Wild Heart on the Prairie (A Prairie Heritage, Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

station
platform, all of them marveling at the American trains, their mighty engines
belching soot and steam. They passed passenger cars with curious faces looking
down on them and a few luxurious private cars.
    At the end of the platform they stepped down onto the ground
and followed the rails, passing a line of freight cars until they reached their
own. Jan unlocked the car and Karl clambered up. He turned and helped the women
and girls into the car and then jumped back down.
    He, Jan, and Søren, handed the bags up to the women. Elli
and Amalie, chattering happily about the arrangements, unpacked some coverlets
and spread them on the hay bales. They hung their still-damp laundry across the
crates to dry.
    Jan climbed back up and Karl handed him the heavy water can.
He stowed it between a bale and the wall of the car. Elli asked Jan to move a
crate that sat alone behind one of the bales of hay. He placed it atop another
and then climbed up and pushed it back. He retied a rope to keep it from
sliding.
    Where the crate had been, the women tacked up a sheet,
making a tiny water closet. Jan grimaced. It was uncomfortable using a chamber
pot in such close proximity to his brother and his brother’s wife. He was sure
they had to feel the same.
    Jan, Karl, and Søren stood outside watching the activity in
the yard until the conductor’s call of “allll aboooard!” echoed across the
rails. Down the line the yard men walked, checking that the freight car doors were
closed. The men and Søren climbed into their car and slid the door shut behind
them, latching it on the inside.
    The car was dim and cool. Just a little light and air came
in through slats in the door.
    The train shuddered, rocked a bit, and jerked forward. The
engine’s piercing whistle cut the air. The train began to move, slowly, slowly,
a little faster, faster, and faster. The Thoresens, all of them, crowded against
the door, peering through the slats, watching the station drop away.
    ~~**~~

Chapter 3
    The rhythm of train wheels flying over the tracks lulled them
to sleep. All but Jan. He could not sleep now—his pulse had quickened until it matched
the clacking cadence of the swaying train.
    Jan leaned his forehead against the door and peered through
the slats, studying the land passing by. He liked what he saw—large green
fields that lay like a patchwork quilt as far as the eye could see. He knew the
geography would change considerably by the time they reached their destination,
but the size of this country already amazed him.
    What will the land be like where we are going? he
asked himself for the thousandth time. He had heard that it was like a vast sea
with no shores to be seen, that tall grasses danced in the wind like the waves
and billows of the ocean.
    The newspapers had described the low, rolling hillocks and
wide, nearly flat miles as “prairie,” something like the lowlands of Norway
and Sweden but much wider and broader, all of it open and uncultivated. “Perfect
for farming,” the papers had read. However, the words that fired Jan’s heart
and imagination were “160 acres per man” and “free.”
    Land for free! He and Karl would file for adjoining claims
and work them together. All they had to do was build homes on the land and work
it for five years. Then it would be theirs.
    Jan was restless, ready to begin. And so he studied the terrain
as they flew by, taking note of the farms, their barns and houses, and what
they had planted. He mentally listed their first priorities and ticked off the
items they would need to buy when they left the train.
    Their journey would take them across two of America’s
great rivers. He frowned and recited the rivers’ names: Mississippi and Missouri.
Just across the Missouri they would stop in the city of Omaha.
    In that city they would seek a district land office to file their
homestead claims. It would be a risky time. They would need someone— someone
honest —to help them because of the language