A Heart for Home Read Online Free PDF

learning to read music, she picks up most of her songs by ear. I play the song once, and she figures out the chording. What a gift she has.”
    Linnea was Penny Bjorklund’s daughter and now nine years old. Joshua had taught her some chords on the piano while Dr. Elizabeth was recovering from the loss of her baby. He too had been amazed at the speed with which she caught on. Since she didn’t have a piano at home, she spent hours at the church, practicing on the one there.
    “Maybe we ought to add playing a banjo to the ad in the papers for workers.”
    “That would be great. Someday we’ll have an organ here in church, and I dream of playing that. Once Jonathan Gould is out of school, he can take over the piano. Who would have dreamed we’d ever have so much musical talent here in Blessing?”
    When they left the church, he found Mrs. Bjorklund waiting for him. “Won’t you join us for dinner today, Mr. Landsverk?” she asked.
    “I really need to spend the afternoon working on my house,” he told her, hoping his excuse would be accepted. He knew Thorliff and his family would be there as usual, and he didn’t have a chance between those two perceptive women. He’d end up confessing his feelings and feel like an even worse fool.
    “I’m sorry to hear that. Perhaps another Sunday, then?”
    “Thank you for the invitation. I would much rather go with you, but I’ve been so busy, I’ve not had time to finish the cellar so I can order the house kit.”
    “Well, when you do and it arrives, you know we’ll all take a Saturday or two and see how far we can go in getting it up.”
    “Thank you.” I don’t deserve such help . But he kept his smile in place and guitar in hand as he headed back to the boardinghouse to change clothes. Miss Christopherson would be keeping a plate hot for him, since he’d missed the noon seating.
    A breeze kept the prairie from becoming too hot, rippling the growing fields like waves on water. He never tired of seeing the growing crops, even though he’d chosen not to be a farmer. He loved building things: First he’d built windmills, then houses and barns, and now he was lead man on the crew adding on to the former grain storage building, where the new attachments for improving the seeders would be manufactured. He wished his father had used one of the early seeders pulled by a team of horses. The seeding by hand took far too long, and even though his father was adept at it, the crops were spotty. This new addition would make both old and new seeders far more dependable and efficient. Hjelmer and Mr. Sam had made several prototypes and welded them on to the Bjorklund seeders. The grain sprouted evenly down the rows, row after row. Not one row extra thick and the next one bare.
    Knowing he was part of making this idea become a reality kept him going to work with a light step and a smile. With construction, one could see the daily progress, and it wouldn’t have to be done all over again the next year, as in farming. Building didn’t depend on the weather for success either.
    But today he would work on his own house. He needed to finish up framing the final cellar wall so they could mix and pour the cement. He never knew who would show up to help him, but someone always did. Life on his father’s farm in Iowa had not worked that way. Thoughts of his father made him grateful he’d gone back home when he did. He never would have believed his father could age so fast had he not seen it with his own eyes.
    If only Astrid were here.
    That thought led him back to the Indians of the Rosebud Reservation. Not a good thing. He mounted the steps to the boardinghouse and took the inside stairs two at a time, hoping to outrun the devilish thoughts that plagued him. He washed up and then headed back down the stairs.
    “How was church this morning?” Miss Christopherson, assistant manager of the boardinghouse, asked when he took his place in the dining room.
    “Fine.” He glanced up to see