Coming to the house for breakfast after milking,
I asked, “What star is that in the southwest, Dad,
still so bright with the sun coming up?”
That’s no star, Sietze. It’s moving and it’s coming this way.” In minutes,
a floating contraption hovered above our farm. A machine growled
and ground out a leaflet which fluttered down to the ground,
but we had no time to read it. The contraption
was landing in our pasture.
You grabbed a scythe, I a pitchfork
and we ran to the pasture. Neal, Steven,
Cornie, and seven other neighbors from farther off –
all on their way to their houses for breakfast when we were,
milking finished – had seen the same apparition in the heavens.
Neal came on foot with a haying rope for tying up whatever needed
tying up. Neal’s hobbling wife pursued him through the cornfield
calling plaintively, “Neal, Neal, are there any Germans in it?
Let me know if there are any Germans. I remember some German.
Don’t kill them right away if they speak German.” D-Day
one week past and we were all edgy. Had the Germans
elected to launch their counter offensive
in Sioux County and in our very pasture?