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After a hetti – et sick of chocolate chip cookies - and Louise said her head would explode if she "ever had to do that again," so I started asking women from church if I could come over and watch them make dinner I did this every time I needed a new recipe The woh the process, describing the ingredients and where to find thearden I even drew et what everything was I etable chart with colorful depictions of what the TOP of the vegetable looked like (iecarrots, radishes, potatoes) so I would knohat to pull out of the ground We didn’t have our own garden the first couple years after Moarden whenever I wanted Eventually, she helped etable patch that expanded every year By the tiarden that I planted, tended, and harvested byout the whites froularly soiled clothing I kept the house cleaned, i the seven messy dwarfs I even pedaled down to the old post office and picked up the mail every day We didn’t havewas delivered to the post office, and each person in the town had a box and a key Dad would lay out the things that needed to be sent, and I would make sure they had stamps and were taken to the post office By the time I elve, I kne to balance a checkbook, and my dad opened a household account for roceries from my account Dad took care of the far I did not want to do was look after the chickens My athering their eggs, and cleaning up after them I had always been deathly afraid of the chickens My mootten distracted when they were supposed to be looking after me I wandered out to the barnyard and a particularly ornery red hen cornered me and I was frozen in terror by the ti, but when she picked htmares for weeks afterwards

Chickens are hard to forressive and ill-teathered eggs after Mom died, I almost hyperventilated I was so terrified Little by little, the conquering of an to take pride in caring for the unlovable birds I nahty children With every task I mastered, thealong ina purpose, I liked being needed, and I found that servingthem more made it easier to live without my mom I had been a serious child before, more content to be alone than with playmates, but my mother’s death made my solitary nature ot, the harder it becae; I didn’t clied and kissed I didn’t throw fits when I’d been ignored too long I suppose I acted like a very s I minded all thatat me all the time

There were tirief in our house felt like putting a heavy quilt over your head and trying to breathe The weight of our co away from home as et on s as hard as I could until I reached the little cemetery at the bottom of Tuckaway Hill, about a rave and let the silence loose the blanket of unshed tears until breathing beca ainst the stone that bore her na I could get my hands on All my favorite characters became my heroes Anne of Green Gables became my bosoth and exas where kids like me triumphed in spite of hardship There was always hardship in the stories, and this realization comforted me I was inspired by sacrifice in The Surave for Dan and Ann after reading Where the Red Fern Grows

It was on one of these days, reading alone in the ce, white Cadillac slowly slid its way down the dirt road that ran along the west side of the cemetery There were no white Cadillacs in Levan; actually, there were no Cadillacs at all in Levan, white or otherwise I watched as itmy attention from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I had read twice before It purred by and climbed the lane that led to the Brockbank summer homes on Tuckaway Hill Maybe a new faly, curious to see where that car was going I figured I could be sneaky, using the sagebrush as cover if I felt exposed when I got close The lane was steep, and my skin was itchy with sweat and dust as I leveled out on the top of the hill

Three beautiful homes had been built on Tuckaway Hill, all owned by a wealthy family named Brockbank Apparently, the Brockbank sons, who dabbled in contracting and development, had had the idea that the hill would make an ideal summer retreat for the wealthy family and had built an irown children had visited the different homes at various times, but the houses had been empty now for several years They’d named the hill Tuckaway, but apparently it was too tucked away, because none of the