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far edges of the acreage.
    She had nothing to fear except her own wild imagination. She was safe, especially by the road. And she was close enough to her parents’ home to cry out for help if anything or anyone threatened her.
    But nein. Nothing would happen. Hadn’t she managed fine all winter? To be sure, she’d labored hard during the past six months since Hans had died, even with Uri and Eleanor coming to check on her and help her almost daily.
    And she’d been safe. Nothing had happened.
    Besides, with the freezing temperatures at night combined with the past several bright sunny days, the sap had begun toflow. She needed to empty her buckets before the load became too heavy to carry.
    “Tell me more, Mama. More,” Gretchen pleaded.
    “Ja, liebchen.” Annalisa turned back to the tin pail hanging from a spout in the tree. She rose on her tiptoes again and strained to see inside, but the roundness of her growing abdomen got in the way.
    Perhaps she’d bored the tapping holes a bit too high. At least she’d done them on the sunniest sides of the trees and had avoided the northern exposure and any trunk defects. She’d also managed to make the holes almost a finger’s length in depth.
    But she still had much to learn about collecting sap and boiling it into maple syrup.
    “Now, let’s see.” The baby inside her gave a slight kick as if anxious to hear the rest of the story too. Annalisa rubbed her hand over her protruding stomach, grazing a tiny bump of a foot. “Where was I?”
    “Lily must leave her papa to go to the lion.”
    “Ach, ja. You’re right.” Annalisa hefted the pail away from the spout. Her arms and back strained under the weight. “So, the papa’s very sad and says, ‘My dearest Lily.’” Annalisa spoke in a deep fatherly voice. “‘I won’t let you go because the wild lion will tear you to pieces and eat you.’”
    Gretchen gave the appropriate gasp.
    At her daughter’s enthrallment, Annalisa’s lips curved into a smile. “But Lily’s a brave and good young daughter. And she tells her papa, ‘Dear Papa, the word you have given the lion must be kept. I’ll go to the lion and soothe him. Perhaps he’ll let me come safely home again.’”
    Annalisa poured the sap from the smaller bucket into the larger container she’d brought along for collecting the liquid.Just the thought of carrying the heavy bucketful of sap back to the cabin made her tired.
    “So, the next morning, Lily asked the way she was to go.” Annalisa hung the empty tin pail back onto the spout and then reached for the handle of the bigger collecting bucket. “Finally she took leave of her papa and went forth with a bold heart into the woods to face the lion.”
    With a huff Annalisa lifted the bucket, grasping it with two hands, trying to get a firm grip. It was heavier than her load earlier in the day.
    “Gretchen,” she said, already short of breath. “You’ll need to help Mama carry the bucket.”
    Gretchen didn’t say anything or make an effort to move.
    “Be a good girl.” Annalisa hefted the bucket.
    A strange voice came from behind her, speaking in Deutsch. “I don’t think the father should have let Lily go off alone to face the lion, do you?”
    Annalisa gasped, dropped the bucket with a thud, and spun around to face the intruder.
    A man leaned casually against a nearby silver maple, a bag tossed over his shoulder.
    Who was he, and how long had he been listening to her story? Annalisa reached a hand for Gretchen and tugged the little girl against her skirt.
    “If Lily had been my daughter, I wouldn’t have allowed her to go.” The stranger lifted a fashionable derby from his head, revealing dark hair that was the same rich brown as freshly plowed soil.
    “No,” he continued, “if I’d been Lily’s father, I would have sacrificed my life and gone in her stead.”
    The words stopped Annalisa. A vater sacrificing his life for a mere daughter? What kind of man would do such a