A SISTER NEEDED.
SOME vigorous planning was done that night which followed Ruth
Burnham’s introduction to her new home. It was not restless planning;
neither could it be said to be about new things, for these things Ruth
had studied every day since the first week of her engagement, and the
summer, which was in its spring-time then, was fading now, so she had
_thought_ before. But something had given her thoughts new strength
and force. Ruth believed it to be that hour which she had spent alone
on her knees. She had spent many an hour before that alone on her
knees, but never had the power of the unseen presence taken such hold
upon her as at that time. She had felt her own powerlessness as _Ruth
Erskine_ had not been given to feeling it, and you know it is “man’s
extremity that is God’s opportunity.”
It was before the hour of breakfast that she commenced the process of
developing some of her plans to her husband.
“How long will it take to dispose of the Ferris family?” she asked
him, and her voice was so calm, so full of strength, and conscious
determination that it rested him.
“It can be done just as soon as your genius, combined with my executive
ability, can bring it to pass,” he answered, laughing, “and I sincerely
hope and trust that you will be brilliant and rapid in your display of
genius.”
“But, Judge Burnham, ought they to have warning, as we do with
servants?”
“A week’s warning? I trust not! I should not promise to endure a
week of it. Oh, they are prepared. I broadly hinted to them that the
mistress would want the house to herself. If they had not felt the
necessity of being here to welcome you it could have been managed
before this. They have their plans formed, I believe, and as soon as
you want to manage without them, I will make it for their interest to
be in haste.”
Ruth turned toward him with a relieved smile and an eager air. “Could
you manage, then, to make it to their interest to go before breakfast,
or shall we have to wait until that meal is over?”
He laughed, gayly. “Your energy is refreshing,” he said, “especially
when it is bestowed in such a worthy cause. No, I think we will have
to wait until after breakfast. But, Ruth, are you really in earnest?
Do you actually mean to settle down here, in this house, as it is? And
what are you going to do about help, and about—well, everything?”
Before she answered she came over and stood beside him, slipping
her hand through his arm and speaking in tender earnestness. “Judge
Burnham, I want you to understand me; I feel that I may have seemed
hard, and cold, and selfish. Perhaps I have been selfish in pushing my
plan; I think I have been, but I did not intend it for selfishness. I
was, and am, led by what seems to be _our_ duty—yours and mine. Those
girls of yours have been neglected. I can see how you, being a man,
would not know what to do; at the same time I can see how I, being a
woman, can at least _try_ to do many things, and I am very eager to
try. You may call it an experiment if you will, and if it is, in your
estimation in six months from now an utter failure, I will give it up
and do exactly as you propose.”
There was a gleam of assurance in her eyes, and he could see that she
did not believe he would ever be called upon to follow _his_ plans. But
something tender and pleading in her tone touched him, and he said,
with feeling:
“I begin to realize forcibly, what has only come upon me in touches
heretofore—that I have not done my duty by the girls. I did not know
what to do. I used to study the question and try to plan it, but I can
not tell you how utterly hopeless it seemed to me. Finally, I gave it
up. I determined that nothing could ever be done but to support them
and live away from them, and long before I knew you I determined on
that as my line of action. So your resolution was a surprise to me—an
overwhelming one. But, perhaps, you are right. At least I will help
you in whatever way I can to carry out _your_ plans, however wild they
are, and I begin to realize that you may possibly have some very wild
ones, but I promise allegiance.”
“Good!” said Ruth, with sparkling eyes, “I ask nothing better than
that. Then we will proceed at once to business; there is so much to be
done that I don’t feel like taking a wedding journey just now. We can
enjoy it so much more when we get our house in order. There are certain
things that I need to know at once. First, how much or how little is
there to be done to this house, and—and to everything? In other words,
how much money am I to spend?”
“Oh,” he said looking relieved, “I thought you were going to ask me
what ought to be done to make the place habitable, and, really, I
hardly know where to commence. I shall be charmed to leave it in your
hands. As to money, I think I may safely promise you what you need
unless your ideas are on a more magnificent scale than I think. I will
give you my check this morning for a thousand dollars, and when that
is used you may come to me for as much more. Is that an answer to your
question?”
“An entirely satisfactory one.” She answered him with shining eyes,
and they went down to breakfast with a sense of satisfaction which,
considering the surroundings and the marvelous calicoes in which the
daughters of the house appeared, was surprising.
“I don’t see the way clear to results,” Judge Burnham said,
perplexedly, as he and his wife walked on the piazza after breakfast
and continued the discussion of ways and means. “If the Ferris tribe
vacate to-day, as I have just intimated to the head of the family is
extremely desirable, what are you to do for help until such time as
something competent in that line can be secured, always supposing that
there _is_ such a thing in existence? I remember what an experience you
have been having in your father’s house in the line of help.”
“Oh, well,” said Ruth, brightly, “we had the small-pox, you know;
that makes a difference. They have excellent servants there now, and,
indeed, we generally have had. My housekeeping troubles did not lie in
that direction. I have a plan; I don’t know what you will think of it.
I am afraid you will be very much surprised?”
“No, I shall not,” he interrupted her to say, “I have gotten beyond the
condition of surprise at anything which you may do or propose.”
Then she went on with her story.
“I thought it all over last night, and if she will do it, I think I see
my way clear, and I am almost sure she will, for, really, I never knew
a more unselfish girl in my life.”
“I dare say,” her husband said, regarding her with an amused air.
“Perhaps I might agree with you if you will enlighten me as to which of
the patterns of domestic unselfishness you have in mind. Did she reign
in your household since my knowledge of it began?”
“Oh, I am not speaking of _hired_ help,” Ruth said, and a vivid flush
brightened her cheeks. “I was thinking of my sister. It is her help I
have in mind.”
“Susan!” he exclaimed, and then was suddenly silent. His face showed
that, after all, she had surprised him.
There was much talk about it after that, and the discussion finally
ended in their taking passage in the mail-wagon, about which Judge
Burnham had spoken the day before, and jogging together to the train.
There was so much to be done that Ruth had not the patience to wait
until another day, besides their departure would give the Ferris
family a chance to hasten _their_ movements. On the way to the cars
Judge Burnham mentally resolved that his first leisure moments should
be spent in selecting horses and a driver, since he was to become a
country gentleman. Whether he would or not, it became him to look out
for conveniences.
Seated again in the train, and made comfortable by her watchful
husband, Ruth took time to smile over the variety of experiences
through which she had gone during the less than twenty-four hours since
she sat there before. It seemed to her that she had lived a little
life-time, and learned a great deal, and it seemed a wonderful thing
that she was actually going to Susan Erskine with a petition for help.
Who could have supposed that _she_, Ruth Erskine, would ever have
reached such a period in her history that she would turn to her as
the only a available source of supply and comfort. A great deal of
thinking can be done in one night, and Ruth had lain awake and gone
over her ground with steady gaze and a determined heart. It surprised
her that things had not looked plainer to her before. “Why couldn’t I
have seen this way, yesterday, before I left home?” she asked herself,
but the wonder was that she had seen it thus early.
Very much surprised were the Erskine household to see their bride of
less than twenty-four hours’ standing appear while they still lingered
over their breakfast-table!
“We live in the country, you know,” was Ruth’s composed explanation of
the early advent. “Country people are up hours before town people have
stirred; I always knew that.”
“Land alive!” said Mrs. Judge Erskine, and then for a whole minute she
was silent. She confided to Ruth, long afterward, that for about five
minutes her “heart was in her mouth,” for she surely thought they had
quarrelled and parted!
“Though I thought at the time,” she explained, “that if you _had_ got
sick of it a’ready you wouldn’t have come back together, and have
walked into the dining-room in that friendly fashion. But, then, I
remembered that you never did things like anybody else in this world,
and if you had made up your mind to come back home again, and leave
your husband, you would be sure to pick out a way of doing it that no
other mortal would ever have thought of!”
“I am going to my room,” Ruth said presently. “Judge Burnham, I will
hasten, and be ready to go down town with you in a very little while.
Susan, will you come with me, please? I want to talk to you.”
And Susan arose with alacrity, a pleasant smile lighting her plain
face. There was a sound of sisterliness in the tone, which she had
watched and waited for, but rarely heard.
“I have come on the strangest errand,” Ruth said, dropping into her own
favorite chair, as the door of her old room closed after them. “I feel
as if I were at least a year older than I was yesterday. I have thought
so much. First of all, Susan, I want to tell you something. I have
found something. I have come close to Jesus—I mean he has come close to
me. He has almost shown me himself. I don’t know how to tell you about
it, and indeed I am not sure that there is anything to _tell_. But
it is a great deal to have experienced. I seem to have heard him say,
‘Come to _me_. Why do you struggle and plan and toss yourself about?
Haven’t I promised you _rest_?’ And, Susan, I do believe he spoke to my
heart; why not?”
“Why not, indeed!” said Susan, “when he has repeated the message so
many times. Ruth, I am _so_ glad!”
Then Ruth ran rapidly from that subject to less important ones, giving
her sister a picture, in brief, of the new home, closing with the
sentence:
“Now I am in a dilemma. I can’t keep any of the Ferris family for an
hour, and I can’t introduce new servants until things are in different
shape, and I can’t get them into different shape until I have help. Do
you see what I am to do?”
“Yes,” said Susan, with a bright smile, “you need a sister; one who
knows how to help in all household matters, and yet who knows how to
keep her tongue reasonably quiet as to what she found. I know how
servants gossip, some of them. That Rosie we had for a week tried to
tell me things about Mrs. Dr. Blakeman’s kitchen that would make her
feel like fainting if she knew it. A sister is just exactly what you
need in this emergency. Will you let her step into the gap and show you
how nicely she can fill it?”
“_Will_ you?” Ruth asked, eagerly. “That is just exactly what I
wanted to say, though I didn’t like to say it, for fear you would
misunderstand, not realize, you know, that it is because we don’t want
to go out of the _family_ for assistance just now that we needed you so
much.”
Recognized at last in _words_ as a member of the family! An
unpremeditated sentence, evidently from the heart. It was what Susan
Erskine had been patiently biding her time and waiting for. It had come
sooner than she expected. It made her cheeks glow.
“I will go home with you at once,” she said, in a business-like way.
“There is nothing to hinder. The machinery of this house is in running
order again. That new second girl is a treasure, Ruth, and, by the way,
she has a sister who might develop into a treasure for you. Now let me
see if I understand things. What do you want to do first?”
“First,” said Ruth, smiling, “I need to go shopping. It is my _forte_,
you know. I like to buy things, and at last there is certainly occasion
for my buying. Susan, you have no idea how much is wanted. Everything
in every line is necessary, and Judge Burnham has left all to me. We
need paper-hangers and painters, and all that sort of thing, but of
course he will attend to those things. Our plan is to return to-night
with a load of necessities. Judge Burnham is going to hire a team at
once, and have it loaded. But what _are_ the first necessities? Where
shall I begin?”
“Begin with a pencil and paper,” said Susan, seizing upon them and
seating herself. “Now, let us be methodical. My teacher in mathematics
once told me that I was nothing if I was not methodical. Kitchen
first—no, dining-room, because we shall have to eat even before we get
the house in order. What is a necessity to that table before you can
have a comfortable meal?”
Then they plunged into business. Two women, thoroughly in earnest,
pencil and paper in hand, bank check in pocket, organization well
developed in both of them, and the need of speed apparent, can
accomplish surprising things in the way of plans in an hour of time,
especially when one is persistently methodical.
When Mrs. Burnham arose and drew her wrap around her preparatory
to joining the husband, who was waiting below, she felt as though
a week’s work had been accomplished. Besides, they had been cheery
together, these two—been in a different mood toward each other from
what had ever appeared before. Susan was so sensible, so quick-witted,
so clear-sighted as to what needed doing first, and as to ways of
doing the soonest, and withal her matter-of-course way of saying “we”
when she spoke of the work to arrange, made her appear such a tower
of strength to Ruth, who knew so well her own delinquencies in the
direction of housework, and who had thoroughly tested Susan’s practical
knowledge.
“Land alive!” ejaculated Mrs. Erskine, when, after Ruth’s departure,
the new arrangements were presented to her for approval. “Who would
have thought she would have to come after you, in less than a day
after she set out to do for herself. So capable as she is, too, though
I don’t suppose she knows much more than a kitten about housework. How
should she? Well, I’m glad I had you learn all them things. What we’d
have done this winter if I hadn’t is more than _I_ can see through.
Well, well, child, I don’t know how we are going to get along without
you. Your pa sets great store by you; I can see it every day; and what
if I should have another turn of sick headache while you’re gone!
Though, for that matter, I don’t believe I will. I guess going through
the small-pox cured them headaches. I ain’t had one since. And so she
needs you right off? Well, poor thing! I don’t know what she _would_ do
without you, I’m sure. Them girls ain’t efficient, I dare say; girls
never are. You learn ’em how, Susan; you can do it, if anybody can, and
that’ll be doing ’em a good turn.”
Susan discreetly kept her own counsel about “them girls,” and quietly
and swiftly packed her satchel, not without an exultant song at her
heart. This beautiful sister, whose love she had craved, seemed very
near to her this morning.