Read how a bizarre lady shakes up a town and makes a hero of the local handyman. A potential priest who has pledged himself to celibacy finds himself alone in the wilderness of canoe-country with three young women. A color-blind genius amazes his wife when he ad libs, barely, a way to get by. A woman yearning for a baby turns to--or away from--a wizard's spell. A rural academic finds a way to reconcile his difference with an old Norwegian farmer. These stories follow real-to-life characters responding to the twists and shoves that other people, for reasons of their own, put on them.