"Come on Simmion, Jonah, Charity wait up!" Leah called as the warm July sun beat

down upon her head, "Leah skating is easy and fun" Leah grimaced, Charity was going to

take her little brother Simmion skating Charity invited Jonah who invited her, now Leah

who hasn't skated since she was ten was on roller skated heading down the road at a

speed inhumane, "Come on Leah" Simmion called going down a hill, Leah skated as fast

as she could, she never made it down the hill. As she tried to down her skates crossed and

she fell hard on the ground, when she got up and brushed herself off she checked to see

what the damage was, she shrugged that's not so bad, only her two knees and elbows

were scrapped if not bruised, she stood and skated until she reached the Longacre

property, by then her knees were killing her, she stumbled unconsciously into the barn,

and sat on a hay stack and looked down to see a red blotch on her skirt she looked at her elbows which were stained with blood and dirt she sighed and lifted her skirt, "oh that is

just terrific!" she said looking at the apparent tare that she had now just noticed, Leah

took the bottom of her skirt and put pressure on her bleeding knees, some of the yellow

hay was now a distasteful orange some was red. She sighed her first skate lesson and she

had lost Charity and Jonah plus Simmion and now she was bleeding from her knees and

elbows, this wasn't a great day to record, Leah put her face in her hands and cried, "Ethan

come in the barn son I need to talk to you" Mr. Longacre's Voice boomed, Leah jumped

off the hay and ran under the loft and behind the cows and their horse Bud. "Yes father?"

Ethan said following his father into the barn, "Sit down son" Ethan did as his father

instructed, "Ethan I am going to give it to you straight, your getting to be a fine young

man, a man of god, and when you got baptized I thought you and Martha Dewberry were

going to start a life together"

"Things change Pa" Ethan said calmly, "It's that Leah isn't it?" Ethan nodded, "I love her

pa, and I cant help the way I feel" Mr. Longacre nodded, "Well what are you going to do

son?" Ethan looked his father straight in the eyes, "when the time is right and after

Charity is married I wish to-"