Simple Faith by Anna Schmidt

gotten an earlier train from Brussels—one filled with people attempting to muster some holiday spirit—and she’d been so pleased that for once she would be home before dark set in. It was Christmas Eve, and she had a surprise for Peter.
    Belgian tradition held that Saint Nicolas came to see which children had been good or naughty on December 5. Quakers did not hold with the idea that one day was more special than any other—in their view all days were holy. Still she saw no harm in allowing Daniel to enjoy such moments of pleasure. There was little enough joy in his life. By the time this war ended, his childhood would be at least half over, so if she could give him the myth of Saint Nick, where was the harm? And because in Peter’s country Christmas was celebrated on the eve and the day with gifts and carols and such, she wanted to do something to make this day as special for him as she had made the visit of Saint Nicolas special for her son.
    Earlier that week she had heard rumors that the Gestapo had stepped up their hunt for the missing American. Mikel had gotten word to her that the sooner they moved Peter from the farm, the safer she and her grandparents would be.
    “We can hide him here,” Lisbeth had offered. “It’s for the best in all ways. Josef can work with him to help him heal and regain his strength, and you and your grandparents will no longer have to worry every time a troop truck or Gestapo car passes the farm.”
    They had agreed that Christmas Day—tomorrow—would be the perfect day to make the move. Even the Gestapo agents tended to relax their vigilance a bit on that day. So Anja was now on her way to give Peter the good news. Tomorrow he would take his first steps toward freedom.
    As she pedaled up the lane, the sight of the car spoiled her good mood, and the sounds of Germans thrashing about in the outbuildings only served to fuel her anger.
    She dropped the bicycle in the yard and ran to the henhouse. “What on earth do you think you will find here?” she demanded in German of the young soldier ransacking the place. “Oh, please let me help you,” she continued sarcastically. “Let’s see. I assume you are looking for an evader? Perhaps he is here,” she said as she placed her hand deep into a hen’s nest and brought up an egg. “No. Too small.”
    The soldier had frozen in the act of breaking up a section of the henhouse with the butt of his rifle. He looked at her as if she might be quite mad. She faced him squarely and said very calmly, “Get out of our henhouse. You are scaring the chickens, and they will not lay. And if they do not lay, your officers will have no eggs, and that will make them very, very irritable, especially when I explain that hens cannot lay their eggs if they are being harassed.”
    The soldier lowered his rifle and brushed past her as he exited the small structure and called out to his comrade, who was apparently intent on doing as much damage as possible to the shed.
    Involuntarily, Anja glanced quickly up to the tiny window nestled in the eave. She was so very thankful that Josef had listened when she’d told him they had to move Peter to a safer hiding place that very first night. Of course, it had not been easy getting all six feet and more of him up the narrow winding stairs with his leg sticking straight out because of the makeshift splint that Josef had constructed. But they had done it.
    The front door squeaked, bringing her attention back to the cottage. A German officer—the same German officer who had searched their home the night of the plane crash—stepped outside. He smiled at her.
    “Ah, Frau Jensen,” he said. “You did say the last time I visited that Jensen is your husband’s name, is it not?”
    “I have no husband,” Anja replied, her defiance still very much in evidence.
    “And yet you have a son.” He came toward her, tapping a riding crop lightly against his thigh.
    She shrugged. “You have a riding crop but no