"But where," said the young man again, "is my mother? And my father?"
Mrs. Kalb's shawl dropped slowly to the ground.
"Don't you know?"
"I don't know anything," said the young man. "I have been away for three years. I have had no letters for two years, until last week. Then I found one in Seattle. I—" He drew Sarah's poor, little, incoherent letter from his pocket. "I couldn't make out what my little sister meant. She says nothing about my mother or my father."
Mrs. Kalb was after all a very different person from her husband. She came round to where the young man was standing and made him sit down, and put a kind hand on his shoulder, while she told him.
"And you came now just in time," she sobbed. "The little ones shall go to Uncle Daniel and Aunt Mena, and he will take the farm. The fences are down already, and he is to be guardian. He went this morning to town to get the papers. He and Jacob went. He said we were to live here. But I wouldn't 'a' come, only somebody would have to live here, and—"
The young man was upon his feet.
"Where is my little sister?"
"By Aunt 'Liza. And Albert is there, and Ellie and Weezy are at school." Then she followed him to the door. "I won't be here any more when you come back. And I will have everything cleaned up, and I will leave some pies."