Dakota December and Dakota Destiny (11 page)

“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 around 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.

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?

Reverend Moen’s sermon verse, “. . . and the truth shall set you free,” made her wince.

Caleb looked over at her, Henry sound asleep on his lap. Did he know? Did he suspect? The urge to tell someone her story ate at her for the rest of the week. Should she talk to Reverend Moen? She knew of his kind heart but he would have to abide by the Scriptures. Gudrun? Of any of her friends, she would be the one.

She finished the last stitch in the last Easter dress on Saturday morning, just after dawn lightened the eastern sky. While the sun was not yet up, she went to stand at her kitchen window to watch the band of soft silver deepen to gold and then flame into pinks and purples as the golden disc arched above the horizon. Perhaps they would have good weather for Easter. The thaw had been dripping off the icicles the last four days.

As on the other mornings, her prayer was the same. “Dear Lord, thank You for what You have given me and now, please show me what to do.” The plea had nothing to do with her day’s work. She set bread dough to rising, rolled out and baked a batch of sour cream cookies, and was well into scrubbing the kitchen floor when Sam and Henry snuck down the stairs.

“Breakfast will be ready as soon as I’m done here. Why don’t you let Sam out in the meantime and then go get dressed?” At his nod, she went back to her bucket of soapy water. By the time she’d mopped up the last brush of water, she could hear Angel begin to fuss in the cradle she’d moved into the other room. Sam yipped at the back door, Henry meandered back down the stairs, and Angel passed from fussing to demanding. Like the time and tides, babies waited for no one.

Several people dropped by that day with gifts of food or small household items, welcoming her to the community and making her feel a part of Soldahl. Each time the bell tinkled, Sam and Henry would run to the door to see who was there. Johanna knew they were waiting for Caleb. By the time dusk fell, she could feel her spirits falling along with it. Though it was hard to admit, she’d been looking forward to his visit as much as the two who now had their noses plastered against the front window.

“Supper’s ready,” she called.

Just as they sat down and had said grace, the doorbell chimed again. Sam took off, his toenails making him skid on the freshly waxed floor. When Henry started to follow, Johanna shook her head. “You sit here and eat while the food is hot.” She could tell from the dog’s yips who it was. Henry’s mouth turned down and he hung his head.

“Sorry I’m so late but the train didn’t get here on time.” While he spoke, he set a large square box down on the floor. Sam sniffed it and sat in front of the sheriff, like he was waiting for a description of the contents of the box. Henry turned in his chair and stared from the box to the sheriff’s face and back again.

“I know this is early but I wanted to give him something for Easter.” Caleb shrugged. “I know, I’m as bad as a kid, can’t wait to open boxes.” He raised an eyebrow. “Is it all right—for him to have it now, I mean?”

Johanna nodded. What else could she do? The look on Henry’s face tore her heart out of her chest and plastered it on her sleeve. At her nod again, he darted across the room and placed his hands on the box. Looking up at the man above him, the boy needed no words to voice his plea.

“Here, you want me to help you?” At the boy’s nod, Caleb took a pocketknife from his pant’s pocket and cut the strings. With eyes as big as dinner plates, Henry pulled open the crossed sections of the box flaps and peered inside.

“Yes, that’s for you,” Caleb answered the unspoken question. “Go ahead, take it out.” He tipped the box over on its side to make it easier. Henry crawled halfway inside before backing out, his hand clamped around the handle of a red wagon with bright yellow wheels inside of black rims.

Johanna shot Caleb a look of combined joy and oh-you-shouldn’t-have-done-this.

Caleb raised a hand. “I know what you’re thinking, but every boy needs a red wagon. Just think, this summer he’ll be able to pull Angel around in it. Should keep them happy for hours while you sew away.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Not your place. The wagon is Henry’s and he’s more than thanked me already. Ain’t often in this world you can bring such a light of joy to a child’s face. I’d pay for that privilege many times over.” He folded the box closed. “You want I should put this down in the cellar?”

“No, leave it here.” She pointed to a corner. “He will have a wonderful time playing in that, along with the wagon.”