Come at once.JULIE.
People do not die of joy, or I am sure that Father and Mother Van Hove would never have survived the reading of that message.
Instead it put such new strength and energy into their weary souls and bodies that two days later they were on their way to England, and a week later still they stood on the deck of the Arabia as it steamed into New York Harbor.Jan and Marie with Uncle Paul and Aunt Julie met them at the dock, and there are very few meetings, this side of heaven, like the reunion of those six persons on that day.
The story of that first evening together can hardly be told.
First.Father and Mother Van Hove listened to Jan and Marie as they told of their wanderings with Fidel, of the little old eel woman, of Father and Mother De Smet, of the attack by Germans and of the friends they found in Holland and in England; and when everybody had cried a good deal about that, Father Van Hove told what had happened to him; then Mother Van Hove told of her long and perilous search for her children; and there were more tears of thankfulness and joy, until it seemed as if their hearts were filled to the brim and running over.But when, last of all, Uncle Paul told of the plans which he and Aunt Julie had made for the family, they found there was room in their hearts for still more joy.
"I have a farm in the country," said Uncle Paul."It is not very far from New York.There is a good house on it; it is already stocked.I need a farmer to take care of the place for me, and trustworthy help is hard to get here.If you will manage it for me, Brother Georges, I shall have no further anxiety about it, and shall expect to enjoy the fruits of it as I have never yet been able to do.Leonie shall make some of her good butter for our city table, and the children" here he pinched Marie's cheek, now round and rosy once more "the children shall pick berries and help on the farm all summer.In winter they can come back to Uncle Paul and Aunt Julie and go to school here, for they are our children now, as well as yours."Father Van Hove rose, stretched out his one hand, and, grasping Uncle Paul's, tried to thank him, but his voice failed.
"Don't say a word, old man," said Uncle Paul, clasping Father Van Hove's hand with both of his."All the world owes a debt to Belgium which it can never pay.Her courage and devotion have saved the rest of us from the miseries she has borne so bravely.