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Mother's Old Quilt
Early March 1905
Wayzata, Minnesota
“If one more thing happens, I think I’ll scream.”
Maggie Swenson trudged through snowdrifts on the way from her house to the barn. The tops of her boots didn’t come above the snow, so the cold stuff spilled over, wetting her thick wool socks. Before she had to come out here again, she needed to borrow some of Valter’s trousers. She knew it wouldn’t be ladylike to wear her brother’s long pants, but it would be better than dragging a woolen skirt that grew heavier and heavier because of the damp snow clinging to it.
It had been so long since she had any time to herself. Only six months ago, both her parents died when the buggy they were riding smashed against an outcropping of rocks because something startled their horse, and it ran away. Maggie and her brother, who at twenty-one was two years older than she, inherited the farm their parents had worked hard to sustain through summer droughts and harsh Minnesota winters. Now Maggie tried to run the farm all by herself. Valter lay in the house with a high fever, growing weaker every day, no matter what she did for him. She feared he had the dreaded influenza that was taking such a toll this year.
Just as she reached up to unlatch the door to the barn, Maggie heard a soft moan followed by a pain-filled whine. She glanced around, and the sun glinting off the white world around her stabbed her eyes. As she squinted, her gaze traveled over the landscape around the barn. The few bushes were laden with snow, as were the trees in the pasture and beyond. When she heard the sound again, she determined that it came from the side of the building. Maggie plunged into the drift that had blown against the wall of the secure structure. Now her long-johns were wet up to her knees. If she didn’t go inside soon, she might get as sick as Valter.
With her curiosity stronger than the desire to get out of the biting wind, Maggie rounded the corner of the barn in search of the origin of the sound. She almost stumbled over a warm lump in the snow. Horror filled her brain when she realized what it was.
“Rolf!”
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