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“A beautiful little girl with a good set of lungs” Rose cut and tied off the umbilical cord, then wrapped the baby up in one of thewinter and handed the bundle to Elsa

Elsa took her daughter in her arms and stared down at her in awe Love filled her to the bri like it before, a heady, exhilarating coirl”

The baby quieted, blinked up at her

Rose reached into the velvet pouch she wore as a necklace around her throat Inside the pouch was an American penny Rose kissed the penny and held it out for Elsa to see The coin had theat shafts imprinted on the back “Tony found this on the street outside my parents’ home on the day ere to leave on the boat for Aood fortune? The wheat revealed our destiny A sign, we said to each other, and it has been true This coin atch over another generation now,” Rose said, looking at Elsa “My beautiful granddaughter”

“I want to call her Loreda,” Elsa said “For randfather, as born in Laredo”

Rose sounded out the unfamiliar name “Lor-ay-da Beautiful Most A the penny in Elsa’s hand “Believe irl will love you as no one ever has … and make you crazy and try your soul Often all at the same time”

In Rose’s dark, tear-brightened eyes, Elsa saw a perfect reflection of her own e of this bond—motherhood—shared by women for millennia

She also saw more affection than she’d ever seen in her own mother’s eyes “Welcome to the family,” Rose said in an uneven voice, and Elsa knew she was talking to her as well as to Loreda

1934

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished… The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have h for those who have too little

r />—FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT

SIX

It was so hot that every now and then a bird fell fro with a little thump on the hard-packed dirt The chickens sat in dusty heaps on the ground, their heads lolled forward, and the last ts stood together, too hot and tired toat the empty clothesline

The driveway that led to the farmhouse was still hemmed in on either side by makeshift posts and barbed wire, but in several places the posts had fallen down The trees on either side were skeletal, barely alive This farht, sculpted into a land of tu mesquite

Years of drought, coes of the Great Depression, had brought the Great Plains to its knees