Final answer:
The reason for John's delay in sending the first letter to Zeke is not directly stated, but implied to be due to the chaotic conditions and personal hardships experienced by the characters, including country-wide scarcity and grief.
Step-by-step explanation:
The delay in John sending the first letter to Lucy for Zeke is not explicitly mentioned in the text provided. However, based on the extracts, we can infer that many of the characters are in challenging circumstances, caused either by the difficulties of their environment, personal loss, or other preoccupations. It's possible that the delay in communication could be due to the disordered state of the country, as suggested by the passage depicting the 'demoralization of panic' where even basic maintenance has not been performed since autumn. Additionally, the hardships faced by the individuals in the passages, such as mournings of a son's death and the feeling of fatigue after a long journey, could have contributed to the delay. Both physical constraints, such as the lack of horses, and emotional turbulence appear to be factors in the slowness or absence of correspondence.