Historical Fiction
Date Published: 10-07-2025
Publisher: NorthStar Press
Loneliness gnaws and chews like the relentless prairie wind. Dakota
homesteader, Digger Dancy, props his feet in the oven and waits for the storm
to end. His brother, George, barges into the soddy in a swirl of blowing snow.
George announces he will abandon his claim to seek a wife. He can’ t
stand the loneliness. Digger slaps a stack of old newspapers on the table and
convinces him to place an ad for a correspondence bride in the Montana
Matrimonial News. Doctor Gamla, the almost-doctor and midwife, treats
George’ s frostbite, and offers a cure for his melancholia. She tells of
two sisters living in tar-paper shacks along the Mad Dog River. The brothers
cannot imagine how Doctor Gamla’ s cure will change their lives.
Nickelbo’ s whole world is wheat. The homesteaders talk about crops,
worry about the weather, complain about prices, and dream what they’ ll
buy after the harvest. Asa Wainwright busts sod with a grasshopper plow.
Ingrid Larson dallies over planting to avoid her sister’ s wedding.
Drunken Oscar Borgom gets lost in a storm on the way to the outhouse. Through
it all, Doctor Gamla delivers babies, treats ailments, and offers advice.
“My cures work if you can stand them."
Excerpt
Digger Dancy paced back and forth across his soddy, ten steps from door to
stove, eleven steps from table to bed. He had survived four long winters, and
he would survive now. It was a matter of mental discipline. He focused on
pleasant things: playing baseball in July, a keg of beer cooled in the river,
turning the crank at the ice cream social, dancing to a polka band.
Don’t think about Christmas coming. Don’t count the months until
spring. Don’t worry about your brother. Read. Sing. Recite poetry. Read
some more. Remember the poems you memorized in school. Listen my children and
you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. And the Bible verses you
learned in church. Jesus wept. God is love. The Lord is my shepherd I shall
not want. Get ahold of yourself.
Digger cracked open the door and peered out into the storm. A white curtain of
blowing snow wrapped the world into a cocoon. He couldn’t see a thing.
Yesterday, the storm roared out of Canada and dumped three feet of snow across
Dakota Territory. Snow was still coming down. Icy cold robbed his breath. He
slammed the door and added kerosene to the lamp. The earthen walls absorbed
the light, leaving only a feeble glow.
He had sweet-talked his brother into homesteading the adjoining claim. They
would share work and keep each other company. They would build their own life,
away from their bossy mother and relatives. Sitting on a claim for five years
was worth the title from Uncle Sam, in his opinion, but George suffered from
melancholia. Dark winter days pushed him to the edge of sanity. George always
snapped back in the spring, but even so, Digger worried about him. Lately he
had been withdrawn and morose. As soon as the weather cleared, he would go
check on him. Dear God, don’t let him do anything rash.
He pulled his chair next to the stove, rested his feet on the open oven door,
and opened a Fargo Argosy that was almost old enough to vote. He reread a
report of a baseball game. Homesteaders were too busy and too isolated to play
much ball. Next summer he would convince his neighbors to play a game once in
a while. It was the only thing he missed about Iowa. He didn’t miss his
bossy mother or the town gossips. He didn’t miss everyone trying to tell
him how to live his life.
About the Author
Candace Simar likes to imagine how things might have been. She combines her
love of history with her Scandinavian heritage in historical novels that
examine the early days of Minnesota and North Dakota. “I write
historical novels to share painless history lessons about the fascinating and
unique history of our region.”
Her historical novels include: Sister Lumberjack, book five in the Abercrombie
Trail Series (North Star Press, March 2024) Follow Whiskey Creek (Sweet Honey
Press 2023) Escape to Fort Abercrombie (Five Star Cengage 2018) Shelterbelts
(North Star Press 2015), Blooming Prairie (North Star Press 2012) Birdie
(North Star Press2011) Pomme de Terre (North Star Press 2010), and Abercrombie
Trail (North Star Press 2009). Her short story collections: Dear Homefolks
(River Place Press 2017) and The Glory of Ordinary Time (Wolfpack Press 2018).
Farm Girls (River Place Press 2013) is a book of poetry co-written with her
sister, Angela Foster. Candace’s short stories have been published in
the anthologies: Spoilt Quilt (Five Star Cengage 2020), Librarians of the West
(Five Star Cengage 2021); and Why Cows Need Cowboys (Two Dot Press 2021).
Simar is a Spur Award winner and Spur finalist from the Western Writers of
America for her Abercrombie Trail series. Shelterbelts was a finalist in both
the Willa Literary Awards in Historical Fiction and the Midwest Book Awards.
Escape to Fort Abercrombie holds a Will Rogers Gold Medallion and a Peacemaker
Award from Western Fictioneers.
Her short stories and poetry have received awards from the Bob Dylan Creative
Writing Contest, Lake Region Review, League of Minnesota Poets, National
Federation of State Poetry Societies, Dust and Fire, and the Laura Awards for
Short Fiction.
Candace enjoys sharing her research and writing with groups and book clubs
across the nation.
Contact Links
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