“No. I can’t be now. I’m too young. Besides they need me at home.”
Ralph felt slightly discouraged by her answer, but he knew she was right. True, she was young, but he was young, too. And he would wait for her until she was ready, he thought to himself. He could tell by the radiant look in her face that she, too, was in love.
Before she went upstairs to bed that night, Jean went out in the kitchen to make sure the back door was locked. She glanced out of the window and caught her breath. Dodging out of sight behind a pile of wood that was waiting to be split, was a familiar figure. Without waiting to call anyone, she slipped quietly around the house and there, sure enough, backed up against the woodshed, was Jack.
“Oh, Jack,” Jean exclaimed happily. “Come here this minute. Nobody’s going to hurt you, don’t you know that? Aren’t you hungry?”
Jack nodded mutely. He didn’t look one bit ashamed, just eager and glad to be back home. Jean put her arm around him, patting him as her mother would have done, and leading him to the kitchen.
After he had finished a huge sandwich, several glasses of milk, and a piece of cake, the truth finally came out. “I went hunting my dad down around Norwich,” he said.
“Did you find him?” cried Jean.
Jack nodded happily.
“Braced him up too. He says he won’t drink any more ’cause it’ll disgrace me. He’s gone to work up there in the lockshop steady. He wanted me to stay with him, but as soon as I got him braced up, I came back here. You didn’t get my letter, did you? I left it stuck in the clock.”
Stuck in the clock? Jean looked up at the old eight-day Seth Thomas on the kitchen shelf that Kit had bought from old Mr. Weaver as a joke. It was made of black walnut, with green vines painted on it and morning glories rambling in wreaths around its borders. She opened the little glass door and felt inside. Sure enough, tucked far back was Jack’s farewell letter, put carefully where nobody would ever think of finding it. It was written laboriously in pencil, and Jean read it to herself.