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soon have feather beds of soft goose down.
    Smoothing strings of hair off her sweaty forehead, Kaaren paused to knead her fists into the small of her back, if any part of her could be called small at this point in her pregnancy. Everyone in the area was betting she would have twins.
    “Or one baby big enough to plow the fields already,” she’d told her husband, Lars, when he teased her about her girth.
    While she hated to take the time, she sat down in her rocking chair and put her feet up on the stool. She shook her head at the sight of her swollen feet. Setting them up on the stool was the only way she’d been able to see them for some time. Looking like freshly stuffed goose down pillows was near as she could come to a description. She hated the thought of comparing them to sausages, overstuffed ones at that. Hard to believe she still had over a month to go, at least.
    She rocked gently and let her head rest against the chair back. Solveig, known as the prettiest of the four Hjelmson sisters and the second youngest, had been but a girl when Kaaren and Carl left Norway four years ago. Now she wrote of finding a strong, hopefullyhandsome young man in Dakota Territory. One who loved the Lord as she did and needed a wife. She had sent a telegram from New York when she arrived, so when the paddle-wheeler on the Red River tooted three times, Lars would take a horse to the river to pick her up. They now had a floating dock and a sturdy raft to pick up passengers, mail, and small items ordered from Grand Forks. For things like machinery, they still drove to St. Andrew, where the townspeople had rebuilt the dock to make it sturdier for unloading heavy equipment. Last time she’d taken a wagonful of produce to the Bonanza farm in Minnesota, the dock had looked more like a real wharf, with heavy pilings driven deep into the mud and solid planks for the deck.
    So many changes she’d seen in the time since they’d trekked across half the world to get to their new farmland.
    Kaaren removed the hair pins that held the loosening golden bun at the base of her head and combed her work-roughened fingers through the long tresses. She shook her head, then reformed the bun and secured it again with the pins she had held between her lips. Lars liked her hair streaming down her usually slender back, but that was not seemly for one of her advanced age of three and twenty. She pushed herself to her feet, feeling as though she could explode any minute. “Uff da.” She arched her back, kneaded the spot that ached, and headed out the door to beat the triangle of iron rod that Hjelmer had bent for her to call the men from the fields. The venison stew that had been simmering all morning was ready, and she knew the men’s stomachs had been talking to them for some time.
    A few minutes later she heard Lars whoa the horses and the sound of the jingling and squeak of harness as he pulled it off the team. He would use the oxen for the afternoon sod-breaking to give the horses a rest. Paws’ barking announced the arrival of the boys and Ingeborg, and Haakan wouldn’t be far behind. Often Kaaren cooked for them all when Ingeborg was hunting or, as today, cutting up a deer she’d shot two nights before. Ingeborg had wanted to let it hang longer, but while the nights were cold, the unusually warm days made that impossible.
    With all of them gathered around the table, Lars said grace. “And dear Lord, take extra care of Kaaren right now and the babe she carries. I thank thee in advance for your protection over all of us. Amen.”
    Kaaren swallowed an extra time or two and sniffed. This gentleman she had married caught her off guard so often with his tender concern for her.
    “You sit down and I will serve.” Ingeborg didn’t ask, she just did.
    Kaaren smiled her gratitude and reached over to give her little nephew Andrew a pat on the cheek.
    “Tante ’Ren,” he called her, with Bjorklund blue eyes dancing above a sunny grin. “Good food.”