I am writing to Mary Cecily Rowantree, and she can send the letter on to Keefe O’Connor—to “brother” as she always calls him. Have you noticed that she almost never speaks his name? That is, I suppose, because he does not bear the one that was given him when he was christened. What a strange story is his!
Good-bye, yellow-haired one,
Azalea.
October 24th.
Dear old Carin:
Mother McBirney has come. I have been alone with her. Of course she had been told everything by Uncle David on the way over.
“Mother-heart, mother-heart,” I said to her, “tell me what I shall do. Here we are alone, we two, and no one is listening. Whatever you decide on shall be done. No matter what anyone says, we shall do it.”
“Zalie,” she said in that lovely drawling voice of hers, “I reckon the time has come for me and you to go our separate ways.”
“Mother, do you know what I have been told? I am rich. I shall have money to spend. All at once, in one lump, right now, I can have the money that would have been mine all during the years since my father died. I have asked them, and they say that though I am not of age, I may do what I please with that money. So, mother-heart, you and Father McBirney can go to the Springs, and Jim can go to school. You can rent out the horses and the cattle or sell them. Perhaps Annie Laurie will add them to her stock. You can sell the chickens and the bees, or take them to Annie Laurie’s too.”
“Oh, Zalie,” cried Ma, “how can you go on talking about chickens and bees?”