"Good morning, love," she replied. "I’ve been waiting for you to wake up."

Ken rolled over to bring his lips close to hers. "Is there some special reason?" he asked.

"It’s not the reason you’re thinking of," she replied. "You left my crutches over by the front door, and I’ve got to go to the bathroom."

"Aw," he feigned disappointment as he slowly rolled out of bed. "I thought you had something else in mind."

"Oh, that too," she smiled.

Ken slid back under the covers after bringing Judy her crutches. He glanced at the clock; it was fairly late in the morning. It didn’t matter; it had been fairly late before they had gotten to sleep, busy as they had been starting to work off the desires that they both had been storing up for months.

He looked up, to see Judy coming out of the bathroom, wearing a very sheer nightie. With one look, his anticipation began to build again. She sat on the bed, laid her crutches on the floor, then rolled over and embraced him. As they had done the night before, their tongues entwined, and their hands wandered freely over each other’s bodies.

All of a sudden, Judy pulled her lips away from Ken’s. "If I tell you something I never told you before," she said in a serious voice, "Will you still love me?"

Ken pulled her close. "What could be that bad?"

She kissed him again before she said, "We’ll have to go out for breakfast."

"The heck with breakfast," he said. "It’ll be lunchtime before we’re ready to get up, anyway."

"We’ll have to go out for lunch, then," Judy told him. She sounded worried, now.

"Why?"

Judy turned her head away from him. "I can’t cook," she whispered.

"What do you mean?" he asked seriously.

She turned back to look at him. "I never had a chance to learn," she said. "Mother always said she would do it."

Ken looked at her and smiled. "What have you been doing for food the past month?" he wanted to know.

"The same thing you’ve been doing. Eating out or eating in the dorm."

Ken squeezed her even tighter. "Well, I’ve got bad news for you," he told her. "I can’t cook, either."

"You cooked when we were on Isle Royale," she said hopefully.

"I boiled water and opened packages."

"You cooked."

"That wasn’t cooking," Ken said. "Look, did you ever have any practice for what we’ve been doing the past few hours?"

"Well, outside of the sleeping, no."

"You learned it pretty quickly, then," he replied. "Cooking is something else you can learn. Is there anything to eat in the house?"

Tearfully, Judy shook her head. "I didn’t know what to get."

Ken shrugged. "Well, we can go grocery shopping later."

"Later?" Judy brightened.

"Later," Ken confirmed, rolling her over onto her back and kissing her. "We have other things to do first."

Finally, in mid-afternoon, they forced themselves to get dressed, and launched out on an expedition to the nearest supermarket. Of course, both of them had been in such a place before, but never with quite this mission. They left after a while, nearly a hundred dollars poorer, but giving thanks for the development of such things as frozen pizzas, TV dinners, and canned stew. Judy was surprised at Ken’s anger when they left.

"More than a dollar a loaf for bread," Ken fumed.

"I guess that’s about right," Judy said. "I mean, that was about the cheapest bread there was. Why does that upset you?"

Ken’s fingers turned white as he gripped the handlebar of the shopping cart. "Do you have any idea of how much a farmer gets for that loaf of bread, which mainly consists of the wheat he raised?"

Judy shook her head; she had no idea.

"Less than a penny a loaf," Ken told her. "And people wonder why farmers are going broke. And did you look at that meat rack! A buck and a half a pound for hamburger. You can’t sell a typical steer for half that. All the store does is grind that steer up!"

Back at the apartment, Ken put the groceries away, still complaining about food prices. Judy changed to a different nightie, even more exotic than the one she had worn before, with the hope of getting Ken off that subject and back to the one she was interested in. While Ken slipped a frozen pizza into the oven, she made a mental note that she’d better concentrate on grocery shopping in the future.

Judy’s nightie got more of Ken’s attention than the oven timer; the pizza was burned to a crisp.

Over the course of the next month, they began to slip into a life together, and began to discover just how little they had really known about each other.

Judy discovered that Ken was constitutionally unable to even pile up dirty clothes. They tended to congregate around the bedroom chair until he began to run out of underwear, then the whole mess was ready for the laundry.

On the other hand, Ken learned that Judy thought of the shower as a dryer; he was unable to get clean without a massive deforestation operation.

Judy learned that Ken took showers, and hated baths. Judy was a bath person, both by taste and because she couldn’t safely stand up in a shower.

Judy found out that Ken could get in and out of the bathroom in five minutes flat in the morning. She was good for half an hour, if she proposed to enjoy herself, and Ken got upset if he had to wait around. Judy learned to let him go first.

They both had trouble learning to get to sleep next to each other; however, they had ways to fill the time.

Television was another point of difference. Judy watched a lot of television, especially game shows, which Ken couldn’t stand. Except for maybe one football game a month, Ken liked to watch the news then have the set off. Judy noticed that Ken didn’t pay much attention to the local news, other than the farm prices and the weather. The great need for study time kept the television level down to where Ken could tolerate it.

Ken was willing to do his share of the cooking, but Judy soon learned that he had no real concept of a balanced or a varied diet; all food was grist to his mill. He was capable of eating canned soup three meals a day all week long without complaining. It wasn’t hard to keep him happy, but after about three days, the lack of variety drove her to seek something – anything – else. As she began to study a cookbook they got at the grocery store, she began to wonder if it was Ken’s subtle way of encouraging her to learn her way around the kitchen, but soon decided that her husband was just being himself.

Judy had no afternoon classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays; Ken had one. The first Tuesday, he dropped her off at the apartment, and she decided to begin her program of keeping him interested, although that hadn’t been a problem so far.

Ken came home that afternoon with his mind full of agronomics, to find Judy working at her computer, wearing only a grin and a bikini bottom; interest in both agronomics and computers were forgotten instantly. After that, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons were often surprise party time – not always, partly because of the studying they had to face, and partly because Judy didn’t want anything to get to be too automatic.

Despite their interest in such recreational activities, and improving their skills at them, the majority of their time together was quiet. They usually could be found with a textbook in hand, or writing papers on the computer. They’d already learned to work on their studies without bothering the other needlessly.

Judy’s grades had taken a nosedive at the beginning of the semester, thanks to the hassles with Jennifer. Now she was applying herself in hopes of bringing them back up by the end of the semester and her midterm grades had shown that she was on the way. Her courses were concentrated on physical therapy and computers; while the former was her primary interest, she showed real skill with the latter.

They had only a few brief weeks to fall into a semblance of a routine before finals were upon them. For about a week, the studying was furious; they really piled into the books.

The results were worth it; Ken maintained his high average, despite more difficult classes than he had taken at Hinckley, and Judy managed to pull her own grades back up to an area where she could consider herself satisfied with them.

With finals over, it was time for the Christmas holidays. They hadn’t managed to make it back to Willow Lake since Thanksgiving, and were in no hurry to head back this time; they were too eager to be explore a life together. But, eventually the holidays called them back.

It seemed strange for Ken to be sleeping with Judy in his old room, which still showed all the signs of being his; it was hard to get over that ingrown feeling of doing something wrong by having Judy there. At that, both of them were glad they decided to stay at the Sorensens; without any words being said, both of them perceived that Irene Niven was still having a hard time accepting the reality of her daughter’s marriage.

On their first day home, they dropped by Bob and Lori Watson’s little house, to see their brand-new baby boy and catch up on Willow Lake gossip. Ken was surprised to notice that Bob’s stutter was much better than it had been a year before; living with Lori had apparently done him some good. Though he still wasn’t much for talking a lot, it didn’t take as much patience to listen to him as it once had.

Lori had decided to have her baby by the Lamaze method, and she had to give Ken and Judy a pain-by-pain account of the long labor. Bob didn’t say much about it, and Ken got the idea that he would rather have spent the time someplace else, rather than holding Lori’s hand.

They got up on Christmas morning, opened presents with the Sorensens, and then went over to the Niven house for a while before going back to dinner at the Sorensens. This was a much smaller affair than Thanksgiving had been, but the table was still full of food, and they were both groaning when they got up.

"What’s on tap for today?" Judy asked as they lay in bed the morning after Christmas.

"Dunno," Ken replied. "Tom’s got the H torn apart. He’s planning on repainting it. Guess we could help with that."

"I wish I could say that interested me," Judy said. "But it doesn’t. Let’s go home."

"You mean, to your folk’s house?"

"No," she replied. "Home. Athens."

"Well," Ken teased, "I could get a head start on reading soil chemistry. That class looks like it’s not going to be fun."

After lunch, they headed back to Athens, to face a joyful week together when they didn’t have to go anywhere or be apart for any length of time and, they even got a head start on their studying.

Once the holidays were over and classes began again, their lives began to settle into a routine. By now, they were a little more used to having each other around all the time, and they had gotten their studies down to a routine.

January rolled on into February; life was easy for them, and they knew it.

"The heck of it is," Ken remarked one evening, "That in a couple of years, we’re going to have to go to work."

There had been several nice days in February, but it was snowing hard on this, the last Thursday of the month. Ken pulled the Sunbird into its parking space with a smile on his face; Judy had been home all afternoon and might well be up to something interesting. He felt he could stand the break.

He walked into the apartment, to find Judy somber, her eyes puffy. "You’d better call your folks," she said as soon as he walked in the door. "Tom’s dead."

"Tom’s . . . Oh, my God," he said, reaching for the phone.

Ken soon learned that Tom had been driving into Geneva during the early stages of the snowstorm that morning when an oncoming car had gone out of control in front of him. He’d taken the four-wheel drive pickup into the ditch to avoid it, but lost control and wrapped the pickup around a tree.

Ken sat down glumly on the couch, and Judy took him in her arms as he told her the story – she’d already heard most of it – and confirmed that the funeral would be Saturday, something that hadn’t been pinned down when Judy had talked to Lydia earlier.

"Ken," she asked finally, "what’s going to happen to the farm? Your dad’s not up to doing any farm work."

"I don’t know," Ken said to his wife.

"Are we going to have to move back down there?"

"Judy, I really don’t know," Ken replied, shaking his head. "We’re almost halfway to our degrees. I don’t want to give that up now. Maybe Dad and Mom can lease the farm out and retire."

It snowed heavily all night – too heavy to drive the Sunbird – but the storm died out in the early morning, and by noon Ken and Judy were cutting classes, working their way down poorly-plowed roads toward Willow Lake.

Ken’s mother met them at the door. "Did you have any trouble?" she asked.

"Just slow," Ken told her quietly.

"I’m glad you’re here," she told him. "Your father is taking it very hard."

Even with the warning, Ken was shocked at the sight of his father. All of a sudden, he seemed a hundred years old. Ken knew his father’s health had been going downhill, but now, Tom’s death had taken even more out of him. He sat in his chair, and stared into the fireplace. He wasn’t saying much; there wasn’t much Ken could say to ease the pain.

The funeral was somber; relatives and friends that Ken hadn’t seen for years showed up. It was a grim, cloudy, bitter cold day, and after the funeral, many of the mourners drifted back to the Sorensen house, where the ladies of the Arvada Center Methodist Church had set up a buffet.

That evening, Judy, Ken, and Ken’s parents gathered around the kitchen table to dabble at some of the leftover cold cuts and coffee. "What’s Carolyn doing?" Judy asked. She hadn’t seen her sister-in-law since the funeral.

"She and her folks went somewhere," Lydia explained. "I think she’s planning on moving back in with them. She told me there was nothing left for her here, now."

"I can’t imagine how she must feel," Judy said. "I mean, when Phil died, it took me a long time to realize he was gone and I’d never see him again. It’s got to be worse for her, and for all of you."

Chet nodded slowly. "It changes a lot," he said. "Tom had some good plans for the farm. I was just planning to gradually retire, and let him work into some of them. Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen."

Lydia stirred cream into her coffee. "I’ll not have you go back to working it," she said. "You’re not up to it anymore."

"What would you have us do?" he asked. "Sell out? This farm has been in the family six generations. Tom would have made it seven. You just don’t give up those kinds of roots easily."

"Well," Lydia said, "Unless Ken and Judy want to take the farm over, there won’t be a seventh generation, anyway."

Ken knew he was on the spot; everyone at the table was staring at him. "I don’t know," he said. "I never planned on it. Since I was little, it was always taken for granted that Tom would take over the farm, and I’d go do something else. I mean, I’ve always liked working on the farm, but I never planned on making a career out of it. I don’t know if that’s what I want to do."

"I know," Chet said. "It’s hard for me to ask you. It’s always been worked out that you’d be taken care of when your mother and I died, but we never planned on this."

Ken shook his head. He didn’t want to let the farm go, but he’d gotten interested in what he was doing now. "If Judy and I come back here," he said, "it means giving up our degrees. We’ve got a real good start on them, and it’d be a shame to waste the effort. I don’t suppose it would be possible to lease the farm out for a couple years, until we finish? I mean, I know it doesn’t bring in the money that working the land would, but by then, we might have some idea of what to do."

Chet shook his head. "The bank would have it by then. I’m not sure we could even sell everything for what we owe. Tom spent a lot of money intending to expand even further, and took out a lease on another 160 acres. He planned on getting a lot of custom work with the new combine, but as late as we got it, it didn’t work out last fall."

Ken was shocked. He had no idea things were that bad. Tight, yes; he’d known the last few years were tight, but he hadn’t made it his concern to look into it any further than that. But, the equity of the farm represented his parents’ retirement money, as well as their legacy to the future. "If we worked the farm, can we hold out?" he asked.

"Probably," Chet conceded. "Maybe in a couple years, we can smooth things out and be able to lease the place out without losing it."

"How much will Carolyn’s share be?" Ken asked.

"Nothing," Lydia said. "We never worked out an agreement to turn any of the farm over to Tom." She didn’t add that they’d shied away from doing so out of mistrust of their daughter-in-law, and that had been part of the friction between them. "Uncle Ed’s house still belongs to us. As soon as she’s moved out, you two could move in."

Ken shook his head. It was going to be hard to say no. "What do you think, Judy?" he asked.

"I don’t know, either," she said. "There are some good reasons to come back, but I’ve worked hard at my classes, and I’d hate to have to give them up."

Ken looked at his father. He could see hope in his eyes, but Chet wasn’t the type to plead. "This is all too quick," he said finally. "I think Judy and I had better have a few days to sleep on this, and talk it over between ourselves."

"Make no mistake," Chet said, "we’d like to have you come back. But, if you do, just understand that most of the work is going to have to fall on you. I can’t be a lot of help."

Ken and Judy took off for Athens directly after going to church at Arvada Center. Lydia offered to make dinner, but Ken said that with the roads still bad, they wanted to be back at their apartment by nightfall. They rode along for miles in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

"What do you think?" Judy finally asked.

"I keep thinking of something we had in our Western Civ course back at Hinckley," Ken said. "It was about Napoleon, but change a few words, and it seems to apply."

"What?"

"‘Some are born farmers, some become farmers, and some have farming thrust upon them.’"

"You’re saying that you want to go back?" she commented.

"No," Ken replied, shaking his head. "I don’t really want to go back, just like that. I just never planned on being a farmer, but with what happened, it’ll be hard to say no. What do you think?"

"I want you to be happy, but I want you to do the right thing, too."

"What’s the right thing?"

"I hate to give up school," she said. "But there’s so much to lose if we don’t. It’s not like we’d be moving in with my mother."

Ken drove on, thinking hard all the way. "Oh, well," he said finally. "It’ll only be a year or two, and then we ought to be able to lease the place out. Then we can go back to school, and the folks can have a retirement income."

Judy nodded. "I think that’s the right thing."

"I think so, too," Ken agreed. "I just don’t like being forced into it."

"How soon do we have to move back to Willow Lake?"

Ken shrugged. "Well, if we go down on weekends as soon as the weather breaks, we ought to be able to hold out until finals," he said.

"It’d be a shame to waste the semester, now that we’re better than halfway through it," she agreed.

Ken drove on, still silent. Probably it would be wasted anyway, but he didn’t want to tell Judy that. Once they were on the farm, they would be pressured to stay with it; it would be hard to break free, unless they lost it to the bank. And, Ken knew that if that happened, they’d be so busy working to pay debts that they might never be able to go back to school.