Two other young men joined the line behind him. He turned with a grin and an outstretched hand to introduce himself. When they answered in Swedish, Hjelmer switched to that language. Since Norway lay under the auspices of Sweden, Swedish had become the official language of Norwegians also and was taught in the schools.
“Do either of you speak Amerikan?” he asked.
They shook their heads. “They said we didn’t have to learn it, that we will get along just fine with our own language. Learning Amerikan is a waste of time.”
Hjelmer shrugged and stepped up onto the deck. Drawing in a deep breath, he made his way over to the rail. Never had he been so grateful for the wind and spume from the tips of the rollers as the ship’s prow cleaved the waves. If he never went below again, he wouldn’t mind at all. Except to get his belongings, of course. Were they safe below? The thought hadn’t entered his mind until this moment. And his father had cautioned him repeatedly about protecting his bags. Surely no one would dare steal from other emigrants while on the ship. There was nowhere to hide.
He found a nook in the lee of one of the funnels, sat cross-legged on the deck, and took out his wood and knife. As soon as he finished the seagull, he planned to start carving spoons. Mor said a woman always needed more stirring spoons, so he thought to make a set of different sizes for Ingeborg and Kaaren. He knew he should be carving hammer and chisel handles for working the forge, but he’d learned early that people appreciated gifts. The bird, that was something else. His fingers itched to create images of the wild creatures he saw, so an eagle on a limb and a puffin on a rock were some of his creations that lined the shelves of his mother’s house.
“Hey, mister, what you doin’?” The little girl who’d been in tears now squatted in front of him, her arms crossed on her knees.
Hjelmer held up the bird. “Carving.”
“Ain’t that pretty.” She reached out a cautious finger to smooth it over the extended wing. “Where’d you learn to carve like that?”
“Practice. My father taught me in the beginning.”
“My father don’t do such nice things.”
Another child joined her, and soon Hjelmer sat in the midst of an admiring audience.
“Tell me about the bird.” The little girl crossed her legs, mimicking the way Hjelmer sat. Others followed suit.
Hjelmer wrinkled his brow. Here, he’d thought to have a moment to himself, and now he had an audience who wanted a story, no less. “Well, it is a seagull. You’ve seen them all around the docks and some are even now above us.” He pointed to the white gulls shrieking and crying on the wind and in the rigging of the foremast.
“So.” The children’s gazes followed his pointing finger.
“So, soon we will leave the birds behind, and now I have one to remember them by. Where I am going in Dakota Territory, I’m sure there are no seagulls.” As he talked, he continued to roll bits of shavings off the emerging bird.
A bell clanged somewhere. Parents came by and took their children off with them. Finally, a crewman stopped. “Time to get below now.”
While Hjelmer didn’t understand the words, he recognized the signal. “Ja, I go.” He put the bird in his pocket, gathered up his shavings, and followed the human herd below.
That night, after a supper of soup and hard bread, he lay on his bunk and let his thoughts fly home on the back of the west wind. He could see his family gathered around the oval oak table in the warm kitchen, redolent with the flavor of lamb stew and fresh bread. Perhaps Mor had made fatigman, dusted with cinnamon and sugar. The coffee would be rich and hot.
Somewhere aft, a concertina struck up a polka, joined by the strains of a fiddle. While there was no room for dancing, the music lilted the length of the vessel and helped salve the remembrances of home.
They could have used the music in the morning to cover the unpleasant sound of vomiting. The seas had roughened, bringing with it the agony of seasickness.
Grateful for his sea legs, Hjelmer spent every moment he could topside. When the ever present wind bit so deep that his shaking hands refused to hold the carving knife, he walked the decks and visited with other young men who did the same. Whenever he heard someone speaking English, he stopped to listen. A few words became obvious. “Good-bye, hello, hey you, yes, no.” One couldn’t go far with such a limited vocabulary. But none of the other emigrants seemed to care about learning the language. Like the young men he’d met the first day and continued to see, all stayed within their own kind.
The third day out, Hjelmer came upon a card game. Thanks to the tutelage of the fishermen on Onkel Hamre’s boat, Hjelmer had gained real skill in the games of chance. In fact, some had said he was gifted. He didn’t need a second invitation to join in.
They sighted land on the eighth day, eight of the longest days Hjelmer had ever endured, even with the distraction of playing cards. He stored his winnings in the pouch with the carved seagull and wrapped them in his extra shirt. Slinging one bag over his shoulder and clutching the other now lighter because of his eating some of the rock-hard biscuits, he reached the passageway before most of the others. On deck, he joined the crowd at the rail facing south. As they steamed into the harbor, scaffolding and construction equipment nearly covered a small island near to the shore. Workers swarmed over the site, and the clang of hammers and shrill of saws carrying on the breeze could be heard over the now diminished engines in the hold of the ship. Barges loaded with lumber, gravel, and sand butted up against the piers like piglets nursing on a sow.
He made his way to the bow and caught his breath in amazement. Before him lay the city of New York, glimmering in the sunlight reflected off a thousand windows. Buildings as tall as the highest pine trees of Nordland, and taller yet, marched into the distance. As the ship he rode eased its way into the berth, he couldn’t absorb the sights fast enough. Tall ships, squat boats, barges, flags of every stripe and nation, long piers, men of every shape and color. Such bustle, hurrying, shouting. Never had he seen such pandemonium.
The first-class and second-class passengers left the ship first. The steerage held back until all the baggage was removed. Finally, in orderly lines, the emigrants filed off the ship and up the crowded pier to solid land.
Hjelmer strode toward Castle Garden, where they’d been told the officials would pass them through. Once through the line, he planned to head for the railroad station and board the first train west.
Suddenly a piercing scream rent the air.
Hjelmer swung around. A cry for help sounded the same in any language.
The scream came again. Sobbing and screaming.
Back along the pier a woman leaned over the edge and pointed to the water.
Hjelmer dropped his bags and sprinted to the edge of the pier. Down in the water, filmed with oil sheen and cluttered with flotsam and jetsam, a small child thrashed and sputtered.
Without a thought, Hjelmer dived in. He surfaced, shaking his head to throw the water out of his eyes, and treading water, he looked around. Two strokes and he had the child in a strong grip.
“I have you, easy now.” He murmured the words, not caring if the child understood or not.
Dark terror-filled eyes peeked out from dripping hair that curled on the child’s forehead.
Someone threw him a rope. He grabbed it, pulled the child close to his chest and let them haul him back to the dock. With fingers shaking from the frigid water, he knotted the rope under the child’s arms and patted the heaving chest. “You will be all right now.”
Another rope flopped in the water beside him, and he pulled himself up.
Standing on the dock, dripping water and shivering in the wind off the river, he accepted the mother’s thanks.
“Velbekomme.”
He ducked his chin into his chest. Someone wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. “M-Mange takk.” He could hardly speak, his teeth chattered so hard.
Hjelmer nodded at the comments of gratitude and appreciation flowing from the em
igrants gathered around him. He started back to where he’d dropped his bags. He had to get into some dry clothes before he caught his death of cold.
The black seabag, the leather carpetbag that held his train tickets, his winnings from the card games, and all his worldly goods were nowhere to be seen.
Thorliff,” Kaaren said, brushing a strand of sun-kissed hair from her forehead, “run out to the barn and get Onkel Lars.” She turned to her guests. “He’s working with the forge, and you know how noisy that can be. Here, sit down, sit down, and we’ll have coffee.” When she turned to the stove, Ingeborg stopped her.
“No, we have the coffee and visit later. First, we have good news. Mr. Bjorklund brought a letter from home. Mr. Mackenzie gave it to him at The Mercantile.” Ingeborg drew the precious envelope out of her apron pocket. “See?”
“Oh, how wonderful.” Kaaren flashed their visitor one of her warmest smiles. “It is so long since we have heard anything.” She sank down on one of the four chairs at the oilcloth-covered table. In this home, too, were evidences of a man handy with his hands and a piece of wood. While many homes had only stools or chunks of wood to sit on, these chairs had spindles set into upper and lower curved backs. The carved rocker by the gleaming cookstove wore a colorful patchwork quilt, and beside it rested a bag of yarn and a half-knit piece.
Ingeborg studied her sister-in-law’s face. Kaaren was looking pale, like she didn’t feel good at all. While Kaaren was careful to always wear her sunbonnet, this was not just the creamy tinge of protected skin or the pallor of winter. Dark smudges lay under her tired blue eyes as if she’d smeared coal dust there. Her skirt gaped at the waist of her always slender frame.
“So, Mr. Bjorklund, how did you happen to come clear out here? You said you were from Minnesota?” Kaaren asked eagerly.
Haakan told her the same as he’d told Ingeborg and turned when another man entered the soddy.
“Well, hello, sister. I hear you brought us company.” Lars stooped to step through the doorway as Haakan had. When he straightened, he removed his hat and hung it on a row of pegs by the door. With one hand on Thorliff’s shoulder, Lars extended his other to greet the visitor. “I’m Lars Knutson, and I am glad to hear I have another relative, in a round about sort of way.”
While the men greeted each other, Ingeborg stood with her hands on the back of a chair and, without meaning to, compared them. One dark and one fair but both tall and broad of shoulder. Haakan could measure his by the span of an ax handle. Wind and sun had carved both faces into rugged maps of experience, and they each wore the square jaw of determination, tempered by ready smiles of greeting. Even so, they reminded her of two dogs on first meeting, stiff legged, prancing around each other but with tails wagging. Would they be able to work as a team for the summer? Of course, each would be breaking sod on the separate homesteads, but plowing, seeding, haying, and harvesting were done in partnership, even with the extra team and machinery of the Baards.
Would they resent her working out in the fields, too? The thought of being cooped up in the soddy day after day, after she’d become accustomed to weeks of freedom in the sun working the fields like a man, dressed in britches like a man, hunting, and bringing home the meat, made her flinch. Could she bear going back to women’s work only? Did she need to? After all, it was her land.
It surely wasn’t as if she didn’t have enough to do around the farmstead. There were chores enough for three women.
“Ingeborg?” Kaaren’s soft voice broke in on her woolgathering.
“Ja.” Ingeborg blinked and took in a breath, careful not to release it on a sigh. Surely she’d learned the lesson of not trying to add tomorrow’s trouble unto today at her mother’s knee. “Let us enjoy the letter. Kaaren, you read the best”—she extended the envelope—“you read it.”
Kaaren nodded. “Why don’t you all sit down. Thorliff, you take Andrew and sit in the rocker.” Carefully she slit the thin paper and withdrew two sheets, covered both sides with script so close together not a space was wasted.
“ ‘Dear Ingeborg and all our dear ones. I cannot begin to imagine how hard this time has been for you, but we can all rest assured knowing that our Lord is there with you in the midst of all the heartache. If it were not for the knowledge and faith that He is caring for you and us, I would have died of a broken heart, as I know you would have, also. One day we will see our loved ones again, if we don’t lose heart.’ ”
Kaaren paused and wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron.
Ingeborg tried to keep the tears that burned behind her eyes and at the back of her throat in check, but it was not possible.
A chunk of wood dropped in the firebox of the stove, breaking the silence that filled the soddy. Andrew reached up and stuck his finger into Thorliff’s nose, a trick he’d learned recently that usually brought on a giggle.
“Andrew, don’t.” Thorliff looked over and caught his mother’s nod. When she smiled through her tears, he sat back and wrapped both arms around the baby, setting the chair to rocking with one foot.
“Sorry.” Kaaren sniffed and continued. “ ‘We are all well and working hard to earn a ticket for Hjelmer to come to you. He hopes to leave as soon as spring visits us here in frozen Nordland. If all goes as planned, he will arrive sometime in mid-April.’ ”
“Hjelmer is coming.” Ingeborg looked over at Haakan and Lars. “He is the youngest brother of Roald and Carl. It is hard to think of him as more than a gangling clown, but four years would make him nineteen, a young man now.” She stopped. “Mid-April. He could be here anytime.”
“In the beginning, we had planned to send money for one of our brothers or sisters to emigrate each year, but so far that has not been possible.” Kaaren continued the explanation. “My sister Solveig would love to come too, maybe soon.” She returned to the letter. “ ‘I wait with patience to hear from you, that you are bearing up and continuing to rejoice in Christ our Savior. Your loving family, Gustaf and Bridget.’ ”
Ingeborg felt a stab of guilt. She should write more often, but the time flowed faster than a mountain stream in full spring spate.
After Kaaren finished reading the letter, they sat for a moment in silence. Then Kaaren pushed to her feet. “I will get the coffee.”
“And cookies?” Thorliff raised a hopeful smile.
“Thorliff.” Ingeborg’s tone and frown made him duck behind Andrew. But when all the adults laughed, he grinned and shrugged.
“I think Mr. Bjorklund would like to taste the best cookies in the territory. Maybe in all America.”
“You rascal.” Kaaren tweaked his hair. “You could talk a bird out of a tree, let alone get cookies from an aunt who loves you.” She handed the letter back to Ingeborg, her eyes begging to read it again later. Turning to Haakan, she said, “So, tell us all you have been doing since you came to this country. How long has it been?”
Haakan answered her questions and those of the others and nodded to Thorliff after taking his first bite of Tante Kaaren’s celebrated cookies. Thorliff lifted his own in response and gave a crumbly grin.
“So, you say you have come to help for the summer.” Over the rim of his coffee cup, Lars studied the man at the other end of the table. “When would you head back for the north woods?”
“I need to be there just after the first snow when the ground has begun to freeze. We cut trees all winter and float them down the river to the lumber mills when the ice goes out in the spring. It is a good job and pays well.”
“We will pay you to help us here,” Ingeborg said with what might have been more force than necessary.
Both of the men turned and looked at her as though she’d spoken out of turn.
“We’ll see.” Haakan nodded.
“Can’t get out on the fields yet. The frost hasn’t gone out of the ground, so I been working on the machinery, repairing harnesses and suchlike. We need to make a trip to St. Andrew, and I’d really like to go on down to Grand Forks to the machinery dealers
there. Joseph and I been talking about buying a binder together, haven’t we, Ingeborg?” Lars glanced at her for confirmation.
Ingeborg nodded. “I’ve been thinking if you had a steam engine and a threshing machine, you could take it out on the road like you did before. Earn some cash money that way to help get through the winter.” She hadn’t planned to share this part of her dream with anyone yet, knowing that they hadn’t the money to pay for one, and she hated like anything to put more on credit. The debts they owed hung over her like a pall of smoke.
Nothing, nothing could force her off the land, but if they couldn’t make the payments on what they owed, their land was the collateral. Before buying more machinery, she wanted to pay off the bank loans Roald had taken out to add another section to the homestead. Two more years and the homesteads would be proved up.
“Yes, if I wanted to leave my family and go out on the road again.” Lars shook his head and smiled at his wife. “That’s for single men, not for those of us so fortunate to have a wife like mine at home.”
“Seems to me after seeing Thorliff’s sheep, the shearing needs to be done about now,” Haakan added while Lars and Kaaren were exchanging quiet looks of love.
“I was getting to that.” Ingeborg leaned forward. “I thought Thorliff and I would wait with the shearing in case there comes another blizzard. You’ll find out how winter here always tries to make one last stand.” She looked to Lars and Kaaren for support. Didn’t they understand how important it was for her to make the decisions concerning her land—Roald’s land, the land they slaved over for their children?
“I could get going on that tomorrow. You’d help me, wouldn’t you, Thorliff?”
Hadn’t he heard her? Ingeborg clasped her hands on the table in front of her. “I think it is not yet time to shear the sheep. I do not want to lose any to a blizzard.”
Haakan directed his blue gaze upon her, making her think of nothing but Roald when he was so certain he was always right and would brook no argument from anyone.
Lauraine Snelling - [Red River of the North 02] Page 7