"Open your letter, Irma. From the postmark, it is surely from Kalman. And what good writing it is! I have just had one from Jack."
Mrs. French was standing in the cosy kitchen of Simon Ketzel's house, where, ever since the tragic night when Kalman had been so nearly done to death, Irma, with Paulina and her child, had found a refuge and a home. Simon had not forgotten his oath to his brother, Michael Kalmar.
Irma stood, letter in hand, her heart in a tumult of joy, not because it was the first letter she had ever received in her life, but because the letter was from Kalman. She had one passion, love for her brother. For him she held a strangely mingled affection of mother, sister, lover, all in one. By day she thought of him, at night he filled her dreams. She had learned to pray by praying for Kalman.
"Aren't you going to open your letter?" said her friend, rejoicing in her joy.
"Yes," cried the girl, and ran into the little room which she shared with Paulina and her child.
Once in that retreat, she threw herself on her knees by the bed, put the letter before her, and pressed her lips hard upon it, her tears wetting it as she prayed in sheer joy. It was just sixteen months, one week, three days, and nine hours since she had watched, through a mist of tears, the train carrying him away to join the Macmillan outfit at Portage la Prairie. Through Jack French's letters to his sister she had been kept in close touch with her brother, but this was his first letter to herself.
How she laughed and wept at the rude construction and the quaint spelling, for the letter was written in her native tongue.
"My sister, my Irma, my beloved," the letter ran. Irma kissed the words as she read them. "How shall I ever write this letter, for it must be in our own beloved tongue? I could have written long ago in English, but with you I must write as I speak, only in our dear mother's and father's tongue. It is so hard to remember it, for everything and every one about me is English, English, English.
The hounds, the horses, the cattle call in English, the very wind sounds English, and I am beginning not only to speak, but to think and feel in English, except when I think of you and of our dear mother and father, and when I speak with old Portnoff, an old Russian nihilist, in the colony near here, and when I hear him tell of the bad old days, then I feel and breathe Russian again. But Russia and all that old Portnoff talks about is far away and seems like a dream of a year ago. It is old Portnoff who taught me how to write in Russian.
"I like this place, and oh! I like Jack, that is, Mr. French, my master. He told me to call him Jack. He is so big and strong, so kind too, never loses his temper, that is, never loses hold of himself like me, but even when he is angry, speaks quietly and always smiles. One day Elluck, the Galician man that works here sometimes, struck Blucher with a heavy stick and made him howl.
Jack heard him. 'Bring me that stick, Elluck,' he said quietly.
'Now, Elluck, who strikes my dog, strikes me.' He caught him by the collar and beat him until Elluck howled louder than the dog, and all the while Jack never stopped smiling. He is teaching me to box, as he says that no gentleman ever uses a knife or a club, as the Galicians do, in fighting; and you know that when they get beer they are sure to fight, and if they use a knife they will kill some one, and then they are sorry.
"You know about my school. Jack has told Mrs. French. I like Mr. Brown, well, next to Jack. He is a good man. I wish I could just tell you how good and how clever he is. He makes people to work for him in a wonderful way. He got the Galicians to build his house for him, and his school and his store. He got Jack to help him too. He got me to help with the singing in the school every day, and in the afternoon on Sundays when we go down to meeting.
He is a Protestant, but, although he can marry the people and baptise and say prayers when they desire it, I do not think he is a priest, for he will take no money for what he does. Some of the Galicians say he will make them all pay some day, but Jack just laughs at this and says they are a suspicious lot of fools. Mr. Brown is going to build a mill to grind flour and meal. He brought the stones from an old Hudson's Bay Company mill up the river, and he is fixing up an old engine from a sawmill in the hills. I think he wants to keep the people from going to the Crossing, where they get beer and whiskey and get drunk. He is teaching me everything that they learn in the English schools, and he gives me books to read. One book he gave me, I read all night. I could not stop.
It is called 'Ivanhoe.' It is a splendid book. Perhaps Mrs.
French may get it for you. But I like it best on Sunday afternoons, for then we sing, Brown and Jack and the Galician children, and then Brown reads the Bible and prays. It is not like church at all.
There is no crucifix, no candles, no pictures. It is too much like every day to be like church, but Brown says that is the best kind, a religion for every day; and Jack, too, says that Brown is right, but he won't talk much about it.
"I am going to be a rancher. Jack says I am a good cattle man already. He gave me a pony and saddle and a couple of heifers for myself, that I saved last winter out of a snow-drift, and he says that when I grow a little bigger, he will take me for his partner.
Of course, he smiles when he says this, but I think he means it.
