Fern Cook and Harry Mannes were married on Fern’s seventeenth birthday. Immediately after the intimate ceremony in Fern’s white house on the tree-lined street, the newlyweds took the train to the farm Harry had inherited from his parents. They had died of flu while he was in school, and without the minor support money they sent every month, he was forced to drop out and return to Morgan, Illinois, and the farm of his childhood.

Morgan was a small place, a nowhere place, and Harry spent many hours walking the campus thinking about Morgan, the farm, and his parents. God, he didn’t want to go back. More than once he lifted his fist to the sky and cursed, then begged God to give him something better. His parents had modest savings, and he could always sell the farm, but it was his home, his heritage. When the bitterness had passed, Harry thought realistically about his situation. He knew he had to go back. The farm was his parents’ life; they wanted it to be his life. He knew, deep down, that it would be his life. His whole life. Once that was decided, he began to think of the realities of the farm, and of Morgan. And he decided he needed to take a wife back with him.

He began attending the local Congregational Church and saw Fern, a small, dark beauty with a songbird’s voice. Listening to her solo in the church choir was as close to heaven as he would ever get, he thought. So he went to church twice, and asked her if he could come courting.

One month later they were married.

Fern and her parents were very taken with this good-looking young man who had just inherited a farm. Fern was a constant worry to her father—she was too good-looking and too available—so he promoted this courtship with all his heart. Fern could do worse. He was flattered that an educated, rich man like Harry would take such an interest in Fern, but when the train pulled out of the station and his daughter waved to him one last time, he saw her not as she was—a young bride, in love and happy—but as an old embittered woman who had lived too long and known too much tragedy and grief. This premonition shook him, and the tears ran down his face. Even as he stood there, his petite wife by his side, he waved back and grieved for his lost daughter and her lost life.

Fern loved the tickety-rock motion of the train, sneaking glances at her new husband, thrilled with the adventure of her life. The suddenness of this turn of events was overwhelming, but she’d half expected it. She’d always known something special was in store for her.