The house was an old, gray Victorian, highlighted in white.  There was a tall gable with a round window.  It had a wide wrap-around porch with a railing and stain glass in its door.  The yard was well cared for and the paint was freshened every few years.  An ancient apple tree was in the front yard, creating shade beyond the porch, with branches reaching almost to the gable window.  The house was located in a small religious community, in upstate New York, called The Brotherhood, a splinter group off of the Hutterites, an Anabaptist group.  The house had been there long before the Brotherhood arrived, and its ornate architecture was not in keeping with the plain folk designs of the Brotherhood.<br/><br/>An older, stern faced woman sat on the porch, looking out over her perfect yard.  Her name was Temperance Amsel and she did not tolerate the children of the community on the grounds which she owned.  She was dressed against the unseasonably cool Autumn, in a long black coat, with a white bonnet on her head.<br/><br/>On the day in question Temperance was fuming at her daughter Patience.  Patience had defied her again, listening to the jazzy music of Peter, Paul and Mary, or some other such group, up in the hayloft of one Farmer Drescher.  Once again, Temperance had locked her in her gable bed room, to think over the follies of her ways.  Despite the fact that the girl had just had her eighteenth birthday, and was considered an adult by the Brotherhood, Temperance knew better.  Patience was an ornery, wayward child still.  She was determined that no man should be saddled with such a willful wife and that Patience would be with her in her old age, to care for her every need.<br/><br/>The Brotherhood had tried to talk with Temperance over the years, with little success.  Where as the other girls in the community had colorful patterns to their head scarves and dresses, Patience was always dressed in white and black, as if she were Amish instead of one of their own.  She had never been courted, nor to any of the young adult socials.  She had been kept apart from the other youth, except for going to church meetings and to school.  She did not even eat in the communal dining hall, in which most others ate.<br/><br/>Patience was a lovely young creature with raven black hair, pale skin and hazel eyes.  She was slender and perfect, which many a young man had noticed.  While she wasn't the steadiest of hand at needlework, nor had the strongest back for farm work, she put her whole heart into her work, as if working for the Lord and not for men.  She was diligent in her care for her aging mother and in her duties to the community as a whole.  It was just her stubborn streak which caused her difficulties with Temperance.<br/><br/>As Temperance sat watching from her porch swing, and Patience from the rounded pain of her bedroom window, a van full of students drove by the house, headed for the community hall.  They were visiting from a local university and there to see the Brotherhood community for themselves.  Temperance did not approve.  What were the brothers thinking, allowing this outside influence to taint their community.  She did not approve of it any more than she did of the units on other countries in the school lessons, nor the pen pals enjoyed so much by the Brotherhood children.<br/><br/>Patience just longed to meet these strangers, with their uncovered heads, strange clothing and laughing faces.  She longed to be with the other young adults who would show them around the community.  Instead, she was locked in her room... again.  It was a cozy little room, with walls the color of a summer's sky and patch work pillows she had sown herself.  It was the one room where mother allowed any color, in the house.  It was also, for the moment, as it had been for so many moments in the past, her prison.