Now, however, her man had long since gone. Her son was far away, fending for them and himself as best he might. She only had her daughter remaining with her, but the girl was the pride and joy of her loyal heart; a blue-eyed, beautiful creature who never failed to remind her, to her contented satisfaction, of the cheerful, reckless, gambling husband who had been her strong support in the hard years of their life together.
Circumstances were hard-pressing with her now. They had pressed heavily ever since the death of her husband. The future was full enough of threat to depress the stoutest heart. But, for the moment, she was not concerned with these things. It was the thought of her boy, her first-born, that filled her yearning soul with happiness. Only that morning her daughter had brought her out a letter from Beacon Glory. It was a letter at long last from Jim. And the tidings it yielded were of the best.
The day was utterly grey with the herald of coming winter. There had been no sun to relieve the dark-hued forests on the hills which rose up on every side about her. The blistering summer heat had long since reduced all vegetation to the russet hues of fall, and even the great forests of jack-pine had lost something of the intensity of their evergreen hues. Somewhere behind her, hidden by a rampart of iron-bound coast, lay the open seas of the North Pacific. For the rest, to the North, and East, and South, lay the tattered world of broken foothills which were the fringe of the greater hills beyond. She knew it all by heart, this world of southern Alaska which had always been her home, and for all the overwhelming nature of it, for all the threat of the heavy grey sky, she feared nothing it could show her. And now, perhaps, less than ever.
She abruptly withdrew her gaze from the tumultuous scene of it all. She dived into the capacious pocket of her rough skirt. When her hand was withdrawn it was grasping the neatly folded pages of a letter in a big, scrawling handwriting. She unfolded them and became deeply absorbed. She almost knew the contents of the letter by heart, but somehow she felt she could never read it often enough.
The letter was vaguely headed “Australia.” It was without date, but this she had ascertained from its postmark, as she had also ascertained that it had been mailed in a city she had barely cognisance of, called “Perth.”
Dearest Mother:
We’ve made good. We’ve made so good I can’t begin to tell you about it.
Just for a moment a deep sigh of happiness escaped the mother’s lips, and something like tears of emotion half-filled her eyes. She brushed them aside promptly, however, and continued her reading.
I don’t know the date so I can’t hand it to you. I can’t hand you our whereabouts either, but for different reasons. What I can tell you is I’m setting right out for home as soon as Len gets along back, which’ll maybe in six weeks. He’s taking this letter with him, an’ will mail it, which’ll maybe in two or three weeks’ time. I’ll be setting out in a windjammer called the Imperial of Bristol. When you read the name you’ll wonder to see it in Len’s handwriting, but you see he’s taking the letter, and we don’t know the name of the ship till he gets to his destination and charters it, see? So he’ll have to fill the name in. This’ll all seem kind of mysterious to you, but it don’t matter. The thing is, I’m coming right along home to you, an’ll reach you in about six months’ time, with enough stuff so you’ll never have to worry a thing again ever.
The letter went on for several pages, filled to the brim with that kindly, intimate talk which never fails to stir the depths of a mother’s heart. And so Rebecca Carver read it all once again, revelling in the delight with which the words of her boy filled her.