When Ruth's brothers and sisters were young, and books were not so common as now, she very often read aloud to her mother and the family.
Macauley's Essays and History, Prescott's works, the "Literary Garland," and lighter works were read from time to time as circumstances or taste dictated.GLEASON'S PICTORIAL, the ANGLO-SAXON, the SCOTTISH-AMERICAN, and HARPER'S MAGAZINE were read with great interest.She was a subscriber to the CENTURY MAGAZINE at the time of her death.Some of Hannah More's sacred dramas were frequently read on a Sabbath evening.
The writer remembers well how we younger children enjoyed the moment when David,"From his well-directed sling, quick hurled, with dexterous aim, a stone, which sank deep-lodged in the capacious forehead of the foe."And"The mighty mass of man fell prone, with its own weight, his shattered bulk was bruised.Straight the youth drew from his sheath the giant's pond'rous sword, and from the enormous trunk the gory head, furious in death, he severed."The language was rather beyond us, but we knew that David had killed the giant, and we did not bother about the big words.Or, when little Moses was left in the ark of bulrushes, exposed to all the dangers of the Nile swamp, how we almost trembled lest some evil should befall him before Pharaoh's daughter could rescue him, and rejoiced to think that Miriam did her part so well as to get her mother as a nurse for the little brother.Ruth seemed to enjoy reading these dramas over and over quite as much as we enjoyed listening to them.She grew fonder of reading as she grew older, and would talk of the characters in a book as if they were as real to her as her personal friends.