Ruth Erskine's Son

by Pansy

In the earlier letters much had been said about that home-coming, and elaborate plans had been made as to what they would do together in New York. But in that last long letter, on the margin of the last page, as though it had been an afterthought, were these words:—

"On the whole, mother, we believe that it would be better for you not to try to meet us in New York. Irene has no love for that city; it was the scene of some of her sorrows. She wants to stop there only long enough to call upon her cousins; and we are both in such frantic haste to be at home that we shall make the delay as short as possible; so we think it would be less fatiguing to you to avoid that trip and be at home to welcome us."

Ruth Burnham said over that sentence as she stood on that upper veranda, waiting to welcome them. She had said it a hundred times before. What was there about it that jarred? She could not have told, in words; yet the jar was there.

Could it be that continually recurring "we"? Was she going to be a jealous woman, with all the rest? So meanly jealous as that? "God forbid!" she said the words aloud, and solemnly.

She knew that she needed the help of God in this crisis of her life; since the news of it came to her she had spent hours on her knees seeking his strength. She wanted Erskine to say "we" and think "we" and to be supremely happy,—not only in his married life, but to have that life all that it could be to two souls. And yet—Would it have been wrong for him, in that first letter, to have remembered that she had been used all his life to being the "we" of his thoughts, and to have said simply "I" once or twice? Of course she could never any more be "dearest"—his special name for her; but—was he never again for a little while to be just himself, to her? And must she learn to think "they" and never "him"?

Oh, she didn't mean any of this, she told herself nervously, and she must get her thoughts away at once. Of course she would say "Erskine and Irene" now, always, and forever. Or should she put it, "Irene and Erskine"? Could she? Perhaps that would help. Did other mothers, waiting for the home-coming of their married sons, have such strange thoughts as haunted her?

There was Mrs. Adams, for instance, whose three sons had all been married within a few years. And Mrs. Adams had not seemed to care. Well, as to that, neither would she seem to; and she drew herself up instinctively. But Mrs. Adams had four boys; five, indeed; the youngest of them was almost as tall as his mother, while she—"The only son of his mother, and she was a widow." The words seemed to repeat themselves in her brain like a dull undertone refrain.

Other words that had nothing whatever to do with the situation, but that had been familiar to her girlhood, came back and stupidly repeated themselves:—

"Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east." But that was wildness, and utter folly! Erskine would be ashamed of her and with reason, could he know—which he never should—that such fancies had been tolerated for a moment.

Outwardly Mrs. Burnham was irreproachable. So was her home. In the ten days following that letter she had given time and thought to its adorning. She was a model housekeeper, and to have Erskine's rooms always in spotless order had been one of her pleasures. But they had been very thoroughly gone over, and whereever it was possible to add a touch of beauty, it had been done.