From Mrs. Carter to her children.
My darling children:
I am writing this on the steamer but expect to mail it at Bermuda. You are in my thoughts every moment, but my dreams of you are so sweet and peaceful that somehow I feel that you are all right. I know you are anxious about your beloved father and I am very happy to tell you that he is much better. It seems that every day puts new life in him. At first he lay so quiet and slept so much that a strange dread filled my heart. The young surgeon on board, who is a friend of Dr. Wright, assured me that sleep was the best thing for him, but while he slept, I would get so lonely that I could hardly stand it. I had time to think much of what a poor wife I have been to him and foolish mother to all of you. I have not worried him with my grievance against myself, however, and I am not going to worry you, but am going to be less selfish with him and may even be stricter with you. He lets me wait on him now and he thinks it is a great joke to lie still and ask me to bring water or to fill his pipe or do something equally easy.
Sometimes he worries about his business, but I won’t let him talk about it. He thinks he hasn’t any money left, but of course I know that is nonsense. Dr. Wright told me he would look after you girls and see that you were well taken care of. As for money,—why, you don’t need much cash and our credit at the shops is perfectly good, and you can get what you need. If you summer in the mountains, which is what Dr. Wright hinted you might do, you must all of you have plenty of little afternoon frocks. I hate to see girls at the springs wear the same clothes morning and afternoon. Don’t be dowdy, I pray of you.
You had better take Susan wherever you go so she can look after Bobby, who is too large for a nurse, I know, but who needs much attention. Susan can look after your clothes, too, and do up your lace collars and keep your boots cleaned. Keep the other servants in town on full pay and be sure that they have plenty of provisions. I think nothing is so horrid as the habit some persons have of letting servants shift for themselves while they are off enjoying themselves at the springs.
I am hoping for letters when we land at Bermuda. I am hungry for news of all of you. Your poor father talks a great deal of you and wants to go over incidents of your childhood. He says he is relying on your good sense to keep you from harm until we return.
We both of us liked Dr. Wright very much,—at least, your father liked him. I was too afraid of him to call it liking but I trusted him implicitly, and now that your father is so much better, I know that his treatment was exactly the right thing. This young surgeon on board says that Dr. Wright is one of the very finest young men in the profession and his friends expect great things of him.
Our quarters are very comfortable and, strange to say, although the food is far from dainty, I am enjoying it very much. It is well cooked and everything is spotlessly clean. They have room for only thirty passengers on this boat as it is entirely given up to freight. This young surgeon has accepted a position on the boat so he can have time to do some writing he is deep in.
It is a very lazy, peaceful life and somehow I feel that your father and I have always been on this boat and that all the rest of it is a dream—even my dear children are just dream children. I believe that is the state of mind that Dr. Wright wanted your father to attain. I think he has attained it, too. He worries less and less and will lie for hours in his deck chair watching the sailors at work, seemingly with no care in the world.