Free Dakota Dawn by Lauraine Snelling Page A

with all the noise around here.” Inge’s glance around the kitchen included the chattering children as all four went about their chores, Mary firmly telling each one what to do. The teakettle sang merrily on the stove and, up until a few minutes ago, there had been two babies crying. “I just don’t understand why he thinks this is noisy.” Her eyebrows nearly met her hairline.
    Nora laughed along with her friend. “This is the way homes are supposed to be. Someday, I want one just like this.” She put the baby up to her shoulder and patted his back. “Just like this.”
    “With two babies at a time?”
    “Well . . . maybe one by one.”
    The clock bonged eight times.
    “We must hurry if we don’t want to be late to Sunday school. Here, Mary, you take James while I finish making the breakfast. The table looks lovely.”
    While Ingeborg was giving out assignments, Reverend Moen let in a blast of cold air as he came through the door. “What a beautiful day we have,” he said as he hung up his coat and hat. “Why it’s ten degrees above zero and getting warmer. Pretty soon, the chinook will come sighing across the plains and, before you know it, spring will be here.”
    He rubbed his hands together, warming them above the stove. “Wait until you see spring here on the prairie, Nora. It is like no other season.”
    Nora, like a good guest, kept her doubts to herself. What could possibly be beautiful about this flat country? Now, spring in Norway—that was sight and sound to behold. The cracking thunder as the rivers broke loose from their winter dungeon and the logs cascaded down with the ice floes. The birds returning in flocks to darken the sky and the masses of green bursting forth from the soil as the sun shone longer each day.
    The ache of homesickness caught her by surprise. To stem any tears that threatened to overflow, she swallowed the lump in her throat and rolled her eyes upward. Better remember that Old Man Winter still held her beloved homeland in his icy grip.
    “I . . . I’ll take Peder with me while I go get ready. Unless you need me for something else first?”
    “No, no. You go on.” Ingeborg shooshed her away with fluttering hands. She went back to stirring the mush that was thickening under her watchful eye.
    “I’ll hurry.” With the baby in one arm and the pitcher of warm water from the reservoir in the other, Nora went up the stairs. She propped the infant against the pillows and continued talking with him as she washed her face and hands. Before she was half done, he had fallen asleep.
    With Reverend Moen encouraging haste, they finished eating and cleaning up in time to be bundled up and out the door, arriving at the church as the first of the other families were hitching their horses to the rails.
    It felt like home to Nora and yet she felt strange and out of place. This was the first time in her life she had worshipped in a church other than the one at home. While people were speaking Norwegian around her, none of them were her relatives. At home her aunts and uncles and cousins, besides brothers and sisters, made up half of the congregation.
    Nora smiled as each person was introduced. But she kept waiting for one man, Carl Detschman, to appear. He had said he would join them for church but he still had not arrived as the organist played the opening songs.
    They had settled in the front pew. Nora rocked the baby in her arms, Kaaren was beside her, and Mary next. Ingeborg was shushing Grace and Knute. What a pew-full they made.
    Nora did not realize until the closing hymn how much she had been waiting for a tall, broad-shouldered farmer to join their group. She kept hoping he had sat in the back and, when they turned to leave, she thought she saw that familiar blond head leaving before anyone else. He had said he would join them for church. If it was him, why did he leave so quickly?
    Peder had slept through the service, much to Nora’s relief, but, when they stood for the