The first strange experience happened when Martha was thirteen. Fern was in the kitchen, cleaning up after breakfast. Martha was bathed and playing quietly in her room. Then she started screaming. Fern dropped a plate that shattered on the floor and flew to the bedroom. Martha was standing there, blood on her hands, blood on her thighs, screaming, hysterical, out of control. Fern wet a washcloth and slowly wiped the girl clean.

“It’s okay, Martha. It’s just a little blood, honey. It happens every month. It’s normal. It means you’re growing up to be a big girl. Let me show you now.” And she tried to cope with a new responsibility for the girl. Martha reacted in exactly the same way for six months in a row; then suddenly she began to take care of herself and the monthly hysterics stopped.

Martha grew to be a big girl, strong and healthy. Harry started to give her jobs around the farm, which Fern objected to, but it seemed to put color in her cheeks, and Fern finally gave in and helped Martha understand the tasks at hand. She was good at chopping wood and painting. Fern gave her all the chickens and made her understand the responsibility for feeding them and gathering the eggs.

By the time Martha was twenty, she could cook a stew, fry eggs and bake bread and can peaches. She worked with the chickens and did the wood chopping.

She still retreated to her room when visitors came to call, knowing somehow intuitively that she was not up to it.

Fern was afraid to leave the farm. She’d arrange for someone to stay with Martha whenever she had to go to town or out on a call to help someone. She would never leave her daughter at home alone again. It was a terrible burden, living with her retarded girl and her resentful husband, but Fern accepted it with as much grace as she could. She delighted in visiting with the townsfolk, who carefully skirted the subject of her family except in passing, and talked instead of funny things and unusual occurrences, which helped to lighten Fern’s load. The town mourned with this wonderful woman, and they were powerless to help.

At the end of each healing session, when Fern sat with a cup of tea, resting, the people invariably wanted to give her bread or cakes or a roast or a chicken, but Fern would smile at them very gently, pat the generous hand, and say, “The only way you can repay me is to take care of my little girl when we’re gone.” This brought a tear to more than one eye in Morgan and solemn oaths were made. Each time, Fern felt a little better.