Gerald Blackwell climbed back into his "farm office" as Susan called his big tractor cab, and joined his youngest son, Nathan, who had the other seat. It was Saturday morning, a rare time together to watch the winter-roughened cattle feed on the hay they'd just laid out. The wind gusted yesterday's snow over the herd and the cab radio was trying to drown out the idled noise of the diesel and roar of the heater with 'Jingle Bell Rock.' As always, the luxury of his warm cab, the cell phone by his feet, plus the clear sound of the satellite radio over the machinery made Gerald grin.

He slapped the boy's knee comfortably. "In the old days, Nate," he shouted, "both of us would be out there whacking twine and kicking bales apart."

"And gettin' stepped on," added Nathan, "like A.G. did that time he had to wear that cast to school. Man, that musta hurt."

 Gerald's grin faded for just a second, thinking of Nate's older brother in Iraq, driving something a lot bigger and more fearsome than this huge machine of his. It was a chilling thought and his mind sought safer ground to go to. Nate deserved that.

 "Can you imagine how Grandpa Arley would have loved this humongous thing?" he asked, pouring coffee for them both from the thermos. "The only thing I ever heard him fuss about in wintertime was cold machinery. He'd say, 'Today, seems like nothing runs on this farm but my nose.'" Gerald did his father's voice so well, even loud, that Nate almost choked on his coffee.

"Here hold this," signaled Gerald handing Nate his cup, and now with ÔWhite Christmas' on the speakers, Gerald put the huge tractor in gear and changed its position so that he could look over the herd from the side. That, too, reminded him of his dad and A.G, both of whom would have been walking among the cows, talking to them, scattering bales and looking at the condition of every animal. They would have admired this wonder of a tractor, unwinding the round bale into neat windrows, but they still would have been afoot, the dog at their heels. Both thought it was the only way to care for stock.

Gerald could see every cow from the high cab, strung out on either side of the long windrows, but the instinct he'd inherited from Arley made him want to smell their breath streaming away on the bitter wind, see what their noses looked like close up. He needed to be down there among them, showing Nathan what to look for. But it was so good to get out of the cold!

Part of his mind longed for the boy nicknamed after his and Arley's initials. Looking at cows from a high window, however warm and comfortable, wouldn't have satisfied A.G.'s urge to be hands-on. He would have been down on the frozen ground getting a close-up look at eyes and noses, hair texture and color, drooping ears and signs of pneumonia. His hands would have been feeling for bottleneck, an infection, any sign of worms. A.G. was a hands-on guy anyway, a volunteer by nature—a fact that had put him someplace in Iraq instead of the veterinary school where he belonged.

His youngest son's voice called Gerald back from his thoughts. "Dad," said Nathan, "is a Bradley tank like A.G.'s taller than this tractor?"

Oh Lord, thought Gerald, Nate wondered about everything and wanted answers. "Oh, I'd think so," he said casually, "but I'd figure the driver's seat would be closer to the ground. You'd need your high places for the cannon's field of vision." The thought made his stomach turn over. His kid-faced son A.G. down close to the ground, where an improvised mine could kill everyone on board the thing, A.G. first.

Christmas music—even Arley's old ÔI'll be home for Christmas' favorite that was playing now—had been making him faintly queasy for a week. Peace on earth had been a joke for his whole lifetime; his dad a veteran of WWII, two uncles survivors of Korea, himself saved from Vietnam only because he was the only son and essential to the farm. It was hard, because in his family the men served their country when it needed them. His friends had fought that thankless war for him, and it didn't help much that it proved nothing he could see.

Now his grown son was caught up in another war and all Gerald could do about it was comfort his family, tend the cattle and hope this war would end before Nathan's time to serve came. Meanwhile the kid needed answers, and his next question brought Gerald back to a better place.

"Dad, what can I get Cindy for Christmas? What do you get somebody with a mind like a steel booby-trap?"

"Well," said Gerald, who always tried to give his kids useful answers, "your sister likes music, books and movies, son, but why don't you ask her?"

"Because she likes surprises," said Nate sensibly.

"It runs in the family," said his dad. "I've been amazing your mom with stuff she never expected for 25 years now. Like buying this tractor, which even surprised me. I think it's time she got a dishwasher, or maybe a gas barbecue grill."

"I don't know, Dad," said Nate, "I never know what to get Mom, she's always got her act together. If she wanted something she'd already have it."

Gerald had been looking for a while at a pregnant cow that didn't move very briskly for a morning like this. "Listen on the two-way," he shouted, and was out the door and down the steps before Nate could form a question.

Nate picked up the binoculars beneath the seat and grabbed the little walkie-talkie. He watched his dad pick his way down the line of red, snow-dusted backs, and step in among them.

That was his dad, always watching out for everything. Ever since A.G.'s National Guard unit had been posted to Iraq, Nate had been trying to fill his shoes, but it was frustrating for a 17-year-old. He didn't have A.G.'s skills or his instinctive way with animals, and he sure didn't have his size. His one skill seemed to be wondering about stuff. True to form, Nate wondered if one reason for the big tractor and the new round baler was because his dad didn't think either of them was sizeable enough to handle the old square bales. That was OK with Nate because his dad, at 58, was getting a little old for heavy work himself. In his questioning mind, Nate wondered if the big machine was sort of a Christmas present to everybody, spinning hay off the power take-off as easily as a spider laying a web, able to go anywhere, pull any load and save his dad from worrying. To be practical, it was the one thing they had to replace his six-foot-three, 200-pound brother.

The cell phone rang, startling him because he had expected his dad on the two-way and had to juggle the phone to answer it. It was his mother's voice on the phone, calm and competent as usual, but with an edge he didn't recognize.

"Nate?" she asked, "Where's Dad?"

"Down checking a cow, Mom." he said, wondering again. "Anything the matter?"

"Not really," she said, "but I think you'll want to get up here as soon as you can. I shouldn't do this by myself."

Nate knew his mother well. If she shouldn't do something herself, she must really need a hand. This was a woman who put up her own garden and butchered her own deer every year.

"We'll be right there," he said decisively and clicked the two-way to talk to his dad.

In a minute Gerald had climbed in, his face raw with the cold. "Wonder what Mom couldn't fix herself?" he said, over the roar as he turned the tractor up the long feedlot toward the gate. Gerald's patient face was serene with the pleasure of automated things. "Nothing the matter with that cow," he told his son loudly, "just a little slow getting to the feed with all that extra load she's packing."

On the radio, King Wenceslaus and his page trudged snowy fields, and the Blackwell's cow dog that had been tending herd up to now, saw the opening gate and took off like a reddish streak. "Well, will you look at that!" Gerald laughed half to himself. "Old Ginger thinks he's the one Susan's called home."

But somehow Nate knew better, an instinctive feel he trusted. And sure enough when the big tractor rounded the barn, he saw something that he knew would from now on always mean Christmas to him. Next to him his dad gave out a joyful yell and swung open the cab door.

Standing beside his grinning mother in the frigid wind was the biggest, tallest and most sunburned present he had ever seen in his life, with his sister Cindy hanging onto one arm as if she'd won him in the lottery. Ginger, sailing the last gate to the yard, went nuts around the three of them.

Somehow the old world had come up with the answers to all of the questions Nate needed to ask it this year. His brother A.G. had made it home for Christmas.