Wait, must her boy, her one treasure, be away from her influence? Yes, of course he must; everybody said so. Why, there were people who were certain that she was ruining her son by keeping so close to him even now. Not only now, but away back in his young boyhood. She recalled with a shiver of pain how her husband had once said to her:--
"Have a care, Ruth; you don't want to make a Molly Coddle of the boy, remember."
Later, she had heard of one of the Mitchells as declaring that "Mrs. Burnham was making a regular 'Miss Nancy' of that boy of hers, and if somebody did not take him in hand, he would be ruined."
Then, her intimate friends had been as plain with their cautions as they dared. Had not Marian Dennis pleaded earnestly for a famous boys' school fifty miles away? "It would be so good for him, Ruth; he would learn self-reliance and patience; two lessons that a boy never can learn at home, when there is but one." And Dr. Dennis had added his word: "As a rule, my friend, a boy learns manliness by being compelled to be manly and to depend upon himself."
There was her old friend Eurie, with four rollicking, romping boys of her own, always looking doubtfully at Ruth's fair-haired, fair-skinned, rather quiet, always gentlemanly boy.
"Let him come and spend a summer with us, Ruth," she urged, "and row and swim and hunt and get almost shot and quite drowned a few times; it will do him good, body and soul. Boys learn manhood by hairbreadth escapes, you know." She had laughed at Ruth's shudder and had told Marian privately that "Ruth was simply idiotic over that poor boy."
Only Flossy, their dainty, gentle, still beautiful Flossy, had seemed to understand. Had she too meant a caution? As she kissed Ruth good-by, the four girls of Chautauqua memory having spent a never-to-be-forgotten week together at Ruth Burnham's home, she had said gently:--
"The best place in the world for a boy, dear Ruth, is as close to his mother as he wants to be, just as long as he plans to be there. I have studied boys a good deal, and I think I am sure of so much."
Ruth's face had flushed over this murmured word. She had been half vexed with the others, but it had been given to their little Flossy, as often before, to give her a new thought. She studied over it; she took it to heart and let it color all her movements. More and more after that, although Erskine was still quite young, she kept herself in the background and pushed him forward. On their little trips to the larger city and in any of their outings indeed, she compelled herself to sit quietly in the waiting-room, while Erskine went to buy tickets and check baggage. It is true that every nerve in her body quivered with apprehension until he was safely beside her again, yet she held firmly to her purpose.