As Lordor had warned her, that first Saturday night, there was to be a square dance and box supper social at the Lindquist barn in her honor. She was told that on these occasions, part of the evening was an auction. The women prepared a supper for two and packed it in a shoebox, on which the men could bid. The highest bidder would win both the supper and the lady as a dinner companion. The men were not supposed to know whose shoebox they were bidding on, but by Wednesday morning, every woman in town and Lordor’s best friend, Lars Swensen, had secretly clued Lordor that Katrina’s would be the one tied with a big blue ribbon.
That night, when the bidding began and the box with the large blue ribbon came up for auction, all eyes turned to Lordor. Mr. Lindquist, who was holding it up in the air, called out, “Come on, boys, what do you bid for this pretty little box? It smells mighty good.”
Lordor quickly raised his hand and bid an entire quarter, prepared to win it at first bid, considering that most boxes went for a dime. But to his surprise, suddenly all the other men started bidding against him. Even little eight-year-old Willem Eggstrom with a missing tooth bid fifty cents.
Lordor didn’t know it, but they had all gotten together and decided to have a little fun with him. They were all half in love with Katrina by now, and they could hardly contain themselves as they watched him begin to sweat as he bid higher and higher, in a panic that he would be outbid.
By the time poor Lordor made his last bid, it was up to ten dollars and sixty-five cents. The minute Mr. Lindquist said, “Sold to Lordor Nordstrom,” everybody in the room burst into laughter. When Lordor realized what had happened, it was the first time Katrina saw him smile. It was a very nice smile. He seemed happy that he had won the bidding. But even so, as they walked over to the table in the corner set aside for the couple, and even all through supper, he barely spoke to her. She had tried to start a conversation. “So, Mr. Nordstrom, how do you find the weather in Missouri?”
“Fine,” he said, spooning up a large helping of her potato salad.
“Are the red Swedish cows in your pasture the ones you had sent from home?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, nodding as he took another bite of potato salad. And so it went. He never asked her anything, and she wound up having to do all the talking. Even more disappointing, he hadn’t said a word about her almond tart.
Afterward, when the dancing started, and everyone started spinning and twirling all around the floor, Katrina couldn’t help but laugh in spite of herself at the way the six-foot-two Lordor looked as he lifted his knees high up in the air in his funny stiff way.
But as more days went by, Katrina realized that something was not quite right. Lordor was perfectly nice and polite, but nothing else. She confided to Birdie Swensen that she was concerned. Birdie told her not to worry, that Lordor was just shy, but Katrina sensed that it was more than that. When they were out together, he seemed to just be going through the motions of courting. She had been there almost three weeks now and not once had he mentioned the word “marriage.” At this point, she didn’t know if she was going to be sent back to Chicago or asked to stay. And now, more than ever, she did not want to leave.
It hadn’t been the pretty house or the dairy farm or how he had bowed and tipped his hat or the funny way he danced that made her want to stay. It was something else, something totally unexpected.
She had fallen in love with Lordor Nordstrom on that very first day at the train station. After he had collected and loaded all her baggage, and when he reached for her elbow to help her into the wagon, she could feel that his hands were trembling. It touched her so, it almost broke her heart. There was something so sweet and endearing about this big, strong man caring so much.
But now she’d begun to suspect he did not feel the same way about her. He was not the same man who had written her such wonderful letters. This man hardly ever said a word. And the more she talked, the more silent he became.
One afternoon, when they were out for their afternoon ride in his wagon, she finally gathered up all her courage to ask him, even though she was afraid of the answer. “Mr. Nordstrom, have I done something wrong? Are you not pleased with me?”
Lordor’s big blue eyes flew open. “Not pleased?” He pulled back on the reins and called out, “Whoa!” And when the wagon came to a full stop, he turned to her. “Miss Olsen, I am most pleased. Why do you not think it?”
“You don’t talk to me. When we are together, you barely say a word. I never know what you’re thinking, and it scares me.”
Lordor said, “Oh, I see.” He then looked down at his hands, took a deep breath, but still said nothing.
“Is it me?” she asked. “Tell me, what have I done?”
He shook his head. “No, no…it’s not you.”
“What is it, Mr. Nordstrom? You have to tell me. I’ve come all this way.”
Lordor seemed to be struggling for words, then he blurted it out. “I am afraid for my bad grammar. I knew you were pretty, but I didn’t know how good with words you would be. I don’t talk much because I don’t want you to find out how dumb I am. You might go back to Chicago.”
Katrina was never so relieved to hear anything in her life, and tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, Lordor,” she said, surprising herself. “I don’t care about that. I just need for you to talk. It’s not how you say anything that matters to me.”
“Wait. Wait,” he said, putting up his hands. “There is more you should know. I don’t spell so good, neither. Them letters I sent? Mrs. Swensen helped me and spelled out the big words for me.”
Katrina smiled and shook her head. “I don’t care.”
Lordor looked at her in disbelief. “For sure?”
“For sure.”
“Then you will stay?”
Katrina started to reply, but then she felt a sudden pang of guilt. He had just been so honest with her. She had to tell him. “Lordor, before I answer, there’s something about me…you need to know. Something I haven’t told you.”
He seemed surprised. “What?”
Katrina bit her lip, then slowly opened her purse and took something out of it. “The truth is, Lordor, I don’t see very well…and you might as well know it now.” She then pulled a pair of round black-rimmed glasses out of a velvet pouch, put them on, and turned and faced him. “I wear spectacles….I know how ugly I look, but without them, everything is fuzzy.” She sat and waited for his response.
Lordor blinked and looked at her. After a long moment of studying her face he said, “Oh no, Katrina, you are wrong. You look very pretty in spectacles…and very smart. I like them.” He then smiled at her. “I like them very much.”
“You don’t mind?”
“No. It’s good for a man to have a smart wife.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but Anna Lee…”
He didn’t let her finish. “Katrina, answer me this.”
“Yes?”
“Will you stay?”
“Yes.”
“Forever?”
“Oh, yes.”
Lordor smiled. “Good.”
As they drove off, both were smiling. That day, Katrina saw Lordor’s face clearly for the first time, and he was even more handsome than she had thought.
FROM THAT DAY ON, Katrina wore her glasses, and Lordor just about talked her ear off telling her of all his plans for the town, for them, and for their future. Katrina continued to live with the Swensens, and joined in on Birdie’s knitting circle with the other ladies. She was a fast learner and soon was knitting with the best of them.
After a respectable three months’ time, the Swensens drove with them to the big Lutheran church in Springfield for Katrina and Lordor to get married. When the ceremony was over, Birdie cried, but both Katrina and Lordor breathed a big sigh of relief. After all that waiting, they couldn’t wait to get home and finally begin their new life as man and wife. But things don’t always go as planned.
THAT NIGHT, WHEN THEY arrived back at their house, it was surrounded by dozens of wagons, mules, and horses, and ablaze with light. The ladies had planned a huge surprise wedding celebration supper and had laid out enough food to feed an army. It was a wonderful party with music and dancing that went on until at least four o’clock in the morning. It was almost daybreak when the last of the hangers-on left. The fiddle player had had too much of Mr. and Mrs. Knott’s beer and had passed out cold. Lordor and Lars had to carry him out to his wagon. Finally, they could begin their first night as man and wife.
They went upstairs, and Katrina went into the bedroom and changed from her wedding dress into her nightgown while Lordor went into the room down the hall. He changed out of his new black suit with the velvet bow tie and hung it up in the wardrobe. He put on his new cotton blue-striped nightshirt and walked over to the mirror and combed his hair, then sat down and waited for Katrina to invite him to join her. A few minutes later, he heard, “You can come in now.” He walked down the hall and opened the door. She was sitting up in bed, looking so beautiful. They tried acting as calm as possible. Both were nervous.
Just as Lordor climbed into the large feather bed to join his bride, they heard the front door suddenly crash open with a loud bang. Then they heard the sound of heavy footsteps running through the house and the sound of tables and chairs being violently turned over and the loud clatter of glass breaking, pots and pans crashing to the floor. Whoever it was, was now downstairs in their kitchen going on some sort of mad rampage.
Lordor grabbed the shotgun he kept by his bed, ready to defend their life against a gang of bandits or worse. Despite his command to Katrina to stay there and lock the bedroom door behind him, she grabbed her glasses and followed him down the stairs, carrying her new silver-handled mirror as a weapon.
When they reached the kitchen, Lordor kicked the door open and stood ready to fire. But what they saw standing in the middle of all the clutter wasn’t a gang of bandits, or even one bandit. It was the 350-pound pig named Sweet Potato that Henry and Nancy Knott had given them as a wedding present. The pig had managed to break out of her pen, had come up the front stairs, and snouted her way into the house. Sweet Potato, who evidently had no fear of guns or humans, glanced up at the two of them, was not impressed, and continued eating all of the leftover food from the party. She seemed to particularly enjoy the leftover wedding cake and her snout was smeared with white frosting.
What a colossal mess. She had knocked over everything there was to knock over, rooting around for food. There were broken dishes, chairs, pots and pans everywhere. All of Katrina’s new china and lovely wedding presents that had been on display in the kitchen, including her new white bedsheets and quilts, were now on the floor and covered with food and small pig hoofprints. It took the two of them more than thirty minutes to get Sweet Potato back outside, down the steps, and over to her pen.
The sun was up by the time she had been safely locked in. When the ordeal was finally over, and after they had both tried so hard to look nice on their wedding night, they were covered from head to toe in mud and cake. It was so funny, and they laughed so hard, they finally had to sit down on the ground. Every time one would stop laughing for a moment, the other would start again.
About five minutes later, Ollie Bersen, the hired hand, was on his way to work and saw the two of them, still in their nightclothes, sitting in the front yard, laughing their heads off. Ollie didn’t say anything, but he figured it must have been one wingdinger of a wedding night.
They must not have seen him, because all of a sudden Lordor leaned in and kissed her right on the lips. The bride must have liked it, because she threw her arms around him and kissed him right back. And in broad daylight, too. From the look of it, things were going well—so well, in fact, that Ollie was afraid to look, for fear of what they might be up to next.
But being human, once Ollie got safely inside the barn, he couldn’t help but turn and look back just in time to see Lordor scoop Katrina up off the ground and carry her up the front stairs and into the house. Oh, mercy! He figured he wouldn’t see Lordor down at the barn anytime soon, not that day at least.
EVEN THOUGH SWEET POTATO had almost ruined their wedding night, they had both learned a valuable lesson. No matter how hard you push, cajole, shove, beg, kick, or plead…pigs will not be rushed. Especially while they are eating leftover wedding cake. They also learned that the very best way to start a marriage was with a good laugh. Particularly when the children start coming.