Ruth Erskine's Crosses

by Pansy

I do not tell you she might have done all this. Perhaps her first position, that it would have been unwise and unhelpful, was the right one. I think we do, sometimes, put added touches of our own to the cross that the Father lays upon us, making it shade in gloom, when he would have tinted it with the sunlight. But I do not say that Ruth had done this. I don’t know which was wise. What I am sure of is, that she, having left it to Christ; having asked for his direction, and having received it (for unless she thought she had been shown the step to take, assured she ought not to have stepped,) she had no right to unrest herself and strap on to her heart the burden of that wearying question, “Did I, after all, do right?”

Judge Burnham could match her in quietness. He had her beside him at last. She was his wife; she bore his name; henceforth their interests were one. Thus much of what he had months ago set himself steadily to accomplish had been accomplished. But not a touch of the details was according to his plans. The situation in which he found himself was so new and so bewildering, that while he meant, for her sake, to make the best of it until such time as she should see that she was wrong and he right, yet, truth to tell, he hardly knew how to set about making the best of it.

He did what he could. No topic for conversation that suggested itself to his mind seemed entirely safe. And, beside, what use to try to converse for so short a journey? So he contented himself with opening her car-window, and dropping her blind, and arranging her travelling-shawl comfortably for a shoulder-support, and in other nameless, thoughtful ways making this bit of a journey bright with care-taking tenderness. It served to show Ruth how royally he would have cared for her in the longer journey which he wanted, and which she wouldn’t have. Whereupon she immediately said to her heart “Perhaps it would have been better if I had yielded.” And that made her miserable. There was no time to yield now. The station was called out, and there was bustle and haste and no little nervousness in getting off in time, for the train seemed, before it fairly halted, to have been sorry for that attempt at accommodation, and began to show signs of going on again that were nerve-distracting. It annoyed Judge Burnham to the degree that he said, savagely, to the conductor, “It was hardly worth while to stop, if you can’t do it more comfortably.” He would have liked so much to have been leisurely and comfortable; to have done everything in a composed, travelled manner; he understood so thoroughly all the details of travelled life. Why could he not show Ruth some of the comforts of it? That little station! It was in itself a curiosity to Ruth. She had not supposed, that ten miles away from a city, anything could be so diminutive. A long, low, unpainted building, with benches for seats, and loungers spitting tobacco-juice for furniture. There was evidently something unusual to stare at. This was the presence of a quiet, tasteful carriage, with handsome horses, and a driver who indicated, by the very flourish of his whip, that this was a new locality to him. He and his horses and his carriage belonged, unmistakably, to city-life, and had rarely reached so far out.

“Is this your carriage?” Ruth asked, surveying it with a touch of satisfaction as Judge Burnham made her comfortable among the cushions.

“No, it is from town. There are no carriages belonging to this enlightened region.”

“How do your family reach the station, then?”

“They never reach it,” he answered, composedly. He had resolved upon not trying to smooth over anything.

“But how did you get to and from the cars when you were stopping here?”

“On the rare occasions when I was so unfortunate as to stop here I sometimes caught the wagon which brings the mail and takes unfortunate passengers; or, if I were too early for that, there were certain milk-carts and vegetable-carts which gave me the privilege of a ride, with a little persuasion in the shape of money.”

Nothing could be more studiedly polite than Judge Burnham’s tone; but there was a covert sarcasm in every word he said. He seemed to Ruth to be thinking, “I hope you realize the uncomfortable position into which your obstinacy has forced me.”