The next day Henrik had a talk with Uncle Jens which ended in the
uncle's closing with a bang the open Bible on the table out of which
they had been reading, and then in uncontrolled rage ordering his nephew
out of the house. Henrik tried to make peace with his uncle, but it
proved useless, so he took his hat and left.
Henrik met Rachel again that evening, and again they sat on the bench
under the trees. Once again they became lost to all outward disturbances
in the deep concerns which brooded in their hearts and found utterance
in their speech.
"I shall remain here a few days more," said he in conclusion, "because I
want to get better acquainted with you; and then we must talk over our
plans further. Then I shall go back to Norway. In a few months I shall
come back, and we two shall go westward where the Temples are, and there
begin the work that is ours--the work that the Lord has called us to do.
What do you say to that?"
"Thank you," she replied simply, and with her usual smile; "I shall be
ready."
XIV.
"Rend your heart and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your
God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great
kindness."--_Joel 2:13._
On Henrik's arrival in Norway, the harvesting was in full swing, and he
busied himself with that. His friends, some of whom were surprised at
his return, asked him what he had found in America, and he told them
freely. Had he discovered the delusion in his American religion? No, he
replied, his faith had been made stronger. Selma had relented somewhat,
she making him welcome at her home in Christiania. Here he also met
Marie. Henrik treated her as a friend with whom he had never had
differences. When she saw him back again, browned and hardy, but the
same gentle Henrik, Marie wondered, and by that wonder her resentment
was modified, and she listened to his accounts of America and his
relatives in Minnesota with much interest. As he spoke with an added
enthusiasm of his cousin Rachel, the listeners opened their ears and
eyes. He told them freely of his plans, and what he and Rachel were
going to do.
"Yes," he said, "I can see the hand of the Lord in my finding
Rachel."--Marie had her doubts, but she said nothing.--"It is all so
wonderful to me, and I am only sorry that you folks can't see it!" But
they replied nothing.
Henrik wrote often to Rachel, and the letters which he received in reply
he usually handed to Selma, and Marie, if she was present. They
pronounced them fine letters. "She must be a jolly girl," they said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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