The Children's Blizzard(88)

    City girl, he’d called her with affection—and regret.

The homestead was looking good; they’d added another barn, there were more milk cows, more chickens, an entire coop of them, neat little rows of laying hens. With the money from the Heroine Fund, she had been able to hire two hands to help with the work, now that Papa was starting to show his age. No longer could he tie a fence without suffering from it the next day, barely able to flex his fingers in his arthritic hands. He had a difficult time ceding work to anyone, but Mama, with her gentler, coaxing ways, was able to get him to once in a while.

Mama, too, was showing stiffness in her hands and snow in her hair. Sadness in her eyes, when she didn’t think Raina was looking. Sadness over the empty chair, empty room. Sadness over Gerda.

Raina shook her head and concentrated on the problem at hand, on how she was going to broach the subject with Anette about her future. She supposed the girl could stay in Omaha with the Johnsons; that seemed a possibility. With a high school education she could surely work in a post office or maybe even answer telephones for a company. Maybe she could even work in a store like this one, a neat, bright little dry goods store that catered to women, particularly to university students with limited funds but unlimited appetite for fashion. It was a cheerful, pretty store with enormous feathered hats in the window, dresses on dummies, rolls and rolls of satin and silk and cotton and braided ribbons, so pretty and gay in all the colors of the rainbow. Raina glanced over at Anette, who was looking at some ribbons, and tried to picture her working in a dainty place like this.

Anette had grown tall, she had matured with a full bosom—fuller than Raina’s own—and wide hips. Despite her sophisticated dress, her fashionable bonnet and gloves—covering up the wooden hand—she looked out of place here. She was no beauty, but she had grown out of much of her ugliness. The pockmarks had faded and were less pronounced; her eyebrows weren’t so heavy, her hair had darkened to a honey brown. She had full lips and high cheekbones that enhanced her clear blue eyes. But it would have been a stretch to call her pretty according to the current fashion of delicate bones and tiny waists and pale faces. Anette’s cheeks were always stubbornly ruddy, even though it had been years since she’d worked outdoors with any regularity.

    Raina stopped by the fabric counter and fingered a very pretty tartan plaid; it would do for a good winter dress. She was searching for a pattern when she heard her name spoken by a hesitant, masculine, voice.

“Miss Olsen? Raina?”

“Yes?” She turned, expecting it to be a former or current pupil of hers, for she took tutoring jobs fairly often. Despite the money still available to her from the Heroine Fund, she could not stop herself from squirreling away more for the future. It was in her thrifty blood.

And it was a former pupil of hers who had called her name, but not one that she expected. To her astonishment, she found herself staring up into the face of Tor Halvorsan.

“Tor!” she cried out, very undignified, before she could stop herself. She resisted an urge to throw her arms around him.

Then she felt herself unaccountably shy, for here was a man. Of course—he was only a year younger than she was, so that made him, what—twenty? He was handsome with the Halvorsan looks—jutting chin, glossy eyebrows, thick hair, honest eyes. He was wearing city clothes that looked borrowed, the jacket slightly snug across his broad shoulders, his collared shirt gaping a little across his chest. The pants, however, were too big and were hitched up with suspenders. And he was wearing his dusty farmer’s boots.

    He looked as out of place here as Anette did, Raina mused, gazing at him a bit too long as he began to color; and for a moment, he resembled that earnest young man he had been the last time she’d seen him. The good boy, who had given up an education to remain with his mother and siblings.

“What brings you all this way? And in a shop like this—the last place on earth I’d expect to find you!”

“Just a trip to look at some new plows. There are some newfangled ones that run on steam now, you don’t even need horses or oxen. Imagine!” And the way his eyes sparkled at this, Raina knew that he was a farmer now, through and through. Only a farmer could get moony over a new plow.

“How is your mother? Your brothers and sister?” It had been a long time since Raina had heard news of the family, for she and Tor had never really written to each other. She sent him a postcard when she first got to Lincoln, but he hadn’t replied. After a couple more postcards, she’d given up, knowing that he was probably too busy to correspond. And too shy.

“Fine, fine. We are good. I haven’t been to town in a while, so I wanted to bring something back for Mama. I saw this store across from the hotel where I’m staying, so I thought I’d buy something here. I thought she might like a hat. Do you think? Although there are so many!” He pointed to the hat section, such a glazed, helpless expression in his eyes, Raina had to laugh.

“I think she would love a hat, and I’ll help you pick one out.” They walked over to the hat display, looking at all the concoctions that sang out to Raina, but that would be ridiculous for a farm woman. Still, she handed him a pretty blue silk bonnet with only a few ruffles on it. “This might do. Now tell me, how are you?” She held him in her gaze; she would not let him off with a Norski’s stoic “Fine.” And as she dared him to tell her the truth, she felt something in her heart begin to unfurl.