A Heart for Home (31 page)

“Sophie has always enjoyed lovely clothes, even when we were little.”

“Have a good time.” Elizabeth waved.

“It’s not like I’m going to Grand Forks or something. Just down the street.” But Astrid waved back and continued on her way. Both of the Jefferses were sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch of the boardinghouse. They waved as she crossed the street, being careful to keep her skirt hem out of the dust.

“Thank you, dear, for coming on such short notice and an invitation by telephone, no less. My but we are getting lax in the social graces.”

“Funny you should say that. Elizabeth and I were just discussing the same thing. She had to remind me to put a hat on.” Astrid climbed the three steps. “Aren’t porches one of the better inventions?” She turned to Mr. Jeffers. “Welcome home. It sounds like you had a very successful trip.”

He stood and motioned for her to take his chair. “Thank you. No, you sit here, and I’ll pull up another one.”

Mrs. Jeffers leaned across and patted her hand on the arm of the chair. “This is such a pleasure. I don’t know why I haven’t done this before.”

“Perhaps because you believed the edicts regarding proper decorum for grieving widows.” Mr. Jeffers set another chair down and settled into it. “I think that is one of the things I love about Blessing. There is more freedom here. Not so many people trying to tell you what to do because that is the way we have always done it,” he said, mimicking a whiny voice on the last.

Astrid chuckled. “I’ve heard about that, especially when I attended the missionary school in Georgia. Many of the people there could not abide the idea of a young unmarried female doctor going off to Africa as a missionary. Fortunately there were some who felt that God will use anyone He wants as He wants.”

“But you didn’t go to Africa?”

“No. Dr. Elizabeth nearly died with her last baby, and I understood God to say I could come home. I didn’t really want to go to Africa, but if He was calling me there, I would go.”

“You are an adventuresome young woman.”

Astrid leaned forward. “I just want to do what God wants me to do. Sometimes I seem to lean on the hard-of-listening side.”

“Listening?” Mr. Jeffers raised an eyebrow.

Astrid looked at him with a slight smile. “I know I have good hearing, so it must be listening that is the problem.”

“Hearing the voice of God takes one deeper. When my husband disappeared, I felt like God had left also. But I made myself listen harder, read the Word, search for what He said He will do. And the comfort came. Not in a rush like I wanted, but it came trickling in, surprising me in small ways and helping me to sleep better. I was certain my Daniel was safe in God’s hands. Learning he was gone and not suffering somewhere was a relief. And then I came here.”

“And I’m so glad you did. Thank you.” Astrid pushed with her foot to set the chair to rocking. “I so appreciate your teaching my nurses how to speak English. It seems to have lightened their fears, so they smile and laugh more. At first I was afraid I had made a mistake in bringing them here, but now I know it was right.”

“Our construction crew is the same way. The men can laugh at their mistakes in speaking, fall back into their native tongue, and try again. Thorliff is so good because he can speak Norwegian to some of them. And Mr. Geddick takes care of the others. Poor Boris Sidorov. He struggles on alone, but I give him credit. He is a good carpenter and uses what new words he has.”

“I think we should go in to eat now,” Mrs. Jeffers said. “They’ve most likely served the majority of the people.”

Mr. Jeffers held the door for them both and escorted them into the dining room to a table set apart with a small vase of flowers in the middle.

“Isn’t this lovely?” Mrs. Jeffers turned to Astrid. “I asked for flowers. I miss my garden so. That is one thing I am looking forward to once I’m in my own house again.”

“If you wanted to go out and putter in the garden behind the boardinghouse, I know that Sophie would be delighted. She wants her guests to feel at home, and if that will help you, so be it.”

“She wouldn’t be offended? Not Mrs. Sam either?”

“No. Most people in Blessing are not easily offended. I think it goes back to that freedom we were talking about. You could come over to the yard around the surgery too or go out to my mor’s. We all love to share both the bounty and the beauty.” She smiled up at Mr. Jeffers as he helped seat her. “Thank you.”

“Thank
you
.” His emphasis on the
you
made her heart trip.

Her slight laugh covered a bit of discomfort. What was going on? Surely she wasn’t attracted to this man.

“Good evening,” Miss Christopherson said as she stopped at their table. “I hope you’ve had a pleasant day. Welcome back, Mr. Jeffers.”

“It’s good to be back,” Mr. Jeffers said.

“Good evening, Miss Christopherson. I would like something cold to drink to start with.”

“We have milk, buttermilk, raspberry swizzle, and lemonade.” As they all placed their orders, Astrid kept herself from looking across the table at Daniel Jeffers. “I received your letter today,” she told him when Miss Christopherson left.

“I’m sorry it didn’t arrive sooner. I carried it in my pocket for two days before finding a post office.”

“That’s quite all right. I really wasn’t expecting to receive it.”

Mrs. Jeffers picked up the vase and smelled the flowers. Daisies, delphinium, and baby’s breath. “Isn’t this lovely,” she commented as she replaced the flowers in the middle of the table. “At home I had flowers in every room through the summer months. In winter I used pine boughs and fir with dried birch branches and sometimes holly berries. I always watched for the pussy willows to announce that spring was on its way. One year I saw an ad for a curly willow. From then on I had willow branches with plenty of personality. I wonder if that will grow here.”

“Wild willow does. We use the dried bark for several different medications. Mor gathers the bark during the summer, then once it dries, pulverizes it for her collection. It tastes bitter, so we add honey for our patients.”

“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?”