Thanksgiving came; we invited Mark and Elizabeth over. Unfortunately, we'd vastly underestimated how long it takes to roast a turkey in an outdoor barbecue grill in the winter. It was delicious, it was hickory smoked, and it wasn't done until after 10 PM, when our company had already disengaged themselves from the situation as gracefully as they could.

Dad had started cutting trees from the property we were on. Obviously, you aren't supposed to do this on a rented place, so he tried to cut them in the woods rather than from the front yard. The wooden sled we'd made was getting plenty of use already.

I was having a blast collecting squash and pumpkins seed, my latest obsession. We got a really big pumpkin from someone (maybe the food bank?) and Raphah and I saved seeds from it, hoping to grow giant pumpkins next spring. The seeds were the biggest of any we'd collected so far, about an inch long with thick, heavy shells. We laid them out carefully on newspapers and paper towels; the entire table and part of the counter was covered. We left them there overnight, the oil lamp on the table turned down low. The next morning, we awoke to collect our seeds, and they were gone. The newspaper and paper towels were still there, and the seeds on the counter were there, but every single seed on the table was absent. There were a few tell-tale dark, oblong droppings, larger than usual. We couldn't believe it! Some rodent had come and taken all of our seeds!

We told this to acquaintances, and someone suggested it sounded like the work of pack rats. Mice were always a problem in our house, even with our huge cat population, so Dad bought some bait bar and we placed it all over in places we thought a rat or mouse might hang out. Mom found a chunk of it in her shoe one morning and remarked that the rats must be smart enough to know that the bait bar was poisonous, because they were trying to give it back! The roof leaked in a small area we called the pantry (although we never used it for anything to do with food) so we kept a glass gallon jar in there to catch the water. Imagine our surprise and disgust when, some time later, we found the jat packed full of dead rats! Bait bar makes them thirsty, and so they all sought out the only source of standing water in the whole house- that jar- and drowned.

Dad decided we had too many cats, so he took a bunch of them and dumped them alongside the highway. Colette was one of them, so once again, I had no cat. A month or two later, I was sitting at the table one evening trying to make a really good pencil drawing of a horse, when I heard a sound behind me. It was an insistent, nagging mewing. I turned to see a gray kitten with long, dense hair and green eyes rubbing against me, wanting attention.

"Where did this cat come from?", I asked.

Dennis just smiled. He said it was a Bradbury cat. Apparently the owners of the Bradbury mill had given it to him. I called the cat Andre. Later I learned that Andre was a female, so I had to change her name to Andrea. Andrea was, without exception, the most demanding cat I have ever had, but she was also excessively affectionate and very cute. To be honest, she was not a cat I would have selected for myself, but I loved her regardless. Besides, now I had a cat again.

Snow came and stayed, and I was splitting and stacking wood a lot of the time, unless we were on the paper route or trying to catch up on lost sleep after going on the route. We never really felt like we got all the sleep we needed back again. Dad slept until the early afternoon almost every day, woke up before dinner, and went back to bed after dinner, usually finding sleep with the help of our hands massaging him back to sleep. I had learned that if I started with his feet, which hurt him the most because he was so overweight, sometimes he would fall asleep before I had to do the rest of him. I'd heard that the feet have pressure points that affect the entire body, so starting with the feet seemed like a very effective time saver. Still, he also was sleep deprived and crabby a lot of the time.

One night Happy and Sonny were barking. Was it a moose in the yard? A bear? We'll never know. All I do know is that in the morning, there was a huge stain of blood in front of the house and both of the dogs were gone. Dad had shot Happy for barking at night, and when Sonny (who was already afraid of gunshots) saw his friend die, he must have figured he was next, because he ran for his life and never came back. It wasn't much of a consolation to get Princess back from Doug and Donna, because she wasn't attached to us and had to live on a chain. Happy had been our friend. He'd played with us and lifted our spirits. We stared numbly at that big red blot in the snow. Ours was not a very safe family for animals.

Sometimes we all stayed home while both our parents went to do the paper route and food bank runs. On one such day, Mom came back smiling that afternoon and said she thought she'd found a husband for me. I asked her all sorts of questions, but she didn't answer most of them. I did find out that the man was rustic and that Mom thought he was perfect for me. She said I'd have to ask Yahweh if this was the right one before meeting him. So I did pray, and the answer was affirmative. Of course, what can you expect from a suggestible teenaged girl who has been trained and groomed to be a young bride? I had picked out names for my children already a year or two before.

And so I waited and waited to meet this man. From time to time Mom would tell me a little bit more, but mostly she just smiled mysteriously. She did say that he was very much into doing everything the old-fashioned way, which sounded a lot like me. The days crept by at a frustraingly slow pace. When I went with on the paper route, I kept my eyes peeled for this man, but Dad just rolled his eyes if I tried to ask questions and made derogatory and crude sexual remarks...when he wasn't going on about trading me for many ponies, blankets, and rifles.

I was so tired of feeling like a freak, like an outcast, like the laughingstock of the family. More than anything in the whole world, I wanted a companion I could relate to, someone who would understand me, soemone I could talk to without being ridiculed. I felt as though wherever I went, no matter what I did, I wasn't good enough. They always wanted me to be more feminine, to be more like Sarah, to be more normal. I wasn't sure why I wasn't good enough, what was wrong with me, but there was a screaming ache within me for acceptance, and so far, the only place I'd found any was in my four legged friends.

Princess, the dog we'd gotten back from Doug and Donna, was a problem. She killed chickens, which was why they gave her back to us. Still, she was a good watch dog; it was just that she had to be on a chain all the time. Mom said that it was wrong to call a dog "Princess", and Yahweh didn't approve of that name. She renamed the dog "Precious", which was close enough in sound to not be confusing to the dog. Mom and Dad came home one day with a new dog, Corky. Corky was a purebred Australian Shepherd. He was tricolored, which was more of less the same coloration that Precious had. He was a stud, and he was given to us because he was madly in love with the neighbor dog at his old home, a small dachsund. Obviously, this union was dangerous for his girlfriend, and despite the best efforts of his owner, the two lovers simply could not be kept apart. Even when we got him, he tried to run away several times, heading back to his old home, and his former owner told us to duct tape his mouth shut, because he cried mournfully for the dachsund all night long. When we took the tape off in the mornings, it pulled some of the fur off of his muzzle. Before long, Precious came into heat, and Corky had a diversion. He was such a gentle, loving dog. His eyes just sang with kindness and devotion- except when a female dog was in heat. When there was a bitch in heat, Corky became irritable and snappy if anyone approached them. Perhaps he was thinking he would be interfered with or removed from his mate again...but in any case, we learned that when he was breeding, it was best to leave him alone. Once she went out of heat, he would be his lovable old self again.

About the same time, our family met a man whose daughter had a goat for sale. She was a French Alpine, a milker, and I bought her sight unseen for the $35 that Dad now owed me. After all, we already owned two goats who didn't produce anything, and this one would earn her keep. I went to see her after agreeing to buy her. Snow was white with spots of brown and black. She was leaner and more angular than Della or Penny. I tried to milk her, but could not get the hang of it; every time I squeezed her teat, the milk went back up into her udder instead of squirting into the bucket. I must have hurt her in the effort, because she turned her head back and yanked on a mouthful of my hair! I can't say that I loved her, but I was proud to have made a good purchase of a productive animal. Diane, the girl who was selling her to me, said that since I couldn't milk yet, it would be better if she dried Snow off for the winter, and that she would keep her until then if I wanted to. Mom was fretting about 'proper' quarters for the goats we had, having read the disastrous goat section in Grow it!. She thought it was abusive not to have the goats on concrete floors, not realizing that concrete is terribly hard on their joints....so we agreed to pick Snow up in the spring, when we were more prepared.

When Dad took the paper route over from Denny Driver, he was also given a couple of tools to deter agressive dogs. One was a plastic handheld device that made a very high pitched sound when you pulled the trigger. It was supposed to make animals disorientated, to cause them to forget whatever they'd been thinking about and leave you alone. I hated that thing, because I could hear it. Dad claimed I couldn't possibly hear it, but I could and it was awful. Fox hated it, too. When he came to the front of the house and tried to hang around, Dad would point it at him and chuckle as the old horse ran away hurriedly. The other device was a sort of stun gun. I don't know if it was for dogs or human attackers, but Dad used it on us as well as the dogs, cats, horses, whatever he could zap. It hurt, but the pain didn't last for any longer than the trigger was held. Mostly it was the surprise suddenly feeling an electrical shock for no good reason. If you have ever inadvertently touched an electric fence, that's sort of what it felt like. He liked to hide it in his clothing and nail us as we walked by. Or he would call us to do a favor for him, and as soon as we were near, he would shock us. It wasn't ever used as a punishment for wrongdoing, he just got a kick out of seeing us jump and scream, so it was totally unpredictable. This was even worse, because you couldn't go near the man without fear, yet he would order you to come to him. The anxiety in the house soared to a new level. Now, in addition to his rubber band gun and toothpicks, he had this stun gun.

Mom continued to drop hints about the man she thought might be my future husband. I found out his name- Daniel, but they couldn't remember his last name, that he had blond hair, blue eyes, was somewhat older than me, looked like Robert Redford, was a farmer, and had sheep and a draft horse. Mom seemed as though she herself might be attracted to him. She said he was kind of a ladies man. I wasn't sure what a ladies man was, so I didn't know what to think of this comment. They told me that Yahweh wanted me to make a drawing of a mother bear fishing for her cubs, and that I was to give it to this man if he were the right one.

Living in the cabin was slightly easier now. They had somehow procured a refrigerator that would work in the cabin (it must have been propane) and a generator which allowed us to use a light in the kitchen. Also, Sarah and I were allowed to wear our old glasses again. It was understood that we still were having faith in our eyes getting healed, we just needed the glasses to make life easier until then. It was amazing how beautiful even the smallest things were with our glasses! It was a lot easier for me to ride Fox, too; until then, I didn't see things like tree limbs right in front of me until there was just enough time to duck. Amazingly, I galloped all over the farm and only got hurt once. I had been riding on a Sabbath, fell off, hit my head on a rock and got knocked out. This was acknowledged as hard proof that Yahweh disapproved of recreation on Sabbaths. When we got our glasses back, we were amazed at how incredibly dirty the house was, especially with the new electric light (one light bulb) in the kitchen! The corners, which had been so dimly lit by the kerosene lamps alone, were particularly filthy. We continued to use the oil lamps, because we only had one light, and only when the generator was running. Even with our glasses, our sight was far from perfect. During the time without them, our sight had actually deteriorated, probably from constantly straining to see. They were still so much better than nothing at all that we were elated. Meanwhile, Mom continued to drive without glasses or contacts of any kind. Her sight was at least as bad as my own, so driving wasp retty hazardous. She got around this by having Raphah or Rachel ride in the front seat and tell her what they saw. They alerted her to dangers such as deer, oncoming traffic, or that she was coming up on a curve or veering out of her lane.

The morning of the last day of 1989, Mom and Dad hauled us all in to help with the Sunday paper. After we had assembled and bagged the papers, Mom and Dad went off to deliver them. When they came back, we had work ahead of us, because Denny Driver's young girlfriend had broken into the building where we'd stored his stuff and had stolen some of it. We were left bored in the office building. We read through the comics, I read the food section, the Ann Landers column, and everything else that looked interesting. The newspaper was our main link to the outside world; however a lot of what I read referred to things that were common knowledge for most people but which I had not heard of before. For example, celebrities, movies, books, things that would be covered in high school or college, history...there were huge gaps in my knowledge base and as a consequence, what I read in the paper did not always make as much sense as it should have. As usual, I had brought a seed catalog with me to read. This was the new Gurney's catalog, and I went through it circling things that interested me. Reliance peaches that could make it in our climate! Hopi blue flour corn! Apples: Cortland, Winesap, Sweet Sixteen.... Even this fascinating activity grew old after awhile. I laid the catalog on dad's desk and we played twenty questions for a while, and then drew silly pictures on the whiteboard.

We heard the door shut downstairs and sat down in our chairs as though we'd been sitting down all along. We listened to them approach; one of the voices wasn't familiar, it sounded like it might be a man. Suddenly the door opened and Mom and Dad walked in with a strange man. Mom introduced us all to one another. This was Daniel. I scrutinized him carefully when he wasn't looking my way. He did not look anything like what I'd expected, and I sort of wondered what Mom had been thinking. For one thing, he was a lot older than me, 18 years older, which put him at 35. And his hair was really short; I was used to hanging out with bearded and hippie type people. I considered the fact that he was also divorced. Maybe it would be better if we were just friends. He didn't say much. He just walked over to the wall and sat down against it on the floor! We offered him one of the many chairs but he politely declined. I began to think he was kind of unusual. He was dressed in hickory striped coveralls and moved as though he had been in the military (the Navy, it turned out). He did not look at us or say anything.

Then Dad began calling business contacts and newspaper customers and we all grew even more bored. Dad could gab for hours and be perfectly contented, telling stories and jokes and parables to perfect strangers, like telemarketers, for example, that he would never meet again. Daniel jumped up to his feet and started wandering around the room. Seeing the seed catalog on the desk, he picked it up and began flipping through it. Then he spoke up and wanted to know whose catalog this was, who had been circling the blue corn? It turned out that blue corn was one of his obsessions, and soon he was sitting beside me and we were talking a hundred miles an hour about everything from the blue corn to peaches to sheep , goats, and draft horses. Once he opened up his mouth, he was a really interesting, engaging guy! And he had sparkling blue eyes that made smile wrinkles all over his face when he smiled. He spoke to me as if the things I had to say were actually worthy of attention rather than ridicule. My knees began trembling. I tried to hold them still, but even when they were knocking together violently, he pretended he didn't notice, as though all was well. He had a very reassuring presence. I think I was probably nervous because I had never spoken to any man except for Matt Christson, and then only very, very briefly and casually. I was unused to being around men, had never been on a date, and this was all happening very quickly.

Dad hung up the phone at last, and we spent the rest of the day moving the furniture and boxes of stuff. Daniel was a good worker, very businesslike and efficient. That evening Dad took him back to his home on Wrenco Loop and our entire family slept in the office, because our work wasn't done. In the morning, Dad did the route alone (Monday papers are small) and did Wrenco Loop last, picking up Daniel on the way. We had nothing to eat that morning except for cheap sugary doughnuts and coffee, but I didn't care, because I liked Daniel already. All my life, I'd felt like a left foot in a family of right feet; always out of place, never good enough the way I was. It was such an incredible relief to meet another person I could relate to. It was as though I'd been waiting for him all my life, had always known him and always would.

Mom and Dad had some sort of business stuff that they didn't want Daniel to be included in and Dad had work for him to do at our house, so they had him drive Raphah and I home in the red truck. We could tell him how to get there. Daniel was fun to talk to and had all sorts of interesting things to say. The three of us chattered happily all the way home. Once we got home, we started a fire so that the house could get warm, and then showed him around our place. He gave Fox a big hug, looked at the goats, the pets, Precious and her puppies. It was clear that he loved animals, although he was non-commital about taking a puppy when they were old enough.

Mom, Dad, and the girls came home about half an hour after we did, and then we had to work. We brought our wooden sled into use as usual while we did the firewood. Daniel was curious about the sled, wanted to know we'd made it. He'd been thinking about getting a sled for his draft horse, Casper, to pull. Daniel was a good worker, very efficient and businesslike with a good work ethic, but this didn't keep him from smiling, joking around, and even singing as he worked. This was such a pleasant change from my sullen brother and domineering, bullying stepfather; working with Daniel was actually fun! At the day's end, we came inside for dinner. While we were out working, Mom, Sarah, and Rachel had been busy making lentil soup and biscuits.

After dinner, Daniel wanted to see me spin wool. He had sheep and was wondering if he could make his own spinning wheel, but first he needed to know how one worked. We had already talked about my idea of adapting an old bicycle, and unlike my family, he didn't laugh at me for it or call me an idiot. He thought it was a good idea. So I brought the spinning wheel into the kitchen/common area and started spinning some yarn. Some of the people were still at the table to my left. Daniel sat to my right, focusing intently on the wheel's action and moving parts. Suddenly I felt a very sharp pain in my bottom! I might have yelped a little, because it startled Daniel. I looked around in the direction of the pain's origin. Only Dad was there, looking quite innocent and relaxed with a toothpick in his mouth. His eyes twinkled with mischeif, daring me to make a scene. I knew that was what he wanted, so I stubbornly turned back to the wheel as if nothing had happened, determined not to give him any satisfaction at all. I went back to the spinning, and soon he poked me again; this time I acted as though I hadn't felt a thing. Dad chuckled, but I just ignored him. Daniel looked a little worried when I glanced at him, but I kept spinning and talking with him even as Eliyah continued to poke me from time to time. Well, the last poke really hurt. I didn't jump, but was certain that it had broken the skin, even through the double layer of blue jeans. It hurt too much to ignore and he was just going to keep poking me as long as he could get away with it, so I stopped spinning and wound the end of the yarn around the peg on the wheel so it wouldn't unravel. Daniel was looking very concerned by now, as though he wondered what would come next. Dad chuckled maliciously as I approached him; not even bothering to look innocent this time, the toothpick was still in his hand. Fast as a snake, I grabbed that hand, put all my weight and strength into wrestling for that damned toothpick. When I got it, I broke it into tiny, short little pieces and threw them at the woodstove. I hadn't said a word and neither had Dad or Daniel, but Dad chuckled again and got up and plodded off to bed, apparently having achieved his goal of humiliating me. Daniel looked relieved.

My victory was cut short by Rachel's proud announcement that I was an artist! I blushed all the way down to my toes, very embarrassed, but she had already gone to fetch all my sketch pads to show him. Usually when people look at a sketchbook, the page through it quickly, but not Daniel. He looked at each drawing for a long time, making insightful comments. At one point he said sadly that he wished I had taken more time on the hooves. I had only scrawled them in very roughly.He would notice something like that, working with horses day in and day out. Later on I went back though them and redrew all the hooves with more care. He liked my work though, he seemed to really understand it. By the time he was through, I was so certain that he was in fact the man Yahweh had chosen for me that I went and got the drawing of the mother bear fishing and gave it to me. He accepted it with a quiet gratitude as though he knew the significance of this piece of paper. Dennis took him home that night, but I was happy. I knew that I had finally found the right one.

Dad continued to bring Daniel over to work from time to time. Things went so much more quickly with him there and we didn't get yelled at when he was around, even though we worked a lot. He didn't act like he was 35; it was like having another kid around, except that his opinion and presence had weight with our parents because he was an adult, so we felt protected. He and I often pulled the wooden sled together and joked about being a well matched team of draft horses. The sled would be loaded high with rounds to be split as we hauled it from the woods. One the rope that we pulled with broke suddenly and we fell into the snow, laughing.

Another time, we were carrying longer, smaller diameter logs out on a path that was too narrow for the sled. It was getting dark and the path was hard to see. After a while, we couldn't see it at all, and were in the forest when we realized we'd gone off the path. Daniel and Raphah were worrying about where the path was. I felt for it with my feet and quickly found it. He was surprised, and I told him that I was used to relying on senses other than sight, because I had gone so long without glasses. When we got back to the house, Sarah and I talked to him (out of earshot of our parents) about how even with our glasses, we really could not see that well. We detailed what we could and couldn't see. I tried putting on both my and Sarah's glasses together, and was amazed at the clarity and detail. I turned towards Daniel, hoping to finally see his face clearly for once. He was frowning and looked upset, so I quickly took the double set of glasses off. I figured he was frowning because I looked stupid that way.

As for Daniel working for us, I think Dad had agreed to pay or barter with him, but am not sure if he ever actually got paid. Maybe Dad was trying to barter me off like Laban did with his daughters Rachel and Leah in the bible. We always fed him well, and he was definitely hungry, even though he ate the meat reluctantly. I turned out that he was a Seventh Day Adventist and vegetarian, and only ate meat at our house so as not to offend us by refusing. He also didn't like cooked tomatoes, only raw, no sugar...I wondered how on earth I would feed this man, because most of what Mom had taught me to cook so far relied rather heavily on cooked tomatoes! Clearly, I would have to learn some new recipes.Dad brought home a lot of smelt one day and put us all to the task of gutting them before being fried. I didn't know about this, not having much of an appetite for fish in the first place, but Daniel, who was of Norwegian extraction, seemed enthusiastic about it, so I guessed I would at least try them. Once they were all cooked, whole except for the guts, he and Dennis crunched right into them, bones, head, and all! I just could not eat the heads, remembering the dead eyes of the fish staring up at me as I gutted them.

The thing about Daniel is that he was really, really poor. He told of us how destitute he'd been when he first came to Idaho from Minnesota, how he'd cooked and eaten the horse's sweet feed as cereal to survive. How, more recently, he'd been so hungry for fresh green vegetables that he'd attempted to cook and eat some alfalfa hay, but it didn't agree with his digestive system. He showed us his lunch one day, about 25 small apples that like us, he had picked for free. This was what he generally ate for a lunch when he worked as a farm hand for his old farmer friends. I didn't mind that he was poor; I knew that there were far more important things in life, small beauties that couldn't be purchased for any amount of money. Besides, I'd seen my father's family. Despite all the money they had, they didn't seem particularly happy, and they didn't seem to enjoy life half as much as Daniel did. His brown Carharrts were ripped and patched, his favorite sky blue shirt was torn at the armpit, and he had only one hand-sewn sheepskin mitten because he was still working on the other one, but none of these things mattered to me. He lived in a house that was even smaller than our own and also without electricity or running water. He had an artesian well that he carried water from by buckets. All of this sounded heavenly to me. I had long since concluded that a person could be rich and dissatisfied, or poor and happy, and decided that the latter group was for me. I didn't want any of the rich old men Dad was always talking about. A poor farmer was just fine by me.

As the courtship with Daniel continued, Dad was making lewd, sexual comments on a regular basis, and his groping hadn't slowed down, either. I felt even more soiled than I had before and disloyal on top of it, even though I had never initiated or encouraged these advances in any way. Of course, there was always a chaperone nearby whenever Daniel was there, even if we were only talking, usually a brother or sister. Every word was listened to, nothing was confidential.

Around this time, the most terrifying experience I'd ever had occurred. I was asleep and had a dream. Things started going strange in the dream, spinning wildly out of control, disorienting, and my heart was pounding at an increasing rate proportional to the spinning things in the dream. I couldn't breathe, my chest hurt, and my heart was pounding so hard that I could hear it loudly, drowning out the sound of anything else, deafening. Things were going black, and I knew that I was about to die, that it was going to happen, it was coming. Absolute terror engulfed me. I screamed, but no sound came out, was screaming with all my might, and all I could hear was a whispery, faint sound. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't talk, was helpless in the face whatever was happening. By now I was awake, but I still couldn't talk or scream. I was left frozen with fear in a way that I'd never known before. There are simply no words adequate to express how horrible it felt. I laid there in my dark bed, terrified to go back to sleep lest it happen again.

I tried to explain it in the morning. I thought maybe something was wrong with my heart, or that I'd had a seizure. I was afraid of dying if it happened again. Eliyah leered knowingly and said I'd had a "swoon" because I was so turned on by Daniel. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. A swoon? Swoons were stupid things that happened to dumb airheady women in Victorian novels, not to sturdy outdoorsy girls like me. Besides, I didn't have a nice dream about Daniel, I had a nightmare that had nothing at all to do with him. But Dad kept talking about the "swoon" and hinting that it was some kind of a sexual experience, and I knew for a fact that what had happened to me was the farthest thing possible from sexy.

Because I didn't get any answers, any words for the experience, I was even more frightened. I assumed that it was some kind of a seizure, that I might be defective in some way. Maybe I wouldn't make a good wife because of it. Maybe Daniel wouldn't want me if he knew about it. And if there was one thing in the world that was even more terrifying than these night attacks, it was rejection, the fear of being cast off and unwanted, unloved again....just like when Mom had walked out the door and left me.

After one of Daniel's weekend visits, Dad took Raphah and I to do the Sunday paper route, taking Daniel back home on the way back, because Daniel didn't have a car. He didn't like mechanization, and dreamed of a world in which everyone rode horses or rode in horsedrawn carts and carriages and sleighs. In a world of his making, everyone would have beautiful hand made things in their homes, no plastic at all, nothing mass produced. Every farm would have fences that flowed with the curves of the landscape, and trees would be planted in more natural formations instead of straight rows. A lot of his ideals were pretty unrealistic, but I admired and repsected him for being able to think outside the box, to dream, to come up with a vision for alternative to our throwaway, immediate gratification society.

After assembling enough papers to start the route, Raphah and I sat in the back of the Blazer, putting the rest of them together and stuffing them into bags. When we got to Laclede, all the men went for a bathroom break in the bushes by the post office. I couldn't, because there wasn't enough cover; even though it was still dark, there were lights all over the place, and I was very modest. Dad said I would have to wait until we got into Sandpoint, which would take at least an hour, because there were so many boxes to stop and fill on a Sunday morning. The time seemed to drag on forever, and embarrassing as it was, I asked him several times to stop anywhere in the countryside so I could run off into the woods and go, but he wouldn't let me. I really had to go, but he just ignored me after a while.

At Odd Fellows Plaza on the edge of Sandpoint, he made me get out to hand deliver several papers, as usual. There was a bathroom there, but he wouldn't let me use it. As soon as I stepped out into the cold air, my bladder gave out. After delivering the papers, I stepped behind a fence, took my jacket off and tied it around my waist, hoping it would hide the huge wet mark on my jeans, but since it was January, wearing a jacket around my waist was pretty conspicuous. When the Blazer came back to where I was, Daniel got out and opened the door for me, but I was so humiliated that I couldn't even look at him. When I did work up enough courage to glance quickly in his direction, he had a look on his face like he knew exactly what had happened. He didn't look disgusted, he just looked like he knew. I hopped quickly into the blazer, burning with shame. Dad looked back at me with a sneering smile and so did Raphah. With a sinking feeling in my stomach I realized that Daniel must know too. I was so upset that I started crying quietly with my head on my knees. In the front seat ahead of me, I heard Daniel asking Dad quietly if we could stop at a restroom yet. Dad made a noncommital grunt, looked out the window, and kept driving. He stopped and got out at one of the stops, and I felt something patting my knee. I peeked to see what it was; it was Daniel's hand patting my knee comfortingly . Oh no, he did know, he must! I was flooded with despair and couldn't help crying even more, feeling as though my entire body was leaking now.

After the whole route was complete, Dad stopped at the Dairy Depot gas station to buy gas. Daniel opened the door for me and I scrambled out. When I got out of the bathroom, I stood in the hall and waited for Raphah. Suddenly I saw a familiar blond head bobbing above the candy racks. Oh no, Daniel was coming our way! He came up near me andmade small talk. I stared numbly at the 7-Up machine in the corner and mumbled one or two word replies. Then he said something about how nice it was to have me for a friend.
"Yeah, it's nice to have friends", I said.
It was the only thing I could think of to say! He laughed quietly and said, "Come here", holding his arms out to me. He gave such nice hugs, as though he cherished me. While he held me, he talked about the toothpick incident, said that was when he'd started to like me, because he liked the way I'd handled what could have been a horrible scene if it'd happened to another girl my age. He chuckled again and told me he loved me. He said it in the most wonderful way, as if I were being sort of silly but he loved me anyway. Then Raphah came out and Daniel went in. When he emerged, we all went back to the Blazer.

Dad pulled out a brown paper sack and declared,
"Whoever guesses what's in here gets some!"

"It's candy!", shouted Daniel.

He was right; there were two boxes, one of the standard coffe nips, the other of chocolate parfait nips. Everything was happier then, and we snacked on the candy all the way back to Wrenco Loop. When Daniel was out and on his way walking up the road to his cabin, Dad turned and looked at me.

"So, Becky, did you have a nice bath?"

"Yeah Becky, chimed in Raphah, did you have fun wetting your pants?"

But I didn't care anymore. My ears were still ringing with the gentle words of Daniel. For days afterward, all the petty annoyances of our life didn't even touch me. I was floating along in a world of my own and my mind was with Daniel. He'd said that I was beautiful, and for the first time in my life, I almost believed it was true. "Intelligent", "determined", "strong", "different", "creative"...these were the words I was used to hearing people use to describe me. "Beautiful" was a word that was used for Sarah or my mother, and "cute" was a word for Rachel. Neither were ever used for me, but when he said them, they had a ring of truth. For once, there was someone in my life who valued me for who I really was, not what they hoped I might be someday if they changed me enough.

It seemed like forever before Dad brought him back again, even though it was only a week, but it was worth the wait. We had to get water that night, so Daniel, Raphah and I rode in the back of the truck with the drippy wet water barrels, but I didn't mind so much since he was with us. Once at Mark's house, we also had to shovel the driveway, which took us an hour or two. One the way back, Dad let us ride in the front. I rode in the middle with Raphah on my lap, and Daniel sat on the passanger's side with Sarah on his lamp. My thin leather gloves were worn through at the thumb and fingertips. We were riding along like that, packed in cozily, when I felt a big calloused hand take mine very gently and tenderly. When he realized I had a glove on, his fingers found the hole in the fingertips of my glove. I was sorry I'd left the glove on, but since I couldn't take it off, I slowly leaned my head over until it rested on his shoulder. He was all warm from working and smelled nice, a combination of vegetarian male, birch wood smoke, horse, and something else indescribable- the scent of Daniel. By and by, he leaned my way until his head was resting on mine.

I don't think Dad even noticed until he got out at the Tamrak convenience store and came back to the truck. Then he made Raphah and I get out and ride in the back. It was colder now than it had been before; Daniel took his coat and wooly white sweater off, laid the sweater down in the bed of the truck and covered me with his coat to keep the wind off of me. He only had on his favorite blue plaid shirt now. Despite being in the back of a truck in mid-February for over half an hour, I was warm and cozy all the way home. When the truck stopped, he hopped out quickly to help me out of the truck and make sure I wasn't cold! These small things endeared me to him. Even though Daniel was a rustic sort whose hands were covered with callouses and scars from farm labor, he always behaved as a gentleman and treated me like a lady. I had never been treated that way before, and after years of ridicule and taunting, hearing kind, sincere words spoken to me was more precious than any meterial thing could have been.

That night we stayed up late talking over dessert- ice cream, a rare treat for us. Just as it was being served, Dad called me to come rub his feet in his bed. I sat there rubbing his fat, smelly feet wishing they were Daniel's and thinking about my ice cream melting into a syrupy puddle in its bowl, melting away slowly... Darn it, couldn't he hurry up and drift off to sleep? But the foot prodded me annoyingly.

"Becky, this toe really hurts. Would you try pulling on it? The other foot hurts too!"

I heard Daniel ask somebody to put my ice cream in the freezer before it melted, and again, it was a small thing, but my heart was thankful. After Dad finally went to sleep, and we talked until about midnight. That night was my dishes night and Daniel had helped. He was going to rinse, but when I asked him to check them, because I couldn't see the dishes and washed by feel, he looked a little surprised and then wanted to wash and have me rinse. I don't know why, but there was something incredibly sexy about seeing a man wash dishes (still is, now that I think about it, lol). In our family, men never, ever helped with any kind of housework.

I slept soundly, being short on sleep, and woke up at 3 AM to Eliyah in my face, shaking me.

"Becky, I need you to to get up and help me deliver papers"

"But, (I was half asleep) it's Sabbath", I said. I wasn't sure whether this was a nightmare or actually happenening. I went back to sleep. Suddenly I was being jostled awake again! Dad was there.

"Becky, hurry up! You have to get up and help me."

"Oh....can't I just go back to sleep or something like that?" I was really not fully awake....again, it seemed like a bad dream that I wanted to go away. Through the sleepy layers of dreamland, I heard him say angrily,

"Yeah, why don't you just do that! Why don't you just go back to sleep!"

He stomped out and I heard the front door slam and the truck spin out of the driveway. The angry words and slammed door woke me up. Oh no, I thought, I really said that. He's mad. I was fully awake now and couldn't go back to sleep. His angry, sarcastic words hung in my mind like a dark storm cloud ready to let loose with thunder, lightning, hail, and the works. Then I wondered if he had taken Daniel home. Maybe I should have gotten up. But on Sabbath? Somehow I felt like I'd done the right thing and yet I felt horribly guilty and anxious about Dad being mad at me. I heard a light snoring from the other room and listened closely. It wasn't Raphah, his door was always closed. It was a man's snore, so it must be Daniel! They had him sleeping on the couch. So he was here after all! The thought of being able to spend time with him and not have Dad hovering threateningly nearby was heartening.

I heard Mom talking quietly to someone and listened hard. Sarah. Raphah must also be there, or Dad wouldn't have put so much effort into waking me up. Rachel wasn't a lot of help and I could hear her breathing in the bunk below. So Dad had gone alone. Maybe we'd have a nice day. Soon I heard Daniel talking quietly to Sarah and Mom. Well, I couldn't go back to sleep, and everyone else was talking, so I might as well get up and join in before I missed something interesting!

"Oh", said Mom when she saw me, "You didn't go with Dad?"
"No", and I told her about it.
"Oh, well don't feel bad about it. He's just crabby. Saturday papers are easy anyhow. Today is Sabbath."

Daniel agreed, and the four of us talked there in the dark. After a while the room was light enough that we could see one another. It was Sabbath, so after a breakfast of raw oatmeal and yogurt (we ate this like cereal with milk), we read scriptures and sang songs together. The chores had already been done and Daniel wanted to go for a Sabbath walk. That sounded like fun, so we all walked down to Chase Lake, about a mile away. Even though it was the middle of February, it was a very nice, sunny day as Daniel kept commenting on:

"What a beautiful Sabbath day Yahweh has blessed us with, blue sky and all!"

"There's a cloud over there", said Raphah grumpily, but Daniel just laughed.

"Yeah, isn't that purty the way He put that one little cloud there all by itself? Look how fluffy it is, and with the rays of sunlight coming through the bottom..."

But Raphah wasn't listening. He was busy packing a snowball together. The road was shady in places and sometimes I wished I'd brought a coat. I had on only my favorite blue dress I'd gotten from the dumpster. Daniel pointed out the cedars which flourished in the shade and damp:

"Look at the way those cedars there hold their branhes, doesn't that remind you of that verse about the trees clapping their hands?"

He was constantly saying things like that. To Daniel, the whole earth was a manifestation of God's love for us and His careful attention to every detail. His spirituality was so different from the one we'd been enmeshed in, his God so different from ours, so much more caring and compassionate. We talked along these lines all the way to Chase Lake, stood on the only dock there and looked at the frozen lake. It was more of a big pond really. Since Mom was at home, Daniel led us in a Sabbath prayer. It was such a nice day, so warm. The sky was the same color blue as his eyes.

Suddenly the quiet moment was broekn by a scuffle and a scream. Raphah had thrown his snowball at Rachel and she had attacked him in turn. They were at the end of the dock wrestling and I was sure one of them would end up in the icy water, but somehow Daniel managed to restore peace between them. Rachel's plastic headband was broken and she was crying while Raphah glared at her sullenly.

"It's Sabbath, you guys know better than to fight on Sabbath"

Raphah's rebellious gaze met Daniel's stern one. He dropped his head, ashamed. Daniel's eyes sparkled again and he put his hand gently on Raphah's shoulder.

"Boys will be boys!"

Raphah didn't stay ashamed for long! He giggled mischeiviously,

"Betcha can't catch me!", and he took off cavorting down the road, tossing snowballs at us, most of which missed. Occasionally we'd lob one back at him, but we were mostly busy talking and enjoying the walk.

"Hoo-eee! Lovey dovey!" Another snowball missed its mark. I was really embarrassed, but Daniel just laughed and launched a cold missile at Raphah, which knocked his cap off. Laughing, dodging, throwing, they horsed around like two schoolboys. Anyone watching them could forget that Daniel was a thrity-five year old man! But that was part of what made him so appealing; he could be so childlike. The night before when he had asked for a cookie, he's had the face of a little boy saying pretty please!

We dropped Rachel off at the house on the way past the cabin and picked up two of the puppies, Lassie and Laddie. Daniel had decided he wanted a puppy, and after careful consideration, Lassie was his choice. Because my dogs had all vanished, I was going to keep Laddie. They had almost identical tricolor markings, and we carried them in our arms. We walked most of the way to Coolin and back again, talking the whole way.

That afternoon after we came back, we went to visit Fox and the goats. For once, there were no chaperoning siblings nearby. Daniel sank down onto his knees,

"Will you marry me?"

He had that winsome little boy look on his face.

"Yeah", I said shyly. He jumped up and held me in his arms as if I were the most precious thing on earth! I was not used to being treated that way at all. For once in my life, I was beginning to feel like I was loved, like I could get used to someone loving me. We were so happy. We walked back to the house hand in hand. He asked me if my parents would mind our engagement.

"My mom won't mind", I said happily, "She knows that you're the right one. But you might not want to tell Dad yet."

I felt him tense beside me, but he didn't comment.

We went into the house in a sort of ethereal daze. Mom was just as happy for us as I'd thought she'd be. Dad was still sleeping. We sat at the table reading a book together, chatting quietly, holding hands, our chairs close together. He woke up, fixed his suspicious, groggy eyes on us, and asked us what we were so happy about. We had some sort of true but non-specific answer. As he walked by to the bathroom, he told us we were sitting too close together. Our hands had flown into our own laps as soon as he'd come into sight. He ate dinner, looking at us like a thief casing a house. We were unsuspecting, lost in our own world, our faces aching from smiling so much. He slept again.

That evening, Daniel held me close in an embrace before we said goodnight. I wished with all my heart that I could leave that place now. But I wasn't eighteen yet and he was thirty-five. We would have to get consent from at least one legal parent. Maybe Mom would do that for us. The thought of asking my father did not even cross my mind, for good reason. He would give me a practical talk about going to college, buying a car, getting a job, etc.... For now, I was happy, so happy. I had no idea that I might never be this happy again. I think he may have brushed his lips against my forehead. All I know now is that I wanted so badly to be with him, for him not to go. Because in the background of my heart, there was a tiny, quivering fear, quietly sounding an alarm.

That night, I had a dream that Daniel was sick with some horrible disease. His friends and community all got together to raise money to help him, and he was hoping for a cure, but he died anyway. I stood at the funeral; it was at a big red barn. Mom had some interpretation that assured me that the dream meant he was dying to sin, that it wasn't to be taken literally. Even so, the dream bothered me...

When Dad returned in the morning from his paper route, he was furious with me. Daniel had told him everything. Dad said I should have asked his permission first before accepting, and that Daniel should have asked him before proposing to me. The way I saw it, it wasn't Dad's choice. It was mine, and only mine, to make, regardless of ponies, blankets, or rifles. Besides, I didn't trust Dad to be objective enough about the situation to be fair, since he clearly had his own desires for me.

Mom's perspective quickly changed in the face of Dad's anger. Daniel must be perfected before I could marry him. I still had no idea what perfection was, and no intention at all of insisting on it for Daniel as a condition of marriage. Then they said he was an Adventist, his beliefs weren't the same as ours, and he'd have to convert. I didn't care. He used the sacred names around me, and I didn't care much past that. Worst of all, they said that they wanted Daniel and I to live near them or under their roof! No!!! I knew without a doubt that that would spoil things for sure!

Dad said that in the course of the long, intense conversation, new information about Daniel had been unearthed. He'd been to jail for falling behind on child support for his two small children from his first marriage. That marriage had ended with him hitting his first wife, and he'd gone to jail for that, too. He'd also been to prison for growing pot. Apparently his partner in the venture narced on him in exchange for dropped charges and kept all the proceeds while he went to prison and got raped. Dad wanted him to get an AIDs test and show him the results. Also, Daniel had gotten angry at Dad and yelled back at him, so clearly he had anger management issues.

The joy within me paled in the face of all this strife, but I was still committed. I would not back down, and Dad was incensed with us both.

A few days later, I received a letter, in an envelope decorated with a wash of blue ink and addressed in blue calligraphy. This is what he wrote to me:

===================================================

Rebekah,
I miss you and your family very much. When i just now opened the Bible story book to find your address I found a folded paper by the picture of Abraham's servant talking to Rebekah at the well as she watered his camels. It's a beautiful picture. The folded paper was entitled

Dying to Self
When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded and your opinions ridiculed, but you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient loving silence.

In these last days the spirit of Yahshua wants to bring us to the cross...being made conformable to his death. Then I turned in the Bible to Proverbs 16, "Commend what you do to Yahweh, and what you plan will be acheived."

On the paper route, Sunday morning, your father and I talked and as my wishes were crossed and opinions not taken very seriously, anger rose up in my heart and I gave full vent and defended myself and beliefs.

I'm sorry. I respect your father for putting Raphah in between us all the time. And I do sit much too close to you at the table. I wish you would give him a big hug and tell him thank you for helping Yahweh to bring us together. I don't agree with waiting for a year to take you for my wife. But I won't go against his wishes.

Rebekah, I love you.

I've asked you to marry me and you said that you would. Let's ask Yahweh in the name of his son Yahshua to run before us. If we are to be man and wife then our Creator has already set the day and will let your father know.

I hope we could be together by spring so that we could grow a garden together and share in the beauty and gentleness of the baby lambs and the milk cow and her little calf. But the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. And I will wait for his counsel. This is too important for us to act on our own. Didn't He plan a perfet Sabbath for us and the sunshine on your freckles and rosy heeks and Lassie and your kitten and Raphah Rachel and Sarah?

Rebekah, I love you. Let's trust Him to prepare a wedding day as beautiful. I can still see you in your pretty blue dress. Thank you for being my friend. I'll be your friend forever, no matter what happens, Daniel.
============================================

Although I was thankful beyond words to receive a letter from him, and enchanted by his neat, graceful handwriting, I wasn't entirely happy with the content of that letter. I realized that I was impatient, but I really felt that he was giving Dad way too muh control over an area that wasn't, in my opinion, his to decide. Sitting too close together at the table?? Please! Daniel had always been a total gentleman. Even on the rare occasions when we had been overlooked by our chaperones for a minute or two, we hadn't kissed. Ever. Not even on the cheek. Not, the real issue at hand was that Dad couldn't stand the thought of seeing a virgin from his own house taken into the arms of a poor farmer, or in fact, any other man. Why was Daniel so frustratingly persistent about attributing qualities to Dad which he did not possess? I admired his idealism, but in this area, it really wasn't called for. He was always ready to give people the benefit of the doubt whenever he could.

And the sad thing was that these were the things I loved about him, and now these same qualities were the ones that would allow Eliyah to throw a monkey wrench into the happy life we'd planned.

I wrote him back an affectionate letter, careful not to disagree, or only in the gentlest way possible. Mom and Dad proofread the letter and told me to rewrite it. I said "I love you" too often. Didn't I know that when men read those words, it made them get an erection and think dirty thoughts? I had only the faintest concept of what an erection entailed, and just thinking about that made my face flush deep red. I found it hard to believe that reading those words would make him think dirty things about me. After all, so many times already I had spoken them to him, in his arms even, and had never had any hint of dirty thoughts. Sometimes he held me away from himself as though he were waging some internal struggle....but to me that was only proof that he was a good man. I rewrote the letter and rewrote it again. The letter Daniel received was only a faint echo of what I'd wanted to write to him.

Dad quit bringing Daniel over. I was still able to go on the paper route, and since that was now my only way of seeing him, I went as often as I could. Usually we didn't see him at all, but a little sleep derivation was more than worth it to me for even a small chance of being able to see him. I was with when we gave him Lassie. He cuddled her as if she were priceless to him. Also curtailed was any chance at all of my speaking to him without Dad right there. It was frustrating. When I received letters from Daniel, Dad would make me open it in front of them and either read it aloud or let him and my mom read it before I did. This seemed like a huge violation to me. Couldn't they at least allow me to read and savor the letter first before they started picking it apart and ordering me what to write him in response? The level of intrusion had been unacceptable to me before, and now it was totally intolerable.

But Daniel kept sending me these letters, exhorting me to be patient, to bear up bravely and quietly under abuse, assuring me that he loved me and promising that he would wait for me no longer how long it took, telling me about how he was fixing up the farm with fruit trees, and hens, how the cow was doing. When things got bad, I'd remember the beautiful life we were planning together, and research what we could do with the things we'd produce, how we would make this work even though money would be short. And then I felt better.

The days in between Daniel's letters seemed to crawl along. In between, Dad would harass me about Daniel, trying to enumerate all the reasons why he wasn't good enough. I only had to picture his face to draw enough strength from the memory to defend myself, the future I hoped for. I had never felt so secure, so certain that at last, things were going to work out. I planted apple seeds to grow trees, trees that we hoped our grandchildren would climb, spun and dyed wool and crocheted and knitted small baby garments, saved any money my family sent me, and invested it in oil lamps and other things we might need; my hope chest. Whenever Dad heard the words "hope chest", he would leer and clutch at an imaginary bosom on his own chest. I just ignored it.

Huge changes were in the works. We were going to move. Dad and Mom had found 72 acres of land with a house only three miles from Priest River. We were going to leave Coolin and its rotten people behind. Everyone else was delighted to be moving from the humble little cabin. Always somewhat averse to change, I looked forward to the new place, but the thought of abandoning the cozy log cabin saddened me. I talked to Daniel about the possibility of our buying the place; it was for sale for $10,000 for the ten acres and house. He already had a place though, and his little farm had a well and was already established.

Apparently my family was going to pay for the new spread by logging it and using the proceeds to pay for the land. There was a lot of talk about "selective logging". And of course, they would need a down payment. Coincidentally, this happened just as Sarah and I received our life's savings from our dad. I had thought of putting my portion towards buying the log cabin, but Dad wanted us to give our money up to buy the new place in exchange for receiving a portion of the land at some future time.

The moving process began. I stood at the thawing, muddy remains of my garden sadly, thinking of the Jerusalem artichoke roots still in the ground that would be left behind. We packed up what we owned, hauled the trailers out of there, the lumber, the junk Dad insisted of hauling from place to place. And the animals. When the time came to go back and get the animals, they left Andrea, my kitten, behind. They remembered Laddie, but said that there were too many cats to bring with, and so of course mine was the one that didn't get to move with us. I went back later, after we'd moved out but had returned for some small item, and I called and called to her, but never saw her again.