Ruth entered into the work with zest. She took the children's class which formerly had been with the older ones, and gathering them about her told them Bible stories till their young eyes bulged with wonder and their little hearts almost burst with love of her. Love God? Of course they would. Try to please Jesus? Certainly, if "Mrs. Ruth," as they called her, said they should. They adored her.
She fell into the habit of going down during the week and slipping into their homes with a big basket of bright flowers from her home garden which she distributed to young and old. Even the men, when they happened to be home from work, wanted the flowers, and touched them with eager reverence. Somehow the little community of people so different from herself filled her thoughts more and more. She began to be troubled that some of the men drank and beat their wives and little children in consequence. She set herself to devise ways to keep them from it. She scraped acquaintance with one or two of the older boys in her own church and enlisted them to help her, and bought a moving picture machine which she took to the settlement. She spent hours attending moving picture shows that she might find the right films for their use. Fortunately she had money enough for all her schemes, and no one to hinder her good work, although Aunt Rhoda did object strenuously at first on the ground that she might "catch something." But Ruth only smiled and said: "That's just what I'm out for, Auntie, dear! I want to catch them all, and try to make them live better lives. Other people are going to France. I haven't got a chance to go yet, but while I stay here I must do something. I can't be an idler."
Aunt Rhoda looked at her quizzically. She wondered if Ruth was worried about one of her men friends--and which one?
"If you'd only take up some nice work for the Government, dear, such as the other girls are doing!" she sighed, "work that would bring you into contact with nice people! You always have to do something queer. I'm sure I don't know where you got your low tendencies!"
But Ruth would be off before more could be said. This was an old topic of Aunt Rhoda's and had been most fully discussed during the young years of Ruth's life, so that she did not care to enter into it further.
But Ruth was not fully satisfied with just helping her Italians. The very week she came back from camp she had gone to their old family physician who held a high and responsible position in the medical world, and made her plea: "Daddy-Doctor," she said, using her old childish name for him, "you've got to find a way for me to go over there and help the war. I know I don't know much about nursing, but I'm sure I could learn. I've taken care of Grandpa and Auntie a great many times and watched the trained nurses, and I'm sure if Lalla Farrington and Bernice Brooks could get into the Red Cross and go over in such a short time I'm as bright as they."