A Land to Call Home

by Lauraine Snelling

  The first time he read the Scriptures, one child said afterward, “He sounds like God, don’t he, Mor.” Chuckles flitted around the room, but many nods accompanied the twitter.

  Mrs. Valders shook her head and whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Children should be seen and not heard, especially in the house of God.”

  Kaaren and Ingeborg swapped rolled eyes and raised eyebrows. That woman!

  “But this is our schoolhouse,” a youngster said from the other side of the room, accompanied by a mother’s shushing.

  Kaaren swallowed a laugh.

  Kaaren and Solveig kept up their routine of leaving before daylight in order to have the sod school warm in time for the children’s arrival. The two women always brought extra food, too—usually bread and cheese or some leftovers from the night before—because some of the children came with very little to eat in their dinner pails. Both Solveig and the twins grew stronger; gains in strength that could be seen almost daily. Since Kaaren was frequently exhausted by the time they arrived home from school, Solveig took over much of the evening cooking. Ingeborg invited them all to eat at her house, but Kaaren said she needed the time to rest, nurse the babies, and prepare for the next day’s lessons.

  With the barn and the additions to both soddies finished, Haakan and Olaf spent as much time as possible felling trees in preparation for their lumber mill. While they were hard at that, Lars took the train from Grafton to Grand Forks and found one of the salesmen Haakan had previously met. He looked at the improvements made on the equipment since the days when he had managed a threshing crew, and liking what he saw, he took out another bank note and proceeded to buy a steam engine for the Bjorklund farm. It would be shipped the next day. That afternoon he climbed back aboard the train and returned home.

  “You bought it?” Kaaren asked the next morning.

  “Ja, I did.” Lars grinned at her. “And I bought one slightly bigger than we need right now because that fancy engine will do more than we ever believed possible.”

  When he met the others the next morning, they slapped him on the back, asking many questions about the new piece of machinery. On the sledge ride out to where they were cutting, the conversation turned to the saws and equipment they needed for the sawmill.

  “It’s your turn this time,” Lars said to Haakan with a laugh. “Go get the sawmill and let your wife glare at you for increasing the amount we owe at the bank.”

  “Ja, well, both these will pay themselves off in less than a year. You know that as well as I do.”

  Lars nodded as he looped the reins around the brake handle. “You tell them.”

  Ingeborg carded the wool she had washed and saved from the sheepshearing last spring. She and Andrew took care of the chickens, which now laid only enough eggs for the families because they had moved Kaaren’s hens over to join the others, sending them into a molt. But it made chores easier for everyone. Every afternoon, the two walked over to Kaaren’s and stoked up the stove to warm the soddy before the homecomers arrived. Many times Ingeborg started supper for them at the same time.

  “So, how are things going at the schoolhouse?” she asked one afternoon when she hadn’t left before the scholars arrived.

  “So good.” Kaaren unwrapped the shawl from around her head and hung the woven wool garment on the peg by the door. “I think it is better even than I dreamed. We are working on the Christmas pageant already, and you should see the way the children hurry to get their schoolwork done in order to have time to practice.” She rubbed her hands over the heat from the stove. “Oh, Inge, I can’t thank you enough for all you do so that I can teach school. All my life, I wanted to do this and now I am.”

  Ingeborg nodded. “You are welcome. I would much rather cook and wash and all the other things I do than sit those boys down and teach them myself. Besides, Thorliff already knows more than I do about too many things. I think he has read every book on those shelves already.”

  “And some of them twice. Wait until you see the pageant. He wrote most of the script.”

  Ingeborg stepped back from the stove. “Truly?”

  “Truly.” Kaaren took one of the twins from Solveig. “He has said again that he wants to write a book someday. I wish I could have saved one of the stories he told the little ones one afternoon. Inge, he is a good storyteller and a good writer.”

  “Ja, I know. He showed me one he wrote on paper. His penmanship is easy to read, and I would have thought someone much older had written it. One night he wrote the letter to Mor and Far for me while I carded wool. I just told him what to write.”

  Kaaren took her place in the rocker and set the babies to nursing. “I never have to worry about giving him enough work to do. When he finishes what I have assigned, he goes and gets a book and starts to read or else helps one of the others.” She shook her head. “Not Baptiste, though. He and Swen manage to get in hot water every once in a while. They have such a hard time sitting still.”

  The next day Kaaren announced that in addition to working on the Christmas pageant, they would begin making presents to take home to their parents for Christmas. This meant everyone would have to work extra hard on their lessons. When she asked if anyone had any ideas of what they could make, she saw Baptiste’s eyes light up.

  “What do you think, Baptiste?” she asked before he raised his hand.

  “We could make small willow baskets or fish hooks carved of bone.”

  “Oh, the baskets,” one of the other children chimed in. “I want to learn to weave a basket.”

  “Or we could braid thin strips of leather for a belt. That would be good for our fars.”

  “And where would we get the willow?” Kaaren prodded him. “Or the leather?”

  “From the trees and tanned hides.” He looked at her as though she’d asked a particularly dumb question. “I will gather the willow.”

  “And the leather?”

  “Don’t everyone tan hides?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Metiz taught us, remember?”

  “I will ask Thorliff’s mor.” He sat back on his bench as if all was decided.

  Kaaren pinched her lips to keep from smiling. Baptiste must indeed feel like one of the family if he would dare do such a thing. He often took for granted that all the children knew about the things he had learned from his grandmother and other relatives. When she reminded him that they didn’t, he looked amazed and puzzled.

  One day he brought in a packet of rabbit skins that had been stretched and dried. “I will show how to tan hide and make mittens.” He laid the skins, fur side in, on the desk.

  “Weren’t you going to sell these skins?” Kaaren asked softly.

  He nodded. “But others need to learn.”

  In church that Sunday, Hildegunn Valders confronted Kaaren. “Just what are you teaching our children in this school of yours? How to become Indian?” She spat out the final word as if it were filth.

  Kaaren cut off the smile she’d promised herself she would always give this woman. She gritted her teeth and counted to ten. “Why, Mrs. Valders, I thought your Hilde would love a pair of fur mittens. They are so warm and nice.”

  “I knit plenty of mittens for my children, and they don’t need no fur.” Her reddened nose raised.

  “Then perhaps you can give them to someone else more needy.” Kaaren thought back to her class and the delight Hilde had shown in working with the soft leather. “Excuse me, I need to talk with Mary Johnson.” She brushed past the still glaring woman. I hope her face freezes in that . . . that look of hers.

  “Why do some people love to start trouble?” she asked when telling Lars what had happened. “The children are enjoying making the baskets and tanning the rabbit skins. Their parents should be grateful to Baptiste and learn from the children how to do these things.” She sputtered down to silence.

  “Don’t pay her any attention. She will always have something to jaw about. You just do what you know best and all will be well. The children are lea
rning and that’s what is important. Why, I heard you are even teaching them to speak English.” He shook his head, eyes dancing. “I’m amazed she hasn’t cut into you about that too.”

  “That brings up something else.”

  “Now what?”

  “I think we should begin English-speaking classes for the parents too. Agnes would be the best for teaching that, just as she did those winters for all of us.”

  “I agree, and between the two of you, everyone who comes will be talking like Americans before they know it.”

  Kaaren laid her head on his chest, and his arms came around her. “Oh, Lars, you are so good.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

  He glanced around to see that the twins were sleeping, then kissed her once again, harder and longer this time. “When will Solveig be back?”

  “I don’t know. George just whisked her away in his sled. Last I heard, she was laughing at something.” She nestled against him, hearing his heart thundering under her ear. When he began to unbutton her shirtwaist, she looked up into his now serious face. “Lars, it is daylight still.”

  “Ja, and we are alone for a change.”

  Sometime later sleigh bells singing across the prairie announced Solveig’s arrival. When she danced into the soddy, Lars and Kaaren were seated at the table, steaming coffee cups in front of them.

  “Are those stars I see in her eyes?” Lars asked, his voice just loud enough for Solveig to hear.

  “Ja, and wings on her feet,” Kaaren tried to say with a straight face and failed happily. “Isn’t Mr. Carlson coming in before he heads for home?”

  “George is in a hurry to get back before dark.” Solveig hung her coat on the peg and dropped her shawl in the rocking chair on her way out to the lean-to. She parted the curtain hanging over the opening and disappeared.

  “No one would ever want to marry her, huh?” Lars grinned at his wife over the rim of his cup.

  “He hasn’t asked her yet.”

  “Ja, but he will. You mark my words, he will.”

  Penny had no trouble with the train trip, her nose pressed so close to the icy window that her breath cleared away the frost, enabling her to see clearly. The land sped by so fast she could hardly keep up. Her thoughts kept time with the clacking wheels. What if Hjelmer is in Fargo? What if I see him on the street? What will I say? She scolded herself for such fanciful fears. If Hjelmer was in Fargo and had neither written nor come home, she’d never speak to him again.

  Her heart skipped a beat when the conductor announced that Fargo was the next stop. Had she made a mistake in coming here? What lay ahead? “Dear God, please stay with me,” she whispered.

  “Penny. Penny Sjornson!” An arm waved above the crowd greeting the train passengers.

  Penny gulped as all the eyes now turned on her when she waved back. She turned and thanked the porter for handing out her bag, then made her way to the area where she’d seen the waving arm. Mrs. Johnson looked just as Ingeborg had described her—tall and commanding, yet comfortably rounded. Her smile of welcome left no doubt in Penny’s mind that it was genuine. With graying hair bundled in a bun and covered by a black felt hat, Mrs. Johnson came forward with hands outstretched.

  “Oh, child, it is good to meet you. Ingeborg said so many nice things about you that I began to think I’d have an angel working for me. Now, how was your trip?” They had a minor scuffle over who would carry the valise, but Penny won.

  “Don’t believe I’ve ever been thought an angel, but I loved the train ride. We went faster than our horses at home can run, I think.” Penny switched the valise to her other hand. How could the little she had in there weigh so much? Then she remembered the two books and the cheese Ingeborg had sent. “I have a present for you from Ingeborg.”

  “She sounds well and happy up there on her homestead. Such a shock it was to hear of the men dying like that.” Mrs. Johnson shook her head, setting jowls to swinging. She pointed across the street to a three-story building with a covered porch and white railings around the second story. A bank of twelve tall windows fronted the entire first floor, with another porch leading to the double door in the middle. “That’s where you’ll be living. The Headquarters Hotel used to house mostly railroad people, but now we get every kind of folk imaginable, from theater to business and back again.” She paused in both breath and foot. “Right good place it has been for me.”

  “Do you run the whole thing?” Penny asked, trying to take in all the sights at once.

  “No, no, of course not. I’m in charge of the kitchens and making sure there’s plenty of good food when needed. We have a man, Mr. Dempsey, who manages the entire hotel, and Miss Brockhurst oversees all the rest—the rooms, the laundry, all of it. She has a job I would hate, but then she doesn’t like to cook. Takes all kinds, as they say.” She stepped down from the platform that fronted the meager station and crossed the street, Penny right on her heels.

  “Won’t be long until you will easily find your way around. Fargo is easy to get to know.”

  Penny secretly doubted she’d ever find her way around the city, what with all the traffic and buildings and people. She couldn’t remember ever seeing so many people in one place in her entire life.

  She swung her valise along, trying to keep up with this woman who seemed mighty spry for her age. Of course the gray hair could be misleading, but her face wore the tracks of life dug in deep.

  “Do you speak English?” Mrs. Johnson asked while she held the door open for Penny.

  Penny switched from Norwegian immediately. “Ja, we lived in Ohio before we moved west, and there I went to an English-speaking school. There were too many languages in that area for Norwegian to be the main one.”

  “That is good. You will do well with the guests at the hotel. Have you ever been a waitress before?”

  “Well, if serving thirty men on the threshing crew counts, guess I have.”

  “You got spunk too. That is good.” Mrs. Johnson led the way up carved-walnut stairs, sided with wainscoting of the same rich wood. The wallpaper above pleaded for Penny to stroke its red velvet embossed fleur-de-lis. “Your room is on the third floor. I was hoping to have you down with me, but Miss Brockhurst insisted you be up here.” She paused halfway up the second set of stairs to catch her breath. “Hope you will feel to home right away.”

  Home. Penny felt a pang at the word. When would she go home again? Not at Christmas, for that was too soon. Would she be able to go home when school let out for the summer? How would she afford the ticket? She borrowed one of Kaaren’s favorite expressions—“Let the day’s own troubles be sufficient for the day.” May was a long way off. Who knew what would happen before then?

  That evening after letting Penny settle into her slant-ceilinged room, Mrs. Johnson showed her around the rest of the hotel. Since the young woman would fill in wherever needed, she started at the top and showed her the linen closets on each of the three floors, some of the empty rooms for guests, the bathing rooms and water closets on each floor, the parlor down next to the dining room, and the bar off to one side through swinging doors. They toured the storage rooms off the kitchen, the scullery where Ingeborg had begun her service at the hotel, and the office behind the reception desk.

  “You’ll meet Miss Brockhurst and Mr. Dempsey tomorrow. He lives over in Moorhead, and although Miss Brockhurst lives here, an emergency at home took her away for the last couple of days.”

  Penny could hardly take time to answer as she admired the wallpaper, different for each floor, and stroked the carved-walnut stair rail that felt like warm glass beneath her palm. The linen closets were fragrant with lavender sachets the housekeeper put there each summer, and the huge room for laundry and ironing smelled of soap and starch. A row of flatirons of every shape and size lined the side of a black stove now gone cold until the laundress started again in the early morning hours.

  Penny hoped she wouldn’t have to work in that cavernous room with the strange-looking contraptions that Mrs. John
son said were gas-powered washing machines. “Sure be better than boilers, tubs, and washboards. My land, what a difference they make. I heard they even got a gas-heated iron to take the place of flatirons, but we ain’t bought one of those yet.” In the doorway she turned to Penny. “You heard about that new electricity they got some places?” When Penny shook her head, Mrs. Johnson continued. “Wires and glass bulbs instead of gas jets and flame. Uff da, what is this world coming to?”

  Penny wondered the same when she fell into her new bed that night. She would be attending high school in the morning. The thought made her shiver.

  She was up early so she could help with the breakfast preparation, mixing and setting bread dough to rise, slicing ham to fry, and whatever else Mrs. Johnson asked her to do. The two waitresses looked her over rather carefully, but their smiles appeared to be genuine.

  “We been needing some more help back here,” said Rosy, the one with dark hair. “Work hard and you’ll get along fine.”

  “Just get our orders right,” Mabel added. She wore her mouse-brown hair in a pompadour. “Slows things down somethin’ awful when the orders come out mixed up.”

  “I’ll try.” Penny hustled off to stuff a bevy of chickens to set to roasting for dinner.

  When Mrs. Johnson said she had only half an hour before they had to leave, Penny hurried through her toilet, letting her hair out of the net wherein she’d bundled her golden curls. She brushed her hair out, tied the top back with a blue ribbon, and dressed in one of the only two outfits she owned that she hoped were suitable for school.

  Mrs. Johnson strode along sidewalks scraped free of snow by the shop owners, pointing out landmarks as they went. When they arrived at an imposing brick building with columns embracing the double front door, she took Penny to the principal’s office to register. Once that was accomplished, they said good-bye, and Penny watched her new friend sail out the double doors and down the steps.