Ruth Erskine's Crosses

by Pansy

Judge Burnham hoped to turn her away from this decision, which was, to him, simply an awful one! Do you imagine that he accomplished it? I believe you know her better. It is necessary for you to remember that he did not understand the underlying motive by which she was governed. When she said, “I must not do it,” he did not understand that she meant her vows to Christ would not let her. He believed, simply, that she set her judgment above his, in this matter, and determined that she would not yield it. The struggle was a severe one. At times he felt as though he would say to her, if she “must not” share with him the home he had so lovingly and tenderly planned for her, why, then, he must give her up. The only reason that he did not say this, was because he did not dare to try it. He had not the slightest intention of giving her up; and he was afraid she would take him at his word, as assuredly she would have done. She was dearer to him, in her obstinacy, than anything in life—and nothing must be risked. Therefore was he sore beset; and, as often as he renewed the struggle, he came off worsted. How could it be otherwise, when Ruth could constantly flee back to that unanswerable position—“Judge Burnham, it is wrong; I must not do it?” What if he didn’t understand her? He saw that she understood herself, and meant what she said.

So it came to pass that, as the days went by, and the hour for the marriage drew nearer and nearer, Judge Burnham felt the plans, so dear to his heart, slipping away from under his control. Ruth would be married. Well, that was a great point gained. But she would not go away for a wedding journey; she would not go to the Grand Hotel, where he desired to take rooms—no, not for a day, or hour. She would not have the trial of contrast between the few, first bright days of each other, and the dismal days following, when they had each other, with something constantly coming between. She would go directly to that country home, and nowhere else She would go to it just as it was. He was not to alter the surroundings or the outward life, in one single respect. She meant to see the home influence which had molded those girls exactly as it had breathed about them, without any outside hand to change it. She proposed to do the changing herself. One little bit of compromise her stern conscience admitted—her future husband might fit up one room for her use—her private retreat—according to his individual taste, and she would accept it from him as hers. But the outer life, that was to be lived as a family, he must not touch.

“But Ruth,” he said, “you do not understand. Things have utterly gone to decay. There was no one to care, or appreciate; there was no one to take care of anything, and I let everything go.”

“Very well,” she said; “then we will see what our united tastes can do, toward setting everything right, when we come to feel what is wanted.”

“Then couldn’t you go with me and see the place, a few weeks before we go there, and give directions, such as you would like to see carried out?—just a few, you know, such as you can take in at a glance, to make it a little more like home?”

She shook her head decidedly. No, indeed. She was not going there to spy out the desolation of the land. She was going to it as a home; and if, as a home, it was defective, together they—he, his daughters and herself—would see what was needed, and remodel it.

How dismally he shook his head over that! He knew his daughters, and she did not. He tried again:

“But, Ruth, it is five miles from the railroad. How will it be possible to ride ten miles by train, and five by carriage, night and morning, and attend to business?”

“Easily,” she said, quietly; “except in term-time. The busiest season that my father ever had we were in the country, and he came out nearly every evening. In term-time we must all come into town and board, I suppose.”

He winced over this, and was silent, and felt himself giving up his last hope of holding this thing in check, and began to realize that he loved this future wife of his very much indeed, else he could never submit to such a state of things. He believed it would last for but a little while—just long enough for her to see the hopelessness of things. But this “seeing,” with her, into all its hopelessness, was what he shrank from.