Red Mill

“ I wish a dog would bite 'em!" It was useless, Ruth saw, to try and bring the cripple to a better mind. But she ignored her sallies at people who went by the window, and began to talk about the Red Mill and all that had happened to her since she had come to live with Uncle Jabez. Gradually she drew Mercy's attention from the street. She told about the flood, and how she, with Helen and Tom, had raced in the big automobile down the river road to warn the people that the water was coming. Mercy's eyes grew big with wonder and she listened with increasing interest. ”

“ Ruth, herself torn by conflicting emotions, could not bear to see the old man so convulsed with what seemed to be anguish of spirit, without offering her sympathy. During this week that she had been at the Red Mill it could not be said that she had gained Uncle Jabez's confidence—that she had drawn close to him at all. But it was not for a will on her part to do so.
The girl now left Aunt Alvirah and Helen on the porch and walked straight down to the old man. ”

“ That effort confined to the county in which Cheslow and the Red Mill were located had begun early; but it had gone stumblingly. Indeed, as Helen said, if it was a drive, it was about like driving home the cows!
Mr. Cameron had expected much of Ruth and his own daughter among the farming people; but they were actually behind the collectors who worked in the towns. It was at a time in the year when the men of the scattered communities were working hard out of doors; and it is difficult to interest farmers in anything but their crops during the growing season. ”

“ For a moment the cripple was silent and her eyes fell before Ruth's gaze. Suddenly the guest saw that Mercy's shoulders shook and that tears were actually dropping from Mercy's eyes.
"My dear!" she cried.
"Go away!" murmured the crippled girl. "I want to be alone. I ain't never believed," she went on, with more vigor than grammar, "that I'd ever get out to your house. Is—is it really so that I can?"
"Uncle Jabez is determined you shall come. So is Doctor Davison. So am I. Everybody is helping. Why, Mercy, you'd have to come to the Red Mill on a visit now, even if you didn't want to!" ”

“ And I have no other relative."
"Well, dear, I am more than sorry for you," declared the girl from the automobile. "And now we will climb right in and I'll take you along to the mill."
But whether she was sorry for Ruth Fielding's friendlessness, or sorry because she was related to Jabez Potter, the young traveler could not decide.
CHAPTER VI THE RED MILL
"Now, my name's Helen, and you are Ruth," declared Miss Cameron, when she had carefully started the car once more. "We are going to be the very best of friends, and we might as well begin by telling each other all about ourselves. ”

“ Ruth had already seen the tall, stoop-shouldered figure, who looked as though he had been powdered with flour, coming down the short path from one of the open doors of the mill to the road, where a little, one horse wagon stood. He bore a bag of meal or flour on his shoulder which he pitched into the wagon. The man on the seat was speaking as the automobile came to a stop immediately behind the wagon.
"Jefers pelters! Ef there's one thing yeou know how to do, it's to take toll, Jabe. Let the flour be poor, or good, there's little enough of it comes back to the man that raises the wheat." ”

“ She was of much assistance, too, and when Uncle Jabez came in, after washing at the pump, but bringing a cloud of flour with him on his clothes, the old woman was seated comfortably in her chair and Ruth "dished up the dinner."
At the end of his meal her uncle spoke just once to Ruth. "You have l'arned to work, I see. Your Aunt Alviry has trouble with her back and bones. If you make yourself of use to her you can stay here. I expect all cats to catch mice around the Red Mill. Them that don't goes into the sluice. There's enough to do here. You won't be idle for want of work." ”

“ Ruth had never seen Cheslow save on the night of her arrival and on the following morning, when she had started directly after breakfast at the station master's house to walk to the Red Mill.
"Why, you'll like Cheslow," declared Helen, in her enthusiastic way. "It's just as pretty as it can be—you'll love it! I often drive in to shop, and sometimes Mrs. Murchiston goes with me. Get up, Tubby!"
Tubby had to be urged incessantly; exertion was not loved by him. He would rather walk than trot; he would rather stand than walk ”

“ She had a feeling that he did not like the Camerons and might oppose her friendliness with them. But he was not at hand now to interfere with her innocent pleasures. She went in and asked Aunt Alvirah if she could take the ride.
"Why not, child? You've been the very best helpmate ever an old woman had—Oh, my back and oh, my bones! Run along and have your fun, deary. You need not be back till supper time. You have earned your little outing, that's sure and sartain."
Before Helen had picked her up on the road to the Red Mill that first day, Ruth had never ridden in a motor car. ”

“ With Excelsior as my future workshop I leave the mill to seek lodging in the mill village.
The houses built by the corporation for the hands are some five or six minutes' walk, not more, from the palace-like structure of the mill proper. To reach them I plod through a roadway ankle-deep in red clay dust. The sun is bright and the air heavy, lifeless and dull; the scene before me is desolate, meager and poverty-stricken in the extreme.
The mill houses are all built exactly alike. Painted in sickly greens and yellows, they rise on stilt-like elevations above the malarial soil. ”

“ Speech was called for, and the vigorously protesting Red forced to the front by his former friends, Demilt and Lettis. Thus betrayed by those he trusted, Red made the best of it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens!" said he. "The mill is now open to all comers. We hope to make this thing a success; we hope to see every horny-handed, hump-backed farmer in the country rosin the soles of his moccasins, and shove his plough through twice as much ground as he ever did before, and if he comes here with his plunder, we'll give him a square shake. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Red Mountain and Ironton became two flourishing towns with plenty of stores and all the appurtenances of civilization. In the eighties and early nineties Red Mountain had three newspapers. In 1890 it had a population of 598 while Ironton had 322. Even Chattanooga had a mill, some stores and 51 people. The locality was a beehive of activity as mines and mills were working 17 every place. The hills were liberally sprinkled with houses, stores, mills, boarding houses, barns and mine buildings. ”

“ Thus adjured the lawyer made his entrance, and Miss Mattie became in due and involved course of law a stockholder in the Fairfield Strawboard Mfg. Co.
Fairfield rose to activity like a very small giant refreshed. Teams and their heavy loads kept the respectable dust in constant commotion. A grist mill was added to the intended plant, thus offering an inducement to the farmer to raise grain, and incidentally straw, "So we can ketch 'em on both ends, too," as Red put it. ”

“ Most of us today, when we think of power, think of electricity, gas, or steam, but it is very simple to consider the water in an ordinary little stream and the amount of power it can deliver.
Although the machinery built by the early millwrights was a bit crude, nevertheless it was functional and worked with efficient success.
On a recent scouting trip George and I took through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut, we visited a few restored mills. One of them was in Rowley, Massachusetts, just off the Main Road, called the “Jewel Mill”. ”

“ Mercy has never ceased talking about you."
"The lame girl, sir?" cried Ruth, in wonder. "Why, she spoke awfully unkindly to me, and I thought her mother only thought I would feel bad and wanted to smooth it over, when she asked me to come again."
"No," said the doctor, seriously, shaking his head. "Nobody knows Mercy like her mother. That's not to be expected. She's a poor, unfortunate, cramp-minded child. I've done what I can for her back—she has spinal trouble; but I can do little for Mercy's twisted and warped mind. ”

“ A retired mill president, whose decision to leave the field was perhaps affected by the condition she described, regretted that the companies are still laboring under decreased profits as a result of the fact that mills were [Pg 243] built more rapidly than the market for goods expanded to meet the development. [375] Another mill president thought that no more mills are likely to be built in his section too many years. ”

“ Turning a corner very soon as they walked up what Curtis said was Market Street, they reached, on a narrow side street, a little, warm-looking cottage, from almost all the lower windows of which the lamplight shone cheerfully. There was a garden beside it, with a big grape arbor arranged like a summer-house with rustic chairs and a table. The light shining on the side porch revealed the arbor to Ruth's quick eyes. ”

“ When the pony carriage drove into the little clearing about the squatter's hut, Parloe was pottering about the yard and he stood up and looked at them with arms akimbo and a growing grin upon his sly face. ”

“ Just as a burning forest is a magnificent scene with a dismal sequel, so the saw-miller’s industry, though it finds a paradise and leaves a rubbish-yard, is, while it goes on, a picturesque business. Like many forms of destruction, it lends itself to the exertion of boldness, strength, and skill. The mill itself is probably too primitive to be exactly ugly, and the complicated machinery is interesting when in action, albeit its noises, which at a distance blend into a humming vibration, rise near at hand to tearing and rending, clattering and howling. ”

“ As we wend our way, a fine breeze meets us from the distant downs. You can fancy the sportsman may find on the distant heather something that may repay his toil, or the artist something he may love to transfer to his canvas; but you would never guess that in so romantic a spot there was so unpoetic a thing as a flax-spinning mill. On our right runs a little stream, which, ere it reaches its destination in Newry, sets more mills going, considering the distance, than any other in the country.
A turn in the road, and we are at Bessbrook Mills. ”

“ The walls were often bulging and split. The door of the parlour—for there was no such luxury as a hall—had lost a hinge. A mangy dog of all known breeds lay asleep on a heap of dirty straw in the yard. I saw that the place was built upon the bank of a little stream here flowing swiftly into the main river; and must once have been a prosperous mill. But that, I judged, was years ago.
I left my canoe in the mill-pool, then whipped into ripples by the storm; and, regardless of the fact that water streamed out of my flannels, I knocked upon the open door of the kitchen. ”

“ Well, the answer is—and it is soon given—that the finest yarns would be quite unable to withstand the wear and tear of power-looms urged on by the resistless impetus of the water-turbine or the steam-engine. Ah, that machinery!—so delicate, so clean, so bright—can be very cruel! Be a little careless, a little wild, a little frolicsome, and an accident will occur in the twinkling of an eye. A mill is a good schoolmaster. ”

“ That night, between midnight and dawn, Andrew Malden's lumber mill went up in flame and smoke. Who did it? No one knew; no one doubted. The north wind was blowing, and the mill hands worked vigorously, worked heroically—it meant bread and butter to them—but they could not save it. Only great heaps of ashes, twisted iron, a lone smoke-stack and great piles of ruined machinery, were left to tell the story, where for many years the whirl of industry had made music beside Pine Tree Creek. ”

“ The whole was a quaint conglomeration of nooks and corners, bits of wall, additions made here and there as afterthoughts, beams and roofs, that gave the mill the aspect of an old dismantled citadel; but ivy and all sorts of creeping plants had grown luxuriantly and kindly covered up such crevices as were too unsightly, casting a mantle of green over the old dwelling. Young ladies who passed that way used to stop and sketch Father Merlier's mill in their albums. ”

“ In the experiment of negro operatives the old factory was again opening up a vista to the South, for, as it was vainly pointed out to the negro population of Charleston, if the trial of colored operatives in the Vesta Mill had succeeded, plants all over the section would offer employment to negroes. [383] When this third effort to use the plant for a cotton mill came to nought, the machinery was moved to Gainesville, Georgia, and though the top of the new mill was carried away by a cyclone almost as soon as completed, the company is now doing well in its new location. ”

“ Everyone likes to play in the water, so we went to work about August 1, 1960. You can well imagine the condition of the mill. Windows were shattered, the sills were powder, the roof practically gone, and the building had a definite cant to the east’ard. It really looked hopeless.
Fortunately, most of the ancient machinery—the stones, gears, brakes, and chutes—were still intact, even the miller’s little desk where he kept his records, and the ancient bin for storage.
The beams, the corner post studs, etc. are of tremendous size and all mortised, tenoned and dowelled, and hard as rock. ”