toddies no more, she said – and her slavin’ to keep the house nice, and us movin’ on all the time. June was housekeeper – she was a long sight smarter’n me, Ruth.”
“But the teachers at school think you are awfully smart,” declared the Corner House girl.
“June warn’t so smart at her books,” said Rosa. “But she could do anything with her hands. You’d thunk she was two years older’n me, too. She was dark and handsome. She got mad, and run away, and then we started lookin’ for her; but we’ve never found her yet,” sighed Rosa. “And now I’ve got so miserable that I can’t keep traveling with paw. So we got to stop here, and maybe we won’t ever see June again.”
“Oh! I hope you will,” cried Ruth. “Now, your father’s dinner is all ready to dish up. And I’ll come back after school this afternoon and rid up the house for you; don’t you do a thing.”
Ruth had time that noon for only a bite at home, and explained to Mrs. MacCall that she would be late in returning from school. She carried a voluminous apron with her to cover her school frock when she set about “ridding up” the Wildwood domicile.
Ruth wanted to help Rosa; she hoped Rosa would keep up with the class and be promoted at the end of the term, as she was sure to be herself. And she was sorry for sooty, odd-talking Bob Wildwood.
What Rosa had said about her lost twin sister had deeply interested Ruth Kenway. She wanted, too, to ask the Southern girl about “June,” or Juniper.
“We were the last children maw had,” said Rosa. “She just seemed to give up after we were born. The others were all sickly – just drooped and faded. And they all were girls and had flower names. Maw was right fanciful, I reckon.
“I wish June had held on. She’d stuck it out, I know, if she’d believed paw could stop drinking toddies. But, you see he has. He ‘swigs’ an awful lot of tea, though, and I expect it’s tanning him inside just like he was leather!”
Ruth really thought this was probable – especially with the teapot in the condition she had found it. But she had put some washing soda in the pot, filled it with boiling water, and set it back on the stove to stew some of the “tannin” out of it.
While the Corner House girl was talking with Rosa in the little bedroom the girl called her own, Bob brought his mules to a halt before the house with an empty wagon, and ran in as usual.
The girls heard him enter the outer room; but Ruth never thought of what the man’s object might be until Rosa laughed and said:
“There’s paw now, for a swig at the teapot. I hope you left it full fo’ him, Ruthie, dear.”
“Oh, goodness mercy me!” cried the Corner House girl, and darted out to the kitchen to warn the man.
But she was too late. Already the begrimed Bob Wildwood had the spout of the teapot to his lips and several swallows of the scalding and acrid mixture gurgled down his throat before he discovered that it was not tea!
“Woof! woof! woof!” he sputtered, and flung pot and all away from him. “Who done tryin’ poison me! Woof! I’s scalded with poison!”
He coughed and spluttered over the sink, and then tried a draught of cold water from the spigot – which probably did him just as much good as anything.
“Oh, dear me, Mr. Wildwood!” gasped Ruth, standing with clasped hands and looking at the sooty man, half frightened. “I – I was just boiling the teapot out.”
“Boilin’ it out?”
“Yes, sir. With soda. I – I – It won’t poison you, I guess.”
“My Lawd!” groaned Bob. “What won’t yo’ Northerners do nex’? Wash out er teapot!” and he grumblingly went forth to his team and drove away.
Ruth felt that her good intentions were misunderstood – to a degree. But Rosa thanked her very prettily for what she had done, and the next day she was able to come to school