Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/210

200 easier for Jane Ann, remembering so keenly how strange they had felt before they attained the higher classes.

The last of the mist rolled away and the warm sun revealed all the river and the woods and pastures beyond. Ruth kissed her hand to it and then, hearing a door close softly below-stairs, she hurried her dressing and ran down to the farmhouse kitchen. The little, stooping figure of an old woman was bent above the stove, muttering in a sort of sing-song refrain:

"Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"

"Then let somebody else save your back and bones, Aunt Alviry!" cried Ruth, putting her arms around the old housekeeper's neck. "There! how good it is to see you again. Sit right down there. You are to play lady. I am going to get the breakfast."

"But your Uncle Jabez wants hot muffins, my pretty," objected Aunt Alvirah.

"And don't you suppose anybody can make muffins but you?" queried Ruth, blithely. "I made 'em out to Silver Ranch. Maria, the Mexican cook, taught me. Even Uncle Jabez will like them made by my recipe—now you see if he doesn't."

And the miller certainly praised the muffins—by eating a full half dozen of them. Of course, he did not say audibly that they were good.