‘Why is there a hole in the bottom of this tree,’ Silky Josephine asks. 
     Three tall pines stand between our house and the pasture, the only pines for miles. The hole Silky is asking about is more of a tunnel at the base of the centermost and tallest of the three trees, large enough for at least the back half of her to pass through, if she shimmied. 
     ‘Lightning,’ I tell her, and Silky’s eyes widen. 
     ‘When?’ she asks. 
     ‘On an Easter Sunday, just like today, a long time ago,’ I reply. 
     And I tell her of that first Easter Sunday on the Farm, of how the storm came and the lightning struck the pines, up one and down the others, and how it chased into the house and struck the oven where the Easter ham was cooking, and how my ears rang for days with the crash of it, and how everyone said the trees would soon die and should be cut down, and how I couldn’t cut them down, and they didn’t die, and how on Easter Sundays I won’t use the oven and am a little more nervous than usual, because it seems there is always a storm then. 
     ‘Always?’ Silky asks, and in the distance, we hear the low rumble of thunder. 
     ‘Always,’ I say.