The Promise of Dawn

by Lauraine Snelling

  “You have two weeks yet.”

  “I’ve been careful.” He flexed his fingers, first on the weak hand, then the other. “When I fired the rifle, I pulled the trigger with my good hand and steadied the gun on my cast. It worked fine.”

  Leif finished his meal. “Why doesn’t he want us to go to school?”

  “He’s worried there aren’t enough trees ready to ship to the mills. He wants a lot more logs than what we’ve cut so far.” Rune cleaned the rest of his plate with another slice of bread. “That is what brings in money for us all to live here.”

  “How will he get the trees to the railroad?” Knute reached for more bread. “Mor, do we have jam? I need to move my trapline. Guess we got all the rabbits close by.”

  “Signe.” The call from the bedroom was growing stronger.

  “Coming.” She poured Rune’s coffee and stopped at the doorway. “I’ll bring your supper now.”

  “Good.”

  Signe returned to the stove and started dishing up another plate. “Rune, I think we need two canes for Gerd. She’s getting stronger, and I want her walking.”

  “I could get two sticks at least.”

  Bjorn frowned at his mor. “Onkel Einar should do that.”

  “Ja, well.” She shook her head and set the plate on a tray, along with a full coffee cup. “At least she is eating and beginning to feel better.”

  Her mind kept churning as she got Gerd propped up and the tray on her lap. Never a please or thank-you, not even a friendly greeting. All orders and commands. Was he that bad out in the woods too? If Rune had to put up with that out there, how could he stand it? Right now she felt like storming down to the machine shed and—and . . .

  As if her mor were standing right beside her, Signe heard her say, “Remember, Signe, a soft answer always turneth away wrath. If you remember nothing else that I have taught you, remember this verse above all else.”

  But, Mor, yelling at him would be so much more satisfying. Signe felt the sting of tears behind her eyes. There was no way to describe how desperately she needed to see her mor, to talk these things over with someone. She could try with Rune, but why lay more on him? He was already carrying enough. The baby gave her a good kick in the ribs, as if telling her to calm down.

  At that, she smiled and shook her head. She returned to the table. “Do any of you need anything else?”

  “You never make cookies anymore,” Leif said hopefully.

  “You’re right. Perhaps one of these days. How about another piece of bread with jam instead?” She fetched the jam from the pantry and set it on the table, then sliced more bread.

  “A cookie with my coffee would certainly be good. As you say, one of these days.” Rune pushed back his chair but paused. “You did not finish your supper, and now it’s cold.”

  The kindness in his voice almost did her in. “Thank you. It will be fine.”

  “What do you want the boys to do in the garden?”

  “The beans need to be picked again. And we need to clean out the cellar to be ready to bring in the potatoes and other things.”

  “Ja, so much to do, I know.” He and Bjorn put on their hats and headed for the machine shed.

  Leif and Knute finished their bread and followed the men out the door, Leif as always making sure the screen door did not slam.

  Signe knew why she had not baked cookies. She never had a moment to roll them out, and she was too conscious of using up the precious sugar. Surely Einar would appreciate cookies sometimes, and she knew Gerd would. If only she could talk over some of these things with Gerd.

  That night after all the others had gone to bed, she motioned for Rune to sit with her in the parlor. Just in case Einar was still awake, she did not want to talk in the kitchen.

  He waved her into the armchair, then perched on the horsehair sofa. She glanced around the parlor. What should she bring up first?

  Rune began, “You know I believe the boys going to school is necessary as much as you do.”

  “Takk. I thought so, but I wondered when you did not say anything.”

  “I’ve learned that it does no good to argue with him when he’s in that demanding mood.”

  “He’s not like that all the time?”

  “Nei. When we’re in the woods, he’s almost pleasant.”

  She shook her head. “That does not make sense. At least not to me.”

  “It doesn’t need to make sense. That’s just the way he is.”

  Signe swallowed the questions pushing to be asked. “Maybe he should stay out in the woods all the time.”

  “He is there all he can be.”

  Signe shrugged. She should know better by now than to waste sarcasm on her husband. “I know. But what do we do about school?”

  “We follow our original agreement with him. Bjorn will work in the woods with us, and the other two will go to school. I mean, what can he do but bluster and yell and be angry? They will get all the school they can. I would prefer that Bjorn go too, but he doesn’t want to. He has said so—repeatedly. So it is not to be. Right?”

  “But what if he yells again? Leif is trying so hard to do what they say. You watch—he makes sure the screen door never slams because Gerd screeched about it.” She nodded thoughtfully. “I—I thought life could be so good here. Hard work, I know, but we are not afraid of hard work.” She rubbed her teeth over her bottom lip, then looked at Rune. “Why are they so mean? Do you suppose they were always like this, or that something happened here to turn them that way?”

  Rune shrugged and shook his head at the same time. “Who knows.” He blew out a cheek-puffing breath. “I just know that we are all working as hard as we can to fulfill our part of the agreement. When I think this is too much, I think about a house of our own on our own land. We agreed to work for them to earn back the money he spent to bring us from Norway. After that?” He raised his hands. “Only God knows.”

  Signe stared at him, willing herself to ask her next question. Hands twisting in her lap and her breath catching in her throat, she swallowed. She started to ask, stopped, then took a deep breath and looked into his dear face.

  “D-do you still . . . still really believe that?”

  Confusion chased itself across his face from ear to ear. “Believe what?”

  “That God really exists and knows and cares about us?” The words rushed out.

  “Signe, of course I believe. How can I look at those giant trees every day, and the animals here, and you and our boys . . .” His head wagged as he spoke softly yet firmly. “The sun coming up in the morning and going down at night. Of course I believe. I cannot not believe in Him. Why do you ask?”

  Signe heaved a sigh—of what? Frustration? Fear? No, mostly confusion.

  He turned his head slightly to study her. “Do you doubt?”

  She nodded without looking at him.

  He reached over and, with a gentle finger, turned her face back to him. “Why?”

  “We—we never talk about God or go to church anymore. And—and when I prayed, He didn’t answer—not like He used to.”

  “Do you pray for us and our boys and—” He stopped as she shook her head. “I see.” The silence deepened along with the fading lamplight. “You no longer do?”

  “Nei. But . . .” She struggled with the proper words and clenched his hand in hers. “I-I think—I . . . I want to.” There, it was out. She nodded. “Ja, I want to.”

  A pause stretched. Was he angry at her? Disappointed? She was afraid to search his face.

  “Then do so.”

  The words fell gently into the pool of her mind, sending out ripples. This time the silence seemed full of life, no matter how quietly the ripples splashed upon the shore. Then do so. Of course. After all, what could it hurt? Rune held her hand, gently now, peacefully. And waited.

  “Are you there, Lord? If you are listening, I-I’m sorry.” Tears gushed from her eyes, a spring freshet dancing down the rocks at home, singing and sparkling in the sunshine. Pe
ace washed over her, the likes of which she had never felt. It bathed her heart, her mind, and deep inside it washed away the doubts like bits of bark or grass caught in the mountain spring cleansing. He restoreth my soul. The verse followed, only instead of dancing onward, it rested upon her.

  “Ah, my Signe, your face shines, so I know you are back where you belong. In Him and in me.”

  “Ja.” She wiped away her tears and squeezed his hand. “Takk.” Together they rose, and she stepped into his embrace. His arms around her—she realized she needed that right now even more than someone to talk to. “Tomorrow?”

  “Now is where we are.”

  “I did not bank the stove.”

  “I will.”

  “I need to go outside first.”

  She left him quietly banking the fire and hurried to the outhouse. Lately the pressure to go had not allowed her as much time as usual. Another sign the baby was growing, as if the occasional kick in the ribs was not a sufficient reminder. She stopped and stared up at the stars flung so brilliantly against the cobalt, distant lights to remind that her someone was indeed home, like putting a lamp in a window to keep travelers from being lost in the wilderness of life.

  She met Rune as she entered the house. “The outhouse needs lime again.”

  “I will take care of that first thing in the morning.”

  “Takk.”

  She could soon hear Rune’s gentle puffing that said he had fallen asleep immediately, as usual. She tried one side, then the other. In spite of the cushioning of the pallet, getting comfortable was becoming more difficult all the time. Remembering her other pregnancies, she knew this was not unusual. But at home she’d had a feather bed rather than a hay pallet, and ropes that held up the mattress, not an unforgiving floor. She hated to add another thing to the list of tasks that needed to be done; the stairs were far more important than a rope-strung bed. However, the bed would take far less time. Strange—Einar had known they were coming, but had he made any preparations for five more people to live in this house? None at all.

  Do not think about that! Do not think about him at all! She rolled onto her back, knowing that she would have a backache in the morning from sleeping this way. But in spite of the discomfort, she fell asleep halfway through the Lord’s Prayer.

  Chapter

  20

  AUGUST 1909

  How to ask him about building some stairs?

  “Far?” Knute tweaked Rune’s shirt from where he sat in the back of the wagon.

  Rune turned to his son, ignoring the man driving the team. Not a word had been said since they left the barnyard.

  “Can I ask about fishing?” He spoke softly so Einar would not hear him.

  “Go ahead.” My boys should not be afraid to talk about life here. Rune heaved a sigh. This was not the life he had envisioned when he agreed to emigrate.

  “Onkel Einar, do you ever go fishing?”

  “I used to, but it takes too much time.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “A little lake a couple miles away.”

  “Did you catch a lot of fish?”

  “Sometimes. I went ice fishing a couple times, but I need to fell trees more than fish.”

  “Could I go fishing sometime? I really like to fish.”

  Einar snorted. “Not worth it.”

  “Oh.”

  Rune could tell how disappointed his son was. But what to do? Right now, school was more important. And getting a stairway built, which meant buying lumber. Perhaps while they ate dinner, he would bring it up.

  Knute leaped out of the wagon as soon as it stopped, to take care of the horses, and the men took axes and saws out of the back. Einar always paused for a moment at the growing collection of felled trees. They had three or four more to be dragged over.

  Knute asked, “How will you get them to the railroad?”

  “The lumber company comes with a steam engine to load them on sledges. Then they load the train cars with cranes. If we were close to a river, we would skid them there on the snow and float the logs to St. Paul in the spring.”

  “Far says you built the house with lumber from trees right here. How did you cut the boards?”

  “I dragged them to a portable sawmill. It was set up not far from here.” He pointed to the trees he had marked and signaled for Rune to follow him. They notched the tree, each of them wielding an axe from either side. Rune liked the rhythm they had grown into. They leaned their axes against a stump, took either end of the seven-foot saw, and set it into the notch, slipping with ease back into the pull motion. He’d learned the first day that one never pushed, always pulled. The fear of snapping the blade was a good motivation to learn. That was why two men were needed.

  When they paused for a breather, he looked over to see Knute dragging branches. He was growing a good-sized pile. His boys were such hard workers, even Bjorn, who was itching to get back out here in the woods. Einar might make a lumberjack out of him.

  “Ready?”

  “Ja.” A short time later, the telltale creak of a tree in the final throes of life told them to pull out the saw—now. They did, and both men automatically checked to see where Knute was. The tree was not cut to fall toward him, but they were taking no chances. “Get back!” Rune yelled and waved his arm. Knute waved back and scurried off to the side.

  The tree groaned and shuddered. Rune stared up at the shaking branches. An instant of slowness, and then the tree stormed through the surrounding trees and with a mighty roar crashed to the ground, sending limbs and bark and clumps of needles flying. Rune felt like praying, as if the tree’s soul had died. The forest stood silent.

  Rune and Einar both wiped the sweat from their brows with their sleeves, Einar nodding. “Knute, bring the jug!”

  But Knute was already halfway there, anticipating the order. After several long swallows, Rune handed the jug back to Knute. “Go ahead and take the team over for a drink.”

  Knute grinned and nodded. “This is the part of the day I like best.”

  “Start a new pile when you get back, closer to that tree.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Einar and Rune set to limbing the tree, Rune with an axe and Einar using the bow saw on the lower branches, which were as big around as small trees. By the time the sun was directly overhead, they were more than half done. They leaned their tools against the trunk and headed over to the wagon.

  “I don’t like to see the trees fall,” Knute said around bites of his sandwich.

  “Can’t farm the land with these trees in the way, and besides, they bring in good money.” Einar glugged the coffee Signe sent in a quart jar, one for each of the men.

  Dusk came early in the shadows of the giant pines, so when it became harder to see the branches they were lopping off the second tree, Einar called it a day, and they returned to set their tools in the back of the wagon. Knute had the team all hitched up again and impatient to head for the barn.

  Rune was no closer to asking about the stairs, but now he would wait until dinner time tomorrow, so Einar could work off his anger and not take it out on Signe. It took a while sometimes, but Rune was learning.

  As soon as the team stopped at the barn, Knute jumped out and went to check on the pigs and chickens. The chickens were wandering back to their pen, so Knute fetched a can of oats from the grain bin and scattered them in the yard to encourage any laggers. He scratched the two sows and studied the two butcher hogs, which were rooting all around the edge of the pen, trying to get to the bits of grass growing outside the fence.

  Rune leaned against the pen with him.

  “Hank and Henry are big enough to butcher, aren’t they?”

  “They are. You’ve done a fine job feeding them.”

  “When I pulled the suckers on the corn stalks for them, they really liked that.”

  “They would love corn too, but then, pigs will eat about anything. At home we let them loose in the gardens after everything was harvested. They turn the soil over
real good.”

  “And fertilized it too.”

  Rune ruffled his son’s hair. “You are most certainly a farmer at heart.”

  Knute rested his chin on the hog fence. “I like the animals the best. I wish we had sheep. I miss Grandma’s sheep. And the geese.” He turned to Rune. “Will we go hunting when the ducks and geese fly south?”

  “Doesn’t look that way. No time.” Rune slapped his hand on the fence rail. “Lock up the chickens, and let’s go see if supper is ready.”

  “Onkel Einar was nicer today.”

  “Ja, he was.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no idea.”

  That night they had the first of the corn on the cob for supper.

  Einar wagged a hand. “Get me a sharp knife.”

  Rune saw Signe’s slight hesitation before she did his bidding. Could the man not say please or thank you? Had he never learned, or did he just not care? Rune realized this was the way he always was, not something new since he had met Signe’s resistance to obeying his every command.

  She laid the knife on the table beside Einar and returned to the stove to dish up a plate for Gerd. Rune knew she was working to get Gerd strong enough to join them at the table for meals. Did Einar even understand how hard Signe was working here? Rune mentally shook his head. All this introspection was certainly not like him.

  While Einar carefully cut his corn off the cob, Rune and the boys attacked the platter of corn with delight. They slathered on butter and made their way through the stack, almost ignoring the meatballs Signe had made from ground venison. Add gravy over just-dug potatoes, and none of them took time to talk, just the way Einar liked it.

  The older man cleared his plate with a slice of bread, pushed back his chair, and with a belch that said plenty, left the table and then the house. The pall over the table left with him.

  “When will you take this cast off?” Bjorn asked after a brief silence.

  “Saturday will be six weeks,” Signe said, “but you have to promise not to overuse it. Those muscles are weak, and you could strain one easily.”