About this story
One goes to a brother he has not spoken to since a quarrel neither will name outright; the other welcomes the Rexford family, arriving penniless to farm rough land nearby, among them Sophia, whose old photograph he keeps in a drawer he tells himself not to open. Both letters leave at dawn, unanswered, as a stranger's accident already moves toward all three of them.
How it opens
A troubled parishioner left your library unconvinced that faith could answer nameless daily sorrows.
As college principal and rector, you felt every failed consolation as a defect in your own authority.
Mrs. MarthaYou cannot force comfort into a man merely because your sentence was carefully made.
I offered doctrine when he needed proof that someone understood the particular trouble.
Mrs. MarthaThen begin next time with the trouble and let doctrine earn its entrance.
Choose
My brother has been silent longest; I will write to Alec.
The Rexfords are arriving; their welcome has a fixed deadline.