Chapter 1
San Antonio, Texas
The steam engine slowed down with chuffs and huffs and belches of steam that made it sound like an unhappy older lady trying to get herself seated and comfortable.
Anita Nordling imagined the woman moving her bulk into a chair and rearranging her skirts about her.
That was how she imagined the engine felt, settling down to rest a while before more people climbed aboard and off she went again.
She was glad to have finally reached San Antonio.
It seemed that this journey out west had taken a very long time, with nothing to do but walk the train corridors and read her books.
She wasn’t very outgoing and hadn’t made any friends on the train.
In fact, she’d been a little too nervous to speak to anyone apart from the staff.
The other ladies in the sleeping compartment had been quite gregarious, but Anita had hesitated to engage them.
Taking her bags now, she nodded to them all and made for the door.
“Mouse, are you leaving without saying even one word?” one of them asked. She laughed loudly as though that was a great joke.
Anita gathered her courage and turned to face the woman who had spoken to her. “I hope you have safe travels,” she said and fled the compartment.
“So, she can speak!” one woman cried. “Magda, you owe us five dollars!”
They had bet on whether or not Anita could speak? What kind of people were they? They were dreadfully rude. Ladies shouldn’t gamble, Anita thought darkly. And they certainly shouldn’t be mean and make someone feel so terribly uncomfortable.
Well, thankfully that was over. Anita would find Kevin on the platform, where they had agreed to meet, and a new chapter of her life would begin. She was very eager for that.
Running her own dairy farm was going to be an exciting challenge.
The mere thought of it sent shivers of delight through her. She had never hoped for anything as bold as this. Being one of eight, she had known she wouldn’t get much in terms of a dowry or an inheritance and so she had honed her skills at making cheese.
Everyone loved cheese. It was a staple in every kitchen, and a well-made cheese was nothing to be sneezed at. Not even by people who might call her “Mouse” because she was shy.
Feeling emboldened again, Anita secured her handbag on one shoulder, picked up her valise in one hand and grabbed the handle of her trunk in the other.
All her worldly goods were in those three receptacles.
All her money, books on cheese-making, her utensils, her stamp for the pats of butter she made, her clothes, the small trousseau her mother had gathered for her, and a few other things.
It was odd how a life could be condensed into a few pieces of luggage like that.
Now to find Kevin Munson. He had described himself as tall, with a full beard and curly brown hair. He said he would wear a green woolen hat and be carrying a rolled-up newspaper.
Stepping onto the platform, Anita bit her lip as she studied the people around her, her heart pounding with nervous energy. What if he hadn’t come? What if he’d changed his mind?
There were quite a few men who could be described as tall with curly hair.
That posed a problem. She tried not to stare, not wanting them to think she was being forward.
Maybe she should find a spot out of the way and wait for the crowd to clear.
That would be the smart thing to do. Then Kevin would be able to see that she was wearing a yellow scarf, as she had told him she would be.
It was funny how, although it was spring, it was a lot warmer than she was used to.
Wisconsin was still icy around this time of the year.
She tried to rearrange the scarf so that it was more prominent.
As she did this, her handbag slid from her shoulder to her wrist, dangling by the thin leather strap.
Someone jostled her. She dropped her valise and it popped open, spilling her things all over the platform.
Anita cried out. There was a jerking motion on her arm … And her handbag was suddenly gone.
She watched in shock as a bald man with a chipped front tooth leered at her before taking off running.
“Oh no!” she cried, now completely in a panic.
“My handbag! He stole my bag!” Her heart raced, and although she knew she should charge after him, her legs refused to move.
She had other things she needed to protect.
Her trunk! If she ran off, what would happen to it?
And all her cheese-making things were in it, not to mention her clothes!
“Stop! Thief!” a man shouted, racing after the scoundrel.
Another picked up the cry, and soon several men were running in the direction the purse snatcher had gone.
Anita was torn between running after the thief and collecting her things, which were being scattered around the platform by busy walking feet. All her books and some of her clothes were being ruined. What a disaster this day was turning out to be!
However, she needed her purse too. She looked anxiously to see if she could spot where the thief had gone. She couldn’t, not over the heads of the people around her. There were several standing and staring at her as though she was some strange, exotic animal in a zoo.
She felt the blush rise to her cheeks. Some of the things being scattered were her chemises and stockings.
Quickly, she bent down and tried to gather her things together.
As she worked, tears filled her eyes. There went all her money, her diary, and her pictures of her family.
Where have you brought me, Lord, that I should be treated so cruelly right off the train? she wondered sadly.
“Excuse me, is this yours?” a soft voice asked.
A young girl with blonde pigtails held out one of Anita’s books to her, a cherished volume titled Cheese from Around the World.
“Thank you,” Anita said. “It is.” She took the book and put it in the valise. Another woman stooped to help, and soon, between the three of them, they had all of Anita’s scattered things returned to her. She sent up a prayer of gratitude for their kindness.
“You poor thing,” the woman said. “Let’s get you to the ticket office.
They can send for the sheriff and his deputies.
They might not be able to find your handbag, but at least you can report it.
I’ve been saying they need to station one of the deputies here for years, but do they listen? ” She shook her head.
She was around thirty years old if Anita was any judge, and the blonde girl appeared to be her daughter. They looked so alike it was quite uncanny with their golden hair and bright blue eyes.
“Thank you. I appreciate that,” Anita said. “You’re so very kind.”
“Well, we believe in kindness,” the lady said. “I’m Clara Sparks, and this is my daughter, Cleo.”
Anita gave them her name and shook hands. They helped her to get her valise and trunk to the ticket office, where she spoke to the ticket seller. He was a grizzled old man who stared at her through thick spectacles.
“Yes, I saw the commotion. Someone chased the ruffian all the way outside,” he said. “Maybe just wait here a few minutes. You never know. They might yet recover your property.”
“You should send for the sheriff anyway,” Mrs. Sparks told him. “We need such cretins to be arrested. There are some truly unsavory types in this town all of a sudden, and I, for one, do not want them to make a home here. We can’t have them running freely in the streets.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I’ll send a boy.”
Anita got the feeling that the man was agreeing to this simply to get Mrs. Sparks to leave him alone. However, he leaned out of his cubicle and called a boy over. The boy ran off a few moments later.
“Well, now that that’s taken care of,” Clara said with a smile, “would you like us to wait with you for a few minutes? We can certainly spare them. We’ve just seen Cleo’s older brother to the train. He’s heading to Boston to study medicine.”
“That’s wonderful,” Anita said. “You must be very proud.”
“Oh, we are,” Cleo said. “So very. Clive will be the first one in our family to go to university. It’s very exciting.
” Her eyes sparkled as she spoke about her older brother.
“He’s going to become a lawyer, you see.
It’s all he’s ever wanted when he was young.
But Mother tells me that before I was born, he couldn’t pronounce the word. So?—”
“So for several years he wanted to be a layer,” Clara chuckled, eyes going soft in remembrance. “When he graduates, I plan to give him his very own egg basket as a memento of those days.”
Anita smiled and wondered if she would ever have a son who made a similarly endearing mistake.
The man she’d come west to marry, Kevin, had said he also wanted a large family, so she prayed before long she’d have a little one on the way.
The first of many. She’d enjoyed her many siblings, even if they’d driven her crazy sometimes, and she wanted her children to have just as many brothers and sisters to fight with and to love fiercely.
With nothing else to do, the ladies sat on the bench against the wall.
Anita had to admit that she was feeling a lot better now, but she was still anxious.
Had the thief somehow managed to evade the men who were chasing him?
And if he had, what did that mean for her? Would she never see her things again?
“So, what brings you to San Antonio?” Clara asked when the silence had drawn out a while.
“I read an advertisement in the paper,” Anita said softly.
“It was from a man, Kevin Munson, who wants to start a dairy farm.” They were watching her with polite expressions, and it made Anita even more nervous to be the center of attention.
Her voice trailed off as her mind went blank.
She began to pick her cuticles in a nervous gesture.
“Do you know how to run a dairy farm?” Clara asked kindly.