His Prairie Sweetheart. Erica Vetsch

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      * * *

      “I’m telling you, Pa, you never saw such a proud bit of goods as that new teacher. Tyler must be out of his mind. And he’s laid it on me to look after her while he’s courting the bigwigs in Saint Paul.” Elias unbuckled harness straps as he talked.

      Pa leaned on his pitchfork. “She can’t be that bad. She has the qualifications to be a teacher, doesn’t she?”

      “Oh, she’s probably got some paper that says she passed her classes.” Elias led the mare to the watering trough. “But that doesn’t mean she’s ready to take on the Snowflake School. She’s too young, too Southern and too pretty.”

      Pa’s eyebrows rose. “Since when did being pretty mean you couldn’t teach school?”

      “Since Miss Savannah Cox hit town. I’m telling you, Pa, she won’t last a week. You should’ve seen her, nose in the air, frills and ruffles and a skirt that trailed the ground, parasol and fan and fancy hat. I’m sure she doesn’t own a decent pair of boots or a coat. It probably never gets below freezing where she lives. She had enough baggage to stock a general store. And she’s tiny, too. Just a little bit of a thing. How’s she going to tote the coal and water and break a path through the snow across the fields come January?” He turned the mare into the corral and forked some hay over the fence before following his father to the house.

      “Evening, Mor.” Elias kissed his mother on the cheek. “That smells good.”

      “It’s agurksalat and kjøttboller. Vash your hands.” She dished up the cucumber salad and meatballs, setting the dishes on the table. “Tell me about da new teacher.”

      Over dinner, Elias did, repeating everything he’d told his father and nearly everything he’d thought about Savannah.

      By the time he was finished, his mother was looking at him in that way she had that said she was disappointed in him, that he’d done something wrong.

      “You say she vas cold and distant? You say she looked like da ‘ice princess’?” Ma began clearing plates. “And how many times haff you left your home and family and traveled a long vay to a place vere you do not know da language or da customs or da climate? This new teacher must be frightened and lonely, and you are telling me you did not make her feel velcommen?” His mother shook her head, her gray eyes sad.

      A hot, shameful prickle touched Elias’s skin. His ma must’ve felt that way when she’d left her native Norway to come to America. Lonely and strange, not speaking the language, not knowing the customs. What a dunderhead he must’ve looked, enjoying Savannah’s discomfort, driving away from the Halvorsons’ so sure in his mind that he had been wasting his time. Well, he was sure that he’d been wasting his time, that she wouldn’t last long in the job, but he could’ve been nicer about it.

      “I just don’t want a repeat of last year, that’s all.” He scrubbed his palms on his thighs under the table. “The kids deserve better than that.”

      His parents shared a long look. Surely neither of them had known how he felt about Britta, about the plans he’d been making to court her? The plans that had been shattered when she’d left without saying goodbye.

      Pa picked up his newspaper and dug his spectacles from his overalls pocket. “Your ma’s right. And anyway, who says the new teacher can’t adapt? Your ma didn’t know a lick of English when we met, but that didn’t stop us from communicating.” He winked over the top of his paper, and Ma blushed, as she always did. “Tyler must have faith in this Miss Cox to do the job. It’s up to us in the community to make sure she feels welcome and to help her in any way we can. Just because one or two teachers didn’t last doesn’t mean this one won’t.”

      Ma looked Elias hard in the eyes. “Tomorrow you vill be nice to da new teacher. You vill go to da school where she vill be cleaning it for Monday, and you vill invite her to our house for dinner after church on Sunday, ja?”

      “Ja, Mor.”

      Elias accepted the slice of apple pie she handed him. He would be nice, he would look after the new teacher until Tyler returned to take over the job and he would pass along his parents’ invitation, but he would also stay aloof. He couldn’t risk getting too close to an outsider who wouldn’t last past the first frost.

Chapter Three

      The Halvorsons rose before the sun, and Savannah rose with them. Her muscles ached from the bouncy stage ride and the night spent tossing on a rope-strung, straw-tick bed for the first time in her life.

      How she missed her feather and kapok mattress and her down pillows. She missed her sisters’ chatter as they dressed. And she missed the familiar house sounds of the servants carrying tea trays and tapping on doors. Most of all, she missed sleeping in on a Saturday morning.

      Rubbing her neck, she strained to see in the dim light of the loft. A single, small-paned window at the end of the room showed the grayish-pink light of the coming dawn. Mrs. Halvorson called up the stairs again.

      The loft was divided into two rooms, not by a wall, but by a curtain of pillow ticking material strung on a wire. On the far side lay Lars’s portion of the upstairs space, a fact Savannah had been conscious of as she tossed and turned last night.

      Rut rolled out of her side of the bed and plucked her dress off a peg. She glanced over her shoulder with a quick smile, said something Savannah couldn’t understand and began dressing. Savannah slipped from beneath the quilt, ducking to avoid hitting her head on the steeply sloped roof. She wrapped herself in the shawl she’d laid close to hand the night before, and searched through her luggage until she found the valise she thought contained her most serviceable skirts and blouses.

      Rut tapped Savannah’s shoulder, raised her eyebrows and pointed to the buttons up the back of her dress. “Vennligst?”

      “Oh, of course.” Savannah began to do them up for the little girl. Through the curtain that divided the room came rustling and bumping, followed by clattering down the steep staircase.

      Rut soon followed, leaving Savannah some privacy in which to dress and fix her hair. She found herself banging her elbows on the roof, barking her shins on the many boxes and bags, and struggling in the cramped space to find what she needed. She would have to bring some organization to her possessions if she was really going to spend the school year here.

      She paused. Of course she was going to spend the school year here. She’d signed a contract, given her word. And besides, admitting defeat before she even started wasn’t her way. Why, Aunt Carolina would never let her live it down if she quit this soon.

      Shaking out a tan-and-blue-plaid blouse with a minimum of lace, she paired it with a businesslike brown skirt. The severe lines of the front fall and the spare draping and gathering to the bustle would surely be suitable for a schoolteacher. Digging farther, she found the box containing her new, high-topped black boots, the most serviceable footgear she’d ever purchased. Almost no heel, sturdy laces and dull black leather. Savannah wrinkled her nose as she stuck her boot-clad foot out and surveyed the results. Her sisters would laugh.

      Fully dressed, she eased down the precipitous staircase into the kitchen. Mrs. Halvorson stood at the cupboard slicing bread, her back to Savannah. There was no sign of the children, and Savannah didn’t know how to ask where they’d gone. How was she ever going to survive СКАЧАТЬ