I missed him terribly, so I drew Daniel a map of how to get to our house and mailed it to him. I waited every day for him, but he didn't show. One day Dad called around, calling people Daniel knew. He called all the Haugens in the area, but none of them were related to Daniel. Then he called Floyd Irish, the old farmer that Daniel worked for, but instead he got Floyd's wife, Leona. She didn't seem to like Daniel much. She told us that he was in jail at the present for non-payment of child support. And then she told Dad that his parents lived in St. Paul, Minnesota. I could have told him this. I knew his father's name, but the last thing I wanted was to have Dad harassing his parents. He found their phone number pretty quickly once he had their name and location, and he got Daniel's father on the phone.

Daniel's dad portrayed (from what I heard from my side of the conversation before Dad ordered me out of the house) his youngest son as a "loose cannon on the deck". The family was a lot like my Father's, respectable middle class people who couldn't understand why anyone in their right mind would want to farm if they didn't have to. They talked for at least an hour. I wondered what on earth Daniel would say if he knew that Dad had the ear of his parents. I wondered how he was faring in jail, wished I could visit him, but of course this was out of the question.