Once he was out of the tall man’s sight, Calvin ran.

  He cut across the rolling hills, the empty fields belonging to the Lancaster ranch stretching wide and pale beneath the overcast sky. Near the stables, black-fleeced sheep grazed with their heads down, unbothered. Calvin didn’t slow. He didn’t look. The heavy box was clutched tight against his stomach, both arms locked around it as he ran.

  He kept running until he crossed the main road that spilled into Milton Village.

  A buggy rattled past, horse hooves clattering sharp against stone. A few shops lined the street—one or two boutiques selling wigs and hats, their windows displaying mannequins in slender cocktail dresses and suits. Gas streetlamps stood evenly spaced, flower pots hanging from them, bright colors stark against the gray afternoon.

  Home sat wedged between two boutiques. It was a narrow cottage with a hand-painted sign above the door that read: Tailoring and Hemming. His parents’ shop. The place where wealthy ranchers’ wives ordered gowns and suits for weddings, funerals, and everything in between.

  Calvin slipped around back, feet pounding over cobblestones. He passed the rear doors of the shops in a blur until he reached their yard. A small fence with a low gate that never quite latched.

  Elsie was outside.

  She sat on a flat-edged rock with embroidery hoop balanced in her lap. Only eight, and already stitching names into handkerchiefs with careful, looping letters. Nearby, his twin brothers, only five years old, wrestled in the grass, naked except for white trunks, shrieking with laughter as they rolled over each other.

  Calvin paused at the wood gate.

  The box was still pressed tight to his chest.

  He slipped off his jacket and wrapped the box inside it, folding the fabric tight until it looked like nothing more than a rumpled bundle of cloth cradled in his arms. Then he pushed the gate, it opened with a loud squeak.

  “Calvin’s in trouble!” one of the twins sang, over and over again.

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  “Shush,” Elsie said, her voice soft and careful.

  The twins ignored her. They crowded Calvin, poking at his sides, laughing.

  Elsie and the twins had the same blond curls and blue eyes. All of it inherited from Ma. Calvin took after Pa. Pale cheeks, a thick scatter of freckles across his nose and face, dark eyes set beneath feathered black hair that fell into his brow.

  “Where’d you go after service?” one of the twins asked.

  “None of your business,” Calvin said.

  “Ma’s looking for you,” Elsie added quietly.

  “Pa is mad at you!” one of the twins shouted.

  Calvin’s back went rigid as the twins spoke back and forth.

  “He was looking for you!”

  “To buy the big fabric!”

  “You’re in trouble!”

  The back door flew open. “Pa! Calvin’s back!” one of the twins called.

  Their grins faltered when it wasn’t their father but their mother who stepped out, an empty bucket hooked over her arm.

  “Mathias, don’t tease your brother,” she said.

  “I’m not Mathias. I’m Michael.”

  “Of course you are,” Ma said. She handed the bucket to Elsie. “Fill the wash bin so they can bathe before dinner.”

  Elsie set her embroidery hoop carefully on the rock and took the bucket, moving without a word toward the pump at the corner of the yard.

  Ma turned to Calvin, touched the black strands covering his forehead.

  “Went for a walk again?”

  “Yes.”

  “To think?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “You know, thinking is the greatest skill,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Oh yes. They carve statues of thinking men. Did you know that?”

  Calvin considered this. “What does thinking look like?”

  She smiled. “Like you, I suppose.”

  Her hand reached for his crumpled jacket, but he moved it away.

  “I can do it,” Calvin said quickly. “I’ll iron it.”

  She ignored the protest and pulled him into a side hug instead. “Did I tell you how proud I am of you?”

  Calvin didn’t answer.

  “So independent,” she went on. “So smart. That’s why Pastor Williams had you speak at service today. He only asks the most well-read, the most well-spoken. And he chose you. A boy of ten. It’s a great honor, Calvin.”

  “I guess,” he said.

  She hugged him again, tighter this time.

  “My great thinker.”