Kohler’s story made the wire service, and with a picture of Judy and Candybar and the corn planter, figured prominently on the Post-Gazette’s front page Monday evening.

At school the next day, Judy found she had become a minor celebrity for the second time in ten days. People who had hardly spoken to her in all her years in high school went out of the way to say something complimentary; she was pleased at the attention, if a bit embarrassed by it.

As she and Ken sat down to what had become their regular lunch date in the cafeteria, her first words were to ask how his father was doing.

"Pretty well, considering," Ken replied. "He’d like to see you."

"I’m glad to hear he’s getting along all right," Judy said.

"What I was thinking, was that since we didn’t get your therapy session in at the Y on Saturday, maybe we could go tonight, and stop off and see him."

"I’d love to, Ken," she told him. "But aren’t you going to be busy with farm work?"

Shaking his head, he replied, "There’s work to be done, but after Saturday, no one will complain if I take off to take you to town."

"You know," she reflected, "It’s kind of nice to be appreciated, but what with the newspaper story and all, I kind of think that people are making too much fuss over what I did. After all, I just did what had to be done, and there was no one else there to do it."

Ken nodded. "And you did the right thing, and so fast you hardly had time to think about it. Now, if you put my sister-in-law Carolyn in the same position, I’d be going to a funeral today."

A glaze came over Judy’s eyes as she thought about what Ken had said. Though she was too shy to admit it, she was a little amazed that she had done everything she remembered doing a few days before.

When Ken, his mother, and brother had taken her home Saturday night, dirty and covered with blood, her mother about had a heart attack. Even when the situation was explained, Irene had been pleased that her daughter had been so heroic, but upset that she had been riding Candybar in the first place.

Judy’s father had made what her mother said seem unimportant. After hearing the story, he took Judith in his arms and said, "I knew I had a special girl. It all worked out for the best."

Ken drove Judy home from school to get her gym bag for the trip to town. She had no more than gotten inside when Irene confronted her, saying, "Judith, what trouble are you planning on getting into with the Sorensen boy this time?"

"We’re just going in to see his father, and then to the Y," Judith replied.

"I don’t know about you and him," Irene said. "Whenever you go out with him, you do things you shouldn't be doing, and you tire yourself out. You’re too fragile to be doing those things with him! What will your father say when he gets home?"

"We’ll take it easy," Judith insisted. "We’ll just go to the hospital, and then to the therapy session."

"Well, stay off that horse," Irene ordered.

Judy stiffened. Trust her mother to bring her down when she was feeling good about herself for once! "I’ll ride her if I want to. I know what I can do!" Judith replied firmly, with just a trace of tension in her voice. "I’m no little girl any longer."

"You may have grown up some," Irene said angrily, "But you still don’t know what you can do and what you can’t!"

Judy picked up her gym bag from where it lay discarded from Saturday night. "How would you know what I can do? You don’t even watch me in my therapy sessions. At least I know where I’m strong and where I’m weak."

"Oh, darling," Irene said, wondering if it had been the influence of the Sorensen boy that had made her normally docile little girl so upset. "You know I can’t bear to watch you torture yourself in those sessions. You’re too weak for that. I mean, I realize you want to walk again, but . . . "

"That’s what I mean," Judy said, not giving in for once. "Riding Candybar is about as tiring as watching grass grow, but you wouldn’t know that. I wouldn’t have known it either if I hadn’t tried."

"Yes, Judith," her mother protested. "But you could fall off the horse and hurt yourself, or it could run off with you and you couldn’t control it."

"I don’t think Candybar would run wild if you lit a firecracker under her tail," Judith replied, opening the door. "I’m going to Geneva with Ken. We’ll probably have supper in town. I’ll see you later."

Ken’s father was propped up in bed, his leg in traction, when Ken and Judy found him. Ken could see that he was considerably better than he had been the day before, when the effects of the blood he had lost, combined with the pain of his crushed knee, had made him barely able to speak.

When he saw Judy, he broke into a big smile. He motioned her over to the bedside and took her hand, held it firmly, and said, "They tell me you’re the reason I got here."

Judy leaned forward on her crutches a little, and shyly admitted that she had something to do with it.

"I know you did," Chet told her. "I remember that hitch falling on me, and I sort of remember you yelling at me to hold onto something, but I didn’t really find out until today what you did."

He stopped for a moment to gather his strength; Ken could see that his father was weaker than he looked. Judy said softly, "I just couldn’t leave you lying there bleeding."

"I just don’t know how to thank you," Chet said finally, then went on in an intense, though weak voice. "I don’t know how to say this, but I’m glad your being crippled doesn’t keep you from being one mighty fine person."

Judy had been hearing praise for a couple days, but this really counted. "Thank you," she said, squeezing his hand.

The bedridden man turned to face Ken, "You remember what I said about your Uncle Ed?" Ken nodded. "Well, I was wrong."

Later, as they rode across town to the YMCA, Judy asked, "What was that about your Uncle Ed?"

Ken thought for a moment. There was a message in what his father had said, and he wanted time to digest it. "It’s his way of telling me that he really thinks you’re all right," he said, truthfully, after a moment.

"Well, I hope he’ll be all right," Judy responded slowly.

"You don’t think he will be?"

"Come on, Ken. He’s got a crushed knee. He’s what? In his fifties?"

"Fifty-nine."

"I hope I’m wrong," she said, "But I’d be surprised if he didn’t take a long time healing. You’d better get him some crutches, too. I’ll bet you he’ll need them."

I don’t understand why your physical therapy is here," Ken said as Judy came out of the locker room, dressed in a pink and white striped leotard with white tights.

"It’s a long story," she replied as she worked her way over to an exercise machine. As she began her workout, she started explaining.

Physical therapy had been a way of life for Judy for ten years, now. Since Dohrman County Hospital in Geneva had only the most rudimentary physical therapy facilities, for many years the only alternative had been to go to St. Catherine’s hospital in Camden. Not only was this expensive, it was a long drive to make three times or more a week. Still, the therapy was necessary if there was any hope of her ever walking again, as muscles in her legs needed to be kept exercised so they wouldn’t atrophy.

"About the time they got all the modern cam exercise machines here at the Y," Judy explained, "Beth got married and moved up here. You remember, the woman who taught us how to dance. She was one of my physical therapists in Camden, and we worked out routines on the equipment here that work just as well as what I can do in Camden. Now, I only go down to St. Catherine’s every couple months, so they can check up on my progress. It makes everything so much easier."

As Judy worked out, Ken watched, interested in the proceedings. The leotard and tights gave Ken his first look at the shape of Judy’s legs. Both her upper legs merely looked skinny, though there was more musculature on the front than on the back. From the knees on down, though, her legs seemed positively withered, so bony that they looked like a case of extreme starvation. Ken could see why he’d always seen Judy wearing pants or a long dress.

It seemed to him that the workouts concentrated as much on Judy’s upper body as on her withered legs, and he commented on this.

"If you had to use your arms for as much as I have to," she told him, "You’d want them strong."

Even with the strapless gown Judy had worn to the prom, Ken hadn’t been aware of just how well developed the muscles of Judy’s upper body were, though now that he thought about it, he could remember how firmly she had held him. Watching her work out, he could see that Judy was no weakling. The strength of her arms was very impressive. Moreover, he could see that she really worked at her workouts; within minutes, the sweat was rolling off her face.

Judy moved from machine to machine, concentrating on specific muscle groups. At times, Judy asked Ken to help with a routine, such as holding her knees down while she did sit-ups, or lifting her to a horizontal bar, where he was surprised to see her chinning herself one-handed, using either hand. As the workout went on, Ken began to wonder just how strong Judy was. Toward the end of her workout, she was working out on a weight bench. After a few minutes of bench presses, she sat up, ready to go on to the next activity.

"Would you stay there for a moment?" he asked.

"Sure. Why?"

"You’ll see." Ken called a training room attendant over, and the two of them began fastening weights onto the weight bar, Ken keeping track of the total. After a few minutes, the bar was ready. Judy looked up apprehensively at all the weight. "Let’s see if you can lift that," Ken said, as he and the attendant stood at either end of the bar to keep it from falling if it should slip.

"I don’t know," Judy frowned. She wiped her hands as best she could on her sweaty leotard, and carefully took a solid grip on the bar. Her muscles bulged with the strain; she gritted her teeth until her face became a grimace as she pushed upward.

All of a sudden, a muffled grunt came from deep within her, and the weight moved upward. She got it out to arm’s length for a moment before the strain became too much; as the bar dropped, Ken and the attendant guided it into the holders.

She lay panting on the bench, the sweat still rolling off her brow. "That was almost too much," she managed finally. "How much was that?"

"Two hundred forty pounds," Ken said.

"Why?" she asked plaintively.

"Tom and I dragged the corn planter down to the scales at the feed mill after school yesterday," Ken explained. "That’s the weight you lifted off of Dad’s knee. I just wanted to see for myself if you could do it."

"This seemed heavier. A lot heavier," she said slowly.

"So what?" Ken shrugged. "You’re tired now, and you were excited then. Judy, I am impressed. I couldn’t lift that much weight. There’s more to you than meets the eye."

In the locker room a few minutes later, Judy could feel her muscles aching. The pool would feel good, she knew, even though she would be even more tired after her swim. Her leotard had been clean an hour before; now it smelled so bad she could hardly stand to touch it to take it off and cram it into a plastic bag so it wouldn’t foul her gym bag.

She was a little surprised to find her bikini in the gym bag, rather than her tank suit, but then remembered her decision Saturday to let Ken see what her body really looked like. She hadn’t repacked the bag when she’d gotten home. Somehow, the worries she had Saturday didn’t seem as important to her; a lot had happened since then.

It didn’t seem like such a good idea to do her laps in her bikini after all – and to let Ken have a good look at her in the process. Nevertheless, the pool would feel good, and missing the swim would mean an important part of the session lost. She balanced the two in her mind.

No contest. The pool won.

Judy pulled the bikini on, doing her best to make sure it was on snugly, and headed for the locker room door, hoping that Ken wouldn’t get the wrong idea.

Ken was sitting on the rim of the pool as she came out. He looked at her and smiled; the bikini revealed as much as it was designed to. Ken could see that above the hips, she had a better than average figure, but from there down, it was, if anything, worse than the leotard and tights had revealed. She looked back, knowing he was watching, but said nothing and continued toward the pool.

Judy had long ago worked out the technique for getting into the pool. Leaning on the pool ladder, she carefully set her crutches down on the deck. Then, lifting herself by her hands on the ladder, she flung herself feet first into the pool. Though the pool was kept fairly warm, the water felt cool and refreshing to her. Surfacing, she yelled to Ken, "Come on! Swim with me!"

"OK," Ken said in return, and slid off into the pool near her as she took off for the far end. She swam at what, for her, was an easy pace; she was planning on half a mile at least, perhaps more, depending on how she felt.

Though something of a school athlete – he had been on the second string of the varsity basketball team – Ken found himself going all out to keep up with her. He was a farm boy, after all, and had never been exposed to swimming lessons other than what he had picked up splashing around in Willow Lake on a hot day. Any swimming coach would have said he looked like a tugboat pushing a barge, but grimly he pressed on after Judy.

By great effort, Ken was able to stay within a few strokes of the crippled girl for about three laps, but after that, he slowly fell farther and farther behind each lap. By the time Judy lapped him for the fourth time, he was merely trying to keep going; he wasn’t about to give up while Judy was still going, no matter how bad she was beating him.

Judy was aware of how far she was leaving Ken behind, so decided not to push beyond her minimum of half a mile. It was always hard for Judy to stop swimming. She could swim almost normally, and even though she could exhaust herself at it, the feeling of the freedom that a normal person had usually made the effort worthwhile. She lifted herself onto the pool rim, and waited for him to swim up to her. For a few moments, he hung onto the pool rim to catch his breath.

"Ahhhh, that felt good," she said, rubbing it in.

Between pants, Ken muttered loud enough for her to hear, "I don’t think I could swim another stroke. I guess I’m going to have to start coming down here and working out with you."

"You can if you want to," she agreed.

Ken gathered his strength enough to make a feeble attempt at climbing the pool ladder. He managed to struggle to the top and went over to sit down next to Judy, his legs dangling in the pool. "You are weak like an ox. I’m beginning to wonder just how crippled you really are," he said facetiously.

"Bad enough."

"You sure haven’t been acting like it."

"No, seriously," she replied, "Bad enough. There are some things that I can do well, and you’ve seen me doing them. There’s other things I can’t. You’ve seen my legs." She swung them up onto the pool deck next to him.

Ken looked. He had noticed the lack of muscular development earlier, but now he could see a seemingly random pattern of scars and other irregularities. It looked to Ken as if her legs had once been run through a meat grinder, and he realized that, in a way, they had. "Pretty rugged," he admitted.

"That’s not all," she said, swinging herself around to face away from him. Her lower back had much the same pattern of scars; all of a sudden, Ken realized that she had been burned – and burned badly – as well as been broken. After a moment, she swung back around to face him. "My bottom looks like that, too," she laughed, "But I’m not going to let you see that."

"I always thought your legs were paralyzed," Ken said, "But I’ve seen you using them."

Judy nodded. "You’ve seen me do almost everything I can do with my legs tonight," she told him, and began to explain how damaged her body was.

The accident had crushed vertebrae in her back; she had lost the use of some nerve connections, but not all. Possibly worse, the mangling of the accident and the burns on her legs had in an almost random manner cost her muscle tissue that could never be replaced; between the two, she had a limited, spotty use of her legs that generally became less and less all the way to her feet and toes.

"For instance," she told him, "I can bend my hips normally. That involves stomach muscles, and they aren’t affected. But, I only have the muscles in my upper legs to straighten my knees. I can only bend my knees a little by myself, but if I’m in the right position, I can relax and let gravity do the work."

Below the knees, control was virtually gone – except for three toes she could somehow wiggle. She could only get around on crutches thanks to years of wearing braces that allowed her ankles to atrophy in an almost-normal position.

"Did you know I can walk?" she told him. "I mean, without crutches?" Ken shook his head, and she went on, "I have to have braces on both my legs, and I can only take real small steps. Since I can’t bend my knees, it has to be hip motion, so I lurch from side to side. It’s easier to get around on crutches, and I don’t fall down, either."

"Do you have much feeling in your legs?"

She swung her legs up into his lap, and he ran his fingers over them. "When you run your fingers over my lower legs, I can see them, but I can’t feel them," she said. Ken noticed that she didn’t mind his handling her, and he could remember other dates he’d been on, where a girl would have been sensitive to such treatment. He didn’t realize that in years of hospitals and physical therapy, Judy had been handled so much that it was second nature.

"The feeling in my upper legs is spotty," Judy went on, noticing that Ken wasn’t shy about handling her weakened legs, like other people might have been. "Nothing in back, of course," she went on. "That’s what happens when you’re sitting over a gas tank when it explodes."

A vivid picture ran through Ken’s mind. He could imagine it all too well.

"At that, I guess I was lucky," she went on. "You remember Phil, don’t you?"

"Of course," Ken said. "He was in school with me for three, maybe four years."

"Do you know why he died and I didn’t?"

Ken shook his head. "I guess all I ever knew was that there had been an accident."

"I don’t remember the accident, except what I’ve been told," she said in a distant voice, as if she weren’t talking to Ken at all. "I was being sassy, and didn’t want to wear my seat belt, so I took it off. It was after dark, and no one knew. When the drunk hit us, I was thrown out of the fire. Phil had his seat belt on. It killed him."

Ken could see tears in her eyes, and wondered if she’d ever told anyone else. He decided he’d better change the subject. "Is there any chance you can ever really walk again?"

She shook her head. "I keep hoping, but I really doubt it. If I can get the muscles in the backs of my legs to work better, well, maybe. We’ve worked on them for years, but there’s been little progress, especially lately."

"You know," Ken said expansively, now that he felt more rested. "I’ve been watching you tonight. All I can say is that if determination is what it takes, then you’ve got all you need."