GOING TO RANSOM’S by Velma C. Melville

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 15, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 20.

“GOING TO RANSOM’S.”

By Velma C. Melville

“I’m going to Ransom’s, ma’am; Ransom is my son, my baby, you know, and lives in Topeka. I hain’t seen him in ten years. Ten years ain’t long to young folks, but a long spell to old ones. He used to come home every Christmas while his father lived, but when he was gone, ’nd the old home broke up, ’nd me gone to live at Sophy’s,—Sophy’s my grandchild as I raised from a baby, her mother, my only daughter, dyen when the little thing was a few weeks old,—then he didn’t feel the same, I s’pose, ’nd suddenly he made up his mind to go out west. He started unexpected with one o’ them excursions ’nd hadn’t time to come to see me; but he didn’t ’low on stayen but a short spell; but he married out there, married powerful well, they say, and just last spring came back to Topeka. He wrote me he was planen to spend Christmas with me, but something might happen ’nd I mustn’t set my heart on’t; but I have set my heart on’t, ’nd I’m just that hungry for a sight on him that I can’t run the risks, ’nd just told Sophy I’d undertake the trip ’nd have the joy of s’prisen him added. Sophy ’lowed as may be I’ll be the one to be ’sprised; maybe he’ll be ashamed of me ’nd his rich wife won’t welcome me; but I just told her she didn’t know Ransom, ’nd ez for his wife—well, if she loves Ransom as he deserves to be loved, she won’t be ashamed of his mother, if she is old-fashioned ’nd humbly. I don’t believe Ransom will think I’m humbly; he used to, when he was a little fellow, pat my cheeks and call me ‘pretty mammy;’” and my fellow-traveler turned up her withered, old rose-leaf of a face to mine, with the faded remains of what must once have been lovely violet eyes, full of tears. “You don’t think Ransom will be sorry I come, do you?”

“Impossible!” I cried earnestly, but my heart misgave me.

“Sophy said as she’d read a heap of such stories, and when young folks get rich and fashionable they’re sure to be ashamed of their folks that hain’t kept up; but I’ll risk Ransom. You see, I’ve got two other boys livin’ nigh Sophy’s, good, well-to-do farmers. Hiram says, ‘You go anyhow, mother; you allers set such store by the little un,’ ’nd Stanley says, ‘I reckon Rans hasn’t forgot as how he used to kick the covers off, when we three shavers had the big trundlebed, ’nd scramble out cryen, “Mammy, mammy,” and crawlen into your bed. He was allers his mammy’s boy.’ You see, he’s ten years younger than the twins—that’s Hiram and Stanley. Katie and little John come between. John died before he was a year old, ’nd my heart was nigh to break till Ransom come. All my children favored my side in looks but Ransom; he’s just the image of his father. I told him last time I see him he made me think I was young again, ’nd it was his father come a-courten.”

And then she drifted off into reminiscences of those halcyon days, as the train sped on.

We had met by merest accident, two women traveling alone, but in a few hours I seemed to have known her years.

It was when Topeka was called that she suddenly broke off, in her innocent garrulity, and it was the face of a half-frightened, half-delighted child that she turned on me,—

“Maybe I oughtn’t to have come.” She spoke in almost a whisper, and her little hands, knotted and worn with long years of toil, fluttered nervously in her lap.

“You have your son’s address?” I queried.

“Yes, right here in my bag, but I ain’t used to traveling, ’nd I’m mighty easy confused. Maybe I’d better have told him; maybe he ain’t home; maybe—” and then she gave a tremulous little laugh.

“Maybe I’m what Sophy’s little Ezra calls a ’fraid-coward.”

I helped her with her baggage, but when we stood on the crowded platform of the great depot, and I noted her bewilderment and felt the tremor of her hand on my arm, I took a sudden resolve; I would see her thru with her venture; my business could wait a little. If recompense were needed, it certainly was mine, for her relief and gratitude were simply touching.

I confess to being the more nervous of the two during the remainder of the journey, as she prattled of Ransom and the joyous surprise in waiting for him.

The street-car line ran right by the handsome brown stone-front whose number corresponded with the number on the letter in her bag, or rather, in my hand, for she handed it over to me with perfect confidence, and abandoned herself to being “looked after,” as she expressed it.

“Do you suppose this is Ransom’s house?” she queried in an awed whisper, as we waited on the steps of the elegant residence. “My little Ransom!” she added softly and fondly.

A smart maid answered my ring, and in reply to the query if Mr. Norman was in, said he was, and that the family were at luncheon.

She had the graciousness to invite us to be seated in the warm, beautiful reception hall, while on a blank card I scribbled the word “Mother.” “Hand that to Mr. Norman,” I said. Neither of us sat down; I think we were both too nervous. I studied a painting on a panel, to avoid seeing how my companion shook as she stood clasping and unclasping her hands and staring about her.

The view thro the broad, arched doorway on our right of the beautiful parlors beyond was like a glimpse of fairyland; a rose-tree at the foot of the broad staircase filled the air with perfume, and the light coming thro stained glass somewhere cast a warm, red glow over all.

How painful and pitiful was the small, plainly-robed figure in the midst, and yet the master of this house was her own baby, as she called him.

At a footfall somewhere she uttered a little gasp. Portiers parted on our left, and I saw beyond a magnificent library and music-room, but my companion saw only the portly figure of a man—a man with a fine face, full of incredulity.

“Ransom!” The small figure tottered and fell, but she fell on her son’s breast.

“Mother! Well, if this isn’t a glorious surprise! God bless you!”

“There, didn’t I tell you you didn’t know Ransom!” she cried triumphantly, turning a beaming glance upon me.

“Oh, it wasn’t her; it was Sophy—” and then she broke down and cried like a child, and the great man held her and stroked the gray hair from which her bonnet had fallen, and whispered over and over again,—

“Mammy, mammy!” nor heeded for a time either my presence or that of the handsome, laughing woman who had rustled up behind him. For once virtue had its reward, if there was any virtue in my befriending the mother of Ransom Norman; for it was very pleasant for a stranger in a strange city to make one of the happy dinner-party that assembled about the Norman board on that day.

“I guess it’ll be Sophy that will be s’prised, after all,” the old lady chuckled, “when she reads my letter; but I needn’t have come, after all, for Ransom and her, ’nd the baby was all comen to spend Christmas; but I ain’t sorry I come, neither’s Ransom. I knew he’d be glad to see his old mammy.”—Velma C. Melville.