The Belgian Twins

by Lucy Fitch Perkins

This was the letter:

You will perhaps wonder at hearing from me after the long years of silence that have passed, but I have never doubted the goodness of your heart, my Julie, nor your love for your poor Leonie, even though our paths in life have led such different ways. And now I must tell you of the sorrows which have broken my heart. Georges was obliged to go into the army at a moment's notice when the war broke out. A few days later the Germans swept through Meer, driving the people before them like chaff before the wind. As our house was on the edge of the village, I was the first to see them coming. I hid the children in the vegetable cellar, but before I could get to a hiding-place for myself, they swept over the town, driving every man, woman, and child before them. To turn back then was impossible, and it was only after weeks of hardship and danger that I at last succeeded in struggling through the territory occupied by Germans to the empty city of Malines, and the deserted village where we had been so happy! On the kitchen door of our home I found a paper pinned. On it was printed, "Dear Mother—We have gone to Malines to find you—Jan and Marie." Since then I have searched every place where there seemed any possibility of my finding my dear children, but no trace of them can I find. Then, through friends in Antwerp, I learned that Georges had been wounded and was in a hospital there and I went at once to find him. He had lost an arm in the fighting before Antwerp and was removed to Holland after the siege began. Here we have remained since, still hoping God would hear our prayers and give us news of our dear children. It would even be a comfort to know surely of their death, and if I could know that they were alive and well, I think I should die of joy. Georges can fight no more; our home is lost; we are beggars until this war is over and our country once more restored to us. I am now at work in a factory, earning what keeps body and soul together. Georges must soon leave the hospital, then, God knows what may befall us. How I wish we had been wise like you, my Julie, and your Paul, and that we had gone, with you to America years ago! I might then have my children with me in comfort. If you get this letter, write to your heart-broken
LEONIE.

It was not a letter that went back that very day; it was a cablegram, and it said:

Jan and Marie are safe with me. Am sending money with this to the Bank of Holland, for your passage to America. Come at once. JULIE.

People do not die of joy, or I am sure that Father and Mother Van Hove would never have survived the reading of that message. Instead it put such new strength and energy into their weary souls and bodies that two days later they were on their way to England, and a week later still they stood on the deck of the Arabia as it steamed into New York Harbor. Jan and Marie with Uncle Paul and Aunt Julie met them at the dock, and there are very few meetings, this side of heaven, like the reunion of those six persons on that day.

The story of that first evening together can hardly be told. First. Father and Mother Van Hove listened to Jan and Marie as they told of their wanderings with Fidel, of the little old eel woman, of Father and Mother De Smet, of the attack by Germans and of the friends they found in Holland and in England; and when everybody had cried a good deal about that, Father Van Hove told what had happened to him; then Mother Van Hove told of her long and perilous search for her children; and there were more tears of thankfulness and joy, until it seemed as if their hearts were filled to the brim and running over. But when, last of all, Uncle Paul told of the plans which he and Aunt Julie had made for the family, they found there was room in their hearts for still more joy.

"I have a farm in the country," said Uncle Paul. "It is not very far from New York. There is a good house on it; it is already stocked. I need a farmer to take care of the place for me, and trustworthy help is hard to get here. If you will manage it for me, Brother Georges, I shall have no further anxiety about it, and shall expect to enjoy the fruits of it as I have never yet been able to do. Leonie shall make some of her good butter for our city table, and the children" here he pinched Marie's cheek, now round and rosy once more "the children shall pick berries and help on the farm all summer. In winter they can come back to Uncle Paul and Aunt Julie and go to school here, for they are our children now, as well as yours."

Father Van Hove rose, stretched out his one hand, and, grasping Uncle Paul's, tried to thank him, but his voice failed.

"Don't say a word, old man," said Uncle Paul, clasping Father Van Hove's hand with both of his. "All the world owes a debt to Belgium which it can never pay. Her courage and devotion have saved the rest of us from the miseries she has borne so bravely. If you got your just deserts, you'd get much more than I can ever give you."

In the end it all came about just as Uncle Paul had said, and the Van Hoves are living in comfort and happiness on that farm this very day.