The Endearment (30 page)

Karl was dipping into his second dish of cobbler when Katrene chuckled at him, asking, "You like that cobbler, Karl?"

Already it was Karl instead of Mr. Lindstrom!

"Kerstin, she made that cobbler. She is some cook, that Kerstin," Katrene crooned.

Anna had all she could do to keep the smile pasted on her face.

Karl nodded in Kerstin's direction, acknowledging her talent politely, then went back to eating again. Nothing would do but that Karl share their harvest of hops with the Johansons. He gave Katrene a whole bushel.

When the meal was done and the three Johanson women began making motions toward dish-washing, Anna offered to help, but they declined, saying she was their guest and they would have no such thing. Today they would only enjoy each other's company. There seemed to be no question that any help Karl wanted to give them with his axe would not be turned down. But the following day, of
 
course. Today they would make a holiday. They all agreed that when they lit into cabin-raising, there would be a building standing in record time. "Like in
Sweden
," they all said, happily deciding that once the Johansons' cabin was livable, they would pitch in together to complete the loft and roof and floor over at Karl and Anna's place.

They ended up staying for supper and left for home with the promises of returning early the next day to whip the cabin up. Katrene waved them away with her apple cheeks rounded in their usual smile, shouting something to Karl in Swedish.

"What did she say?" Anna asked.

"She said we should not eat breakfast before we come tomorrow because she will be making Swedish pancakes with lingonberries they have brought from
Sweden
!"

The joy in Karl's voice brought such a pang of jealousy to Anna, she didn't know what to do with it. It didn't help any when James added, "Boy! I hope they're as good as that blueberry cobbler was. That was really something, wasn't it, Karl?"

"Just like my mama used to make," he said.

"Where'd they get the berries?" James asked.

"They grow all over around here. Why, there is a thick patch of them up on the northwest section of my land, but since we have been so busy with our cabin, I have not been up that way to check them. I suppose they are ripe, too."

"Gosh, Karl, could Anna make cobbler with our berries?"

"I do not think it would be quite the same without that rich cream from Olaf's cows." Then he added, "I had forgotten how much sweeter is the milk from the cows than from goats."

"If Nanna could hear you, she'd probably stop giving out, just to get even," James teased.

Karl laughed. "Ya. That Nanna, she is one smart goat. But I do not think she is quite that smart."

"Are we going back tomorrow for sure?" James asked, clearly anxious to do so.

"Ya. Of course we are. Just like in
Sweden
it will be one for all and all for one. With our help the Johansons will have their cabin up in two or three days."

"Two or three days!" James sounded disbelieving.

"With six men and two teams, it will rise like hop yeast," Karl predicted.

"I just hope it doesn't go up too fast. I sure like eating at their place," James said with enthusiasm. "I can't wait to taste them lingonberries."

"Ya. You will love them. They taste like
Sweden
."

At those words Anna vowed that no matter how delicious Swedish pancakes and lingonberries were, she would definitely not like them!

* * *

When they went to bed, Karl spoke to Anna, something he had not done in bed since their falling out. "It is wonderful to have neighbors again, and wonderful to hear Swedish."

"Yes, they were nice," Anna said, feeling she must add something.

"I will be going early in the morning to help them with their cabin. Are you coming along, Anna?"

He didn't say, be ready early in the morning, Anna. Or, we must leave early in the morning, Anna. But, are you coming, Anna? Half of her wanted to screech at him that he could go alone to his Swedish-speaking friends who could make him laugh and smile when his wife could not. But she was too lonely to face a day without anyone for company, too jealous of the entire Johanson family already to entrust Karl to them for the entire day without her.

"Of course I'm coming. I wouldn't dream of missing Swedish pancakes and lingonberries!"

Karl detected a sarcastic note in her voice, but attributed it to nothing more than her usual shortness whenever the subject of cooking came up.

Again, Anna promised herself that if those pancakes were so light they floated off the griddle to her plate unaided, if the lingonberries were so flavorful they made her rool in her dish, she would absolutely not admit she liked them!

Yet she did--the very next day.

 
The morning meal at the Johansons was a success. The pancakes were eggy and light and delicious, and the berries were the perfect complement to Katrene's superb cooking. Anna found she couldn't help but tell Katrene so. No matter how jealous of their Swedishness Anna was, it was impossible for her to dislike any of the Johansons. They were indeed a joyful family to be around. Even the capable Kerstin had a guileless charm.

Laughter, Anna was learning, was as common to these Swedes as liking lingonberries. Swedes seemed to laugh in all they did. Teasing, too, was natural, even between the two elder Johansons. Among the sisters and brothers, of course, it ran rampant. Undoubtedly, Nedda took more than her share when James was around, but she accepted it with rosy blushes that made everyone the more gay.

Work, too, came as naturally to these blond giants as breathing. If Anna had been mesmerized by the sight of Karl with his axe, she was hypnotized by the sight of all five men-- Olaf, Erik, Leif, Charles and Karl-- swinging axes and adzes as if they were shooing bugs away. During the following two days Anna saw a cabin-raising done in the tradition of a bunch of hard-working, companionable Swedes.

They meshed like cogs of a gear as they worked, skidding, hewing, notching, raising, sometimes two logs going up at once on opposite walls. Karl, she was to learn, was a master shingle-maker and took great pride in tapping shingles off the cedar heartwood with his maul and froe nearly as fast as they could be hauled up to the roof and pegged on.

Leif, at age twenty, was a close second to Karl, and between the two of them, the shingles quite flew to the roofpoles!

Erik, it seemed, had a touch with heartwood, and could size up a piece of heartpine with a deadly eye of accuracy. When he drove his wedge into the piece, it split into planks that looked as if they'd been smoothed by running water for fifty years.

Olaf saw to the cutting of the fireplace hole and the door space.

To James fell the task of rock-hauling again. But Nedda worked with him, and he
 
seemed to enjoy his job immensely.

Anna and Kerstin gathered mud for the daubing, for now Anna was allowed to help, too. Katrene did the cooking, and supplied the workers with the water bucket and dipper periodically, bringing it around to inspect the progress and add her lilting Swedish comments to the feeling of goodwill already there.

At the end of the first day, Charles produced his fiddle, and they danced in the clearing while the orange and purple blended in the west behind the trees. Olaf and Katrene cut delightful steps. Kerstin danced with her brothers, and so did Nedda. It took some persuading on her part to get James to give it a try. Olaf and Leif both tried to persuade Anna to dance, but she declared she'd never been taught how and wasn't as brave as her brother, though she wanted ever so much to learn. But she wanted to learn with Karl, not with Olaf or Leif.

Karl danced with all the Johanson women. When he paired off with Kerstin, Anna continued clapping to the fiddle, forcing herself to bite back the storm of emotion that sprang up whenever the two spoke to each other. Watching them spin gaily around the firelit clearing, laughing, with Kerstin's full skirts flitting high as she lifted them, Anna again felt dismay at this newest talent she discovered in Kerstin, which she herself lacked.

Even after Anna had turned Karl down, Erik at last made her try it, pulling her out into the festivities with the others. She really didn't do half bad, although she felt far from feminine, swooping around the circle in her britches. She wished she had a dress like Kerstin's, but resolutely refrained from wearing the inappropriate ones she owned.

 
The work on the cabin went on the next day, and at the end of it the floor was completely laid. The fiddle was tuned again, to christen the new house with music and dancing. This time, Anna participated whenever invited to do so. Karl asked her to dance many times, but she felt clumsy when she compared herself to any of the other women there, particularly Kerstin, who could pick up her skirts and laugh without reserve while she spun and cut figures with her light steps.

Karl danced with Kerstin no more often than he did with any of the others, but it seemed to Anna that each time she looked up, Kerstin was bobbing around in the crook of Karl's arm. At the end of one particularly carefree jig with a fast-paced rhythm, everyone was breathless and laughing as they twirled an end to the song. Anna glanced over Olaf's shoulder to see Karl whirling Kerstin, his arms locked around her, until her feet left the floor and her skirts went sailing. She was laughing unabashedly as he released her. Then she reached to pat her forehead and straighten a wisp of hair that wasn't even out of place.

"Oh, Anna," she said, coming to take Anna's arm, "that Karl is some dancer. He wears me right out!"

Anna bit her tongue to keep from saying what had crossed her mind. "Ya! He used to wear me right out, too-o-o!"

 
That night Anna lay awake a long time after Karl was sleeping soundly. She rehashed everything about the last two days with the Johansons. Each word between Karl and Kerstin took on an increasingly personal note. Each compliment Karl paid Kerstin's cooking rankled mercilessly. Each

light footstep during the dancing seemed flirtatious. Each memory of that last whirling hug became more intimate. There was no doubt about it. Beside Kerstin, Anna felt as inferior as a ragweed in a rosebed.

Well, she thought angrily, if he wants his perfect, plump Kerstin, let him have her! I'll be damned if I'll stand by and watch while he fawns over every move she makes. They said they'll finish in a short day's work tomorrow and they don't need me anyhow, so why should I go and get in their way anyway? Even when I'm there, I might as well be a stump, for all the attention I get. They talk Swedish around me as if I am a stump! Nothing more than the useless stump left when they're done chopping down their precious tamaracks! Well, I might be as useless, but I don't need to stand around and let them lean their big Swedish boots and their precious Swedish axes on me!

           
Chapter Fifteen

 
The following day, Anna woke early enough to prepare breakfast for Karl and James. She did it before they could protest. Let them
   
375 eat my cooking whether they like it or not! They can just do without their lingonberries for one morning! Anna threw a baleful eye at James. He was rarin' to go. Seems he's hooked on one of the Swedish lovelies, too, Anna thought bitterly, making herself all the more miserable.

When Karl said, "Hurry up, Anna, we must get going," it wasn't quite as satisfying as she'd thought it'd be to answer, "I'm not going today."

"Not going?" To his credit, Karl sounded dismayed. "Why not, Anna?"

"I think I had better stay home and tend to my weeding. The vegetables are getting lost out there. Anyway, there's not much left to do on their cabin, so you won't even miss me."

"Come on, Karl!" James called from the wagon. "Hurry up!"

"Are you sure, Anna?" Karl asked. "I do not like to leave you here alone, Anna."

She needed to show him she was just as capable as the capable Kerstin Johanson ... even more so, staying all day without a man to depend on for every ounce of protection.

"Don't be silly, Karl, I've got the gun, haven't I?"

It was the longest day of Anna's life. She cried and dried up, dried up and cried, until she thought she would kill the poor vegetables with salt tears! She worked fiendishly, but all day she bludgeoned herself with images of Karl and Kerstin. She imagined him nodding to Kerstin to tell her how good her blueberry cobbler was. She imagined him telling her how he loved her golden braids, so neatly wrapped upon her fine, Swedish head. She even imagined the two of them speaking together in Swedish, and felt a greater anguish at not being able to share his beloved language with Karl. Time and again, Anna remembered Karl calling her "my skinny little hen," and she berated herself for her thinness. There was little Anna could do about her thinness or her wretched cooking, but at least she could take a bath! If Karl wanted his women smelling like lye soap, so be it!

She bathed, then waited, but the sun was still far above the horizon. It was then, with the sun just beginning to filter through the western treeline, when Anna had the splendid idea of how to please Karl. She would find his precious blueberry patch and pick him blueberries till he got hives from them! Bolstered by the idea of a way to keep busy till he returned, and at the same time do something right, she grabbed a wooden pail and took off, following the familiar path to the beaver pond and heading north along the creek until she reached the shallows where she crossed, heading northwest in search of berries.