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Show in my father's house/ 10 if today she would call out to my father, "Breakfast, Rulon! Time to sit down!" Then a kiss goodbye and he'd go to her. But today, Aunt Gerda didn't get him, and we returned to the grey house, stopping on the back porch to listen as meadow larks called from the pasture. "Hear that? They're singing, 'Utah's a pretty little state.'" He mimicked them almost perfectly. I smiled up at him and sang it back. Then he pointed out each of the mountains of the Wasatch: Olympus, Twin Peaks, Lone Peak, and far south, the white tip of Timpanogos where, he told me, the daughter of a great Indian chief stretched across the mountain crest. She knew that the daughter of a chief must marry no one but the lord of the mountain, and so she sacrificed herself to him. "That is how it should be for my daughters," he said. "You must save yourselves only for the best men. Not only do we have the blood of Tudor kings, but we are spiritual royalty, too. Our bloodlines go back to Ephraim, son of Joseph who was sold into Egypt. Did you know that?" All I knew was that I didn't really want to die for anyone. I decided then and there that if I sacrificed myself for someone, it would be my father. I certainly wouldn't lie down on a stony, cold mountain and die for anyone else. When we went inside to the warmth of baking biscuits, my father shouted, "Good morning!" as if to awaken any lazy soul |