Dandelions on the Wind Read Online Free PDF Page A

the distraction would likely not be welcomed.
***
    When Maren arrived in America, she was surprised to find that Thursday quickly became her favorite day of the week—the day the quilting circle met on the farm. To her mother’s dismay, Maren had little interest in textiles and could barely work a needle before immigrating. But since her move to the farm, she’d come to cherish the company of women who gathered here for stitching and companionship.
    This morning, Maren was intentionally running late. A man had slept in the barn, and it wouldn’t have been proper for her to enter it in the dark. If at all. But she had morning chores and didn’twish to delay breakfast. The first rays of morning sun at her side, she stopped outside the open barn doors and poked her head inside. “Mr. Wainwright?”
    No answer. She hadn’t thought to look for the man outside.
    Blinking and squinting to force her vision, Maren listened for any hint of his presence. Usually the sheep, cows, mules, and horses greeted her with impatient calls for breakfast. Not this morning. Instead, the sound of their chomping was nearly deafening. The feed had been dropped.
    Maren reached to the hook for the egg basket and found it heavy, with nine eggs nestled inside. The bucket she kept by the hogs’ grain bin was gone, and apparently Woolly was too. The milking bucket still sat empty outside the cow pen, so she grabbed it and the stool, settled beside Bootsie, and ran her hand down the cow’s side to the udder. “Morning, girl.”
    The Jersey greeted her with the turning of her head. Hay stuck out of her mouth like uneven whiskers, and Maren couldn’t help but giggle as she positioned the bucket. “I see you have been well fed this morning.” She squeezed with one hand and then the other, creating a staccato rhythm with the milk spray. The man had certainly lightened her early morning workload. She could easily grow accustomed.
    “Miss Jensen.” The now-familiar voice filling the barn didn’t startle her in the least.
    Neither did the footfalls approaching the cow stall. “Miss Jensen, it is Woolly.”
    Maren angled toward the gate and willed her eyes to bring him into focus. Shafts of light spilling in through the gaps in the barnboards spread like thin fingers across the barn. The sling was gone from his arm. “Good morning, Mr. Wainwright.” He wore a yellow work shirt, and he had tamed his hair under his cap.
    “It is a fine morning.”
    “Was it you who gathered the eggs and fed the animals?” Not that she didn’t know the answer, but she didn’t want to assume.
    “I was pleased to help.”
    “Thank you.” Bootsie shuddered, and Maren returned to her task under the old cow.
    “I may not be able to mend fences or shore up the barn just yet, but I want to do more to help around here.”
    “So long as you do no further damage to your arm.” Woolly obviously intended to stay. That meant Gabi would too. “In the old country, PaPa would have suggested a mint poultice.” Her words followed the rhythm of the milk splashing into the bucket.
    “My shoulder is better today. Thank you.” He rested his elbows over the rail between them and looked at her. “Your chin? How is it faring?”
    She resisted the impulse to touch it. “Slightly sore, but fine. Thank you.”
    “Mother Brantenberg wasn’t pleased to see me. Do you think she’ll let me stay?”
    The milking rhythm continued. She wanted to tell Woolly that Mrs. Brantenberg had to let him stay, that he had to persevere until the widow softened toward him. She wanted to tell him that what he did—whether he stayed or left—could change the course of her life.
    “I don’t know.” And, even if she did, it wasn’t her place to second-guess the woman who had been so kind to her. Like a mother, in many ways.
    Maren stilled her hands and looked up at him. He was staring at the far wall, looking broken in spirit. “You want to stay?”
    When Bootsie swung her head, Maren had to