“Why not? It isn’t like you have a trainload of stuff to move. We’ll hitch up your horse and bring him ‘round to the mansion. I heard tell that there are a few others with items to help you get started, the Moens for sure.” Caleb hefted Henry up on his shoulders. “Let’s get to it.” He waved to Dag who was just handing Gudrun into the sleigh. “I’m ready anytime you are.”
Dag returned the wave. “I’ll meet you at my house then.”
“How about you and Henry stop at your new house? You can look around and decide where you want things while we load up.”
Johanna felt caught up in the middle of a twister. “But . . .”
“No problem, Mrs. Hanson and Clara know what is to go, they’ll probably beat us over there. Gudrun can watch Angel until we get things a mite more settled, then we’re all invited back for supper. I think Mrs. Hanson had this all planned, she just likes to let the rest of us think we’re in charge.” He took her arm and, all the while he talked, they made their way up the now bare boardwalk to stop right in front of the picket fence surrounding the weathered building. He pushed open the gate and waved her through.
Johanna stopped halfway up the walk. An aged oak tree spread bare branches over the western side of the house, promising the cool rustle of leaves and shade during the hot summer. One branch cried for a rope swing. Under the snowbanks, Miss Sharon had said, slept hollyhock and pansies, daisies and daffodils. Johanna closed her eyes to imagine a pink climbing rose twining up the porch post and across the lintel. She’d have a rocker on the front porch and maybe a pot of flowers, bright and cheery. Miss Sharon’s sign would come down to be replaced by . . .
Her eyes flew open. “What am I going to call my shop?”
“Johanna’s sounds good to me, better than Carlson’s.” His voice came from right to the left of her ear. She could feel the heat of him, even through her wool coat. The temptation to lean back and let his strong body hold her up sent warmth flying into her face. She could feel it, like a windburn. Almost in desperation, she fumbled in her pocket for the set of keys. With them securely in her hand, she led the way up the steps, across the porch, and to the storm door. She took a deep breath before opening the door and sliding a shaking key into the hole. She turned it, heard the click, and, after shooting an imploring look, put her hand on the knob.
Please, Lord, let this be the best move ever. Please bless us and our new home. She took another deep breath, let it out, and turned the doorknob. The bell tinkled over the opening door, a welcome sound, and she stepped inside. Sure enough, all the fabrics were as she’d seen before. The room looked like Miss Sharon might be in back, working on a garment for a customer. Johanna fought down the urge to call “Is anyone home?” and took two more steps into the room.
“You’ll be all right here?” Caleb’s deep voice broke the stillness.
“Ja, we will.” She whispered her answer, afraid if she spoke too loud, the spell would break. At that moment she slammed the door on that former life, one she would put out of her mind and heart forever to begin this life anew.
“I’ll be going then. We should be back within an hour or so.”
She turned and looked up to the man who had set her son down when they came through the door. The low ceiling didn’t allow for a tall man with a boy on his shoulders. “Thank you, Caleb. I cannot say it enough.”
“You just look around and decide where you want things so’s we can all help put them away when we get here.”
“I will.” She crossed the room again to let him out the door, her very own door, to her very own home and shop. “Good-bye.” She turned to find Henry right behind her, his eyes huge in his face. His lower lip quivered.
“What is it, son?” How she wished he would talk. Life with him would be so much easier.
A tear trembled on his lashes.
“Did you want to go with the sheriff?” He nodded. A light burst in her mind. The dog, of course, the dog. “Sam will come back with him. He couldn’t go to the church with us, you know.” How she hoped Caleb would leave his dog with her son just a few more days. Enough time to get him settled in this new place. Come spring, perhaps someone would have a puppy to give away.
He brushed the tear away and heaved a sigh of obvious relief. Then, taking her hand, he joined her in her exploration of their home.
Together they opened cupboard doors and pulled out drawers. They located the door to the basement and decided not to go down there until they had a lamp. While the house was lit with gas lights, she wasn’t even sure how to operate them, let alone find one in the dark. Up the narrow stairs to the second floor she threw open the door to a room under the eaves.
“This will be your room, Henry. See, your own bed, and look out the window. You’ll be able to watch the horse and our cow, when we get one, out in the field.” She plopped down on the bed. “What do you think?”
Henry stood at the window, then turned with a smile on his face. With a deep sigh, he ran and threw himself into her lap, burying his face in her skirts.
Johanna stroked his head. “I know, son, I know. We can both feel safe here.” She lifted his chin and kissed his forehead. “Come, let’s see the rest.”
They’d only gotten as far as the workroom when the bell tinkled in the shop.
“Mrs. Carlson?” A woman’s voice, one Johanna didn’t recognize, called.
“Ja, I am here.” She dusted off her hands and pushed the curtain aside to greet her guest. “Mrs. Moen, what a nice surprise.”
“I was afraid you might not be here yet, but we brought a few things to help you set up housekeeping.” She opened the door and called, “Come on in!”
Within minutes the room was full of Moens, each bearing a gift of some kind, a nine-patch quilt, some canned fruit, a loaf of bread, butter in a butter mold, a braided rug rolled under Mary’s arm, and finally Reverend Moen entered carrying a rocking chair.
“Where’s Angel?” Mary asked.
Johanna turned to the girl. “Mrs. Norgaard is keeping her.”
“Oh.” The girl’s face fell. “I was hoping to hold her.”
“Where do you want me to put this?” asked John Moen.
“In here by the fire,” Ingeborg answered, motioning him into the kitchen. She found places for each of their offerings and kept on being the shepherd as the wagon pulled up from the mansion. The children helped bring in the boxes and, as soon as Clara made it through the door, she began putting food in the pie safe out on the back porch, dishes on the cupboard shelves, and handed Henry the broom.
“That goes out on the back porch, I imagine.” When Dag brought in a rather large box, she showed him the stairway going up. “That’s linens so we can make the beds.”
Johanna had never felt so loved and useless in her life. Here were her friends doing all the things she should be doing and that would take hours. They were finished before sundown.
“Now, isn’t this just the nicest?” Ingeborg Moen clasped her hands and gazed around the kitchen. A teakettle now steamed on the stove and the braided rug lay in front of the sink that sprouted a red pump on the left. A red geranium with a white eye graced the kitchen window sill and two dishtowels hung on the rack on the side of the cupboard. Henry sat in the rocker with Sam at his feet and one of the Moen children kept the chair moving.
“I’m sure Mrs. Hanson has supper ready so we best be going.”
“And Angel is probably screaming her head off.” Johanna grabbed her and Henry’s coats off the pegs by the back door and bundled him into them. How could she have forgotten Angel in the midst of all this bounty? Poor baby certainly wouldn’t accept such an excuse.
“We can all load in the wagon, then I’ll take the Moen’s home when I bring you back,” Caleb said with a nod. He signaled them all to the door and, once outside, closed it behind him.
“Shouldn’t I lock it?” Johanna fingered the key in her pocket.
“Whatever for?” Caleb stopped with one foot on the lower step. “No one ar
ound here locks doors.”
“But it was locked when we came.”
“That was only because Miss Sharon wasn’t sure how long before you’d move in.” He took her arm. “Besides, it seemed more official this way. Come on, supper’s waiting.”
Feeling carried along by a rushing river, Johanna joined the others in the wagon. They really should have runners on it in this snow and ice but the horse pulled it forward anyway.
They could hear Angel crying as soon as their feet hit the front step.
Chapter 15
Bright and early Monday morning her first customer walked in the door.
Johanna laid Angel back in the cradle Gudrun had loaned her for downstairs and pushed back the curtains to the shop. “Good morning, how can I help you?”
“I would like a new outfit for Easter. Miss Sharon said she wasn’t taking any orders and that I should come back to talk with you.”
Johanna extended her hand. “I am Johanna Carlson and I will be glad to make you a new garment for Easter. Do you have an idea what you would like?”
The customer took Johanna’s hand and shook it vigorously. “I am Mrs. Ernest Hopstead, wife of the bank manager. I believe you already have the beginnings of a fine reputation here in Soldahl. Miss Sharon usually let me look through the Godey’s books until I found something I liked and then she talked me into what might look better.” She gestured to her rounded figure. “But what she came up with was always stylish. I will need a hat to go with it.”
Johanna could feel her heart hopping up and down like a frightened bunny. Dear Lord, please give me wisdom. “Have you looked around at the new spring materials? Miss Sharon had a goodly stock put in before she left for which I am exceedingly grateful.” She studied the woman before her. A blue would like nice with her faded blond coloring. She crossed the room to a bolt of watered blue silk, not even daring to look at the price marked on it. “I think this would be lovely on you.” Draping a length of fabric over the woman’s shoulder, she moved her to stand in front of the full-length mirror.
“Oh, that is nice.” Mrs. Hopstead slid gentle fingers over the sleek fabric. “And silk rustles so prettily too. Let’s do it in that and now to find a dress I like.”
Johanna sat her in front of a round table with a fringed cloth that swept the floor. The three latest fashion books already lay on the table. “I’ll let you look and be right back.” She no more got back to the kitchen to check on Angel, who was now sleeping, and Henry, who was playing with a horse and rider Caleb had given him, than the bell over the door tinkled again. By noon she had two dress orders for Easter and a set of monogrammed sheets for a wedding present.
By the end of the day she had her work cut out for her. Two more women had come in, one ordering three summer dresses for herself and two each for her two daughters.
“Make Abigail’s, that’s the one in blue, extra nice because it’s time she caught a beau,” the woman confided.
“Oh, I will,” Johanna promised. “You’ll all come by for a fitting the middle of next week?”
The other needed some alterations and wondered if Johanna could come to her house to fit them. With a smile on her face and panic in her heart, Johanna agreed.
She put the children down for their naps and began cutting the watered silk. She’d talked Mrs. Hopstead into tucks down the front of the bodice rather than gathered lace like the picture showed, knowing that lace would make the woman’s bosom larger, which it certainly didn’t need. She’d found the card file with Miss Sharon’s comments on her customers as to what looked good, their measurements, and what they had purchased in the past. Carefully she had measured the woman to make sure the size hadn’t changed. It had, making her grateful for her caution. Wisely she kept the numbers to herself, quickly realizing the woman had a vain streak about a foot wide.
The bell tinkled again and she left her cutting table to see who it was. “Clara, how nice of you to stop by.” Relief poured through her at the sight of her friend. “Come in, let me put the coffeepot on.”
“I hear you’ve been busy today.” Clara pulled off her gloves and removed her coat.
“Ja, how did you know?”
“Oh, a little bird told me. I’m so happy for you, I could bust.”
“Don’t do that, Dag would get very upset with me.” Johanna smiled in answer to the beam Clara sent her. “You are looking mighty happy today.”
“I know, I have the most wonderful secret but I can’t tell Dag yet until I am absolutely sure.”
“You are with child.”
Clara nodded. “I—we’ve been waiting so long and I was beginning to be afraid it wouldn’t happen. Gudrun kept telling me all in God’s time, but I never have been the most patient person.” She looked over to the fine cottons. “You know all those baby things we made, I think that is what turned the trick.”
Johanna chuckled along with her friend. “Come, we must have some of Mrs. Hanson’s apple cake to celebrate.”
Clara hung back, wandering over to the delicate cottons. “I was wondering if you would make us a baptismal gown for him or her. Of course Dag will say it is a him but we both know how important girls are too.”
“I would love to sew that for you, and at least you don’t have to have it done by Easter.” Together they made their way to the kitchen, Clara admiring the silk on the cutting table on the way.
“I will need some things let out soon and I thought maybe you would make me some others with an expanding waist or no waist at all. I haven’t even told Gudrun and Mrs. Hanson yet.”
“Of course.” Johanna rattled the coals and dropped in a couple of pieces of small wood to get the fire going faster. She pulled the coffeepot to the front. “This will only take a minute. You are the first one to drink coffee with me in my brand-new house.” She took cups and saucers out of the cupboard, admiring the small stack of dishes as she did so. All of this was hers. For the first time in years she had things of her own, things no one would throw and break, pretty things that she didn’t have to hide.
She’d just shown Clara to the door and gone back to cutting when Angel began to whimper. When Johanna finished cutting out the skirt panel, Angel was in full cry. Henry made his way down the stairs into the kitchen and stood at her knee as she settled Angel to nursing.
The bell over the door tinkled again. “Anybody home?” A man’s voice called.
“Yes, Caleb, we’re in the kitchen.” She should have put the closed sign on the door if she wanted to nurse her baby in peace. She threw the baby quilt over her shoulder, already feeling the red climb up her neck. A man walking in on a woman nursing her baby just wasn’t proper. “Henry, you go bring the sheriff back here, okay?”
The boy blinked sleepy eyes but nodded. When he heard a dog whine, he flew through the curtained door.
Johanna listened as the man and dog greeted the child. How good it would be to hear a childish voice responding. As a baby, he had made gurgling noises and answered her with coos and smiles. He’d begun to talk too so she knew he could. But ever since that night, he’d never spoken again, learning instead how to disappear into the woodwork so no one would notice him.
With Caleb he was a different child.
“Sam said he was getting mighty lonely for his friend here, so I thought maybe I would loan him to you for a couple of days, help you get settled and all, that is, if you want a dog under foot.” Caleb had removed his coat and hat and hung them on the coat tree near the front door. He ran a hand back over his hair to smooth it down. The gesture tugged at her heart. Such a fine man he was, both in appearance and in heart.
“I don’t mind at all. I know Henry missed him but I explained you needed him too.”
“And that made it all right?”
She shook her head. “But he understood and endured.”
“I think for such a small one, he’s endured a great deal.” Caleb pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and turned it so he could sit with his arms crossed on the back.
If you only knew. She hoped the thought didn’t show on her face. It was hard to keep secrets from this man; he was too used to reading faces for the truth.
Angel finished her meal and let out a loud burp. Johanna rose to her feet and excused herself so she could put her dress back to rights. The baby waved her arms and smiled up at her mother, a milky bubble caught at the corner of her mouth. Johanna snuggled her close and kissed the downy hair, coming in darker than the baby fuzz.
When they returned to the kitchen, Caleb sat cross-legged on the floor, rolling a ball to Henry. “I just happened to see this at the Mercantile and thought that a boy needs a ball. I’m thinking that when spring comes, we’ll have to put up a swing from that oak branch out there. God made it perfectly for such a thing.”
“You’ve been reading my mind.” Johanna spread a quilt on the floor and laid Angel on her tummy in the middle. She ignored the swipe of a tongue from Sam on the baby’s cheek and went about warming the coffee again. “Would you like to stay for supper?”
“No, I better get on home, I have chores to do and . . .”
Johanna could almost finish his sentence: “. . . and it wouldn’t be proper for the sheriff to be seen leaving the seamstress’s home after dark.”
“Another time then.” She turned with the coffeepot in one hand and a cup and saucer in the other. “I’ll serve this at the table.” She poured two cups of coffee and a glass of milk for Henry, and then put a plate of cookies on the table, thanks to Mrs. Moen, and laid a couple of spoons in front of Angel.
Before she could sit down, Caleb had pulled her chair out for her. She took her seat, the heat rising up her face again. Why did this man have such an amazing effect on her? And what could she do about it? While her heart said one thing, her head overruled it. There was nothing she could do but ignore her emotions.
On Sunday he showed up to escort her to church. She’d spent the week sewing far into the night and rising early in the morning to continue her work. Every day she thanked the good Lord for the sewing machine that whirred away the hours. The fittings went well, in fact everything was going so well. How could life be so good to someone who was living a lie?
Dakota December and Dakota Destiny Page 11