DINKIE."

It seemed like a voice from the dead, it was bittersweet consolation,
and, in a way, it stood redemption of Dinkie himself. I'd been
upbraiding him, in my secret heart of hearts, for his silence to his
mother. That's a streak of his father in him, had been my first
thought, that unthinking cruelty which didn't take count of the
anguish of others. But he hadn't forgotten me. Whatever happens, I
have at least this assuaging secret message from my son. And some day
he'll come back to me. "Ye winna leave me for a', laddie?" I keep
saying, in the language of old Whinstane Sandy. And my mind goes back,
almost six years at a bound, to the time he was lost on the prairie.
That time, I tell myself, God was good to me. And surely He will be
good to me again!

_Tuesday the Third_

We still have no single word of our laddie.... They all tell me not to
worry. But how can a mother keep from worrying? I had rather an awful
nightmare last night, dreaming that Dinkie was trying to climb the
stone wall about our place. He kept falling back with bleeding
fingers, and he kept calling and calling for his mother. Without being
quite awake I went down to the door in my night-gown, and opened it,
and called out into the darkness: "Is anybody there? Is it you,
Dinkie?"

My husband came down and led me back to bed, with rather a frightened
look on his face.

They tell me not to worry, but I've been up in Dinkie's room turning
over his things and wondering if he's dead, or if he's fallen into the
hands of cruel people who would ill-use a child. Or perhaps he has
been stolen by Indians, and will come back to me with a morose and
sullen mind, and with scars on his body....

_Thursday the Fifth_

What a terrible thing is loneliness. The floors of Hell, I'm sure, are
paved with lonesome hearts. Day by day I wait and long for my laddie.
Always, at the back of my brain, is that big want. Day by day I brood
about him and night by night I dream of him. I turn over his old
playthings and his books, and my throat gets tight. I stare at the
faded old snap-shots of him, and my heart turns to lead. I imagine I
hear his voice, just outside the door, or just beyond a bend in the
road, and a two-bladed sword of pain pushes slowly through my
breast-bone. Dear old Lossie comes twice a day, and does her best to
cheer me up. And Gershom has offered to give up his school and join in
the search. Peter