Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time

“You never spoke a truer word,” said Ruth, “and my child shall cross it for the last time with me.”

“Humph!” said the doctor, “and you no better than a beggar! The law says if the mother can’t support her children, the grand-parents shall do it.”

“The mother can– the mother will,” said Ruth. “I have already earned enough for their support.”

“Well, if you have, which I doubt, I hope you earned it honestly,” said the old lady.

Ruth’s heightened color was the only reply to this taunt. Tying her handkerchief over Katy’s bare head, and wrapping the trembling child in a shawl she had provided, she bore her to a carriage, where Mr. Walter and his brother-in-law, (Mr. Grey,) with little Nettie, awaited them; the door was quickly closed, and the carriage whirled off. The two gentlemen alternately wiped their eyes, and looked out the window as Katy, trembling, crying, and laughing, clung first to her mother, and then to little Nettie, casting anxious, frightened glances toward the prison she had left, as the carriage receded.

Weeping seemed to be infectious. Ruth cried and laughed, and Mr. Grey and Mr. Walter seemed both to have lost the power of speech. Little Nettie was the first to break the spell by offering to lend Katy her bonnet.

“We will do better than that,” said Ruth, smiling through her tears; “we will get one for Katy when we stop. See here, Katy;” and Ruth tossed a purse full of money into Katy’s lap. “You know, mother said she would come for you as soon as she earned the money.”

“Yes, and I knew you would, mother; but – it was so very – ” and the child’s lips began to quiver again.

“She is so excited, poor thing,” said Ruth, drawing her to her bosom; “don’t talk about it now, Katy; lean your head on me and take a nice nap;” and the weary child nestled up to her mother, while Nettie put one finger on her lip, with a sagacious look at Mr. Walter, as much as to say, “I will keep still if you will.”

“She does not resemble you as much as Nettie does,” said Mr. Grey to Ruth, in a whisper.

“She is like her father,” said Ruth; the “resemblance is quite startling when she is sleeping; the same breadth of forehead, the same straight nose, and full lips.

“Yes, it has often been a great solace to me,” said Ruth, after a pause, “to sit at Katy’s bedside, and aid memory by gazing at features which recalled so vividly the loved and lost;” and she kissed the little nestler.

“Nettie,” said Mr. Walter, “is Ruth 2d, in face, form and feature.”

“I wish the resemblance ended there,” whispered Ruth, with a sigh. “These rose-tinted dawns too often foreshadow the storm-cloud.”

CHAPTER LXXXII

An hour after the conversation narrated in the last chapter, the driver stopped at a fine-looking hotel.

“This is the place, then, where you are going to stay for a few weeks, before you leave this part of the country for – ,” said Mr. Walter; “allow me to speak for a dinner for us all; such a day as this does not dawn on us often in this world;” and he glanced affectionately at little Katy.

The party was soon seated round a plentifully-furnished table. Nettie stopped at every other mouthful to look into Katy’s eyes, or to kiss her, while little Katy gazed about bewilderingly, and grasped her mother’s hand tightly whenever her ear caught the sound of a strange voice or footstep.

“Will you have some soup, little puss?” said Mr. Walter, after they were seated at the table, pulling one of Nettie’s long curls.

“Ask my mother,” replied the child, with a quizzical look; “she’s the soup-erintendent.”

Mr. Walter threw up his hands, and a general shout followed this precocious sally.

“Come, come,” said Mr. Walter, when he had done laughing; “you have begun too early, little puss; come here and let me feel your head. I must take a phrenological look at you. Bless me! what an affectionate little creature you must be,” said he, passing his hand over her head; “stick a pin there now, while I examine the rest of your bumps.”

“You must not stick a pin in my head,” said Nettie; “I don’t like that way of expressing an o-pin-ion.”

“No further examination is necessary,” said the extinguished Mr. Walter; “I have done with you, Miss Nettie. What do you mean?” whispered he to Ruth, “by having such a child as that? Are we going to have another genius in the family?”

“I don’t know about that,” said Ruth, laughing; “she often says such things when she gets excited and hilarious, but I never encourage it by notice, and you must not; my physician told me not to teach her anything, and by all means not to let her see the inside of a schoolroom at present.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Walter, “Miss Nettie and I must have a tilt at punning some day. You had better engage, Ruth, to furnish the Knickerbocker with smart repartees for his ‘Children’s Table,’ from your own fireside.”

“Prenez garde,” whispered Ruth, “don’t spoil her. Such a child needs careful training; she is high-spirited, warm-hearted, and sensitive;” and Ruth sighed.

“I interpret your thoughts,” said Mr. Walter; “but we must have no backward glances to-day. Those children will never suffer what you have suffered; few women ever did. Ruth, for the thousandth time I tell you, you are a brave woman!”

“ – Upon my word,” said Mr. Walter, suddenly, blushing and thrusting his hand in his pocket, “I have committed the sin so common to all man-kind; carried letters for you round in my pocket all this time, without delivering them: here they are. I never saw a woman have so many letters as you do, ‘Floy;’ you’ll need a private secretary before long.”

Ruth broke the seal of one, saying, “You’ll excuse me a few moments,” and read:

“To ‘Floy’:

“Dear Madam, – We have established a very successful Infant School in our neighborhood, numbering about fifty pupils. Our first anniversary occurs next month. It is our intention to gather together the parents and children, and have a sort of jubilee; hymns will be sung, and short pieces spoken. We should be very much obliged to you if you would write us a little dialogue to be repeated by two little girls, of the age of six; something sweet and simple, such as you know how to write. We make no apology for thus intruding on your time, because we know your heart is with the children.

“Yours respectfully, John Dean.“Secretary of the Leftbow Infant School.”

“Patience, gentlemen, while I read No. 2,” said Ruth. No. 2 ran as follows:

“Dear ‘Floy’:

“Old Guardy has sent me up to this academy. I hate academies. I hate Guardy’s. I hate everything but snipe shooting and boating. Just now I am in a horrid fix. Every fellow in this academy has to write a composition once a week, I cannot do it. I never could. My talents don’t lie in that way. I don’t know where they do lie. What I want of you is to write those compositions for me. You can do it just as easy as water runs down hill. You could scratch one off while I am nibbing my pen. Old Phillips will think they are uncommon smart for me; but never mind, I shall keep dark, and you are such a good soul I know you can’t refuse. My cigars have been out two whole days; so you may know that I have no funds, else I would send you a present.

“Yours truly, Hal. Hunnewell.”

After glancing over this letter Ruth broke into a merry laugh, and saying, “This is too good to keep,” read it aloud for the amusement of the company, who unanimously voted Hal. Hunnewell a composition every week, for his precocious impudence.

“Come, now,” said Mr. Walter, as Ruth took up No. 3, “if you have another of the same sort, let us hear it, unless it be of a confidential nature.”

Ruth looked over the letter a moment, and then read:

“Dear ‘Floy’:

“Mamma has read me some of your stories. I like them very much. You say you love little children. Don’t you think we’ve got a bran new baby! It came last night when I was asleep in my trundle-bed. It is a little pink baby. Mamma says it will grow white by-and-bye. It has got such funny little fingers; they look all wrinkled, just like our maid’s when she has been at the wash-tub. Mother has to stay in bed with him to keep him warm, he’s such a little cold, shaky thing. He hasn’t a bit of hair, and he scowls like everything, but I guess he’ll be pretty by-and-bye. Anyhow I love him. I asked mother if I might not write and tell you about him, and she laughed and said, I don’t know who ‘Floy’ is, nor where she lives; but Uncle Jack (he gives me lots of candy and dolls) said that I must send it to ‘Floy’s’ publishers! I don’t know what a publisher is, and so I told Uncle Jack; and he laughed and said he would lose his guess if I didn’t have something to do with them one of these days. I don’t know what that meant either, and when I asked him, he said ‘go away, Puss.’ I think it is very nice to have an Uncle Jack at Christmas and New Year’s, but other times they only plague little children. I wish I could see you. How do you look? I guess you look like mamma; mamma has got blue eyes, and soft brown hair, and her mouth looks very pleasant when she smiles. Mamma’s voice is as sweet as a robin’s, so papa says. Papa is a great big man, so big that nobody could ever hurt me, or mamma. Papa wants to see you too. Won’t you write me a letter, a little letter all to myself? I’ve got a box made of rosewood, with a lock and key on it, where I’d hide it from Uncle Jack, (that would tease him!) Uncle Jack wants to see you too, but I hope you never will let him, for he’s such a terrible tease, he’d plague you dreadfully. I guess our baby would send his love to you if he only knew you. Please write me soon, and send it to Kitty Mills, care of Uncle Jack Mills, and please seal it up all tight, so he cannot peep into it.

“P.S. – I want you to write a book of stories for little girls, and don’t make them end bad, because it makes me cry; nor put any ghosts in them, because it scares me; or have any ‘moral’ down at the bottom, because Uncle Jack always asks me if I skipped it. Write something funny, won’t you? I like funny things, and fairy stories. Oh, I like fairy stories so much! Wasn’t it nice about the mice and the pumpkin, in Cinderella? Make them all end well, won’t you?

“Your affectionate little Kitty.”

“I suppose you do not feel any curiosity to know what the papers say about your book,” said Mr. Walter, as Ruth refolded her letters. “I have quite a stock of notices in my pocket, which I have saved up. You seem to have taken the public heart by storm. You could not desire better notices; and the best of it is, they are spontaneous – neither begged nor in a measure demanded, by a personal call upon the editors.”

“What on earth do you mean?” asked Ruth.

“Look at ‘the spirit of ‘76’ flashing from her eyes,” said Mr. Grey, laughing, as he pointed at Ruth.

“I mean this,” said Mr. Walter, “that not long since I expressed my surprise to an able critic and reviewer, that he could praise a certain book, which he must have known was entirely deficient in merit of any kind. His answer was: ‘The authoress of that book made a call on me at my office, deprecated in the strongest terms any adverse criticism in the paper with which I am connected; said that other papers would take their tone from mine, that it was her first book, and that her pen was her only means of support, &c., &c. What can a man do under such circumstances?’ said my informant.”

“How could she?” said Ruth. “Of what ultimate advantage could it be? It might have procured the sale of a few copies at first, but a book, like water, will find its level. But what astonishes me most of all is, that any able reviewer should be willing to risk his reputation as a critic by such promiscuous puffery. How are the people to know when he speaks his real sentiments? It strikes me,” said Ruth, laughing, “that such a critic should have some cabalistic mark by which the initiated may understand when he speaks truthfully. It is such a pity!” continued Ruth thoughtfully; “it so neutralizes criticism. It is such a pity, too, that an authoress could be found so devoid of self-respect as to do such a thing. It is such an injury to those women who would disdain so to fetter criticism; who would launch their book like a gallant ship, prepared for adverse gales, not sneaking near the shore, or lowering their flag for fear of a stray shot.”

“Do you know, Ruth,” said Mr. Walter, “when I hear you talk, I no longer wonder at Hyacinth’s lack of independence and common sense; his share must, by some unaccountable mistake, have been given to you in addition to your own. But where are the children?”

They looked around; Katy and Nettie, taking advantage of this prolonged discussion, had slid from the table, in company with a plate of nuts and raisins, and were holding an animated conversation in a further corner.

“Why! what a great, big mark on your arm, Katy,” exclaimed Nettie; “how did it come?”

“Hush!” replied Katy; “grandma did it. She talked very bad about mamma to grandpa, and I started to go up into my little room, because, you know, I couldn’t bear to hear it; and she called to me, and said, ‘Katy, what are you leaving the room for?’ and you know, Nettie, mamma teaches us always to tell the truth, so I said, ‘because I cannot bear to stay and hear you say what is not true about my mamma.’ And then grandma threw down her knitting, seized me by the arm, and set me down, oh, so hard, on a chair; and said, ‘but you shall hear it.’ Then, oh, Nettie, I could not hear it, so I put my fingers in both ears; and then she beat me, and left that place on my arm, and held both my hands while she made me listen.”

During this recital, Nettie’s eyes glowed like living coals. When Katy concluded, she clenched her little fists, and said:

“Katy, why didn’t you strike her?”

Katy shook her head, and said in a low tone, “Oh, Nettie, she would have killed me! When she got angry she looked just like that picture of Satan we saw once in the shop window.”

“Katy, I must do something to her,” said Nettie, closing her teeth together, and planting her tiny foot firmly upon the floor; “she shan’t talk so about mamma. Oh, if I was only a big woman!”

“I suppose we must forgive her,” said Katy thoughtfully.

“I won’t,” said the impulsive little Nettie, “never – never – never.”

“Then you cannot say your prayers,” said the wise little Katy; “‘forgive us, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.’”

“What a pity!” exclaimed the orthodox Nettie; “don’t you wish that hadn’t been put in? What shall we do, Katy?”

“Nettie,” said her mother, who had approached unnoticed, “what did you mean when you said just now, that you wished you were a big woman?”

Nettie hung her head for a minute, and twisted the corner of her apron irresolutely; at last she replied with a sudden effort, “you won’t love me, mamma, but I will tell you; I wanted to cut grandma’s head off.”

Little Katy laughed outright, as the idea of this Lilliputian combatant presented itself. Ruth looked serious. “That is not right, Nettie,” said she; “your grandmother is an unhappy, miserable old woman. She has punished herself worse than anybody else could punish her. She is more miserable than ever now, because I have earned money to support you and Katy. She might have made us all love her, and help to make her old age cheerful; but now, unless she repents, she will live miserably, and die forsaken, for nobody can love her with such a temper. This is a dreadful old age, Nettie!”

“I think I’ll forgive her,” said Nettie, jumping into her mother’s lap; “but I hope I shan’t ever hear her say anything against you, mother. I’m glad I wasn’t Katy. Didn’t you ever wish, Katy, that she might fall down stairs and break her neck, or catch a fever, or something?”

“Oh, mother, what a funny girl Nettie is!” said Katy, laughing till the tears came; “I had almost forgotten her queer ways! Oh, how grandmother would have boxed your ears, Nettie!”

The incorrigible Nettie cut one of her pirouettes across the room, and snapped her fingers by way of answer to this assertion.

While Ruth and her children were conversing, the two gentlemen were quite as absorbed in another corner of the apartment.

“It astonishes me,” said Mr. Grey to Mr. Walter, “that ‘Floy’ should be so little elated by her wonderful success.”

“It will cease to do so when you know her better,” said Mr. Walter; “the map of life has been spread out before her; she has stood singing on its breezy heights – she has lain weeping in its gloomy valleys. Flowers have strewn her pathway – and thorns have pierced her tender feet. The clusters of the promised land have moistened her laughing lip – the Dead Sea apple has mocked her wasted fingers. Rainbows have spanned her sky like a glory, and storms have beat pitilessly on her defenceless head. Eyes have beamed upon her smiling welcome. When wounded and smitten, she fainted by the way, the priest and the Levite have passed by on the other side. ‘Floy’ knows every phase of the human heart; she knows that she was none the less worthy because poor and unrecognized; she knows how much of the homage now paid her is due to the showy setting of the gem; therefore, she takes all these things at their true valuation. Then, my friend,” and Mr. Walter’s voice became tremulous, “amid all these ‘well done’ plaudits, the loved voice is silent. The laurel crown indeed is won, but the feet at which she fain would cast it have finished their toilsome earth-march.”

“It is time we gentlemen were going; let us talk business now,” said Mr. Walter, as Ruth returned from her conversation with the children. “How long did you propose remaining here, Ruth?”

“For a month or so,” she replied. “I have several matters I wish to arrange before bidding adieu to this part of the country, I shall try to get through as soon as possible, for I long to be settled in a permanent and comfortable home.”

“I shall return this way in a month or six weeks,” said Mr. Walter, “and if you are ready at that time, I shall be most happy to escort you and your children to your new residence.”

“Thank you,” said Ruth. “Good-bye, good-bye,” shouted both the children, as the two gentlemen left the room.

CHAPTER LXXXIII

“I don’t know about holding you both in my lap at once,” said Ruth smiling, as Nettie climbed up after Katy.

“Do, please,” said Nettie, “and now let us have a nice talk; tell us where we are going to live, mamma, and if we can have a kitty or a rabbit, or some live thing to play with, and if we are going to school, and if you are going to leave off writing now, and play with Katy and me, and go to walk with us, and ride with us. Shan’t we have some rides? What is the matter, mamma?” said the little chatterbox, noticing a tear in her mother’s eye.

“I was thinking, dear, how happy we are.”

“Isn’t that funny?” said Nettie to Katy, “that mamma should cry when she is happy? I never heard of such a thing. I don’t cry when I’m happy. Didn’t we have a good dinner, Katy? Oh, I like this house. It was such an old dark room we used to live in, and there was nothing pretty to look at, and mamma kept on writing, and I had nothing to play with, except a little mouse, who used to peep out of his hole, when it came dark, for some supper. I liked him, he was so cunning, but I couldn’t give him any supper, because – ” here the little chatterbox glanced at her mother, and then placing her mouth to Katy’s ear, whispered, with a look the gravity of which was irresistible, “because mamma couldn’t support a mouse.”

Ruth laughed heartily as she overheard the remark, and Nettie thought her mother more of a puzzle than ever that she should keep laughing and crying so in the wrong place.

“What have you there, Nettie?” asked Katy.

“Something,” said Nettie, looking very wise, as she hid her chubby hands under her pinafore. “It is a secret. Mamma and I know,” said she with a very important air, “don’t we, mamma? Would you tell Katy, mother, if you were me?”

“Certainly,” said Ruth; “you know it would not be pleasant to keep such a great secret from Katy.”

Nettie looked very searchingly into her mother’s eyes, but she saw nothing there but sincerity.

“Won’t you ever tell, Katy, ever? it is a terrible secret.”

“No,” replied Katy, laughing.

“Not even to Mr. Walter?” asked Nettie, who had learned to consider Mr. Walter as their best friend, and the impersonation of all that was manly and chivalrous.

Katy shook her head negatively.

“Well, then,” said Nettie, hanging her head with a pretty shame, “I’m in love!”

Katy burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, rocking herself to and fro, and ejaculating, “Oh! mamma! oh! did you ever? Oh, how funny!”

“Funny?” said Nettie, with the greatest naîvete, “it wasn’t funny at all; it was very nice. I’ll tell you all how it happened, Katy. You see I used to get so tired when you were away, when I had nobody to play with, and mamma kept up such a thinking. So mamma said I might go to a little free school opposite, half-a-day, when I felt like it, and perhaps that would amuse me. Mamma told the teacher not to trouble herself about teaching me much. Well, I sat on a little low bench, and right opposite me, across the room, was such a pretty little boy! his name was Neddy. He had on a blue jacket, with twelve bright buttons on it; I counted them; and little plaid pants and drab gaiters; and his cheeks were so rosy, and his hair so curly, and his eyes so bright, oh, Katy!” and Nettie clasped her little hands together in a paroxysm of admiration. “Well, Katy, he kept smiling at me, and in recess he used to give me half his apple, and once, when nobody was looking, —would you tell her mamma?” said Nettie, doubtfully, as she ran up to her mother. “Won’t you tell, now, Katy, certainly?” again asked Nettie.

“No,” promised Katy.

“Not even to Mr. Walter?”

“No.”

“Well, once, when the teacher wasn’t looking, Katy, he took a piece of chalk and wrote ‘Nettie’ on the palm of his hand, and held it up to me and then kissed it;” and Nettie hid her glowing face on Katy’s neck, whispering, “wasn’t it beautiful, Katy?”

“Yes,” replied Katy, trying to keep from laughing.

“Well,” said Nettie, “I felt most ashamed to tell mamma, I don’t know why, though. I believe I was afraid that she would call it ‘silly,’ or something; and I felt just as if I should cry if she did. But, Katy, she did not think it silly a bit. She said it was beautiful to be loved, and that it made everything on earth look brighter; and that she was glad little Neddy loved me, and that I might love him just as much as ever I liked – just the same as if he were a little girl. Wasn’t that nice?” asked Nettie. “I always mean to tell mamma everything; don’t you, Katy?”

“But you have not told Katy, yet, what you have hidden under your apron, there,” said Ruth.

“Sure enough,” said Nettie, producing a little picture. “Well, Neddy whispered to me one day in recess, that he had drawn a pretty picture on purpose for me, and that he was going to have a lottery; I don’t know what a lottery is; but he cut a great many slips of paper, some long and some short, and the one who got the longest was to have the picture. Then he put a little tiny mark on the end of the longest, so that I should know it; and then I got the picture, you know.”

“Why did he take all that trouble?” asked the practical Katy. “Why didn’t he give it to you right out, if he wanted to?”

“Because – because,” said Nettie, twirling her thumbs, and blushing with a little feminine shame at her boy-lover’s want of independence, “he said – he – was – afraid – the – boys – would – laugh at him if they found it out.”

“Well, then, I wouldn’t have taken it, if I had been you,” said the phlegmatic Katy.

“But, you know, I loved him so,” said Nettie naîvely.

CHAPTER LXXXIV

Days and weeks flew by. Katy and Nettie were never weary of comparing notes, and relating experiences. Nettie thought gloomy attics, scant fare and cross landladies, the climax of misery; and Katy considered a score of mile-stones, with Nettie and a loving mother at one end, and herself and a cross grandmother at the other, infinitely worse.