A Land to Call Home

by Lauraine Snelling

  “I ’magine there’ll be a few sleds coming over in the next couple of days. You just say mange takk very nicely and help them pitch it off, if’n you knows what’s good for ya.”

  Haakan sucked in a deep breath, the cold going all the way to his belly, and let it out on a plume of steam. “Mange takk, you old fox.”

  Joseph laughed, a rolling-over-the-snowdrifts kind of laugh that set the crows to cawing. “Hard for those who give so much to take back, ain’t it?”

  Haakan just glowered at him.

  Just as Joseph predicted, sled loads of hay made their way to the Bjorklund homestead, filling much of the center aisle of the big barn so they didn’t even have far to fork it for feed.

  “Dear Tante Agnes and Onkel Joseph,” Penny wrote.

  “Thank you for your letter. I’m happy to hear that everyone is doing so good. As for me, I too am healthy and happy, both with school and work at the hotel. I am learning a lot about life in a city and am grateful indeed for this opportunity. Please tell Kaaren and Ingeborg thank-you again.

  “I have met a young man at the high school, and he walks home with me every day. We have a good time together. I have made friends with some of the girls, and Mrs. Johnson encourages me to invite friends over. Can you imagine that? She is more like an aunt to me than an employer, but I still work very hard here. Running a hotel like this one takes much time and effort. All the girls here work hard.”

  She chewed on the end of her pen before dipping it in the ink again. She wanted to ask about Hjelmer but decided not to. The less she thought of him the better. But wouldn’t I know somehow if he really were dead? She listened in the silence of the night, wishing for a reply to her prayer, her plea.

  She dipped her pen and continued. “I hope to come home for a time in the early summer, and the way time has flown, I know that isn’t far away. Give the little ones kisses from me and tell everyone that I think of you often and pray for all of you every night. Your loving niece and cousin, Penny.” As she signed her name, she thought of all the studying she had yet to do. “Uff da,” she muttered, folding the letter. “I better take my books down to the kitchen where it is warmer and lighter.”

  With supper finished, the hotel had quieted down this Sunday in March. The snow had started to fall early in the afternoon, and now, here in her garret room, she could tell the temperature outside was dropping.

  “So, did you tell Penny that Hjelmer had been here?” Ingeborg asked at the quilting bee one March Saturday. The women now met at the schoolhouse since their group had grown too large for anyone’s house.

  Agnes shook her head. “No, Lord forgive me, but she didn’task and I didn’t say nothing.” Her needle flashed in and out for several stitches before she asked, “Did you?”

  “No. I told him it was your place to tell him her address, and if he didn’t stop at your house and ask, that is all his own fault.”

  “Don’t think I would have told him anyway.” Agnes bent closer to her work. With the most recently pieced quilt now stitched to the stretcher, the four women, including Solveig and Goodie Peterson, sat along the sides to sew the myriad stitches that would form a ripple design in the wedding ring pattern.

  “Agnes!” Ingeborg looked up, her mouth curving in a teasing smile.

  “Ja, well, she don’t mention him anymore in her letters. In fact, she told me about a young man who walks home from school with her. As I always say, let sleeping dogs lie.” She looked across at her friends. “And it ain’t a lie either. He didn’t ask and I didn’t tell. Of course, I didn’t see him, so it makes no nevermind.”

  “Will you tell him if he writes and asks?”

  “Don’t know. Mail doesn’t always get through, you know. I’ll just have to deal with that when the time comes. It’s not like Hjelmer is in any position to marry anyhow—no money, no prospects.”

  “Don’t be too sure about that. He was wearing real nice clothes, and I just have a feeling he is up to something. Nothing he said, but—” Ingeborg twisted her face into a think-hard form. Then she shook her head. “Not sure what it is, but something is cooking.”

  Agnes turned her attention to Solveig. “How’s that Mr. George Carlson doing?”

  Solveig turned a bright red, discernible even in the lamplight of the dim room.

  “Ha! Look at that, if your face don’t give you dead away. You kind of like that young man, don’t you?”

  Solveig ducked her head but nodded.

  “You watch, when spring comes and the roads are passable again, you’ll see a lot more of him.”

  “Probably by then he’ll be too busy in the fields to make a trek clear over here,” Ingeborg said with a straight face. “Don’t you think?”

  Agnes grinned back. “Then, Ingeborg, you better let her drive that wagon carrying all your cheeses and things over to the Bonanza farm. She and Mrs. Carlson need to get right acquainted. But don’t you make it too easy for him.” She wagged a finger at Solveig. “Men like to do the chasin’—till we catch them, that is.”

  “Agnes Baard, you old matchmaker you. What’s got into you today?” Ingeborg bit off the thread from the spool. She shook her head. “I know. You don’t have to say it; my mor did often enough. Those with good manners use a scissors, but the scissor’s clear over there and my teeth were right handy here.”

  “Spring is coming, you just watch.”

  Ingeborg shifted on the hard bench. The growing baby made sitting without a chair back more uncomfortable now. She rubbed the small of her back with her knuckles and pulled her shoulders back. And with spring, summer wouldn’t be far behind, and by then she would have a baby to hold again. She glanced over to where Kaaren sat nursing one of the twins in the rocker they brought.

  “Say, Mrs. Peterson, I been meaning to ask you, how did Hjelmer happen to stop at your place?” Agnes looked up from her stitching.

  Goodie Peterson stared intently at her hands and the busy needle that faltered only a moment. “I . . . ah . . . God’s grace, I believe. I’ll be forever grateful to Him and the Bjorklunds. They saved our lives.” She looked across the stretched quilt. “But please, call me Goodie.”

  “You thinkin’ on what to do, come summer?”

  “Agnes, you sure are inquisitive today,” Ingeborg said with a laugh. “I don’t know what’s got into you, but I hope Goodie will stay on with us, at least through harvest. We can always use another good pair of hands around there. With Hans so well after his sickness, you know how happy he is with the boys and with school—”

  “Ja, I know.” Goodie beamed a smile her way that lit the colors in the quilt. “I would love to stay. I ain’t been so peaceful-like in a long, long time.”

  “By then some man looking for a wife will just snap you up. You won’t have nothing to worry about.”

  “Time for dinner, ladies.” Dyrfinna Odell gave the pot of stew on the stove one last stir. “If you bring your plates, I will dish up.” She pointed to the teacher’s desk. While crude by some standards, Olaf had planed oak for a top and set drawers into both sides to store things. “Bread and things are set out up there.”

  All the women stood, and Kaaren led them in the table grace. The young children flocked to their mothers, and soon the conversation took on a more general tone. After all was cleared away again and the quilters changed places with the piecers, someone asked if anyone had heard anything more about the proposed railroad spur that was reportedly coming through the area.

  Most of the women shook their heads. “Won’t know nothing till spring and the surveyors come through. The sooner the better, I say. Won’t that be something to take our grain to a local siding and not clear to Grafton?”

  “Roald always dreamed of a town on the edge of our land,” Ingeborg said with a faraway look in her eyes. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there would be a water stop right out here? We could build a granary, a church, maybe Hjelmer’s blacksmith shop, and a store—that’s Penny’s dream. I can see a white church with a steeple
and a bell right next to the graveyard, some houses, of course one for the preacher, and . . .”

  Someone else picked up the thread of dreams. “The store would sell all the things we have to travel to St. Andrew or Grafton for. It would be easy for the store to order from Grand Forks or Fargo, and the things would come in on the train within just a couple of days.”

  “I, for one, want a frame house. My Anner says that’s the first thing he will build, either with lumber from the Bjorklund mill or that what comes in on the train. Says he’s tired of living like gophers underground,” Hildegunn pronounced.

  The talk flowed into discussions of building houses before barns, how they would get lumber for the church, and who had seeds to trade for the gardens. Seeds and quilt piecings were about equal in trade value, although with more of the women saving both from their sewing and gardening, the demand had lessened. Ingeborg had already promised cuttings of her rose bushes and the geranium that had nearly frozen in her window until she moved it to the table during the blizzard.

  “You know, I heard about a woman over to the south who has a canary that sings. Now, wouldn’t that be something to lighten a soddy?—a singing bird. Would make winter not seem so long or so harsh.” Her voice turned dreamy. “My bestamor had a yellow canary once. I could listen to that little bird by the hour.”

  “Now, Ingeborg, don’t you go getting ideas,” Kaaren said with a chuckle. “We got enough to take care of as it is.”

  “I heard the birds themselves did all the work. You get a pair and they raise their young. I’ll bet Onkel Olaf would build a fine cage, and . . .” Ingeborg paused at the laughter she heard around her. “All right. I get the hint.”

  But the thought of giving Kaaren a canary next Christmas took up lodging in her mind.

  Mid-April 1885

  “Ingeborg, you’re fidgeting bad as Andrew,” Kaaren whispered.

  “I can’t help it. If this train goes any slower, I will get out and push.”

  Haakan turned from answering another of Andrew’s questions and laid his hand on his wife’s arm. “That won’t get us there any faster.” When she shot him a look of exasperation, he just shook his head and chuckled.

  By the time the two families disembarked in Grand Forks with all the children, she felt as though she needed a long rest—alone. Her back ached and she thought sometimes of using a wheelbarrow to carry her belly. But none of that mattered. They were on their way to prove up their homesteads. Thorliff had Andrew’s hand clamped in his and had given his busy little brother strict orders to not move without him.

  Kaaren carried Grace, and Sophie was playing with her father’s nose, giggling when his mustache tickled her fingers.

  “The courthouse is this way.” Haakan pointed up the street. Together they all set out on the wooden sidewalk that kept them above the mud thrown by the wagons, drays, buggies, and carriages that traveled up and down the street.

  Quiet fell when they shut the door to the titles office.

  “How may I help you?” asked a man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and gaiters on his sleeves from behind a high counter.

  “We have come to prove up our homestead claims,” Ingeborg stated. “I am Ingeborg Bjorklund and this is my sister-in-law, Kaaren Bjorklund Knutson. Our husbands were Roald and Carl.”

  “And what year did you file the claims?”

  “1880. Five years ago yesterday.” She withdrew the papers from her reticule and laid them on the counter.

  The man looked over his glasses. “I take it you two gentlemen are not Roald and Carl.”

  Haakan shook his head. “They died.”

  “Do you have marriage certificates?”

  “Ja, but what difference does that make? The land is in my name and in Kaaren’s name.” Ingeborg fingered the papers in front of her. She’d had the names on the papers changed deliberately after Roald’s and Carl’s deaths so that there would be no problem.

  “Ah.” He held up the papers so he could see better. “And you have met all the requirements?”

  She pointed to the second page. “There is the list of acres now broken and seeded, the buildings we have put up, and an inventory of our livestock and machinery.”

  “I see.” He read, nodding as he turned to the next page. “It looks as though all is in order. Do you have any liens against the land over at the bank?”

  “Not any longer.” She extracted the bank papers next and laid them on the counter. “What loans we have now are against the machinery itself, but they are nearly paid also.”

  “You have done well in five years.” He smiled over the edge of the forms.

  “Ja, God has been good.”

  With swift movements, he stamped each page with a round seal, signed on one line for each deed, and pointed to where they were to put their signatures.

  Ingeborg could hardly hold the pen, and Kaaren not much better. But their signatures were legible, and the man dusted sand over the ink to dry it more quickly. Then opening a leather-bound book, he located the original entries and wrote in the new information. He handed the papers back to Ingeborg.

  “It’s all yours now.”

  Ingeborg could feel her knees turning to mush. She gripped the edge of the counter with one hand and picked up the papers with the other, all the while maintaining a smile and continuing to breathe, but with difficulty. The land was hers. And Kaaren’s. She had won. They had won.

  “Thank you very much.”

  The men shook hands. Kaaren and Ingeborg gripped each other’s free hand with a strength born of the sorrows they’d endured together.

  “It is ours.” Ingeborg could hear the awe in her own voice and see it on Kaaren’s face. As the strength returned to her knees, she felt like dancing and leaping, whirling around the wooden floor until she fell down in a heap. The land, the precious land, was hers. Now, for certain, she could call it home.

  “There is just one more thing.” She looked at Haakan to catch his nod.

  “We will wait outside for you,” he whispered, snatching up Andrew, who was about to put a cigar butt in his mouth. “Ishda,” he muttered and glared at Thorliff, who hung his head.

  Thorliff picked up the butt and dropped it in the can by the door provided for such things as that. The grimace on his face brought a smile to Ingeborg’s. Her son was realizing how different life was in the city from that on their farm.

  She turned back to the man behind the counter. “Now, here is what I would like you to do.” The bell above the door tinkled as the others made their way outside.

  The next Sunday after church, the congregation buzzed about the new men in the territory, men surveying for the much anticipated railroad spur between Grafton and Drayton. All they would say was that soon the men buying the rights for the railroad would be coming through. They would not comment on the price being offered, but when one man said he wasn’t selling any of his hard-earned land to no railroad, they just shrugged.

  Stories of the railroad forcing some to sell ran rife with the high prices the railroad was paying for the right-of-way. It was said they puchased whole sections, and others bought only a couple hundred feet on either side of the right-of-way. Some said they condemned the land and took it by force if necessary. Other stories said some land had already been bought up and the new owners were holding out for higher prices. Rumors abounded, one contradicting another.

  The last rumor teased Ingeborg into remembering and pondering on Hjelmer’s visit in the winter. Why had he been back in the Red River Valley without coming home to stay? Had it been a sneak visit to find out about Mary Ruth? No, that didn’t fit. He hadn’t seemed at all concerned about that hussy and her manipulating ways, nor even overly wondering about Penny. When she’d told him to talk with Agnes, he hadn’t even gone to the Baards.

  One morning when Olaf and the boys had left for school, she brought the matter up to Haakan.

  “I been wondering much the same thing,” he replied with a nod to the outside, where Goodie Peters
on had started the wash. “She ever said anything about Hjelmer offering to buy her land?”

  Ingeborg shook her head. “Where would he get that kind of money, anyway?”

  When he just looked at her, she turned her head, glancing at him from the side of her eye.

  “He wouldn’t.” She shook her head slowly. “Haakan, you know he said he would never gamble again.”

  He sighed. “I hope not, but I can’t get the thought out of my mind that something isn’t right here.”

  “Me too.”

  “Mor!” Andrew catapulted into the kitchen, Ellie right on his heels. “Sheeps out.”

  “Andrew Bjorklund, did you open the gate?”

  At his shamefaced look, she shook her head. “You know I told you not to open the gate.”

  “Wanted to show Ellie the lambs, my lamb.” He raised a dirty face to her. “Sheep ran over me.”

  Haakan was already out the door calling Paws as he went. With the help of the dog, they rounded up the spring-mad ewes and put them back in the corral. Tossing more hay in from the small pile remaining, Haakan took Andrew by the arm. “I think it is time for a session out by the woodpile, young man. You were told not to open the gate.”

  Andrew sent his mother a pleading look, but she only shook her head. “You knew better.”

  Even when the boy’s lower lip began to quiver, she steeled herself. The Bible said, “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” and while she hated to see him spanked, Ingeborg knew Haakan was right. Andrew had to learn his lesson, as if being trampled over by escaping sheep wasn’t enough.

  When she thought of it, she shuddered. He could have been cut by their sharp hooves, and though he was big for his age, the sheep were much heavier. She turned to see Ellie’s eyes fill.

  “Please, I wanted to see the sheep. Don’t spank Andrew. I done it.”

  Goodie turned from pouring water into the big tub that sat over a hot fire. “Then you should get the spanking too.” She took the girl’s still thin arm and followed Haakan and Andrew to the woodpile.