Ruth Hall, by "Fanny Fern" (NY: Mason Brothers, 1854)
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CHAPTER LIV.
"What is it on the gate? Spell it, mother," said Katy, looking wistfully through the iron fence at the terraced banks, smoothly-rolled gravel walks, plats of flowers, and grape-trellised arbors; "what is it on the gate, mother?"
"'Insane Hospital,' dear; a place for crazy people."
"Want to walk round, ma'am?" asked the gate-keeper, as Katy poked her little head in; "can, if you like." Little Katy's eyes pleaded eloquently; flowers were to her another name for happiness, and Ruth passed in.
"I should like to live here, mamma," said Katy.
Ruth shuddered, and pointed to a pale face pressed close against the grated window. Fair rose the building in its architectural proportions; the well-kept lawn was beautiful to the eye; but, alas! there was helpless age, whose only disease was too long a lease of life for greedy heirs. There, too, was the fragile wife, to whom love was
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breath--being!--forgotten by the world and him in whose service her bloom had withered, insane--only in that her love had outlived his patience.
"Poor creatures!" exclaimed Ruth, as they peered out from one window after another. "Have you had many deaths here?" asked she of the gate-keeper.
"Some, ma'am. There is one corpse in the house now; a married lady, Mrs. Leon."
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Ruth, "my friend Mary."
"Died yesterday, ma'am; her husband left her here for her health, while he went to Europe."
"Can I see the Superintendent," asked Ruth; "I must speak to him."
Ruth followed the gate-keeper up the ample steps into a wide hall, and from thence into a small parlor; after waiting what seemed to her an age of time, Mr. Tibbetts, the Superintendent, entered. He was a tall, handsome man, between forty and fifty, with a very imposing air and address.
"I am pained to learn," said Ruth, "that a friend of mine, Mrs. Leon, lies dead here; can I see the body?"
"Are you a relative of that lady?" asked Mr. Tibbetts, with a keen glance at Ruth.
"No," replied Ruth, "but she was very dear to me. The last time I saw her, not many months since, she was in tolerable health. Has she been long with you, Sir?"
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"About two months," replied Mr. Tibbetts; "she was hopelessly crazy, refused food entirely, so we were obliged to force it. Her husband, who is an intimate friend of mine, left her under my care, and went to the Continent. A very fine man, Mr. Leon."
Ruth did not feel inclined to respond to this remark, but repeated her request to see Mary.
"It is against the rules of our establishment to permit this to any but relatives," said Mr. Tibbetts.
"I should esteem it a great favor if you would break through your rules in my case," replied Ruth; "it will be a great consolation to me to have seen her once more;" and her voice faltered.
The appeal was made so gently, yet so firmly, that Mr. Tibbetts reluctantly yielded.
The matron of the establishment, Mrs. Bunce, (whose advent was heralded by the clinking of a huge bunch of keys at her waist,) soon after came in. Mrs. Bunce was gaunt, sallow and bony, with restless, yellowish, glaring black eyes, very much resembling those of a cat in the dark; her motions were quick, brisk, and angular; her voice loud, harsh, and wiry. Ruth felt an instantaneous aversion to her; which was not lessened by MRs. Bunce asking, as they passed through the parlor-door:
"Fond of looking at corpses, ma'am? I 've seen a great many in my day; I 've laid out more 'n twenty people, first and last, with my own hands. Relation of Mrs.
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Leon's, perhaps?" said she, curiously peering under Ruth's Bonnet. "Ah, only a friend?"
"This way, if you please, ma'am;" and on they went, through one corridor, then another, the massive doors swinging heavily to on their hinges, and fastening behind them as they closed.
"Hark!" said Ruth, with a quick, terrified look, "what 's that?"
"Oh, nothing," replied the matron, "only a crazy woman in that room yonder, screaming for her child. Her husband ran away from her and carried off her child with him, to spite her, and now she fancies every footstep she hears is his. Visitors always thinks she screams awful. She can't harm you, ma'am," said the matron, mistaking the cause of Ruth's shudder, "for she is chained. She went to law about the child, and the law, you see, as it generally is, was on the man's side; and it just upset her. She 's a sight of trouble to manage. If she was to catch sight of your little girl out there in the garden, she 'd spring at her through them bars like a panther; but we don't have to whip her very often."
"Down here," said the matron, taking the shuddering Ruth by the hand, and descending a flight of stone steps, into a dark passage-way. "Tired ar n't you?"
"Wait a bit, please," said Ruth, leaning against the stone wall, for her limbs were trembling so violently that she could scarcely bear her weight.
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"Now," said she, (after a pause,) with a firmer voice and step.
"This way," said Mrs. Bunce, advancing towards a rough deal box which stood on a table in a niche of the cellar, and setting a small lamp upon it; "she did n't look no better than that, ma'am, for a long while before she died."
Ruth gave one hurried glance at the corpse, and buried her face in her hands. Well might she fail to recognize in that emaciated form, those sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, the beautiful Mary Leon. Well might she shudder, as the gibbering screams of the maniacs over head echoed through the stillness of that cold, gloomy vault.
"Were you with her at the last?" asked Ruth of the matron, wiping away her tears.
"No," replied she; "the afternoon she died she said, 'I want to be alone,' and, not thinking her near her end, I took my work and sat just outside the door. I looked in once, about half an hour after, but she lay quietly asleep, with her cheek in her hand,--so. By-and-by I thought I would speak to her, so I went in, and saw her lying just as she did when I looked at her before. I spoke to her, but she did not answer me; she was dead, ma'am."
O, how mournfully sounded in Ruth's ears those plaintive words, "I want to be alone." Poor Mary! aye, better even in death 'alone,' than gazed at by careless, hire-
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ling eyes, since he who should have closed these drooping lids, had wearied of her faded light.
"Did she speak of no one?" asked Ruth; "mention no one?"
"No--yes; I recollect now that she said something about calling Ruth; I did n't pay any attention, for they don't know what they are saying, you know. She scribbled something, too, on a bit of paper; I found it under her pillow, when I laid her out. I should n't wonder if it was in my pocket now; I have n't thought of it since. Ah! here it is," said Mrs. Bunce, as she handed the slip of paper to Ruth.
It ran thus:--"I am not crazy Ruth, no, no--but I shall be; the air of this place stifles me; I grow weaker--weaker. I cannot die here; for the love of heaven, dear Ruth, come and take me away."
"Only three mourners,--a woman and two little girls," exclaimed a by-stander, as Ruth followed Mary Leon to her long home.
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CHAPTER LV.
The sudden change in Mrs. Skiddy's matrimonial prospects, necessitated Ruth to seek other quarters. With a view to still more rigid economy, she hired a room without board, in the lower part of the city.
Mrs. Waters, her new landlady, was one of that description of females, whose vision is bounded by a mop, scrubbing-brush, and dust-pan; who repudiate rainy washing days; whose hearth, Jowler, on the stormiest night, would never venture near without a special permit, and whose husband and children speak under their breath on baking and cleaning days. Mrs. Waters styled herself a female physician. She kept a sort of witch's cauldron constantly boiling over the fire, in which seethed all sorts of "mints" and "yarbs," and from which issued what she called a "potecary odor." Mrs. Waters, when not engaged in stirring this cauldron, or in her various housekeeping duties, alternated her leisure in reading medical
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books, attending medical lectures, and fondling a pet skull, which lay on the kitchen-dresser.
Various little boxes of brown-bread-looking pills ornamented the upper shelf, beside a row of little dropsical chunky junk bottles, whose labels would have puzzled the most erudite M. D. who ever received a diploma. Mrs. Waters felicitated herself on knowing how the outer and inner man of every son of Adam was put together, and considered the times decidedly "out of joint;" inasmuch that she, Mrs. Waters, had not been called upon by her country to fill some medical professorship.
In person Mrs. Waters was barber-pole-ish and ram-rod-y, and her taste in dress running mostly to stringy fabrics, assisted the bolster-y impression she created; her hands and wrists bore a strong resemblance to the yellow claws of defunct chickens, which children play "scare" with about Thanksgiving time; her feet were of turtle flatness, and her eyes--if you ever provoked a cat up to the bristling and scratching point, you may possibly form an idea of them.
Mrs. Waters condescended to allow Ruth to keep the quart of milk and loaf of bread, (which was to serve for her bill of fare for every day's three meals,) on a swing shelf in a corner of the cellar. As Ruth's room was at the top of the house, it was somewhat of a journey to travel up and down, and the weather was too warm to
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keep it up stairs; to her dismay she soon found that the cellar-floor was generally more or less flooded with water, and the sudden change from the heated air of her attic to the dampness of the cellar, brought on a racking cough, which soon told upon her health. Upon the first symptom of it, Mrs. Waters seized a box of pills and hurried to her room, assuring her that it was "a sure cure, and only three shillings a box."
"Thank you," said Ruth; "but it is my rule never to take medicine unless--"
"Oh, oh," said Mrs. Waters, bridling up; "I see--unless it is ordered by a physician, you were going to say; perhaps you don't know that I am a physician--none the worse for being a female. I have investigated things; I have dissected several cats, and sent in an analysis of them to the Medical Journal; it has never been published, owing, probably, to the editor being out of town. If you will take six of these pills every other night," said the doctress, laying the box on the table, "it will cure your cough; it is only three shillings. I will take the money now, or charge it in your bill."
"Three shillings!" Ruth was aghast; she might as well have asked her three dollars. If there was anything Ruth was afraid of, it was Mrs. Waters' style of woman; a loaded cannon, or a regiment of dragoons, would have had few terrors in comparison. But the music must be faced; so, hoping to avoid treading on her landlady's pro-
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fessional toes, Ruth said, "I think I 'll try first what dieting will do, Mrs. Waters."
The door instantly banged to with a crash, as the owner and vender of the pills passed out. The next day Mrs. Waters drew off a little superfluous feminine bile, by announcing to Ruth, with a malignity worthy of her sex, "that she forgot to mention when she let her lodgings, that she should expect her to scour the stairs she traveled over, at least once a week."
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CHAPTER LVI.
It was a sultry morning in July. Ruth had risen early, for her cough seemed more troublesome in a reclining posture. "I wonder what that noise can be?" said she to herself; whir--whir--whir, it went, all day long in the attic overhead. She knew that Mrs. Waters had one other lodger beside herself, an elderly gentleman by the name of Bond, who cooked his own food, and whom she often met on the stairs, coming up with a pitcher of water, or a few eggs in a paper bag, or a pie that he had bought of Mr. Flake, at the little black grocery-shop at the corner. On these occasions he always stepped aside, and with a deferential bow waited for Ruth to pass. He was a thin, spare man, slightly bent; his hair and whiskers curiously striped like a zebra, one lock being jet black, while the neighboring one was as distinct a white. His dress was plain, but very neat and tidy. He never seemed to have any business out-doors, as he staid in his room all
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day, never leaving it at all till dark, when he paced up and down, with his hands behind him, before the house. "Whir--whir--whir." It was early sunrise; but Ruth had heard that odd noise for two hours at least. What could it mean? Just then a carrier passed on the other side of the street with the morning papers, and slipped one under the crack of the house door opposite.
A thought! why could not Ruth write for the papers? How very odd it had never occurred to her before? Yes, write for the papers--why not? She remembered that while at boarding-school, an editor of a paper in the same town used often to come in and take down her compositions in short-hand as she read them aloud, and transfer them to the columns of his paper. She certainly ought to write better now than she did when an inexperienced girl. She would begin that very night; but where where to make a beginning? who would publish her articles? how much would they pay her? to whom should she apply first? There was her brother Hyacinth, now the prosperous editor of the Irving Magazine; oh, if he would only employ her? Ruth was quite sure she could write as well as some of his correspondents, whom he had praised with no niggardly pen. She would prepare samples to send immediately, announcing her intention, and offering them for his acceptance. This means of support would be so congenial, so absorbing. At the needle one's ming could still be brooding over sorrowful thoughts.
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Ruth counted the days and hours impatiently, as she waited for an answer. Hyacinth surely would not refuse her when in almost every number of his magazine he was announcing some new contributor; or, if he could not employ her himself, he surely would be brotherly enough to point out to her some one of the many avenues so accessible to a man of extensive newspaperial and literary acquaintance. She would so gladly support herself, so cheerfully toil day and night, if need be, could she only win an independence; and Ruth recalled with a sigh Katy's last visit to her father, and then she rose and walked the floor in her impatience; and then, her restless spirit urging her on to her fate, she went again to the post office to see if there were no letter. How long the clerk made her wait! Yes, there was a letter for her, and in her brother's hand-writing too. Oh, how long since she had seen it!
Ruth heeded neither the jostling of the office-boys, porters, or draymen, as she held out her eager hand for the letter. Thrusting it hastily in her pocket, she hurried in breathless haste back to her lodgings. The contents were as follows:
"I have looked over the pieces you sent me, Ruth. It is very evident that writing never can be your forte; you have no talent that way. You may possibly be employed by some inferior newspapers, but be assured your articles
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never will be heard of out of your own little provincial city. For myself I have plenty of contributors, nor do I know of any of my literary acquaintances who would employ you. I would advise you, therefore, to seek some unobtrusive employment. Your brother,
"Hyacinth Ellet"
A bitter smile struggled with the hot tear that fell upon Ruth's cheek. "I have tried the unobtrusive employment," said Ruth; "the wages are six cents a day, Hyacinth;" and again the bitter smile disfigured her gentle lip.
"No talent!"
"At another tribunal than his will I appeal."
"Never be heard of out of my own little provincial city!" The cold, contemptuous tone stung her.
"But they shall be heard of;" and Ruth leaped to her feet. "Sooner than he dreams of, too. I can do it, I feel it, I will do it," and she closed her lips firmly; "but there will be a desperate struggle first," and she clasped her hands over her heart as if it had already commenced; "there will be scant meals, and sleepless nights, and weary days, and a throbbing brow, and an aching heart; there will be the chilling tone, the rude repulse; there will be ten backward steps to one forward. Pride must sleep! but--" and Ruth glanced at her children--"it shall be done. They shall
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be proud of their mother. Hyacinth shall yet be proud to claim his sister."
"What is it, mamma?" asked Katy, looking wonderingly at the strange expression of her mother's face.
"What is it, my darling?" and Ruth caught up the child with convulsive energy; "what is it? only that when you are a woman you shall remember this day, my little pet;" and as she kissed Katy's upturned brow a bright spot burned on her cheek, and her eye glowed like a star.
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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--th- e--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
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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 did n'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 have n'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
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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 would n'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 sexagenarian 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 com-
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miserating 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 maneuverer. 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.
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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 Kate 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
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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.'"
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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 ask, mem. You 've got a tongue in your head, have n'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.
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"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, is n'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
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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.
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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 indorsed 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, so 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
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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 meager fare, her purse was nearly empty.
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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 had 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 worshipers.
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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 r[e]ad many an answer to the wrestling prayer, heard in thy closet by God alone.
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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
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the right arm of the church seems paralyzed. 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 sill be, worshiping 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
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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 heart-sick, 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.
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"Some more supper, please, Mamma," vainly pleaded little Nettie.