Emaline and Bobby rode into town with Lee and Jim on the next Saturday. The Swedes stared out at the fallow fields, figuring what crops their neighbors were likely to plant, noting the difference between fields plowed with tractors and those where the earth had been turned by a team pulling the plow. The tractors never ran as tight to the fence lines as a man could plow with horses. In places the fences were ripped or tilted askew by the great, churning back wheels of the noisy metal beasts, the untidy haste of man and machine. In another month, the Lindquists would hitch their team and begin the work of planting again. They could not afford a tractor, but even if they could, they would have chosen the horses Velma had named Hank and Hap, the two broad-chested, heavy-hocked bay geldings pulling in tandem, as imperfectly wedded humans so rarely did.

After a month with the cheerful crowd at the Arrowhead Diner, Emaline decided she was strong enough to face the task of sorting Velma’s things. Charlie Naudain drove her out to the farm on a Saturday afternoon. Calla came along to help. The one thing Emaline particularly wanted was Velma’s china, a beautiful Johann Haviland Rose pattern. The china was a wedding gift and Velma had taken enormous pride in it. The set was taken out only for Sunday dinner and then washed and dried and carefully returned to the cupboard.

Lee and Jim were away at church. The door, as always, was unlocked. Inside, the house looked as though it had been plundered. Everything was gone. Crocheted doilies. Hooked rugs. Things Watson had made, a tiny jewel box, a footstool. Vases. Souvenirs from trips up in the Bighorn Mountains. A photograph of Emaline and Ben, taken shortly before they went into the orphanage, had been left on the kitchen table, but the frame that once held it was gone. Even Velma’s few dresses and her high-button shoes were missing from the pine wardrobe. The Haviland Rose china was gone. Velma’s best silver was gone with it. The little farmhouse was as bare as it had been when Velma first moved in.

Charlie said it didn’t look as though anyone had broken in. Whatever was missing, Jim must have given it away. Emaline sat down at the kitchen table, buried her face in her arms, wept. Calla tried to console her, but Emaline waved her away. It was as though her mother had died all over again.