Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1879-01-09
RUTH DEANS VISIT.
Sophia Emery in the Boston Trayclc

Sophia Emery in the Boston Traveller.
In this world it is best not to think
too much of pleasant possibles, that we
may not be out of humor with prese nj
.insipids; yet despite this lamb-like
maxim, if ever one planned and econo-
mixed, making old gowns last twice
their usual span, that she might have
3 one long, cool holiday in new gowns
and free from care, It was Ruth Dean,
the cheeriest Of beings, with the whitest
teeth and brownest hair that ever adorn-
ed n mortal woman near her fortieth
! birthdaY-an age when many of her
sisters have lost youth, health and
comeliness, and begin to have a dim
consciousness that they ought to bave
died when they were young and toler-
able.
When Ruth first planned this visit to
: her relatives away from Maine hills,
she was living in q large western city
with q ne'er-tO-dO-well husband and a
graceless young nephew, upon whom
she lavlshed all the pent-up motherhood
that she had never been called to ex-
pend upon children of her own.
Why Ruth, the fairest and most low
able Of the five Wcrthing girls, should
have bound herself fortuitOusly, or
otherwise, to such bundle of obsti-
macy and incapacity as John Dean
while all her plain, ordinary-minded
sisters married capable, enterprising
men, is a question for philosophers and
biologists.
Keurah Ann Bowers, an angular
down-east woman, living with Mrs. Lane
Ruth's near neighbor, in the capacity oil
unpaid philosopher and paid nurse
guiltless of DarWinian theories in regard
TO natural selection, and having positive
ideas OF, her own about matters in gen
.eral, 'knowed," to use her expressive
language, "as we'll as she wanted to-
jest why Ruth WOrthin' throwed herself
away marrying that shiftless John
Dean"
'Ef anybody knows Ruth an all hen
family an all their ways, it's me-
Keturah was trotting, quite gently rfol
her, 2-weeks-old baby on her lap, and
said this III answer to some questions
of Mrs. Lane III regard to Mrs. Dean.
"1ou see, lived with Deacon Worth
ms folks, off and on, most of the time
after | was IA When [ went there
Ruth an Robert-they were both twins
was jest little tots in pinafores. Miss
Worthin's other children was sight
older, an Ruth an Robert growed up
al 10 themselves like; for the older ones
married and went away afOre the twins
was 10 years old. Sich happy critters
was them two twins! A playin' or a
plannin', a studyin' or Il worl<in', they
was alWus together Robert was mas
tersmart about larnin, and Ruth want
ahind him, eff she was Il woman-kind.
The deacon kalkerlated to send him to
college, and Robert took to studyin'
Greek an Latnn, an SIGH, an Ruth
kept right along with him, an guess
she helped him more'n he did her.
Fl 'EBut this college notion didn't last
long afore he got Ia desperit way to
50 to sea. The deacon thought he
might go just once, to sicken him OF
such q life. 1t didn't though, an he
KEEP on goin,' as boys mostly do down
there on the coast of Maine-it is born
in Penn. 1..-
"When Ruth was nigh 20 wears old,
Miss Worthin' took q stroke an went
off suddenly. The deacon never cot
over this blow, an next year, when the
layi0cks was a-blowin', we laid him side
of mother as he always called her.
They was all the father an mother
ever knowed.' --....
y To hide q touch of feeling in her
voice, Keturah Ann gave the baby's
clothes a vigorous pull downwards, OBJ
serving In her usual stridulous tone:
:" The masterfullest baby to be always
hunchin' up his clothes ever see."
g" Where was Robert when his parents
died?" asked Mrs. Lane. u.@
" was going to say he was off on a
long trip an come home few months
afterwards. What should he bring with
him, though, but a queer kind of a
furrln wife, German, that he took of
a'wrack with other poor half-starved
critters. How on airth they. c0ntrived
to get acquainted an fan in love with
one mother, it beats me; for when she
come to us she couldn't speak scurse a
alword except nine that I could make
outan' that she put in SIGH onsuspected
places that | used to laugh when
oughtn't-she n poor furriner an all
her family drowned.
But as soon as Ruth set ewes on
tins Bertha Rubinstein, she took to her
an all her outlandish ways as eff she'd
been q born sister" ...-- a..l
But" suggested Mrs. Lane, "I
thought you We're to tell me how Ruth
happened to marry John Dean. She
had no beau, no lover. up to this
time ~
,s"sakes alivel plenty of 'em. sich as
Their was. There was the schoolmaster
thatRuth never got sight on, but she'd
cen almost laugh in his face, he was
that queer and stiff in his ways; an
There was a neighbours son with a soft
spot IN his head somewhere, for he writ
poems and ID things. for papers-believe
he came,to be editor afterwards Ruth
couldn't bear him. Then there was the
sea eaptings q sight oider'n her, forever
a.asklp other togo q rfdifl' or walkin'
w1ehrhlln,,aan' she a maxim excuses an
never a, goin'. Ruth nicknamed him
III her funny way, Laird .Dumbiedikes.
an said he'd think himself she ought to
marry him, she'd known him SO long.
Then there was Roberts friend, Dick.
real likely he was, too, an he was at the
deacon's sight; but | didn't call him