Arne Sandstrom gazed silently at her, puffed and exploded his cheeks, and bent over, striking his knees with those delicately gloved hands Elsa had first noted with such awe. He roared in the fervor of his laughter. This American country had in no way abated Arne Sandstrom as a Norseman.
“Oh, Elsa, my snowbird, if I should tell this on thee they would laugh at thee from one end of town to the other. Lena Lund’s bridegroom is my cousin Arne, that came over with Otto Jutberg and me.”
“That was Arne Peterssen,” affirmed Elsa.
“But there are so many Peterssens and Yonsens who take their names from their fathers’ Christian names that Arne changed his to Sandstrom. It is a very common thing to do here.”
Elsa laughed also. It was so simple and clear and Swedish she wondered that news of Arne Sandstrom’s wedding had caused her even a misgiving. She left her chair to swing Arne’s hands while they both finished laughing.
“But you ought to be ready,” he cried, “and not keep the others waiting. I got the papers for the wedding when Arne got his papers, so there would be no mistake of names on the record, and so I could marry you as soon as you came.”
Within the hour, therefore, Elsa was the bride of Arne Sandstrom, arrayed in her dark blue wedding dress of wool, and not shaming by her statue-like proportions and fairness the lighter prettiness and silken raiment of Arne Sandstrom’s American Swedish bride. Happiness and love were, after all, the natural lot in this world, thought Elsa, sitting by her husband in her place of honor at the wedding supper, and tasting the first course of such a feast—the Swedish soup of rice, prunes, raisins, and molasses.
THE BABE JEROME
Time, 1892
The civil engineer sat at breakfast with his sister. Their table was a stationary one, on stakes driven into the ground, and they drank their coffee from tin camp cups with hooked handles. But the cook served them with broiled fish and game stew, brown pancakes and honey.