“THAT WHICH SATISFIETH NOT.”
FAIRLY seated in the train, Ruth Burnham gave herself up to gloominess
over her own planning. The episode with the famous criminal lawyer not
having served to sweeten her way, she speedily determined on making
as little a cross of the rest of it as she could, too fully realizing
that, plan as she would, the way was a _cross_. She still shrank from
the fashionable “Madame’s,” and her fashionable corps of workers.
Perhaps the worriment was what she deserved for being so fashionable
in her desires that she could not bring herself to look up an obscure
back street with a modest sign, and thus help along the large army of
workers, who can not be fashionable—though really, there are two sides
to even that question. She understood that as a rule, the work done
from that back street would be a continual source of mortification to
her—a constant strain on her temper, so long as the garments lasted.
After all, it is not so much the desire to be in the height of the
fashion that sends women to the extravagantly high-priced _modistes_,
as a knowledge of the fact that as a rule, the low-priced ones do not
understand their business, and will succeed in making a bungle of any
work which they undertake. When there shall arise a class of women who
have carefully learned how to cut and make ordinary garments, in the
best manner, the cry of hard times, among such workers, will be less
frequently heard.
Ruth concluded not to risk contact with chance acquaintances in
street-cars; but, directly she reached the city, took a carriage to a
store where she was a stranger, and did some rapid transforming work.
Two stylish wraps, selected with due reference to their qualifications
for covering much objectionable toilet underneath—selected, too,
with careful reference to the height and shape and complexion of the
wearers; then gloves that were strong and neat-fitting and shapely;
then hats of easily-donned stamp, gracefully, yet slightly trimmed;
and, really, Judge Burnham would hardly have recognized his daughters.
Ruth surveyed them with satisfaction; and, if they could have been
fitted at the “Madame’s,” without removing those stylish mantles, she
would have drawn a sigh of relief. As it was, she still had that to
dread, and a real ordeal it was. Those who condemn her for exhibiting
much false pride and foolish lack of independence have probably never
been tried in the same way. You have, of course, observed that people’s
own peculiar trials are the ones for which they have sympathy. They are
harder, too, to bear, than any other person’s.
Ruth was not one whit behind the multitude, in her way of thinking
about herself. As she stood in the “Madame’s” apartments and endured
the well-bred stares and the well-bred impudence—for there really is
such a thing as what might be called well-bred impudence—she set her
teeth hard, and ruled that the color _should not_ rush into her face,
and, also, that the “Madame” should have no more of her custom, from
this time forth. And yet, when she came to cooler moments, she tried to
reason within herself, as to how the woman was to blame. What had she
said, or looked, that was not, under the circumstances, most natural?
All these questions Ruth held, for the time being, at bay, and arranged
and directed and criticised with her usual calm superiority of manner,
and with the assurance of one who knew exactly what she wanted, and
intended not to stop short of entire satisfaction. And she didn’t. She
was more critical and troublesome, even, than usual; and the “Madame”
would have told you that that was unnecessary. And, at last, after many
delays, and changes of plan and trimmings, and changes of patterns,
involving vexatious delays on “Madame’s” part, they were free of her
for the day, and could pursue their round of shopping more at leisure.
But Ruth was in no mood for shopping, other than the necessary things
that must be ordered to the “Madame’s” without delay. She was tired
and fretted; she wanted something to cool and quiet her.
She dispatched the necessary shopping with great care, indeed, but with
unusual speed, leaving the girls, meantime, seated in the carriage,
instead of in the great store, where they would have delighted to be.
The business of lunching had been dispatched some time before—as
soon, indeed, as they had left the dress-making establishment. Ruth
had chosen an obscure place for refreshment, not choosing to risk the
danger of fashionable acquaintances, at the places with which she
was familiar. Consequently, she had been able to do little else than
gather her skirts about her, to protect them from careless and hurried
waiters, and to curl her aristocratic nose behind her handkerchief, at
the unwonted smells combining around her; while the girls, famished by
the drain on their nerves, and having, by reason of the excitement of
the morning, been unable to indulge in much breakfast, made a hearty
meal, not at all disturbed by the sights and sounds and odors which
made eating an impossibility to Ruth. This little matter served to add
to her discomfort and her sense of gloom; for, when people are hungry,
they are much more ready to yield to gloom. All the shopping done that
she could bring herself to give attention to, she consulted her watch,
and learned with dismay, that there was an hour and a half before
train-time. What was to be done with it?
She thought of her husband’s office; but suppose the criminal lawyer
should be there? In any case, there would be those dreadful students
to stare, and nudge each other and giggle. Ruth dreaded a giggle more
than she did a bullet. Assuredly, she would not go there! Neither was
her city home to be thought of. She was not in a mood to present her
husband’s daughters to Mrs. Judge Erskine; neither did she intend
that those daughters, in their present attire, or with their present
attainments, should come in contact with her. So, as the gloomy-faced
woman rode listlessly along, on an up-town car, while the two
girls were bobbing their heads swiftly from one window to another,
endeavoring to take in all the strange sights, she was engaged in
trying to decide what to do with time. A blackboard bulletin, before
one of the public halls, caught her notice, and her quick eye took in
the large lettering: “_Bible Reading! Harry Morehouse! Here, at Four
O’clock! Come!_” Before she had reached the inviting word, she had
signaled the car, and the bewildered girls were following her whither
she would.
“There is an hour or more before we can go home,” she said in
explanation. “Let us go to this meeting. Perhaps it will be
interesting.”
They were entirely willing; in fact, they were in a state of maze.
Anything that this remarkable woman—who knew her way so composedly
through this great whirling city—suggested, they were willing to
help carry out. So they mounted the steps to the large, light,
social-looking room, where people were already thronging in. No
acquaintances to be feared here. Ruth did not now know many who
frequented such meetings, or were to be found in this part of the
city. In the distance she caught a glimpse Marion, but she shrank
back, unwilling to be recognized even by her; for Marion had her
beautiful daughter beside her, and the contrast would be too strikingly
painful. Presently the meeting opened. Ruth looked about her for
Harry Morehouse, a name with which she was not unfamiliar. But she
almost curled her lip in disappointment, she was so amazed at the
insignificance of this little, boyish man! “As if _he_ could help
anybody!” her heart said, in scorn. “What exaggerated reports do get
into the papers about people!” And then, presently, she did just what
many another person has done, who has listened to Harry Morehouse’s
rendering of Scripture—forgot to think of the man, and gave earnest
heed to the words which he was reading; words which, someway, had a
sound—strangely familiar though they were—as if she had never heard
them before.
“Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your
labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me,
and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in
fatness.” What was there in the familiar verse that thrilled so
through Ruth Burnham’s soul? “That which satisfieth not.” She needed
only her own experience to show her that one who understood the human
heart spoke those words! How freely she had been giving labor! and
how strangely unsatisfying it all seemed to her to-day! She fairly
hungered and thirsted after a higher grasp of the Infinite Arm, reached
down. A great longing came over her to hide herself away in him. She
was so tired and so tried, and a long line of petty trials stared her
in the face. She felt like turning away from them all; and yet she
mustn’t. Well, then, she felt like reaching higher ground—getting
up where the air was purer—where these endless details of dress and
position would trouble her less—where such women as “Madame,” the
dressmaker, would have no power to flush her cheek and set her heart
to angry beatings by a high-bred stare. Suddenly a new thought flashed
across her heart. These girls—what had she been doing for them?
How had she been trying to satisfy them? In the days that they had
spent together, she remembered that she had not once alluded, even
in the most remote manner, to anything higher, or better, or more
satisfying, than these new things, which, at best, were to perish
with the using. Had she not, by her example, left the impress of her
first influence upon them to the effect that well-furnished rooms and
carefully-adorned bodies were _the_ important things on which to spend
one’s strength?
“Well,” she said within her disturbed self, “I have no time.”
“No time?” inquired that other inner self, which is forever at war with
its fellow. “Is it because you have been employed on _more_ important
matters?”
This almost angered Ruth; it flushed her face, and she said:
“There is a proper time for all things.”
“Yes,” said the other one, “and is the proper time to attend to this
most important concern with which we have to do in life _after_ all the
lesser matters are disposed of?”
Then Ruth roused, and gave her heart some searching into. Was it
possible that she had really been teaching those girls that she
considered the matter of their outward adorning more important than
anything else connected with them! If actions speak even louder than
words, and if she had acted the one, and not so much as _spoken about_
the other, what else _could_ they think?
“I am glad,” she told herself, “that I brought them into this meeting.
At least they will get a different idea here.”
Then she turned and looked at them. _Would_ they get different ideas,
or had the first taken root, leaving at least no _present_ room for
other growths?
Miss Seraphina was spreading her hand carefully out on her lap, and
contemplating with eyes of unmistakable admiration the color and
texture and fit of her new gloves! It was altogether probable that
she had never worn well-fitting gloves before, and she felt their
importance. The other sister was evidently as totally absorbed in
the trimness of her neatly-fitting kid boot, the advent of which had
made her foot a stranger to herself, with which she was trying to get
acquainted, as though Harry Morehouse and his wonderful new Bible had
been in London at that moment! A strange pang thrilled the heart of
the woman who was trying in her youth to be a mother to these two, as
she looked at their absorbed faces and followed the direction of their
eyes. Was that simply the necessary result of new refinements? Would
these all sink into their proper and subordinate places directly the
newness and strangeness had worn off, or was this really a wave of her
own influence which was going to increase in power as surely as it was
fed?
Now, this thought did not rest her; and while it was desirable in
itself that she should be thus early roused to the sense of danger
there might be in flooding these young creatures with this world’s
vanities, that wise old enemy, Satan, was on the alert to make the
whole matter into thorns with which to prick Ruth’s tired heart, and in
obliging her thoughts to revolve around this center, never widening it
nor seeing her way out of the maze, yet effectually shutting her off
from the practical help which awaited her through the channel of Harry
Morehouse’s Bible.
Somebody has said that, whoever else stays away from a religious
meeting, Satan never does. Was there ever a truer statement? If he
would only appear in his natural character, instead of, as in this
instance, transforming himself into a goad, and pressing hard against
the nerves that were already strained to their utmost!
On the whole, Mrs. Judge Burnham went home on the five o’clock train
thoroughly wearied in body and mind, and with a haunting sense of
disappointment pressing down her spirits. She had accomplished that
which she had in the morning started to do. She had been successful
in all her undertakings, and could feel that things were now in train
for making transformation in the outward appearance of these hitherto
neglected girls. A laudable undertaking, certainly, so it was held in
its place, but she could not get her heart away from the sentence: “And
your labor for that which satisfieth not.”