All three boys nodded.
“Good, then we’ll go on deck now. Signe, you want to come too?”
“Ja.” She grabbed her shawl. There was sure to be a breeze, maybe even a real wind off the lake. Since she was not feeling any seasickness as on the first voyage, the idea of finding a spot out of the wind but in the sun sounded like a dream come true. She tucked her knitting into her bag and followed the others out the door into a narrow passage with stairs leading to the upper deck. They stepped outside to be attacked by the wind.
As they joined other travelers at the deck railing, they watched dockhands throw the hawsers to those on deck. The deckhands coiled the huge ropes into perfect circles of line. The timbre of the engines changed, and a tugboat helped ease the Juniata out into open water.
Signe wrapped her shawl around her head to hold her hat in place and clung to the rail with one hand as the docks and the shoreline slipped away and the waters roughened.
“Glad to see you made it out on deck,” Mr. Lindstrom said as he joined them. “Some different from New York, isn’t it?”
“Ja, that’s for sure. That steerage, that horror—we treat our animals far better than that.”
“Of course. You know, there are plenty of opportunities for fishermen in Duluth, if it doesn’t work out with your relatives.”
“Never been a fisherman, only ever farmed.”
“Ja, that’s Norway, but here in Amerika, no one is locked into doing what their fathers did. I know you’re going to be felling trees and clearing farmland, but keep this possibility in mind. The boom in logging and lumber is past its peak, or at least that’s what I hear. All those lumberjacks are going to have to find new work as the sawmills shut down. They’re running out of the white pine in Minnesota like they did along the East Coast and the states in between.” He pointed to a cargo ship heading east. “That ship probably has a hold full of lumber or iron ore. Both are shipped out of Duluth.” He pointed out smaller boats. “Fishing boats. Right now this lake is calm, but a storm can come up faster than you can blink. More ships sink in these lakes than anywhere else in the world. They’re called the Great Lakes, but you never want to take your attention off the water. Especially if you’re in a fishing boat.”
Signe looked around them but saw no sign of the boys. She studied the ship, looking for a place to sit. Benches and chairs lined the deck area, many of them already taken by others. She finally found one nearer the prow of the ship, and after telling Rune what she was doing, made her way to a chair in the lee of a large storage cabinet. She could see up and down the deck of the ship, watch people walking, and still look out over the lake. The shoreline was fading out of sight. She found it hard to believe that the lakes were so big that land could be over the horizon. As far as she knew, there wasn’t a lake in the whole of Norway that large.
She took out her knitting but kept it in her lap, not wanting to miss a moment of deck life and the voyage. But the sweater she was working on—for Bjorn, as he’d outgrown almost all the clothes he owned—called to her, and she resumed her knitting, still free enough to watch.
A group of boys ran by, dodging among the crowd that had thinned out at the rail. Sure enough, all three of her sons were part of the dodgers. She looked around, searching for Rune. The boys dashed off with no sign of their father. What could he and Mr. Lindstrom still find to talk about? Rune had never been one to strike up conversations with strangers before. Perhaps all kinds of things would change now that they were in the new land.
The warmth of the sun in this protected place, the motion of the ship, along with the thrumming of the engines down in the bowels of the vessel—all combined to make her drowsy. With her bag tucked under her chair, she rested her head against the chair back.
She woke to someone shaking her shoulder. “Signe, wake up, it is almost past time to eat dinner.”
Blinking, she stared into her husband’s face. “Dinner? Already?”
“Ja, I let you sleep as long as I could. Come now.”
“Where are the boys?”
“Here with me. Come along.”
Getting to her feet, she trapped a yawn behind her hand. A nap during the day! She had actually fallen asleep during the day, and she wasn’t even sick. That sweater certainly would not be done by winter if she kept sleeping on the job.
But somehow she didn’t believe life in Amerika would stay like this for long.
Chapter
4
DULUTH
Will your cousin be meeting you at the pier?” Mr. Lindstrom asked.
“No, we are to take the train to Blackduck, and he will meet us there.”
“I see. Then I will help you get to the train station.”
“You have become a true friend.” Rune clapped the other man on the upper arm.
“If you want, you could spend the night at my house. My wife would be pleased to have someone visit from the old country. Then we could take you to the station.”
“Takk, but we agreed to come as fast as we could. But if you will give us your address, we could write and tell you we arrived safely.” Signe couldn’t believe she was offering to write letters. Rune could write but most likely wouldn’t.
Lindstrom nodded. “I will do that. And remember, jobs are plentiful in Duluth, and your boys could go to school, probably easier than in the country.”
They located their trunks in the dwindling stack of luggage, and Lindstrom commandeered a handcart to transport them. With him pushing the cart, they set off for the train station. Once they were onboard the train, he handed Rune a piece of paper.
“I’ll be back on the boat day after tomorrow, but remember, you are always welcome at our house.”
“Takk for all you have done.”
“I’ve not done much but swap a lot of stories, but I hope I made the way easier.” He nodded to Signe and tousled the boys’ hair. They all waved as he made his way back to the station platform and then waved from the windows.
The train screeched and chugged slowly out of the station. Signe leaned back against the seat. Almost to the end of their journey. Onkel Einar was supposed to meet them with a wagon. There would be a logging train spur line, he said.
“Grand Rapids. Next stop, Grand Rapids,” the conductor called. From her window, Signe could see that this was a sizable town. Would Blackduck be as large? Silly. Why speculate? You’ll find out soon enough.
“Blackduck. Next stop, Blackduck,” the conductor finally called as he swayed his way down the aisle.
Signe swallowed the lump that suddenly blocked her throat. The journey was almost over, and their new lives were about to begin. What if they had made a horrible mistake? What if they hated life here in Amerika? Would it really be that different from life in Norway? Hard work was hard work, no matter where one lived. In reality, life was just days of hard work, following one after another. The journey from Norway to Amerika, while difficult on her because of her pregnancy, had been a constant source of delight for Rune and his sons. Even the English-speaking classes had seemed much easier for him than for her. Would Tante and Onkel speak only English? Or only Norwegian? And Tante needed help because of her health. What was wrong with her? All questions Signe should have sought answers to before they left Norway. If only Rune hadn’t been in such a rush.
They gathered their things and stepped down onto another station platform, Signe reminding the boys to stay right beside her and Rune.
A man came toward them, his face seeming to lack the ability to smile. “Are you Rune and Signe Carlson?” he asked in Norwegian.
“Ja, we are.” Rune held out his hand, but the man hesitated before shaking it. “And you are Onkel Einar?”
“Ja. You are late. We still have several hours to home, and I wanted to be there before dark.” He motioned to a team and wagon. “I suppose you have more baggage.”
“Ja, those two trunks.” Rune pointed down the platform to where the baggage handlers set their trunks, then leaped aboard the already moving train.
“Drag them over here, and we’ll load them in the back. Signe and the boys will ride in the back wherever they can find room. I had to get some things at the store.”
Rune motioned to his sons, and together they dragged the trunks along the worn platform to the wagon, then hoisted them in the back. Onkel Einar slammed the tailgate closed and climbed up to the seat.
Signe looked to Rune, who shrugged. He never even said hello to me. As if I wasn’t even here. Nor to the boys. What kind of life were they going to have here?
Leif slipped in beside her when she found a place to sit on a bag of oats, leaning against a barrel of something. “Mor,” he whispered, “how come he doesn’t like us?”
What could she say? Had the man no manners? She shrugged and shook her head.
Dusk was falling when the team turned into a lane of two dirt lines divided by a line of grass, as wide as the wagon wheels. They could see a white house with a big red barn behind it.
“This is your place?” Bjorn asked.
“Ja, your new home.”
Fenced pasture or hayfields lined both sides of the lane.
“You have more horses?”
“And cows?”
“Ja, and right away, I got to milk the cow. You know how to milk a cow?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “You boys will take care of the animals so Rune and I can get more trees cut. I already shipped out those felled during the snow. The big timber companies do most of their logging during the winter here so they can move the logs on the snow. I fell trees all year ’round. While we used to float most of our logs down the river, now we ship them on the train.”
He stopped the team by the three steps leading up to the house’s enclosed front porch. “Set your trunks by the door inside, and we’ll get them upstairs for you later. You boys haul the food into the kitchen. Rune, we’ll roll that barrel over to the cellar entrance and store it there.”
Signe gathered their packs and carpetbags to one side. “Where will we put our things?”
“Upstairs, but you can do that later. Go in and introduce yourself to Gerd. She’s not feeling well, so she will tell you what to make for supper.”
Signe swapped looks with Rune. His shrug told her he was as surprised as she was. She’d known his wife was ailing, but not to have supper cooking when company was coming . . . Not that they were company, but still.
She climbed down from the wagon, picked up her bags, and mounted the three steps to the door. She held it open so Rune and Bjorn could hoist the first trunk up the steps and inside. The other two boys carried their packs in and set them by the wall in the parlor, then scurried back out to help with the supplies. Signe set her bag down along the wall too and hung her coat on the hooks by the door. She unpinned her hat and looked for a safe place where it would not get squashed. Finally, she pinned it to her coat.
Walking into the kitchen, she saw a cookstove, sadly needing a scrubbing and blacking, that took up one wall. The other two were lined with cabinets both upper and lower. An open doorway led to a pantry, and a wooden table with six chairs claimed the space lit by two windows with no curtains. A sink with a hand pump divided the cabinets, lit by a window. One more door led to a bedroom, so she walked in that direction and tapped on the half-open door.
“Come in.” The voice was hoarse, as if rarely used or the woman had a cold.
Signe stepped through the door to meet their Tante Gerd for the first time. Her long thin hair in a loose braid over one shoulder, the woman lay propped up by pillows, her skin almost as white as the sheets. Only her eyes seemed alive in a face of prominent bones. Her hands on the coverlet needed their fingernails cut, their restless motion showing either palsy or general fretfulness.
“Signe?” Tante held out one hand.
“Ja.” Signe crossed to the bed and took the cold hand in hers. “Tante Gerd, I’m sorry you’re not feeling well.”
Gerd shrugged. “Ja. The pot. I need the chamber pot.”
“I see. It is under the bed?”
“Ja, empty it now! Bucket is on the porch.”
Signe knelt down to pull out the pot and almost splashed some of its contents on the floorboards. She rose carefully and carried the pot outside to dump in the bucket. What could she wash it out with? At the kitchen sink, she dipped water from the bucket beneath the pump, and after rinsing out the pot, dumped that water in the bucket on the porch. It too needed to be emptied. The smell made her gag, reminding her of the offal buckets in the steerage hold of the ship.
Back in the bedroom, she helped Tante Gerd out of bed and held her steady while she did her business, then helped her back into bed. Gerd lay down, exhausted. Surely there was a better way to do this if she was indeed bedridden.
“How long have you been like this?” The sheets were filthy, the floor needed scrubbing.
“Forever.”
“Did anyone come to help you?”
She snorted. “Einar, but the animals always come first. I wasn’t this bad when we first wrote. You took so long to get here. Now I can’t get out of bed.”
Where to start? Signe felt like an animal in a trap that was closing fast. “Is there something I can make for supper?”
“A haunch in the icebox. Canned potatoes in the cellar or whatever Einar brought back from town.” Every word took effort. Gerd panted before adding, her voice growing weaker, “Part of the garden is planted but nothing to eat yet. Late spring.”
Signe sucked in a deep breath. “Are there eggs?”
A nod.
“I can make noodles. Do you have rice?”
Gerd shrugged, eyes closed. “I-I don’t know. Look in the pantry.”
“Do you need anything before I start supper?”
“Coffee, if Einar bought coffee beans.” She puffed. “Grinder in the pantry.”
“Can you sit up in a chair?”
“Nei.”
How long since you had a bath? Or clean clothes? “I’ll start coffee as soon as I can.”
The woodbox was empty, the stove cold.
She dug into the bags of supplies the men had left on the floor, finally discovering the coffee beans. Stepping to the outside door, she saw the boys with the men, unloading sacks of feed to store in the barn. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Leif, Knute, I need you at the house.” When they looked up, she beckoned with one hand.
Both boys came running. “What, Mor?”
“I need to start supper, and the woodbox is empty. I need kindling too.”
“Where’s the woodpile?” Knute asked, then shook his head when Leif pointed at the chopping block with an axe stuck in it. And several spools waiting to be split.
As the boys attacked the wood, she returned to the kitchen. What did they have for fire starter? At home they had kept a box with shavings near the woodbox, but here there was nothing. The box below the firebox grate was full of ashes. She pulled that out and headed back outside. Did they have a place to dump it?
Leif ran up to her. She handed him the ashes. “Go dump this.”
“Where?”
“In back of the privy.” Signe puffed out a breath, pointing to the small building about fifty yards out. Knute was already slamming the axe into the rounds to split them. “Then get enough wood in the house for me to make supper. Bjorn can split wood too.”
“I can too.”
“I know.” She stared out at the giant trees that bordered a cleared area full of stumps. They had literally been carving a farm out of a forest of gigantic trees. No wonder Einar needed help. He dreamed of a dairy farm someday?
Knute paused in his splitting. “I found a chunk to cut off some kindling. Leif can bring that in too.”
Leif returned the emptied ash box to her, then carried in armloads of wood as fast as Knute split it and dumped them in the woodbox.
Signe slid the ash box back into the stove and rattled the grate. She splintered the kindling Knute had cut even finer and found a box of matches on the warming shelf o
f the stove. Blowing gently on the flame so it caught the splinters, she added more kindling and several small pieces of wood before setting the stove lids back in place. Within minutes, she had the stove heating, adding larger chunks as she could.
Now the coffee grinder. She found it on a shelf in the pantry, which she saw also needed cleaning. Instead, she poured the beans in the grinder, closed the door, and turned the crank on top until she could hear that she needed to add more beans.
The coffeepot needed scrubbing too. “Uff da,” she muttered. Was that man blind or what? Probably the what. Most men did not do well at keeping a kitchen clean, and Einar led the list. Surely they could have asked their neighbors or townspeople for help, or hired someone.
With the coffeepot on the hottest part of the stove, she shoved in more wood and left the damper straight up. The boys brought in another armload each of wood.
“Are there any spools left to split?” she asked.
“Ja, a few.” Knute stepped closer as Leif headed back outside. “But the axe is so dull that Far will have to sharpen it.”
“What is Far doing?”
“Bjorn is milking the cow, Far unharnessed the team, and Onkel Einar is fixing a fence. I’m supposed to feed the pigs, and Leif has to feed the chickens so they go in the chicken house, and then gather the eggs.”
“I see.” She nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. “Go tell Far about the woodpile and the axe and then do the chores you were told to do. Tell Leif to make sure the chicken house is locked up tight.”
As he went out the door, she opened the icebox. There was the haunch of meat. Now what to put with it?
She went out the door and around to the cellar, grateful the doors set on angle had been left open. She found two quarts of potatoes and a jar of green beans. Along with biscuits, they would have enough food for supper at least.
With the canned goods heating, she mixed up the biscuits, cut them, and checked the heat in the oven. Not quite hot enough, so she stuck more wood in the firebox. The meat was already heating in the oven. Gravy from the pan drippings would be good.
“Do I smell coffee?” Tante Gerd’s voice came plaintively from the bedroom.
The Promise of Dawn Page 4