Larkspur Read Free Page A

work on the boats carrying freight up and down the Mississippi River. Since then he had come home, at times, to help his brothers put in the crops or to harvest them, considering it his duty to help provide for his mother and unmarried sister.
    Ferd considered Gustaf a man without substance, but her cousin had always been dear to Kristin, and she looked forward to his visits home. Without Gustaf’s urging, Kristin doubted that she would have had the courage to defy Ferd and set out on this long and uncertain journey.
    Heavens! The farthest she had been from home was Eau Claire, and that was only one time when Ferd wanted her to tend the children while he and Andora mixed with the social set.
    The lamplight threw Kristin’s shadow on the wall. She watched it as she rocked. It was very strange to be sitting here, ready to leave this place where she had spent the past ten years. It didn’t seem that any of this had really happened. She wished with all her heart that she wasn’t leaving with an irreparable rift between herself and her brother.
    What in the world would she do if this turned out to be a hoax and there was no inheritance? She would do as she had always done, she told herself sternly. She was not helpless. She could cook and sew and . . . milk cows.
    I’m sure they have dairy farms in Montana.

     

Chapter Two
    D awn came.
    Kristin had slept only fitfully all night. For the last hour she had been awake and listening for the birds to chirp in the trees above the house and for the roosters on the next street to announce the new day. At the first sound she got out of bed, went to the window and looked out. The sky was clear. This was the first day of her new life. She would be starting it in fine weather.
    After lighting the lamp, Kristin used the chamber pot. She usually waited until she was dressed and then went to the outhouse, but this morning she felt defiant. She smiled knowing that her bit of revenge was childish.
    How long would it be before Andora thought to empty the pot?
    Last night anger and hurt had vied with one another in her heart, but this morning she felt as brave as an angry lioness. During the night the fear of the long journey and what she would find at the end of it had left her. Come what might, she would at least see another part of the world. She washed her face and hands in cold water from the pitcher, not bothering to fetch warm from the cookstove reservoir. She dressed, braided her hair and fastened the coils around her head with the large ivory hairpins Gustaf had brought her from some faraway place. Her stomach growled as she put the small-brimmed straw hat on her head and secured it with a hatpin. She had been so nervous last night that she had scarcely eaten anything at all.
    She had been careful with what she packed to take with her. Besides her clothes and a few mementos, she took only what she had brought with the dollar a month Ferd had given her for her special use after she had nagged him for weeks because she wanted to buy a real toothbrush.
    The house was quiet as she carried her baggage out to the front yard. She struggled with the small trunk, returned for the box and then for the bag and shawl she would carry on the train. Gustaf was coming to take her to Eau Claire to catch the train. Train. Never had she imagined that she would be going to a distant land on a train. With her baggage piled just inside the yard gate, she returned to the house one last time to pause in the front hall and listen. No footsteps sounded from the upper rooms. All was still.
    Ferd was not coming down to say good-bye.
    By the time she returned to the front gate, Gustaf had arrived. Dear Gustaf. What would she do without him? He hopped down from the buggy and tied the horse to the hitching post. The cousins could have passed for twins though Gustaf was a half head taller than Kristin and his blond hair was a shade darker. It matched the rakish mustache on his upper lip. He wore a smile on his