Describe the character Ruth (such as her age, what she looks like, how she behaves, her disease etc.) from Laurie Halse Anderson's novel Chains.

Details
about Ruth, the younger sister of the narrator of s novel emerge
gradually as the story progresses, but they do emerge.  Ruth is Isabels five-year-old sister
("She is five years old . . . and you sold her away from me"), who suffers from
epilepsy.  Both girls have also been exposed to and developed symptoms of Small Pox, which had
killed their mother, evident in the following passage from Chapter 1:

Small pox is tricky, Miss Mary Finch said to me when Momma died. 
Theres no telling who itll take.  The pox had left Ruth and me with scars like tiny stars
scattered on our skin.

Indications that Ruth suffers from
multiple conditions creep out slowly, as when Isabel comments later in that chapter that Ruth
stayed in the wagon, her bare feet curled up under her skirt and her thumb in her mouth.  It is
in Chapter 3, however, that more information is revealed regarding Ruths health.  Isabel, in her
narration, describes her sister in terms that suggest mental impairment as well as a potentially
serious neurological condition:

Ruth was simple-minded
and prone to fits, which spooked ignorant folks.  Noise could bring them on, as well as a state
of nervous excitement.

Later in the novel, after Isabel
and Ruth have been purchased by the Locktons, a cruel couple, Ruth experiences another of her
seizures, to which Madam Lockton responds in terror:

She
has the devil in her!  No, madam, its an illness! I cried.  An ailment, nothing more.  Madam
brought the broom down on the small twisted body.  Ruth couldnt raise her hands to protect
herself.  The seizure held her fast . . .

That Ruths
fits are, in fact, seizures caused by epilepsy is confirmed in Andersons acknowledgements to
those who aided in her research on the era depicted:  Thank you Forrest Ainsile of
Philadelphia for the information about the treatment of epilepsy.  Epilepsy was a seriously
misunderstood ailment for much of human history, with epileptic seizures commonly mistaken for
signs of Satanic possession or for mental illness.  Ruths seizures, skin lesions from the small
pox, and refusal to speak for the first part of the story all lead the whites who cross the
girls path to interpret these as signs of simple-mindedness, which makes her expendable.  When
Ruth is sold again and moved to the West Indies, separating her from her older sister and
caregiver, the trauma is heartbreaking.