Love Finds You in Amana Iowa Read Online Free PDF

Faust stood on the outside as they beseeched the Lord for the people still in the woods. She didn’t close her eyes during the prayers, watching instead for Brother Niklas and his father. For Karoline Baumer.
    The days of all of their lives were numbered, but she didn’t want to lose a single one of their members. Not today.
    One of the men began singing a hymn, the words and tune memorized from the Psalter-Spiel.
    When my God brought upon me terror
And the danger has gone by,
Then I will bring offerings of thanks
And sing with mighty voice.
    Amalie didn’t sing, but in her heart she offered her thanks for those who had returned. And she prayed again for those who had not.
    From the corner of her eye, she saw another face in the trees, and Karoline Baumer stumbled out to the trail. Her sunbonnet was gone, and her golden hair fell tangled across her shoulders.
    “Karoline!” Amalie ran to her. Blood matted the girl’s hair, and there was a gash near her ear. She put her arm around Karoline’s shoulders. “Did the soldiers hurt you?”
    Karoline shook her head. “There was a horse, running toward me. I tried to get out of its way.”
    Amalie shuddered. “Its hooves—”
    “I fell.” Karoline put her hand to her head, touching the wound. “And I hit my head on something, a tree or maybe a rock on the ground. I don’t know. Something sharp.”
    Gently Amalie directed the younger woman toward the kitchen wagon. “I will clean your wound.”
    Karoline stared down at the red on her fingers. “I didn’t know I was bleeding.”
    The women passed by Brother Niklas and John as they walked out of the forest.
    Twenty-three and twenty-four.
    The singing grew louder behind them. Only one more person left to return from the woods, and they would all be together again.
    Amalie lifted several sacks out of the kitchen wagon to make room for Karoline and unrolled her canvas bed sack on the wooden floor. She removed her pillow, comforter, and several blankets from the roll and she smoothed the comforter on the floor. Two of the men helped Karoline step up into the back of the wagon.
    Karoline leaned her head back against the roll of blankets, and as Amalie dabbed her friend’s forehead with a cloth to clean the wound, she thought Karoline would murmur with the pain, but she was silent instead.
    The doctor in Ebenezer had provided Amalie with a medical kit and instructions on how to use the different remedies in case someone was hurt on the trail. She took out a bottle of ointment from her trunk, rubbed the ointment onto a piece of fabric, and tied the cotton material around Karoline’s head. Hidden in the bottom of the trunk was a tincture of cannabis for the pain, and she spooned the medicine into her friend’s mouth.
    Amalie smiled. “You’re almost as good as new.”
    Karoline closed her eyes. “I don’t feel new.”
    Even with the summer heat, her friend shivered, and Amalie pulled a blanket up to her shoulders.
    “You rest now,” she told her. “We’ll find a doctor in Lisbon to look at your head.”
    She didn’t want to think how long it would take them to get to Lisbon.
    “I don’t feel the pain anymore,” Karoline said.
    “Good.” Amalie closed the trunk. “I’ll make you some soup to eat tonight, and you’ll be well again soon.”
    Karoline opened her eyes, staring up at the canvas wagon top. “Do you see the stars?”
    Amalie glanced up and then looked back at her friend. “It’s still light, Karoline.”
    “But I see stars.”
    Amalie squeezed her hand. “You need to rest now.”
    Karoline muttered something else, but Amalie couldn’t understand her. She patted her friend’s hand gently until Karoline’s breathing indicated she was sleeping, and then she climbed back out of the wagon.
    Niklas was waiting for her outside. “Is she going to be all right?”
    “I pray so,” she said. “But she needs to see a physician.”
    “Faust will get us to Lisbon as soon as he can.”
    She glanced