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cowering behind his mother. We had thought that she was pregnant, but sometimes it was hard to tell. Papa would be very happy, under other circumstances, to have a new member of the family. But the little piglet’s short life was about to come to an abrupt end.
    I looked back toward the house. This was going to be harder than I thought.
    I walked through the main doors and entered the pen through the small trapdoor beneath the lean-to. I had a stick in my hand and used it to push the adult pigs toward the other side of the pen. I then scooped up the piglet and held him, squirming, in my arms. He was heavy for being only a few days old.
    A thought came to my mind and I quickly stepped back into the shed. Becher had asked for two pigs.
    The barn had really become a catchall. It was now a workshop, tack room, and storage shed all rolled into one. Along one wall were the animal stalls, now empty. The other wall held a primitive workbench with a few rusted tools hanging in front of it. There were odd scraps of leather, nails, and piles of junk. In the barn’s far corner, farthest from the house, was another trapdoor leading to the chicken pen.
    My eye was drawn to the space between the workbench and the trapdoor leading to the chicken coop. At one point, my father had built another, smaller coop along this back wall. The door to the inside coop was long and rectangular, the kind that you lifted up, and the door itself had a hook in the center. When you lifted the door up, you slid the hook through an eye screw that was screwed into the wall above it. When the door was hooked, it hung open while the chickens were fed. At one time, it had always remained open and there had been a narrow path along the wall, bordered by chicken wire, that allowed the chickens to go back and forth.
    It hadn’t been used in years, as we had given up raising chickens. Since my mother’s death, in fact. It had always been her job. The only bird remaining in the outdoor coop was our rooster, and he was getting very old.
    I raised the door to the chicken coop and looked inside. It was empty for the most part, just some scrap tools and a bucket with a hole in it. I placed the piglet inside, then closed the door. I went back to the pigpen, where the piglet’s mother snorted indignantly and questioned me with her eyes. I couldn’t meet her gaze and scooped up some ears of corn as well as some hay. There was also a bucket of mixed grain. I put the bucket and corn inside the coop with the piglet. Not knowing when I would be able to come back, I thought it better to give it the whole thing than risk having it die from starvation. I put a bucket of water in there with him and then closed the door, locking it with the crude latch my father had probably fashioned by hand.
    I slid a giant, cracked washtub and an old hand plow harness in front of the door. Pressing my ear against the wooden door, I struggled to hear any sound, but there was nothing. I knew it would be complete darkness inside. What I didn’t know was what it would do to the piglet, if he survived at all. But then, I thought, wasn’t that true for all of us?
    I walked back through the shed, shutting the main door tightly. Snapping the pigs on their bottoms with my stick, I eventually herded them up the long path to the house. Becher was nowhere to be seen when I rounded the front corner with them.
    Schlemmer emerged from the house with another German soldier. They each had a piece of bread in their hand. Schlemmer looked at me, but his face showed no emotion, just a cold, blank stare.
    The other soldier said something in German and Schlemmer’s eyes fell on the pigs, now shuffling around the yard in confusion, grunting their displeasure with the whole situation.
    Becher came from the house. He barked orders to Schlemmer and the other soldier, who promptly pulled long knives from their belts. Leaving the pigs behind, I moved toward the house, then stood next to Becher, watching.
    Schlemmer and