He grinned up at her, his eyes appearing more blue above the red of his cheeks. “If I forget, you will help me.”
“I saw you dancing with Ingrid Johnson. You were doing very well.”
His cheeks pinked even more. “She is a good dancer.”
Ingeborg bit back a smile. Ingrid had eyelashes as long as a cat’s whiskers and already knew how to use them.
When the women brought the hot food out from the soddy, the musicians put away their instruments amid applause from everyone. They had certainly warmed this barn up well. After everyone ate, the move began to head home for chores. Ingeborg, Haakan, Kaaren, and Lars bid everyone good-bye at the door and thanked them for coming. The last sleigh to leave held the Baard clan. Agnes was driving, Knute and Swen up on the seat beside her. Joseph and Petar sat in the back with the younger children, all buried up to their noses in elk robes and quilts.
Ingeborg quirked an eyebrow, and Agnes shook her head. There was no further need for speech concerning what had gone on. She waved them off and turned back to the barn.
After they cleared away the tables made of sawhorses and boards covered with tablecloths, Thorliff began hauling in straw for the cow stanchions. They would milk in the new barn for the first time. When all twelve milk cows were lined up, their heads facing the center of the barn, all the Bjorklunds stopped to admire the sight. Thorliff poured a measure of grain for each in the long manger in front of them, and the men began milking. With three of them at it, the women returned to the soddy. They now had all the milk cows in one place, and the sod barn at Lars and Kaaren’s would be used to house the young stock and the bull.
“That was the best party ever, I think.” Kaaren leaned over the bed and picked up the fussing Sophie.
Solveig propped her leg up on the stool in front of the rocking chair. She leaned forward and rubbed below her knee, nodding as she did so. “George Carlson is a very nice man, isn’t he?”
Kaaren and Ingeborg swapped secret looks at the dreamy tone.
“Oh, really?” Kaaren said. “Guess I hadn’t noticed.”
The two older women chuckled. Ingeborg added, “What we’re going to hear about is the goings-on outside. Hildegunn Valders will make sure of that, unless of course she kills her husband on the way home and has to leave the area.”
“Even then, she will have an excuse for him and a scathing tongue for the rest.”
“Why, Kaaren . . .” Ingeborg stopped from saying the rest of her thought.
“I know. Don’t tell me.” Kaaren held up one hand. “The Bible says to say no ill of anyone. Actually it says of no man, so I guess this is permissible.” She shook her head. “Ja, I know that doesn’t count, either, but that woman makes me mad. Her and her nose in the air. Whatever makes her think she is better than the rest of us? Or that she should be able to tell us all what to do? That man she thought should be our pastor?” She rolled her eyes. “If he was the only minister on earth, we’d do better with ourselves. Scared those little ones half to death with all that thundering and shouting. He think we were hard of hearing or something?”
Ingeborg kept in her mind that Kaaren hadn’t even been to the service the day of the Hostetler preaching. Someone had sure filled her ears with all the news.
“Who told you about that?” Ingeborg paused. “Other than me, that is.”
“Oh, everyone. Even Thorliff. He was furious that the man made Andrew cry.”
Kaaren unbuttoned her shirtwaist and sat down to let Sophie nurse. After throwing a blanket over her shoulder, she leaned back in the chair. “Guess I was a bit upset there and spewed it out all over you.”
“Ja, I’d say so.”
“He asked if I’d like to go on a sleigh ride with him sometime,” Solveig murmured.
Ingeborg and Kaaren looked first at the dreamy-eyed girl, then at each other. Laughter rang in the rafters of the soddy, setting the bunches of drying herbs tied there to rustling.
Ingeborg whispered from behind her hand. “We better get busy on that quilt we all started. I know Agnes thought it to be for Penny, but I have a feeling . . .”
“Me too,” Kaaren whispered back. “Hope she waits until the twins are walking.”
At church the next day, a few of the men were missing. There seemed to be a rash of headaches and stomach ailments.
“Must have caught something at your party,” Agnes said once the service was over. Joseph didn’t look too good, but at least he was there.
“Ja, my far used to call it the hops-n-barley sickness.” Ingeborg looked around the room. The twinkle in her eye brought forth one from her friend.
“I know. Interesting who is not here today.”
Penny joined them. “Ingeborg, would you write your friend in Fargo and tell her I am coming?”
“When do you want to go?”
“Today if I could.” She flashed a telling glance at her aunt.
“You could just take the letter with you. Mrs. Johnson said you would be welcome anytime.”
“Onkel Joseph said he would pay for my train ticket. I need to find out when someone is going to Grafton.”
“I think I heard the Helmsrudes say they would be going sometime soon. Why don’t you ask them?”
All during the discussion, Agnes kept her gaze lowered. When Penny left, she whispered to Ingeborg. “How I am going to miss that girl. I couldn’t love her more if she were my own daughter.” She shook her head, setting the slack skin under her chin to wobbling. “Sure hope she is doing the right thing.”
Ingeborg knew Agnes’s opinions about Hjelmer. “So do I. Seems to me that since she wants more schooling, this is good for her. In the years ahead, she will be grateful for that.”
“Why? We didn’t need more schooling. You learn how to be a wife and mother from your mor and the doing of it, not from teachers and classrooms.”
“Ja, I know. But things are different in America. Here women can teach school and own their own land. You know she dreams of having a store one day.”
“Ja, she does. And Hjelmer, that . . .” She glanced out the side of her eye, stopping the words they both knew she felt. “Guess you just have to let these young’uns learn their own lessons.”
“You mean leave them in God’s hands?”
“Ja, that too.”
Three days later Penny said good-bye to everyone and left for Grafton and the train to Fargo.
“Uff da,” Agnes said, turning to Ingeborg, who had come over to make it easier for her friend. “She’s never been on a train in her life.” Agnes used the corner of her apron to wipe her eyes. “How will I answer to my sister in heaven if something terrible happens to her girl?”
The next Monday, Kaaren rang the iron bar for the opening of school.
“Good morning, Mitheth Knutson,” lisped a slender little girl. With straight hair the lightest of towhead, she stopped in front of the high bench Kaaren would call a desk. “I am Anna Helmthrude.” Her speech in English showed careful rehearsing.
“And how old are you, Anna?” Kaaren asked, also in English.
The child’s eyes darted right and left. She looked up again, a combination of fear and questions darkening her cornflower blue eyes. When Kaaren asked the question again in Norwegian, the child breathed a sigh of relief and her smile reappeared from its hasty retreat.
“I am five.” She held up as many fingers to accompany her Norwegian words.
“Well, Anna, the five-year-olds will sit in the front row.” Kaaren came around her table and lowered herself to look eye to eye with Anna. “I am very glad to see you here.”
The smile broke out in full force as the little girl nodded. “Me too.”
Hearing only a few words in English as the children filed in, Kaaren knew she would be teaching mainly in Norwegian, but she promised herself these children would be speaking at least the rudiments of English by the end of the year.
She looked over her group of pupils as the last one to enter shut the door behind him. While she wa
ited for silence, she counted them. Fifteen in all and they had benches for twenty. She nodded. Most of the children she knew at least by face if not by name from worship and soddy raisings, but several were strangers. She breathed a sigh of relief—the Strand boys weren’t present. Either their parents didn’t wish them to attend school, or there was one to the west closer to where they had finally settled. Kaaren hadn’t been to their home, and she didn’t wish to go. Sometimes she chastised herself for her unforgiving attitude, but most of the time she ignored it and the small voice that prompted her discomfort. Or at least she tried to. Deep inside she knew that one day God would call her to task over this attitude.
“Good morning, class.” She paused.
A few of the children who had been to school before intoned, “Good morning, teacher.”
“We will try that again, and my name is Mrs. Knutson. Good morning, class.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Knutson.” The response rang stronger.
“Now we will try that in English.” She caught the look of surprise on Solveig’s face at the back of the room. Good, she thought. Solveig will learn the language, too, whether she wants to or not. She repeated the greeting in English, then said the words one at a time. “Now repeat after me.” She said the words again slowly. While they stumbled over the response, she nodded. “Good. Now, let’s try it again.” By the third time, they had it. “Now, we will start all over again.” She switched to English. “Good morning, class.”
They responded likewise, using her name in place of class. Smiles of pride flitted across the faces of those who got it right, and those who didn’t corrected themselves. One more time through and Kaaren clapped her hands. “Well done. Every morning we will start this way and add new English words to your speech. As we go along, we will learn to use those words during the day too.” She paused to smile at them all, her heart already swelling with pride for them. “Now we will read from the holy Bible and sing a song. Then I want each of you to stand and tell us your name, your age, and how much schooling you have had.”
Kaaren turned and lifted her open Bible from the desk. As the year progressed she planned to have the children take turns choosing and reading the morning verses. So many plans she had for this group of children God had entrusted her with. “Please stand.”
From Proverbs chapter two, Kaaren began to read verses ten and eleven. “ ‘When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee.’ ” She smiled at the children. “Those are wise words for all of us. Listen closely as I read them again.”
After the reading, she lead them in a hymn and then asked them to sit down. “Now we will start with the back row so the little ones will know what to do when it is their turn.”
A tall boy who said he was fourteen led off. He looked big enough to be working alongside his father full time, which made Kaaren doubly glad his family allowed him to come. She knew most of the young people that age were being kept at home to work, their parents thinking they were beyond needing such a frivolous thing as more schooling. Changing their minds would take some persuading talk, Kaaren knew. She also fully believed she was up to the job of convincing the parents that their children needed to learn to speak English, if nothing else. If they had remained in Norway, the children would be in school, so why not here in the new land?
As each child said his name, she asked for the spelling and wrote it in her book. She included ages and at what level she thought they might be. Testing would come next.
When the twins began to fuss, Kaaren dismissed her pupils for recess outside. Sending Solveig outside, too, for a breath of fresh air, Kaaren nursed the babies in front of the window so she could watch the children as they ran shrieking in a game of tag, their breaths floating in clouds on the clear air. Quickly they tramped a large circle in the snow to play fox and goose. When she closed her eyes, she could see swings hanging from a thick board between tall posts and children pumping higher and higher as if they would fly into the sky. The schoolhouse would have a bell in a belfry, real desks, and many books lining the shelves, some for study and others for the children to read for the pure joy of it.
“So many dreams I have,” she whispered to her satisfied babies, breathing a kiss on each smooth forehead. Sophie smiled up at her, gurgling and making sounds with her fist waving in the air. Grace followed her mother’s every action with wide blue eyes, her perfect little mouth also widening into a smile. But she still hadn’t made sounds like Sophie did, those little babbling noises Sophie answered with whenever someone talked to her. The fist Grace freed from the blanket went into her mouth instead. Could she not speak or hear? The idea of either one made Kaaren’s heart ache for her precious baby.
“Are you ready?” Solveig asked, shutting the door carefully.
“Ja, if you will change these two.” Kaaren handed the squirming bundles to her sister, righted her clothing, and with a ready smile, opened the door and clanged the bar. When the children had all taken their seats again, cheeks ruddy from the cold, she announced, “Since I don’t know how much you know, each of you take out your slates and chalk.”
Two children wearing the most threadbare clothes of all raised their hands.
“We don’t got no slates,” the older boy said.
“I brought some because I thought some of you might not.” Kaaren looked around. “Any others?” One more hand went up. “That is fine. Please come up here and pick one up.” When all had slates, she continued with her instructions. “Those of you who have been to school before write the most difficult arithmetic problem you know. Then go to the bookshelf and choose a book that you know you can read, but not the easiest one.” A boy in the back ducked his head. “Do you all understand?” At their nods and as they bent their heads to the assigned tasks, she began with the front row.
One of the young ones knew his alphabet and could count to ten, all in Norwegian. His English was nonexistent, other than the few words learned that morning. While Anna could say her rehearsed speech, that was all. No one had taught her anything else. Likewise the other one, so shy she never once looked up at her teacher. Kaaren had to bend close to hear the answers at all, the voice was so faint. When she leaned forward and cupped her hands around the child’s upper arms, the little girl flinched away, her eyes hooded and her mouth quivering.
Ah, dear Lord, let me make a difference in this one’s life—and all the others. Give me wisdom and a heart of love for each, especially this little lost lamb. Don’t fear, little one, I will not hurt you. Right then she repeated her vow to herself. She would never strike the children, remembering the ruler that had raised welts on her hand those years ago because she didn’t learn the lesson quite quickly enough.
She heard a rude noise from the back of the room. When she looked up, all the faces looked angelic but for Thorliff. His glower and eyes slanted left led her to believe the boy next to Knute Baard was the guilty one. Now, the ruler might be necessary for some of the older ones, but she hoped not.
She sent the child in front of her back to her seat and stood. “That is enough.” Her stern voice rang in the room. “You will be respectful of those ahead of you, or . . .” She left the sentence dangling.
By the end of the day, she had all the children assigned according to reading and arithmetic abilities. Size hadn’t much to do with knowledge, therefore she decided to start reviewing from the alphabet on, setting the ones who knew those things to helping those who didn’t. With about an hour to dismissal, she called all the children closer to the stove where she set her chair. As they found places on the packed dirt floor in front of and around her, she smiled at each of them again.
“You have all done so well today that I thought we would finish with a story. This will be the reward for trying your best each day and treating your neighbors as you would like them to treat you. The golden rule says, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ ”
Anna r
aised her hand. “That is from the Bible. Mor read that to me.”
“Yes, Anna, it is. Starting tomorrow, we will all be memorizing that verse and others.” She opened her book of Norwegian folktales and began to read.
The days passed swiftly, with school even on Saturday to make up for starting so late. The boxes of books sat on her table on Saturday morning because someone had been to Grafton and picked them up at the railroad station. She had ordered them by mail weeks before.
The children flocked around her, their eyes wide at the riches contained therein. She handed the books around so each child could share the thrill of smelling and feeling the new bindings and the pages that crackled when opened. When each held a book, she showed them how to properly open it and gave instructions on the care of books, after which they lined the precious treasures up on the bookshelves pegged into the sod walls.
Since all her summer egg and cream money had gone into purchasing the new books, she rejoiced at their delight. In addition to the books, there was black paint to make a blackboard. Olaf said that by Monday he should be finished smoothing and sanding the boards he had tongue-and-grooved tightly together to make a smooth surface. Then they could give it a couple coats of paint and they would have a blackboard. Next to the paint, they discovered a box of chalk, paper, and pencils, and at the bottom lay a round tube containing a map of the United States of America and the territories.
Kaaren set the oldest two boys to fastening the map to the wall next to the place where the blackboard would hang. The entire class gathered round to ooh and aah at the colors. Several could identify a state they had lived in before coming to Dakota Territory. Knute Baard pointed out Ohio, but he couldn’t remember where in that state they had lived.
When everyone finally resumed their seats, the teaching began again with Kaaren saying the lesson and the children repeating it. Until more of them learned to read and write, there was no other way to instruct.
Church that Sunday was conducted by Reverend Gunderson, the young pastor from Acton. From then on, he would come one Sunday a month and the pastor from St. Andrew one Sunday. The other services the homesteaders would handle themselves. When the people discovered Olaf’s deep and resonant speaking voice, they asked him to take over leading the service when they had no visiting pastor.
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