The Light Keeper's Legacy (A Chloe Ellefson Mystery)
structure with no roof, they were told, was considered abandoned) to make their own. In the space of a single summer they’d added neat rows of cedar shakes overhead, and a border of daisies planted with seed carried across the Atlantic. It was becoming a hygge home—warm and welcoming.
    Their homesite was on the far northern edge of the village, and that pleased them both. The Danes and Norwegians on the island had welcomed them; the Yankees and Irish too, mostly. Still, sometimes Ragna liked hearing birdsongs through the window instead of a babble of foreign voices.
    Now Denmark seemed as far away as the moon. She’d written to her brothers, urging them to come. Carl and Jens had no more opportunities in the old country than Anders did. They will like it here, Ragna thought as she strolled south, passing cabins and cottages. Several children darted past, shrieking with laughter, and the rhythmic thumps of mallet and froe rang from one of the cooperages. The air smelled of whitefish and smoke.
    A path led down to the beach, lined with Mackinaw boats pulled onto the cobbles. Fishermen were emptying their boats and women taking nets to dry. A boy was stacking cordwood on the dock for the next steamer. The lake rippled gently beneath a soft pink sky. Ragna smiled, well pleased.
    Then an angry voice knifed through the evening. The boy was being berated by a stocky man. One of the Irishmen … Carrick Dugan, wasn’t it?
    Carrick Dugan whipped the hat from his head and slapped the boy with it. The boy cowered, hands raised. Dugan smacked the child with his hat again.
    Ragna snatched up her skirt and pounded down the dock. “Here, now!” she said, in Danish because she had little English yet. “There is no cause to beat the boy.”
    Dugan glared at Ragna, pushing his chest out like a riled rooster. His red hair reminded her of a rooster, too.
    Two men stacking kegs of salt on the beach paused in their work. “Let it go, Dugan,” one of them called.
    Dugan kicked the child.
    “ Stop! ” Ragna grabbed Dugan’s arm. She meant only to pull him away, but Dugan stumbled against the firewood. Windmilling his arms, he fell backward from the dock, landing in waist-deep water with a splash that dampened Ragna’s skirt. The men on the beach whooped with laughter.
    The sputtering Irishman scrambled to his feet. Water streamed from his clothes, his hat. Dugan looked at Ragna with such rage that something beneath her sternum went cold. Then he floundered ashore and stalked away.
    Mette Friis, one of the other Danish fishwives, paused to scold the laughing men before hurrying down the dock. She spoke softly to the boy. Then Mette put an arm over Ragna’s shoulders and led her to shore. “You must stay clear of Dugan,” she advised in a low voice. “You shouldn’t have intervened.”
    “He was hitting a child!”
    “Dugan is a bad one,” Mette said, her tone hushed. “He has always been quick to anger, but after his wife ran away—”
    “His wife ran away?”
    “She did. I helped her hide away on a passing sloop.” Mette lifted her chin. “You must never repeat that. I hope she is far away, living a happier life.”
    Ragna didn’t know what to say. What kind of life could a runaway wife hope to find?
    “She was Danish ,” Mette added. “She humiliated Dugan by running away. You must stay away from the man.”
    That night, when the fish had been gutted and cleaned and packed, Ragna told Anders what had happened. “I think I made an enemy.”
    “It will blow over.” Anders pulled his pipe from his jacket pocket. “Dugan started the trouble.”
    “But Dugan was the one who ended up in the water!”
    “We’ve come to a good new place.” Anders began tamping tobacco into the pipe. “I will always thank you for insisting that we come here.”
    “But—”
    “Don’t dwell on one sorry incident. The man is a bully, and got no more than he deserved.”
    The man is a bully, Ragna thought. And whether in a schoolyard

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