Read Online A New Day Rising by Lauraine Snelling - Free Book Online Page A

piggyback." Thorliff stopped throwing the stick to Paws long enough to volunteer.
    "Here, den lille guten, come for a ride." Haakan extended his hands, palm up.
    ingeborg thrilled to hear him use her very words for this little one, the first child of her own womb. She held Andrew loosely and leaned slightly forward in encouragement.
    Andrew studied the face of the man, as if trying to learn his character through the inspection. He wiggled in his mother's arms, clamping an arm around her neck for an anchor and waving a pudgy fist in the air.
    "Go on, son, it's all right." Ingeborg spoke softly, laying her cheek against his.
    Andrew sighed as though he'd made a major decision and leaned forward, grasping Haakan's thumb with one hand. The grin showed all five of his teeth and was accompanied by the incessant drool that went along with teething.
    Haakan settled the baby on his hip, wrapped in a strong arm, and they headed across the field to the sod house about a hundred yards away.
    "The boundary line between the two homesteads goes right down the middle here, and this way we are able to help each other more quickly. The first year on the homestead, we all lived in the one soddy we built later that summer. Roald and Carl first spent all the time they could breaking sod, since a house wasn't as necessary."
    "What did you live in?"
    "The wagon. Once we could sleep on the ground, it was much easier. Baby Gunhilde was born on the ship coming over, so that first winter in the soddy we had four grown-ups and two children."
    "And you are still friends?" Haakan shook his head in amazement.
    "More than friends. Kaaren and I are deeper than sisters. We saved each other and fought together for our sanity-and our salvation." Ingeborg didn't elaborate any further. Instead she pointed to a spiral of smoke still farther north. "It is easier now with more neighbors. Why, Kaaren taught school during the good days of fall after the harvest was done and during the winter. Agnes Baard taught us all to speak English."
    "You do speak English?"

    "Ja, somewhat. But Norwegian is much easier yet. There are so many words I do not know, and those I learn, I soon forget."
    "Then we will speak English." Haakan bounced the baby to make him laugh.
    "Velkommen. Velkommen." Kaaren met them before they'd even reached the door.
    The greeting almost took away the concern Haakan's statement caused. Why was it men had a habit of always giving orders like that? Could a man help her and not take over? Was it possible?
    Ingeborg returned the greeting and introduced their new relative, but the questions kept bubbling up like stew set on the stove to simmer.

    Norway
cannot bear to let him go."
    Gustaf Bjorklund rolled over under the quilts that cocooned the aging couple and wrapped an arm around his shivering wife. "But we have no choice. They need him in Amerika, ingeborg and Kaaren. They cannot save the land without men to help them. If they lose the land, we lost our fine sons for naught."
    "It is too high a price." Bridget wiped her tears on the pillow slip.
    "But we knew when they left we would never see them again. I thought we understood that."
    "Ah, but, Gustaf, just knowing they walked the same earth kept Roald and Carl within my heart. Now they are gone, and so is a part of my heart."
    "But ... but we will see them again. They are not gone forever."
    "I believe that too, but ..." She sighed, a mother's sigh that sobbed of love and loss. "Mayhap in some small corner of my mind, I dreamed I would see them again on this earth. That one day, before we died, we, too, would journey to that new land and visit our sons and their sons."
    "You want to leave Norway and move to Amerika?" Gustaf shot straight up in bed. "Surely you don't mean that."
    Bridget laid a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back under the warmth of the goose down quilt. "Nei, I could not leave our home here, not for good. But to visit, ja, that I could do."
    "You would make that long journey, visit,