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lingered over breakfast; we displayed our musical skills; we rode for three or four miles. The men returned and after a lavish dinner there was dancing. The musicians were playing a waltz. Brit Borden was about the
only young man of the planters' class who couldn't hold his liquor, and it was a mortal sin for a young man not to be able to hold his liquor.

    He was dancing with Sis Goose, who was fifteen and looking like an angel in her blue gown with a hoopskirt.
    I was dancing with Rutherford Burnet, who was sixteen and dying to go for a soldier, as my brothers had done. Both my brothers were home on leave, both dancing, both wearing their uniforms. But when the music ended, Brit wouldn't let Sis Goose go.
    He held her and, right before everyone on the dance floor, kissed her. It all happened so fast. Gabe released his dancing partner and strode across the floor and grabbed Brit by the shoulder and dragged him from the room, past the glass doors and onto the lawn, where he commenced to whip him good.
    "Leave my sister alone," I heard him saying. "You touch her again and I'll kill you."
    Ma and Pa were watching. So was a tearful Sis Goose. Ma held her, with an arm around her shoulder. Pa said nothing. Just nodded his head in quiet approval.
    From the ground, Brit spoke between spitting out blood. "She's not your sister, not the way I've seen you looking at her tonight, Holcomb. Why don't you admit it?"
    It was the last thing he said before passing out. Granville had to pull Gabe off him. Never have I seen Gabe so angry. Oh, he didn't come away unscathed. He had a cut on his forehead and his knuckles were all
bloody. And his lip was swollen. Later we found out, too, that he had a fractured rib. Granville had to bind it up.

    But something happened that night. Lines were drawn across the starlit sky. Gabe's namesake, the angel Gabriel, blew his horn. I heard it inside me.
    After that, Gabe started to treat Sis Goose differently. While he'd pull my hair or tweak my nose or still sit me on his lap, he regarded Sis Goose like a porcelain doll that might break. He'd nod and smile at her. Compliment her with as few words as possible, like "Pretty dress" or "Did you make this cake? Best I ever had."
    I'd catch him staring at her when she wasn't looking. And I got scared.
    When he left to go back to his post, all dressed up in his captain's uniform, he pulled me aside. "Take care of her."
    "Well, I can't beat up Brit Borden like you did."
    "He won't come within a mile of her, don't worry. Just..." and he closed his eyes and drew in his breath, "take care of her."
    I could have teased him. But he looked so miserable I took pity on him. "I will," I said.
    He nodded his thanks and kissed my forehead. "Good girl," he said.
    I felt like one of his puppy dogs. And I knew, next to Sis Goose, that's how I'd feel from here on in.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    O NE OF the things I dread most in my life is having to go and visit Aunt Sophie with Sis Goose. But one of the best things to come out of it is that, about a week before I go, Pa invites me into his study for a talk.

    Now, if I've made Pa sound like a groundhog hibernating in his room, I've done him a disservice. He does come downstairs when the sky is blue enough, as he says, and attends to things in his study or even down at the quarters.
    For any of us to be summoned before Pa is a privilege. We seldom are in his company, except at supper on a "blue-sky day." And then Amelia and I have to wear our best, copying Mama. And the boys, even if just in from the barn, must be freshly shaven and wearing their whitest of shirts and good jackets and shined boots.
    Pa will not allow any troublesome matter to be discussed at supper. If matters are troublesome, he takes them, with Granville and Gabe, into his study after the meal is finished.
    So to be invited into his study is special. Pa doesn't waste words.

    Even my brothers feel like this. Although sometimes for them to be invited into Pa's study means