Speak Through the Wind Read Online Free PDF Page A

Joseph,” Kassandra replied, all traces of her native German tongue nearly erased, save for a slight, harsh tick on the consonants.
    The egg cooled in its cup, and she ladled the porridge into the bowl at Reverend Joseph’s place. Turning back to the stove, she used her apron to guard against the heat as she popped open the oven door just long enough to jab inside with the long toast fork to retrieve four slices of bread. Two for Reverend Joseph, two for herself. Then she settled in the seat opposite him and folded her hands for the morning blessing.
    “Our Father in heaven,” Reverend Joseph began in a somber voice devoid of the lightness and humor it so often held, “thank You for granting us another day to live in Your creation. Guide our steps and guard our lives as we try to live this day as a testament to Your love and power and grace.”
    There was a tiny pause, just long enough for Kassandra to know his prayer was over, and it was her turn. “And Father,” she prayed, “again I thank You for the blessings and the family You have given me here. And for the love of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
    “Amen,” echoed Reverend Joseph.
    Over the past seven years, Kassandra and Reverend Joseph had perfected their breakfast routine, and now they ate in companionable silence, listening to Clara’s heavy footsteps overhead as she moved about the rooms making up the beds. Kassandra, as always, had been careful to spread up her own covers, taking special pride and care in keeping her room tidy. But no matter how much attention she paid to detail, Clara always came in behind her and found one crease to straighten or one speck of dust to wipe clean.
    Reverend Joseph tapped his spoon around the circumference of the egg. “Tell me, Kassandra, do you have your piece memorized for your recitation today?”
    “Of course,” Kassandra replied, taking a tiny nibble off the corner of her toast.
    “Look at you. You even eat like a little sparrow”
    Kassandra smiled. Reverend Joseph always called her his little Sparrow. He said she looked like a baby bird that first afternoon—her head bald, her eyes swollen, her skin a mass of tiny bumps in the after-bath chill.
    “I am not much like a sparrow anymore,” Kassandra said. “More like a goose. I’m taller than any other girl my age.”
    “Now, now—”
    “And I am ugly.”
    “Nonsense.”
    “I have a face like a horse. Everybody says so.”
    “The most important thing,” Reverend Joseph said, dipping his spoon into his egg, “is the beauty that is inside of you. The love of Christ in your heart. Now, let me hear your recitation.”
    Kassandra brought a napkin up to brush the toast crumbs from the corners of her mouth and stood behind her chair, clasping her hands primly in front of her just as Miss Bradstreet, her teacher, taught her. She cleared her throat, cleared her mind, focused her gaze on the shelf just above Reverend Joseph’s head, and began.
    “At Christ’s right hand the sheep do stand,
    His holy martyrs, who
    For His dear name suffering shame,
    calamity and woe,
    Like champions stood, and with their blood
    their testimony sealed;
    Whose innocence without offense,
    to Christ their Judge appealed.”
    She moved seamlessly through the next five stanzas about those who remained true to Christ despite their afflictions, those who suffered great sacrifice for Him; those who grew in His grace. When she came to the lines—
    “And them among an infant throng
    of babes, for whom Christ died;
    Whom for His own, by ways unknown
    to men, He sanctified.”
    —she unclasped her hands and turned them into a tiny cradle, swaying it with the rhythm of the words, returning them to their proper recitation gesture for the final lines.
    “O glorious sight! Behold how bright
    dust heaps are made to shine,
    Conformed so to their Lord unto, whose glory is divine.”
    “Them’s sure some fancy words comin’ out of that mouth,” Clara said, having come into the room in