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art.  She hesitated before sliding her hand carefully under the pan and lifting the pie from the windowsill.
    She was a good cook, she smiled proudly to herself, no matter what anyone else said--or didn't say.
    In the dining room, as she cut and served the pie she added, "I have whipped cream in the cooler, and the coffee is hot on the stove.  I'll fetch them in a minute."
    Wilhelm took a healthy wedge of the pie, Willy demanded an equal portion despite his mother's protests that he would never be able to eat it all, and of course Hans took two, leaving barely a third of the pie.  Julie cut what remained into two portions and gave one to her mother, then returned to the kitchen for the coffee pot and the bowl of whipped cream.
    She didn't know why she resented everyone today.  No one had ever helped her serve the meals, and there was no reason to expect any assistance now.  Oh, they helped themselves when it came to filling their plates or garnishing their pie with whipped cream, but it was always Julie who carried the dishes to and from the steaming kitchen, who served herself last, almost as though she were a servant relegated to the scullery--and the left-overs.
    Maybe it was the weather.  She had known heat like this in Kansas and even in Indiana, but rarely so early in the season and never so early in the day.  Someone in church had said the thermometer at the post office registered ninety-two degrees at sun-up.
    And then to be forced to stand in the kitchen, with a pork roast sizzling in the oven of the monstrous cast-iron cook stove, and bake a strawberry pie: Yes, it must be the heat that made her so angry that even when she was hungry enough to eat a horse, she could barely down a bird's portion.
    She poured three cups of coffee, none for herself, and then Willy called for more lemonade.
    The words of resistance hovered on the end of her tongue, daring her to spit them out.  Willy had two perfectly healthy legs and two perfectly healthy arms.  There was no reason why he couldn't excuse himself from the table and refill his own glass from the pitcher in the cooler.  Instead, he held the empty glass out to his sister.
    And by the time Julie had done her brother's bidding and returned to the dining room, Hans had helped himself to the last of the whipped cream--which she really didn't care about--and the last slice of strawberry pie--which she did.
    * * *
    It was too hot to walk far, but Julie consented to stroll with Hans for a while after she had finished washing, drying, and putting away the dishes.  She would have done just about anything to get out of that kitchen for a while.
    At the north edge of Plato, where the street narrowed to a dusty track before it began its rise to the mountains, the cottonwoods grew thick along an icy, spring-fed stream.  Here there was some respite from the sweltering sun, from the glare and the breathless heat, but not from the internal fire.  Julie fumed with each step she took, though she kept a smile on her lips.
    "I still can hardly believe you are here, Julie," Hans said quietly as they passed the church and the iron-fenced cemetery.  His accent had thickened as the volume of his voice dropped.  She strained both to hear and to understand him. "Soon I will have what I have waited so long for."
    Julie swallowed hard and glanced down to the dust at her feet.  She had expected this conversation last Sunday, but Hans had been too enthusiastic over the breeding of his precious cows and had not broached the subject.  Now he had nothing to distract him from his purpose.
    "I have spoken to your papa, Julie.  He says we should wait and see how things are now that you have come to Arizona. It has been a long time, and he thinks we might not feel the same as we did then."
    She wanted to run but knew he would stop her, and she did not think she could bear his touch.  His emotional declarations did no harm, and the presence of a solitary mourner in the graveyard assured her