His Prairie Sweetheart Read online

  Sure enough, the skunk had vacated the steps and was waddling along the foundation, head low, tail low, scurrying through the tall grass. Perfect.

  Elias drew his gun. The animal disappeared around the corner, and Elias moved to follow, slowly, careful to keep his distance. Just a few more steps and it’d be back in sight. Once the skunk left the shadow of the school, he’d—

  A scream filled the air, along with the unmistakable tang of eau de polecat.

  * * *

  A sharp whistle startled Savannah, and she jerked, knocking the edge of the water crock against the pump handle. A chip flaked off the crock and hit her in the cheek.

  Cap shot up from the grass and tore around the edge of the school before she could stop him.

  Wincing at the damage to the pottery, she eased the heavy water jar to the ground and started after the dog. Elias shouted something, but she couldn’t hear him clearly, so she picked up her hem and hurried, anxious to get Cap back before he got in the way.

  The dog began barking, and Savannah broke into an unladylike jog. As she rounded the back of the school, something moved in the grass at her feet. Stunned, she froze, but it was too late.

  The skunk turned, lifted its tail and let fly.

  The stench hit her like a wall. She screamed, instantly regretting opening her mouth. Her eyes filled with stinging tears and her nose began to run. Throwing up her hands, she whirled and ran back toward the pump.

  Gagging and choking, she dropped to her knees. Plunging her hands into a bucket of water, she doused her face. She sniffled and coughed, repeating the water treatment, but it didn’t seem to penetrate the stench. Horrible, horrible smell!

  It was everywhere. Her clothes, her hair, her skin. The air she breathed was coated in skunk aroma.

  A gunshot split the air and she yelped. Face dripping, eyes streaming, she looked over her shoulder. The furry black-and-white animal lay still on the grass.

  Elias ran toward her, but stopped twenty feet away. His face screwed up and he backed off. “What happened?” He paused. “Never mind, I can tell what happened. What were you doing, charging a skunk? Why didn’t you stay back?”

  Her ire rose from the shards of her shattered dignity. “This isn’t my fault. Cap ran when you whistled, and then you shouted, and I thought you wanted me to come get the dog. I ran, and then the skunk was there and...” She hiccupped. “You were going to shoot the skunk, not chase it right at me.”

  “I hollered for you to stay put, not to come belting at us. I wanted the dog so I could scare the skunk out from under the porch.” Elias edged backward with every sentence, covering his lower face with his hands. “Anyway, I shot the skunk.”

  “Wonderful.” She stood, arms out, water dripping from her face, creating huge damp blotches on her dress. The water seemed to make the smell worse, if that was possible. The brim of her bonnet trapped the horrendous odor near her face, and she shoved the hat back, facing into the breeze, which didn’t help much. “What am I going to do?”

  “Um...wait here. I’m going to get a shovel and bury the culprit.” He crossed the yard toward the lean-to stable.

  “Wait here. Where else am I supposed to wait?” Savannah grabbed the dipper hanging from the pump and took a drink, swishing the water in her mouth and turning away to spit it on the ground. It didn’t help. She could still taste skunk.

  Elias returned, scooped up the carcass and walked off, holding the shovel at arm’s length. He buried the skunk out behind the privies and sauntered back, again stopping a good distance away.

  “Now what?” She dug for her rosewater handkerchief, but the sodden mess stank of skunk.

  He pushed his hat back and scratched his head. “I guess I’d better take you to Ma. She’ll know what to do.”

  Captain took one whiff of her and whined, backing away, sneezing and rubbing his nose on the ground. Wonderful. She smelled bad even to a dog. When she reached the buckboard, the horses stamped and shook their heads, sidling and snorting. This really was too much. Tears burned her eyes, both skunk-induced and shame-caused.

  “I think you’d better ride in the back.” Elias sounded apologetic, but she pounced on the hint of smothered laughter in his voice.

  “You think this is funny?” Humiliation burned her skin and shriveled her heart.

  “No, of course not.” His denial fell flat because it was drowned in a strangled snicker. He swallowed and composed his face, still keeping his distance, making a wide arc around her to get to the other side of the buckboard. “Can you get aboard by yourself?”

  Without answering, she scrambled into the back, hiking her skirts and edging onto the bed. Her feet dangled off the small tailgate, and she gripped the low iron rails on either side.

  Cap refused to jump up, tail low, skulking ten yards away with a wary look in his eyes.

  Elias slapped the team and urged them into a fast trot. The horses settled down, and Savannah shrank into herself, fighting her tears and not succeeding. Her beautiful dress, her hair...the tremendous smell. And Elias thought it was funny. She was mortified.

  They whipped down the road, and she realized he was driving fast, not to get her to help quickly, but to create a breeze that kept the worst of the smell behind him.

  Captain must’ve known staying upwind was the smart course, because he loped ahead of the team as if being chased. Savannah hung on as they bounced and rattled, kicking up dust.

  The drive seemed to take forever, even at their rapid pace, but finally the Parker farm appeared. Elias pulled up in front of the house and shouted for his mother.

  Mrs. Parker came out, drying her hands on a dishtowel. “Ja, Elias, I did not think you were coming today. Ah, Miss Savannah...” She stopped. The dishtowel came up to cover her nose. “Vat has happened?”

  “She got skunked.” Elias stood away and put his hands into his pockets. “I thought you’d know what to do for her.”

  “Oh, you poor barn.” Mrs. Parker jumped into action. “Elias...” She rattled off several commands in Norwegian that Savannah didn’t try to decipher. She was too miserable to care. Now that the buckboard had stopped, the smell swirled around her, as heavily as ever.

  Elias nodded. “I’ll put the horses away and get right on it.” He motioned to Savannah. “She wants you to go around back to where the clotheslines are strung. She’ll meet you there.”

  Savannah gingerly crept off the buckboard, keeping her head down. She was an affront to herself, much less to others, and to be dragged to Elias’s mother’s doorstep smelling like this... She blinked hard, but a pair of tears gave up the fight and raced down her cheeks. Even the lovely flowers planted along the front porch seemed to shrink away from her as she passed.

  The clothesline poles stood behind the house in the glaring sunshine. Nearby, a huge brass cauldron hung from a tripod over spent ashes.

  “Stakkar.” Mrs. Parker hurried down the steps carrying an armful of blankets. “Stakkar.” She shook her head, wincing as the smell hit her afresh.

  “I don’t know what that means.” Savannah shook her head, wiping her tears.

  The older woman began pegging the sheets to the clothesline to form a square. “Poor dear? Ja, poor dear. I am so sorry this happened to you. It is unpleasant, ja? But it is not forever. I vill help you.”

  Elias emerged from the barn, went straight to the house and returned carrying a tin bathtub. The outside of the tub had been painted with flowers and scrolls and lacework after the manner of so many Norwegian furnishings. He set the tub in the middle of the blanket enclosure. “I’ll get a fire started and fetch the water, and then I’ll make myself scarce.”

  “And I vill bring the vinegar and soda and the soap. I vill need much vater, Elias. Go now.”

  Savannah could do nothing but stand off to the side and watch until Mrs. Parker motio
ned her over to the little cubicle. “My husband is still in town, and Elias vill stay inside until I call him. Do not vorry. Ve can help.”

  The kindness in the woman’s voice was Savannah’s undoing. She burst into tears, giving way to her misery. Mrs. Parker tutted and steered her behind the quilts, then helped her disrobe and step into the tub. She tossed Savannah’s clothes out.

  “There’s hardly any water in the tub.” Savannah sniffed and wept, swallowing hard and hiccupping.

  “Ve need de vinegar first. And de soda. It vill make a mess, but it vill help vid the smell.” Mrs. Parker poured the cold vinegar over Savannah’s hair and then dumped a handful of baking soda on her. The concoction foamed and bubbled up. The sharp tang of the vinegar cut through the skunk smell, and for the first time, Savannah had a glimmer of hope that perhaps she wouldn’t always smell like a polecat.

  With strong fingers, Mrs. Parker scrubbed and kneaded Savannah’s hair and scalp. A washcloth plopped into the water. “You scrub vid vinegar, too.” Something in her tone reminded Savannah of Aunt Carolina, the way she took charge of every situation and knew just what to do in every crisis. Homesickness swamped Savannah, and she cried into the bathwater as she rubbed and scrubbed.

  It took three full vinegar baths before Mrs. Parker was satisfied, and even then Savannah caught whiffs of skunk when she moved. After the vinegar came the homemade lye soap. Her skin tingled and glowed redly from the fierce scrubbing. After a final rinse, Mrs. Parker wrapped Savannah in a sheet.

  “You vait here. I vill bring clothes.” She lifted one of the blankets. The day was warm, but Savannah felt chilled as she stood on the grass in her bare feet. And she smelled like pickling brine, which, while better than skunk, still wasn’t great.

  Mrs. Parker returned with a towel, as well, and wrapped Savannah’s hair in it, then stepped outside again so she could dress in private.

  It felt strange wearing another woman’s clothes, but Savannah was grateful. She’d never worn such...rustic fabric. A homespun skirt, an ivory blouse that had probably started life white, hand-knit stockings. And a pair of square-toed shoes that had seen better days.

  And yet they were loaned generously. Savannah cautiously raised the edge of the blanket and emerged. Mrs. Parker was raking the coals from beneath the kettle and gently pouring water to douse the fire. She must’ve given Elias the all-clear, because he stood on the back porch.

  “Now you need kaffe,” his mother declared.

  Coffee. Savannah smiled, ruefully. So much like Aunt Carolina’s belief that tea could fix anything.

  Savannah sat at the table, feeling vulnerable with her hair wrapped in a towel. Her family would be scandalized to know she’d been seen by a young man in this condition. Of course, they’d be scandalized to know she’d been sprayed by a skunk, too. And that she shared a room with one of her students, and that her host family spoke almost no English, and that her school was so poor they had almost no supplies... The list grew every day.

  Elias straddled the bench on the far side of the table and cradled a cup of coffee in his hands. “I am sorry, Savannah. I shouldn’t have strayed from the plan without telling you first, and I shouldn’t have laughed. What’s happened to you isn’t funny, and I’m sorry.”

  It was hard to meet his gray eyes. When word got out about today’s catastrophe, she’d never live it down. Elias wouldn’t be the only one laughing. But she forced herself to be brave and do the right thing. She raised her chin. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. The whole thing was an accident. Thank you for bringing me to your mother. I don’t know what I would’ve done without her help.”

  He grinned at his mother, who handed Savannah a cup of coffee and pushed a plate of small cookies toward her. “You know,” Elias said. “I’ve felt that way more than a time or two myself over the years. I can always count on Ma. She’s a wonder, isn’t she?”

  “Always you haff been an uregjerlig barn, Elias, but ve love you.” Mrs. Parker sat beside her son. She gave him a tolerant smile and sipped her coffee.

  “She says I’m an unruly child.” Elias took a cookie. “And I suppose I am.”

  “What happened to my clothes?” Savannah smoothed the homespun skirt and blew on her coffee.

  He grinned. “I’ll have you know the dress and shoes and bonnet and all were buried with the utmost ceremony and solemnity a fair distance from the house.” He sobered. “I’m sorry about that, too, since they were so fine, but you realize there was no saving them?”

  Another lost outfit. She’d ruined one cleaning the school, another when she’d gone riding and now this one. At this rate, she’d need a new wardrobe by Thanksgiving.

  Mrs. Parker gave her an encouraging smile and came to unwind Savannah’s hair from the towel. Resembling rats’ tails, it hung around her shoulders in clumps, smelling of vinegar and faintly, still, of skunk. How long would it take for the odor to wear off? Would she have to cut her hair short? Savannah bit her lip.

  “It is not bad. Always the smell is vorst ven it is wet. Ven it dries, it vill not be so bad. You have such vakkert hår. I vish I had such pretty color.” The woman brought a comb and began unsnarling the tangles.

  It had been years since anyone had performed so personal a task for Savannah, and having Elias sitting across the table watching made her cheeks flame. But she savored the tender care, even while she wanted to squirm, the sensations warring inside her.

  Which was a tiny picture of how she felt about being in Minnesota. On the one hand, she’d made some new friends and had begun to make some progress at the school, but on the other hand, she still felt alien and strange.

  Had she made a mistake coming to Snowflake, or would it turn out to be the best decision of her life? Perhaps it was too soon to tell. For now, she would have to bear up and keep on and pray that the skunk odor faded quickly.

  Chapter Eight

  Mr. Halvorson called up the stairs, and Savannah groaned, pressing her face into her pillow. It wasn’t even daylight yet. This was supposed to be her week off from teaching, and she was being roused earlier than ever.

  Lars shuffled into his clothes and clomped down the stairs, and Rut slid from beneath the covers, answering her father’s call with a “Morgen, Far.”

  For the first time since arriving in Minnesota, Savannah felt a decided chill in the air when she got out of bed. Not enough that her breath showed, but enough to raise goose bumps and make her hurry to get dressed. Savannah pulled her hair over her shoulder and sniffed it. Her shoulders relaxed. No skunk odor. For the past week, she’d scrubbed it with vinegar and soda every night, and gradually the smell had faded.

  She hadn’t been able to hide the incident from the Halvorsons. They’d noticed her change of clothing the moment she’d come into the cabin. Striving for a lighthearted approach, Savannah had shared a good laugh with them when Elias explained it all in Norwegian, though she hadn’t felt much like laughing. Of course, the children had told the news at school, and Savannah had been forced to shrug and smile sheepishly. But it was a nine days’ wonder, or in this case, a five days’ wonder, because by the end of the school week, the children had ceased to mention it.

  Breakfast was a hurried affair in candlelight, then they carried baskets and crocks to the wagon, and were on their way to the Linnevold farm as the sun peeked over the horizon.

  Only a couple wagons stood in the yard, and Savannah guessed that Per Halvorson was his customary fifteen minutes early. She noticed Elias’s horse, Buck, tied to the corral fence, and she shivered, wrapping her shawl tighter around her shoulders. She hadn’t seen him—except at church—since the skunk incident, and hadn’t had a chance to speak with him.

  “Good morning, Miss Cox.” Elias’s father, Mr. Parker, came out of the house and helped her from the wagon. “Glad you decided to pitch in.” He grinned. “Ready for your first threshing?”r />
  “I hope so. I’ve never seen a threshing before, and I’m not even sure what happens.” She tightened her bonnet strings and reached into the wagon for the paper-wrapped bundle of Mrs. Parker’s clothing. Agneta had laundered them for Savannah the previous week.

  “By the time harvest is over, you’ll be an old hand.” Mr. Parker hefted a basket from the wagon. “Elias is helping Vilhelm set up the tables out back for you ladies. He’ll be glad to see you.”

  Her heart skipped at the mention of his name, but she forced herself to take a slow breath. Elias had been much too often in her thoughts and even her dreams this week, and it was beyond time she reminded herself that he considered her a lightweight fly-by-night, too fragile for his beloved Minnesota prairie.

  Mrs. Parker greeted her with a smile, coming to take her arm. “How are tings?” She sniffed. “You are smelling like flowers today.” She beamed and squeezed Savannah’s elbow. “I told you it vas not forever. Come, you can vork vid me. Ve are making food for de men. I vill show you how to make blotkake. It is Elias’s favorite.”

  “Thank you so much for your help that day. I was a mess.” She held up the package. “I brought your dress and things back.”

  “You can put them in our vagon. Come, meet the ladies.”

  The women and girls welcomed Savannah in, and before she knew it, she was stirring and mixing and chopping alongside them. Mrs. Halvorson enveloped her in a huge apron, wrapping it twice around Savannah’s waist and tying it in the front. “Keep dress nice?”

  At her halting English, Savannah hugged her. They’d been practicing every day. Savannah nodded and said, “Takk.” Thank you.

  Agneta’s smile lit the room. Mrs. Parker patted Savannah’s hand. “You are a nice girl. I tink you vill do vell here.”

  Of Elias, she saw nothing until the morning break. The women spent the time cooking and talking, and near ten o’clock, packed baskets with treats and carried them out into the field. Savannah brought a coffeepot, held gingerly with towels to protect her hands, and stepped across the rows of stubble, watching her footing.