"You ought to know first how hard I have tried to reach you. Of course, I didn't try openly except at first--the first years after I came here, and before I was old enough to understand." She spoke the last word with a curious depth of feeling and a perceptible hardness about her lips and eyes. "I remembered just two things. That the man who had adopted you was Newton Duncan; one of the nurses at the asylum told me that. And I remembered the name of the city where he had taken you.
"You must understand the difficulties I worked under. There is no rural free delivery up here, you know, Bruce. Our mail is sent from and delivered to the little post-office at Martin's store--over fifteen miles from here. And some one member of a certain family that lives near here goes down every week to get the mail for the entire district.
"At first--and that was before I really understood--I wrote you many letters and gave them to one of this family to mail for me. I was just a child then, you must know, and I lived in the same house with these people. And queer letters they must have been."
For an instant a smile lingered at her lips, but it seemed to come hard. It was all too plain that she hadn't smiled many times in the past days. But for some unaccountable reason Bruce's heart leaped when he saw it. It had potentialities, that smile. It seemed to light her whole face. He was suddenly exultant at the thought that once he understood everything, he might bring about such changes that he could see it often.
"They were just baby letters from--from Linda-Tinda to Bwovaboo--letters about the deer and the berries and the squirrels--and all the wild things that lived up here."
"Berries!" Bruce cried. "I had some on the way up." His tone wavered, and he seemed to be speaking far away. "I had some once--long ago."
"Yes. You will understand, soon. I didn't understand why you didn't answer my letters. I understand now, though. You never got them."
"No. I never got them. But there are several Duncans in my city. They might have gone astray."
"They went astray--but it was before they ever reached the post-office. They were never mailed, Bruce. I was to know why, later. Even then it was part of the plan that I should never get in communication with you again--that you would be lost to me forever.