The Major's Daughter by J. P. Francis

helped around her family’s farm and did occasional secretarial work for the Berlin Mill; she loved going to Berlin, and to the Rialto there. It was her favorite thing to do.
    Collie rode Buster, a dark, gentle horse with a back as wide as a door. The muddy trail glistened in the late-afternoon sunshine; small rivulets of water flickered down the hillside like reflective veins of copper. Steering the horse was not required. It went where the Chapmans’ horses went, climbing the grade with its heavy hooves sucking and releasing the damp earth. Amy took the lead on Barrow; Marie rode Sylvester, a slightly mischievous horse that was a household wizard at getting out of enclosures and running loose.
    â€œ. . . says the Germans can hypnotize people simply by staring at them,” Marie said, the last of a long litany of special powers apparently attributed to the prisoners by the local schoolchildren.
    â€œWho says such a thing?” Amy asked, her body perpendicular to Barrow’s large gray back.
    â€œIt’s true!” Marie exclaimed in her eager voice. “Lenora walked past the camp the other day and a German soldier looked at her and she couldn’t move! Her legs wouldn’t work. Not
every
German has that power. . . . I’m not saying that. But some do. This one stared at Lenora until someone called him away. Lenora said she had to go home and lie down when it was over.”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous,” Amy said. “Germans are people the same as we are. No one can mesmerize someone just by staring at them.”
    â€œThey can, too! Collie, tell my sister the truth. She thinks I make up everything.”
    â€œNo one has hypnotized me yet,” Collie said. “But anything is possible, I suppose. They seem like normal men to me.”
    â€œPolly says they can dig through the dirt with their hands like moles or badgers!” Marie went on, turning back and forth to Collie, then Amy. “She says if you look closely, their fingers have curved nails.”
    â€œThese rumors are absurd,” Amy said. “You can’t go into the store without hearing a half dozen crazy notions. It’s embarrassing to hear such things. We’re so provincial.”
    â€œWe should go by the camp now,” Marie said. “Please, can we? Everyone is going by today. The newspaper says people are coming over on a train from Berlin.”
    â€œI did hear,” Amy said, turning all the way around to speak to them both, “that they took Mr. Chapin’s rifle away. He threatened to go shoot the prisoners after what they had done to his son. But I guess his neighbors have agreed to watch him. His wife told the authorities about the rifle. They promised to give it back when the Germans are gone.”
    â€œI don’t blame him for wanting to kill them,” Marie said. “Daddy would kill anyone who touched a hair on our heads.”
    â€œPeople get killed in war,” Collie said.
    Then for a while they rode in silence. The sun hung on the tips of the mountains, still traveling in its springtime arc. When they reached Scooter Pond, a small impression at the base of a rocky outcropping, Amy climbed down. They always dismounted at Scooter Pond. Twice they had come across moose wading in the waters, but on this day the moose remained back in the woods. A kingfisher flicked along the shoreline, occasionally diving into the water to snap a dace from the shallows. Once they tied the horses to a line of shrubs, Marie climbed on a log that extended into the pond and began singing “Mairzy Doats.” She had been singing it until she had driven everyone around her nearly mad, but now she pointed her toes as she balanced along the log, her arms out, singing the familiar phrases:
    Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
    A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?
    She sang it three times through. She also used the lyrics from the bridge:
    If