I had a hard time picking out names for the Pontipee parents in this chapter. Whenever I can make something up, I try to tie it into the actors' real lives. I gave Carl the last name of the actor who played him in Chapter 3, and I gave Liza the birthday of the actress who played her in Chapter 6. But for the parents' names, I wanted to tie it into my own life. I almost named them after my grandparents, who also had seven children (although they weren't all boys). But then I thought about it and realized that my great-grandparents' names probably fit the Pontipee family better, so that is what I went with. :)

This chapter is slightly AU to the movie.

While they gathered on the front porch one evening, the six Pontipee brothers told the girls about a family tradition that they'd always observed. Every spring, they picked one fine, sunny day to climb the hillside overlooking the farm and tend to their parents' graves. This year, they wanted their sweethearts to come along, too, and the girls were honored to be included. They knew that this invitation proved, perhaps more than anything else, how serious things had become between them and the boys.

The next day dawned a beautiful spring morning, perhaps the best weather that they'd seen yet that season, and their group set out early to climb the hillside together. The boys bought along their whittling knives, a bucket of white-wash, and a few other tools, for the two old wooden crosses marking the parents' graves had surely suffered some damage over the long winter. The girls – wanting to pay proper respect to Mother and Father Pontipee, even though they'd never known them – woke up early to put on their best dresses and pick the finest spring bouquets to lay on the graves.

Liza was disappointed that Ephraim couldn't come with them, but they all agreed that it wasn't safe to leave Millie home alone when she was due to give birth any day now, and of course she couldn't make the long walk up the hillside with them. The brothers did the fair thing and drew straws to decide who would remain behind on the farm, and Ephraim drew the short straw.

But Liza's spirits rose as she climbed the hill with her friends. It was a perfect spring day, sunny and breezy, with flowers blooming and birds singing all around. The view from the hill was clear enough to see at least a mile.

The eleven of them all chatted happily as they climbed the hill together, but the boys fell silent as soon as they reached the top, where the two large wooden crosses came into view. Without a word, the five brothers gathered around them in a semi-circle and stood for a moment with their heads bowed and hands clasped. The girls sensed the solemnity and kept a respectful distance, not wanting to intrude. None of the brothers spoke, but they must've been praying silently, because after some time, Benjamin said, "Well, amen, then," and they all began moving again.

Only after their sweethearts had moved away did the girls all gather around the two old crosses. Clutching their bouquets, they approached and read the names that the boys had carved neatly into the wood.

O'Neal Pontipee
Hilda Pontipee

The girls had all been curious to learn the first names of their sweethearts' late parents. Hilda was a perfectly fine, respectable name, and a few of them tucked it away in their minds to maybe use on their own daughter someday. But they each had to look again at the name of the man who was buried beside her.

"Your pa's name was... O'Neal Pontipee?" Dorcas asked finally, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice, for it was surely the oddest name that she'd ever heard. But when Caleb answered proudly, "Yep, that was our pa," as if there was nothing unusual about it, none of them said anything more.

The boys began digging up dirt to pack down around the base of the crosses, which were both leaning askew from the fierce winter winds. As they worked, the girls gathered around a different marker. To their surprise, there was a third, smaller cross beside O'Neal and Hilda's on the top of the hill. Liza knelt down in front of this little cross to read the name carved there. Carving it must have been painstaking work, for the letters were small but very straight and neat, cut deep into the weathered old wood.

Abigail Pontipee

"Abigail Pontipee?" Liza asked outloud.

"She was our sister," Daniel answered over his shoulder.

"Your sister!" the six girls exclaimed in one voice, so loudly that the brothers startled a bit. They stopped working and looked over at the girls in surprise.

"Frank, you never told me you had a sister," Sarah said. She looked around at her friends and could tell from their surprised faces that none of them had ever heard of Abigail Pontipee before, either.

"You never even mentioned her," Alice said reproachfully.

The boys glanced around at each other and said nothing for a moment. It was true that none of them had ever told their sweethearts about Abigail. They hadn't meant to keep her a secret, but it had simply never occurred to them to mention her, and now, suddenly, they felt a little guilty for that.

"Well, she was Adam's twin," Daniel said slowly. "Our ma said she and Adam both got real sick with fever, one winter when they were just knee-high. Adam got better... but she never did."

"When she died, our ma and pa buried her up here," Gideon went on, though he was just repeating what he'd been told, not anything that he actually remembered. "They used to say she was lookin' down on us from heaven."

There was a moment of silence as all of them studied the little wooden cross, its coat of whitewash a bit faded in the bright spring sunshine.

"You never told us you had a sister," Sarah said again, but her tone was quiet now – almost sad.

"Ain't really much to tell," Frank answered, with a shrug that immediately struck him as too callous. He added more gently, "It's just... well, even Adam don't remember her no more."

Ruth was still holding the bouquet that she'd meant to lay on O'Neal or Hilda's grave, but now, she bent down and laid it against Abigail's little cross instead. Then she stepped back, laid one hand over her breast, and sighed, "That's mighty sad. That poor little girl. And your poor ma, too."

Dorcas shook her head sadly and laid her bouquet down beside Ruth's. "Must've been just awful for your ma, losin' her only daughter and then never havin' another one."

"Must've just broken her heart," Liza said, and she actually looked close to tears as she too laid her bouquet on Abigail's grave.

Then Alice stepped forward and laid her bouquet alongside the others, and the little wooden cross was nearly hidden from sight beneath the fresh spring flowers. It was such a high pile that Martha and Sarah laid their bouquets on O'Neal and Hilda's graves, not wanting them to be left completely bare. The brothers looked back and forth for a moment, from their parents' graves with just one bouquet each, to their sister's little grave completely covered in flowers, and they all knew that that was how their parents would've wanted it.

After the brothers finished their work on the crosses, they all descended the hillside together, and they were a quieter, more somber group than they had been on the walk up. The brothers always tended to Abigail's little grave every spring, too, but it was mostly out of duty. They didn't miss her or think about her like they did with their parents. Now, for the first time, they wondered what their lives might have been like if Abigail had lived. Would she have become a second mother to them after their own mother died? Would she have softened out their rough male edges? But then, if they'd had a sister among them for all those years, would Adam have still gone into town looking for a wife? None of them could imagine if Millie had never come into their lives, and they understood then why some things in life had to be left for God to decide. They lifted their faces to the warm spring sunshine and thought about life and death and what a strange, wonderful place the world was sometimes.

Near the bottom of the hill, Alice broke a long, thoughtful silence as she said, "You know... we've all kept after Millie 'bout what name she has in mind for the baby."

The brothers all looked up in interest at this, and Benjamin asked, "Oh, yeah? What's names is she thinkin' of?"

"We don't know," Dorcas answered, shrugging. "We can't get her to say. I know she must have somethin' in mind, but she's been real tight-lipped 'bout it."

"I was just thinkin'..." Alice went on, "it'd be sweet, wouldn't it, if maybe Millie named her Abigail?"

"Then there could be another Abigail Pontipee in the world," Ruth agreed, smiling. She glanced at the boys and added quickly, "She wouldn't replace your sister, course, but – "

But Ruth stopped just then, for their group had reached the bottom of the hill. As soon as they came in sight of the farm, the front door of the cabin burst open, and Ephraim came running out towards them at full-speed, his long legs practically flying off the porch. Alice and Martha gasped, Liza and Ruth clutched their chests, and Dorcas and Sarah grabbed each other's hands. The brothers collectively held their breaths, for they all knew, even before Ephraim opened his mouth, that there was only one reason why he would be running so fast, why his eyes would be so wide and his face so frantic. They all realized in unison how foolish they'd been to leave one of the boys behind today, instead of one of the girls. What use could Ephraim or any man be in this situation?

"Frank, Dan, Ben, Caleb! Everybody!" Ephraim shouted. "Millie's havin' her baby!"

Personal P.S. I hate to sound whiny, because I really do enjoy updating this story and getting feedback on it, and I hope to keep it going for a good while. But it's been over two long years since anyone besides me has written anything for this tiny fandom, and sometimes, it gets lonely to be the only one writing. If you've enjoyed reading this story, I hope you'll consider writing a little something, too.