“Ja, do you want cream?”
“Nei, black.”
Signe poured the coffee, found a tray of sorts, and returned to the bedroom. “Can you sit up yourself?” A slight shrug was her answer. She set the tray on the foot of the bed and helped the older lady sit up, stuffing a couple pillows behind her. Setting the tray in Gerd’s lap, she asked, “Can you drink this?”
“Ja.” Gerd held the cup with both hands and sipped from the rim. “Hot, but like dishwater.”
“You want it stronger?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Oh.” Signe turned and headed for the kitchen. A thank-you would have been nice. She slid the biscuits into the oven on the lower rack, moved the kettles to the cooler part of the stove, and started going through the drawers, looking for dish towels and an apron. One dish towel in the drawer, the dishrag in the sink stank to high heaven, and the table needed scrubbing before she could even set it. At least the dishes were up in the cupboard and not filling the sink.
By the time the men came in, she had the table set and the meal ready to serve.
“Can Tante come to the table to eat?” she asked Einar.
“I take her a plate.”
No wonder the sheet was so dirty. Dutifully she dished up a plate and took it into the bedroom to set on the tray. “Can I bring you anything else?”
“Jam for the biscuits . . . in the cupboard.”
Signe found an open jar and scooped out a spoonful to put on the aunt’s plate.
When she sat down, the two men had served themselves, and the boys were filling their plates. There wasn’t much left when the bowls came to her. When she looked at Einar’s plate, she could see why.
From now on she’d have to cook more food.
After supper, Einar and Rune went outside to split wood, the boys carrying it in as fast as they split. Bjorn split another box of kindling. As dusk settled into darkness, the two men sat at the table, enjoying another cup of coffee.
Tante Gerd had fallen sleep, and Leif was curled up on one of their quilts on the floor.
“How do we get upstairs?” Signe asked. She’d seen no staircase in the house. “Your letter said we would have beds upstairs.”
“Oh, you pull down the ladder.” The look Einar gave her asked if she had any brains.
“Ladder?” Signe sucked in a breath and stared at Rune. “We are to haul the trunks up a ladder?”
“Guess you better empty them first.”
“Are there beds up there?”
“We figured pallets would be quicker.”
“So no drawers or shelves either?”
“I just been too busy.”
Signe could understand that. One man trying to do all his work and his wife’s too—no wonder they were desperate for help. But still. She nodded. “And the ladder is where?”
“In the parlor.” Einar stood. “I’ll pull it down for you.”
The attic was one empty room with a window in each end. A tall man like Rune would only be able to stand upright in the middle where the roof peaked. All Signe could see was a floor carpeted with dust. She backed down the ladder. “Do you have a broom?”
“Ja, on the porch.”
Rune came to stand beside her. “Why don’t we sleep in the parlor tonight and sweep up there when it is light so we can see better?”
Signe felt like collapsing into his arms and bawling against his chest. Tired did not begin to describe how she felt. “Maybe we’d be better sleeping in the barn. But then, there is no hay there, is there?”
“No, haying won’t be for several months. The floor in here will be fine.” He leaned closer. “At least it is cleaner than the attic.”
“Ja, that is best for now.”
Sometime in the night, she woke, her face wet with tears. Things had been hard in Norway, but at least they’d had beds to sleep in and a clean house. Right now, this house seemed bigger than a Norwegian mountain to conquer. And everything cried to be done at once. However would she manage?
Chapter
5
The rooster crowing sounded like home.
Blinking herself awake, Signe stared at the strange ceiling. With the second crow, she knew where she was. Not in a bed of her own but on the parlor floor of a filthy farmhouse in Minnesota. Caring for a sick woman along with scrubbing this house from top to bottom so she could stand to live in it. Where to start?
Rune snored beside her, and her three sons were bumps under the covers. There was no other sound in the house. Sliding her feet into her shoes, she pushed herself to her feet. How she had slept through the night without needing the outhouse she couldn’t believe. She hurried out the back door and down the steps, lifting her nightdress to keep the dew from soaking the hem.
The outhouse desperately needed lime. One more thing to do. Outside again, she breathed in the fresh air and stared at the sky-tall trees beyond the barn. The cow stood waiting outside the barn door to be milked, a heifer right behind her.
The team of horses grazed in the pasture, and the rooster crowed again from the chicken house. A crow rasped a good morning from the top of a much younger pine tree.
As she turned in a circle, she could see no other houses or barns. The lane led out to the road, and there was a cleared field on the other side of it. So there were neighbors somewhat near. Off to one side, she could see either the beginnings of a garden or a weed patch that had taken over.
Picking up her skirt again, she returned to the house to get dressed and start some breakfast. The cow bellowed. Wasn’t it Knute who was supposed to milk the cow and Bjorn go help the men? As far as she was concerned, Knute and Leif would help at the house. At least the woodbox was full.
She was dressed, her family was getting dressed, and she had the fire going when Einar wandered out of the bedroom, stretching and yawning as he came.
“Good morning,” she said.
He nodded and headed out the back door.
Rune smiled at her. “You’re up early.”
“Not really, but the sun isn’t quite up yet.” She dropped her voice. “Ask Einar if he has lime for the privy. The stench is horrible.”
“He said last night that we’d start logging right after breakfast.”
“Does he understand how little experience you have cutting down trees, let alone trees the size of these?”
“He’ll have to teach us. Bjorn and I learn quickly.”
“If his saws and axes aren’t any sharper than the one at the woodpile . . .”
“I found a file and sharpened it last night. But he must have a stone around here someplace.”
“I sure hope he’s better at logging than cleaning a house.” She pumped more water for the coffeepot and dumped in the last of the ground coffee, then set the pot on the hottest lid of the stove.
“What are you making for breakfast?”
She shrugged and went to search the pantry, returning from the icebox with eggs, flour, and buttermilk. “Looks like pancakes and eggs. Unless I cut off some of that haunch. But I don’t know how long that needs to last.”
When Einar returned through the back door, he rubbed his hands together. “I could smell the coffee all the way outside.” He looked at Rune. “Get your boys on the chores. After straining, pour the milk directly into the flat pans in the well house. There’s plenty of cream for churning butter. Sour cream too.”
Signe looked up from mixing the batter. “Would you like that on your pancakes?”
“Ja. We have chokecherry jelly in the cellar if not the cupboard. Last year when she was stronger, Gerd did all the canning down there. The garden has gotten away from me. Your younger boys can set to weeding and hoeing today.”
“When will Tante wake up?”
“Oh, she’s awake. She did not sleep well last night, but that is not unusual.” He eyed the stove. “Isn’t that coffee ready by now?”
The three boys trailed into the kitchen, Leif rubbing his eyes.
“What are you m
aking, Mor?” Bjorn asked.
“Pancakes and eggs. They’ll be ready when you all come back from your chores.”
Rune rubbed his chin between finger and thumb. “Bjorn, you split some more wood. Knute, you milk, and Leif, the pigs and chickens are yours.”
“We need to drag another dry tree up to the house and cut it up. You boys know how to use a crosscut saw?” Einar stared from one to the other.
Bjorn and Knute nodded.
“Good. Then we’ll drag that tree up right after breakfast.”
Signe took the largest cast-iron frying pan from the peg on the wall and set it on the stove. “Do you have a griddle for the pancakes?”
“Nei.”
She took the next biggest frying pan down too and spooned bacon grease from the can on the warming shelf into both. “Do you like your eggs scrambled or . . . ?” She turned to look at Einar.
“Turn them over. The coffee?”
Fetching a cup from the cupboard, she filled it. “Black?”
“Ja.” He sat at the table, and she set the steaming cup in front of him.
Once the grease sizzled in the pans, she cracked three eggs into one and spooned batter into the other.
“Could you please bring in the sour cream?” she asked Einar.
“It’s in the icebox. There’s cream out in the well house for churning. No butter. I don’t have time for everything.”
“No, I’m sure you don’t.” She located the sour cream and set it and the jam on the table, then flipped the eggs and the pancakes.
“Rune needs to eat with me so we can get into the woods.”
Rune would make sure the boys knew where all the feed was for the animals and that they were doing what needed to be done. He’d always been a good teacher. She could hear the slam of the axe into the chopping block.
Setting a plate with a stack of four pancakes and the three eggs in front of him, she stepped back. “Anything else?”
He shook his head and spooned the thick cream over his pancakes, then the jam.
“If there is yeast . . .”
He shook his head and shoveled in the first bite.
“Then I need to start sourdough.”
“Not going back to town. Brought back supplies yesterday.”
Shame you didn’t get yeast. Wonder what else I will find? “More pancakes?”
“Ja.”
I will make enough. One thing she had promised herself: When they got to the new land, her family would not go hungry. Perhaps there wouldn’t be a lot of variety, but there would always be enough.
Rune stopped at the sink to wash his hands and sat down. “Do you have a grinding wheel anywhere?” he asked Einar.
“Ja, behind the machine shed.”
Signe broke three more eggs into the sizzling grease and set a lid on the pan, then poured batter into the big skillet. She’d have to make more for the boys, and surely Tante would want pancakes too.
“I thought perhaps we should sharpen all the axes before we go,” Rune said. “How long since you sharpened the saws?”
“They need it.” Einar scraped up the last of his egg with a pancake.
She slid a plate in front of Rune, and he smiled up at her. “Takk.”
“You’re welcome. More coffee?” she asked Onkel.
“Ja.” He dropped his voice. “Gerd likes hers thick enough to stand a spoon in. I just let it cook on the stove until she is ready to eat.”
Signe gave a slight nod. “Who took care of her during the day?”
“She did. She sleeps a lot.”
“Is she too weak to—to sit in a chair? Or come to the table?”
“See that chair in the parlor in front of the window? She used to sit there and watch what was going on outside. She was still cooking then. I’m hoping with good food and care, she’ll get stronger again.”
“More pancakes, Rune?”
“Those eggs sure are good.” Their hens in Norway didn’t lay much in the winter, so eggs had been a treat, mostly used in cooking or baking.
“More?”
“More pancakes.”
Bjorn came in carrying an armload of split wood for the woodbox.
“You sit yourself down and have some breakfast so we can get going,” Einar said.
“Do you have more to split?” Signe asked as she pointed Bjorn to the sink to wash his hands.
“Ja, hopefully enough for today at least.”
“Heating water for scrubbing takes plenty of wood.” She pulled the two skillets back to the hotter part of the stove. She cracked two eggs into one and poured four round dollops of batter in the other, then nodded to the icebox. “Bring the milk jug to the table. There is no syrup for the pancakes. The men had sour cream and jam.”
“Sometimes I traded butter and eggs for maple syrup,” Einar said, setting his coffee cup down. “You drink coffee?”
“With half milk,” Bjorn answered.
Signe flashed him a smile. When they had milk. Which they did now. She set his plate in front of him.
He looked up at her, his blue eyes dancing. “Takk, Mor. This looks so good.”
“Well, eat up. You finished, Rune?”
“I could use a couple more pancakes.”
Signe poured more batter in the pan, scraping out the mixing bowl. Get the men out of here, and she could feed the other two—er, three—in peace. When she set the pancake plate in front of Rune, she looked to Einar. “You have scrub brushes, mop and broom? Oh, and hoes for the garden?”
“Hoes are in the machine shop on the wall, rake too. The scrubbing things are on the shelves on the back porch, by the washing machine and tub. Should be soap out there too, but you gotta be careful with that. Don’t have much fat to make more.”
“You want I should start lists of things we need?”
“Ja. Help if we had something to trade, like butter or eggs.”
While she talked, she mixed up more pancake batter and, without being asked, poured more for Bjorn. As she turned them over, Einar pushed his chair back. “Come on, boy, we got work to do.”
“But—”
He shook his head. “You had enough. Come on.” He clapped his hat on his head and paused at the door. “We won’t be back until suppertime. You could send the younger boys out with dinner, if you have a mind.”
Bjorn grabbed two pancakes on his way out the door.
She could hear Einar talking to Knute and Leif outside. Surely he was going to let them eat something. They both carried in an armload of wood as they came inside and dumped it in the box.
“Onkel Einar said we had to weed the garden today.”
“You’re going to help me scrub this kitchen too.” She set plates in front of each of them. “The men had sour cream and jam on theirs. There is no syrup.” She reminded herself to check down in the cellar. Perhaps Tante had made some fruit syrup.
“Can I have two eggs, Mor?” Leif grinned at her.
“Ja, but you better tell those hens to lay lots of eggs so we can eat some and still have enough to trade at the store in Blackduck.”
“Blackduck. That’s a funny name.” Knute had already eaten half his food.
“I know.” Signe finished the remainder of the pancakes and set a plate of them on the table. She had fried two eggs for herself, reminding herself that she needed to feed the baby growing inside her. They polished off the remainder of the pancakes, and she poured each of the boys another glass of milk and herself a last cup of coffee. Real coffee. What a meal. Breakfast had been porridge for so long. Their first real meals in ages had been on the steamship across the Great Lakes. They had even had dessert.
“Signe, help!” Tante Gerd called.
“Put your dishes in the pan on the stove and bring in more wood,” Signe told the boys. “Coming.” She entered the bedroom. “Good morning.”
“The pot.”
When that was accomplished, Tante collapsed back in the bed. “Coffee?”
“Would you like breakfast with tha
t?” Signe tried to straighten the covers.
“What?”
“What is for breakfast?”
“Ja! That is what I said.”
“I can fry you some eggs, and there is a biscuit or two from last night.”
“I thought I heard pancakes.”
“The batter is all gone.”
“You didn’t save me any?”
“I can toast the biscuit and—”
“You all had pancakes and now there is none for me.” Gerd’s eyes narrowed.
“I—I’m sorry. I can mix up some more. I wasn’t sure what you would like. Einar said—” She stopped. No sense blaming him. Did Tante always wake up this angry? “Would you like to come sit at the table?”
“No! I cannot walk.”
“Not even with help?”
“Eggs and biscuits will be enough.” Each word snapped like grease in a skillet.
“I will bring you coffee now and a plate in a few minutes.”
“What are the boys doing?”
“Bringing in wood, and then they’ll start weeding the garden.”
“Make sure they don’t pull out the vegetables.”
“They know the difference between weeds and carrots and peas.”
“Weeds are different here.”
“Ja, I’m sure they are.” Signe escaped before Tante could ask another question. Back in the kitchen, she inhaled a clear breath. That bedroom stank, almost as bad as the outhouse. How long since Tante’d had a bath and clean bedclothes, even clean clothes?
As she prepared the breakfast plate, she found herself shaking her head. Where to start? The kitchen or that bedroom or the wash?
With the plate and a fork on the tray, she returned to the bedroom. “I’ll help you sit up.”
Tante stared down at her plate. “Did you put salt and pepper on my eggs?”
“Ja, but not a lot.”
“No pepper on my eggs. And I want butter on my biscuits.”
“We don’t have butter. If you want I will redo your eggs.” Here it wasn’t midmorning yet, and she was already biting her tongue.
“No. Just remember that.”
“Are there any clean sheets? I will change your bed when you are finished.”
“If we had clean sheets, they would be on my bed.”
The Promise of Dawn Page 5