"Intreat me not to leave thee."--_Ruth 1:16._
ONE fine summer day, a good man named Boaz went out into his
corn-fields where his reapers were cutting down the wheat. "The Lord be
with you," he said. "The Lord bless thee," they answered. Then he saw a
young woman gleaning, whom he had never seen before.
[Illustration: RUTH AND NAOMI.--Ruth 1:16.]
He asked who she was. He heard that her name was Ruth, and she was a
stranger and a widow. Then why had she come there? Because she could
not bear to leave her husband's mother, Naomi, alone in her old age.
She knew that if she kept with Naomi she must be poor and forlorn,
and away from all her friends; but she loved her mother-in-law so
much, that she said, "Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from
following after thee: * * * where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy
people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will
I die, and there will I be buried."
When Boaz knew that Ruth was poor and a stranger, he told his reapers
to drop some handfuls of corn in her way; and he told Ruth to keep
among his young maidens, so that nobody might be rude to her, and that
she might rest and eat among them when they rested in the heat of the
day.
[Illustration: RUTH GLEANING IN THE FIELD OF BOAZ.--Ruth 2:5.]
Ruth carried home plenty of corn to her mother-in-law. And soon it was
found out that Boaz was their nearest friend; and he married Ruth, and
Naomi lived with them; and Ruth was no longer poor and a stranger, but
was happy as a wife and mother in her beautiful home.