Virginia’s Letter by J. W. C. Pickering

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 10, 1907

Virginia’s Letter

By J. W. C. Pickering

THE other day I received a letter from the little blue-eyed girl, now grown to womanhood, who, in the days long gone by, waited at the gate for my daily homecoming. How I am thrilled when I think of those meetings. Looking away down the road, she would recognize her papa, and how she would run to meet me, rushing into my arms, putting those chubby arms about my neck, greeting me with a kiss.

Enclosed in the letter was another. From its hiding-place in the pocket of my office coat, I have taken it out this morning to read it over. I often do so, for it brings to me so many sweet memories of other days.

Let me quote a few words from the first letter: “When I told Virginia I was writing to grandpa, she wished to write you a letter also. You probably can read it,” and Virginia’s letter is the one I have before me now. Shall I describe it? The paper is the same as the mother’s, on which are four closely written pages. Did I say written?—Yes, written in the child language—a language perhaps not taught in the schools, but understood by so many, many loving hearts. Those long, scrawling lines, characters that no Mongolian would attempt to imitate; scratches of pencil or pen no expert would attempt to duplicate; and yet this is the letter I carry about me as I follow the routine of a busy life.

There may be some reason why an epistle like this has so much value to me. I remember years ago my family physician came to me one day and told me that the mother of my five babies must go away for a change; she must leave the cares of home and children for a few months; and so she left us never to come back. All through those anxious days, when my time was divided between home and the sick chamber miles away, I would never visit the sick one, who was constantly growing weaker, but I was the bearer of letters like the one before me. With what eagerness that mother would break the seals of those missives, and smile or weep, when she would say to me, “I understand every word they have written.”

Virginia’s grandmother and her mother’s baby brother lie side by side. The other babies have grown to be men and women, and have left the old home, and I am alone. But when I receive such letters as the one I carry in my office coat, “I understand every word,” and am young again.—J. W. C. Pickering.