Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time

CHAPTER LVII

“Doctor?” said Mrs. Hall, “put down that book, will you? I want to talk to you a bit; there you’ve sat these three hours, without stirring, except to brush the flies off your nose, and my tongue actually aches keeping still.”

“Sh-sh-sh,” said the doctor, running his forefinger along to guide his purblind eyes safely to the end of the paragraph. “Sh-sh. ‘It – is es-ti-ma-ted by Captain Smith – that – there – are – up’ards – of – ten – hundred – human – critters – in – the – Nor-West – sett-le-ment.’ Well – Mis. Hall – well – ” said the doctor, laying a faded ribbon mark between the leaves of the book, and pushing his spectacles back on his forehead, “what’s to pay now? what do you want of me?”

“I’ve a great mind as ever I had to eat,” said the old lady, pettishly, “to knit twice round the heel of this stocking, before I answer you; what do you think I care about Captain Smith? Travelers always lie; it is a part of their trade, and if they don’t it’s neither here nor there to me. I wish that book was in the Red Sea.”

“I thought you didn’t want it read,” retorted the irritating old doctor.

“Now I suppose you call that funny,” said the old lady. “I call it simply ridiculous for a man of your years to play on words in such a frivolous manner. What I was going to say was this, i. e. if I can get a chance to say it, if you have given up all idea of getting Harry’s children, I haven’t, and now is the time to apply for Katy again; for, according to all accounts, Ruth is getting along poorly enough.”

“How did you hear?” asked the doctor.

“Why, my milliner, Miss Tiffkins, has a nephew who tends in a little grocery-shop near where Ruth boards, and he says that she buys a smaller loaf every time she comes to the store, and that the milkman told him that she only took a pint of milk a day of him now; then Katy has not been well, and what she did for doctors and medicines is best known to herself; she’s so independent that she never would complain if she had to eat paving stones. The best way to get the child will be to ask her here on a visit, and say we want to cure her up a little with country air. You understand? that will throw dust in Ruth’s eyes, and then we will take our own time about letting her go back you know. Miss Tiffkins says her nephew says that people who come into the grocery-shop are very curious to know who Ruth is; and old Mr. Flake, who keeps it, says that it wouldn’t hurt her any, if she is a lady, to stop and talk a little, like the rest of his customers; he says, too, that her children are as close-mouthed as their mother, for when he just asked Katy what business her father used to do, and what supported them now he was dead, and if they lived all the time on bread and milk, and a few such little questions, Katy answered, ‘Mamma does not allow me to talk to strangers,’ and went out of the shop, with her loaf of bread, as dignified as a little duchess.”

“Like mother, like child,” said the doctor; “proud and poor, proud and poor; that tells the whole story. Well, shall I write to Ruth, Mis. Hall, about Katy?”

“No,” said the old lady, “let me manage that; you will upset the whole business if you do. I’ve a plan in my head, and to-morrow, after breakfast, I’ll take the old chaise, and go in after Katy.”

In pursuance of this plan, the old lady, on the following day, climbed up into an old-fashioned chaise, and turned the steady old horse’s nose in the direction of the city; jerking at the reins, and clucking and gee-ing him up, after the usual awkward fashion of sexegenarian female drivers. Using Miss Tiffkin’s land-mark, the little black grocery-shop, for a guide-board, she soon discovered Ruth’s abode; and so well did she play her part in commiserating Ruth’s misfortunes, and Katy’s sickly appearance, that the widow’s kind heart was immediately tortured with the most unnecessary self-reproaches, which prepared the way for an acceptance of her invitation for Katy “for a week or two;” great promises, meanwhile, being held out to the child of “a little pony to ride,” and various other tempting lures of the same kind. Still little Katy hesitated, clinging tightly to her mother’s dress, and looking, with her clear, searching eyes, into her grandmother’s face, in a way that would have embarrassed a less artful manœuverer. The old lady understood the glance, and put it on file, to be attended to at her leisure; it being no part of her present errand to play the unamiable. Little Katy, finally won over, consented to make the visit, and the old chaise was again set in motion for home.

CHAPTER LVIII

“How d’ye do, Ruth?” asked Mr. Ellet, the next morning, as he ran against Ruth in the street; “glad you have taken my advice, and done a sensible thing at last.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” answered Ruth.

“Why, the doctor told me yesterday that you had given Katy up to them, to bring up; you would have done better if you had sent off Nettie too.”

“I have not ‘given Katy up,’” said Ruth, starting and blushing deeply; “and they could not have understood it so; she has only gone on a visit of a fortnight, to recruit a little.”

“Pooh – pooh!” replied Mr. Ellet. “The thing is quietly over with; now don’t make a fuss. The old folks expect to keep her. They wrote to me about it, and I approved of it. It’s the best thing all round; and, as I just said, it would have been better still if Nettie had gone, too. Now don’t make a fool of yourself; you can go once in awhile, I suppose, to see the child.”

“How can I go?” asked Ruth, looking her father calmly in the face; “it costs fifty cents every trip, by railroad, and you know I have not the money.”

“That’s for you to decide,” answered the father coldly; “I can’t be bothered about such trifles. It is the way you always do, Ruth, whenever I see you; but it is time I was at my office. Don’t make a fool of yourself, now; mind what I tell you, and let well alone.”

“Father,” said Ruth; “father – ”

“Can’t stop – can’t stop,” said Mr. Ellet, moving rapidly down street, to get out of his daughter’s way.

“Can it be possible,” thought Ruth, looking after him, “that he could connive at such duplicity? Was the old lady’s sympathy a mere stratagem to work upon my feelings? How unnecessarily I reproached myself with my supposed injustice to her? Can good people do such things? Is religion only a fable? No, no; ‘let God be true, and every man a liar.’”

CHAPTER LIX

“Is this ‘The Daily Type’ office?” asked Ruth of a printer’s boy, who was rushing down five steps at a time, with an empty pail in his hand.

“All you have to do is to ask, mem. You’ve got a tongue in your head, haven’t ye? women folks generally has,” said the little ruffian.

Ruth, obeying this civil invitation, knocked gently at the office door. A whir of machinery, and a bad odor of damp paper and cigar smoke, issued through the half-open crack.

“I shall have to walk in,” said Ruth, “they never will hear my feeble knock amid all this racket and bustle;” and pushing the door ajar, she found herself in the midst of a group of smokers, who, in slippered feet, and with heels higher than their heads, were whiffing and laughing, amid the pauses of conversation, most uproariously. Ruth’s face crimsoned as heels and cigars remained in statu quo, and her glance was met by a rude stare.

“I called to see if you would like a new contributor to your paper,” said Ruth; “if so, I will leave a few samples of my articles for your inspection.”

“What do you say, Bill?” said the person addressed; “drawer full as usual, I suppose, isn’t it? more chaff than wheat, too, I’ll swear; don’t want any, ma’am; come now, Jo, let’s hear the rest of that story; shut the door, ma’am, if you please.”

“Are you the editor of the ‘Parental Guide’?” said Ruth, to a thin, cadaverous-looking gentleman, in a white neck-cloth, and green spectacles, whose editorial sanctum was not far from the office she had just left.

“I am.”

“Do you employ contributors for your paper?”

“Sometimes.”

“Shall I leave you this MS. for your inspection, sir?”

“Just as you please.”

“Have you a copy of your paper here, sir, from which I could judge what style of articles you prefer?”

At this, the gentleman addressed raised his eyes for the first time, wheeled his editorial arm-chair round, facing Ruth, and peering over his green spectacles, remarked:

“Our paper, madam, is most em-phat-i-cal-ly a paper devoted to the interests of religion; no frivolous jests, no love-sick ditties, no fashionable sentimentalism, finds a place in its columns. This is a serious world, madam, and it ill becomes those who are born to die, to go dancing through it. Josephus remarks that the Saviour of the world was never known to smile. I seldom smile. Are you a religious woman, madam?”

“I endeavor to become so,” answered Ruth.

“V-e-r-y good; what sect?”

“Presbyterian.”

At this the white neck-clothed gentleman moved back his chair: “Wrong, madam, all wrong; I was educated by the best of fathers, but he was not a Presbyterian; his son is not a Presbyterian; his son’s paper sets its face like a flint against that heresy; no, madam, we shall have no occasion for your contributions; a hope built on a Presbyterian foundation, is built on the sand. Good morning, madam.”

Did Ruth despair? No! but the weary little feet which for so many hours had kept pace with hers, needed a reprieve. Little Nettie must go home, and Ruth must read the office signs as she went along, to prepare for new attempts on the morrow.

To-morrow? Would a brighter morrow ever come? Ruth thought of her children, and said again with a strong heart —it will; and taking little Netty upon her lap she divided with her their frugal supper – a scanty bowl of bread and milk.

Ruth could not but acknowledge to herself that she had thus far met with but poor encouragement, but she knew that to climb, she must begin at the lowest round of the ladder. It were useless to apply to a long-established leading paper for employment, unless endorsed by some influential name. Her brother had coolly, almost contemptuously, set her aside; and yet in the very last number of his Magazine, which accident threw in her way, he pleaded for public favor for a young actress, whom he said had been driven by fortune from the sheltered privacy of home, to earn her subsistence upon the stage, and whose earnest, strong-souled nature, he thought, should meet with a better welcome than mere curiosity. “Oh, why not one word for me?” thought Ruth; “and how can I ask of strangers a favor which a brother’s heart has so coldly refused?”

It was very disagreeable applying to the small papers, many of the editors of which, accustomed to dealing with hoydenish contributors, were incapable of comprehending that their manner towards Ruth had been marked by any want of that respectful courtesy due to a dignified woman. From all such contact Ruth shrank sensitively; their free-and-easy tone fell upon her ear so painfully, as often to bring the tears to her eyes. Oh, if Harry – but she must not think of him.

The next day Ruth wandered about the business streets, looking into office-entries, reading signs, and trying to gather from their “know-nothing” hieroglyphics, some light to illumine her darkened pathway. Day after day chronicled only repeated failures, and now, notwithstanding she had reduced their already meagre fare, her purse was nearly empty.

CHAPTER LX

It was a warm, sultry Sabbath morning; not a breath of air played over the heated roofs of the great, swarming city. Ruth sat in her little, close attic, leaning her head upon her hand, weary, languid and dejected. Life seemed to her scarce worth the pains to keep its little flame flickering. A dull pain was in her temples, a heavy weight upon her heart. Other Sabbaths, happy Sabbaths, came up to her remembrance; earth looked so dark to her now, heaven so distant, God’s ways so inscrutable.

Hark to the Sabbath-bell!

Ruth took little Nettie by the hand, and led her slowly to church. Other families, unbroken families, passed her on their way; families whose sunny thresholds the destroying angel had never crossed. Oh why the joy to them, the pain to her? Sadly she entered the church, and took her accustomed seat amid the worshippers. The man of God opened the holy book. Sweet and clear fell upon Ruth’s troubled ear these blessed words: “There remaineth, therefore, a rest for the people of God.”

The bliss, the joy of heaven was pictured; life, – mysterious, crooked, unfathomable life, made clear to the eye of faith; sorrow, pain, suffering, ignominy even, made sweet for His sake, who suffered all for us.

Ruth weeps! weeps that her faith was for an instant o’erclouded; weeps that she shrank from breasting the foaming waves at the bidding of Him who said, “It is I, be not afraid.” And she, who came there fluttering with a broken wing, went away singing, soaring.

Oh man of God! pressed down with many cares, anxious and troubled, sowing but not reaping, fearing to bring in no sheaves for the harvest, be of good courage. The arrow shot at a venture may to thine eye fall aimless; but in the Book of Life shalt thou read many an answer to the wrestling prayer, heard in thy closet by God alone.

CHAPTER LXI

“Fine day, Mr. Ellet,” said a country clergyman to Ruth’s father, as he sat comfortably ensconced in his counting-room. “I don’t see but you look as young as you did when I saw you five years ago. Life has gone smoothly with you; you have been remarkably prospered in business, Mr. Ellet.”

“Yes, yes,” said the old gentleman, who was inordinately fond of talking of himself; “yes, yes, I may say that, though I came into Massachusetts a-foot, with a loaf of bread and a sixpence, and now, – well, not to boast, I own this house, and the land attached, beside my country-seat, and have a nice little sum stowed away in the bank for a rainy day; yes, Providence has smiled on my enterprise; my affairs are, as you say, in a very prosperous condition. I hope religion flourishes in your church, brother Clark.”

“Dead – dead – dead, as the valley of dry bones,” replied Mr. Clark with a groan. “I have been trying to ‘get up a revival;’ but Satan reigns – Satan reigns, and the right arm of the church seems paralysed. Sometimes I think the stumbling-block is the avaricious and money-grabbing spirit of its professors.”

“Very likely,” answered Mr. Ellet; “there is a great deal too much of that in the church. I alluded to it myself, in my remarks at the last church-meeting. I called it the accursed thing, the Achan in the camp, the Jonah which was to hazard the Lord’s Bethel, and I humbly hope my remarks were blessed. I understand from the last Monthly Concert, brother Clark, that there are good accounts from the Sandwich Islands; twenty heathen admitted to the church in one day; good news that.”

“Yes,” groaned brother Clark, to whose blurred vision the Sun of Righteousness was always clouded; “yes, but think how many more are still, and always will be, worshipping idols; think how long it takes a missionary to acquire a knowledge of the language; and think how many, just as they become perfected in it, die of the climate, or are killed by the natives, leaving their helpless young families to burden the ‘American Board.’ Very sad, brother Ellet; sometimes, when I think of all this outlay of money and human lives, and so little accomplished, I – ” (here a succession of protracted sneezes prevented Mr. Clark from finishing the sentence.)

“Yes,” replied Mr. Ellet, coming to the rescue; “but if only one heathen had been saved, there would be joy forever in heaven. He who saveth a soul from death, you know, hideth a multitude of sins. I think I spoke a word in season, the other day, which has resulted in one admission, at least, to our church.”

“It is to be hoped the new member will prove steadfast,” said the well-meaning but hypochondriac brother Clark, with another groan. “Many a hopeful convert goes back to the world, and the last state of that soul is worse than the first. Dreadful, dreadful. I am heartsick, brother Ellet.”

“Come,” said Ruth’s father, tapping him on the shoulder; “dinner is ready, will you sit down with us? First salmon of the season, green peas, boiled fowl, oysters, &c.; your country parishioners don’t feed you that way, I suppose.”

“N – o,” said brother Clark, “no; there is no verse in the whole Bible truer, or more dishonored in the observance, than this, ‘The laborer is worthy of his hire.’ I’ll stay to dinner, brother Ellet. You have, I bless God, a warm heart and a liberal one; your praise is in all the churches.”

A self satisfied smile played round the lips of Ruth’s father, at this tribute to his superior sanctity; and, seating himself at the well-spread table, he uttered an unusually lengthy grace.

“Some more supper, please, Mamma,” vainly pleaded little Nettie.

CHAPTER LXII

Ruth had found employment. Ruth’s MSS. had been accepted at the office of “The Standard.” Yes, an article of hers was to be published in the very next issue. The remuneration was not what Ruth had hoped, but it was at least a beginning, a stepping-stone. What a pity that Mr. Lescom’s (the editor’s) rule was, not to pay a contributor, even after a piece was accepted, until it was printed – and Ruth so short of funds. Could she hold out to work so hard, and fare so rigidly? for often there was only a crust left at night; but, God be thanked, she should now earn that crust! It was a pity that oil was so dear, too, because most of her writing must be done at night, when Nettie’s little prattling voice was hushed, and her innumerable little wants forgotten in sleep. Yes, it was a pity that good oil was so dear, for the cheaper kind crusted so soon on the wick, and Ruth’s eyes, from excessive weeping, had become quite tender, and often very painful. Then it would be so mortifying should a mistake occur in one of her articles. She must write very legibly, for type-setters were sometimes sad bunglers, making people accountable for words that would set Worcester’s or Webster’s hair on end; but, poor things, they worked hard too – they had their sorrows, thinking, long into the still night, as they scattered the types, more of their dependent wives and children, than of the orthography of a word, or the rhetoric of a sentence.

Scratch – scratch – scratch, went Ruth’s pen; the dim lamp flickering in the night breeze, while the deep breathing of the little sleepers was the watchword, On! to her throbbing brow and weary fingers. One o’clock – two o’clock – three o’clock – the lamp burns low in the socket. Ruth lays down her pen, and pushing back the hair from her forehead, leans faint and exhausted against the window-sill, that the cool night-air may fan her heated temples. How impressive the stillness! Ruth can almost hear her own heart beat. She looks upward, and the watchful stars seem to her like the eyes of gentle friends. No, God would not forsake her! A sweet peace steals into her troubled heart, and the overtasked lids droop heavily over the weary eyes.

Ruth sleeps.

Daylight! Morning so soon? All night Ruth has leaned with her head on the window-sill, and now she wakes unrefreshed from the constrained posture; but she has no time to heed that, for little Nettie lies moaning in her bed with pain; she lifts the little creature in her lap, rocks her gently, and kisses her cheek; but still little Nettie moans. Ruth goes to the drawer and looks in her small purse (Harry’s gift); it is empty! then she clasps her hands and looks again at little Nettie. Must Nettie die for want of care? Oh, if Mr. Lescom would only advance her the money for the contributions he had accepted, but he said so decidedly that “it was a rule he never departed from;” and there were yet five long days before the next paper would be out. Five days! what might not happen to Nettie in five days? There was her cousin, Mrs. Millet, but she had muffled her furniture in linen wrappers, and gone to the springs with her family, for the summer months; there was her father, but had he not said “Remember, if you will burden yourself with your children, you must not look to me for help.” Kissing little Nettie’s cheek she lays her gently on the bed, whispering in a husky voice, “only a few moments, Nettie; mamma will be back soon.” She closes the door upon the sick child, and stands with her hand upon her bewildered brow, thinking.

“I beg your pardon, madam; the entry is so very dark I did not see you,” said Mr. Bond; “you are as early a riser as myself.”

“My child is sick,” answered Ruth, tremulously; “I was just going out for medicine.”

“If you approve of Homœopathy,” said Mr. Bond, “and will trust me to prescribe, there will be no necessity for your putting yourself to that trouble; I always treat myself homœopathically in sickness, and happen to have a small supply of those medicines by me.”

Ruth’s natural independence revolted at the idea of receiving a favor from a stranger.

“Perhaps you disapprove of Homœopathy,” said Mr. Bond, mistaking the cause of her momentary hesitation; “it works like a charm with children; but if you prefer not to try it, allow me to go out and procure you whatever you desire in the way of medicine; you will not then be obliged to leave your child.”

Here was another dilemma – what should Ruth do? Why, clearly accept his first offer; there was an air of goodness and sincerity about him, which, added to his years, seemed to invite her confidence.

Mr. Bond stepped in, looked at Nettie, and felt her pulse. “Ah, little one, we will soon have you better,” said he, as he left the room to obtain his little package of medicines.

“Thank you,” said Ruth, with a grateful smile, as he administered to Nettie some infinitesimal pills.

“Not in the least,” said Mr. Bond. “I learned two years since to doctor myself in this way, and I have often had the pleasure of relieving others in emergencies like this, from my little Homœopathic stores. You will find that your little girl will soon fall into a sweet sleep, and awake much relieved; if you are careful with her, she will, I think, need nothing more in the way of medicine, or if she should, my advice is quite at your service;” and, taking his pitcher of water in his hand, he bowed respectfully, and wished Ruth good morning.

Who was he? what was he? Whir – whir – there was the noise again! That he was a man of refined and courteous manners, was very certain. Ruth felt glad he was so much her senior; he seemed so like what Ruth had sometimes dreamed a kind father might be, that it lessened the weight of the obligation. Already little Nettie had ceased moaning; her little lids began to droop, and her skin, which had been hot and feverish, became moist and cool. “May God reward him, whoever he may be,” said Ruth. “Surely it is blessed to trust!”

CHAPTER LXIII

It was four o’clock of a hot August afternoon. The sun had crept round to the front piazza of the doctor’s cottage. No friendly trees warded off his burning rays, for the doctor “liked a prospect;” i. e. he liked to sit at the window and count the different trains which whizzed past in the course of the day; the number of wagons, and gigs, and carriages, that rolled lazily up the hill; to see the village engine, the “Cataract,” drawn out on the green for its weekly ablutions, and to count the bundles of shingles that it took to roof over Squire Ruggles’ new barn. No drooping vines, therefore, or creepers, intruded between him and this pleasant “prospect.” The doctor was an utilitarian; he could see “no use” in such things, save to rot timber and harbor vermin. So a wondrous glare of white paint, (carefully renewed every spring,) blinded the traveler whose misfortune it was to pass the road by the doctor’s house. As I said, it was now four o’clock. The twelve o’clock dinner was long since over. The Irish girl had rinsed out her dish-towels, hung them out the back door to dry, and gone down to the village store to buy some new ribbons advertised as selling at an “immense sacrifice” by the disinterested village shopkeeper.

Let us peep into the doctor’s sitting room; the air of this room is close and stifled, for the windows must be tightly closed, lest some audacious fly should make his mark on the old lady’s immaculate walls. A centre table stands in the middle of the floor, with a copy of “The Religious Pilot,” last year’s Almanac, A Directory, and “The remarkable Escape of Eliza Cook, who was partially scalped by the Indians.” On one side of the room hangs a piece of framed needle-work, by the virgin fingers of the old lady, representing an unhappy female, weeping over a very high and very perpendicular tombstone, which is hieroglyphiced over with untranslateable characters in red worsted, while a few herbs, not mentioned by botanists, are struggling for existence at its base. A friendly willow-tree, of a most extraordinary shade of blue green, droops in sympathy over the afflicted female, while a nondescript looking bird, resembling a dropsical bull-frog, suspends his song and one leg, in the foreground. It was principally to preserve this chef-d’œuvre of art, that the windows were hermetically sealed to the entrance of vagrant flies.