Judith had enjoyed going to the prom a week ago, Irene knew; she had come home positively glowing, but had been so tired the next morning that she could hardly stay awake through church. It had been nice of the Sorensen boy to take Judith to the prom, Irene thought. Nevertheless, Irene could not help but think that the prom may have been too much excitement for her.

Irene turned back to her housework, shaking her head. It was so difficult having a daughter who was practically an invalid. There was so much the girl wanted to do that she couldn’t do, and so much she had to be protected from that Irene was busy all the time – but she knew it was a mother’s duty, and she kept at it.

She wished her husband, Norman, could be a little more supporting. Why, Norman even wanted Judith to go to college! It was out of the question. It was a shame – Judith had very good grades in high school – but she wasn’t up to it physically. It’d be better if she stayed at home.

She looked up at the clock. "I’d better not let her stay out there too much longer," she murmured to herself.

The phone rang.

Judith lay stretched out in the lawn chair, blissfully soaking up the rays of the warm spring sun. It was a wonderful feeling to lie out there almost naked in the warmth of the sun, still thinking about how wonderful it had been to go to the prom.

Since it was the height of the planting season, she hadn’t yet had that promised date with Ken. He’d been busy after school all week long. They’d had lunch together virtually every day that week, though, and that had been special all by itself. It had made her feel more like a normal person, to have a guy a little bit interested in her.

Judith felt herself wondering just how deep Ken’s interest might be. Probably he was just a little bit curious, she thought. Maybe being different made her a little bit exotic to him; if that was the case, his interest would soon pass – but anyway, it was nice to cap off her high school career with having something of a boyfriend.

She was just thinking about rolling over when she heard her mother call, "Judith! Telephone!"

She wondered who it might be. Thankful that she didn’t need braces any longer, she pulled her crutches to her, struggled to her feet and began to work her way into the house.

The caller proved to be Ken. "I thought you were planting corn," she said.

"The corn planter chewed up four bearings," he replied. "Can’t get parts until Monday, so I’ve got the rest of the day off. Would you like to do something?"

"I’d love to," she said, "But I’ve got to go to the YMCA in Geneva for my therapy workout this afternoon."

"I could take you," he told her briskly. "We could catch a movie or something later. On the way out there, we could even come by here, and you could ride Candybar."

It didn’t take Judy long to agree, even to the part about riding Ken’s horse. "Bring a swimsuit if you like," she told him. "Part of my workout is in the pool."

He promised to come by her house to pick her up as soon as he could get cleaned up.

"What was that all about?" her mother asked as soon as the phone had been hung up.

"You won’t have to drive me into Geneva this afternoon," Judith replied. "Ken offered to take me. Maybe we’ll go to a movie afterward."

Her mother agreed that that was nice of him, but warned, "Don’t stay out late or overstrain yourself. You just about wore yourself out with him last weekend, and you’re not that strong."

"I won’t, Mums," Judith promised. "I’ll be so tired after my therapy that I won’t want to do too much else."

"Well," Irene replied, "I guess it’s all right." She had mixed emotions about the therapy sessions. On one hand, they were necessary if there was ever to be any hope of Judith walking again, yet, they were extremely hard and tiring for the fragile girl. Irene often wished they would give up the hope of her walking and the tiring sessions.

"We’ll be back pretty early," Judith promised, and went slowly to her room. She stripped off her bikini and began to find clothes to wear. Picking up her gym bag, she threw an exercise suit and leotards into it, then looked for her regular swimsuit. After all, a bikini was all right for laying around in her own back yard, but to wear one in public with a date was another matter.

The swimsuit wasn’t where it was supposed to be, and she suspected it was still hanging up in the bathroom to dry; she’d have to wait until after she got dressed. As she began to pull on her underwear, she caught a look at herself in the mirror. From the hips up, she was pretty much a normal girl; but from there down, it was pretty bad. Her legs, especially, looked so bad that she almost never wore a dress, even to church, unless it was floor length.

She shook her head. "I’m really a wreck," she thought, and stopped dressing. She sat on the bed, her mind full of recriminations.

Ken had been very nice to her, and she was grateful for it, since he didn’t seem to pity her. Yet, in the gym and at the pool, he was bound to see what she really looked like. It was bound to put him off; truthfully, it put her off, too.

"Well," she thought, "I guess it would be better if he knows the truth now, so things don’t get too serious." Her eye caught the bikini she had discarded earlier. "I ought to wear that," she said, thinking of the scars that her tank suit would cover. She looked at the bikini for a long time before she threw it into her gym bag and began to dress with stolid determination, as if another dream were about to evaporate.

Where are you going?" Chet Sorenson asked his son.

"I thought since we weren’t planting, I’d go to town with Judy – Judith Niven," Ken replied.

"You already told her you’d go?"

"Just got off the phone with her."

The elder Sorensen sighed. "Then I guess I can’t have you go out and work over that sixty acres on the Duck Farm," he said.

"Didn’t know you wanted me to," Ken replied. "I can call her back."

The Sorensens had a little over 700 acres to farm. They actually owned about 400 acres of that; the rest was leased from neighbors who had given up active farming. The parcels of land they farmed were scattered in small blocks over several square miles. This time of the year, there was always work to be done; the planter breaking down just meant more work.

"Well, I guess if you said you would take her, you’d better do it," Chet said.

"Thanks"

"Just one thing," Ken’s father went on. "It was very big-hearted of you to take her to the prom. But, don’t go getting serious about her. She’s probably a pretty good kid, but with her being a cripple, there’s just too many problems that can crop up later."

"I don’t plan to," Ken replied. "It’s just that she’s always been so sheltered that everything we do is new to her, and that’s kind of fun. I don’t plan on getting serious with anyone for a while."

"Just make darn sure it’s not with her," Chet warned again. "Remember your Uncle Ed."

Ed Sorensen, Chet’s brother, had been badly shot up in Korea as a young man. With a leg and an arm amputated, the other leg almost useless, he’d been unable to do much for himself. The family had done the best they could to support him and help him out for over twenty years, until he had finally died in a veteran’s hospital.

Ken didn’t remember anything about Ed Sorensen, other than an old man in a hospital bed, bitter over what life had handed him and not caring who knew what he thought of it.

"I won’t," Ken promised – but he also knew that Judy wasn’t anything like Uncle Ed.

Ken hadn’t been quite truthful when he had said that Candybar had been around all of his and his brother’s lives, but even Tom, six years older, couldn’t remember when the roan-colored filly had been foaled. In their younger days, the two boys had ridden the horse to a lather at times, but now, Candybar was an old horse, and had pretty well been put out to pasture with the beef cattle. Mostly a family pet, she was rarely ridden anymore, and then only at a walk.

But, when relatives with young children visited the Sorensen farm, Candybar was always on their list of things to do, for she was gentle with inexperienced riders. It would have been hard to find a better horse for Judy to ride.

There had been no need for the Ford loader to get Judy up on Candybar’s back; Ken just set her crutches up against a fence, picked her up bodily and set her in the tooled western saddle that had been in the family for years. He put her feet in the stirrups, for what it was worth, and had her hang onto the saddle horn with one hand, reins in the other. "Just sit there for a minute and get used to it," he advised. "Are you comfortable?"

"Well, yes," Judy said, thrilled to be sitting on Candybar’s back.

"Do you think you can stay up there pretty well?"

Judy leaned from side to side, and found she was able to pull herself back upright. "Yes," she smiled. "I really can. I think you were right."

"All right," Ken said. "Here we go."

Before Judy could voice any opposition, Ken took Candybar by the halter, murmured a quiet "Getup," and started to walk across the yard, keeping an eye on Judy to make sure she was staying in the saddle.

And she did. He looked back to see her sitting there, a big smile on her face. After a minute or two, he stopped. "Still all right?" he asked.

"Sure am."

"OK," he replied. "‘Getup’ to go, back on the reins and ‘Whoa’ to stop. When you want to turn, pull on the reins in the direction you want her to go. Just walk her around the yard. Don’t worry, I’ll be right here." He stepped back a couple steps.

All of a sudden she looked a bit apprehensive. "Ken," she said, "I don’t know about this . . . "

"Getup, Candybar," Ken replied.

Judy gave a little shriek as Candybar started to amble in the general direction of the house, but her face was one huge grin. She was really riding a horse! Ken walked alongside, a couple of paces away, until they were halfway across the yard. "All right," he ordered, "Turn her around and go back toward the machinery shed."

Judy pulled on one rein gently, and Candybar obediently turned slowly around to the direction they had come from. "I’m really doing it!" she said in an excited voice.

"I said you could do it," Ken smiled back.

Chet Sorensen watched them at a distance for a moment. He thought it nice he had a son who would show a poor girl like Judith a good time. His other son, Tom, probably wouldn’t have gone to the trouble unless he’d been asked.

He turned back to the corn planter, its hitch held high in the air by the bucket of the Ford loader. Without the bearings to fix the planter, still half-loaded with seed and liquid fertilizer, there wasn’t much that could be done. Still, as long as it was out of action, he thought he might as well get some other maintenance done on it. It wouldn’t hurt. Grease gun in hand, he began to go over the grease zerks to lubricate the bearings.

Close inspection made him glad he did. There was a weld on the underside of the machine that had come loose. He realized that the loose weld could have put the drive shaft out of alignment, causing the bearings to seize up. Even new bearings wouldn’t last long without the weld being fixed.

Easy enough to fix, though; he walked back to the shop to get the arc welder.

After a while, Ken didn’t have to walk alongside Judy any longer. He sat on the fender of his Chevy, with Hal, the family dog, lying asleep at his feet, and watched Judy ride Candybar around the yard. She wasn’t having any problems riding the old horse, and he hadn’t expected any. After a time, she rode up close to him. "Everything all right?" he asked.

"Fine, Ken!" she told him. "I’m glad you asked me out here. This is fun!"

"You want to keep at it a little longer?"

"I don’t want to stop now," the smiling girl replied. "Just don’t tell my mother what we’ve been doing. She’d get upset."

The bathroom was calling Ken. "Just ride her around the yard some more," Ken told her. "You’ll be all right. I’ve got to go inside for a minute or two."

It didn’t bother Judy. She was perfectly content the way she was.

Chet swore. He’d only left the corn planter for a few minutes, and in that time, Tom had shown up, placed a 2x4 endwise under the planter’s hitch to hold it up in the air, and had gone somewhere with the front-end loader. Oh, well, it would still do to work on, even though the planter was supported a lot more precariously. It wasn’t as if he planned to be working under the thing.

It felt even more strange for Judy to be riding around the yard with no one watching, but it felt wonderful. As Candybar plodded along, it was fun to think that she was doing something that normal people did. Maybe she wasn’t doing it just like them, but still, riding the old horse gave her a sense of freedom she had hardly ever felt before.

Now that she felt comfortable riding the horse at an easy walk, she decided to look around the farm some more. There were several farm buildings behind the house in various stages of repair. Beside the big barn were two new-looking blue silos and two older-looking ones made of concrete. She rode over toward the loafing yard and stopped the horse to look at the muscular Black Angus cattle standing around, eating or drinking or doing nothing in particular. The smell was powerful – but somehow it was a smell that seemed natural and fitting.

After watching the cattle for a few moments, she decided to see what else there was to see. She told Candybar to "Getup" again, and headed the horse over behind the silos.

All of a sudden, she heard a loud "thud" and a sickening scream.

"I wonder what that was," she said to Candybar. "Let’s go find out." Judy didn’t know how to make Candybar go faster, but somehow the horse seemed to sense the need to hurry up. Judy found herself having to hang on tight to the saddle horn as Candybar broke into a fast walk.

As they rounded the corner of the machinery shed, what Judy saw shocked her. Mr. Sorensen’s leg was pinned somehow under the front end of a piece of machinery that Judy couldn’t name. Even at a distance, she could see his leg was bleeding badly. He lay on the ground, groaning in agony.

Even at the first instant she saw Mr. Sorensen, Judy knew that she couldn’t just let him lie there.

Reining Candybar in next to him, she shouted, "Mr. Sorensen!" but got no reply. She could see now that the corn planter’s hitch had fallen on his knee. From somewhere in the memories of the past she thought she had forgotten, she could almost feel the pain he must be in.

For an instant, she was confused about what to do next, but then she knew what she had to do. Grasping one leg with her hand, she swung it over Candybar’s back. She rolled sideways to hold onto the saddle horn, and lowered herself to the ground. From a sitting position she took Chet’s hand and thrust it through one of the saddle’s stirrups, yelling at the top of her lungs to get through to the prostrate man. "Hold on! Do you hear me? Hold on, Mr. Sorensen!"

She could see his grip tighten on the stirrup. Praying that he would continue to hold on, she rolled herself over onto her back. Then, grasping the tongue of the corn planter, she slid her slight body under it in the space remaining, until the heavy metal was right above her chest.

Judy reached up, set her hands, and gave a mighty heave. She gave a little grunt with every muscle in her upper body straining as she pushed the machinery upward, away from her.

When she had it at arm’s length, she yelled, "Pull, Candybar. Pull him out of there. I can’t hold this forever! Please! Getup!"

Candybar only understood the last word, but it was enough. Slowly, the horse backed away from the corn planter, dragging Sorensen’s stricken body.

As soon as Judy could see that the horse had dragged Ken’s father clear, she yelled, "Whoa, Candybar!" and relaxed her pressure. The tongue of the machine came down heavily – somehow, she couldn’t let it down gently – but there was just enough room left for her to wiggle out from under it.

Judy had once had a first aid course at school, and she hadn’t spent much of her life in hospitals without getting an object lesson or two. Dragging herself over to Mr. Sorensen, she could see that he had a pulse, from the spurting blood – but it was coming out so rapidly that he could bleed to death. Somehow, she had to control the bleeding.

Judy’s shirt was cleaner than anything else she could reach, though hardly sterile after she had rolled on the ground. It would have to do. She pulled it off as quickly as she could, and wrapped it around his knee two or three times, then tied it as tightly as she could, then sat back and checked his pulse again; it was still there.

All the yelling hadn’t brought any help; Judy now knew that she’d have to go for it – but her crutches were still leaning on the fence near the barn, a long ways away.

There was an alternative. She dragged herself over to Candybar, and pried Mr. Sorensen’s hand off the stirrup, where it still clutched desperately. Then, she used the stirrup to pull herself half-upright. Fortunately, Candybar wasn’t a large horse, she could lift herself enough on the stirrup to grab the saddle horn. From there, she was able to drag herself back up into the saddle. "Getup, Candybar! Hurry!" she ordered, heading for the house.

I think he’s going to be all right," the doctor said to Judy and Ken a couple hours later. "You did a good job, young lady!"

Things had moved quickly from the instant Ken saw Candybar hurrying across the yard, with Judy on her back, yelling for help.

Ken and Tom had improved the bandage on their father, while their mother called the sheriff’s department for the ambulance. They had followed the ambulance to the hospital.

Judy was now wearing a blouse borrowed from Ken’s mother, Lydia. "You’re sure?" she asked.

The doctor nodded. "You did the right thing, and you did it quickly. That ought to make the difference. He was losing a lot of blood."

"That’s good," Mrs. Sorensen said. "Judith, I don’t know how to thank you. How did you know you could pick up that corn planter?"

"I didn’t know," Judy replied. "I just knew I had to try. I couldn’t have done it without Candybar."

Ken looked at Judy. She had dirt in her hair, grease on her arms. Her jeans were still damp with his father’s blood, and she looked frazzled in a shirt six sizes too large. Now, there were tears rolling down her face. "What’s wrong?" he asked.

"I hope I’ll see Candybar again," she said quietly.

"No reason why you shouldn’t," he told her.

She shook her head. "Look at me! My mother is going to be so mad at me she’s going to want to kill me."

Lydia put her arm around Judy’s shoulders. "We’ll take you home. She’ll have to deal with all of the rest of us first."