Free An Untamed Land by Lauraine Snelling Page B

window as the round stone fort filled her vision. She could go inside and find Mrs. Amundson. Surely she would be able to help. She would remember where the grocer’s fruit stand was located.
    But something inside Ingeborg rebelled at the thought. Would she forever be needing others to help her accomplish the slightest thing? That wasn’t why she had braved a turbulent sea and homesickness to come to the new land.
    “Let me see, I’m sure it must be up that way.” She pointed to a street angling off from the one on which they approached the Battery. Her escort gave the driver instructions, and off they went. What is this man’s name? Who is he? Would it be too forward to ask?
    She gave a tiny shake of her head, sending the hat into its final dislodgement. The contrary thing slid forward and completely covered one eye. She sneaked a peek at the man sitting across from her,hoping against hope that he was looking out the window rather than seeing her discomfort.
    He averted his eyes politely, but the smile that tugged at the corner of his shapely mouth didn’t hide quickly enough.
    Ingeborg could imagine what she looked like. A bedraggled kitten wouldn’t be too far off, she knew. She tried to ignore the hat, the close confines of the cab, and the handsome man close enough to touch with her knee. She tried, really she did. But it was too much. A giggle stole past her iron will.
    One look at her escort and they were both laughing like children let loose at recess. When the hat gave up entirely, she raised her arms and unpinned the silly thing.
    “There now,” she said, laying the black hat in her lap. “Now it can fall no farther.”
    “You’d best hang on to it tightly; it seems to have a mind of its own.”
    “Rest assured, I will.” Ingeborg leaned forward and pointed out the window. “There it is, the grocer’s. We found it.” She pulled open the strings of her bag and dug inside for the coins Kaaren had given her. Removing the two copper pennies, she held them out. “This will be enough, don’t you think?”
    “For one small apple, I am sure.” He ordered the driver to stop in front of the apple cart that took up the same space on the corner as it had the day before. When Ingeborg started to rise, he stopped her with a shake of his head. “I will do this for you.”
    “Mange takk.” But when he started to step down without her money, Ingeborg pressed the coins upon him.
    He rolled his eyes upward as if looking for consolation and took one of the coins from her hand, obviously against his will.
    Ingeborg watched as he spoke with the grocer and, with a nod, indicated her sitting in the cab. When the aproned tradesman started gesticulating and raising his voice, her angel pressed the coin into the man’s hand, spoke in a sharp tone, and spun on his heel. The straight line of his mouth told Ingeborg something the grocer said had irritated him.
    “What did the man say?” she asked when he swung himself back in the cab.
    “He demanded I also pay for the apples the ruffians stole.”
    Ingeborg waited until he settled himself in the seat and repositioned his beaver hat, knocked slightly askew by the doorway.
    “And what did you answer him?” Guilt for involving someoneelse in a brew of her own making made Ingeborg twist her fingers together.
    “I told him to move the cart back to where he could keep better track of his produce and quit trying to take advantage of immigrants like yourself. For all I know, he and those two hoodlums are in cahoots.”
    “Oh.” All of a sudden the enormity of her situation rolled over Ingeborg like a thick fog coming in from the sea. Whatever had possessed her to think she could just waltz right out of the boardinghouse, find her way back to the Battery, find the grocer, and then return to the only place that right now seemed like a haven of comfort?
    “Hutte meg tu,” she muttered as she pinned her hat back in place. The simple words could be used as a sigh of disgust