As Hattie lay the fire arranging the small pieces of pine at angles, the bigger ones on top then poking the coals to make it catch, her papa's words echoed in the white wind that howled outside. "Hattie," he'd said, "since your older sisters are lazy lay-a-beds, you're going to by fire-builder." She was ten years-old then, third oldest of his seven daughters, Now, at thirty-two, she can still get a good fire going every time and Otto, her husband relinquished the job to her when they first married.

Otto had brought in the wood that morning. He could be considerate at times. Hattie shuddered at the sudden shriek of the angry wind that pounded the walls of their frail house like a hungry giant. How many prairie women paced the cold hard floors behind barred windows at Yankton Asylum, because of the wind's relentless howl? She smiled at the warm promise of her fire and peered through the hole she had scraped in the frosty window. She saw no color, only white, a white that hid the familiar under a soft, cold quilt and made her eyes ache. At least the snow meant that the forties would not be a repeat of the drought that had plagued the thirties. They could do with a good winter wheat crop in '43.

Where was the rope to the barn? A neighbor woman lost her husband three years ago when he couldn't find the door to their house and froze to death ten feet away. If Otto had forgotten to string the rope, he could be lost too. She wouldn't know. Wouldn't care? "Oh God, forgive me. I didn't mean it. Of course, I'd care."

The warmth of the fire reminded her of the California sun. She closed her eyes and imagined the sweet-tang smell of oranges and the salt taste of air-borne sand, and heard again the children's high-pitched laughter that had made Otto smile. Otto's smile. What a rare thing, like the sun breaking away from a January cloud.

The shuffling of bare feet upstairs announced that the aroma of the boiling coffee had enticed the children from the warmth of their beds. Veronica would be down first. Hattie smiled when she thought of her lovely oldest child. Only fourteen-years-old and already willful. One day, Hattie feared, she'll agitate her father with her independent attitude, and she dreaded what he might do. Why doesn't she simply stay quiet, like her brother, Nicholas?

"Good morning, Mom."

Veronica's freshly brushed shoulder length hair was so alive with color, Hattie wanted to touch it.

"I'll fry the bacon and eggs this time," Veronica offered. "You're better at oatmeal than I am. Mine has lumps."

Her gaiety this dreary morning disturbed Hattie's sadness, but she didn't want to be annoyed. Even as a little girl, Veronica brightened up a room merely by entering it. Since first grade, her teachers had remarked on what a joy it had been to have her in class and praised the way she could to cheer up a classroom by her mere presence. What a woman she's going to be. Hattie knew that it was wrong for her to be partial to this daughter, but they had smiled at each other on the day of her birth and had become fast friends.

Nick backed through the swinging door into the kitchen, his little sister clinging to his back. "Mom, Beth won't let me put her shoes on her. You do it."

Otto never asked either � just gave orders like it was his due, and Nicholas had taken up on it. If she disciplined him, Otto informed her that Nick was his son. Hattie had reminded him one time that he was her son also. She worried over Nick. Even at eleven-years-old, he hadn't discovered that it was not possible to please his father.

Otto scolded at him nearly every minute they were together. He warned that God would not tolerate slothful ways from a boy like him and that he had better learn to strip a cow's udder or suffer the wrath of the Almighty. Junior would just say, "yes, sir," and stay at his side. Hattie didn't interfere. There may be something she didn't know about men and their sons.

"Come on Beth, let Mama put on your shoes before you catch your death." She was glad for the excuse to hold her youngest daughter. At six, Elizabeth was a sweet child, contemplative and quiet. It was no wonder Otto doted on her like he never did the other two.

Breakfast was ready, and Otto was stomping and scraping his boots on the shoe cleaner in the mud room.

"All right children, take your places. Your father's come. Sit up straight and tall. Beth, you're a big girl now. Fold your hands like Veronica. Nicholas, you too."

The door to the kitchen opened, and Otto brought in the fresh, cold smell of the blizzard mingled with the earthy odor of warm barn animals. "Best milker's sick. Don't know if she'll make it." There was no "good morning" nor even a "hello." It was as if his family were a painted picture that came alive only after he entered the scene.

Snow sputtered on the hot stove as he shook his parka dry, and without removing his red and black checked wool cap, he patted Elizabeth on the head. "'Morning little Beth. Warm enough?" He sat in his chair at the head of the table, and folded his hands. The family was ready. "Jesus, bless this food we are about to eat, and pray for us sinners that we may find thy way. Amen."

Hattie frowned. Must he bellow? He prayed as if to a deaf God.

Otto pushed a hole in his oatmeal and filled it with butter and sugar. "Nicholas, hurry and eat your breakfast. I need help with the cow."

Nick hadn't meant to scowl. It was just that he hated cows. He couldn't stand their warm smell and dull eyes.

"And, Hattie, get the Vet on the phone, Dr. Daum in Keystone. That quack from Whitewood dang-near killed a cow last time."

Otto had been in this same mood that day when Veronica was ten and he had told her to throw her book away. "That book is not fit for a girl," he'd said. "It's that Cooper fellow. Writes on the kind of men you got no business knowing about." He had jerked the book out of her hands.

But Veronica had hung on to it a few seconds too long, and Hattie had thrust herself between them when Otto raised his hand to her. But he had only shoved a small Bible under her nose and said, "You'd better get Jesus in your heart young lady," and left the house.

What would he have said if Hattie had ever told him that for two years before they married, he was her Deerslayer, a James Fenimore Cooper hero.

Hattie was a girl of fifteen the first time she saw Otto Meyer. Papa had taken her and two of her sisters into Whitewood in the wagon loaded with wheat to be ground into flour and put into the bags that Mama washed and bleached in the sun to make underwear for her children. After Papa had gone into the mill, Hattie had stood up on the tongue of the wagon and was about to jump off when she felt someone grab her arm.

"Here, Hattie, you might hurt yourself," Otto had said, and taken her arm in his rough hand.

How did he know her name, she had wondered? He was tall and lanky with face, neck, and hands the color of burnt sienna from long hours in the dry prairie sun. There were deep lines in his cheeks, and the hair that curled from under the greasy Stetson was already graying. She couldn't forget his long strides as he walked away without another word. For the next two years, her dreams were only of him.

******

"Hello, hello. Doc? Meyer here." The phone lines were in trouble on account of the wind, and Otto needed to holler to make himself heard. "Got a sick milker, and she's gonna die lessen she gets help, now. . . No, wouldn't expect you to get here, weather like it is and all. . . No help for that. Need your advice though. . . Well, she's hot and her bags are hard. . . Yep, she's lying down. Got her in the barn. . . Yep, got some of that. . . Can do that. . . What's that � camphor? Got that too. . . Well, maybe with God's help, that'll do it. So long Doc. God bless you."

He held the phone for a few moments before hanging it up. Conversation with strangers exhausted Otto. He was the son of one of the German Lutherans who had grown old too early homesteading the prairie. They'd had no time for talk except on the subject of the Bible, and on that, Otto had learned well, seeming to gather all his vigor from the stern Lutheran God.

They had been married by a Priest in the chapel at St. Aloysius Academy, then went to Blackhawk for the Lutheran ceremony in the dark church of Otto's parents. Her mama and papa never found out about the second ceremony.

Since they seldom went into either Whitewood or Blackhawk for services, the old Bible that lay open on a lectern in the parlor was Otto's private pulpit. There were some nights when he was too tired to pray, but every Sunday and three or four evenings during the week, he'd gather us in that dim room, even when the children were babies. "Never too young for the word of God," he'd say. And when the children fussed, he'd begin, "Sinners, be silent before the face of God, for the day of the Lord is near."

Those words had fallen on Hattie with the thud of a broom hitting a hanging rug. My babies, sinners? These tiny innocents born with sin? Even in my gentle Catholic childhood, that concept had struck me dumb. Only the devil could invent that notion, if there was a devil.

Then Otto would find a passage in the Book to warn them, His transgressors, of the wages of their sins. "And when the thousand years are finished, Satan will be released from his prison, and will go forth and deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth," he'd begin, his voice filling the room, "and fire from God will come down out of heaven and devour them, and the devil who deceives them will be cast into the pool of fire and brimstone," and with these words, as if cued from above, he'd slam his hand on the opened Bible. And for two aching hours no one dared leave or even stretch while he fed us the Word of God. At the stroke of ten, it would finish. Bedtime had become a blessing.

******

"Hattie, fill that bucket in the corner with hot water," Otto ordered, then prodded Nick on the shoulder. "Get moving. Can't wait all day with a cow dying."

She watched the furrow between Otto's brows deepen as he turned and placed his reddened hands against the window sill to peer into the white world on the other side. His head fell forward onto his arm and Hattie saw his mouth form the forbidden word, "damn." She turned away and hurried to the stove with the bucket.

"Father, take me too. I'm better than Nick with the animals. I've been learning in 4H.

Hattie shuddered at her daughter's unfortunate timing.

"Please, Father. Let me show you how good I am."

The look on Otto's face as he pointed a finger in Veronica's face put Hattie on alert. Please Otto, open your heart, she prayed. It was a vain prayer.

"Not another word from you, young lady. I won't put up with any back-talk from you. You're to stay right in this house with your mother and sister where God intended."

Even after Hattie pinched her hard in the hip, Veronica persisted, "But Father, just because I'm a girl doesn't mean that I don't know about cows and things. I've been reading . . ."

Otto turned his flushed face to Hattie. "Take this child in hand and heed the words of the Epistle of Titus that speak of the duty of the old women to train their daughters to be domestic, gentle, and obedient to men. She is reviling the word of God, and I won't have it in my house." Then he turned to Veronica and warned, "Listen to your mother. Even her Papist father taught her obedience."

Otto had never before called her father a Papist to her face, and her body shuddered with revulsion. She forced herself between Veronica and Otto. "I'll take care of her, Otto. You go save that cow. Come on Veronica, we've chores to do."

He turned to Nick. "Let's go, now," he said and pointed hard at the back door.

After Otto and Nick left for the barn, Hattie felt as if she'd been punched in the stomach.

She had no words of comfort when Veronica sighed, "I wish I had been born a boy."

"I wish we didn't leave 'fornia," Beth countered. She had been quietly observing the drama from her place at the table. Although she wasn't aware of the incisiveness of her wish, she had said aloud what we had all felt, perhaps Otto too. Yes, maybe him most of all.

******

They'd been back from the Coast for two months. At first, Hattie had not wanted to leave the farm to go to California. San Diego, Otto had informed them. She'd not been a party to the planning.

"With the War, there'll be plenty of work. I've prayed for guidance, and it's God's will that I move on. My father was the farmer," Otto had explained.

Later that night, in their bed, shielded by the quiet darkness, Otto had embraced her and made gentle love to her. Afterwards, she had been bewildered by his words, "Help me, Hattie. Help me." Then he had fallen asleep in her arms.

Although Otto wasn't much good at farming, he was a careful business manager, and the young buyers were satisfied at the condition of the farm. They had been so happy when he'd handed them the keys to the tractor and the tool shed. They'd stood hand in hand on the porch waving at us until their Hudson was out-of-sight.

"We got a long trip ahead," Otto said as he steered the big gray car onto the highway. "Let's pray to God for a safe journey." Hattie thought that he had almost smiled.

From the first night in the new, California house that smelled of fresh stucco and orange blossoms, Otto's Bible readings had changed. They ceased to be the ravings of fire and brimstone like those in Whitewood, and he had begun to read passages in a quieter voice on the evenings in the parlor. "Then the devil took Jesus into the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if thou art the Son of God, throw thyself down. And Jesus said to him, it is written further, 'Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.'" They had not missed his warning about the temptations of the city.

Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor and Hitler's 1942 rampage through Europe had assured Otto a job in a new defense plant, and we prepared for a new life. After a month, he had taken them to the beach for a weekend, and they'd stayed at one of those new cottage hotels.

On Saturday afternoon, Otto had put up an umbrella on the beach, and he and Hattie sat under it to watch the children play in the surf. When an unexpected wave hit Nick from behind and he disappeared under the foam, Otto had sprung out of his chair and run toward the water. But before he reached the shore, Nick surfaced, sputtering and laughing. Otto stopped, then burst into a belly-laugh that had shocked them both. Otto had never before laughed that way.

That evening they had eaten supper outside, in a little sidewalk cafe. The prayer was said quietly and quickly, and they had talked about their future. Otto held Beth on his lap and smiled at Hattie through the darkness. The Bible had been left at home.

The next few months were the happiest Hattie had ever known. Her children had made friends and were doing well in school. Even Nick was discovering a new independence, and Veronica had found a friend, a farmers daughter who invited her to ride horses with her on weekends.

But after they had been in California for six-months, Otto's mood darkened, and the smile disappeared from his eyes. Then one evening he gathered them into the living room and broke the news.

"The buyer of the farm got himself drafted and moved off without paying," he told them. "We'll be leaving for home in ten days."

The children had sat in silence. Again Hattie had not been consulted. But during the six months of this easy atmosphere, she had seen Otto change. She now had the courage to disagree with him. "Otto, you haven't bothered to ask us what we want. I don't think any of us want to go back to Whitewood."

Otto had stood to his full six-feet, his hands wrapped in tight fists, and had said through clenched teeth, "It is God's will that we leave." The veins had stood out in welts on his temples, and his eyes mirrored the old, familiar frustration.

In bed that night, he had touched her hand and said, "We have no choice. The debts of the farm are now mine. I'm sorry." He fell asleep with his back to her.

The next evening the Bible readings resumed their old fierceness. He told them to be silent before the face of God and served a Bible quote by way of an explanation. "Woe to you that inhabit the sea coast, O nation of reprobates! The word of the Lord is upon you, and the sea coast shall be the resting place of shepherds, and folds for cattle. Amen." Then, in a quieter tone, he said, "God has spoken. We will leave in ten days. Be ready."

Those were his last words to any of them during those ten days except to give orders about the move and to read from the Bible every night. Moving day was filled with their sadness.

******

Hattie was still numb as she washed the oatmeal off of Beth's face and hands. If the Bible truly demands that women are born to be obedient to men, why is it she was so repulsed? Papa never read to us from the Bible, just led us in the Catholic prayers and the rosary. Did he, in his gentle way, prepare me to be only an obedient wife? Was that his purpose as he taught me to build a fire and drive the wagon? Was that his reason for sending Mama with my sisters and me into town each winter to attend school with the nuns?

"Mama, why is Father mad at us?" Elizabeth asked as Hattie set her on the floor.

Veronica reached down to put her arms around her little sister then kissed her on the head. "Don't fret Beth. He's not angry with us. He loves us. He just doesn't like sick cows. It's like when you don't want to go to bed at eight o'clock, and you fuss with all of us. Remember?"

Elizabeth shook her head "yes," and squirmed out of Veronica's arms. She ran to the toy box and pulled out her favorite toy, a Raggedy Ann doll.

Hattie wondered at Veronica's wisdom.

"Mom, what is God really like? I mean, the way Father makes him be is so different from Grandpa and Grandma's God. Father's God is cruel. Which God is yours? You never say." Veronica asked as she washed up the breakfast dishes.

"I always figured that there was enough God in this house without me toting in another version," Hattie answered. Hattie's belief about God's existence had never solidified enough to share it with anybody. She had not even accepted the God of the nuns at St. Aloysius Academy. Theirs was the God of fear. "Children, you must sprinkle holy water on your bedroom doors every night to keep the devil out of your beds," was one of their favorites. Hattie imagined the fright some of the students felt over that one. Not her though. She figured that the only devil was fear. She had never believed that there was a real devil.

"But isn't there only one God?" Veronica had not let it go.

"If that's so, then each of us makes that one God what we want it to be," she answered.

There was something real in that. Who was Otto's God? Hattie knew it was not hers, nor Elizabeth's, nor Veronica's. Seems though that Nick was trying to make it his, heaven help him.

"All right young ladies," Hattie said to change the subject. "I'll get dinner in the oven, then, since this day isn't fit for anything else, we'll finish the chores and work together on that quilt. I'll bring it in the kitchen since it's nice and cozy in here." She hoped that ended all that talk about God. It made her uncomfortable.

The parlor was not heated during the day, and it was cold and somber after the kitchen door swung closed behind her. The quilt that her Mama had helped her frame stood on the far side of the bay window, where, bathed in brilliant snow-white light, the Bible lay open on its lectern, ready for an evening's worship. With the white wind screaming through the window, the Book seemed more than ever like an evil thing waiting to devour what was left of her as it had already devoured Otto. She could not allow it to take Veronica and Beth. Nor Nick, whose joy was surely being destroyed by it.

She approached the lectern and put her hand on the opened page. This was Otto's God, but it was only leather and paper, with gilt edges to protect it from the dust, nothing more. It was the words that held its power. But those were the same words of Papa's gentle religion, the same soothing words Mama sang in her bedtime songs, and the words her sisters and she repeated as they sat in a row in their pew at St. Aloysius. Did these words also tell the nuns that holy water scares away the devil? Did these words also demand that women become the servants of men and nothing more?

In the fifteen years that she had shared this house with that Book, she had never, until now, wanted to touch it. It was his Book � his holy water sprinkled on the door. Did she dare open it and point to a chapter? Would God's voice warn her away? Or would it be Otto's voice. It was now that she must face her devil, fear.

The leather cover had turned hard and gray with age and where the black was peeling, a dusty rust colored powder soiled her fingers. There was an inscription on the inside cover, in faded inked script:

Repent sinners, or the power of the Lord shall smite thee, and thy soul shalt burn in the fire of hell for all eternity.

That was the old-country spelling of Meyer. This had been his grandfather's Bible.

Veronica stuck her head in the door and whispered, "Mother, Father's on the porch. It's dinner time."

Veronica didn't want her mother to get caught unaware. They took care of each other. Hattie picked up the heavy Bible and carried it through the swinging door into the kitchen just as Otto was shaking the snow from his parka.

"Hello Father," Beth looked up from her doll's house in the corner.

Otto walked over to her and reached down to touch her cheek. "Hello Beth," he said. C'mon, let's have dinner." He took her hand, led her to the table, and put her in her chair. Then he took his place and dropped his face into his raised hands.

"Cows dying," he said. "Don't know how we'll make it without her. She's the best breeder we got." His voice was soft and low-pitched. He was so depressed, he hadn't noticed the Book in Hattie's arms. "Nicholas is still trying," he went on, "but there's no use to it."

"Otto," Hattie began, "I'm sending Veronica out with Nick's dinner and to help. She knows cows. Veronica, there's dinner for you and your brother in the pot on the stove. Put your parka and boots on and get going. Beth, take Raggedy Ann up to your room. I want to be alone with your father."

Otto's face reddened as he shouted, "The barn's no place for a young lady, and when I said she was to stay in this house, I meant . . ."

A blast of cold air clashed with the warmth of the kitchen as Veronica left for the barn. Thank God she's strong, Hattie thought as she slammed the Bible on the table in front of Otto. He put his palms on the table to push himself up, but she put her hand hard on his shoulder and shoved him back down. He didn't protest. He stared into in his wife's face like he was seeing it for the first time.

"We can't live like this any longer, Otto. It was difficult enough before California and wen the children were small, but it's unbearable now."

He again tried to rise from his seat saying, "I won't listen to this."

"Hear me out." She pressed him again to the chair. "I know that you're angry, Otto, and you're punishing us for it, in the name of a God that's not ours." She slapped her hand on the Book that lay closed in from of him. "That's your father's and your grandfather's God. I've seen you laugh and be gentle, and I had never seen that in you before, but I liked it. Veronica reminded me of your anger. You're not a farmer, Otto, and neither is our son. You said it yourself. It's the farming makes you angry. Veronica's our farmer, and you tell her she has no right. You tell her that God wants only obedience and meekness from her. If that's so, why did He make her strong and intelligent. I'll not have her life wasted like mine. Beth's either."

Otto had listened with his head lowered into one hand, the other on the Bible. After she'd finished, he rose and glared at her with the look of a steer let out of the barn after a long, hard storm. He said nothing. Just picked up the Bible and climbed the stairs to their bedroom.

It was already turning dark at 5:00, and it seemed to both Hattie and Beth that they had been waiting in silence for hours at the table already set for supper.

"There they are, on the porch," Beth cried as she jumped off the chair and skipped to the kitchen door.

"Open it for them, Beth. They must be very cold and hungry." Hattie walked to the stove to pour them each a cup of hot chocolate that she had been keeping warm for them.

Nick came in first, blowing on his red hands, snow melting off his cap and shoulders in the warmth. "Mom, you should have seen Veronica. She was just like a vet with that sick cow. I don't know how she stood it, putting her hand in its mouth and all. Where's Father. He didn't come back out." He stood at the stove, thawing out from his long day in the cold barn.

Before Hattie had to give him an answer, Veronica bounced in, pounding at her arms and shoulders. "I think maybe the old girl will make it," she began. "She was strangling, so I pulled her tongue back out of her throat, and Nick helped me keep her rubbed down and put more camphor on her udder. She's standing up now and drinking water on her own. Maybe she'll pull through. Won't know until tomorrow."

"That's wonderful, honey," Hattie said. "Now, get ready for supper. I'll get your father."

Otto was stretched stiff on the bed, staring at the ceiling, the Bible lying closed on his chest.

"The cow's standing," she told him. "Veronica thinks she did it all, but it was more than likely what you'd already done."

He didn't move, nor would he look at her. There was hurt and anger deep in his eyes, and she had no way of knowing what he was thinking. "Supper's on the table. Come down and eat. Please Otto, say something. I don't like to see you hurt like this. I know I never gave your trouble its due, but I never had a reason 'til now."

There was still no response so she sat beside him on the bed and laid her hand on his arm.

"This afternoon, I opened the Bible like I'd seen you do and pointed to a chapter and read it. I remember the page."

He didn't protest when she opened the Bible as it lay on his chest. "Listen to the passage I read, Otto. Listen to this. 'And I said to their children in the wilderness: Walk not in the statutes of your fathers, and observe not their judgements, nor be ye defiled with their idols.'"

She stared into his eyes, but he wouldn't look at her. "Let's banish your father's idols, Otto," she pleaded. "We'll find our own. I'll help, now that I know how important it is to us."

Otto put his hand on the battered cover of the old Book, closed it, and sat up to put it on the table beside the bed. He lay back down and again stared at the ceiling without saying a word, but the anger had gone from his eyes leaving only confusion and fear.

Hattie looked at him and thought, when you're ready is soon enough, Otto. There's time. The white wind is still blowing, and spring is a long way away.