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they took out their needlework and drank tea. Nils followed his father into the den.
    As soon as they were settled into their leather chairs in front of the fire, Nils, ever mindful of the time, broke the silence. “Today you asked me what I planned to do about my failure to try my hardest at my studies.” His father nodded, tamping the tobacco into his pipe at the same time. “I have an idea that could be very effective.”
    RA nodded again and leaned back to draw on the pipe, puffing a smoke ring into the air, something that had enthralled his son when he was small.
    “I propose that instead of working at the office this summer, I take the summer off to spend in the mountains. I believe time there will help clear my head and get my feet on the right track so that in my senior year I will strive to be at the top of my class. I will agree to settle down, as Mor has also requested, and we will plan the next steps for me in life.” He paused. Had he said enough? Too much? Would adding “I promise” make a difference? He watched his father blow another smoke ring and nod slightly.
    “So you think you can do that? Be at the head of the class?”
    “Yes, sir, I do.” Nils kept his eyes from slitting to match his father’s.
    “Turn your studies around and take honors in each class?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And this plan of yours to clear your head and rejuvenate your ambition is not just a ploy to avoid working in the business?”
    “I have already learned the lessons of business and would simply be relearning them were I to stay here. You yourself extol the value of compromise, of tempering the absolutes of life.”
    RA nodded thoughtfully. Nils’s hopes soared.
    The gentleman leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “In a word: no.”

4

    V ALDRES , N ORWAY
    “Jonas is serious about going off to Amerika?” Hilde asked her husband at the breakfast table the following Saturday.
    “I believe so. I reminded him that we never heard from our Bjorn again, but Jonas is sure nothing could happen to him.” Arne shook his head. “Pass the ham, please.”
    Ingeborg recognized the tightening of Mor’s jawline that said she was fighting the tears that had flowed so often over the last year. She’d often said it was the never knowing. And the dream that her second son was still alive. But if he were alive, why had they not heard from him? It was strange that they’d never heard a word. Surely if he had died on the passage, the shipping line would have notified them. And now Mor’s youngest brother was planning on leaving too.
    “So when does Onkel Jonas plan to leave?” Mari asked.
    “Yet this spring, it sounds like. As soon as they’ve gathered enough money for his passage. He wants to farm there so he will take the railroad up on the offer to help him find land.”
    Ingeborg knew Far sometimes let himself dream of thechallenge of crossing to Amerika. But he owned land in Norway, even though it was not enough. Did one ever have enough land? But were it not for the seter in the summer, they would not have sufficient pasture and hayfields to feed the number of cows and sheep they ran.
    She caught her mother’s glance and got up to bring the coffeepot to refill the cups. Surely they would need midwives in Amerika, not that she was anywhere near trained enough. What if she were to ask Onkel Jonas if she could go along? What would Mor and Far say to that? But if she left, who would run the seter? Gunlaug could.
    She paused by the fireplace. Today she needed to churn the cream into butter. Why that had become her job, she had no idea. Mari needed to be learning to do this and let Ingeborg go out and work in the garden.
    She looked to Gilbert. “Will you have time to plow the garden today?”
    “We are going into town,” Far said in that flat voice that brooked no argument.
    “Then may I use the team?”
    “I will help you,” Hjelmer offered, glancing at Far, who nodded.
    She ignored the daggers she could feel