When Ruth Macdonald got back from camp she found herself utterly
dissatisfied with her old life. The girls in her social set were full of
war plans. They had one and all enlisted in every activity that was
going. Each one appeared in some pretty and appropriate uniform, and took
the new régime with as much eagerness and enthusiasm as ever she had put
into dancing and dressing.
Not that they had given up either of those employments. Oh, dear no! When
they were not busy getting up little dances for the poor dear soldier
boys from the nearby camps, they were learning new solo steps wherewith
to entertain those soldier boys when their turn came to go to camp and
keep up the continuous performance that seemed to be necessary to the
cheering of a good soldier. And as for dressing, no one need ever suggest
again a uniform for women as the solution of the high cost of dressing.
The number of dainty devices of gold braid and red stars and silver
tassels that those same staid uniforms developed made plain forever that
the woman who chooses can make even a uniform distinctive and striking
and altogether costly. In short they went into the war with the same
superficial flightiness formerly employed in the social realms. They went
dashing here and there in their high-power cars on solemn errands, with
all the nonchalance of their ignorance and youth, till one, knowing some
of them well, trembled for the errand if it were important. And many of
them were really useful, which only goes to prove that a tremendous
amount of unsuspected power is wasted every year and that unskilled labor
often accomplishes almost as much as skilled. Some of them secured
positions in the Navy Yard, or in other public offices, where they were
thrown delightfully into intimacies with officers, and were able to step
over the conventionalities of their own social positions into wildly
exciting Bohemian adventures under the popular guise of patriotism,
without a rebuke from their elders. There was not a dull hour in the
little town. The young men of their social set might all be gone to war,
but there were others, and the whirl of life went on gaily for the
thoughtless butterflies, who danced and knitted and drove motor cars, and
made bandages and just rejoiced to walk the streets knitting on the
Sabbath day, a gay cretonne knitting bag on arm, and knitting needles
plying industriously as if the world would go naked if they did not work
every minute. Just a horde of rebellious young creatures, who at heart
enjoyed the unwonted privilege of breaking the Sabbath and shocking a few
fanatics, far more than they really cared to knit. But nobody had time to
pry into the quality of such patriotism. There were too many other people
doing the same thing, and so it passed everywhere for the real thing, and
the world whirled on and tried to be gay to cover its deep heartache and
stricken horror over the sacrifice of its sons.
But Ruth, although she bravely tried for several weeks, could not throw
herself into such things. She felt that they were only superficial. There
might be a moiety of good in all these things, but they were not the real
big things of life; not the ways in which the vital help could be given,
and she longed with her whole soul to get in on it somewhere.
The first Sabbath after her return from camp she happened into a bit of
work which while it was in no way connected with war work, still helped
to interest her deeply and keep her thinking along the lines that had
been started while she was with John Cameron.
A quiet, shy, plain little woman, an old member of the church and noted
for good work, came hurrying down the aisle after the morning service and
implored a young girl in the pew just in front of Ruth to help her that
afternoon in an Italian Sunday school she was conducting in a small
settlement about a mile and a half from Bryne Haven:
"It's only to play the hymns, Miss Emily," she said. "Carrie Wayne has to
go to a funeral. She always plays for me. I wouldn't ask you if I could
play the least mite myself, but I can't. And the singing won't go at all
without someone to play the piano."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Mrs. Beck, but I really can't!" pleaded Miss Emily
quickly. "I promised to help out in the canteen work this afternoon. You
know the troop trains are coming through, and Mrs. Martin wanted me to
take her place all the afternoon."
Mrs. Beck's face expressed dismay. She gave a hasty glance around the
rapidly emptying church.
"Oh, dear, I don't know what I'll do!" she said.
"Oh, let them do without singing for once," suggested the carefree Emily.
"Everybody ought to learn to do without something in war time. We
conserve sugar and flour, let the Italians conserve singing!" and with a
laugh at her own brightness she hurried away.
Ruth reached forward and touched the troubled little missionary on the
arm:
"Would I do?" she asked. "I never played hymns much, but I could try."
"Oh! Would you?" A flood of relief went over the woman's face, and Ruth
was instantly glad she had offered. She took Mrs. Beck down to the
settlement in her little runabout, and the afternoon's experience opened
a new world to her. It was the first time she had ever come in contact
with the really poor and lowly of the earth, and she proved herself a
true child of God in that she did not shrink from them because many of
them were dirty and poorly clad. Before the first afternoon was over she
had one baby in her arms and three others hanging about her chair with
adoring glances. They could not talk in her language, but they stared
into her beautiful face with their great dark eyes, and spoke queer
unintelligible words to one another about her. The whole little company
were delighted with the new "pretty lady" who had come among them. They
openly examined her simple lovely frock and hat and touched with shy
furtive fingers the blue ribbon that floated over the bench from her
girdle. Mrs. Beck was in the seventh heaven and begged her to come again,
and Ruth, equally charmed, promised to go every Sunday. For it appeared
that the wayward pianist was very irregular and had to be constantly
coaxed.
Ruth entered into the work with zest. She took the children's class which
formerly had been with the older ones, and gathering them about her told
them Bible stories till their young eyes bulged with wonder and their
little hearts almost burst with love of her. Love God? Of course they
would. Try to please Jesus? Certainly, if "Mrs. Ruth," as they called
her, said they should. They adored her.
She fell into the habit of going down during the week and slipping into
their homes with a big basket of bright flowers from her home garden
which she distributed to young and old. Even the men, when they happened
to be home from work, wanted the flowers, and touched them with eager
reverence. Somehow the little community of people so different from
herself filled her thoughts more and more. She began to be troubled that
some of the men drank and beat their wives and little children in
consequence. She set herself to devise ways to keep them from it. She
scraped acquaintance with one or two of the older boys in her own church
and enlisted them to help her, and bought a moving picture machine which
she took to the settlement. She spent hours attending moving picture
shows that she might find the right films for their use. Fortunately she
had money enough for all her schemes, and no one to hinder her good work,
although Aunt Rhoda did object strenuously at first on the ground that
she might "catch something." But Ruth only smiled and said: "That's just
what I'm out for, Auntie, dear! I want to catch them all, and try to make
them live better lives. Other people are going to France. I haven't got a
chance to go yet, but while I stay here I must do something. I can't be
an idler."
Aunt Rhoda looked at her quizzically. She wondered if Ruth was worried
about one of her men friends--and which one?
"If you'd only take up some nice work for the Government, dear, such as
the other girls are doing!" she sighed, "work that would bring you into
contact with nice people! You always have to do something queer. I'm sure
I don't know where you got your low tendencies!"
But Ruth would be off before more could be said. This was an old topic of
Aunt Rhoda's and had been most fully discussed during the young years of
Ruth's life, so that she did not care to enter into it further.
But Ruth was not fully satisfied with just helping her Italians. The very
week she came back from camp she had gone to their old family physician
who held a high and responsible position in the medical world, and made
her plea:
"Daddy-Doctor," she said, using her old childish name for him, "you've
got to find a way for me to go over there and help the war. I know I
don't know much about nursing, but I'm sure I could learn. I've taken
care of Grandpa and Auntie a great many times and watched the trained
nurses, and I'm sure if Lalla Farrington and Bernice Brooks could get
into the Red Cross and go over in such a short time I'm as bright as
they."
"Brighter!" said the old doctor eyeing her approvingly. "But what will
your people say?"
"They'll have to let me, Daddy-Doctor. Besides, everybody else is doing
it, and you know that has great weight with Aunt Rhoda."
"It's a hard life, child! You never saw much of pain and suffering and
horror."
"Well, it's time, then."
"But those men over there you would have to care for will not be like
your grandfather and aunt. They will be dirty and bloody, and covered
with filth and vermin."
"Well, what of that!"
"Could you stand it?"
"So you think I'm a butterfly, too, do you, Daddy-Doctor? Well, I want to
prove to you that I'm not. I've been doing my best to get used to dirt
and distress. I washed a little sick Italian baby yesterday and helped
it's mother scrub her floor and make the house clean."
"The dickens you did!" beamed the doctor proudly. "I always knew you had
a lot of grit. I guess you've got the right stuff in you. But say, if I
help you you've got to tell me the real reason why you want to go, or
else--nothing doing! Understand? I know you aren't like the rest, just
wanting to get into the excitement and meet a lot of officers and have a
good time so you can say afterward you were there. You aren't that kind
of a girl. What's the real reason you want to go? Have you got somebody
over there you're interested in?"
He looked at her keenly, with loving, anxious eyes as her father's friend
who had known her from birth might look.
Ruth's face grew rosy, and her eyes dropped, but lifted again undaunted:
"And if I have, Daddy-Doctor, is there anything wrong about that?"
The doctor frowned:
"It isn't that fat chump of a Wainwright, is it? Because if it is I
shan't lift my finger to help you go."
But Ruth's laugh rang out clear and free.
"Never! dear friend, never! Set your mind at rest about him," she
finished, sobering down. "And if I care for someone, Daddy-Doctor, can't
you trust me I'd pick out someone who was all right?"
"I suppose so!" grumbled the doctor only half satisfied, "but girls are
so dreadfully blind."
"I think you'd like him," she hazarded, her cheeks growing pinker, "that
is, you would if there _is_ anybody," she corrected herself laughing.
"But you see, it's a secret yet and maybe always will be. I'm not sure
that he knows, and I'm not quite sure I know myself----"
"Oh, I see!" said the doctor watching her sweet face with a tender
jealousy in his eyes. "Well, I suppose I'll help you to go, but I'll
shoot him, remember, if he doesn't turn out to be all right. It would
take a mighty superior person to be good enough for you, little girl."
"That's just what he is," said Ruth sweetly, and then rising and stooping
over him she dropped a kiss on the wavy silver lock of hair that hung
over the doctor's forehead.
"Thank you, Daddy-Doctor! I knew you would," she said happily. "And
please don't be too long about it. I'm in a great hurry."
The doctor promised, of course. No one could resist Ruth when she was
like that, and in due time certain forces were set in operation to the
end that she might have her desire.
Meanwhile, as she waited, Ruth filled her days with thoughts of others,
not forgetting Cameron's mother for whom she was always preparing some
little surprise, a dainty gift, some fruit or flowers, a book that she
thought might comfort and while away her loneliness, a restful ride at
the early evening, all the little things that a thoughtful daughter might
do for a mother. And Cameron's mother wrote him long letters about it all
which would have delighted his heart during those dreary days if they
could only have reached him then.
Ruth's letters to Cameron were full of the things she was doing, full of
her sweet wise thoughts that seemed to be growing wiser every day. She
had taken pictures of her Italian friends and introduced him to them one
by one. She had filled every page with little word pictures of her daily
life. It seemed a pity that he could not have had them just when he
needed them most. It would have filled her with dismay if she could have
known the long wandering journey that was before those letters before
they would finally reach him; she might have been discouraged from
writing them.
Little Mrs. Beck was suddenly sent for one Sunday morning to attend her
sister who was very ill, and she hastily called Ruth over the telephone
and begged her to take her place at the Sunday school. Ruth promised to
secure some one to teach the lesson, but found to her dismay that no one
was willing to go at such short notice. And so, with trembling heart she
knelt for a hasty petition that God would guide her and show her how to
lead these simple people in the worship of the day.
As she stood before them trying to make plain in the broken, mixed
Italian and English, the story of the blind man, which was the lesson for
the day, there came over her a sense of her great responsibility. She
knew that these people trusted her and that what she told them they would
believe, and her heart lifted itself in a sharp cry for help, for light,
to give to them. She felt an appalling lack of knowledge and experience
herself. Where had she been all these young years of her life, and what
had she been doing that she had not learned the way of life so that she
might put it before them?
Before her sat a woman bowed with years, her face seamed with sorrow and
hard work, and grimed with lack of care, a woman whose husband frequently
beat her for attending Sunday school. There were four men on the back
seat, hard workers, listening with eager eyes, assenting vigorously when
she spoke of the sorrow on the earth. They, too, had seen trouble. They
sat there patient, sad-eyed, wistful; what could she show them out of the
Book of God to bring a light of joy to their faces? There were little
children whose future looked so full of hard knocks and toil that it
seemed a wonder they were willing to grow up knowing what was before
them. The money that had smoothed her way thus far through life was not
for them. The comfortable home and food and raiment and light and luxury
that had made her life so full of ease were almost unknown to them. Had
she anything better to offer them than mere earthly comforts which
probably could never be theirs, no matter how hard they might strive?
But, after all, money and ease could in no way soothe the pain of the
heart, and she had come close enough already to these people to know they
had each one his own heart's pain and sorrow to bear. There was one man
who had lost five little children by death. That death had come in
consequence of dirt and ignorance made it no easier to bear. The dirt and
ignorance had not all been his fault. People who were wiser and had not
cared to help were to blame. What was the remedy for the world's sorrow,
the world's need?
Ruth knew in a general way that Jesus Christ was the Saviour of the
world, that His name should be the remedy for evil; but how to put it to
them in simple form, ah! that was it. It was Cameron's search for God,
and it seemed that all the world was on the same search. But now to-day
she had suddenly come on some of the footprints of the Man of Sorrow as
He toiled over the mountains of earth searching for lost humanity, and
her own heart echoed His love and sorrow for the world. She cried out in
her helplessness for something to give to these wistful people.
Somehow the prayer must have been answered, for the little congregation
hung upon her words, and one old man with deep creases in his forehead
and kindly wrinkles around his eyes spoke out in meeting and said:
"I like God. I like Him good. I like Him all e time wi' mee! All e time.
Ev'e where! Him live in my house!"
The tears sprang to her eyes with answering sympathy. Here in her little
mission she had found a brother soul, seeking after God. She had another
swift vision then of what the kinship of the whole world meant, and how
Christ could love everybody.
After Sunday school was out little Sanda came stealing up to her:
"Mine brudder die," she said sorrowfully.
"What? Tony? The pretty fat baby? Oh, I'm so sorry!" said Ruth putting
her arm tenderly around the little girl. "Where is your mother? I must go
and see her."
Down the winding unkept road they walked, the delicately reared girl and
the little Italian drudge, to the hovel where the family were housed, a
tumbled-down affair of ancient stone, tawdrily washed over in some season
past with scaling pink whitewash. The noisy abode of the family pig was
in front of the house in the midst of a trim little garden of cabbage,
lettuce, garlic, and tomatoes. But the dirty swarming little house
usually so full of noise and good cheer was tidy to-day, and no guests
hovered on the brief front stoop sipping from a friendly bottle, or
playing the accordion. There was not an accordion heard in the community,
for there had been a funeral that morning and every one was trying to be
quiet out of respect for the bereaved parents.
And there in the open doorway, in his shirt sleeves, crouched low upon
the step, sat the head of the house, his swarthy face bowed upon his
knees, a picture of utter despair, and just beyond the mother's head was
bowed upon her folded arms on the window seat, and thus they mourned in
public silence before their little world.
Ruth's heart went out to the two poor ignorant creatures in their grief
as she remembered the little dark child with the brown curls and glorious
eyes who had resembled one of Raphael's cherubs, and thought how empty
the mother's arms would be without him.
"Oh, Sanda, tell your mother how sorry I am!" she said to the little
girl, for the mother could not speak or understand English. "Tell her not
to mourn so terribly, dear. Tell her that the dear baby is safe and happy
with Jesus! Tell her she will go to Him some day."
And as the little girl interpreted her words, suddenly Ruth knew that
what she was speaking was truth, truth she might have heard before but
never recognized or realized till now.
The mother lifted her sorrowful face all tear swollen and tried a pitiful
smile, nodded to say she understood, then dropped sobbing again upon the
window sill. The father lifted a sad face, not too sober, but blear-eyed
and pitiful, too, in his hopelessness, and nodded as if he accepted the
fact she had told but it gave him no comfort, and then went back to his
own despair.
Ruth turned away with aching heart, praying: "Oh, God, they need you!
Come and comfort them. I don't know how!" But somehow, on her homeward
way she seemed to have met and been greeted by her Saviour.
It was so she received her baptism for the work that she was to do.
The next day permission came for her to go to France, and she entered
upon her brief training.
"Don't you dread to have her go?" asked a neighbor of Aunt Rhoda.
"Oh, yes," sighed the good lady comfortably, "but then she is going in
good company, and it isn't as if all the best people weren't doing it. Of
course, it will be great experience for her, and I wouldn't want to keep
her out of it. She'll meet a great many nice people over there that she
might not have met if she had stayed at home. Everybody, they tell me, is
at work over there. She'll be likely to meet the nobility. It isn't as if
we didn't have friends there, too, who will be sure to invite her over
week ends. If she gets tired she can go to them, you know. And really, I
was glad to have something come up to take her away from that miserable
little country slum she has been so crazy about. I was dreadfully afraid
she would catch something there or else they would rob us and murder us
and kidnap her some day."
And that was the way things presented themselves to Aunt Rhoda!