UNCLE LINCOLN’S HOUSE is as low and small as Braggy’s is big and high. My grandfather helped him build it when Lincoln turned eighteen. Only one story—I can see into the whole house through the front-door window: kitchen, living room, bedroom, and a bathroom with a claw-foot tub like the one we used to have. Lincoln isn’t inside, but there are cracking noises coming from the woodshed behind the house.

He’s splitting kindling on a big stump. When he sees me, he sets the splitting axe down.

“How’s James doing?”

“He’s still not awake,” I say.

We’re both quiet then, thinking our own thoughts about James.

“Lincoln, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” He moves the wood off and sits on the splitting stump. I notice there are a few gray strands in his hair. I don’t remember seeing them there before.

“Is there a way to tell if you’re a water dowser?” I ask him. “Dad said it just happens.”

He looks hard at me, and I wait.

“Well, it happens between you and the dowsing stick when you hold it in your hands. I think about the water.” Lincoln scratches his head.

“I don’t know about your father, but I feel the pull in my wrists right before the branch bends. It feels like my hands and arms are extensions of the branch. Did you ask your dad?”

“I asked him once, and he said it’s not something you can teach.”

Lincoln shakes his head. Words fly out of his mouth.

“It’s a gift. My father and his father were some of the best dowsers around. They could find veins of water so strong a well would never run dry. That gift got passed down to your father and me.”

“But not Braggy?”

Lincoln shakes his head again.

“Braggy could never get the wood to speak. He tried and tried. Tried apple wood, pear wood, even willow. Nothing. When he turned eleven, he gave up trying. It changed his nature.”

“How?” I ask.

“Like he needed to prove himself. That’s when he got the notion of getting his picture in the paper. I think he thought if he did that, folks wouldn’t look down on him. Not that anyone does. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like Braggy.”

Now I wish it had been Braggy’s picture and not mine standing by the big rock in the newspaper.

“I remember he told Mom he didn’t want a birthday cake for his eleventh birthday. He was that mad,” Lincoln added.

“What do you think the chances are that I’m a dowser?” I ask Lincoln.

There’s a long pause.

“The same chance as there is for anything. Fifty percent. Either you are or you aren’t.”

I check his face to see if he’s making a joke, but his expression is serious.