I divided the second chapter, The Deaths, into two parts because I needed to rewrite this section and I'm still not completely satisfied, but it's better. Besides, the two sections together would have made for a long chapter, longer than I think people want to read.

Pa had only stumbled upon one of the reasons I wanted to marry—Asher. I didn't have my father's parenting instincts unlike both Hoss and Joe who both reveled in fatherhood. Hoss and his wife Millie had two rowdy, raucous boys, Jessie and Willis. Joe and his wife Addie had a boy and a girl, Frankie and Bethany. Bethy was four, but all the boys were older than Asher who tagged behind his boy cousins as they managed to find trouble whenever the family gathered at the Ponderosa. Asher was always the scapegoat when they were caught in some mischief and my son would stand with his eyes wide and full of tears while holding the damning evidence and denying he was the culprit. I never knew what to do and he infuriated me; how could he allow himself to be put in that position over and over? Didn't he ever learn? I suppose that being the oldest in my family, I had no understanding of what it was like to be the youngest but I wanted to tell Asher to fight for himself. But I can't tell him to lay into one of his cousins and pound them with his fists. Besides, he wouldn't win and then I'd have to punish him for starting a fight and bandage him up as well. I just never knew what to do when it came to Asher.

And my son was becoming defiant and rude despite my father's attempts to help me. I'd like to say Asher learned that behavior from his older cousins but all Hoss had to do was raise his voice and his two sons practically stood at attention and wet their pants at the same time. And they always answered "Yes, sir" and "No sir." And Joe's boy, Frankie, he wasn't disobedient either and always defended his little sister Bethy when she joined in their games just as Willis and Jessie stood up for each other. But Asher had no one but me and I wasn't very good at my job.

It had been three weeks earlier when Asher's insolence raised its head. Willis and Jessie wanted to go fishing at the small pond a quarter-mile or so from the house. Hop Sing was off Sundays and Addie and Millie were in the kitchen fixing the meal. So with Hoss giving permission to his boys, Frankie wanted to go as well and Joe said yes. Then Asher wanted to go. I said no, while holding Bethy in my lap. She adored me and I her and I used to wish I'd had a daughter instead of a son. The cousins left for the pond and Asher began to pout and plead with me, hanging on my leg and asking why couldn't he go. But children that young can't be reasoned with and my answer that he was too young to be near water with just his cousins didn't suffice. I explained it was too dangerous. He could stay behind and play with Bethy.

Asher was frustrated and furious with me—I knew that—but I couldn't let my son go along and if any of us had chaperoned, it would have ruined the outing for the older boys. So I promised I would take Asher fishing myself the next week. But that wasn't enough. Asher pounded the settee with his small, round fists, his face reddening, and Bethy, sitting on my lap, watched, her eyes round. I imagine it was the first temper tantrum she had ever witnessed as neither Joe nor Hoss tolerated such behavior from their progeny.

But the worst was when Asher came to me, stood before my chair. I could see the anger rise in his small body and then he swung out and hit Bethy as hard as he could. I stood up, Bethy wailing and handed her to Joe and told Asher to go to his room. He faced me, David facing Goliath and braced himself on his sturdy legs, and yelled, "You're a big, dumb, stupid-head! I hate you! I hate everybody!"

A collective gasp went through the room; it was the worst name my son could contrive and here, in front of everyone, he had, as we say, "shown his ass." I looked down at him, hoping to intimidate Asher with my size alone but he wasn't in the least. Instead he added, "You're the meanest pa ever!" He was challenging my authority and I had to prove myself.

I could tell without even looking, that my father and brothers were embarrassed for me because I had allowed my son to become a holy terror who talked to his father that way. So I bent down and swept him up, and with his kicking and screaming and trying to strike me with his flailing fists, I hauled Asher upstairs and put him in his room and while I stood in the hall holding the knob, on the other side of the door, my son cried and yelled, tried to turn the secured door knob until his fury finally drained him and he broke off, dropping to the floor from the sound of it. And I heard his muffled sobs from inside.

When the cousins returned with the fish they had caught dangling from a stick stuck through the gills, I went up to fetch Asher; dinner was now ready and Hoss was putting the fish in a pail of water. I opened Asher's bedroom door and he was peacefully asleep on the round braided rug. I stood and looked at him, my heart filled with pity for the motherless child—he was so beautiful with a face like one of Raphael's angels. My heart filled with such overwhelming love and grief that it almost choked me. How unfortunate he was not to have a mother's lap in which to crawl and have his soft black curls kissed and feel soft, gentle hands consoling him.

And I felt sorry for myself as well. I needed the sound of a woman's voice telling me I was loved and feel light hands touch my face and soft lips on mine. I needed the taste of a woman's body and to smell her scent on my finger after I touched her hidden places. Both my life and my son's desperately needed a woman.

I pulled the comforter from the bed and placed it over my small child and left him to sleep. And at bedtime, he was still asleep on the rug, so I just picked him up and placed him on the bed. But I knew that Asher was getting out of hand. I had to bring him to recognize my authority, my position as his father but it seemed that Asher would always refuse being directed and I had to change before he became too old and too big to be managed. I wasn't sure how to do so. I needed help. I needed a mother for Asher even if she wasn't what I had hoped for me.

What prompted my marriage proposal to Mrs. Chandler was that I had scared myself. I told you that Asher had become defiant and two nights before I decided to propose, I told Asher to go upstairs and wash his teeth and his neck and change for bed and he stood there and told me, "No." I had heard that word enough—it was all he seemed to say to me anymore-and I lost control. I grabbed my boy by the arm and jerked him off the ground and with the other hand, smacked him across the backside. Rage built up inside me and I wanted to keep smacking him but my Pa stood up and grabbed my arm. I realized what I had done and put my boy down and Asher stood open-mouthed—too surprised even to cry. It was the first time I had laid a hand on my child in anger. Oh, I could use the excuse that I was tired—I was—bone-tired. I could use the excuse that my head ached because it did—had been pounding all day and I was going to take a dose to hide from the pain. But there was no excuse—I was the adult and Asher had brought me to the edge.

"Asher," my father said calmly, "go upstairs and wash up; your father will be up in minute to tuck you in."

My son looked up at me with huge dark eyes, his lips quivering, so in as even a voice as I could muster, I told him to do as his grandfather said. He turned and climbed the stairs as quickly as his small legs could go.

"Adam, one smack is enough; he's only 5."

I nodded and then headed outside and walked a-ways from the house, sitting down on a fallen log. I wanted to cry—there were so many things over which I longed to shed tears, longed to sob out my heart- my lost wife whom I had loved and my large, lonely bed and my ineptness as a father. And it was then I decided that I would ask Miriam Chandler to marry me. Not because I believed she was the answer to my despair but because hopefully, she could dull its cutting edge.