Her Christmas Gift
by
A WHITE RIBBON STORY
She was born on Christmas Day, and so came, with her little white face and solemn eyes, into her pale mother’s life. She was worse than fatherless. The beast of a man she might have come to call by that sacred name, would now be beside the snowy cot, weeping in maudlin rejoicing over his new treasure, if the mother had not resolutely put him away some six months before.
The world knew him as Judge Barrett, a man of fine family, superb talents, and a magnetic orator. He might be, perhaps, too convivial on occasions, but was not this a common frailty among Kentucky’s great men? The wife knew him as besotted and disgusting. What mattered his learning, his eloquence, his aristocratic blood, or ample income? To her alone he brought his degraded mass of humanity day after day; and though never personally unkind to her, or to the little boy that died, she was enabled by the might of her tearless agony beside that tiny bier, to cut the last tie that bound her to the blear-eyed creature sobbing on the other side. The last tie? Ah, woe was she! The coming time brought into her desolate life the frail link she must now take up; and in the first bitter realization of her wronged womanhood, the mother-love lay dormant.
As the months went by the little Ruth twined herself in every fiber about that lonely mother’s heart, till she was loved with a love that was pain. So jealously guarded, too, that never once had the father’s eyes fallen upon her, not even by chance. In vain he sent appeals just to look on his little daughter; he would ask no more. He was refused, and the baby’s nurse did not dare transgress.
By-and-by Ruth was old enough to understand; and then she wanted to know who her papa was, and why he never came home as Masie Morrow’s did. At this her mother would be terrified, and clasping her treasure close, would tell her she must never ask about her papa; he was a dreadful man.
“Like Jack, the Giant-killer, mumzie?”
“Oh, my dearie, he is a great deal worse.”
Again Ruth said; “I know, mumzie, my papa is a great black thing like the pictures on the circus papers!”
So it came to pass that Miss Ruth fell to thinking about her father till it got to be a sort of mania with her–wondering and wondering what it all meant. Her life was secluded, but she was fondly attached to her grandparents and to a number of friends who were received at the house, while her mother was most tenderly enshrined in the faithful little heart.
The mother had a comfortable income, and provided her little girl with the best masters. She was a quaint, white-faced, solemn-eyed creature, as she had been from the first. She said “old” things, her black nurse declared, and she knew her little “missy” was under a spell. If so, the spell was tempered by an almost idolatrous love on the mother’s part.
When she was getting to be a romping big girl, she had just as queer ways; too old for a child, though the sober, owl-like look began to soften to an earnest expression, which on occasions verged upon a twinkle in the deep blue eyes. Distant friends were now writing letters of inquiry, and her father’s relatives persistently urged Mrs. Barrett to send the child to them for a visit. At last she took Ruth and went; she would not trust her out of her sight. She was a pale, pretty, gentle-looking woman, with a will of iron. It was to Judge Barrett’s sister, Mrs. Stanton, in a neighboring town, that they came. They were afraid to mention his name, or hint at a possible reconciliation; but they managed to make the young Ruth very much in love with her new aunt, and merry, pretty cousins.