Is it any wonder "that all the city was moved about them?"
Well, no doubt Ruth found out all she wanted to know about Boaz, learned his habits and characteristics, made all the inquiries she wished in a way that "was childlike and bland," and at last having her arsenal well armored with the big guns of wit and beauty and garrisoned by facts and observations and the experience of an ex-wife, she was ready for Love's war, where the bullets are soft glances, the sword thrusts kisses and the dungeon of the captive is the bridal chamber, and she went to her mamma-in-law and said sweetly, "let me go now to the field and glean ears of corn after him (you see she admitted she was after him) in whose sight I shall find grace."
"And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz." Wonderful, wasn't it, that it was her "hap" to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz?
And lo, in the morning ere the sun was half way up the blue sky, Boaz came into the barley field and his eyes fell upon the beauteous Ruth gleaning with the reapers, and delighted at the sight, he called the general manager and said:
"Whose damsel is this?" And he answered and said: "It is the Moabitish maiden that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab."
It seems Boaz had never seen her before, although her fame had reached his ears, and he spoke to her softly and kindly, praised her for her devotion to her mother-in-law (you see that captured his fancy and admiration, as it has every one's since), and then she smiled and thanked him very ardently, and then the wily widow turned her pretty head aside and blushed. And Boaz, who had never heard the advice to "beware of the vidders," was taken in and done for in that one short interview. He hung around the fields, deserted the city, cared naught for its pleasures, forgot the dames of high degree, and lingered for hours among the reapers to catch a glance from her dark eye, or a smile from her ruby lips, and I suppose they sometimes rested in the shade and talked sweet nonsense, or sat in the intoxicating silence when love speaks unutterable things to the heart alone, and the "old sweet story was told again" in the harvest field near Bethlehem.
"Boaz commanded his young men saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not: And let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, and rebuke her not."