Ruth Erskine's Son

by Pansy

But she gave no description of Maybelle, and mentioned her name as little as possible. She shrank almost painfully from the thought of writing about this girl to one who ought to be deeply interested in her,—as in the nature of the case Erskine should be if he knew,—and yet looked upon her as an intruder, almost resenting his mother's efforts in her behalf.

But if she kept silence about her to Erskine, she atoned for it in the amount of time and thought that she bestowed upon the child. As the weeks passed and she grew to better understand this child-woman with whom she had to deal, she found herself bestowing upon her a wealth of love and tenderness that she had not supposed any but her very own could call out. And her love was returned in royal measure. However much Maybelle might admire and love Mrs. Roberts and enjoy her son and daughters, she had given the wealth of her heart unreservedly to Mrs. Burnham. "Next to Aunt Mamie I love you best of all the world," she would declare as she patted Ruth's shoulder with a loving little touch that was peculiarly her own. "It ought always to be Aunt Mamie first, you know, because she—she mothered me all those years when I was hungry for a mother. Dear Mrs. Burnham, if she were your daughter and I could be your granddaughter, would not that be perfect? But that couldn't be, of course, for Aunt Mamie loved her own dear mother better than any other mother in the world; and she was a dear; I loved her very much, but—how many different kinds of love there can be in the same heart!" she broke off to say, with the air of a dreamy philosopher, "Different kinds of loves and different kinds of unloves, ever so many of them! the heart is a curious country, isn't it?"

By that time Mrs. Burnham had come to understand Miss Parker's absorbed interest in the girl, which continued unabated even amid the absorbing interests of a strange land. She wrote long loving letters to the child of her adoption, and long earnest ones to Mrs. Burnham about her.

"There have been times," she wrote, "when I have almost regretted that I left the dear girl all alone and came away out here where weeks must intervene before I can hear from her. I felt this especially after I found that my brother, although very glad indeed to welcome me, had made interests here about which I knew nothing, one that is to help make a home for him in the near future, so that so far as care and companionship are concerned he could have done very well without me. When I first began to understand the situation here, I was puzzled, and just a little bit troubled over the question why I had been allowed to come, or rather left to think that to come was the only right course, when apparently I was much more needed at home on that dear child's account, than here. But after reading Maybelle's letter I understood that it was in order to leave the way clear and plain for her to your dear heart; you can do so much more for her than I can ever hope to. How blissful the darling is over her new friendships and interests! I am glad that you have kidnapped her loyal little heart, just as I knew you would."

"Poor girl!" Mrs. Burnham said softly to herself after reading this letter. "She has one of those hungry hearts that Maybelle talks about; and she fancied that her brother could fill it, instead of being quite satisfied with his generous corner of it! I wonder if it can be possible that she cared for the child's father, as the Madame hints? That would account for—but there is nothing to be accounted for; one could not help loving Maybelle. I must tell Miss Parker that she is always to have the first place in that 'curious' heart, while I am enthroned as second. Dear simpleton!" Then, as the thought crossed her mind, not for the first time, that the one who should hold that first place might be named Erskine, the uneasy conviction shook her that in such event certain ugly truths would have to be revealed.

But she put the thought from her as soon as possible. She could not plan for the future, and for the present, Maybelle and Erskine Roberts were simply comrades heartily enjoying each other's society, as her own Erskine and Alice Warder had done, without apparently other thoughts than those shared with them by Marian Roberts, who was Erskine's twin.

Ruth wrote to Miss Parker that same evening, giving her a detailed account of one of her talks with Maybelle.

"You may well call hers a 'loyal heart,' my friend," she wrote. "You should hear the pathetic way in which the child talks about you by the hour! Yesterday she said to me:—

"'Sometimes I used to wish that I could call Aunt Mamie, mother. She is the only woman that I ever had such a thought about; I suppose it was because she came close enough to give me an idea of what a real mother would be. I mean to keep her always for my heart-mother. There can be heart-mothers, you know, and in some ways they are almost as dear as real ones. Oh, I wonder if you know how a girl like me sometimes longs and longs for a real mother! I think it is the only possession that I ever envied. Sometimes, Mrs. Burnham, I have been fiercely jealous for hours together, so that I almost hated the girls who chattered about their mothers. Wasn't that dreadful! Oh, I cannot think what would have become of me long before this, if I had not had Aunt Mamie.'"

Thus much Ruth Burnham wrote, and stayed her pen. Was it necessary for her to tell all this? To lay bare even to this woman, who knew so much, the depths of a suffering young heart, thereby revealing the magnitude of the mother's sin against it? And that mother was her daughter, her son's wife! She wanted to write it; there were times when she wanted to shout it out to all the world, just what manner of woman was being sheltered by her name and home. She knew that she would never do it, but ought not Mamie Parker who had mothered the child, to understand? She thought long, she shed a few struggling tears that seemed to burn her face; the hurt at her heart was too deep for tears, and then she hid her face on the writing table and talked with God.