“The . . . the ladies are not of the best reputation. They sell . . . you can get . . .”
Hjelmer couldn’t stand it any longer. He hooted at his friend’s discomfort. “Say no more, my friend. I used to work on the fishing boats from Norway—remember, I told you about my Onkel Hamre? I’m not some young boy fresh off the farm.”
Leif punched him in the shoulder. Up ahead they could see dark shadows moving around in the tents lit by lanterns burning inside. They knocked on the first tent that had a “wash” sign on the side and waited.
“Coming,” a musical voice answered. The head that peeped through the opening did not belong to a woman who’d been used hard and left. A kerchief barely covered springy dark curls, and her smile caught and held a bit of moonlight. “Now, how can I help you fellas?”
Hjelmer held out his bundle. “You do wash?”
“I do. Don’t let my age fool you. I can scrub with the best of them and still come out on top.” She thrust out a hand. “I’m Katja. Leave your bundle tonight and pick it up tomorrow. Or I can deliver it if you need.”
“No, no. That’s all right. I’ll pick it up.” Thoughts of the remarks he’d get if she showed up looking for him warmed Hjelmer’s cheeks. He handed her his bundle and touched the brim of his fedora. “Mange takk.” The look in her eyes stayed with him all the way back to camp.
Mid-September 1884
Solveig is coming, Solveig is coming,” Kaaren Knutson danced around her kitchen as much as her enormous girth would allow. The words could be set to any music she wanted. As she sang, she spread the crazy quilt over the sheets covering a newly filled corn-husk mattress. The ropes strung on the bed frame that held the mattress creaked when she knelt to tuck the quilt in at the bottom. She’d thought of using straw for filling, but it packed down so, and she liked the smell of corn. At the rate Ingeborg brought in geese from the flocks that honked their way south, they would soon have feather beds of soft goose down.
Smoothing strings of hair off her sweaty forehead, Kaaren paused to knead her fists into the small of her back, if any part of her could be called small at this point in her pregnancy. Everyone in the area was betting she would have twins.
“Or one baby big enough to plow the fields already,” she’d told her husband, Lars, when he teased her about her girth.
While she hated to take the time, she sat down in her rocking chair and put her feet up on the stool. She shook her head at the sight of her swollen feet. Setting them up on the stool was the only way she’d been able to see them for some time. Looking like freshly stuffed goose down pillows was near as she could come to a description. She hated the thought of comparing them to sausages, overstuffed ones at that. Hard to believe she still had over a month to go, at least.
She rocked gently and let her head rest against the chair back. Solveig, known as the prettiest of the four Hjelmson sisters and the second youngest, had been but a girl when Kaaren and Carl left Norway four years ago. Now she wrote of finding a strong, hopefully handsome young man in Dakota Territory. One who loved the Lord as she did and needed a wife. She had sent a telegram from New York when she arrived, so when the paddle-wheeler on the Red River tooted three times, Lars would take a horse to the river to pick her up. They now had a floating dock and a sturdy raft to pick up passengers, mail, and small items ordered from Grand Forks. For things like machinery, they still drove to St. Andrew, where the townspeople had rebuilt the dock to make it sturdier for unloading heavy equipment. Last time she’d taken a wagonful of produce to the Bonanza farm in Minnesota, the dock had looked more like a real wharf, with heavy pilings driven deep into the mud and solid planks for the deck.
So many changes she’d seen in the time since they’d trekked across half the world to get to their new farmland.
Kaaren removed the hair pins that held the loosening golden bun at the base of her head and combed her work-roughened fingers through the long tresses. She shook her head, then reformed the bun and secured it again with the pins she had held between her lips. Lars liked her hair streaming down her usually slender back, but that was not seemly for one of her advanced age of three and twenty. She pushed herself to her feet, feeling as though she could explode any minute. “Uff da.” She arched her back, kneaded the spot that ached, and headed out the door to beat the triangle of iron rod that Hjelmer had bent for her to call the men from the fields. The venison stew that had been simmering all morning was ready, and she knew the men’s stomachs had been talking to them for some time.
A few minutes later she heard Lars whoa the horses and the sound of the jingling and squeak of harness as he pulled it off the team. He would use the oxen for the afternoon sod-breaking to give the horses a rest. Paws’ barking announced the arrival of the boys and Ingeborg, and Haakan wouldn’t be far behind. Often Kaaren cooked for them all when Ingeborg was hunting or, as today, cutting up a deer she’d shot two nights before. Ingeborg had wanted to let it hang longer, but while the nights were cold, the unusually warm days made that impossible.
With all of them gathered around the table, Lars said grace. “And dear Lord, take extra care of Kaaren right now and the babe she carries. I thank thee in advance for your protection over all of us. Amen.”
Kaaren swallowed an extra time or two and sniffed. This gentle man she had married caught her off guard so often with his tender concern for her.
“You sit down and I will serve.” Ingeborg didn’t ask, she just did.
Kaaren smiled her gratitude and reached over to give her little nephew Andrew a pat on the cheek.
“Tante ’Ren,” he called her, with Bjorklund blue eyes dancing above a sunny grin. “Good food.” He waved the crust of bread she’d spread with jam and set at his plate.
She knew they’d probably have to wash a sticky mess out of his blond curls, but his joy at the treat made the extra effort worth it. “Can you say thank you?” She carefully enunciated the English since he was already picking up Norwegian. While they all had decided to use their new language as much as they could, Norwegian still came so much easier to their lips.
“Tank oo,” he obliged.
“We saw Wolf when we were out with the sheep,” nearly-nineyear-old Thorliff said as he took his filled plate from his mother. “Baptiste said he hadn’t been around for a while.”
The boy beside him, about the same age but with the black eyes and matching hair of his French-Canadian and Lakota-Indian ancestry, nodded. His people were called Metiz, the name they all used for his grandmother, with whom he lived in a tepee on the riverbank during the warm season.
“Is that usual?” Kaaren asked, passing him his full plate.
Baptiste shook his head. “Grandmere was afraid he might have gone to the Great Spirit. He never goes away for more than a day or two.”
“Was he hurt?” Haakan swallowed his mouthful of stew before asking.
Baptiste shook his head.
“It’s still hard for me to believe a wolf is one of our guardians here. Those in the North Woods were feared, probably more than they deserved to be.” Haakan had walked across Minnesota at his mother’s bidding to assist the two Bjorklund widows in their farming, never dreaming he would marry one and become a flatland farmer. And the Red River Valley defined the word flat, for sure. On the trip he’d slept in a tree one night to stay safe from the wolves he heard howling nearby.
“Wolf saved our sheep one night from a whole pack of wolves,” Thorliff answered. “He killed some of the wild ones, and the others ate them.”
“Thorliff, that’s not a good thing to talk about at the dinner table,” Ingeborg said, then took her place after having served everyone and refilled the coffee mugs.
“Well, he did.”
“I know, but just because it is true does not make the subject good for talking at mealtime.”
“Would you rather talk about the barn raising?” Haakan asked with a grin.
Ingeborg flashed him a raised right eyebrow.
Kaaren smiled an
d forked a piece of meat to her mouth. This discussion had gone on before and got plenty heated when Haakan said he wanted to build a wood house before winter. Ingeborg said if they were going to build anything, it should be a barn. The four of them had gone back and forth for several meals, until Haakan had finally thrown his hands in the air and shook his head in defeat.
“I thought you hated the soddy in the winter and wanted light. I’m trying to give you light, woman.”
Ingeborg flinched and swallowed the words she’d obviously intended to add to the argument. “I’m sorry, but the barn is so much more important. I can endure another winter in the soddy when I know we have room for the animals.”
Kaaren knew that was as close as Ingeborg would come to a real apology. Here the man had been trying to do something nice for her.
“That’s your choice, then. How about tonight we figure how much lumber we are going to need and have it brought to the train station at Grafton? Faster to get there now than to St. Andrew.”
“Ja, and no river to cross hauling the loads home.” Lars nodded and reached for another slice of bread.
“Can we go with and see the train?” asked Thorliff, sharing a look of excitement with Baptiste.
“We will see.”
“Me see train.” Andrew banged his spoon on the table. “See train.”
“You don’t even know what a train is,” Thorliff said.
“Thorliff.” At his mother’s remonstrance, the boy ducked his chin. “Maybe we could all go with one load and see the town. I heard the general store there has far more things than the Mercantile in St. Andrew.”
“Yes, thanks to the railroad. You mark my words, we’re going to have a line even closer before 1890 rolls around.” Haakan waved his fork for emphasis.
“So, can we go?”
“We will see.”
“I will flag down the paddle-wheeler tomorrow on its way upriver and give the captain our order. We should have the lumber within the week. We got enough timber along the river to cut our own if we just had a sawmill. Hope to heaven we can get a steam engine and the saws before the cold sets in. What a business we could do over the winter.”
“You got plenty to do with cutting wood for the steamship, don’t you?” Ingeborg asked.
Kaaren didn’t say anything. If the men felt there was a chance to make money on this new scheme, she wouldn’t argue. But then she agreed with the creed of most women—let the men make the decisions about the land and machinery. Ingeborg still struggled with that.
“We don’t need to make two big decisions right now.” Ingeborg took the spoon away from Andrew and used it to dip stew into his mouth. “I think I let you have too much bread, den lille guten.”
“Jam.” Andrew tried to duck away from the spoon and pointed to the jar on the table.
Ingeborg turned to the two older boys. “This afternoon I need you to bring in more of that green maple so we get plenty of smoke for the venison. Then you and Baptiste can keep the fire burning.”
A grin lit the boy’s tanned face. “No school?”
Kaaren shook her head. “School. Right after dinner as usual. You can get the wood, then run back and forth to keep it stoked. If you take turns, you’ll each get to read more aloud.”
Baptiste groaned. Reading aloud was not his favorite subject, but when it came to natural science, he excelled. He and Thorliff had a pact. Thorliff would help him read, and Baptiste would teach his friend the way of the woods, the prairie and river, and his friends the animals.
The adults laughed. “You boys,” Kaaren said. “You’d think I beat you every day.”
“Me read?” Andrew looked up from the bread he’d pounded flat, then ate.
“Not today.” Ingeborg spooned more of the stew into his mouth. “You get a nap so I can get something done.”
“Inge, he can come here.” Kaaren laid a hand on the mound of her belly. At the look of concern on the others’ faces, she shook her head. “No, the baby is not ready to come. Just dancing the pols in there, I swear.”
“Did you lie down for a while yet?” Lars asked. When Kaaren shook her head, he looked at her sternly. “You promised.”
“Ja, but the day isn’t over. After the lessons I will.” She leaned back in her chair. “Just think, I will soon be teaching all the children in our own schoolhouse. Won’t that be a dream come true? God is so good.”
“You look like you should be teaching a roomful of restless children,” Lars muttered into his coffee cup.
“I won’t look like this much longer.” She grimaced again as the baby kicked so hard her apron bounced.
“Did you see that?” Thorliff’s eyes grew huge and round, the Bjorklund blue showing even more than usual.
“Ja, and I felt it too.” Kaaren knew she shouldn’t talk about the baby around the younger children. It just wasn’t proper. But with all of them here in one room, proper didn’t seem to be so important any longer. The boys had seen sheep, calves, and even a foal born. A baby wasn’t that much different.
“Grandmere said she was coming this afternoon to see how you are.” Baptiste wiped the milk mustache off with his sleeve. “I’m done. You want I should start on the wood?”
“There’s egge kake for dessert.” Kaaren was well known for her egg cake. “I have applesauce for frosting.”
Baptiste flashed her one of his rare grins. “I’ll wait.”
Over the cake, Haakan again picked up the discussion they’d been chewing at for the last several days. “When do you think we should go look for a steam engine and lumber mill? We could get it set up before the snow comes and use it during the winter.”
Ingeborg shook her head. “How can you do that and a barn too?” She ignored his muttered “house.” “As I’ve said fifty times, all those extra cattle we bought need a place out of the cold.”
“Ja, but we could do that with a roofed corral.” He looked up at Lars, the look clearly saying “help me.”
“I’m thinking we should set the boys to splitting shingles, and we could help them in the evenings. The barn will give us more room for indoor work this winter. We could keep one end of it for a workshop.” Lars winked at Ingeborg. “Maybe even build you two women a loom.”
“So you agree with me, then?” Ingeborg shot a triumphant smile at her husband. She waited for his answer.
Haakan threw his hands in the air. “I give up. Try to give you something you want so dearly and you refuse. There will be no more discussion about building a frame house—this year.”
“The cattle are more important. They bring in money.” Ingeborg pointedly ignored his last statement.
“And you don’t?” Both eyebrows disappeared under the shock of wheaten hair falling on his forehead. But the smile they shared buried their stubbornness in love.
After the plates were soaking in an enameled pan on the stove, Ingeborg picked up the now nodding Andrew and nestled him against her shoulder. “I’ll be going after geese again this evening, but Thorliff can watch him.” She laid a hand on the drowsy child’s back.
“No, bring him over.” Kaaren smiled at the picture they made, with Ingeborg dressed in her britches and a shirt she’d cut down from the clothes of her first husband, Roald, who had died in a snowstorm during the blizzard and flu epidemic of 1882. Even though Kaaren hated to see her sister-in-law dressed like a man, she’d come to appreciate the greater freedom it gave her, especially in the woods and fields. Ingeborg’s golden crown of braids made her look like a queen in spite of her man’s clothing.
“You know, after the baby is born, I might think of making some britches myself.”
“Kaaren!” The shock on Lars’ face made the joke well worthwhile.
“Just teasing.” She gave him that special smile she reserved just for him. His return smile, accompanied by a wink, made her breath catch in her throat. God, thank you again for this man you sent me. Thank you for healing his foot and for the babe we share. When she caught her breath the second time,
it was for an entirely different reason. That baby had more kicking power than Jack the mule.
“I will see you later, then.” Ingeborg strode out the door, her broad-brimmed man’s hat clapped on her head.
“Mange takk for maten,” Haakan said as he leaped to his feet and, grabbing his hat off the peg by the door, followed his wife outside. “Here, Inge, let me carry him.” The two older boys scampered out the door yelling “thank you” over their shoulders. Thorliff’s “Far, wait for me” floated back on the breeze as the screen door slammed.
Kaaren smiled again at her husband. “Life surely is different around here, thanks to you two.”
Lars reached above and behind him to bring her face down for a kiss. “I thank my God every day for my life here.” He kissed her again, inhaling deeply. “How come you always smell so good?”
“It’s the egge kake you smell.”
“No, it’s you. Soap and roses and fresh air and you. Only God can make a perfume like that.”
Kaaren could feel herself blush. Every once in a while this man talked like a poet or a dreamer, making her heart ache with the joy of it. Sometimes she felt she could burst from the sheer wonder of loving him and his loving her. “God is good,” was all she could say around the lump in her throat.
“Make sure you listen for the riverboat. Solveig should be here either today or tomorrow. Remember, if you need me, ring the triangle.” He rose, drained his coffee mug, and reached for his hat all in one smooth motion.
“Listen to you. Every day you tell me the same thing. While this might be your first baby, it certainly isn’t mine.” Memory of her two daughters lying in the graveyard with their father caused an instant flooding of her eyes. Sometimes she scolded herself for the tears, but they always caught her unawares. “Go on now. I will know when to call you. I do get some warning, you know.”
“You’re sure?”
“Lars, we talk of this every single day. I am fine, and I will be fine. Besides, the boys will be back in a minute or two. You want they should catch you still in the house in the middle of the afternoon?” She gave him a playful shove and stood at the door to hear him whistling his way back to the sod barn. Flies buzzed at the screen door, demanding entrance, and Paws barked from the other house. She listened to hear if it was his announcing company bark or if he was just playing with the boys. Geese sang their way south, a haunting melody of freedom. Sometimes the sky seemed almost dark with the waterfowl heading for their winter quarters in the Southland. Warm as it was, she could still smell the fragrance of fall in the air. Wishing she could go out and dig the remaining carrots and turnips from her garden nearly drew her outside, but she knew if Lars caught her at it, the look of a wounded boy that covered his face would make her feel as though she’d been the one delivering the injury.
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