It is safe to say that Daniel Swartz and Jacob Kalb were the only persons in Upper Shamrock township who did not like William. Even Miss Miflin, the pretty school-teacher, went riding with him in his buggy, and all the farmers and the farmers' wives were fond of him.
"His learning doesn't spoil him," said Mrs. Ebert, who lived on the next farm. "He is just so nice and common as when he went away."
And then he had gone away again, not to the Normal School, but to Alaska. Sarah remembered dimly how he and his father had pored over the old atlas after the twins had been put, protesting, to bed, and the mother had sat with Albert in her arms, and, when the men were not watching her, with a sad, frightened look in her eyes. Sarah could understand both her brother's eagerness and her mother's sadness. Little did any of them foresee what the next few years were to bring. The little mother went first, with messages for William on her last breath, and now the dear, cheerful father. Surely, if William could have guessed, he would never have gone so far away.
But for two years they had had no word. At first there had been frequent letters. When he reached Seattle, it had been too late for him to go north, and he waited for spring. Then it was difficult to get passage, and there was another delay. After that the letters grew fewer and fewer, and finally ceased.
Meanwhile, a strange shadow had crept over William's name and William's memory. Pretty Miss Miflin asked no more about him, Uncle Daniel came and spoke sharply to Sarah's father and mother and then they talked about him in whispers when they thought Sarah did not hear. Once she caught an unguarded sentence:—
"I have written again. If he does not answer, he is dishonest or—"
"No!" her mother had answered sharply. "No! William will come home, and then he will tell us!"
But William had neither come nor written. So far as they knew he had not heard of his mother's death, and there was no telling whether the announcement of his father's death would reach him. Perhaps he, too, might be—
But that thought Sarah would not admit for the fragment of a second to her burdened mind. She wiped away her tears once more, and then she almost succeeded in smiling. The black clouds in the west were parting. Here and there a star peeped through. She knew a few of them by name. There was Venus,—Sarah, whose English was none of the best, would have called it "Wenus,"—her father had loved it. Often he had watched it from this window. Perhaps William saw it, too, in that mysterious night in which he lived. Ah, what tales there would be to tell when William came home!