I'll be near and breathe my songs into their hearts, and into yours—you both promise?"
"Yes, yes!" they both cried.
As we drove back through the woods, he smiled tenderly and said to me:
"My neighbour, Doctor Cameron, pays taxes on these woods, but I own them! Their sighing boughs, stirred by the breezes, have played for me oratorios grander than all the scores of human genius. I'll hear the Choir Invisible play them when I sleep."
He died that night suddenly. With his last breath he sighed:
"Draw the curtains and let me see again the moonlit woods!"
They are trying to carry out his wishes. I found they had nothing to eat, and that he had really died from insufficient nourishment—a polite expression meaning starvation. I've divided half our little store with them and send the rest to you. I think Marion more and more the incarnate soul of her father. I feel as if they are both my children.
My little grandchick, Hugh, is the sweetest youngster alive. He was a wee thing when you left. Mrs. Lenoir kept him when they arrested your father. He is so much like your brother Hugh I feel as if he has come to life again. You should hear him say grace, so solemnly and tenderly, we can't help crying. He made it up himself. This is what he says at every meal:
"God, please give my grandpa something good to eat in jail, keep him well, don't let the pains hurt him any more, and bring him home to me quick, for Jesus' sake. Amen."
I never knew before how the people loved the doctor, nor how dependent they were on him for help and guidance. Men, both white and coloured, come here every day to ask about him. Some of them come from far up in the mountains.
God alone knows how lonely our home and the world has seemed without him. They say that those who love and live the close sweet home-life for years grow alike in soul and body, in tastes, ways, and habits. I find it so. People have told me that your father and I are more alike than brother and sister of the same blood. In spirit I'm sure it's true. I know you love him and that you will leave nothing undone for his health and safety. Tell him that my only cure for loneliness in his absence is my fight to keep the wolf from the door, and save our home against his coming. Lovingly, your Mother.
