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of hers. “It would take more than that to scare me off,” I said. “You’ve got nothing on Aunt Ivy.”
    That drew a smile from Perilee. “You’d better get back to that cow of yours,” she said, picking the baby up.
    â€œI’d better.” I drained my coffee cup.
    â€œDo you have enough flour for a paste?” Perilee jiggled Fern. “I can spare some if you don’t.”
    I’d started to tie my shawl around me and stopped mid-knot. “I’ve got plenty.” Perilee would do anything for me. For anyone. Same with Karl. Where did you go to register for that?
    â€œNothing bad will happen.” I hoped she knew I was talking about Karl, not Violet.
    â€œI wish.” Perilee patted Fern’s back, then shook her head. “Mix some sugar with that flour, put it on her tail, and wrap it in brown paper. Tie it on and leave it for a week.”
    â€œThank you.” I patted her back as she patted Fern’s, then snugged my shawl tighter around me and left.
    An uneasiness settled on me as I jostled and jolted on Plug’s back. First the strudel and now this registration. The war was in Europe, not here. Why all this fuss about where someone was born? Wasn’t it where he lived—rather, how he lived—that counted? I worried these questions the way Mr. Whiskers worried the mice he caught; worried so, in fact, that I barely felt the piercing wind the whole ride home.

          CHAPTER 6         
    February 14, 1918
Three miles north and west of Vida, Montana

    Dear Charlie,
    I expect I might not do too badly in that army of yours. I am now quite adept at keeping warm no matter how low the mercury falls. Perilee says their thermometer hit sixty-five below last week.
    One of my neighbors, Mr. Durfey, is cutting ice out of Wolf Creek eighteen inches thick. But the snow is banked in beautiful mounds around my claim (oh, how I love to write these words). Sometimes I think I am in a true fairyland.
    Perilee and the children were here a few days back and Chase and Mattie nearly wore through my wash bucket. One drift is even with the roof of the barn and they climbed up there and slid down in that bucket over and over again. Their little toes were purple when we finally made them come in. Mattie’s stung and itched so. “Do you think I have the froch bite?” she asked me in her sweet worried voice. I bathed her feet in warm water and thus staved off the “froch” bite. Perilee calls her their little magpie, and the nickname fits like a glove. We popped corn and I read aloud a chapter from
Treasure Island.
You should have seen Chase’s eyes light up.
    Violet and I are eternally grateful that you taught me to pitch. I wish you’d seen it. There was a hungry old wolf after Violet but thanks to her orneriness and my dead aim, I still have fresh milk every morning. I also have the funniest-looking no-tail cow in eastern Montana. Perhaps I will be able to introduce the two of you someday.
    There is much to do here and only nine months now in which to do it. But I can’t hurry spring, which is when the real work begins. For now, I drool over seed catalogs and study up on how to build a fence. And how to play chess. Though it hasn’t done me much good yet with Rooster Jim. Odd duck that he is, he is very kind. Twice now he’s given me a sleigh ride into Vida, the nearest town. (Pin dot is more like it!) The three miles from here to Vida will make a pleasant walk come spring. I devour each scrap of newspaper that falls in my grasp. Perilee and Jim keep me well stocked. There is much news of the war, of course, and those wicked Huns. But Charlie, I felt so odd when Perilee told me that Karl had to register as an alien enemy. Yes, he was born in Germany, but he is Karl—no Hun who bayonets babies. If you were here, you could explain this to me as well as you used to