The two-story house was the second largest building on the farm but shared the barn’s venerable age. Like many of the older homes in the area the house sported a corrugated steel roof that had weathered to a dull gray. It was a roughly T-shaped building, although the lower floor had an additional room on either side of the back wing. Its newer but still older-looking clapboard style siding was a soft wedgewood blue and the railing that graced the semi-wraparound porch and the trim around the windows were white with red accents. At the beginning of World War II, in a fit of patriotic fervor, Pap’s Grandpa Ward originally applied the red paint to sections of the columns on the porch and the windows, and Pap felt duty-bound to keep it maintained.

The silver, mid-sized SUV parked near the faded green Delaney pickup belonged to Erin and her husband Stan. After Dulsie parked their own car near the other vehicles, Shad helped her carry the food they’d brought toward the porch. No sooner did they reach the front steps than the two kids raced around the corner from the other side of the house. Mam’s and Pap’s two dogs, one that resembled a border collie except its coat was uniformly red, and the other a beagle, were gleefully running alongside them.

Ida almost bumped into Dulsie as the girl sprinted up the concrete steps and grasped the first column on the right when she reached the short distance to the top.

“Safe!” Ida gasped as she hugged to the post. Then she grinned at the adults. “Hi Uncle Shad! Hi Aunt Dulsie!”

“Ida cheated!” Grady was more winded and he grasped the railing that bordered the steps. A brown-haired boy with his grandmother’s – and mother’s – green eyes, Grady was wearing denim shorts and a blue tee shirt with a Chinook helicopter pictured on the front.

Both Dulsie and Shad greeted the kids. Then Dulsie spoke again. “Ida has to cheat. She’s younger than you.”

“No she doesn’t.” Grady frowned up at his sister. “Mom told me not to run as fast as I really can.”

The dogs sniffed around Shad’s and Dulsie’s feet, but neither patted the animals because their hands were full with boxes or bags. Ida continued to hug the post as though her well-being depended on it.

“Bull hockey!” Ida replied. She was also wearing denim shorts but her tee shirt was green with white stripes. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her eyes were brown. “You still run fast.”

Shad regarded Ida with false seriousness. “Does your mom know you use that kind of language?”

“Hockey isn’t a swear word,” Ida replied earnestly.

“Do you know what it means?” Shad asked.

“Poop!” Grady blurted.

Dulsie smiled. “Really? I thought it was a game you play on ice with sticks and a puck. Or is that hooky?”

“Hooky’s skipping school.” Ida grinned.

“Do either of you ever play hooky?” Shad maintained his demeanor as he glanced at both kids.

“Ida does!” Grady looked at his sister.

She gazed down on her brother in defiance. “Bull hockey!”

They finally made it past the kids and into the house where Mam and Pap were visiting with Erin and Stan in the living room. Shad and Dulsie took the food to the large dine-in kitchen that spanned the width of the home before Shad was able to hug Erin and shake hands with Stan while Dulsie hugged both. Their visit didn’t last long because both kids burst into the house and reminded everybody they were supposed to go fishing after Uncle Shad and Aunt Dulsie arrived.

So Pap loaded fishing poles, tackle boxes and a small cooler full of dirt and earthworms into the bed of his pickup. Behind the barn and next to the woods bordering the pasture was a three-acre fishing pond that Shad had always known as a sure source to catch bluegill, bass, or catfish every outing. They did fill a stringer which Mam said they could fry for supper that night, and then the kids wanted to go out in Pap’s two canoes he kept in a shed on one side of the pond bank. Shad and Grady went out in one canoe and Pap took Ida in the other.

Then it was time for lunch, and Jill and Karl, also bearing food, arrived at the home. In the kitchen everybody sat at the large oak table which Quaid himself had built from lumber produced on the very farm he had saved for Grace. It was just large enough to accommodate all ten of them, although the kids had to sit in wooden folding chairs. Pap and Mam took opposite ends of the table, while Shad, Dulsie, Stan and Erin sat on one side. Grady, Ida, Karl and Jill filled the other side.

About fifteen minutes into the meal and conversation, Ida asked in a clear voice, “Why is everything around here so old?”

The adults chuckled and Erin replied, “It’s an old house.”

At first glance people might think Erin looked like Jill because they both had dark hair and green eyes. It was actually Pap’s side of the family whom Erin favored however, including the Delaney height which made her the tallest woman in the family. She also had on denim shorts and wore a red button-down blouse.

“It is like coming to a museum.” Grady looked around at the yellow pine floors, natural black walnut trim, and white bead board ceiling. “Even your TV is old.”

“It still works.” Pap smirked.

“Do you even have a computer?” Grady asked.

“Thanks to your Uncle Shad, I do.”

Shad cast a glance toward his nephew. “It’s a dinosaur.”

“How come you don’t have email?”

“We got rid of all that internet stuff after Shad moved out.”

“How come?”

Pap smirked again. “Because Shad moved out.”

Mam chuckled. “If Grandpa can’t fix it with a wrench or a welder then he figures it’s not worth having.”

“I think your grandpa’s on to something there.” Karl leaned forward. “My truck’s not so new, either, but it’s still got computer chips and high-tech gizmos that keep me from just fixing it with a wrench. Most of that stuff is probably surveillance equipment for the government to keep tabs on us.”

Most of the adults smirked because they knew Karl got a kick out of conspiracy theories. Jill just shook her head.

“All those computer components are supposed to be there to make your truck safer to drive.” Stan shrugged. His hair was not as dark as Erin’s and he had brown eyes. Like everybody else he was wearing shorts, and the polo shirt he wore was blue.

“Safer?” Karl jabbed a thumb toward his daughter. “Shad and Dulsie can’t even buy a used car these days without it having airbags all over it. But they have to turn around and get the airbags disabled because those things could kill Dulsie. No, the government is sticking its nose more and more into our business.” He suddenly twitched and then looked at Jill beside him. “Hey, that one hurt.”

“You know how to stop those,” Jill replied nonchalantly.

“Kinda like the joke about what’s the difference between a politician and God.” Dulsie had come by her Weisenheimer nickname honestly. “God doesn’t think he’s a politician.”

“I thought that was a lawyer and God,” Shad muttered.

“You know what they say about the End Times.” Karl wagged a finger at everybody else at the table. “Religion will be replaced by a man-made institution. And the government will impose more laws because people won’t restrain themselves anymore.” His attention suddenly snapped to Jill. “Would you cut that out?”

“Don’t give me any ideas,” Jill murmured.

“You know.” Karl pointed a finger directly at her. “That’s exactly the kind of suppression of freedom I was just talking about.”

That sly smile of hers curved Jill’s mouth. “And the pot called the kettle black.”

“Are you insinuating something?”

“Whatever would give you that idea?”

“I can’t ever get a straight answer outta her.” Karl switched to jiggling his thumb at Jill while he addressed the others at the table. “It’s like living with a secret agent. I’ll ask her ‘What’s for lunch?’ And then she comes back with something like ‘The monkey is in your pants.’”