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raise their sister.
    Luckily, all of the boys were now out of school and doing various jobs . . . enabling Junior to not feel the complete burden of providing for the family.
    He’d always thought the Lord had provided little Kaylene with her own set of guardian angels. There was really no other reason that he could think for her to be so well-adjusted.
    Though a little shy, she was a sweet child, and seemed to lean on each of them in different ways.
    But it was generally agreed that she depended on him the most.
    He’d never minded that.
    If he was around, Junior made sure Kaylene never had to wait too long to be noticed. He’d taken it upon himself to look out for her. To make sure she got her hugs and ate her supper. He made sure she’d gotten a kitten to cuddle at night since she had a room all to herself.
    And that she always knew he was on her side. No matter what.
    Which was maybe why it was she who rushed out to see him the moment he’d finished putting Princess—the somewhat homely horse with the fancy name Kaylene had given her—in her stable. If Kaylene knew anything, it was that her eldest brother always had time to spare for her.
    “Hiya, Kay,” he said as he picked up the currycomb. Pushing aside his thread of worry about his upcoming visit to Miriam, he smiled at his littlest sister. “How are you today?”
    “Gut . ” Walking closer, she raised her hand to give Princess a gentle rub on her muzzle. “Where have you been?”
    “I had some things to take care of in town.”
    “I didn’t know you were going into Sugarcreek.”
    “That’s because you have more important things to think about.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like school.” Taking a deep breath, he braced himself to ask her least favorite question. “So, how was shool today?”
    As was her habit, she started twirling one of the ties from her kapp around a finger. “I don’t know.”
    He glanced her way as he carefully worked on Princess’s coat. The mare enjoyed the attention, tossing her head a bit as he gently combed her mane.
    And still Junior waited. His sister had something on her mind, and she was obviously biding her time until she said her piece.
    Giving her a prod, he asked, “What have you been doing since you got home this afternoon?”
    “My chores.”
    “Did you get them done?”
    “Uh-huh.” After releasing the tie, she kicked at the dirt under her foot.
    He moved around to Princess’s other side and started brushing her coat in earnest. “I know sweeping the front porch didn’t take too long. What else have you been doing?”
    She wrinkled her nose. “My homework.”
    “And what is your homework?”
    “Reading.”
    The word was uttered with such disdain that Junior was tempted to grin. At last, he’d discovered what had made her so upset. “And how is that going?”
    After a moment’s pause, she looked at her feet. “You know, Junior.”
    She was right, he did know.
    “Come on. Let’s go sit down.” After giving the mare one last friendly pat, he guided Kaylene to a bench next to the back door of the barn. He liked sitting out there because it was out of the line of vision of the house. One could sit there for a few minutes without being detected—which was no small thing in a house of eight.
    With a sigh, his little sister scrambled up beside him and tried to look very brave.
    Which melted his heart, of course. “Reading ain’t getting any easier for you?”
    After a pause, she shook her head. “We have to count the pages we’ve read and write them in a notebook. And then we have to write a sentence about what we read.”
    “That doesn’t sound too hard.”
    Lowering her voice, she said, “Junior, I have the smallest amount of pages in the whole class. Everyone knows it, too.”
    Kicking his feet out, he tried to think of the best way to approach her problem. On one hand, he was proud of her honesty. Any one of her older brothers would have simply fibbed about the number of pages read.
    And