Over time, Ruth’s cheery disposition softens Mercy’s tough attitude, and she visits the Red Mill. Ruth kindly tolerates her taunts, and promises that Mercy can someday come and stay with her back at Red Mill. She is an incredibly disagreeable girl that resents her disability and she takes it out on everybody. Ruth also goes to visit a lame girl named Mercy Curtis while at home. She makes two friends, in Tom and Helen Cameron, who are a wealthy merchant’s kids. Uncle Jabez grows even tougher after his precious cash box vanishes during a flood. Uncle Jabez doesn’t seem to care all that much for her, and all that he says to her is that she will have to earn her keep.

Ruth is incredibly disappointed in the rather cold reception that she gets. Ruth Fielding, who has just recently been orphaned, shows up in Cheslow, New York so she can live with Jabez Potter, her uncle, at the Red Mill with Aunt Alvirah Boggs, his housekeeper. “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill or, Jasper Parloe’s Secret” is the first novel in the “Ruth Fielding” series and was released in the year 1913. Ruth is also the prototype for the girl sleuths that came later, which includes the Dana Girls, Nancy Drew, and Beverly Gray. She also marries, something that is unusual for a main character in a Stratemeyer Syndicate series. In later titles, goes from boarding school and onto college, then into adulthood. Ruth Fielding starts the series as an orphan that comes to live with her miserly uncle. It was created by Edward Stratemeyer, who also wrote plot outlines for each book. The series was published by Cupples and Leon from 1913 until 1934, and featured thirty books. Bert Foster, 20-22 were penned by Elizabeth M. The first nineteen of the books, however were written by W. Not all of the writers that took up the pen of Alice B. Emerson, which is a pen name used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. The “Ruth Fielding” series of kids novels were each signed as Alice B.

Dear Ruth by Kim Fielding