Read Sarah: Bride of Minnesota (American Mail-Order Bride 32) for Free Online Page B

nodding for him to sit at the table. She put a plate piled high with pancakes beside his setting and a plate with bacon next to it. She poured him a cup of coffee and a cup for herself before sitting.
    After he'd prayed for them both, Sarah put two pancakes on her plate and added syrup, noting that she should go to the store for some butter. It had never occurred to her he would have neither butter nor cream to make butter from. Of course, even if he'd had cream, he had no butter churn, so what good would it do?
    After Karl had gone to work for the day, she went into his room to make his bed. On his pillow, she found a note. "Don't forget to go to the store to get your sewing machine today. You are a hard working woman, and I like you. Karl."
    Sarah laughed softly at his efforts to be romantic. She'd teach him. Certainly a man like Karl could learn. He seemed to want to!
    She left for the store immediately after making the beds and cleaning the kitchen, having made a long list of things she needed for the house, including a scrub board and a strong rope she could use as a clothesline. The man didn't even have the basics for washing laundry! How had he survived without a wife?
    When she got home, she went into the bathroom and gave it a good scrubbing. She'd wanted to spend some time in the bath the previous day, but because there was so much else to do, she hadn't taken the time. She'd made do with just a quick sponge bath. Today, after the store delivered all of the items she'd purchased, she would take a bath. She was excited at the prospect of taking a bath when she didn't have to haul water for it first.
    She finished her cleaning of the bottom floor of the house a short while later, happy to call it done. She was sitting down to eat a bit of the leftover beans from the previous night when there was a knock at the door.
    The same delivery boy from the previous day carried everything into the kitchen for her, except the sewing machine. "Where do you want that, ma'am?"
    She frowned, thinking about it. She certainly didn't want it in the parlor. She hadn't even investigated the upstairs yet. "Put it in here," she said, indicating the room she was sleeping in. She could make this into a sewing room when she stopped using it for sleeping in.
    He carefully put it into the corner of the room where it was out of the way, and she looked at it with a smile. It was a newer model than the one she'd used in the factory, and she was excited to give it a whirl.
    After he was gone, and she'd finished her lunch, she hurried into the kitchen and mixed the dough for bread, kneading it on the work table. She wanted the bread ready for dinner that evening.
    Going down the stairs, she scrubbed the clothes she'd tossed the day before, and put them in a basket. When they were all clean, she carried them up the stairs and out to the line to hang them. It took her two trips to get them all, but when she was done, and the clothes were flapping in the breeze, she was pleased.
    Just as she was finishing up to go into the house, she saw Mrs. Norman standing outside watching her. As she got closer she stopped. "Well, hello. Thank you for the warning about German men not knowing anything about romance." Sarah shook her head. "I've never seen anything like it."
    Mrs. Norman laughed. "Karl is something special, isn't he?"
    Sarah grinned. "He is that. Have you been doing his laundry?"
    "Oh, yes. It's not a chore I begrudge you. The man will wear a pair of pants until they can walk around on their own."
    "Yes, I noticed." Sarah shook her head. "They're all clean now, though. And his sheets."
    "I wondered about his sheets. I should have asked." Mrs. Norman shook her head. "If you need anything, you be sure to let me know. And come over for some tea and cookies sometime soon."
    "Oh, be sure I will. I have the house almost caught up, and then I will be able to spend a little more time at leisure."
    "Remember, if you get too busy to cook one day, Karl would be