Liebe Berta,
Everything is changed since you left.
The house is so quiet. Mama is impatient. Papa is sad. And Johann is gone — called up for the army. Anna has stopped singing. And little Karl — what a baby! — he whines like the wind without you.
Mama says you are smart to leave now. And Papa says you will prosper. “Opportunity abounds in America,” he says.
Still, no one will say why you left when you did. What is a mail-order bride anyway? Because I am only eight, no one tells me a thing.
I wish you had never gone.
Dein Bruder,
August
Everything is changed since you left.
The house is so quiet. Mama is impatient. Papa is sad. And Johann is gone — called up for the army. Anna has stopped singing. And little Karl — what a baby! — he whines like the wind without you.
Mama says you are smart to leave now. And Papa says you will prosper. “Opportunity abounds in America,” he says.
Still, no one will say why you left when you did. What is a mail-order bride anyway? Because I am only eight, no one tells me a thing.
I wish you had never gone.
Dein Bruder,
August