Two Let­ters arrives at a turn­ing point in David’s world, as he begins to con­front a future shaped by absence. He wakes in a strange bed, aware his father is gone, yet he clings to the idea of return­ing to the moun­tain, hop­ing his father will meet him there. The room feels for­eign, and the peo­ple in it—well-meaning but unfamiliar—cannot replace what he has lost. Per­ry Lar­son, though kind, can­not ease David’s qui­et resis­tance. He offers food and con­ver­sa­tion, but David, over­whelmed by grief and con­fu­sion, retreats inward. To him, leav­ing the moun­tain was only ever a tem­po­rary part of a shared jour­ney. Now, stand­ing alone in a place with walls instead of trees, his long­ing grows heav­ier. Every adult around him speaks with con­cern, but none speak his lan­guage of nature, trust, and melody.

The grown-ups, espe­cial­ly Mr. Hig­gins and the Hollys, try to piece togeth­er David’s sto­ry. They turn to the few belong­ings left behind—clothes, a vio­lin, and two let­ters. One let­ter, found with his father, offers lit­tle clar­i­ty. Instead of nam­ing guardians or giv­ing prac­ti­cal instruc­tions, it speaks vague­ly of releas­ing David to the world’s care, a mes­sage root­ed more in phi­los­o­phy than legal­i­ty. The words con­fuse every­one but David, who sees in them a con­tin­u­a­tion of his father’s love and belief in him. The sec­ond let­ter, sealed and meant for David, is final­ly placed in his hands after an attempt to return him home fails. In it, his father encour­ages him to explore the world as a beau­ti­ful place filled with lessons, peo­ple, and music wait­ing to be under­stood.

Read­ing the let­ter fills David with a mix­ture of sor­row and peace. The final­i­ty of his father’s absence begins to set­tle in, yet the words also become a guid­ing star. His father’s faith in him, even in death, anchors David against the cur­rents of loss. Though the adults focus on what will hap­pen next—who will take care of the boy and how the bur­ial should proceed—David is already begin­ning to fol­low the path laid out for him. For him, the jour­ney isn’t about sur­vival but dis­cov­ery. Every cor­ner of the world holds some­thing new to hear, to see, or to play. The vio­lin becomes not just an instru­ment but a mem­o­ry made audi­ble, keep­ing his father’s voice near even when silence sur­rounds him.

The let­ter is writ­ten with ten­der­ness, not instruc­tion, which David reads as both a chal­lenge and com­fort. He starts to accept that life out­side the moun­tain may hold mean­ing if he looks for it through the same lens his father taught him to use. Nature, beau­ty, and music were always at the heart of their shared world, and David begins to car­ry those val­ues into this unfa­mil­iar real­i­ty. Mean­while, the adults still view the boy as a puz­zle to solve—where he comes from, what to do with him, how to man­age the loose ends of a man who seemed to live out­side con­ven­tion. Yet with each page of the let­ter, David grows more cer­tain. He is not lost; he is on a quest.

This chap­ter pow­er­ful­ly con­trasts adult respon­si­bil­i­ty with child­like faith. Where grown-ups search for rules, David seeks mean­ing. His way of see­ing doesn’t come from instruc­tion or dis­ci­pline, but from liv­ing deeply and notic­ing ful­ly. It’s a qui­et rebel­lion, not against peo­ple, but against a life that for­gets to won­der. The let­ter does more than explain his father’s decision—it affirms David’s place in the world as some­one who is want­ed, guid­ed, and loved. And while the vil­lagers may not yet under­stand the boy with the vio­lin, it is clear he will leave an imprint not through demands, but through the gen­tle music of his pres­ence. As the chap­ter clos­es, the world feels both big­ger and more per­son­al. David, now armed with words writ­ten just for him, pre­pares to step forward—not as a lost child, but as some­one car­ry­ing a sto­ry only he can tell.