Ruth Arnold / or, the Country Cousin

School was over, and the holidays were beginning once more, summer holidays, with all their promise of pleasure for dwellers in the country. The scent of sweet new hay was borne on the afternoon breeze, and the broad sunlight lay on fields of waving corn which would soon be ready for the sickle, and on green meadows from which the hay was being carried.

Ruth Arnold slowly wended her way home-wards along the hot dusty road, turned down a shady green lane, opened a little gate and walked up the garden path; and then, instead of running indoors as usual, she sat down in the little rose-covered porch and looked rather thoughtfully at the book in her hand.

It was a new book, a prize which had been awarded her that afternoon; but she felt very little pride in it, for she had known all through the half-year that the prize would be hers unless she was very idle or lazy. Nor did she anticipate much pleasure in reading it, for it was only a new English grammar, and grammar was not a study in which she felt particularly interested at that moment.

It was not often that Ruth sat down to think, for she was a merry lively girl; but this afternoon she felt rather discontented with her lot. The truth was that she had been at Miss Green's school, the only one in the village, ever since she was six years old; and now she had turned fourteen, and began to feel some contempt for the elementary catechisms which had been her only lesson-books, and which were certainly not calculated to make learning attractive or interesting. The mode of instruction at Miss Green's was the old-fashioned one of saying lessons by rote from the said catechisms, and when the pupils had reached the end of the book they had to begin again at the first chapter.

"I'm sure I don't know what I've learnt this half-year," said Ruth to herself. "I can't remember learning a single thing which I didn't know six months ago; and yet mother says that I must not leave school until I am fifteen. I wonder what books they use in large boarding-schools, and if they ever get beyond Mangnall's Questions in the first class. I suppose I shouldn't trouble about it if it were not for father's teaching us in the winter evenings; but he knows so much, that we see how ignorant we are."

"I didn't know that you were at home, Ruth. How long have you been here?" asked her mother's voice.

"Only a few minutes."

"Where is your prize? And why did you not show it to me?"

"Here it is, mother; but I don't much care for it. There is so little credit in getting a prize at Miss Green's, where one makes so little progress, and has to do the same thing over and over again."

"Yes," said Mrs. Arnold with a little sigh, "and so you will find it in life, dear, the same thing over and over again, every day and every year. But now," she added smiling, "as everyone is busy in the hay-field, and baby has to be nursed and the cows to be milked every day, will you help me to do one thing or the other?"

"Yes," said Ruth as she went to put on a large blue pinafore; "I'll go and help Mary with the milking."

Five minutes later she was seated on a low stool beside her favourite cow, Beauty, which had been reared on the farm, and named by Ruth herself, who petted and talked to her like an old friend. The afternoon was very warm, but still and sweet and quiet, with the summer hush upon everything, even the lowing of the cows in the farm-yard, the murmur of the brook, and the voices of the workers in the distant hay-field.

"Ah me, old Beauty!" sighed Ruth, as she pressed the milk into the pail, "mother says that it is the same thing over and over again all our lives, and I suppose it is true, but I wish I could have something different."

Beauty only lowed; but if she could have spoken English she might have said, "If you find life monotonous, what must it be for me? In the morning I rise and crop the grass, then I come in to be milked. I go back to the meadow and bathe in the stream or eat as much grass as I want; in the afternoon I lie under the shade of the trees and chew the cud; and in the evening I come again to be milked, and once more return to the meadows. If I have a calf of my own, it is taken from me and sent-I know not where. Yes, it is the same thing over and over again. Yet I am quite content."

Whatever Beauty meant as she lowed and looked at Ruth with her great patient eyes, the young girl did not understand, but went on thinking aloud: "Yes, it is breakfast, dinner, tea and supper every day, and mother has to see to it all; and the children to be washed and dressed and nursed, and the cows to be milked, and the cream to be skimmed; and then every year father has the ploughing, and sowing, and haying, and the har--"

"Ah, Ruth, I see you are making yourself useful," cried her father, as he entered the farm-yard followed by two merry looking boys aged respectively seventeen and twelve. It was evident from a single glance that they were Ruth's brothers, although their hands and faces were brown and sunburnt, and Will, the elder, was fully a head taller than his sister.

"Guess what Will has got for you, Ruth!" cried roguish little Ned.

"Oh, Will!" she exclaimed, looking up brightly, all her grave thoughts gone in a moment, "have you brought a new plant for my garden? No! Has Annie Price sent the pattern she promised for my wool-work? Well then, is it the new tune-book you were talking of yesterday, with both the music and words?"

"No, you are quite wrong; and as I can't tell whether it is anything good or bad, I may as well give it to you at once. It's from a girl, I think," continued Will, as he took a letter from his pocket.

"A letter for me! Who can it be from? Yes, I see it comes from a girl by the writing. What a pretty hand! ever so much better than mine; and here is the post-mark-Busyborough; it must be from Cousin Julia," she said as she turned the letter over.

Then she opened it and began to read, while her brothers stood by full of interest, and saw a look of mingled wonder, surprise, and delight spread over her face. They waited as long as their curiosity would permit, and then both cried eagerly, "What does she say? What is it all about?"

"She wants me-that is, aunt has invited me-to spend my holidays with them at the sea-side," said Ruth, speaking very slowly, and looking as if she could hardly understand the idea of such a piece of good fortune coming in her way. "But there," she added with a sigh, as she refolded the letter and put it into her pocket and tried to banish the visions of brightness it had called forth, "of course it is quite out of the question. I couldn't go away now when every one is so busy."

She walked slowly back to the house, and tried not to think of the bright dream of pleasure the letter had suggested; but this was not an easy matter, as her father and mother were already sitting at the tea-table talking over the same subject, for Mrs. Arnold had also received a letter from Busyborough that afternoon.

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