"One thing," he said to his wife. "In weather like this, the Yanks stay indoors."

"I wish to heaven they'd stayed in their own country," Maude answered. She was short and redheaded, a contrast to his rangy inches and dark hair that was beginning to show frost as he edged into his forties.

Her eyes went to the photograph of their son, Alexander, that hung on the wall of the front room. The photograph was all they had of him; the U.S. troops who occupied Manitoba had executed him for plotting sabotage a year and a half before.

McGregor's eyes went there, too. He was still paying the Americans back for what they'd done to Alexander. He would never be done paying them back, as long as he lived. If they ever found out he made bombs, he wouldn't live long. He couldn't drive the Yanks out of Canada singlehanded. If they were going to try to rule his country, though, he could make their lives miserable.

Julia came in from the kitchen. She also looked toward Alexander; these days, the family almost made a ritual of it. McGregor looked at his daughter in what was as close to wonderment as his solid, stolid nature could produce. Some time while he wasn't looking, Julia had turned into a woman. She'd been eleven when the Americans invaded, and hardly even coltish. She was fourteen now, and not coltish any more. She looked like her mother, but taller and leaner, as McGregor himself was.

"What are you going to do about that school order, Pa?" she asked.

The wind gusted louder. McGregor could have pretended not to hear her. His own sigh was gusty, too. "I'm going to pretend I don't know the first thing about it for as long as I can," he answered.

He'd pulled Julia and her younger sister, Mary, out of school a couple of years before. The Americans were using it to teach Canadian children their lies about the way the world worked. Since then, McGregor and Maude had taught reading and ciphering at home.