Dakota December and Dakota Destiny (19 page)

Once or twice his smiles at the antics of the younger Moen children nearly reached his eyes. “Thank you so much,” he said as he readied to leave after the meal was finished.

“You’re welcome to stay longer.” John leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs at the ankles.

“I . . . I’d best be going—put these two to bed, you know.” He nodded toward Joey and Jenny, who were being bundled up by the Moens. “Again, thank you.” He put his hat on and picked up Jenny. “Come, Joey.” He took the boy’s hand, and the three went down the walk to where he had parked his automobile at the front gate.

“He should have started that contraption first.” Ingeborg shut the door and peeked through the lace curtain. “Knute, why don’t you go out and help him crank that thing?”

The oldest Moen son did as asked. When he returned, he rubbed his hands together. “If it weren’t for cranking those things, I’d want one the worst way.”

“Wanting never hurt anyone.” John winked at Mary. “I was hoping since you were home, you would read to us tonight.”

“Of course. What are you reading?” She took the book her father handed her. “Oh, Charles Dickens and old Scrooge. How I love it.” As soon as the dishes were washed and put away, the family gathered in the parlor and Mary began to read. After the chapter was finished, she picked up the Bible that lay on the end table and opened it to the Psalms. “I keep going back to this one. ‘Oh Lord, thou has searched me, and known me.’”

“Psalm 139.” Daniel beamed at being the first to recognize it. They’d played this game of guessing the Scripture all the years of their lives, until now they were all well-versed in Bible knowledge.

Mary continued reading and, when she finished, closed the book. “Far, will you pray tonight?”

John nodded. “Father in heaven, Thou dost indeed know us right well. We ask You to forgive us our sins and fill us with Your Holy Spirit so that we may do the works Thou hast given us.” When he came to the end, he finished with a blessing and they all said, “Amen.”

“Now I know I am home for sure,” Mary said with a sigh and a smile.

She felt that same way in church a few nights later when they gathered to celebrate the birth of the Christ child. Singing the old hymns and hearing the words embedded in her memory from eighteen Christmases made her want to wrap her arms around every person in the room.
Please, God, if You will, send me a sign that Will is either here on earth or up there with You. I want to do Your will, and I thank You that You sent Your Son to walk this earth. All I ask, dear Father, is a small sign.

Christmas passed in a blur of happiness, only saddened when Mary thought of Will and what he was missing. Two days later, Dag came to see them.

“I have something that came in the mail today.” He stopped, swallowed hard, and continued.

Mary felt an icy hand grip her heart.

Dag held out something metal on his hand. “They say these are Will’s dog tags, taken from a body buried in Germany.”

Mary couldn’t breathe.

“Mary, are you all right?”

She heard the voice as if from a great distance. “I . . . I’m fine. Why?” Had she been sitting in the chair when . . . ? Memory crashed back and she whimpered. “No, no, please no.”
Dear God, please, that’s not the sign I wanted. I know I asked for a sign but . . .

Dag stood before her, his hand clenched at his side, a small piece of chain dangling between thumb and forefinger.

Now, why would I notice something like that? Chains don’t matter at this point.
But that one did. The chain that Will had worn so proudly now brought agony to his beloved.

“Mary.” Her father’s face swam before her eyes. He cuddled her cold hands in his warm ones and waited for her to respond.

“Yes.” She left off studying the shimmering hairs on the backs of his hands and looked at him. The tears fighting to overflow his blue eyes undid her. She threw herself into his arms and wept.

Minutes later but what seemed like hours—she accepted the handkerchief from her mother and mopped at her eyes. “I wanted him to come home. I asked God, and you said God always answers our prayers. I prayed that He would bring Will home.”

“I know. I did, too.”

“And me.” Dag lowered himself into a chair and leaned forward. “All of us prayed for that.”

“Then why?” She shouted her question, shaking her fist in the face of God. “Why did He let Will die? Others are coming home why not Will?”

John bent his head. “I don’t know. I do not understand the mind of God or some of His purposes. All I know is that His heart breaks, too, and He holds us close. Close like me holding your hand and even closer. And the other thing I know with all certainty is that you will see Will again.”

“I know about heaven, but I want him here.” Tears dripped down her face.

“I know that, too.”

Mary felt her mother’s hands on her shoulders, warm and secure.

“God could have saved Will.” Again she felt like lashing out.

“Ja, He could have.” The hands on her shoulders rubbed gently.

“Then why didn’t He?” Mary hiccupped on the last word.

“I ‘spect every wife, mother, friend, feels the same. None of us want someone we love to be killed.” John rubbed the back of her hands with his thumbs.

“Am I being selfish?”

“No more’n anyone else. But death comes. It is part of life, and we look forward to heaven all the time.”

Mary sat silently. Then she shook her head. “It’s not fair. Will is such a good man.”

“Yes, he was. You can be proud he was your friend and loved you with all his heart.”

It bothered her that her father said “was.” She couldn’t think of Will as “was.”
He is!
Her rebellious mind insisted.
Will is.

When she awoke in the middle of the night, after alternately praying and crying, she found her mother sitting by the bed, sound asleep. Mary fought back tears again. This was so like her mother, keeping watch over those she loved and those who needed her. Her presence comforted the girl, and she drifted back to sleep.

Each day felt like she waded through spring gumbo three feet deep. Every part of her felt heavy, even to her eyelids and the tops of her ears. She pushed her hair back and finally braided it and coiled the braid in a bun at the base of her head to keep the weight of it from pulling her over. All she really wanted to do was sleep, for only in sleep did the knowledge disappear. But on waking, it always returned. They said Will was dead.

“You can stay home, you know.” Ingeborg helped fold the under-garments to put in Mary’s traveling valise.

“Would it be any better?” Mary turned from sorting through her books and deciding which had to go back with her.

“It would for me, because then I could make sure you eat and get enough rest and—”

“And cluck over me like one of your chicks?”

“You are one of my chicks.” Ingeborg smoothed a ribbon into place on a nightgown. “No matter how grown-up you get—even when you have a family of your own—you will always be my eldest chick.”

“But I have to grow up, and learning to keep going is part of that, isn’t it?”

“Ja, and I know our heavenly Father will watch over you and keep you safe.”

I hope He does a better job with me than He did with Will.
Mary was horrified at her thoughts. They just snuck up on her and dashed off before she could rope them in and discipline them to behave.

Later, her bags all packed, Mary bundled up to walk over to the mansion to say good-bye to Mrs. Norgaard. The north wind bit her cheeks and tried to burrow into her bones.

“Come in, my dear, come in.” Clara swung the door wide open. “Are you about frozen clear through, out walking in this cold?” Mary stamped the snow from her boots and smiled at the diminutive dynamo in front of her. Clara Weinlander often reminded Mary of her mother. If there was something that needed doing, those two women would take it on.

“Herself is waiting for you.” Mrs. Hanson secretly used that nickname for her employer, and at times, so did half the town. “We’ll bring the coffee right in.”

After their greetings, Mrs. Norgaard beckoned Mary to sit beside her on the sofa in front of the south windows. “I want to say something to you before the others come in.”

Mary sat and turned to face her benefactress. “Yes.”

“Losing one you love is one of the hardest things in life, but there’s something I learned through all that. The Bible says, ‘This too shall pass,’ and it will. Right now you doubt me, but in a few weeks, months, the pain will be less and there will be some days when you surprise yourself because you didn’t think of missing him at all.”

Gudrun covered Mary’s hands with her own. “Trust me, child, I know it is true. And one day you will think of Will, and the memory will be sweet. For you see, he will be closer now than he could have been when he was alive.”

Mary felt the tears burning and closed her eyes. “But . . . but I still feel he might be alive, somewhere, somehow.”

“I know, the mind plays tricks like that on us. Oh, how often I thought my husband would be home in half an hour. But he was gone, and finally I came to accept that. And that’s when I began to live again.” She looked up to see Clara and Mrs. Hanson with the serving trays. “And much of that is thanks to these two. They bullied me into wanting to live.”

“That we did.” Mrs. Hanson set the tray down. “And would again.”

“Just think of all the exciting things you would have missed.” Clara sat in the chair and leaned forward to pour the coffee from the silver pot. “Mary, help yourself to those cookies. Mrs. Hanson baked them just for you, and there’s a box for you to take with you.”

In spite of herself, Mary left the mansion feeling a little less weighed down by life.

With papers to write and new classes, Mary found herself busier than ever. Her friends gathered round her and made sure she ate and went with them to the lectures on campus to hear the suffragettes trying to get the suffrage bill passed through Congress. When it was defeated, they all held a wake.

When General Pershing made his triumphant entrance into Paris, they all listened to the speeches on the radio in the parlor. Surely peace would be coming soon.

But the war continued, and school drew to a close. The entire Moen tribe came down on the train for Mary’s graduation from normal school. She would now be able to teach grades one through high school in the state of North Dakota. Mary almost, but not quite, kept from looking for Will in the well-wishers.

“To think, a daughter of mine has graduated from teaching school.” Ingeborg clasped her hands at her waist.

“I won’t be the last.” Mary removed the square black mortar board that crowned her head. “I will help pay for the next one who wants to go. Has Knute talked about what he wants to do?” Her brother next in line was due to graduate from high school at the end of May. She looked down at the brother tugging on her arm. “Yes, Daniel?”

“Far said if you were to change, we could go have ice cream.”

“Oh, he did, did he? Well, let me congratulate my friends over there, and we will all walk to the soda fountain.”

“I think we need a place like this in Soldahl,” Ingeborg said after they took their places in two adjoining booths.

“That’s right, Mother, you need something else to do.” Mary shook her head.

“I didn’t say I should do it.” She looked around at the scroll-backed metal chairs and the small round tables. “But think what—”

“Don’t even think such a thing.” John leaned across the table to bring his face closer to his wife’s. “You have far too much to do right now.”

“Well.”

“Mother!” Mary couldn’t tell if her mother was serious or just teasing. After the young man took their order, Ingeborg leaned back against the high-backed wooden bench and turned to her daughter. “So, how are you, really?” She studied Mary’s face, searching for the truth.

“I am much better. Mrs. Norgaard was right. Only by looking back can I tell how far I’ve come. I’m not angry at God anymore—or anyone else. I can read His Word and let it bless me again. But I still write my letters every night to Will and collect them in a box. I guess that has become my diary.” She didn’t tell them of not looking for the Big Dipper anymore. She still had a hard time looking up at the night sky at all. Invariably when she did, her eyes filled with tears and she couldn’t make out the stars anyway.

“I could tell a difference in your letters. Your father and I want you to know how proud we are of you.”

The sodas arrived, and the conversation turned to how good they tasted and what everyone was planning for the summer.

“Mr. Oien has been writing and asking if I would care for the children again this summer.”

“I know,” Ingeborg responded. “I think he sees that with all of my own children home, his two little ones might be too much.”

“He doesn’t know you very well then, does he?” Mary sipped on her straw. Her mother’s straw hat had just been knocked askew by an arm belonging to one of the boys, who had been reaching over the back of the bench. Mary gave the hand a pinch and smiled at the “yeow” that her action provoked. Her mother righted the hat with a laugh and a threat to fix the perpetrator good. The booth full of children laughed at her words, knowing their mother would get even somehow, sometime when they least expected it.

Mary felt a glow settle about her heart. How she had missed them, mostly without even knowing it.

“So what will you do?” Ingeborg finally asked.

“I will care for his house and children and keep on searching for my school. I have my application in four different places, so time will tell.”

“And that is what you want?”

Mary nodded. “This is what I want. Since God made sure I got through school, He must have a place in mind for me.”

But the summer passed swiftly, and still Mary hadn’t heard. By the end of August, she had a hard time keeping doubts at bay. Would she get a school? If not, what would she do?

The letter arrived on a Wednesday. Mary stared at the postmark, then slit open the envelope with a shaking finger. Grafton lay in the next township, but the school they mentioned was not in town. If they hired her, she would be teaching first through fourth at a country school with two classrooms. Could she come for an interview on Friday?

Could she come for an interview? Did cows give milk? Did the moon follow the sun? An interview! She finally had an interview. And she wouldn’t be clear on the other side of the state. She could see the dear faces of her family on the weekends—that is, if she could afford the train. She hurried home to tell her family.

Questions bubbled to the surface. Where would she live? Oh, not with a family that made her share a room and bed with one of their children. Sometimes that was the arrangement. In some places families still took turns boarding the teacher. She’d heard some terrible stories about situations like that. Her feet slowed. If only she could teach right here in Soldahl.

“Mary, that is wonderful.” Ingeborg clasped her hands in delight. “And so close by.”

Mary read the letter out loud, the actual sound of the words making it more of a reality. “So, will you care for the children on Friday for me?” she asked her mother.

“Of course. You must call the people in Grafton and tell them what time your train will arrive. This is late for hiring a new teacher. I wonder what happened there? I hope it was not an illness of the teacher they already had.”

Or she didn’t want to go back and found a position elsewhere.
Mary shook her head. Thoughts like that were better barricaded behind steel doors.

On Friday, Mary boarded the early train and returned home in time for supper, the proud owner of a teaching position. She would report for duty in two weeks in order to have her classroom ready for her pupils.

“So, why did they need a teacher at this late date?” Ingeborg asked after the children were all in bed.

“Miss Brown’s mother became ill in Minnesota and she had to go be with her. A man teaches the older grades—has for a long time. I will be staying with a widow about a mile from the schoolhouse and helping her in exchange for board. I met with her, and she seems very nice. She’s a bit hard of hearing and speaks German as much as English, but we should do fine.”

“Anyone who has you to help them is very blessed indeed. Helping doesn’t mean milking cows and such, does it?” Ingeborg wiped her hands on her apron. “You never have had to do farm labor.”

“If you ask me, her sons just want someone living with their mother. She said she didn’t want to go live with them.” Mary’s eyes danced. “I think she doesn’t want anyone bossing her around.” She caught her mother by the hands and whirled around the kitchen with her. “Oh, Mr. Gunderson, the head of the school board, told me three times that they didn’t want any fooling around. ‘Our teachers must be a model of decorum.’” She deepened her voice to mimic the gentleman. “Mother, this is the twentieth century for pity’s sake. He must still be back in the Dark Ages.”

“So what did you tell him?”

Mary’s smile slipped. “I told him my fiancé was killed in the war and all I was interested in was teaching children the three Rs.”

The next afternoon when Mr. Oien came home from work, Mary gave him her good news.

“I’m so very happy for you,” he said, but his face showed shock and what was it—bewilderment?

“You knew I planned on teaching school if I could find a position?”

“I did. But since you hadn’t said anything, I’d hoped you would stay.” He sank down in a chair by the door.

“My mother will watch the children again.” Mary stepped to the window to check on the two who were playing outside in the sandbox. They were so sweet, and she would indeed miss them.

“That is not the problem.” He paused, then continued in a rush. “I had not planned to mention this yet, what with your grieving for Will and all, but you love my children and you are so good with them and you are such a lovely person, and would you consider marrying me?”

“What did you say?”

“I asked you to marry me.” He smoothed his sandy hair back with his hands. A smile came to his face. “I did it. I asked you to marry me.”

“But you don’t love me.”

“How do you know? I love having you here with Joey and Jenny when I come home. I love seeing you play with them. I love hearing you laugh and I—”

“But I don’t love you,” Mary said the words softly, gently.

“You could, you know. I make a good living, you wouldn’t have to teach school, you’d be near to your family whom I know you love dearly, you would have a nice house, and . . .”

Mary’s slow shaking of the head forced him to run down.

“Please,” he quickly amended, “don’t say no right now. Give it some thought. Let me visit you, take you for drives. We could have a picnic—a . . . a . . .”

Mary stared at him. The thought of marrying someone other than Will brought a knot to her throat and tears to her eyes. “I have to go. Thank you for . . . fo—” She turned and bolted out the door.

“What happened to you?” Ingeborg’s eyes widened when she saw her daughter’s face.

“He . . . he asked me to m-marry him.” Mary put a hand to her throat.

“A bit of a surprise, that?” Ingeborg shook her head. “Well, I never.” She stirred the kettle simmering on the stove. “Hmm, that idea has possibilities.”

“Possibilities! Mother, I don’t love Kenneth.”

“Yet. Sometimes the best marriages are when two people grow into love.”

“Mother! You want me to marry someone I don’t love?”

“I didn’t say that. But I can see it is a natural choice from his point of view. You are lovely, you are familiar, you know his home, and you love his children. Many men would say that’s more than enough basis for marriage. Women have married for a lot less, you know.”

Mary felt like she was talking with a total stranger who somehow wore her mother’s face. “I don’t think I have any more to say to you.” She turned on her heel and climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Flinging herself across her bed, she buried her face in her hands.
Oh, Will, why did you have to go and die?

Time took wings during the days until Mary left, making her breathless most of the time. So much to be finished. In spite of her feelings of misgivings, she continued to care for Joey and Jenny, bringing them back to her mother’s on the afternoons when she had errands to run.

She wanted her classroom just perfect for her new pupils and spent hours preparing calendars and pictures, lesson assignments, and flash cards for numbers. Mr. Gunderson had said the school didn’t have a large budget for supplies—the year had been hard for the farmers, in spite of the high prices for grain due to the war.

Mrs. Norgaard insisted that Dag would drive Mary to her new home so she wouldn’t have to take all her things on the train. “God will be with you, child, as you share His love for those children. Don’t you forget it.”

“I’m not about to.” Mary gave the old woman a hug. “You take care of yourself now while I’m away.”

“Humph.” Gudrun straightened her back, as if it needed it. “I’ve been taking care of myself since before your mother and father were born. I surely won’t stop now.” But the twinkle in her faded blue eyes turned the tear that shimmered on her lashes brilliant. She waved one slender hand. “You drive careful now, Dag, you hear?”

Clara, too, stood in the doorway, waving them off. “We’ll keep supper for you, Dag. Enjoy the day.”

“I wish she could have come.” Mary settled back in her seat. The wind whipped the scarf she’d tied around her hat and blew the ends straight out behind her. The thrill of driving such speeds!
One day,
she promised herself,
I will have a car of my own to drive.
The picture of the black roadster driven by Kenneth Oien flashed through her mind. What would it be like, married to him? She liked him well enough. In fact, they could probably be friends. She shrugged the thoughts away. He’d said he’d write and gladly drive up to bring her home for a weekend. She deliberately pushed the thoughts out of her mind.

“So, how goes the blacksmithing?” She turned in the seat so Dag could hear her above the roar of the automobile and the rushing wind.

“Slow. I know I will have to convert more and more to repairing tractors and automobiles and trucks. With the engines improving all the time, we will see more changes than we ever dreamed of.”

“I agree.” She sought for another topic, but let it lie. Talking above the noise took too great an effort.

Dag carried all her boxes into the schoolroom, and then took the suitcases into the Widow Williamson’s two-story square farmhouse and up the stairs to the large bedroom facing east. When he straightened, his head brushed the slanted ceiling, so he ducked a bit.

“This is very nice.”

“I think so.” Mrs. Williamson had even brought up a desk and chair to set in front of the window. Carved posts stood above a white bedspread, and extra pillows nearly hid the oak headboard. Braided rag rugs by the bed and in front of the high dresser would keep Mary’s feet off cold floors in the winter, and there was more than enough space for her simple wardrobe in the double-doored oak chifforobe. A picture of Jesus the Shepherd hung by the door.

“Well, I’d best be on my way.” Dag extended his hand. “You call if you need anything. I saw a telephone on the wall downstairs.”

“Thank you for all your help.” Mary walked him down the stairs, turning at the landing and on down. When his car roared to life and he drove away, she stood on the porch waving long after the dust had settled. She was on her own now—just what she had always wanted. Or had she?

Mary fell in love with her pupils the instant they shuffled through the door. She had sixteen all together: four in the first grade, all so shy they couldn’t look up at her; three in the second; five in the third; and four in fourth. The fourth graders already bossed the younger ones, but when she rapped for order, they all sat at attention.

“We will stand for the flag salute.” She checked her seating chart. “Arnold, will you lead us?” She put her hand over her pounding heart. Were they as nervous as she? She nodded at the boy on the outside row.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag . . .” They stumbled through the words, some having forgotten them and others having not yet learned.

One of the first graders broke into tears when Mary asked them to repeat the Lord’s Prayer. And when they sang the “Star Spangled Banner,” she mostly sang solo. These children had a lot to learn.

She had planned on standing in front of them and quizzing them on their reading and numbers, but at the sight of the tears, she called all the children to the side of the room and, sitting down on a chair, told them to sit in front of her. She smiled at each one when she called their names again.

“I need to know who you are, so could you please tell me something you like to do?”

The older children looked at each other wide-eyed.

“Arnold, we’ll start with you. What do you like?” And so she went around the group, and by the time she reached the youngest ones, they smiled back at her. One little towheaded girl stared at her teacher with her heart in her eyes.

“You are so pretty,” she whispered. “I like you.”

Mary felt her heart turn over. “And I like you.” She laid the tip of her finger on the little girl’s button nose. “Now, let’s all learn the pledge of allegiance because we are going to start every day saluting our flag.”

“My brother went to war for our flag.” One of the boys said. “He never comed home.”

Mary knew she was going to have heart problems for certain. “That has happened to many of our young men, so when we salute the flag, we are remembering them at the same time.” Thoughts of a star in the Big Dipper handle twinkled through her mind. Remembering. Yes, the sweetness promised by Mrs. Norgaard had finally come.

“A very dear friend of mine went to Europe to fight, too, and never came home.” She laid a hand on the head of a little boy who had gravitated next to her knee. “Now, repeat after me, I pledge allegiance to the flag . . .” And so the morning continued. By the time recess came around, Mary felt like running outside to play with the children.

“The first day is always the hardest.” Mr. Colburn, his graying hair worn long over the tops of his ears, stood in her doorway. His kind brown eyes and smile that made his mustache wiggle invited her to smile back.

“Is that a promise?” Mary stretched her shoulders. “Mr. Colburn, everyone spoke so highly of you, I feel honored to share your building.”

“Yes, well, I try, and the honor is mine. I think we will do well together. My wife insisted I bring you home for supper one night soon. She is so curious about the new teacher, I made her promise not to come see you for herself. We’ve lived here for ten years, and we are still not considered part of the community. She’s hoping you can be friends.”

“Isn’t that nice? I never turn down the offer of friendship.”

“I’ll go ring the bell.” Mr. Colburn left, and immediately the bell in the tower bonged twice. The children flew to form a line starting with the larger ones and going to the smallest and marched into the building.

Mary took a deep breath and dove back in.

The days fell into a pattern. Up before dawn to make breakfast while Mrs. Williamson did the outside chores. Then walk to school, teach all day, and walk home. Evenings, after she’d washed the supper dishes, were spent preparing for the next day. On Saturday they cleaned house, and on Sunday, Mrs. Williamson’s sons took turns driving them to church.

Mary didn’t have time to be lonely. She continued to write her letters to Will each night, but now she planned to send them to her mother. Ingeborg would love to hear the stories of her daughter and her small charges.

When Mr. Colburn discovered she could play the piano, he rolled the heavy instrument into her room on the condition that she teach music. The students at Valley School loved to sing. So every afternoon, if all had done their assignments, everyone gathered in Mary’s classroom for singing and then Mr. Colburn read to them. His mellow voice played the parts as he read first
The Jungle Book
, by Rudyard Kipling, and then
Oliver Twist
, by Charles Dickens. Mary was as entranced as the children.