Barbara hastily tore the sodden envelope apart. Her fingers trembled as she unfolded the large stained sheet.
“Is it all spoiled?” asked Jimmy anxiously. “Can’t you read it?”
BARBARA stared at the stained and defaced sheet with wide, frightened eyes. Her hands trembled.
“Can’t you read it, Barb’ra?” pleaded Jimmy anxiously, standing on tip-toe to peep at the letter. “Peg said he was ’fraid you couldn’t; but he said maybe you’d know who it was from, an’ if it was ’portant.”
Barbara did not answer. The rain-soaked paper in her trembling fingers faced her like a mute accusing ghost out of the past. The lines of writing folded close upon each other and soaked with rain and the stain of the wet brown earth had been completely obliterated; but two words of the many had escaped; her own name at the beginning of the letter, and another at its close.
“He is not dead!” she murmured. “He is not dead!”
Jimmy clutched her sleeve, dancing up and down in his impatience.
“Is it ’portant, Barb’ra—is it? Can you read it?” he persisted.
She faced the child, her eyes clouded with despair and anger.
“No, I can’t read it!” she cried. “Oh! if you had only brought it to me!”
She turned swiftly and hurried toward the house, leaving the child lagging forlornly in the rear, his blue eyes brimmed with tears.
Peg Morrison, digging a patch of garden in the rear of the house, his battered straw hat drawn low over his eyes, his teeth firmly closed on a twig of apple-tree wood, became presently aware of a small dejected figure lurking in the shadow of the blossoming tree.
“Hello, Cap’n!” he called out cheerfully, relinquishing the twig in favor of a spent dandelion stalk. “Did ye find Barb’ry—heh? An’ did ye give her the letter?”
“I gave it to her; but she—can’t read it. An’—’n’ I’m ’fraid it was ’portant. She’s mad wiv me, Barb’ra is; ’n’ I haven’t had any dinner, either.”
The child manfully swallowed the sob that rose in his throat. Then he selected a tall dandelion with a plumy top which he put in his mouth in imitation of Peg, who watched him with a dubious smile.
“Wall, now, that’s too bad, Cap’n,” sympathized the old man. “But ef Barb’ry can’t read the letter it mus’ be ’cause ’tain’t best she should. Things don’t happen b’ chance, Cap’n. You want t’ remember that. There’s Somebody a-lookin’ out fer things as don’t make no mistakes.”