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hadn’t made up his mind about how he viewed God, although he believed in the Almighty. Could the Creator of this magnificent world care for individuals, or was He just a permeating Spirit?
    He looked once more out over the green valley before turning back to the family. “Maybe we should get a closer look at our new home. Let’s move ‘em out.”
    Bonnie smiled as she carried Hope back to the car.
    Faith pulled her hand out of Baya’s to follow her mother.
    Rubbing his fingers against his cooling palm, he watched Bonnie bend over to put the baby in the station wagon. Mingled with the pleasure of watching her move was a faint feeling of bereavement in the loss of warmth from Faith’s tiny hand. A tug on his pant leg turned him back to the grinning urchin at his side.
    “We gonna let ‘em beat us?” Daniel pulled him toward the cab of the truck.
    Laughing. Baya picked up the boy and tossed him into the front seat of the U-haul. “No way!” He shoved the vehicle in gear and pulled out onto the narrow road before Bonnie was strapped into her seatbelt. “Yippee-ki-yay! Let’s go!”
    The boy beside him dissolved into giggles before straightening with an attempt to mimic him.
    They were still laughing when they turned into the dirt road.
    He drove slowly so there would be a minimum of dust kicked back over the following car.
    Once they had driven into the valley, the outbuildings became apparent. To the left a long bunkhouse stretched beside the roadway. The squared logs of the building softened the harsh wooden shape as the weathered gray blended with the leafy shadows of the trees around them. On the right, the barn stood two stories high. It looked like it had been transplanted from a Kentucky horse stable and sat stark in the bare pasture, naked of the old trees that surrounded the other buildings.
    Baya eased the truck up the slight incline the house was built on. The clapboard of the field stone house under the trees was outlined in incongruous glaring white trim. Baya backed the truck up to the recently patched porch and got out slowly as he waited for Bonnie to arrive.
    The boy scrambled backwards out of the truck cab and came to stand next to him.
    While he watched the station wagon drive up, the boy faced the house in silence.
    The vehicle stopped beside the truck and the front doors opened. Bonnie leaned on the door as she looked over the house.
    The structure was old. It had probably been put up in the twenties. The two-story building with the steeped third floor attic was aged but solid.
    He waited until she came to stand in front of the stonework steps.
    “Maybe you should see the inside before we unload. Then you’ll have an idea where to put things you brought and what you’ll want to discard.” He spoke hesitantly, afraid she would be displeased with the house.
    The furnishings inside were old as well. Not antiques, just old.
    She looked at him blankly for a moment and turned her face back to the house. “I’d no idea it was so large. I thought a ranch house was long and low.”
    “Most are. Several generations ago, the builders must have thought there were going to be children in abundance.”
    “How many rooms?”
    “I didn’t count. I know there are four bedrooms and two baths on the second floor. There’s water, but I’m not sure how well the baths work. The third story is jammed with old furnishings and junk in a divided room under the hipped roof. From what I can tell, your grandparents lived downstairs exclusively. They had a nice bedroom suite off the kitchen in what must have once been the old cookhouse. The kitchen is completely modern. The rest needs work.”
    He paused and then offered his hand. “Come on. It’s time to see inside.”
    Placing her hand in his, she followed him up the steps. As they walked across the wide porch that ran around three sides of the house she withdrew her hand and pointed to the new wood. “You?” She looked up at him.
    He nodded even as he