Sabra unfolded it. It was a single sheet, in a large, slanting, careful hand, a hand that had not had much schooling and had made up for it in labor.
Dear Mrs. Hale, it said. My son tells me you are the reason I am getting my boy back. He tells me also that you blame yourself for keeping quiet two years. I have thought about that a good deal since Christmas. I have decided that I do not hold it against you, and I want you to know it from me and not from Tallis, who would tell you so whether I said it or not, being soft. I kept the door unbarred two years for a boy who was not coming. I know what it is to hold on to a thing past its time because letting go of it is worse. You let go of yours. That is more than most do. I thank you for my son. Yours truly, Jerusha Marten.
She read it twice. Then she folded it and put it inside her coat, against her chest, and stood for a while with her hand on Deacon's neck, and did not trust herself to say anything.
Tallis waited.
"Will you go straight through?" she said at last.
"To Buena Vista tonight. The cars from there." He looked at the wagon, where Zebulon Wex sat patiently on the seat with the reins slack, looking at nothing. "We'll have him home by the first of May. There's a place under the elms behind the house where our father is. Mother wants him there." He hesitated. "And the dog will be glad. Sergeant. I know that's foolish."
"It isn't foolish."
He turned his hat in his hands, the brim going round and round between his square fingers.