Believing the Dream (9 page)

An arrow of sorrow pierced Thorliff’s heart. That could have been him and Anji in a couple of years if she hadn’t cut him out of her life like she had.

Unbidden, thoughts of Anji took over his mind. Graduation, her speaking so movingly, their first kiss, holding her hand, walking through the fields, laughter, the times they had danced together before he knew her to be more than a good friend.

Was college worth giving her up? Not that he’d given her up at all. She was the one who refused to let him help. She was the one who said not to come home. She was the one who failed to answer his letter.

Somehow, dredging up any anger was beyond him. He would be seeing her soon. Surely they would be able to talk again, to iron out their misunderstandings.

He forced himself to return to his history of the early church, not the most inspiring reading for one whose mind had a tendency to fly across the miles to home. When the train finally chugged into the station, he nearly leaped up the steps.

Never had the miles passed so slowly. Gray clouds hung low over the white-sheeted prairie, heralding an earlier than usual dusk. As they left the lights of town behind, the houses grew farther apart. Those he saw already had lamps lit, and all had smoke rising from chimneys. Surely many of the families were doing their last minute Christmas baking, the houses redolent with cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves. Mor would have apple cider simmering on the back of the stove, perhaps a roast in the oven, fresh bread on the counter.

His mouth watered at the thoughts. He should have asked his family to leave his skis at the boardinghouse in Blessing.
Why do I always have
such good ideas so long past the time to make them happen?
He shook his head and continued to stare out the window.

“Hey, aren’t you young Bjorklund?” The conductor stopped beside his seat.

“Ja.” Thorliff kept his finger in the book to mark his place as he glanced up at the blue-clad man.

“I thought so. Henry Aarsgard, he married your grandmother, right?”

Thorliff nodded again.

“That Henry, he sure thinks the world of all of you. No more than if he was truly your own kin. You went away to school, to college, right?”

The man needed no more than an occasional nod to keep on talking.

“Does my heart good to see my old friend so happy.”

“Do you see him often?” Thorliff wished he had his pencil and paper out. Somehow he sensed there was a story here—he just wasn’t sure what it was yet.

“Your grandmother, she’s about the best cook anywhere. Why, just the other day she sent a basket of cookies and breads and such for those of us who knew Henry. Even had some of that Bjorklund cheese in it. Your mor makes that, right?”

Another nod.

“That Henry, he is some lucky fellow.” The conductor glanced up in response to someone’s call. “Coming.” He raised one hand in acknowledgment, then turned back to Thorliff. “You give Henry my best now, you hear?”

“I will.”

“And a blessed Yule to you and all of yours.”

“And you.” As the man took two steps along the aisle, Thorliff called him back. “Sir, I don’t know your name.”

“Just tell him Sig. He’ll know.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Sig, I will.”

As the train steamed north, Thorliff put away his book so he could identify every place and look for changes. One farm looked deserted. Was that the family Mor had written about that gave up and went back East somewhere? Or did they go back to Norway? He couldn’t remember. Either way, one of the Bjorklunds had most likely bought up his land. There’d be more fields to work come spring.

With the river frozen over, most likely his father had started cutting ice and hauling it to the ice house. Since there were no more trees to cut within hauling distance, the sawmill no longer ran in the winter. He knew that he’d missed the trek over to Minnesota to cut the Christmas tree. He shook his head at his fancy. Of course the tree was already decorated and waiting in the parlor to light the candles on Christmas Eve.

I missed all of the preparations this year
. The thought tugged his spirits downward. In spite of the concert at school with both the choir and the orchestra, he still didn’t feel like this Christmas was real.

Even printing out the booklet with his Christmas story for those at home hadn’t made him feel in the Christmas spirit.
So why not?
He asked himself the question for the whatever number of times.

Anji. Her name echoed in his heart. The closer he got to home, the stronger her name rang. At school he’d been able to keep so busy he could ignore his heart, at least part of the time, but not here with the clackety-clack of the train.

“Blessing. Next stop, Blessing, North Dakota.” Sig smiled as he swayed by.

Out across the white-drifted prairie Thorliff could see the Baard farm and on beyond that, the Bjorklund barns. The train slowed. The silver blue of twilight shadowed the drifts. If he craned his neck, he could see the grain elevator up ahead. Steam billowed past his window as the engineer applied the brakes, the screech a more sure announcement than the conductor’s call. The snow-shrouded elevator, Onkel Olaf’s furniture shop, and out the window across the aisle, Bestemor’s boardinghouse. The station. Thorliff reached for his satchel and stood. Strange, but he felt in another world or at least another time period than Northfield, as if he’d traveled through a telescope back in time. In spite of his knowing better, the feeling persisted that nothing had happened in Blessing while he was gone. It had remained frozen in time like children playing statues.

He swung down, using the bar by the door with his free hand.

“Thorliff!”

He turned at the calling of his name to see a horse and sleigh waiting at the far end of the platform.

“Astrid?” What was she doing driving the sleigh like that, a little girl like her?

She whipped the reins around the whip stock and leaped from the sleigh, her braids bouncing from under her red knit cap as she ran toward him. He dropped his valise in time to catch her when she threw herself into his arms.

He fought the burning behind his eyes and sniffed. Surely the cold, that was all. “Astrid, how did you know to meet me?”

“I’ve been coming every day since school was out. You almost missed Christmas.” She released her stranglehold on his neck to lean back and see his face.

At her accusation, he could do nothing but nod. “I know, but I’m here now, and I think you’ve grown a foot since I left.”

“No, already had two, didn’t need another.” Her saucy grin said she knew just what he meant, but just because he was a big college man, he wasn’t above being teased.

He grabbed her again and this time swung her around in a circle like he used to do when she was little. Only now he held her by the waist and the spinning almost sat him down in the snowbank.

They ignored the train leaving and arm in arm headed for the sleigh.

“Do you want to stop and see Bestemor first? Or . . .” Her eyes grew round. “You haven’t seen Gus.”

“Gus?”

“Penny and Hjelmer’s baby boy.” Patience colored her tone.

“Sorry.”

“He’s the sweetest baby in the whole world.”

Thorliff shook his head. “No, I think I’d rather just go home.”

“You want to drive?”

“Ja.” He glanced toward the church and school. “Pastor Solberg isn’t in town, is he?”

She shook her head and climbed up into the passenger side of the sleigh. “No, he’s at home, but said to come on out any time you wanted. We’ll see him at service on Christmas Eve.”

Thorliff tried to focus on her words, but all he could think about was Anji. Should he stop now or come back later?

“Mor will have supper ready when we get there. She’s made rommegrot just for you.”

Sitting himself on the sleigh’s seat, he grasped the buffalo robe at their feet and pulled it up over his sister’s legs. “Good, I haven’t had any since last winter.” He unwrapped the reins and pulled slightly to back the horse so they could turn and head for home. He’d have to go see Anji on the morrow. If his mor was beating rommegrot, they needed to be there when the butter came.

“The men should be done with chores by the time we get home. They started early.” She touched his arm. “You haven’t forgotten how to milk cows, have you?”

He clucked the horse to a trot. “Astrid, I’ve only been gone for three months, not a lifetime.”

“Seems like one.” Her sigh caught his heart. “Nothing’s been the same with you gone.” She scooted closer to him. “Andrew shoved Toby Valders headfirst into a snowbank the last day of school. Toby was some mad, but he had it coming. Pastor Solberg had told Andrew if he hit Toby again, he didn’t know what he was going to do with him, but Andrew didn’t hit him.”

“Does Mor know about this?” Thorliff jerked his thoughts back from Anji and looked at his little sister, who was no longer very little.

Astrid shook her head. “You won’t tell, will you?”

“No. I’d like to have dumped Toby on his head any number of times.”

“I think Toby doesn’t like being short when so many of the boys are getting tall.”

This girl sure has a good head on her shoulders.
“Where did you come up with an idea like that?”

She shrugged. “Just thinking, that’s all. Oh, and one day he told Andrew, ‘You think you can do anything just ‘cause you’re so big.’ ”

“Astrid Bjorklund, you don’t miss a thing, do you?”

She rubbed her red nose with her mittened hand. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Ja, that’s good.” The jingling of the harness bells rang out across the prairie. Errant snowflakes bit their faces as they sped over the drifts on a direct line toward home, the fences buried in frozen white.

“Sure must have been cold here already.”

“Ja. Pa says this looks to be one of the coldest winters since we came here. Our house and Tante Kaaren’s are much warmer than most.”

“That sawdust in the walls really helps, doesn’t it?”

“Here comes Paws.” The dog yipped as he bounded across the snow.

Thorliff stopped the horse with a
whoa
. “Hey, Paws, come on boy.” The yipping dog tried to leap up into the sleigh but had to scrabble with his back feet to finally make it. He scrambled onto Thorliff’s lap, his tongue busy in spite of the whimpers coming from his throat.

“I think you missed him.”

“Ja. I haven’t had a dog greeting like this since . . .” He left off his thought and thumped the dog on the ribs, at the same time rubbing ears and head. “Good dog, Paws, good dog.”
He’s getting old; his face is almost
white, and he almost fell.
He wrapped the dog in a one-armed hug.

“He missed you too.”

“Aw, he greets everybody like this.”

Her snort more than expressed her opinion.

With Paws back on the ground and trotting beside the sleigh, his doggy grin expressing pure joy, they drove on up into the yard.

“I’ll take care of the horse.” Astrid reached for the reins. “You don’t want to go getting your good clothes dirty.”

“No.” Thorliff turned to look his little sister in the face. “I will change and come to help.”

She shrugged. “Don’t want to leave him out in the cold and wind too long.”

Thorliff couldn’t believe his ears. Who did she think he was, or better yet, who did she think she was? “Hey, Astrid, this is me, Thorliff, your big brother. I was taking care of the horses before you were born.” He patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

“I just want your visit to be nice.”

“Mange takk. It will be, and taking care of the horse will feel real good.” He grabbed his valise and, climbing from the sleigh, took the three stairs as one. The door opened before he could touch the knob, and he nearly dove through it and into his mother.

“I was coming as fast as I heard the bells.” Ingeborg hugged him, then stepped back to cup his face between her hands. “You are home at last.” Her chin quivered, and her eyes turned suspiciously bright.

Thorliff nodded. “I am home, and if I don’t get right back out there, Astrid is going to put the horse and sleigh away.”

“So what is wrong with that? She does it all the time.” Ingeborg shut the door and drew him into the kitchen. “They’ll be up from the barn in just a few minutes.”

“I’ll be right down, then.” Thorliff hugged her again and headed up the stairs, stairs that were steeper and narrower than he remembered. He threw his valise on the bench by the wall and shucked his good clothes as fast as he could, then pulled on his old pants still hanging on their peg on the wall, along with a woolen shirt. He changed boots faster than he ever had and clomped back downstairs. His chores coat, too, still hung on the peg, this time by the back door.

“Back as soon as . . .” The rest of his words were lost in the slamming of the door.

The horse and sleigh were gone, so he trotted on down to the shed where Astrid had already backed the sleigh into its place and was unhooking the harnessed horse from the shafts.

“I said I’d do it.” He lowered the shaft to the ground.

“I know, but this way we’ll be done sooner. I thought you might like to go over to the big barn and say hello to those milking.”

He walked beside as she led the horse into the stall waiting for it. Together they removed the harness, and while he hung it on the pegs set in the posts of the barn wall, she dug out a can and poured the oats into the feedbox set in one side of the manger. The horse on the other side nickered his request for a feeding too, so she gave him a small bit.

“You didn’t do all the work,” she reminded the dark bay gelding as she squeezed by him on her way out of the stall.

A barn cat twined about her boots as she and Thorliff started for the door. A blast of frigid north wind made them both duck their chins into their coat collars. Snow swirled and stung their faces, making it hard to see beyond their feet. They followed the shoveled path to the main barn and fought with the wind to open the door.

Bursting through the small door beside the wide double ones, they laughed at the same time and stamped their boots. The warmth of a barn full of cows and the quiet with the door closed made Thorliff pause. The telescope had switched ends on him. Now Northfield lay at the tiny end, and he was home.