Ruth Hall Part 22

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, G.o.d 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, G.o.d 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 m.u.f.fled 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 h.o.m.oeopathy," 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 h.o.m.oeopathically 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 h.o.m.oeopathy," 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 h.o.m.oeopathic 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.s 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 princ.i.p.ally to preserve this chef-d'oeuvre of art, that the windows were hermetically sealed to the entrance of vagrant flies.

The old doctor, with his spectacles awry and his hands drooping listlessly at his side, snored from the depths of his arm-chair, while opposite him the old lady, peering out from behind a very stiffly-starched cap border, was "seaming," "widening," and "narrowing,"

with a precision and perseverance most painful to witness. Outside, the bee hummed, the robin twittered, the shining leaves of the village trees danced and whispered to the shifting clouds; the free, glad breeze swept the tall meadow-gra.s.s, and the village children, as free and fetterless, danced and shouted at their sports; but there sat little Katy, with her hands crossed in her lap, as she _had_ sat for many an hour, listening to the never-ceasing click of her grandmother's needles, and the sonorous breathings of the doctor's rubicund nose. Sometimes she moved uneasily in her chair, but the old lady's uplifted finger would immediately remind her that "little girls must be seen and not heard."

It was a great thing for Katy when a mouse scratched on the wainscot, or her grandmother's ball rolled out of her lap, giving her a chance to stretch her little cramped limbs. And now the village bell began to toll, with a low, booming, funereal sound, sending a cold shudder through the child's nervous and excited frame. What if _her_ mother should die way off in the city? What if she should _always_ live in this terrible way at her grandmother's? with n.o.body to love her, or kiss her, or pat her little head kindly, and say, "Katy, dear;" and again the bell boomed out its mournful sound, and little Katy, unable longer to bear the torturing thoughts it called up, sobbed aloud.

It was all in vain, that the frowning old lady held up her warning finger; the flood-gates were opened, and Katy could not have stopped her tears had her life depended on it.

Hark! a knock at the door! a strange footstep!

"Mother!" shrieked the child hysterically, "mother!" and flew into Ruth's sheltering arms.

"What _shall_ we do, doctor?" asked the old lady, the day after Ruth's visit. "I trusted to her not being able to get the money to come out here, and her father, I knew, wouldn't give it to her, and now here she has walked the whole distance, with Nettie in her arms, except a lift a wagoner or two gave her on the road; and I verily believe she would have done it, had it been twice the distance it is. I never shall be able to bring up that child according to my notions, while _she_ is round. I'd forbid her the house, (she deserves it,) only that it won't sound well if she tells of it. And to think of that ungrateful little thing's flying into her mother's arms as if she was in the last extremity, after all we have done for her. I don't suppose Ruth would have left her with us, as it is, if she had the bread to put in her mouth. She might as well give her up, though, first as last, for she never will be able to support her."

"She's fit for nothing but a parlor ornament," said the doctor, "never was. No more business talent in Ruth Ellet, than there is in that chany image of yours on the mantle-tree, Mis. Hall. That tells the whole story."

CHAPTER LXIV.

"I have good news for you," said Mr. Lescom to Ruth, at her next weekly visit; "your very first articles are copied, I see, into many of my exchanges, even into the ----, which seldom contains anything but politics. A good sign for you, Mrs. Hall; a good test of your popularity."

Ruth's eyes sparkled, and her whole face glowed.

"Ladies _like_ to be praised," said Mr. Lescom, good-humoredly, with a mischievous smile.

"Oh, it is not that--not that, sir," said Ruth, with a sudden moistening of the eye, "it is because it will be bread for my children."

Mr. Lescom checked his mirthful mood, and said, "Well, here is something good for me, too; a letter from Missouri, in which the writer says, that if "Floy" (a pretty _nom-de-plume_ that of yours, Mrs. Hall) is to be a contributor for the coming year, I may put him down as a subscriber, as well as S. Jones, E. May, and J. Noyes, all of the same place. That's good news for _me_, you see," said Mr. Lescom, with one of his pleasant, beaming smiles.

"Yes," replied Ruth, abstractedly. She was wondering if her articles were to be the means of swelling Mr. Lescom's subscription list, whether _she_ ought not to profit by it as well as himself, and whether she should not ask him to increase her pay. She pulled her gloves off and on, and finally mustered courage to clothe her thought in words.

"Now that's just _like_ a woman," replied Mr. Lescom, turning it off with a joke; "give them the least foot-hold, and they will want the whole territory. Had I not shown you that letter, you would have been quite contented with your present pay. Ah! I see it won't do to talk so unprofessionally to you; and you needn't expect," said he, smiling, "that I shall ever speak of letters containing new subscribers on your account. I could easily get you the offer of a handsome salary by publishing such things. No--no, I have been foolish enough to lose two or three valuable contributors in that way; I have learned better than that, 'Floy';" and taking out his purse, he paid Ruth the usual sum for her articles.

Ruth bowed courteously, and put the money in her purse; but she sighed as she went down the office stairs. Mr. Lescom's view of the case was a business one, undoubtedly; and the same view that almost any other business man would have taken, viz.: to retain her at her present low rate of compensation, till he was necessitated to raise it by a higher bid from a rival quarter. And so she must plod wearily on till that time came, and poor Katy must still be an exile; for she had not enough to feed her, her landlady having raised the rent of her room two shillings, and Ruth being unable to find cheaper accommodations. It _was_ hard, but what could be done? Ruth believed she had exhausted all the offices she knew of. Oh! there was one, "The Pilgrim;" she had not tried there. She would call at the office on her way home.

The editor of "The Pilgrim" talked largely. He had, now, plenty of contributors; he didn't know about employing a new one. Had she ever written? and _what_ had she written? Ruth showed him her article in the last number of "The Standard."