[Return To Red River 01] - A Dream to Follow

by Lauraine Snelling

  “What were you doing?” Hjelmer stared at his wife, fear, shock, and horror chasing each other across his face.

  “I scrubbed the floor.” Penny clamped her jaw and waited for the pain to pass. “I thought I might as well get some of the housework done while I am waiting.”

  Ingeborg broke out in laughter. “Ah, Hjelmer, you are a wise man to have married such a woman as this.”

  “Well, you said to walk, and that seemed a waste of time, so I scrubbed instead. Think I’ll work on blacking the stove next.”

  “Ingeborg, is she touched in the head?”

  “No. Not at all.” She set her bag down by the door. “Now you go out in the blacksmith or something. We’ll call you when we need you.”

  “Penny?” Hjelmer took a step toward his wife, but she shook her head.

  “This here’s woman’s work. You go on now.”

  “What would you like to do next?” Ingeborg looked around the immaculate kitchen. “ ’Pears to me, you been keeping right busy the last few hours.”

  “Ja, I let Hjelmer sleep. No sense the both of us pacing the floor. Time passes much easier when you’re busy.” She doubled over, her arms clasped around her belly.

  “How far apart?”

  “Too far. It’s going to be some time yet.”

  “Why don’t you lie down and let me see how far along you are. Has your water broken?”

  “No. You think beating the rugs on the line will help this along?”

  “Can’t hurt, unless you’d rather scrub the stairs. Kneeling is a good position. It takes the pressure off the baby.”

  “Scrubbing it is. You could go on back to sleep in our bed until I need you.”

  Ingeborg laughed. “Thanks, but I’d rather start some bread for you.”

  The two women worked away, trading gossip and snippets of news. When the contractions came, Penny grew quiet but then picked up right where they’d left off as if nothing had happened.

  “Oh, oh. Bring a rag and a bucket.”

  “Water?”

  “Mm-hmm. Uff da. That one was a doozy.”

  Ingeborg brought the bucket and mopped up the floor. “Okay, from now on we walk together. Don’t want you collapsing on me, then I’d have to call Hjelmer, and he dithers enough for ten men.”

  “Funny, isn’t it, how men . . .” Another one hit.

  “I think we’ll go upstairs now.” One stopped them midway.

  Ingeborg settled Penny on the bed with her back propped against the headboard, one carved by Uncle Olaf with oak leaves at the height of the curve. “Now remember, shouting with the contractions helps release them, so don’t go all brave on me. Let’s just get this baby born with the least amount of work on your part.”

  “She near?” Metiz climbed the stairs and joined them. “Haakan, go stay with Hjelmer.”

  “Good. I haven’t heard any hammering from the smithy.”

  “He’s probably groomed all the hair right off that new horse.” Penny arched and groaned, panting her way through.

  “Not long now.” Metiz laid a wrinkled hand on Penny’s belly and kept it there through another contraction.

  Ingeborg checked the progress. “We have a crown. Not much longer now. You push whenever you need to.”

  Penny groaned again and pushed, her body convulsing, her teeth clamped so hard her jaw was white.

  Ingeborg guided the baby out, gently turning the shoulders to cause the least tearing. “Penny, my dear, you are made for having babies.”

  The baby let out a squall, his face all screwed up as if he were telling them exactly what he thought of the indignity he’d just been through.

  “Oh, oh. A Bjorklund through and through,” Ingeborg said, tears streaming down her cheeks, as always was the case at the beauty of birthing a baby. She laid the baby on his mother’s chest and turned to Metiz.

  “He gift to many.” She nodded, her eyes seeing far into the distance.

  “We’re naming him Gustaf after Hjelmer’s far and Joseph after my uncle. That’s a lot of name to live up to, little one.” She cupped his head with her hand. “Your pa will be so proud of you.”

  “Oh, I have to go get Hjelmer.” Ingeborg dried her eyes. “You finish here, Metiz?”

  The old woman nodded. “You go.”

  Not finding the men in the smithy, Ingeborg leaned her head into the barn and announced, “You have a baby boy.”

  Hjelmer ran by her as if wolves were chasing him, not bothering to say a word.

  Haakan picked up the brush Hjelmer dropped and, after putting the brushes away, shut the door behind him and put an arm around his wife’s waist. “That was fast.”

  “Ja, she was born for having babies. Easier time I haven’t seen. And he is beautiful. Started telling the whole world what he thought of leaving his safe home and coming into this one. He’ll be a talker, that one.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “The sun’s coming up.”

  “I better get back for chores. You want me to come for you later?”

  “No, Metiz can stay. I’ll come now.” She turned and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. “Though God seems to have decided we will have no more children, I sure do appreciate His allowing me to help others’ babies into the world. There is nothing this side of heaven more wondrous.”

  Haakan kissed her and held her close, knowing that tears always came after such great joy.

  A week later came another cry for help. Knute Baard galloped up to the house before breakfast. “Please, come quick. Pa fell out of the haymow.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-Four

  Northfield, Minnesot

  Thorliff stared at the grade on his paper.

  “You look like you lost your last friend.” Benjamin, the student wh sat behind him in English, tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Ah.” Thorliff felt as if he’d come from a far land. The large C i red ink stared back at him. He’d never gotten a C on a paper or test in his entire life. And this had been review material. It must be a sign. As he’d been suspecting, he was not supposed to be in college.

  “Got a C, eh? Not bad. The highest mark was a B. Ingermanson doesn’t believe in giving A’s, at least not at the beginning of the year.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “My brother had him for two years. Said he is a fine teacher but rough on the freshmen.”

  But maybe your brother didn’t dream of being a writer. Maybe he . . . Thorliff shook his head. He’d thought this would be one of his easier classes, but so far nothing was easy.

  “My brother said you can always go talk to the man. He really does want to help his students think and write clearly.”

  “Ah ja. Thank you.”

  “All right, class. We’ll begin for today.” Mr. Ingermanson strode to the front of the room. “I know many of you are surprised—perhaps shocked is a better word—at your grades.”

  Thorliff felt that the teacher was looking right at him. Horrified was more like how he felt. He kept his gaze on his paper, fearing anyone could read his thoughts in his eyes.

  “You have one week to rewrite this assignment, using my comments as guides. I will add one more question tomorrow. You will find it on the blackboard when you come to class.” He looked around the room. “Any questions?”

  Someone behind Thorliff asked, “Can we bring our grades up that way?”

  “Yes, one grade level. But I am not guaranteeing that. Anyone else? Good, then let us begin the lesson for today.”

  When he left class, Thorliff wasn’t sure he had heard a word the teacher said. The notes he’d taken said differently, but his mind refused to concentrate. After his last class he headed to the newspaper office to help clean up his future quarters. Perhaps he would be able to study better without all the distractions of the dormitory.

  The tinkle of the bell over the door announced his entrance.

  “How can I help you?” The woman behind the desk pushed her glasses back up on her nose with one finger.

/>   “I . . . I’m Thorliff Bjorklund, I . . .”

  “Ah, the new boy. You go right on back through that door. They are waiting for you. By the way, I’m Mrs. Freeland. I help out here some.”

  Thorliff did as told, sniffing the smell of printer’s ink as he went. Smelled almost as good as books.

  “Ah, there you are.” Mr. Rogers stepped out of his office to meet Thorliff in the hall. “Come with me. Elizabeth is anxious to get started. There’s a wagon outside the back door to load those things we’re getting rid of.”

  “Yes, sir.” Thorliff followed the man to the end of the hall.

  “That’s the press in there, affectionately called Bessie when she is running right, and I have a few other names for her when she isn’t.” Phillip indicated the machine in a room to the left. “And this will be your quarters. I think we will partition off half this room for storage.”

  A young woman, a handkerchief covering her hair, stepped from behind a bookcase.

  “This is my daughter, Elizabeth. Thorliff Bjorklund, my dear.”

  “Oh, it’s you.” Elizabeth whipped the handkerchief off her head. “From the library, I mean.”

  “Ja.” What do I do? Shake hands? “I-I’m pleased to meet you.” He ducked his head.

  “You know each other?” Mr. Rogers looked from one to the other.

  “We’ve not met,” said Elizabeth. “I am very happy to meet you, Mr. Bjorklund, and welcome to Northfield and St. Olaf. I know you are going to love it here.”

  He kept his face blank. Love it here? All he could think of was going home. “Thank you.” Dolt, can’t you think of anything more to say than that?

  “You are welcome.” She gave him a quizzical glance. “Then let us begin. I’ve asked Old Tom to bring his wagon and help us.” Hands on hips, she stared around the room filled with boxes and old machinery, furniture, and a broken picture frame hanging askew on the wall. A coat of dust grayed everything and made the windows opaque.

  “I think I have some things to finish at my desk.” Phillip gestured toward the other room.

  “You don’t mind what I throw out?”

  “Ah . . .” He stared around at the mess, shaking his head. “I trust your judgment.” He beat a less than dignified retreat.

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Okay, let’s move enough to sweep that end of the room, which will be used for storage. I’ll look in boxes to see what we can toss.” A knock at the door admitted a basset-faced man who, after being introduced to Thorliff, looked around the room, his head moving like a pendulum.

  “Might just carry it all out to m’ wagon. Be easier.”

  “As I said, we’ll clean at that end and move what needs to be saved down there.”

  Tom scrunched his mouth from side to side. “If you say so.”

  Thorliff moved enough to sweep out a corner, then began stacking the boxes Elizabeth pointed to in that area. She had Tom cart out the throwaways. By the time they’d reduced the mess to half, Thorliff was longing for open fields and threshing dust rather than inside dirt.

  “Here, I brought you refreshments.” Phillip stood in the doorway with a pot of coffee and a plate of sandwiches. At Elizabeth’s raised eyebrow, he added, “Cook sent them over. I made the coffee.”

  She groaned. “Not your usual.”

  “No, fresh and only half the grounds.”

  She turned to Thorliff. “We can be grateful for that.”

  Since his stomach had been rumbling for the last hour, he fell to, as did Tom, so the conversation was mainly between Elizabeth and her father and mostly regarding the stuff left in the room.

  They went back to work, now scrubbing walls, ceiling, windows, and the floor of the area she’d decreed his new quarters. The smell of soap and wet rags filled the room, but the walls turned into white plaster, the floor wore a coat of paint, albeit dark brown, and the gas jets on the wall worked after Tom tinkered with them a bit.

  While Elizabeth asked him questions, Thorliff answered with as few words as possible. She gives orders like a sergeant, he thought more than once. But since this was her place, he did as told, relieved when she finally announced they were finished for the day.

  Elizabeth sat down on the only chair and looked around. “Once we get that other end partitioned off, this should be fine.”

  “More than fine.” Thorliff leaned against the now clean wall. His end of the long room, about ten by fifteen feet, included a window, an outside door on one wall, and a door into the hallway of the offices on the opposite. A square grate allowed heat from the furnace below to warm the room in winter. Once he had a bed and perhaps a table and chair for a desk, he would be fine. The thought of an indoor privy and running water in the bathroom seemed like found wealth. He’d nail up a board with pegs for his clothes and be right at home.

  “What a difference.” Mr. Rogers brought a tray with coffee mugs into the room.

  “I could build that partition over the weekend if you want.” Thorliff nodded toward the other side.

  “Can you hang a door?”

  “Ja. My pa can build anything, and I always helped him.”

  “Good. I will get the materials first thing in the morning.” He handed a cup to Thorliff. “Drink up, son. You can spend the night here if you like. Tom will bring a bed over from the house.”

  “I think I’ll go back up the hill for tonight, thank you.”

  “Do you have much to bring down?”

  “A trunk and a box.” His belongings had grown with the purchase of textbooks.

  “I’ll send a wagon up, then. Let’s go on home.”

  The three walked as far as the Rogerses’ home, and Thorliff bid them good-night. He caught himself whistling on his way up the path. At least he now had a job and a free place to live. The cloud that had been smothering him seemed to lift somewhat.

  He fell into bed without writing on his letter to Anji. To save on stamps, he wrote to her each night but mailed the letter once a week.

  The same with the letter for the family at home.

  Over the weekend he did as he’d said, sawing and hammering until a wall, complete with door, blocked off the storage area. He painted it with the whitewash provided and fell into bed that night too tired to do more than mutter the most perfunctory of prayers.

  Monday afternoon when he returned from school, Mr. Rogers set about teaching him to set type. Phillip showed his new assistant the cases of different kinds and sizes of type, arranged with capital letters in the upper cases and the smaller letters in the lower cases. He set up a slug line and explained spacing and sizing, the inches required for the newspaper columns, and the setup of the press.

  “You always have to remember your images are backwards, so you’d best follow the old saying, Mind your p’s and q’s, because they look so alike.”

  Thorliff nodded, trying to take it all in.

  “Here, I’ll set a line of type, and then you do the same.”

  “Okay.” But watching his mentor pick the slugs and set them, his fingers moving fast enough to blur, made Thorliff ’s mouth go dry. Surely he’d never reach that speed.

  “I should have Elizabeth teach you this. She’s an expert at it.”

  “Really?” Thorliff leaned down to pick up another slug that he’d dropped. Picking type was difficult with five thumbs on each hand.

  “The hardest part is remembering where all the letters are boxed. Then after the paper is printed, we return it all to the correct sections in the cases. That will always be your job on Fridays. The paper comes out on Thursday. I print it late Wednesday.” Phillip looked up to Thorliff. “Remind me sometime. I have a funny story about running out of type.”

  “Ja—er, yes.” Thorliff bent down to find another piece he’d dropped. The letters had a life of their own, jumping out of the line with the least provocation.

  The old building creaked and talked as it settled each night. The wind whistled at the window. Thorliff tried to study, but where the dormitory had been too no
isy, now the quiet set his teeth on edge. What was happening at home? He’d not had a letter yet this week.

  Lord, I want to go home. I can’t see far enough here. Too many buildings. Too many people. I always thought I was a good student. Pastor said so many things, good things, and I guess I believed him. But here I’m just not good enough. I can’t even get the type back in the right cases, and I’d begun to think I might want to be a newspaper man.

  How can it be so dark even during the day when the sun is shining? He finished with his prayers for those at home and crawled into his lonely bed. How was Andrew doing? Ever since he was born, they’d shared a bed. Lord, help me know what to do.

  When he stopped by the mail room at the school and pulled a letter from his box, his step felt lighter. He waited until he was on the path down the hill to open his letter from Anji.

  Dearest Thorliff,

  I am so glad you are doing well at school. Things are hard here right now. Pa fell out of the haymow and must have broken something in his back. The pain is something fierce. Your ma is taking care of him, as we all are. He sleeps on a padded board and tries not to move any more than necessary.

  Other than that, I miss you and pray for you every day.

  She continued on with news of the family, but the tone of her letter said far more than the words, and Thorliff knew he must go home.

  Tucking the letter into his shirt pocket, Thorliff trotted down the hill and toward the train station. He jingled the change in his pants pocket. Surely it would be enough to pay for a telegram.

  Rushing into the station, he headed over to the telegraph desk and gave the operator his message, panting with each word given. “Anji Stop Coming home tomorrow Stop Tell Mor Stop Love Thorliff”

  “That will be twenty-five cents.” The telegraph operator looked across the counter. “You must have had bad news, son.”

  “Ja, I did.” Thorliff counted out the change and dropped it in the man’s hand. “What time does the train leave for St. Paul tomorrow?”

  Back at the newspaper office, he knocked on Mr. Rogers’ office door.