A CRISIS

"Do you think I will ever let you go away from us again?" This was Erskine Burnham's word to his mother when he had her all to himself in the carriage. His arms were about her, and he was kissing eyes and nose and hair after the fashion of his childhood.

"Such a wicked, wicked grandmother! Does she think she deserves the most beautiful, most intelligent grandson that ever drew breath?"

Throughout that drive they were very gay; both of them covered under the semblance of merrymaking, the deep feeling that neither wished just then to express.

Only once, as the carriage turned in at the familiar gateway, did Erskine trust himself to a tender word:—

"O mommie, mommie! do you suppose you know anything about how a boy feels to get his mother again?"

"My boy!" she began, but her voice broke, and she could not utter another word. And then the carriage drew up before the side entrance, and Erskine became very busy with the bags and wraps, and believed that his mother's emotion was the natural feeling of a grandmother on coming into her possession.

The weeks that immediately followed were very far from happy ones, although one member of the family circle was doing her utmost in the interests of peace.

Ruth Burnham had not lingered for months away from her home simply from dread of facing the situation; nor yet on account entirely of the young girl whom she had taken to her heart; there had been underneath these, a determined purpose to leave those two quite to themselves; to try the effect upon Irene of relieving her for a time of her mother-in-law's daily presence. It is true she had not planned just how long she could do this—she had not been sure when she went away that it could be done, save for a few days; but she had allowed herself to be apparently swayed by every passing reason for delay, despite Erskine's evident bewilderment over such action, with an end in view which had to do with that solemn self-sacrifice she had made. It remained to be seen whether this phase of it had been of any avail.

At first, Irene was gracious, or tried to be; but in all her apparent sweetness, and sometimes even attempts at deference, there was a curious little undertone sting, which made Ruth feel constrained, and always uncertain what to say or do next.

But the baby, toward whom her sore heart turned with a hunger that was almost pain, was as fair and sweet a creation as ever came from the thought of God. So like his father—in the eyes of the grandmother, that there were moments when she could shut herself up alone with him and live her mother-joy over again.

Not many of them; her time with him was literally counted by moments, and grew more and more uncertain each passing day.

Ruth had schooled herself to see at least indifference on the part of the mother toward her child, and had planned how she would try to atone for such unutterable loss by making him the very centre of her own life. But behold! instead of anything like indifference, Irene developed a love for the child so passionate, so fierce, indeed, that it suggested the instinct of wild animals, instead of cultivated motherhood.

Moreover, the poor mother was jealous of even the nurse who lavished loving nonsense upon her baby, and intensely jealous of the grandmother, for whom the baby, even thus early in his life, began to exhibit a perverse fondness.

The entire situation was a surprise, and, it must be admitted, an added blow to Ruth. Instead of being able to rejoice that the maternal instinct had been at last awakened in this woman, she was dismayed and heartsick over it. If Irene meant to begin thus early to keep the boy under her constant care and surveillance, what hope was there for his future?

She awakened to the fact that she had been counting upon this mother's fondness for all sorts of social functions, and expecting to see her enter with zest upon her former care-free life, thus making it possible for the baby to be much under his grandmother's supervision. She had planned prematurely. Irene seemed to have forgotten society; she never walked, or drove, without her baby; she kept him with her during all his waking moments, and apparently lived for the purpose of warding off the attentions of, especially, his grandmother.

In vain did Ruth try, by utmost deference to the mother's superior claim, by never presuming to offer even a suggestion as to the child's care, to disarm the intense dislike that Irene could not help showing—a dislike of having her even notice the child.

So marked was this condition of things becoming to the servants that Ruth, beyond measure distressed and bewildered, stayed much of the time in her own room, and considered and abandoned a dozen schemes for going away again. The difficulty was to make any movement that would not excite Erskine's suspicion; for Erskine, being a man and a very busy one, continued to be what Irene once told him he was, "as blind as a bat." He was a very proud, glad father, prepared to believe that his son was the sweetest, brightest, most beautiful baby who ever blessed the earth with his presence, and he was unequivocally and blissfully happy at seeing that baby in his grandmother's arms. In rejoicing over her home-coming, and in delighting over the thought of having his son grow up in daily intimacy with her, he said "we" as heartily and jubilantly as though certain that Irene shared his happiness, and it is certain that he so believed.

"We have learned one lesson, anyway," he said gayly, as they sat together one evening after dinner. "That is that we mustn't let you get away from home again very soon. A mother who has no conception of when it is time to come home must not be allowed her freedom. Do you think we have forgiven you already for those months of indifference to us? What was the charm, mommie? You have never told us. The truth is, you have told us very little about that long visit. Irene used to be sure that there was some attraction that you did not reveal. Have you made her confess, Irene?"

Irene made a feint of joining in his gayety, and said something about not thinking it worth while to attempt what he had failed in accomplishing.

"Well," Erskine said, after a moment, puzzled and a trifle hurt because his mother did not seem to join heartily in the nonsense, "there is one comfort; I am not afraid of her deserting us again. Erskine Burnham, Junior, is an attraction that will hold, even though his father's power seems to have waned."

It was by random sentences like these, that Ruth was made to realize how difficult it would be to get away again.

As the days passed and the situation grew more and more strained, the mother's only comfort was that Erskine did not understand it. How should he? The claims of business pressed every day more heavily upon him. From being the younger partner in a great legal firm, as his decided ability became known, he had risen steadily, until responsibilities as well as honors had been thrust upon him, and he was now a recognized power in his profession. This meant very close attention to business, and he had scarcely any time that he could call his own.

How could he know, and, after a little, the resolute mother asked herself why he should ever know that when he left his beautiful home each morning for his long, busy day in town, he left jealousy and suspicion and unreasoning aversion behind him?

"I think she hates me," Ruth said to herself as she sat in her room with folded hands and listened to the vigorous protests of the boy across the hall, and knew that she, his grandmother, who loved every hair of his dear golden head, must hold herself from going to him. "I am sure she hates me, and the feeling grows stronger every day. Oh, what shall I do? what can I do! How is one to endure such a state of things for a lifetime? I am not an old woman. I may have to stay here for years and years! If I could only get through with it all and go to my home!"

It was not often that she indulged herself in such moods, and she felt always distinctly self-condemned when they were allowed to take hold of her. She had never been one to indulge herself in what her old friend Eurie Mitchell used to characterize as "useless whining"; and it would be beneath the mature Christian to allow it.

But a crisis was at hand. Erskine surprised his family one afternoon by coming home several hours earlier than usual.

"I ran away!" was his gay announcement as he found his wife and mother in the living-room. They had been entertaining a caller who had asked first for Ruth, and then had insisted upon seeing the young mother and the baby.

"Such tiresome people!" Irene had said impatiently. "Forever trying to pry into my affairs! I wish they would at least let me have my baby in peace."

But she had ordered the nurse to bring him down to her in a few minutes, for the callers were Erskine's friends of long standing, and she knew that he meant them to be treated with all deference.

"This is great luck to find you both here," Erskine said. "It will save time. I escaped from the office on purpose to enjoy a drive with my family. It is just the day for Boy Junior," and he tossed the delighted baby in his arms as he spoke. "It is as balmy as spring. Why, this is a spring month, isn't it? I had forgotten. Get ready, beloveds, and we shall have time for a glimpse of the bay before the sun sets."

"Oh, no!" said Irene, hastily. "Not today, Erskine; I don't want to go. You can take mother, and baby and I will stay at home."

Erskine looked surprised and troubled.

"Why is that, dear? I planned on purpose for you. I don't think you get out enough in this sweet spring air. I could not help noticing how pale and worn you looked this morning. Don't you think so, mamma? Come, dearest, it will do you good; and I have so little time nowadays for driving with you. I have been planning all the morning to get away."

"I don't want to go," Irene said fretfully. But her husband took no notice of the words.

"We'll go on a lark!" he explained to the delighted baby. "Father and mother and grandmother and grandson. How does that sound, my boy? I feel like a boy myself to-day. You and the little boy may have the back seat, mommie, and your big girl and boy will sit in front, and drive. Don't you want to drive, Irene? The horses are in fine spirit, just as you like them to feel when you have the reins.

"Here, nurse," as that young woman appeared at the moment in the doorway. "Put this young man into driving attire, while the ladies are getting on their wraps. We mustn't waste another minute of this glorious sunshine."

But at this point the baby asserted himself. The nurse had taken him from his father's arms and was moving toward the door; as he passed Ruth, he made a quick, unexpected spring in her direction, and had not her arms been quick and her grasp firm, there might have been an accident. As it was, he cuddled in her embrace with a gurgle of happiness.

"You young scamp!" said the proud father, with a relieved laugh. "You knew where you meant to land, didn't you? Showed excellent taste, too. He is becoming to you, mommie. You look young enough to-day to be mistaken for his mother. Doesn't she, Irene?"

For Ruth's cheeks had flushed like a girl's, and her heart was beating swiftly under the baby's caresses. She bent her head over the golden one, and murmured some incoherent sentence, while she hid eyes that were filled with tears. It was so rare a thing in these days to get a chance to cuddle that baby!

And then Irene spoke, in a tone of voice that her husband had rarely heard:—

"Rebecca, I did not ring for you. Go away; I will bring the baby myself. I wish you wouldn't! I don't want him kissed nor fondled. Give him to me."

This last, addressed to Ruth, in a tone so sharp and a manner so rude that Erskine in unbounded astonishment said:—

"Irene!"

Just that word, but not as she had ever before heard it spoken.

"I don't care!" she said. "Let her leave my baby alone. I don't want her to touch him, and I won't have it! I won't! I say!"

Her voice had risen almost to a scream.

Rebecca had disappeared with the swiftness with which this woman's servants generally obeyed her commands, and Ruth, putting the baby without a word into his amazed father's arms, fled away also.