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Show 777- but his intent gaze l i t on me. "Would you say a few words to us darling?" My mouth opened, then closed. I nodded involuntarily, then was horrified at myself. What could I possibly say? I thrust shaking hands between my knees and bowed my head, half-praying, half-thinking. Memories of my father to tribute him on his seventy-first birthday. The barn, the rich stench of manure, the sounds of cows stomping and swishingAheir tails echoing off high bare rafters and my father's long fingers and warm palm over mine, milking old Bossy. My father's face, gritty and tired, loading and unloading truckloads of furniture, his body taut with fatigue and fear, his long arm reaching out, pushing me aside. The tall pines of Montana, his plaid wool cap tumbling between trees as an early-morning breeze stole it from his head and him laughing as we chased it down, throwing his silver-blond head to the mottled sunlight and then setting it right and firm as he turned back to saw wood for the rich man's fire. The sparkling cold water of Flathead Lake beckoning and his face shining and serious above me, arm raised, a wide wet sleeve draped like angel-wing and then the plunge of cold IA^C, -hir-nins: blue and his water and my teeth chattering, lips "Guma 6 1 Kn+ q+ill he seemed so clenched tight and almost purple but sx±x T +v,mi0-ht him the image of white and tall and fine-looking I thought hi the Holy Spirit that was conferred upon me afterward. H-V, h ok stairs, drawing the drapes, moving Him sneaking up the back stairs, llH hp be at once outlaw and stealthily as a fugitive. How could he be a y. vet hold so little of the deity? How could he know so much, yet no >,Q ™ ^ eood, had he been earth's approbation, Why, since he was , ^ ^ ^ torat?-A«d-why-,--rf-the-Principle was tr |
