READY.
Ruby thoroughly enjoyed all the preparations that were being made for
her departure. Every day, and a great many times a day, the little
trunk would be opened and something more put into its hungry mouth, and
it was soon quite full of the things which Ruby was to take with her.
Of course she did not get into mischief during these busy days,--there
was no time for it. It was only when Ruby had nothing else to think
about that she devised plans for mischief. At last everything was
ready the evening before she was to start. Miss Abigail had finished
all that she had to do; she had bidden Ruby good-by, with a long
lecture upon how she ought to behave when she was at school, so as to
set a good example to her school-mates, and reflect credit upon her
father and mother and the training they had given her, and then she had
concluded by giving Ruby something that I am afraid she valued much
more than the advice,--a pretty little house-wife, of red silk, which
she had made for her, with everything in it that Ruby would need if she
wanted to take any stitches.
When Ruby saw it she was sorry that she had twisted about so much, and
showed so plainly how impatient she was growing of the long talk which
preceded it.
Then Miss Abigail had tied on her large black bonnet, and Ruby had
watched her going down the road with a sense of relief that there would
be no more fitting of dresses, with cold fingers and still colder
scissors, and no more lectures upon good behavior. However, she was so
pleased and surprised by the pretty gift that she felt more kindly
towards Miss Abigail than she would have believed it possible.
Ruby's old dresses had been made over until they looked just like new
ones, and the last stitches had been taken in her new ones, and little
white ruffles were basted in the necks, so that they were all ready to
put on. Everything had been carefully folded up and packed in her
trunk,--not only her clothes, but the little farewell gifts that her
friends had brought her.
She had a nice pencil-box, filled with pencils and pen-holders, two
penwipers, as well as a box of the dearest little note-paper, just the
right size for her to write upon, with her initial "R" at the top of
the paper.
Orpah had brought her a mysterious box, carefully tied up in paper,
which she had made Ruby promise that she would not open until she
unpacked her trunk at school; so that gave Ruby something nice to look
forward to when she should reach her journey's end.
Ruby had fully intended to take her kitten with her, and she was very
much disappointed when Aunt Emma told her that that was one of the
things she would have to leave behind her.
Ann promised to take the very best care of Tipsey, and that promise
comforted Ruby somewhat, although she still wished that she might take
her pet with her.
It was not until the last evening came that Ruby fully realized that
she was going away to leave her papa and mamma the next day. Then she
felt as if she would gladly give up her trunk and all her new clothes
and everything that she had been enjoying so much, if she might only
stay at home.
For the first time her promise to her father to be brave about going
away cost her a great effort. Her mother had not been nearly so well
since the night she had been so anxious about her little girl, and Ruby
knew that she must not worry her by crying or fretting about going away.
But she climbed up on her father's lap after she had eaten her supper,
and put her head down upon his broad shoulder, with the feeling that
nothing in all the wide world could make up to her for being away from
him and from her dear mother.
She wished with all her heart that she had tried to be a good girl
during her mother's illness, for then it would not have been necessary
to send her away to school. But now it was too late, for everything
was all ready for her going, and Ruby was quite sure that coax and
tease as hard as she might, her father would not change his plans.
"I don't want to go away, papa," she said, with a little sob in her
voice, as Tipsey scrambled up in her lap, and curling herself into a
little round ball of fur began to purr a soft little tune.
"Don't you want to leave Tipsey?" asked her father, playfully.
"It is n't only Tipsey," said Ruby, while a big tear splashed down upon
her father's hand. "It is you and mamma, most of all, and Ruthy, and
everybody. I know I shall not be one single bit happy at school when I
can't come home and see you when I want to, and I shall just most die,
I am sure I shall."
"Little daughter, we both love mother, don't we?" asked her father,
stroking Ruby's dark hair gently.
"Yes, sir," answered Ruby, with a tremulous voice.
"And we would do anything to help her get well again?"
"Why, of course," Ruby answered again.
"Then we must do some things that are hard, if we really want to help
her. You know how sick she has been the last few days. I don't want
you to feel as if I was sending you away only as a punishment for
running away that night. Perhaps if you had not done that particular
thing, I might not have given my consent to this plan, but I am sure
you are enough of a little woman to see what a help it will be to
mother. If she is to get well again, she needs to have her mind kept
perfectly free from worry; and when you are running about with no one
to take care of you except Ann, who is too busy to do much for you, she
is worrying all the time for fear something may happen to you, or that
you may get into some mischief. Now if she knows you are safe at
school with Aunt Emma, where you will be well taken care of, and will
study your lessons, and try to be good and obedient, then she will feel
so much happier about you that it will do more toward helping her to
get well than all the medicine in the world. There are some things
that I can do for her. I can take care of her, and give her medicine,
and see that nothing troubles her in the house, but there is something
for you to do that I cannot do. This is to be your share of helping
dear mother get well. If you go away bravely, and try to study and be
a good girl, so that Aunt Emma can write home in each letter that you
are doing just as mother would wish you to do, you will be helping her
even more than I will. If you think only about yourself, you will cry
about going, and fret to come home, until mother will be troubled about
you, and perhaps think it best for you to come home again; but if you
think about mother, you will be my own brave little daughter, and then
mother will soon be well again, and we will send for our little Ruby,
and she will come home wiser and better-behaved than when she went
away, and we will all be so happy. I am sure I know which you are
going to do."
"I am going to be just as brave as can be," Ruby answered, winking back
the tears which had been trying to roll down her cheeks, and rubbing
out of sight the great shining one which had splashed down upon
Tipsey's soft fur. "Yes, papa, I am going to be just as brave as
anything. I won't cry. I won't say one word about wanting to come
home in my letters, and I will study so hard that I shall stay up at
the head of the class just as I do here, and the teacher will think I
am ever so--"
"Be careful, darling," interrupted her father. "I don't want my little
girl to think so much of herself. If you go to school thinking that
you are going to be so much more clever than all the other little
girls, I am afraid you will find out that you are sadly mistaken, and
then you will be very unhappy. Don't think of excelling the other
girls, but think of doing the very best you can because it is right,
and because it will make mother and father happy. I would rather have
my little Ruby at the very foot of the class, and have her unselfish
and gentle, than have her at the head, with a proud and unlovely
spirit. Of course I should be very glad to have my little daughter
excel in her lessons, for then I should know that she was studying and
trying to improve herself as much as possible, but I don't want to have
her as vain as a little peacock over it. And you know, Ruby, that it
is generally when you are trusting in yourself that you do something
that you are the most sorry for. Pride goes before a fall, you
remember."
"I will try not to be proud," said Ruby, penitently. "But you don't
know how I like to be praised, papa. It scares Ruthy, and she does n't
like it one bit, but I like it from my head down to my feet, I truly
do. I like to have people say I am ever so smart, and I don't see how
I can help it."
"By trying to forget yourself, dear, and keeping self in the
back-ground as much as you can in everything that you do. When you are
trying to do anything well, remember that it is only just what you
ought to do. God has given you a good memory, and a readiness to
learn, and so you ought to do the very best with the powers he has
given you. You have no more reason to be vain of them than a peacock
has to be vain of his fine tail. And it is better to be lovable than
clever, and any one who is conceited never makes the friends that a
modest child does. Now promise me that you will try, little daughter,
to be gentle and modest, and not come back to us selfish and full of
conceit."
"I will truly try, papa," Ruby answered. "That is harder for me to try
than to try to learn my lessons or to keep the rules, but I will truly
try, and you shall see how brave I will be in the morning when I go
away. Why, papa, I am brave this very minute. I could just cry and
cry, it makes me feel so full to think that this time to-morrow night
you will be here just the same, and I will be ever so far away."
"We will think about the time when you will come home again," said her
father, quickly, for Ruby's voice sounded very much as if a word more
would bring the tears. "Some day I shall drive down to the station and
a young lady with a trunk will get off the cars, and I shall hardly
know who it is, you will have grown so fast. Little girls always grow
fast when they go to boarding-school, you know."
"Do they?" asked Ruby, eagerly. "Oh, papa, do you s'pose I can have
long dresses next year?"
"Why, then people would think you were a little baby again," said her
papa, pretending to misunderstand her. "They would say, 'Why, Ruby
Harper wore long dresses when she was six months old, and now she has
them on again. She must have grown backwards.'"
"Now, papa Harper, you are making fun of me," exclaimed Ruby. "I mean
long dresses like young ladies wear. I want to be grown up. Will I be
big enough to wear dresses with a train next year if I grow fast."
"If you should grow fast enough," her father answered, pinching her
cheek, "but I don't think you will do that, Ruby. You would have to
grow like Jack's beanstalk, if you expect to spring up into a young
lady in a year. Why, then I would not have any little girl, and what
would I do for some one to hold in my lap?"
"Oh, I guess I don't want to grow too big to sit in lap," Ruby
answered, nestling closer to her father. "I forgot that part of it.
I will wait for ever so many years for long dresses, if I must give up
sitting in lap. Well, I will grow as fast as I can, but not so fast
that I won't be your little Ruby any longer."
"And now, dear, say good-night to mamma and go to bed," said her
father, as he heard the clock striking. "We will have to be up bright
and early in the morning, and I want you to have a good sleep."
By the time the stars were looking down Ruby was sound asleep in her
little trundle-bed for the last time for many weeks.