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Analisa watched and listened to the two companions before she interrupted them. She heard Kase’s high, piping child’s voice clearly, but could not always hear the words Opa used to answer him.
    Kase always spoke Dutch to his great-grandfather. Although the boy had not been exposed to much English, he knew that language as well and was able to converse with Analisa when she insisted they practice together.
    “Opa, tell me what the old country was like.” The boy looked up at his great-grandfather. He had asked the question many times, but Analisa knew he was always ready to listen to the stories Opa told about Holland.
    “The old country was green and beautiful, Kase, not like this land.” The old man waved his hand toward the flat, wide plain before him. “We lived on an island in the North Sea and spent our days fishing. There were great cities. Everyone was Dutch.”
    “Why did you leave there?” Kase looked up at the clouded blue eyes and wrinkled face of his great-grandfather and waited for a reply.
    Edvard Van Meeteren sighed. Analisa watched his shoulders rise and fall with the weight of memories. She waited, like her son, for his answer, and blinked away her tears when it finally came.
    “We came here because we needed work and room to grow. The old country was beautiful, but it was hard to make a living from the land. Now the only ones who are left are your mama and myself, and we are not free.”
    Analisa was deeply hurt by the sadness in his voice.
    “Tell me about the others.”
    Analisa approached with rapid steps, calling out to them. “Kase! Opa!” She tried to sound lighthearted.
    The boy always asked about the others, and the old man, forgetting how many times he’d told his great-grandchild about the family, would begin all over again. Analisa could not bear to hear their names, not today. Emmett, her father, Henrietta, her mama, and Jan, the older brother she had been so close to—all gone now. No, she did not want to hear it again. And what of Pieter and Meika? Would she ever see her younger brother and sister again? Analisa had wondered for four years. She would put it aside for now. There was the stranger to see to.
    “Come to the house with me now. Oh, what fine fish, Kase! Opa, you must take the man his clothes so that he can leave. He is awake now.”
    Kase asked if the man could talk, eager no doubt to ply him with questions while Opa demanded to know who the stranger was and where he was going. They both spoke at once until Analisa laughed at their babble.
    “Listen to us! Come home now. I’ll wash up for dinner and you two will eat, but first you must clean these fish and see that the stranger leaves.”
    “Will he eat with us, Mama?”
    “No.”
    “Why?” Kase questioned her in English, sensing from his mother’s terse reply that she did not want the stranger around. He knew she might not want to share her reason with Opa.
    “Because he has been here far too long already and needs to be on his way. Now, take Opa’s hand and we will all go back to the house.”
    Analisa watched as Kase took the old man’s hand in his own small one. Opa carried the thin pole and fishing line, and Analisa gathered up the bucket and the four shining bullheads that had been strung together through mouth and gill.
    A strange foreboding crept along Analisa’s spine as she stood alone beside the slow-moving creek, her grandfather and Kase having moved away from her across the grassy field. With a sudden wariness brought on by the feeling, she turned her gaze across the small stream and searched the low growth beneath the cotton woods. Unable to see anything threatening hidden among the shining green leaves, Analisa shrugged at her silliness and turned to follow the others.
    Upon reaching the yard, Analisa called to Opa and gathered the stranger’s clothes from the fence rail where they hung, neatly folded. She smoothed the dark material of the shirt one last time, relishing its quality before