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.