The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1881-05-18
LITTLE RUTH.
AN OLD MANS STORY

know I was q selfish old idiot, now,
when look around me and see the mer-
cies given me in my helpless oIdage, feel
the warm love around me on all sides.
and realize the desolation my own hand
reached forth to grasp; but I was blind
to the future in those days when I so
nearly wrecked all its happiness.
This was how it happened: After Mar
forty happy years of my life were spent
and all my children were dead OF mar
ried, excepting Ruth, there fell upon me
the heavy misfortune that has chained
me to this chair, or my bed, for fifteen
weary years. l had been Woodworking
man all my life-a wheelwright by trade
with large family to rear, to cIothe,
to feed, to educate, and, ah me one by
one to bury in the old churchyard, till
only Mary, James and Ruth, our baby.
were left to me. Mary married, and
went with her husband to the far West,
James took his small fortune of few
hard earned dollars, and left us for the
golden land of promise, California, and
only little Ruth was left us. Then the
angel of death came for Martha. and
only six months later I was stricken help.
less with paralysis.
am recOnciled now to my hard fate
and can sit here happily, glad that nv
eyesight is still good, my right hand free
and that have learned in nv old ace tc
love books, to enjoy reading, and even
writing, as I never did in the hard-work
ing days of my youth. But in those first
months of helplessness, when even to
toss and turn IN my nervous torture was
denied me, my suferings were simply
horrible. No agony of pain, no torture
of flesh OF bone, could equal the dread.
ful pressure upon my strong limbs. that
held them mOtionless, dead, in spite of
my efforts to move them one little inch
have tainted with the frightful efforts !
have made just to lift once the feet that
had carried me miles in a day with un.
wearied ease.
But even in that time of rebellious
mrmuring, Of bitterest repining. there
was some consolation. First, there was
the house and five acres of land. nv very
own, free of debt or mortgage. and q
small sum in the bank, the interest of
which lifted us above actual want. Then
I had Ruth.
She was just twenty when her mother
died, and others beside her father
thought her face the fairest one for miles
around She had the bluest eyes, like
the little patches of summer sky, and
hair that was the color of corn silk, and
nestled in little baby curls all over her
head-rebellious hair, that would never
lie straight under any eoaxing, but kinked
up in tangles that were full of sunlight.
Her skin was white as milk, with cheeks
like the heart of a blush rose, and her
smile showed the prettiest rows of pearly
teeth ever saw.
She coaxed from me my wicked re-
pinings by coming to me for directions,
making me feel that my head was still
needed to direct the work, though my
feet would never more carry me over the
door-sill. Then she fitted up for me
large back room that overlooked most of
the farm, and had Silas, our head man,
lift me up every morning and put me in
q deep-cusLioned chair by the window,
where could see the barn, the poultry
yard, the we'll. and the fields of waving
corn and wheat She made me feel my
self of Importance by giving me thus the
mastery over my own little domain; and
she brought up her own meals to eat
with me in the room where my infrmity
held me prisoner.
to me, or you will never understand the
simple story have set myself to telling
you. She taught me to use my right
hand without my left; and if you want to
appreciate the difficulty, tie your left
arm down for one single hour, and try
how often it will unconsciously strain at
the cords. She brought me books from
the village library, and opened to my
old eyes and brain a field of pleasure
never before explored. 1 had read my
Bible and the newspapers all my life,
but never even knew the names of
books, now my greatest treasures, till
Ruth thought reading would be COM
pany" for me. Little Ruth, even she
does not know the world she peopled for
me In her loving care for my loneliness.
When she was busy about her house
work, her baking, her washing and iron
ing, she left all the doors standing open,
that / might still hear her CHEEKY voice |
as she Gang or talked to me. Then,
when oil her work was done, she would !
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