Believing the Dream (35 page)

“There, I’m done.” Astrid found her mother in the parlor at the spinning wheel. She glanced over to the basket of carded wool and shook her head. “And here I thought I could read for a while. Can I finish Thorliff ’s letter before I start carding?”

Ingeborg nodded. “If you don’t take too long.”

But Astrid’s question about Anji stayed with Ingeborg until bedtime. She sat on the edge of the bed brushing her one hundred strokes, and the more she thought about the new man in town, the faster she pulled the brush through her hair. What was normally relaxing turned into a race.

“You planning on brushing it all out or something?” Haakan lay back on the pillows as he watched her, his hands clasped behind his head.

“No, why?”

“You look more like you are pulling that lovely hair out than brushing it.”

Her brushing arm dropped to her side, then she clasped her hands in her lap, rubbing one thumb with the other.
How to say it. Quit stumbling over your thoughts and just ask
. She cleared her throat.

“Do you think . . .” She paused, sighed, and started again, not looking at him for fear he would see the heat creeping up her neck. “Astrid asked me . . .”
Just get on with it
. “She asked me if she should tell Thorliff that Anji attended church on Sunday with Mr. Moen. The man from Norway.”

“I know who he is, and so do you, since he’s visited here several times.”

She looked over her shoulder to see Haakan’s mouth quirk in a slight smile.

“Ja, I s’pose you do. And he’s only been here twice.”

“He is a fine man.”

“Ja.”
So, that is not the point. What is the point?
Her silent questions demanded answers that could be heard. And shared.

“So what do you think?”

“I think you should come to bed and let those young ones work out their own problems without our interference.”

“I wasn’t going to interfere.” Her words snapped on the still air like a whip cracking above the oxen backs.

“Oh?”

She clenched her teeth and turned, sending a glare intended to burn flesh. “If you can’t help me, then don’t hinder.”

“Oh.” Haakan raised one hand as if to block the barb, then used that same hand to pull the covers back on her side of the bed.

Ingeborg laid the brush down and, with rapid motions, divided her long hair into three parts and braided it, snagging some on a fingernail. “Uff da!” She ripped the offending sliver of nail off with her teeth and finished braiding, tying off the end with a slim strip of cloth from the dress she’d been sewing. Flinging her braid over her shoulder, she climbed into bed, flopped on her back, and pulled the sheet and blanket up to her chin. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the ceiling. So was she worrying about Thorliff after all? After answering Astrid so glibly this afternoon, she could hear herself,
“I know he is where he should be, and I know God can take better care of him than I can, so I leave him in God’s hands.”
It sounded good.

Haakan reached up and blew out the kerosene lamp, the smell of smoke pervading the room. He turned on his side and reached an arm over his wife to pull her close.

She pushed his hand away and humphed. She glanced to the side when a puffing noise indicated Haakan was already drifting asleep. Sure, and he couldn’t stay awake three minutes to help her. Men! She flounced over on her side, taking half of the covers with her.

His snore deepened.

Ingeborg thought back to the Sunday afternoon Mr. Moen had stopped by after church to talk with her about what she remembered of the trip to America and the years after, when she and her family had first arrived in the new land. They’d been sitting in the parlor with Andrew and Astrid sitting cross-legged on the floor, always ready to hear the stories of the early days.

“Do you mind if we speak Norwegian?” Mr. Moen had asked as he took out a pad of paper and a pencil. “I can take notes faster that way.”

“Not at all,” Ingeborg answered in Norwegian. “When I came, I knew not one word of English.”

“Did you come by sail or steamship?”

“Steam, but even big as that ship was, the waves threw it around like a rowboat. So many people were violently ill, and some died. Kaaren’s baby daughter was born not long before we steamed into the New York harbor. Kaaren was so weak, we were terrified she would be turned back by the government officials. But thanks be to God, they let us all come into the new land. We took the train to Fargo, and Roald and Carl worked on the railroad to help earn money for a wagon and the oxen. I worked in a hotel, and Kaaren took care of the children in two rooms in a boardinghouse. When spring came Roald and Carl rode horses north to find a homestead and then came back for the rest of us.”

“What advice would you give to those who want to emigrate?”

“Learn the new language before you come. Things will go much easier for them. Oh, and bring warm clothes. No matter how cold the weather in Norway, the wind blows here much worse.”

“What do you remember of your first winter here?”

“Ah, we built those soddies you see outside—one for all of us, that was two men, two women, a small boy, and a baby, and the other for the barn. That was built first. We are still using them. One thing you’ll most likely hear from others is that after my husband died in the blizzard and Carl and his two little girls died from the influenza, I discarded my skirts and went about in britches, since I was doing the work of a man and my skirts were a hindrance. I also hunted—was quite a good shot actually—and did anything I had to do to keep from losing the land we worked so hard to break and plant. Kaaren took care of the house and my two boys while the oxen and I busted sod. Ah, so many stories I could tell you. One of them you can read in
Harper’s Magazine
, written by my son Thorliff. He is away at school in Minnesota, at St. Olaf College, and plans on being a writer.”

“You will like Thorliff. He tells good stories.” Andrew stretched his legs out in front of him. “Tell him about Metiz, Mor.”

“Please do.”

Ingeborg picked up her knitting needles. “When we came here, we found an old Indian woman who lived along the Red River. The only word we understood was Metiz, so that is what we called her. Metiz are actually a group of Sioux Indians with French Canadian blood. She taught us about living off the richness of this land, for example, the value of herbs for medicinal purposes, and she became a wonderful friend, along with her grandson Baptiste. She made our lives easier than they would have been without her.”

“Metiz makes the best knives with deer-horn handles and vests and mittens out of rabbit skins. She sells them in Tante Penny’s store.” Astrid looked up from stroking the cat that lay curled in her lap.

“You have made a fine farm here.” Mr. Moen glanced around the parlor.

“Ja, God has been so very good to us. The land is rich, and we are close to water, but that is why Roald chose this area. He knew what we needed, and this land was still available. Some gave up and went back East or returned to Norway.”

“What made you start the cheese house?”

“My mor taught me to make cheese, so when we had extra milk, I made cheese, and it was good, so the business grew. People like good cheese. When the railroad came we had to keep making a bigger cheese house.”

Mr. Moen closed his paper pad. “I think I could write forever just about your family. Could you perhaps give me Thorliff ’s address? I would like to send a copy of his story to my paper in Norway. I think they would like to publish it too. If they like it, maybe they would take more.”

Ingeborg brought her memory back to the present, but by the time she finally fell asleep, she was no nearer to an answer about Thorliff and Anji. Other than this was none of her business, and she had to admit she had enjoyed visiting with Mr. Moen. Just like Haakan had said. Sometimes she wanted to take Thorliff by the ears and shake him, along with Anji.

“But do we know what God’s will is in this matter, besides what you— we want?” Kaaren refilled Ingeborg’s coffee cup the next morning.

“You think they are perfect for each other too, don’t you?”

“You mean Thorliff and Anji?”

“Of course.” Ingeborg tightened her jaw, then at the concern in Kaaren’s eyes, she sighed and shook her head. “Forgive me. I know I must not let this bother me. How am I to know God’s will in a matter like this? I just know what I think, and when even a child sees what is happening, I . . .” Her words trailed off as she raised the cup with both hands and sipped her coffee. The rocking chair creaked as she set it in motion. Kaaren settled into the other chair with a sigh, propping her elbows on the arms of the chair and inhaling the steaming aroma.

“Do you think Thorliff is aware of what is happening?”

“How could he be unless someone writes and tells him?”

“Are he and Anji writing to each other?”

“I don’t know. She hasn’t been over in weeks, months perhaps. And I wrote to him about this earlier and mentioned it when he was home at Christmas, so seems to me I’ve done all I should.” Ingeborg looked over the rim of her cup. “Not all that I want, you can be sure, but what I should. According to Haakan this is none of my business. But Thorliff is my son, and I want the best for him.”

“So—what if the best isn’t Anji?” The question lay between them like a sunbaked clod of black dirt.

Ingeborg rocked and sipped, the song of the rocker comforting in the silence.
Ja, what if God has something or someone else in mind?
How to know the mind of God? Thorliff struggled with those questions all last summer
.

“I know the answer is to trust that God knows best. I know the Bible verses, and one would think by now that I would not struggle with such a thing as this. ‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.’ ”

Now it was Kaaren’s turn to nod. “Ja, that says it all.”

“Saying is easier than doing.”

The two shared the kind of smiles that only those who have gone through the muck and mire of life’s hard times together can share.

“Our Lord has always provided.”

“Ja, I know.” Ingeborg rolled her lips together, the
tsk
buried in the motions. “But it still isn’t easy.”

“You think it was meant to be?”

“No, but by now it should be easier.”

Kaaren set her cup on the floor and at the same time picked her knitting out of the basket beside the rocker. With the click of the needles joining the creak of the rockers, the two women went on to discuss the budding romance between Ilse and George, the seeds they’d started for the gardens, and how many hens were setting.

When Ingeborg strode back across the short pasture some time later, she kept to the grass to prevent gumbo from building up on her shoes. Geese honked in their vees overhead, calling out their song of freedom. A hawk soared against the blue, his wild
scree
tingling down her spine. A north wind pushed at her back, flapping her skirts against her legs and tugging at her black woolen shawl.

Oh, to take the shotgun out and bag a goose or two, or a deer like she used to. But game no longer lingered near their back doorstep, and the pull to hunt had fled and left her behind. No babies in their houses any longer, no need for her to hunt to keep them in food, and help enough to ease the drudgery of the early days. Things indeed had changed, and by the time she kicked her boots against the stoop and scraped the mud from the soles, she knew one thing for certain. Maybe she had given up some things, but what she’d gained far outdistanced the debt.

She stopped in her upward motion to study the old straw and manure that they used to bank the house. Now that much of the frost had left the ground, it was time to spread the banking material out on the garden, and when there was time, plow it under. The cycle continued.

She leaped up the stairs, skipping the one in the middle. Nothing cleared one’s head like freeing the house from its winter insulation, and nothing would feel better than the pleasant ache in back and arms from working outside again. She’d been cooped up in the house for too long. That was it. And tomorrow, after she cleared away the banking, she’d start spring cleaning inside.

A spurt of wind tugged at her skirts, urging her to look toward the north. Heavy clouds mountained the horizon, gray tinged with near black, bereft of silver linings. She’d best hurry if she wanted to get at the banking, or perhaps she’d better hold off. Sighing, she pushed open the door and hung her shawl on the hook. She still missed having Paws greet her when she came home. Without him the house seemed quieter and emptier. She rattled the grate and lifted the stove lids to add more wood. Almost dinnertime and she hadn’t started the meal. Whatever possessed her to think she could start the garden today? But soon, she promised herself. Soon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE