Ida's New World

by Lise Muusmann

  “I want to go home!” Ida screamed. “I do not want to be in America any longer!”

  Suddenly Lisa grabbed Ida’s hand and pulled her under the blankets together with Stephen. Stephen reached out and held her hand as well. Now there were three children hiding under a blanket.

  “Let’s drive,” exclaimed Henry. “Throw the fish in the wagon, we will clean them as soon as we find a safe place to stop for a while in peace.”

  “But aren’t there Indians everywhere?” Frederik said anxiously.

  “Yes, there are several tribes in this area. Which is why we’d better move on.”

  “The children are tired, shocked and hungry,” Rose said reproachfully. “The threat has gone and I suggest we fry the fish now while it’s fresh, and then start rolling again and keep on going right out of here.”

  “We can be on guard in turns,” Frederik said, still holding the gun in his hand. Henry nodded, and tended to the fire. The women swiftly cleaned and gutted the fish, and with speed, put the fillets into the frying pan over the fire and sliced up the soft fresh bread.

  “Come on out, children, we are eating now,” Rose called cheerily. Ida and Lisa poked their heads out from under the blanket. Ida still trembled, while they ate the food. Suppose the Indians had caught and abducted her? She did not want to finish the thought.

  Chapter 31

  “Before you knows it

  an Indian shows it

  wants me with him to go.

  Well, I say no.”

  Ida sat in the middle of the wagon and sang with vigour, while they kept heading north along the Missouri river. She was so frightened, she had to sing the fear away. Anna, who had not said a thing for a long time, laughed and clapped at the song, encouragingly. Lisa wanted to sing along too and tried to imitate the Danish words. Stephen also hummed along from under the blanket, in solidarity.

  “What on earth are they singing?” Henry shouted and peered round the canvas into the back. Frederik translated and began to laugh. Henry laughed as well. Rose smiled and nodded at the children’s choir. Katrina just shook her head, but smiled. She had been very frightened too.

  They didn’t stop until night had fallen and they had put quite a distance between them and the river where they had met the Indians. They agreed to stand guard duty in turn, because they did not want to be attacked again, or to lose anything more.

  Katrina talked about the loss of the embroidered tablecloth which had been very precious to her.

  “Would you rather that they had taken Ida?” Frederik demanded angrily, and he became upset with her.

  “No! Of course not. But it was one of the few beautiful things from home,” she defended. “It was an heirloom.”

  “I am sure we can find many embroidered tablecloths in America,” he said angrily.

  “I would gladly have given my right arm to keep Ida,” Anna added firmly. “And what is the use of an embroidered tablecloth, when we are going to live in a mud hut, anyway?”

  “You are so right, Anna. It is a very good thing you are with us. You can see through the problems clearly,” declared Frederik.

  “Thank you, but I also understand Katrina. It is also important to have something from back home as a reminder,” Anna sighed.

  “We are far from home,” Frederik said, flatly. “And now I do not want to hear anymore about it. It could have all gone terribly wrong. We should just be happy that it turned out well.”

  “Yes, and what about the next time?” Katrina said and started to cry. Frederik went to her and took her in his arms to comfort her.

  “Now, let us not begin worrying before there is a reason to, alright?”

  Henry and Rose looked on with concern at Frederik and Katrina. The entire conversation had been in Danish, but emotions were obviously running high. Frederik glanced over at Henry and shrugged one shoulder. Henry nodded, and it seemed he understood, it was a feeling of homelessness.

  “Tomorrow, we shall probably reach Mandan. It is a town where the Indians had been living since time immemorial, but now they have almost all gone. They died of measles and small pox and other children’s diseases by the thousands. The Indians did not know anything about these illnesses and they died like flies. They had no resistance against these European diseases. It is quite sad,” Henry said.

  They nodded and looked into the glowing fire.

  “Time for bed now,” said Katrina. Ida did not dare look out at the shadows beyond the fire. She was lying in the middle of the wagon next to Stephen and Lisa, who had fallen asleep a long time ago. She thought of the big Indian, the one who had wanted her. He had a very red-brown skin and he had painted his face with bright colours. His hair had been pitch-black, and he had worn very long feathers in it. His torso was bare, and his arms were covered with fish scales. He had a big hooked nose and beautiful white teeth. When she finally fell asleep, she found herself dreaming about him and the other Indians. They were all lying in their teepees, sick with measles. She tried to help them with warm drinks and wrapped them up in blankets so that they did not freeze. But one after another the Indians died and there was nothing she could do. The dead Indians were lying in a long row, and one still living, moaned and cried out loudly. She awoke, because it was she who was moaning and crying. All the others were asleep. The men were inside the wagon as well. When she peered out of the wagon into the darkness, she thought something moved out there. Ida quickly shut her eyes, and soon she was asleep again.

  Chapter 32

  They reached Mandan late in the afternoon and came to a halt in the centre of town. It was still an Indian town, and a few Indians were walking around in their beautiful dresses with many decorations and embroideries. Even though Ida and Lisa were very tired and hungry, their eyes were popping out of their heads, while they sat looking at the beautiful people, who lived in nice round earthen buildings in brown colours. The Indians sold all sorts of wares from several stalls.

  “We shall do our shopping here,” Henry said and jumped from the driving box.

  He fed hay to the horses and gave them water to drink from a bucket afterwards. The women went with Ida and Lisa to a stall, where two Indian women were offering their handicrafts for sale. The women were very beautiful, and their soft leather dresses had multicoloured beaded embroidery. Their black hair was worn in long thick plaits. They also sold various spices, herbs and dried fruit, displayed in big wooden bowls. It all smelled very nice. There were leather bags and purses hanging for sale, decorated with fantastic embroideries. At another stall the vegetables looked fresh and very tempting. You could buy meat either fresh or dried. Katrina eagerly pointed at the fresh greens and the dried meat. The Indian woman nodded and took some big green leaves and put the wares on the leaves. Ida spotted some honey and asked Katrina to buy some. The honey was poured into a small clay pot and handed to her along with a small wooden spoon.

  Ida wanted to go to the wagon immediately to eat the honey, when she bumped into a very tall man. She looked up and was amazed. An Indian stood looking down at her, he was clad in the most beautiful outfit she had ever seen. He wore an enormous crown of eagle feathers, that stood tall on his head, then fell on a strand all the way down his back to his feet. Grand black and white eagle feathers glistened in the sun. He wore a heavily bead-embroidered vest on his chest over his clothes, and his suit, made from soft buffalo hide, was fringed with fine white leather tassels. The sleeves of his jacket were also embroidered in beautiful colours. The feather crown sat on an embroidered hat with two beautiful horns on either side, and he had a small knife at his side. He wore leather moccasin shoes on his feet. The moccasins were also embroidered and decorated with coloured porcupine spines. In his right hand he held a long staff adorned with soft fur skins that waved gently in the wind. Perhaps they were small animal tales, thought Ida. He had black stripes painted across his face, which enhanced his red-brown skin colour. Ida simply stood and stared at him from top to toe, her mouth open. All of a sudden he smiled at her
and touched her hair. At first she wanted to pull away, but his smile was so warm that she stayed and stared at him.

  “Ida, Danish,” she finally said and bobbed a polite curtsy for the tall Indian.

  “Mandan, Chief,” he said and pointed at himself with proud dignity.

  “He is the Big Chief,” Lisa whispered, coming to stand just behind Ida.

  Lisa reached her hand up to touch one of the skins on the staff. “It is so soft,” she said and looked up at him. He smiled and nodded.

  “He is the most beautiful man I have ever seen,” Ida said, and she could not take her eyes away from him. She gazed at his striking outfit some more then jumped up and down and clapped her hands.

  He smiled and rolled his big brown eyes at her. The girls laughed. Then Ida felt somebody pushing her from behind.

  “Don’t do that,” said Ida in Danish. It was Katrina. She grabbed Ida by the arm and tried to pull her away.

  “Come along, Ida and Lisa,” she said in a low, agitated tone. “We have done our shopping now, and it is time to move on.” But Ida stood firm. The Indian chief held his hand towards Katrina, who did not how to react.

  “Well, do shake hands with him,” admonished Anna coming up behind them. “He is smiling at us,” Anna took his hand and shook it. “You look quite a bit different than the people back in our village of Nakskov.” Katrina said. She turned towards Anna, and then back at the Indian again, and then burst out laughing.

  “Oh mother, you mustn’t laugh at him,” Ida said reproachfully.

  “No, no,” Katrina apologised for bad manners. Instead, she smiled and greeted the Indian chief. “Katrina, Denmark,” she said and pointed at herself.

  “Come on now everyone!” Henry shouted. He was wearing his top hat again and harnessing the horses up to the wagon. The women curtsied lightly to the Indian. Ida could not help herself. She had to reach out and touch the buffalo hide jacket and fringes, before she nodded goodbye and took Lisa by the hand. The Indian indicated they should wait, he took one of the fur tails from his staff and gave it to Ida. She was dumbfounded and felt the soft fur in her hand and put it to her face. Ida handed the tail to Lisa, who smiled up at the Indian in thanks.

  “He did not seem to have measles,” Lisa said, when they were back in the wagon again and rolling out of the town.

  “That was a really beautiful Indian-man-chief,” Ida said and sighed. “What beautiful clothes he had. People in Nakskov look completely different. Their clothes were all worn out and dirty.”

  Chapter 33

  After several more days on the trail, rocking and rumbling over long stretches of prairie, they finally rolled into a landscape with tree clad hillsides.

  “My, but it is surely beautiful here,” exclaimed Henry and looked towards Frederik who nodded. Henry drew the horses to a halt, and the two men sat still, lost in the beauty of the landscape.

  “What is happening?” Shouted Rose from the confines of the wagon.

  “We have arrived,” Henry said with a thick voice. “Finally, we have reached the place where we shall set up a homestead.”

  “What are you saying?” Rose shouted and poked her head out at the front of the wagon, arriving between the men on the driving box. She stared around at the view for a long time, just nodding without saying a word.

  ”Are we there?” Ida shouted and jumped down from the wagon. She held up her arms, to catch Lisa. Katrina nudged Anna awake, as she had sat fast asleep in a corner for a couple of hours.

  “Anna, we have arrived.” Katrina gently shook the elderly woman, who finally opened her eyes. She looked up at Katrina with an empty gaze and she was on the brink of falling asleep again.

  “Anna, we are going out to have a look at our new home. Don’t go back to sleep, now!” She helped the dazed Anna down from the wagon. They looked over at Stephen’s blanket, lying completely still.

  “Stephen? Come on out and see where we are going to live,” she said in her simple English. The blanket remained perfectly still. “Well, stay then.”

  The men were still sitting high up on the driving box and gazing at the landscape. Henry looked very pleased and waved the whip in the air from one side of the vista to the other. Frederik started to whistle.

  “Where would you like to live?” Henry asked and peered at Frederik, who stood up and looked at a point further ahead. It was a beautiful area with peat flats, trees and rolling hills that ran into a valley further ahead. “Yes, here there could be a homestead site and a plough-worthy valley for each of us.”

  “It is a fantastic spot,” Frederik said. He could not stop gazing at the place he wanted to live. “It is wonderful.”

  “Good, we drive over there and unload you and your things,” Henry said.

  Frederik turned towards Katrina and looked at her with his eyebrows raised and she merely nodded.

  “I want to live halfway up the hillside, so that we have a view over the valley,” Frederik said firmly. Henry nodded and clicked his tongue gently to the two horses, who had worked faithfully and steadily for them for the entire journey.

  “It is a fine area,” Henry said, we are not far from Kenmare, one of the newest homesteader towns here in North Dakota.” Frederik nodded and looked very satisfied. “A bit further east we have got Mouse River, so there’s also grand opportunities for fishing,” Henry said enthusiastically.

  “Are there many Indians in this area?” Frederik asked.

  Henry merely nodded. As they neared the place Frederik had selected, Katrina and Frederik found they were filled with a mix of strange feelings. Now they were about to succeed in what had not been possible for them in Denmark. They could claim land for free, simply by building a house and setting up a perimeter. They had arrived. And it was more beautiful than they ever could have imagined. The horses pulled up the gently sloping hill. And as expected, there was a wonderful view from the top. The wagon came to a halt in the middle of a plateau on the hillside, and the girls stared in amazement at everything around them.

  “To imagine, we are getting our own hill,” Ida said. “We can keep an eye on everything that approaches us.”

  It was a hot afternoon, the sun shone down from a cloudless sky. They soon were sweating profusely as they unloaded the wagon.

  “You will have to sleep out in the open tonight,” Henry said, as he climbed up onto the wagon to join Rose, already seated on the driving box.

  “Where are you going to live?” Frederik called. Henry stood and pointed further ahead into the landscape.

  “We will go further down into the valley, and scout out the perfect spot to build the Kennedy castle,” he smiled. Rose laughed and gave him a gentle push.

  “But why not stay here tonight and we can all eat together, then when you are refreshed find somewhere perfect, tomorrow?” Exclaimed Frederik. “The women and children can sleep in the wagon one last time. It could be nice, if we are two families, until we know everything a bit better.”

  Henry looked thoughtfully over to Rose, before he nodded. Stephen was still under the blanket in the wagon.

  “We will stay and help you to cut peat bricks to build a house tomorrow,” Henry said, decidedly.

  “Then we will come and help you to build yours!” Frederik smiled broadly.

  Ida saw that her parents looked happy and content for the first time in a very, very long time. She hugged Lisa gleefully.

   Chapter 34

  Early the next day everybody got busy. They were going to build a peat house like the one they lived in at Walter and Richard’s farm. Peat had to be cut from the peat-bog at one side of the plateau and trees felled, so that they could make a frame and erect a roof on the house. Henry and Rose had done this before and they had all the tools necessary in the toolbox underneath the wagon. First they had to clear the ground and make it flat, then mark out the shape of the house, where they would build the walls, and leave room to add a shed for animals and for storage.

  The sun was up and shining brigh
tly from the early morning, and it became a very warm spring day. The men worked steadily cutting peat and the women helped stacking the sods to dry. Soon they began to use the peat like bricks, stacking them row upon row to make walls.

  The house was built on the plateau, facing out to the prairie and backed into the hillside so it would be sheltered from the weather.

  “You see, Frederik, the weather out here can be so wild, you wouldn’t believe it. There are summers here, that are hot as hell and there are tornadoes, and then the winters are cold as ice. Everything lies under snow for months and the temperatures can drop to -40 degrees Fahrenheit. So, it really is cold. You have to have a good fire.”

  “Yes, we are not used to such winters in Denmark, though we find them cold enough. The summers can be warm, but nothing like here, where the temperature can rise up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or so I have heard.”

  Henry nodded, as he got up and looked out across the landscape.

  “Lets take the wagon down to those trees in the valley and find some sturdy poles for the roof.” Henry hitched up the horses and Frederik jumped up onto the drivers box. They took the slope carefully, and soon they reached the valley to look for straight trees and branches.

  Ida and Lisa were put to work peeling potatoes. Ida had to help Lisa with the peeling knife.

  “Take care that you do not cut yourself,” Ida advised. “There is no doctor to be had around here.”

  Anna could not help laughing. She was busy carrying the drying peat to Katrina and Rose, who were working hard stacking the peat bricks in a staggered manner, forming rows, and smoothing the surface with their hands as they went.

  “I had never imagined I would be here in America and building my own house out of peat,” Katrina said and wiped the sweat from her face with her sleeve. “My God, this is hot work.”