Believing the Dream (40 page)

Blessing, North Dakota

Driving the teams pulling the cultivator through the foot-tall corn left Thoriff with far too much time to think. Or rather, to remember.

Here he’d been home three days already, and still he had not had time alone with Anji. He’d gone over to the Baards’ twice, but one time she’d been too busy with her father, and the other time Knute and Swen had talked him into going fishing with them. She’d seemed glad to see him, smiling and welcoming him home. But then her father called, and she ran to help him. Swen and Knute said she did that most of the time, in between caring for the two younger ones, cooking, washing, and all the other women’s work.

The Mendohlsons had gone back to their own farm with the coming of spring and the need to get the crops in. So Mrs. Sam helped out at the Baards’ as much as she could, besides working at the boardinghouse, and some of the other women lent a hand now and then, but Anji was the one whose shoulders bowed under the heaviest weight. Or so it seemed to him after listening to her brothers.

When he mentioned her name at home, it seemed his family changed the subject, or was it all his imagination? He tried to think it out, but between swatting at flies and keeping track of the team, nothing made much sense.

“Thorliff, you want buttermilk?” Astrid waved and called from the edge of the field.

“When I get around there.” He clucked the team to a slightly faster pace and stopped them near her.

“I brought you cookies too and a chunk of cheese.” She handed him the jug first, knowing how thirsty the men got riding on the machinery.

“Mange takk.” He glugged another mouthful and took off his hat to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand. “Think I’d forgotten how dusty it can be out here.” Leaning against the iron wheel bristling with lugs, he reached for the cheese. “Aren’t you going to have some?”

“No, I’m not hungry.” Her sunbonnet hung on the strings down her back, and the skirt of her cotton dress had a big three-corner tear on the side.

“What happened there?” He pointed to the hole.

“That barbed-wire fence snagged me. No matter how close I wrap the skirt to my legs, it just has to snag.”

“You ever think of using the gate?”

Astrid gave him one of her you’ve-got-to-be-kidding looks, one she’d perfected even more in the last year. “And go all the way back there?”

Thorliff leaned over and gave a gentle tug on her braid. “You sure did grow up while I was gone.”

“I grew three inches this year. We marked ’em on the springhouse wall, just like always. Andrew grew five inches. He’s almost as tall as you. Did you grow this year?”

“I don’t think so. My pants stayed pretty much in the same place.”

“No, you grew, but this way.” She spread her hands a couple of feet apart.

“You’re saying I got fat?”

She rolled her eyes and gave him another dumbbell look. “No, you look more like Pa, you know, broader in the shoulders and chest. That kind of growing.”

“Well, if I don’t get back to work, this corn won’t get a chance to grow. Thanks for the lunch.” He took another cookie and climbed back up on the implement seat. “Mange takk.”

“You’re welcome.” Her laugh floated back on the breeze as she ran back across the field.

Thorliff looked to the south to see where Andrew had his teams. Over to the Knutsons, Haakan and Lars were working on the steam tractor. Though the iron monster never tired like the horses and oxen did, it needed constant maintenance. Just like he did.

Even with heavy leather gloves on, his hands felt like ground meat. His legs cramped at night so bad he leaped out of bed and scared even Andrew awake. In spite of the brim on his hat, the sun burned his neck to a blaze, and if he could ever truly quench the thirst, he’d—what? He didn’t know. Had he truly gotten so weak living in town that he never realized how much strength and endurance farming required? Strange, when he was in Northfield he had dreamed of home, and now that he was here, he dreamed of Northfield. He lifted his face to the breeze. Thank God for that at least. Now if only the wind would bring the rain. That’s all the men talked about when any two or more got together—the needed rain and the low prices.

When he heard the dinner bell ring, he unhitched the doubletrees, hooked the traces up to the rump pads, and turned the team homeward. Memories leaped from the soil itself: he and Andrew running out to ride one of the horses back to the barns, Paws coming to greet them, yipping and jumping in his excitement. Riding Jack the mule in to Tante Penny’s store. He could barely remember his real pa, only shadows of a sober-faced man with a deep voice and gentle hands when he lifted a small boy onto his shoulders. So his memories of growing up always included Haakan.

“Hurry, Thorliff, or we’ll start eating without you.” Astrid cupped her hands around her mouth to help the holler carry clear to him.

“Go right ahead.” Thorliff stopped the horses at the barn door and began removing the harnesses. Andrew grinned at him as he took a harness and hung it on the racks inside on the barn wall.

“Don’t say a word,” Thorliff cautioned him. “Not one word.”

“Oh, I won’t say that you look really bad, but if you want to go up and wash, I’ll finish with the horses.”

“Smart-mouthed kid.” But even the grumbling felt good compared to staggering in behind the team. He should have ridden like he’d thought, but that would have meant admitting defeat.

“Another week and you’ll be back to normal.” Haakan handed him a towel and pointed to the washbasins that lined the bench on the south side of the house. “Astrid even poured you warm water.”

Thorliff knew they were all trying to make it easier for him, and that made him feel even worse. He worked hard on the printing press. That was no slack job, but he had to be honest. It didn’t continue day after day like this, and sitting at a desk writing did not build the kind of muscles the farm demanded.

They applauded when he made it to the table.

Instead of snapping like his insides demanded, he laughed along with them. When they bowed their heads for grace, he was most thankful for a chair that didn’t move and a cushion to pad his rear.

“Tomorrow everyone will be here for dinner after church to welcome you home.” Ingeborg passed the platter of fried chicken to him.

“Just like always.” Thorliff took a thigh and a breast and passed it to Andrew. He took a bite and closed his eyes in bliss. “No one makes fried chicken like you, Mor.”

“I fried the chicken.” Astrid flipped her braids over her shoulders.

Andrew burst out laughing. “You should see your face.”

Thorliff looked from his plate to his sister. “Really?”

“Ja, Astrid is a big help now. She can cook anything I can.”

“Does she make cheese as good?” At their shrugs, he continued around his mouthful of chicken. “When I go back to school, I have to bring at least three wheels of cheese with me. I could set up shop and sell Bjorklund cheese to pay my way through school.”

“That’s at least one product we can keep selling at a decent price. I’m thinking we should keep some of the fields in pasture and buy more cows.”

“Don’t you still get milk from the other farmers around here?” Thorliff buttered a roll and ate half of it in one bite.

“Ja, Sam drives a wagon around and picks up the cans, then goes back to the blacksmith shop. We’re going to have to add on to the cheese house again to have enough room to age it properly. We’ve been selling more of the soft cheese at Penny’s store and in Grafton.” Ingeborg refilled the basket of rolls and handed it to Thorliff. “I’m thinking of getting goats and making goat cheese as a sideline.”

“Who would milk those smelly creatures?”

“There are two girls at the deaf school, and I’m sure George McBride would too. You won’t believe the change in him.”

“That’s because he loves Ilse.” Andrew chewed the meat off a drumstick and laid the bone down.

“How do you know that?” Astrid looked from her brother to her mother and back.

“I watch.” Andrew reached for another chicken leg. “When they marry up, he will keep working for Onkel Olaf, and she will keep helping at the deaf school. You watch.”

“Andrew, you amaze me,” Ingeborg said.

You need to be more like Andrew,
Thorliff told himself.
He sees more than anyone I know, other than Metiz
. “I haven’t seen Metiz since I got home. Is she all right?”

“She moves more slowly sometimes but keeps plenty busy. I know she misses Baptiste, but she never admits it.”

“We all miss him, especially all the game he provided. You never know how much someone does until they aren’t there to do it anymore.” Haakan leaned back and patted his stomach. “Not that we are starving or anything.”

“Maybe I should run a line of snares for rabbits for Metiz. She runs out of skins sometimes.” Andrew reached for another roll.

“That would be a good thing to do.” Ingeborg held up the chicken platter. “Anyone want another piece?”

“When?” Haakan motioned for the chicken. “You work from dawn to dark as it is.”

“Once the cultivating is done, the hay won’t be ready yet. I’ll do it then.”

Thorliff listened with only one ear. Somehow he had to find time to write more chapters too. And that was the kind of thing one did in the winter on the farm.
Tell them, so they know you’ve made that promise
. He started to argue with himself, but after a drink of water, he leaned forward. “I promised to send Mr. Rogers a chapter a week for the newspaper serial until it is finished. He said if I had time to write any articles, he’d run them too. And funniest thing.” He told them of his letter from Ivar Moen. “So if I can find time, I could send some things to his paper in Norway. He must be a pretty nice guy.”

“Did you bring home the last two installments? That’s sure been a good story.” Andrew filled in the silence and turned to look at his older brother. “I guess I didn’t know you could write such a long one.”

“Guess I didn’t know it either. One of these times I have to come up with an ending.”

“Astrid has been reading it to us the evening it comes in the mail. Then we take it to school, and she reads it there too.” Andrew nodded to his little sister. “She’s a real good reader.”

“I had no idea.” Thorliff looked around the table. “You want to hear some good news about it?” At their eager nods he continued. “Mr. Rogers might print it in a book. He’s gotten lots of requests.”

“Oh, Thorliff, your first book.” Ingeborg set a piece of custard pie in front of him, laying a hand on his shoulder at the same time. “And to think you are only one year in college.”

“He didn’t need college to write that book. He learned it all here on the farm.” Haakan tamped the tobacco down in his pipe and waved the pipe for emphasis. “But his articles on the Pullman strike, now those are real reporting.” He motioned Astrid to bring a lighted spill from the stove. “One day a man in Grafton asked if I was related to that reporter Thorliff Bjorklund. Can you beat that?”

“How did he get one of my articles?”

“I asked him. He said a relative from Northfield sent them on. The world’s getting to be a smaller place every day.” A cloud of smoke hovered above his head.

Thorliff inhaled the fragrances of home—pipe smoke, fresh bread, fried chicken, coffee. A rooster crowed from out in the chicken yard. The orange cat mewed and leaped up in Astrid’s lap, chirp changing to purr as she stroked his head. Home. How he had missed it in the beginning. How would he be able to leave it again?

“How’s your hands, son?” Haakan asked around the pipe stem in his mouth.

“Tolerable. Has anyone heard from Manda and Baptiste?”

“The Solbergs have gotten two letters, and Mary Martha went right over to Metiz’ house to read them to her. They’re hoping to bring another herd of horses home to sell this summer.”

“Good for them. They like Montana?”

“I guess so, but you know Manda. She didn’t waste too many words on paper either.” Ingeborg took the plates from the table and slid them into the pan of soapy water steaming on the back of the stove. “Solbergs are coming over tonight to see you.”

Thorliff glanced up from his coffee cup. That meant he couldn’t go see Anji tonight either. When would they ever get a chance to talk? And yet he couldn’t not be here. That would be insufferably rude. On the other hand, why did no one ask him first before planning out the time?

“We better get back out to work.” Haakan stood and took his pipe to the stove to clean out the bowl with the tip of his knife, the residual tobacco falling into the coals in the firebox. He tapped the bowl against the rim of the opening and set his pipe back up in the pipe rack on the warming shelf.

Thorliff watched the ritual, filing it away for one of the characters in his story. Far was right. Most of what he wrote came from his life here on the farm, even though much of the current story was set in cities and towns along the railroad. He’d read that some famous writer said you write what you know, but while he knew the most about farming in North Dakota, he’d learned more than he wanted in reporting on the strikes and battling strikers. He could hear Astrid and Ingeborg talking, but the voices sounded farther and farther away until he heard them no more.

“Naptime is over.”

“Huh?” He felt someone shake his shoulder at the same time as he heard her speak right in his ear. He jolted straight up. “What?”

“I said, naptime is over. Pa said to let you sleep awhile, and then you are to take the oxen out to finish your field.”

“Let me sleep?” Thorliff glanced around at the clean kitchen, table cleared, with salt and pepper, sugar bowl, and jelly jar all centered on the board with a lip he’d made for that purpose one year in school. The oilcloth tablecloth was wiped free of crumbs, the chairs pushed back in.

“How long did I sleep?” He rubbed the crick in the back of his neck that told him some time had passed.

“An hour or so.” Astrid leaned against his shoulder. “I was afraid you would topple right off on the floor, but you didn’t.”

Thorliff rose and stretched, every bone and muscle in his body screaming in protest. He crossed to the water pail and raised the dipper for a drink. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he hung the dipper back up on the hook.