Ruth Erskine's Son

by Pansy

"Haven't time for society just now," was his invariable excuse. "Nor inclination," he would add privately for his mother's benefit.

Occasionally the mother urged the acceptance of an invitation and begged him not to make a recluse of himself for her sake; but he met her suggestions with his whimsical smile and the gay retort that a society composed of two entirely congenial people met all his present requirements. She was not insistent. Why should she be, when Erskine was undeniably happy in the life he had planned?

Certainly it was an ideal life for the fond mother; for both of them, perhaps. It had been unique from the first of Erskine's college course. They had been settled but a few weeks in their new home when Mrs. Burnham, finding much time at her disposal, proposed to Erskine that she take up some of her long-ago-dropped studies and let him introduce her to modern college ways. The young man laughed as he gave her an admiring glance and assured her that she knew more than other women, already. Nevertheless it pleased him to go into careful detail about his work, and on the following day it surprised as well as pleased him to find that his mother was quite as well prepared with some of his studies as he was himself. From that evening a new order of things was established; Mrs. Burnham, without matriculating as a college student, and without letting it be known, save to the choice few who were their very intimate friends, became nevertheless a student. How much of Erskine Burnham's acknowledged success in college was due to the fact that his mother studied with him throughout the entire course is something that will never be known; but her son gave her full credit for the help that she was to him. From the first he recognized her as a stimulant; he discovered that he must have his points very fully in his grasp in order to explain them satisfactorily to his pupil. She always insisted on being his pupil and kept carefully the subordinate place, although her keen questionings more than once led him to change his view of a subject under discussion.

Altogether, it was a life replete with satisfaction to both mother and son. Not that they shut themselves away from society. Such of his friends as Erskine thought his mother would enjoy or could help he brought freely to their rooms, and between several of the students and herself there was built up by degrees that kind of friendship which one occasionally sees between self-respecting young men and certain middle-aged women. It was a very pleasant experience, and it made Ruth feel, as she expressed it to Erskine, that she had several sons always ready to serve her.

Neither did they wholly neglect the outside world. Both mother and son held carefully to their resolve not to let college or any other functions interfere with their Sunday and mid-week engagements in the church of their choice, and through this channel they made certain acquaintances that ripened into friendship. But there came a time in the mother's life when she wished, not that she had enjoyed her studies with Erskine less, but that both of them had given more time and thought and enjoyment to distinctively religious themes and duties.

Meantime their friendship for Alice Warder ripened and deepened, although there had been an interim during which its very life had seemed to be threatened. Following that painful episode with Mamie Parker, Erskine had seemed to shun even Alice Warder. He had not from the first been entirely sure that he cared to see much of her Boston cousin, and presently made him an excuse for seeing little of Alice, for the cousin seemed to be staying indefinitely. This state of things lasted until the college year closed and they went home, and became again next-door neighbors to the Warders. At first, it seemed to Mrs. Burnham that the old friendship was lost. Something very vague and intangible, but distinctly felt, seemed to have come between them. Then, suddenly, whatever it was, it passed. On a certain evening that stood out plainly afterward in the mother's memory Alice had appeared at her window with an air of decision, and a question.

"Has Erskine come in yet, Mrs. Burnham? When he comes, will you ask him if he can give me an uninterrupted half-hour this evening for something special?"

Later, the mother wondered, and often wondered what that something special was, but she had not been told. It was something that made a marked difference in Erskine's manner. From apparently avoiding Alice Warder's society as much as possible, he frankly sought it; proposing her as a third on occasions when his mother would have hesitated, and in every possible way proclaiming that the old cordial relations were reestablished. From that time on, the young woman next door became so entirely identified with the daily life of the Burnhams that the intimate friends of the family said "Alice and Erskine," quite as a matter of course.

In the fall they went back to college, mother and son. At least that was Erskine's way of putting it.

"Why not?" he said, laughing at his mother's protest. "You are as much in college as I am. They ought to give you a diploma. I believe I'll divide mine; have the sheepskin cut exactly in two, and your name inserted. Half of my honors belong to you, anyhow."