It had been full dark still when Pa and I had gone into the cow barn to do the milking. We only had a dozen cows left, and they weren"t giving much these days, so it didn"t take us long.
But as much as my heart sank when I poured the last pail into the milk can and saw that it was only half-filled, it rose up again when I lugged that can out to the yard to find the sun fully over the tree line to the east, sparkling off of the frost that coated the whole farm around us. It was like our rundown little dairy farm was some baker"s gingerbread creation, glazed all over with glittering icing. I couldn"t see the way the red paint on the barn was peeling after years in the prairie sun, it was just a glowing backdrop behind a glaze of ice like the red heart of a magic crystal. The house, small a
