Jude frowned. “You think it could get to that point?”
Wilson shrugged. “It could. I’d watch out for the one called Carl Unger. He and his father have worked their farm alone for years—ten, twelve, something like that. And my sources in Plum Creek tell me the man has his heart set on marrying soon, so he’ll want that farm for his future family. You might also have a problem with Albert Svensson. He has a son he intends to hand the farm to, and his daughter, Ingrid, is the one Carl Unger wants to marry. Their farms adjoin, so together they’ll be something to deal with. The Svenssons have farmed their section for nine years now. Ingrid’s mother is buried there. Of course, there are some who aren’t doing that well and might give things up without much of a fight.”
Jude sighed as he rose. “Well, as Mark and my father would say, business is business.” He took his top hat from where he’d set it on Wilson’s desk and put it on. “I suppose I’d better hop a train to the wonderful whistle-stop of Plum Creek and get moving on this.”
“There aren’t any fancy hotels there, Jude.”
“I figured as much. I’ll be staying in my private Pullman. It has everything I need.”
“Good idea.” Wilson rose and came around the desk to shake Jude’s hand. “Good luck, Jude. Watch out for yourself.”
Jude grinned and nodded. “I’ll be fine.” He turned and left, thinking about the names Wilson had mentioned. He’d never even met a real farmer, people who lived in houses made of sod. All he’d known was the Kingman mansion in north Chicago, one whole wing belonging just to him, with his own servants. He chuckled, imagining what his mother would think of women who lived on and helped work farms. Far be it from Corinne Kingman to actually touch dirt with her bare hands, to have even one hair out of place or ever to wear an apron.
Prim and proper, his mother was a respected philanthropist who perpetually found reasons to throw a fund-raiser dinner-dance so she could show off the third-floor ballroom of the family mansion and mingle with Chicago’s finest. She was unmatched as a hostess, probably owned more jewels and clothes than any other high-society woman of Chicago, had recently raised money for a new library, was head of a Chicago historical society and attended church regularly. People thought she was wonderful.
Little did they know that Corinne Kingman had no idea how to be a mother, or that in his whole life Jude could not remember ever once being held close by her or ever once feeling loved by her. Only Mark had been privy to motherly attention. As for being a regular at church, that was only an excuse for his mother to show off her newest hat or dress and pretend to be a proper and loving Christian woman. There were never any prayers at the table or any Bible readings in front of a fireplace, things he’d heard her tell others were a regular family tradition. The only thing he’d managed to garner from being forced to go to church for appearances’ sake was to realize, somewhere in his own vague memory of things he’d heard preached, that something wasn’t quite right about putting business and money ahead of hurting innocent people. Now he would be doing just that.
Chapter Four
Rain poured so hard that Ingrid and her father didn’t hear a wagon pull up outside. Someone pounded on the door, and Albert jerked awake from an afternoon nap in his favorite wooden rocker near the fireplace. Ingrid looked up from her knitting as her father rose.
“I’ll get it,” he said, grimacing at the pain in his back as he stretched. He walked over and slid aside the wooden bar that kept the door tight. “It’s Carl.”
“Oh, my!” Ingrid set her knitting aside and hurried over to the stove. “I will heat some coffee.” She knew the likely reason for Carl’s visit, although he would come up with an excuse, probably the foul weather. Not long ago Carl had again talked to her father about marriage, which irritated her. Carl apparently took it for granted she would want to marry him. Good and hardworking as he was, the man didn’t have an ounce of gentlemanly manners, or any idea how to properly court a woman.
Carl was ten years older than she, a huge man, at least six foot six, barrel-chested, loud and clumsy. Without a mother or any other woman around to teach him the gentle side of life, Carl was reared by a Swedish immigrant father who to this day barely spoke English, never having bothered to learn.
She removed a grate and stuffed some extra pieces of twisted corn husks inside the stove top where a few embers from breakfast quickly set fire to the fresh fuel. With hardly a tree in sight, corn husks or cobs and even dried buffalo chips or horse manure provided necessary fuel. All left a bigger mess than wood, but there was no other choice for heating and cooking.
“Vell, come in!” Albert greeted Carl in his own strong Swedish accent.
Ingrid replaced the grate and set what was left of the morning’s coffee on the burner.
“Hello, my friend!” Carl answered. “Your porch is dry, so I left my rubbers and my jacket there,” he continued in a familiar singsong accent they all used. “I don’t vant to get Ingrid’s floors vet and muddy.” The two men shook hands as Carl came inside. Johnny streaked out of his room to greet Carl.
“No running, Johnny,” Ingrid reminded her brother. Her mind rushed on, wondering what to say to Carl. She’d not given the slightest hint that she even remotely cared to be his wife. Still, he visited often and paid no heed to her obvious lack of interest. Her father was no help. He liked Carl and encouraged her to see the man socially.
“Hello there, Ingrid!” Carl greeted her.
“Hello, Carl. I am surprised you came all the way here in such a downpour.”
“Ah, vell, ve cannot do any vork, that’s for sure,” Carl answered in his booming voice.
“Ya, and I fear flooded fields,” Albert told the man. “But then, I never mind an excuse to sit once in a while.”
Both men laughed, and Ingrid smiled. For the next few minutes all three of them spoke Swedish, joined at times by Johnny, who’d been raised to know the language of his parents and ancestors. Still Ingrid knew it was important for her brother to speak good English, and she’d taught him as best she could, always practicing correct pronunciation herself. She’d learned from weekly trips to a tiny school at Plum Creek when she was younger. Albert had taken her there for lessons, insisting she learn “American” in every way. She was proud of how well she spoke English, her accent very subtle now. Johnny spoke even better English than she, having been born and raised in America.
Albert motioned for Carl to sit down at the wooden kitchen table, and then he and Johnny joined the man while Ingrid sliced some bread.
“I am vorried,” Carl said, losing his smile.
Albert waved him off. “The rain vill make the ground easier to vork,” he told Carl. “It vill stop soon, you’ll see. Things vill be fine.”
Carl shook his head. “It is not the rain that vorries me.”
Ingrid set a wooden bowl of butter and some knives on the table, along with a plate of sliced bread.
“Then what is it that bothers you, Carl?” she asked, sitting down to join them, glad the conversation was not about her and marriage.
Johnny grabbed a piece of bread and began buttering it. “Have some, Carl. Ingrid makes real good butter.”
Carl
