I am going away. But dont worry about me for I will be alright. I couldn’t stay Mummsey after what hapened. Some day I will come back to you. But I’m not as bad as all that. I’ll love you always as much as ever. I can take care for myself so don’t worry, please. And please feed my two rabits reglar and tell Benny I’ll save his jacknife and rember every day I’m rembering you. X X X X X X X
Your aff’cte son,
Dinkie.”
It seemed like a voice from the dead, it was bittersweet consolation, and, in a way, it stood redemption of Dinkie himself. I’d been upbraiding him, in my secret heart of hearts, for his silence to his mother. That’s a streak of his father in him, had been my first thought, that unthinking cruelty which didn’t take count of the anguish of others. But he hadn’t forgotten me. Whatever happens, I have at least this assuaging secret message from my son. And some day he’ll come back to me. “Ye winna leave me for a’, laddie?” I keep saying, in the language of old Whinstane Sandy. And my mind goes back, almost six years at a bound, to the time he was lost on the prairie. That time, I tell myself, God was good to me. And surely He will be good to me again!
Tuesday the Third
We still have no single word of our laddie.... They all tell me not to worry. But how can a mother keep from worrying? I had rather an awful nightmare last night, dreaming that Dinkie was trying to climb the stone wall about our place. He kept falling back with bleeding fingers, and he kept calling and calling for his mother. Without being quite awake I went down to the door in my night-gown, and opened it, and called out into the darkness: “Is anybody there? Is it you, Dinkie?”
My husband came down and led me back to bed, with rather a frightened look on his face.