“I’ve heard many good things about your mother and her medical knowledge. I think you inherited that from her.” Mrs. Jeffers glanced from Astrid to her son. “I wonder what you inherited from me.”
“Pure stubborn tenacity, I think.”
“Are you saying I am stubborn?” Her eyes twinkled.
“Not exactly, but tenacity is what kept me looking for my father. Without that I would have stopped before we learned the truth.”
“So are you saying you are still searching for information?” Astrid asked.
“Yes. I feel there is more to the story. You have to admit there are many strange things that happened. Someone, somewhere, knows more of the answers.”
“Thorliff is like that. Says he has a nose for news. That’s why he runs a newspaper.”
“His newspaper should get awards for quality for a town this small. In fact, for towns far larger. Few local papers have a women’s page like his does or opinion columns of this quality.” Mrs. Jeffers smiled her thanks when Lily Mae set their cold drinks in front of them.
Astrid enjoyed hearing them discuss Thorliff’s newspaper. She’d always thought it was good, but then, she’d not had much to compare it to. The conversation through dinner ranged from the growth of Blessing to garden flowers and on to indoor plumbing and the advent of electricity.
Astrid enjoyed every minute. When they were finished with dessert and coffee, she thanked her hostess.
“I’ll walk you home,” Daniel said.
Astrid started to object but decided that would be rude, even though her home was less than two blocks away. They made a detour past his house, which had the cellar dug and the concrete set. In the morning the men would be laying the floor joists and beginning to frame the walls. They had purchased the quarter-acre lot north of the surgery, or Thorliff’s house.
“This won’t be as large as our house in Iowa, but the yard will be near the same size. I think I will eventually put up a garage for when I buy an automobile, but not now.”
“No horse and buggy?”
“No. I’ll continue to rent those from the livery whenever the need arises. Would you be interested in a ride one of these Sundays?”
“I don’t know why not.” They ambled back to the surgery and sat down on the swing on the front porch, talking all the while. He asked her about her time training to become a doctor and then told her what going to college had been like. She asked about his sister, and he told her stories of when he was young.
“I always knew I wanted to produce my father’s inventions. He had such good ideas, and I believe he was on the brink of something really big. I have a trunk full of his notes and drawings and plans. Once we get the seeder in production, I want to look at his papers more critically and decide what to work on next.”
“I wish I had met him.”
“You would have liked him. He would have fit in so well here in Blessing.”
“Have you talked any of these things over with Mr. Sam? He runs the livery and the blacksmith shop.”
“No, but Thorliff mentioned that one day. He says the man is a genius at duplicating a broken part.”
“He is. I’m sure if he’d had any schooling, he’d be an engineer for sure.”
“Sometimes schooling isn’t the only answer. Experience counts for more in the long run. I’ll make a point of befriending the man.”
“I better go in before Thorliff sends a posse out looking for me.”
She rose and he with her. “Good night, Mr. Jeffers. I had a delightful evening.”
“So did I. We will do this again.” He touched her hand and strolled down the steps to whistle his way up the street.
She covered the spot with her other hand. Hmm.
27
“Look at this.” Thorliff laid the letter in front of Daniel the next morning.
“Who is it from?” Daniel glanced down to the signature, then back to Thorliff. “A sheriff in Kansas?”
“Yes, and I think he has our man. There aren’t too many going by the name of Harlan Jeffers. And the description fits him to a tee. His actions are indicative of the man who left here.”
Daniel scanned the letter and then read it again more slowly. “He’s in jail in Wichita, Kansas, for bilking the local citizenry, and Sheriff Connally thinks he is our man.” He blew out a breath. “I’ve dreamed of this minute. I can be ready to leave in half an hour. Will you come with me?”
Thorliff thought for a moment. “I would go, but I think taking Pastor Solberg might be better. They won’t argue with a man of the cloth, and he knows all that went on here too. Let me give him a call.”
Daniel read the letter again. Could this really be the man who last saw his father alive? The sheriff in the town where he’d located the body had said they thought his father died of natural causes, but this might be one more page in the story. His thought that he should tell his mother was tempered with What if this isn’t the right man? He hated to see her disappointed again.
Thorliff returned. “He said he’d meet you at the train.”
“I guess that locks this in. I’ll wire the sheriff to let him know we are coming.” Daniel quickly finished up some paper work in the office, met his mother in the dining room, and made the eastbound train by waving and hollering to the conductor when he called “All aboard.”
“I didn’t think you were going to make it,” Pastor Solberg said when Daniel dropped into the seat beside him.
“I think this time I cut it almost too close. I’ve not had to run for a train before.” He puffed out a breath and stashed his carpetbag under the seat. “Thank you for joining me. I sure wouldn’t recognize the man.”
“I can still hear his voice. It had a perpetual whine to it, whether he was smiling or not. I didn’t trust him from the first time I met him, but you can’t turn a town against a man over a feeling.” Solberg shook his head. “I can’t believe the amount of traveling I’ve been doing lately. All these years I never left Blessing for more than Grand Forks, and here I am on my way to Kansas.”
“Via Nebraska.”
“And it was South Dakota before that.”
“Where were you from, before you came to Blessing?”
“I grew up in Minnesota, so I haven’t traveled too far. Attended Augsburg Seminary in Minneapolis. Back in the really early days. I never dreamed I’d still be in Blessing all these years later.”
“Between teaching school and pastoring your church, you keep very busy.”
“After this summer, teaching will seem like a vacation.”
By the time the train pulled into Wichita the next day, the two men had become fast friends. Daniel spent part of the time on paper work for the business while Pastor Solberg read a book. Then Daniel started two letters that he planned to add to each day. If he mailed them before heading home, so be it, but if he didn’t, his mother and Astrid would both have a journal, each from a slightly different point of view, of his journey. Why he was doing this for Dr. Bjorklund, he wasn’t sure, but it seemed a good thing to do.
They made their way to the sheriff’s office and pushed open the door.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” the man said after the men from Blessing gave him their names. “You are the witnesses from – ” he glanced down at a paper on his desk – “Blessing, North Dakota?”
“Yes, sir. And yes, that is the real name of the town. I am Daniel Jeffers, and this is Pastor John Solberg of the Blessing Lutheran Church. Since I have never met this Harlan Jeffers, it seemed a good idea to bring someone who had.”
“Very wise. Sit down, please.” He indicated the two chairs at the corners of his desk. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Something stronger?”
“No, thanks. Can we see the man?”
“In a moment. I need to write some notes here. Pastor Solberg, you knew a man named Harlan Jeffers in Blessing?”
“Yes, he came to town and bought the general store from Mrs. Hjelmer Bjorklund, who was moving. He had sufficient money t
o place a sizable amount down and signed a contract that said he would make regular monthly payments until the balance of the account was paid off.”
“And did he live up to his word?”
“For a time, but bit by bit he managed to offend the people of Blessing to the extent that they quit shopping there, so he had no money to restock. Then he started selling liquor from under the counter. We have a dry town in Blessing, and that further angered the townsfolk. But when he made unwelcome advances on one of our town daughters and then attacked her, he signed his time away in Blessing. People were ready to run him out of town on a rail, including tar and feathering. Mrs. Bjorklund agreed to take back her store, and we hustled him out before he was attacked, with a signed agreement that he would never return to Blessing.”
“He sounds like a real winner.” The sheriff turned to Daniel Jeffers. “Now tell me your side of this convoluted tale.”
“My father set out to find investors to help him produce a piece of equipment he had invented to improve the quality of seeding machines. All of a sudden, we, my mother and I, quit hearing from him. I journeyed out to see if he was injured or dead or to find whatever news I could. I kept hitting blank walls until I heard of a man in Blessing, North Dakota, by the name of Harlan Jeffers who had purchased a store there. Thinking that might be a clue, I went to Blessing, only to find that the man Harlan Jeffers, who had left by then, bore no resemblance to my father. But in an accidental way, the people of Blessing found something of my father’s taped to the bottom of the store’s cash register drawer.
“The man seemed to have disappeared, but I backtracked to a town in southern Minnesota, where they had found a man lying dead by the road with no identification. He seemed to have died of natural causes, so they buried him. I identified him as my father by a couple of scars and his unusual right thumb, which was missing half of it. But that is all we knew. The money and papers he’d had with him were never found, other than that piece under the cash register drawer.
“My friend and now business partner, Thorliff Bjorklund, who owns the newspaper in Blessing, sent out the information to see if anything would ever happen.”
“I see.” The sheriff looked up from his notes. “Let me take you back to talk with this man.” He unlocked the door to the row of cells and led them to the third cell, where a man lay sleeping on the cot chained to the wall. He banged on the bars. “Jeffers, you have company.”
The man turned his head, and his eyes widened. “Pastor Solberg, you gotta believe me. I didn’t kill nobody. I never killed no one.” He sat up, scratching and shaking his head.
“Guess that answers one question,” the sheriff said. “He’s your man all right.”
“Not my man, but he is the one we ran out of Blessing.” Solberg turned back to face the prisoner. “I think you would do well to tell the whole story, the true story, or you might be facing a hanging.”
“I didn’t kill him. He was dead when I found him.”
“So, you – ”
“Took all his clothes and his money and satchel and thought I was the luckiest man alive.” He shook his head. “Stupidest thing I ever done. Oh, and I took his name too. Found it on the papers.”
“But my father’s name was Daniel Jeffers.”
“Harlan is my first name. Thought I would do better if I had something of my own.” He stared down at his hands. “But I didn’t kill him. He were already dead but not too long. He was laying there by the road, all crumpled, is all I know.”
Daniel heaved a sigh. “Then that is the end of that. I could sue you for the money you stole from my family, but that would indeed be a waste of time. I’m sure you’ve broken some laws, but I am finished with you. Thank you for pasting my father’s plans under that drawer.”
Harlan screwed up his face, then snorted. “So that’s where it went to. Forgot all about that.”
Solberg looked at the sheriff. “Do you need us for anything more?”
“Nope. Thank you for putting some more pieces in the puzzle. He’ll probably do some time for swindling the good folks of Wichita, but since his story pretty much agrees with your story, he won’t be indicted for murder. At least not that one.”
“I never killed nobody. Never.”
Daniel turned back to the bars. “What is your entire real name?”
“Harlan D. Jones.”
“Please stop going by Jeffers. I hate that smudge on our family name, Mr. Jones.”
The thief nodded. “All right.”
“Do you have the law after you by your real name?” Sheriff Connally asked.
Harlan shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. That was a long time ago.”
The three men sighed as one and stalked down the hall.
That night on the train bound for Kansas City and the Twin Cities after that, Daniel wrote the entire tale up for his mother and a briefer version for Astrid, sealing them in separate envelopes. For his mother, this would mean an end to her speculation. For Astrid? He wasn’t sure if he would give the pages to her when he returned to Blessing or somewhere down the road. It would depend on which road they took. At least he still had his father’s trunk and all the wealth of his ideas.
Was it time to seriously pursue something he’d only dreamed of – a wife? For the first time in his life, he thought he’d found one he wanted. Now all he had to do was convince her of the idea.
28
“I guess Emmy not coming back, huh, Grandma?”
“Don’t give up yet. School isn’t quite here,” Ingeborg consoled her morose little granddaughter.
“But her kitten is near grown, and she doesn’t even know her. And school starts next week.” She glanced down at her new pinafore. “I get to go to school too.”
“Only in the mornings.”
“I know.”
“Emmy goes all day. Carl’s too little.” Inga nibbled on the edge of a ginger cookie that she had decorated with three raisins. “I miss Emmy.”
“Me too.” Every day she kept watch for a man walking across the land with a little girl following him. How would he know when it was time for school? Had he really nodded or had she been living a pipe dream all summer? Lord, I have to trust you on this. Not only because there is nothing I can do, but because I want to. I want to trust you in all things.
Of course she was trusting Him with Haakan too. How easy it would be to come up with all the bad things that could happen to the men on the threshing crew. Why is that so hard at times like this? She thought for a moment. Well, any hard time for that matter. Lord, I will trust you. Lord, I am trusting you. I am.
“Grandma, you look sad.”
“I know, Inga. But I am asking God to help me look happier.”
“Will He do that?”
“He says He will.”
Inga swung her legs, knocking her bare feet against the leg of the chair, the look on her face one of pondering also. “Will He make me happier too?”
“If you ask.”
“I asked Him to bring Emmy home, and she is not here.”
“Yet.”
“Ja, yet.” She picked off a raisin and ate that alone, then nibbled on her cookie again, going all around it, one little bite at a time.
Most children, Carl for example, just gobbled a cookie down and asked for another. But not Inga. She had always had her own ways of doing things. Lord God, what do you have in mind for this child I love so dearly?
“Do you want some coffee with your cookie?”
Inga’s face brightened. “You too?”
“Me too, and if that is who I think it is coming up the lane, we will have someone else for coffee.”
Inga bailed off her chair and ran to the door. “Tante Astrid is coming.” She slammed open the screen door and charged down the steps and the walk to meet her aunt at the gate and throw her arms around her.
Ingeborg watched from the doorway, not sure which of the two was happier. Astrid swung Inga around in a circle, and the two walked up to the house with lock
ed hands swinging and smiles that dimmed the sun. Lord God, what gifts you bring to me. You made me happier in an instant. And look at Inga. She’s radiant.
“What are you doing out here on a workday?”
“Elizabeth is taking care of patients, and I had to get away from that stack of catalogs and books and pictures and . . .” She shook her head, tipping her wide-brimmed straw hat slightly to the side. Reaching up, she pulled out the hatpin and removed the hat to lay it on the table on the porch. “There. Now it can’t slip any further.”
“Coffee?”
“And cookies,” Inga added. “I helped bake them.”
“We had a telephone call from Pastor Solberg and Mr. Jeffers. They identified the man in jail as Harlan Jeffers, but his real last name is Jones. He did not kill Mr. Jeffers, the father. He found him lying crumpled beside the road. So now the Jefferses can know that all is finished. I’m sure he called his mother too. He and Pastor are on their way back.” Astrid set the cups on the tray, and Inga added a plate of cookies.
“That will be a huge relief for Amelia, although she knew her husband had not been killed, or at least it didn’t appear that way. She says that moving here was the best thing to happen to her in a long while. There were just too many memories in their house. Her daughter and her family moved into it when Mrs. Jeffers came here. So the house stays in the family.” Ingeborg poured the coffee and set the pot back. “Let’s go outside. You know, I’ve been thinking that we should screen in the porch, since we live out there so much. Get rid of the flies and hornets. Cut down on the mosquitoes too.”
Astrid picked up the tray. “Open the door, Inga. We’re coming out.”
“I am. Hurry. The bee is trying to come in.” She slammed the screen door shut, then opened it again. “Ha!”
“Did you get him?”
“No, but he didn’t get in.” She held the door for Astrid and Ingeborg, then went inside to fetch the flyswatter.
Astrid and her mother sat down in the rocking chairs after setting the tray on the low table. “I am happy for them,” Astrid continued.
A Heart for Home Page 24