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“This is Miss Norling,” I said. “She’ll be helping me in the store for a little.”

Mrs. Söderberg’s smile was the kind that dripped with curiosity. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before, Miss Norling.”

“She’s a relation of Helena’s from up north,” I said. “What can we help you with?”

“A train set for my grandson.”

I handed Lilja the pen and pushed the ledger toward her. She found the right page and dipped the pen in ink. She didn’t look at my notes I had written in the back before she asked, “How many cars?” That was indeed the right question.

“Three, please, excluding the locomotive. Two passenger cars and one for goods.”

Lilja wrote that down. She had an elegant, looping handwriting that struck me as… as old-fashioned, perhaps?

“Colors?”

“All the bright ones. Red, green, yellow, blue.”

Lilja smiled. “Good choice. The little ones love bright, don’t they? What sort of wood? We have birch, pine, oak, and ash?”

“I recommend birch for a train,” I added.

“Birch, then,” Mrs. Söderberg said.

Lilja gave her the price, which was satisfactory, and they agreed on a date of delivery on December 20th.

Mrs. Söderberg left, and I turned to Lilja. “Very good.”

Her smile made my face heat like it had yesterday. She turned and looked around the store. “What should I do when there are no customers? Is there something to polish or wipe perhaps?”

The store looked perfectly in order, and I was just about to tell her there was no need when her eyes fell to the floor. Mrs. Söderberg’s boots had dragged in a withered leaf and a few flakes of dried mud. “I ought to sweep. Do you have a broom?”

“In the shop.”

I got the broom, then left her to it since the whole point of employing her was to give me time to work at my bench. Soon, I lost myself in the carving but was yanked back out of my concentration when the bell rang again.

I went to the door to the store. It was open just a few inches, and I peeked through. Lilja was behind the counter, standing very straight. She didn’t look back to see if I was coming to assist her, and so I stayed where I was. I could always appear if she needed me.

The customer was Dr. Bergström. “A set of soldiers for my son,” he said.

“A regiment of six or twelve?” Lilja asked.

Like when Mrs. Söderberg had been in, she didn’t leaf back to see my questions. She must have them memorized. That was quite clever. We sold a lot of different toys, after all.

“Twelve,” Dr. Bergström said.

“In blue and gold or continental red and navy with the bearskin hat?”

“Blue and gold.”

“A fine choice,” she said. “Your son’s a very lucky boy.”

From the way Dr. Bergström’s face lit up, I knew Lilja was smiling at him.

She asked the rest of the questions, her arm jerking with a surprising quickness as she wrote everything down. Her Goodbye and come again greeting to Dr. Bergström was both gracious and polite. When he had left, she got the broom back out and set to sweeping the floor again.

“She’s one lucky find, that one,” Helena said as I returned to my bench. She had heard everything through the door as well. “Quite the struck of good fortune, I say.”

Chapter Seven