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kicked his worthless carcass out of her tidy little house, he would have shrugged and gone on his way, back to Simon's or the Castle.  Three dollars and twenty-two cents would buy a day or two of oblivion, but somehow he couldn't take it from her.  He dropped a fifty-cent piece into his shirt pocket before pressing the rest back into her slim hand.  He could feel, if not see, the red roughness of that hand.  Her mother's, in contrast, had been white and smooth and soft.
    Then without another word, he walked outside into the blast furnace heat of the afternoon, and he hoped those big brown eyes of hers weren't watching as he went.

Chapter Two
     
    Katharine Hollstrom sat at the dining room table and smiled beatifically.  Her left arm rested in its sling made of a torn bed sheet; her right hand lay patiently on her lap while Julie deftly cut a thick slice of roast pork into bite-sized pieces on Katharine's plate.
    "I hate putting you to all this trouble, Julie," she apologized, just as she had at every meal for the past week. "Imagine, five more weeks of this!"
    She raised the incapacitated arm and smiled again.  Julie choked down a caustic retort.  She took the bowl of mashed potatoes from her brother Willy and scooped a small serving beside the meat, then covered both with creamy gravy.  A deep breath of that warm, rich aroma set her stomach to grumbling rather loudly, to Julie's acute embarrassment.
    "Not too many green beans, dear," Katharine cautioned. "You know they don't agree with me."
    Seated just around the corner of the table from Katharine, Hans Wallenmund grabbed the bowl the instant Julie set it down and quickly emptied the contents onto his own plate.
    "Then that will be all the more for me," he exclaimed.
    "Hans must be working very hard on his farm to have such an appetite," Wilhelm observed from the head of the table.
    "And I do not cook so good as Julie," the blond farmer replied.  He added a mound of potatoes beside the beans.
    When Julie had finished her mother's plate, she walked around the table to her own place opposite Hans.  Her stomach growled again as she sat down, but before she could put any food on her plate, her father signaled for grace.
    "Lord God our Father, we ask a blessing upon this bounty."
    Julie bowed her head but did not quite close her eyes while Wilhelm droned on.  She could almost see her reflection on the china's surface, her glasses sliding slowly again, and bitter thoughts filled her head.  She hadn't eaten since six o'clock that morning, and she had spent the intervening hours--except for the one at church--slaving in the kitchen until she was exhausted as well as famished.  Now the green beans, fresh from the straggly little garden, were gone.  Hans had poured nearly all the gravy on his heap of mashed potatoes, and only one biscuit remained of the dozen Julie had baked.  She paid no attention to her father's prayer because all she could think about was that biscuit, still warm in its towel-lined basket.  It was within her reach; if she moved quickly at the end of the grace, she would have it.
    The biscuit became an obsession.  The little lump of flour, milk, and baking powder represented more than just a morsel of food to be snatched before greedier hands grabbed it. Julie fought the rebellion that smoldered in her, fed by her gnawing hunger, but the feeling stubbornly refused to be suppressed.  She wanted that biscuit, wanted to smother it with fresh butter and wild honey, wanted to nibble at it and savor the fluffy, doughy goodness that she herself had created.
    "In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen."
    Julie had listened for those words, and as soon as they were uttered, her hand darted out and her fingers closed around the object of all her desire.  She dropped the biscuit to her otherwise empty plate and did her best to smother a triumphant smile.
    She plopped a small serving of mashed potatoes from the spoon and managed to scrape some gravy together.