His Prairie Sweetheart. Erica Vetsch

her, and Agneta beamed, motioning for them to come inside. As Savannah entered the small house, the smell of something rich and meaty greeted her. Her stomach gurgled, and she put her palm to her middle, her cheeks heating. But Agneta just laughed, a delightful sound like bells. She spoke to Elias, pointing to a steep stair in the corner. Lars and Elias staggered up with Savannah’s baggage, and Rut’s eyes widened as they went out for another trip.

      Agneta put her hand on Savannah’s shoulder and directed her to sit at the table. She did as she was bidden, surveying the room. The walls had been painted pale blue on the upper half and a rusty red-brown on the lower. Small-paned windows let in a little light, but the room was dim. A large fireplace and hearth of a construction she’d never seen before took up one corner, and a long table with benches sat before it. Two small cabinets hung from the walls, painted with flowers and scrolls, and a large sideboard with fine carvings took up one wall. In the corner, with a sheet curtain hanging around it to separate it from the rest of the room, sat a bed covered in a pretty quilt.

      Rut sat across from Savannah and propped her chin on her palm, staring.

      Through it all, Agneta chattered away as if Savannah could understand every word. Savannah tugged off her fingerless lace gloves, folded them with her fan and tucked them into her handbag. Her parasol leaned against her leg, and she caught Rut eyeing it. Mother and daughter exchanged a few words and Rut nodded. She popped up and went to Savannah, holding out her hand, then pointing to Savannah’s hat, bag and parasol.

      “Oh, you want to take them?” Relieved at understanding at least one thing, Savannah reached up and removed her hatpin, easing her fascinator-style hat from her hair. “I must look a mess, what with traveling and the ride from town.” She smoothed her hair up from the base of her neck, wishing she was at home so she could sink into the claw-footed tub and wash away the dirt and tiredness.

      Elias and Lars clattered down the steps, and Lars went outside right away, leaving the door open. He dropped to his knees and Captain bounded up, licking his face and tumbling him backward into the dirt. From the sound of his laughter, the boy didn’t mind.

      “There’s just the one case left. But there’s no more room upstairs.” Elias put his hands on his hips. “What’s in that thing, anyway? Oh, wait, I forgot. It’s none of my business.” He shrugged. “I’ll bring it in, but it will have to stay down here.”

      When he’d brought the case in, he set it near the bottom of the stairs. “I have to be going. I promised my pa I’d stop by his place. He owns the next farm to the north of here, about a mile or so.”

      Strange that she had to force herself not to grab hold of his arm and beg him not to leave her. Savannah barely knew him, and they hadn’t exactly been cordial to one another. And yet she wanted him to stay.

      Perhaps she was seeing things that weren’t there, perhaps it was her tiredness putting thoughts into her head, but she thought she glimpsed a triumphant, challenging gleam in his eyes, as if he was daring her to beg him to take her back to town.

      She gathered the last bits of her dignity, put on her remotest expression—the one that her sister Charlotte called her “queen look”—and said, “Goodbye, Mr. Parker.”

      * * *

      “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.