“Well?” asked that gentleman, eagerly, though already relieved by Ruth’s manner.
“Perfectly well! Or, rather, perfectly safe. Doubtless Melville does feel a bit the worst for being knocked senseless, but he is sufficiently himself again, I think!”
She said this with the funniest little emphasis on the “I,” and the young Pickels’ curiosity was whetted. The more, indeed, that this odd new aunt of theirs at that instant held up her hand to make them listen. The wailing and roaring penetrated even to that remote apartment, and caused Grandmother Kinsolving’s sweet face to flush.
“Ruth, thee should not! Remember the lad is thy own nephew. He is frail, and not to be judged by common rules.”
“And, because he is of our own blood,—which I find it hard to believe,—I want all these new children of ours to understand him at the outset. Thee is always fond of having things ‘start right,’ and I have caught thy habit.” The tender look in the daughter’s eyes corrected any possible rudeness in her speech; and, seriously she was in earnest about having the new family “start right.”
For three years Melville had been a terrible trial to her; the worse because she saw only too plainly that his suffering, which was real enough at times, and his wretched disposition, were wearing her mother’s strength away. Ruth Kinsolving felt, and rightly, that one such life as Amy Kinsolving’s was worth more to the world than dozens like Melville’s; and she hoped from this inrush of young life that household matters might be straightened out.
When Content came to them, it had been after long objection on her aunt’s part; which, however, the girl herself did not know. But when Benjamin wrote about his “only, motherless child,” Ruth’s retroussé nose had tilted itself a little higher, and her firm mouth had closed a little more firmly. For her part, she had had quite enough of “only children,” no matter how close their kinship, nor how orphaned their state.
Grandmother Amy had said very little, and had said that little gently; but, meek as she was, she was also wise; and much as she leaned upon her capable daughter, she had never let go the reins of management from her own fragile hand.
“Thee will do thy duty, Ruth, as thee has been trained to do. Benjamin and Benjamin’s belongings have as much right in The Snuggery as thee has. If there were a dozen children and he wished me to receive them, I should bid him send them. Since there is only one, and that a girl, I look to thee to be her second mother.”
Ruth reserved her own opinion about the mothering part, but she obediently wrote the letter of welcome; and was glad to her heart’s core when its living answer looked up into her eyes with a gaze as fearless and honest as her own and with far more of sweetness.