Read Online Sarah: Bride of Minnesota (American Mail-Order Bride 32) by Katie Crabapple - Free Book Online Page A

only a month or two before her."
    "I'm sorry. How old were you?"
    "I had just turned eighteen. I lived with Jakob and his wife Erna for a month or two, and then I bought this house. I wanted to live on this side of the lake, so I could manage my men more easily."
    "Do you still miss them sometimes?" she asked.
    "My parents? Every day. Jakob is my half-brother, but my father was definitely a father to him as well. We had the same mother."
    "Does Jakob have children?" she asked.
    Karl nodded. "He has two. Lukas and Konrad."
    "What's his wife like?"
    He shrugged. "We'll both meet her for the first time at Christmas. I always row across the bay to stay with them for a couple of days at Christmas every year. I hope you won't mind."
    She shook her head. "But you don't know his wife?"
    "Jakob's wife, Erna, died in February, and he just remarried."
    Sarah frowned. Hadn't Bobbie married a Jakob? No, it didn't make sense for that to be him. Bobbie was far away from them. "I would love to meet your family."
    Karl said nothing else about his sister-in-law, so she didn't either. "Do you want a big family?" she asked.
    He grinned. "Of course. I want fourteen strong sons, and then last I want one daughter. Then all the boys can help me protect her."
    "Fourteen sons and one daughter? Are you kidding?" Sarah clutched her stomach, not wanting to think about carrying that many children. "My mama said seven was plenty for any woman."
    "Not for us," he said with a laugh.
    "Karl Schneider, I sure hope you're kidding!"
    He caught her hand and kissed her fingers. "I'm not, but I'd be happy with one or two. I just have in my head I want fifteen children. I have to have more than Jakob, you see. It's a rivalry thing."
    Sarah got up to get him some more soup from the pot on the stove. "Maybe you'll need four wives to have that many children."
    "Then I'll settle for what you can give me. After having you as a wife, how could a man want another?"
    She blushed at his words. "For a German man, you're very good with sweet talk."
    He laughed. "I watched my father with my mother. He loved her all his life."
    "He did? But, she was married before him?"
    "Her parents didn't like him, so she married the man they wanted her to marry, and she had Jakob. She was miserable, though. She loved Jakob, but she never loved Gunther. Then she married my father, and they had me. She always wanted more children, but God meant for her to only have two."
    "I think that's very sweet. I wish she'd have been able to marry your father right away, though."
    "I think that sometimes too, but Jakob wouldn't be the man he is if we'd had the same father, I don't think."
    "You're probably right. It sounds like he's a good brother to you."
    "And a good father to his boys, as well."
    Karl watched her as she got up and served slices of the cake from the night before. "Will you always spoil me with sweets?" he asked.
    She nodded. "Of course. Mama always said if you want a sweet man, you have to fill him up with sweets to help him be sweet to you."
    "I think I would have liked your mama."
    "Oh you would have. She was wonderful. I miss her every day."
    "But you have many sisters and brothers. Do you write to them?"
    "I will. I've been writing most of them for years. Only one of my brothers was still in Lawrence when I left. Papa made it clear he didn't want us staying there and working in the factories forever. He wanted us to have good lives, and to him, that meant getting out of Lawrence."
    He sighed. "That's sad. I think it's the nature of man to want more for his children than he had, though."
    "I think so too. Mama hated the idea of any of her girls working in the factories, even the ones who only employed women. She thought we should marry and head West."
    "And you did."
    Sarah laughed. "I guess I did."
    She finished her cake and immediately did the dishes. He watched her a minute before asking, "Can't the dishes wait until morning?"
    She turned to him, shocked at the question. "Of course