Within minutes he’d cut a sapling and tied the feet of the deer to it with the vine of a creeper. They boosted the ends of the pole to their shoulders and started the half-mile trek for home. Ingeborg could feel the grin tip up the corners of her mouth. She couldn’t stop it, but then she didn’t try very hard. He’d come for her, come to help her bring home the deer.
He stopped, and she nearly stumbled at the jolt on her shoulder. He pointed off to the right and ahead of them. The gray wolf sat next to a tree, nearly invisible in the dusk.
“Don’t worry, that’s only Wolf.” Ingeborg sucked in a deep breath. The pole had grown heavy and the stop brought relief. To think of all the times she’d dragged the game back by herself.
“How do you know?”
“What other wolf would sit there like that? They’d be gone long before we saw them, or there would be a pack and they’d attack. But with all the game available now, they’d never attack.” She raised her voice. “I left the innards for you back there. If you hurry you can get them before anything else does.” The wolf faded out of sight, silent as a shadow.
“Well, I’ll be. He didn’t understand you.” Haakan looked at her over his shoulder. “Did he?”
“Who knows? But he usually shows up when I’ve shot a deer or elk. He hunts, but more important, he keeps the predators away from my sheep and my family. Metiz says it’s because he has accepted us as part of his pack.” She could feel his doubts as if they were fingers touching her arm. So be it, he’ll learn.
The next morning Ingeborg had moved the table outside so she could cut the meat in thin slices for smoking. She already had the haunches soaking in salt water to be cured and smoked. Thorliff had a good bed of coals going and was stringing the meat on the drying racks as fast as his mother could slice it.
“Mor, come see.” Andrew called from the front of the house. When she didn’t respond, he called again, more urgently. “Mor, come.”
“Andrew, I will in a minute. Right now I’m busy.”
“Please.”
Shaking her head at his wheedling, she left the knife on the table and followed his voice. He stood next to the wild rose bush Roald had planted two years earlier. Taking her hand, he pointed to a pink rose, petals opened flat and the golden center reflecting the sun. “See, pretty.” He looked up at her. “Mor’s fowler.” He had some trouble getting all his sounds in the right order.
“Ja, den lille guten, that is Mor’s flower.” She picked him up so he could see it more closely. “Smell.” She leaned forward to sniff the sweet fragrance. Andrew stuck his nose in the bloom and blew, knocking one of the petals off to float to the ground.
“Broken.” The little boy struggled to get down. “Broken, Mor.”
“No, it’s not broken.” She picked up the petal and held it to his nose. “See? It smells good. Sniff.” He blew again and giggled at her chuckle.
“He don’t sniff good, does he?” Thorliff joined them. “See, Andy, sniff like this.” Kneeling in front of the child, Thorliff made an exaggerated sniffing motion.
Andrew blew a spray of drops all over his brother’s face.
Thorliff wiped his face and shook his head. “He don’t get it, Mor.”
“Well, that’s okay. He sure has the idea of pretty fowlers down pat.”
“Pretty fowlers, pretty fowlers.” Andrew stuck his finger in Thorliff’s nose. “You pretty fowler.”
“Now, you stay right here and don’t go near the fire,” Ingeborg reminded her youngest child. “Go get your digger and you can dig by the house in the shade.” Andrew trundled off in search of the small shovel Lars had carved for him.
Paws leaped from his place in the shade and charged off across the field yipping and barking. Thorliff followed. “Onkel Lars! Mor, Onkel Lars is walking with his crutch.”
Ingeborg followed her children around the corner of the house. “Land sakes, look at you. Are you”—she caught Kaaren’s shushing motion—“ready for a cup of coffee?” She changed questions in mid-word.
“I’m ready to sit down, that’s for certain sure.” Lars collapsed on the bench that held the wash basin. “I never thought one-foot-hopping with a crutch was such a killer.” He wiped his sweat streaked brow. “Takes some getting used to.”
“He said if he didn’t see some different scenery, he was going to go raving loco, but when I offered to hitch up the wagon . . .” Kaaren shook her head. “Men can be so stubborn.”
“I made it, didn’t I?”
“Ja, that you did.”
Ingeborg left the two of them to their discussion and the loving attention of Thorliff and Andrew and danced inside to add kindling to the stove so it would heat the coffee more quickly. Lars was navigating on his own again, thank the good Lord above for His tender mercies.
That night Haakan and Hjelmer brought the shoe they’d fashioned over to Lars. They’d attached leather straps to a wooden sole and cushioned the upper part of the sole with sheepskin.
“Try that and see how it works.” Haakan and Hjelmer exchanged looks of foreboding.
“If it don’t work, we can do better.” Hjelmer knelt down to help Lars with the leather thongs that laced the straps together.
When Lars put his crutch under his arm and stood, he looked down at the shod foot. “Well, you two came up with a good thing, that is for sure.” He took a step forward and put his injured foot to the ground. He flinched, but a grin spread across his face. “It works.”
“I’m thinking that if I curve some thin metal and nail it around the front, it would protect your foot even more.” Hjelmer continued to study the movement of the foot in the new shoe. “Keep you from bumping it.”
Haakan nodded. “You got a good idea there. Lars, give us back the shoe.”
“Not on your life, you might mess it up.” He pretended to face them off with his crutch.
“Lars.” Kaaren scolded him, the smile on her thin face belying any words of censure.
The next evening he handed the shoe back with a sheepish grin. “When I dropped that chunk of wood on it today, I thought I was going to die. Go ahead and add the roof on it with my blessing.”
When the field hands came in at noon, Metiz was inspecting the finished shoe. “That be good.” She nodded and smiled up at Lars. “You take easy some.”
“Thanks to you,” Lars said.
“Took more than me . . . us.” She gestured to the others and glanced upward. “Him . . . He heal.”
“Amen to that.” Kaaren laid a hand on Lars’ shoulder. “Metiz, won’t you please join us for dinner? I’ve set an extra plate.”
Ingeborg looked up to see Hjelmer wince, but he covered it instantly. He was learning.
With the grain sprouting a veil of green over the land, the families turned to haying. They started mowing at the Baards, and with the sulky mower, they kept going from dawn till dark, switching teams and drivers. As soon as the moon rose, they set out again. Then, while Joseph’s grass dried, they cut the Bjorklund fields.
“Well, I never.” Agnes shook her head in amazement. “To think all that hay is down and ready to rake, and I ain’t had to lift a finger.”
“You think cooking for all these hungry mouths ain’t lifting a finger?” Ingeborg bent down to pick up Andrew.
“Sure beats cooking, raking, and stacking too, don’t it?”
Ingeborg watched as Penny took a jug of water out to the men. She and Hjelmer managed to be together more often than not. It seemed a rerun of what she’d seen before, but she kept that to herself. Of the two, Penny Sjornson or Mary Ruth Strand, the one crossing the field now was far and above her favorite.
“I think we should invest in a sulky plow or two, along with another mower and rake,” Joseph said, as if he were continuing a discussion started earlier. They’d gathered around the tables for dinner, and if she hadn’t been pouring coffee just then, Ingeborg might have missed his comment.
“I thought you wanted a threshing machine next?” She set the pot dow
n between Haakan and Joseph.
“That, too.” Joseph grinned up at her, the line between white skin and tanned visible on his forehead with his hat tipped back.
“Just how are we supposed to pay for all this machinery? My egg money can’t carry it all.”
“The bank will extend our loans, or the machinery companies will carry a loan. They want to sell that newfangled stuff pretty bad.”
“Joseph, you know how I feel about borrowing more money.”
“Lars thinks it’s a good idea.”
“So do I.” Haakan lifted his cup for her to fill.
But it’s not your money, she wanted to say. You’ll be gone, and I’ll be left holding the loan papers.
“I think we should do it, too.” Hjelmer looked back from grinning up at Penny, who had just given him another helping of pie. “Look at how much we’ve gotten done in such little time. Why, another two weeks and we’ll be finished. I’ve never seen hay put up so fast.”
“Ja, well, we don’t have to decide today.”
“Ingeborg,” Joseph said as they were about to head back to the field. “How about you drive the mower for a while? I know you been dying to.”
“Don’t worry, you old fox, I’ve driven it before, and I like it as well as you do.”
“Sure has been easy on the arms compared to that old scythe.”
“I know, I know. Please, let me think about it some more. If I could, I’d buy ten plows and do like the Bonanza farmers and string ’em out wheel-to-wheel like beads on a necklace. That sod would all be busted by the end of this season that way.”
Feeling almost unneeded with the haying going so smoothly, Ingeborg started butchering chickens one morning at sunrise, and by midmorning, she had the wagon loaded with cheeses, eggs packed between layers of straw, butter formed in squares and in molds with a leaf design on top, crocks of buttermilk, and chickens ready for the frying pan. She’d spread water-soaked quilts over the entire load and covered that with hides and straw to keep it all cool. Whatever they didn’t want at the Bonanza farm, she knew Mrs. Mackenzie at The Mercantile would gladly take. But she’d never brought things back from the Bonanza farm yet.
“You want anything from St. Andrew?” she asked Kaaren when she dropped Andrew off for the day.
“Just bring back a letter from home,” Kaaren answered. She drew a paper from her pocket. “And whatever you can get from this list.”
Ingeborg took the paper with a smile and a shake of the head. “And here I was beginning to think you was pure noble.” She slapped the reins over the horses’ backs and set out for town. How nice it would have been to have Kaaren go along. They could have enjoyed the day off together. But she hated to leave Lars alone yet, and this way, supper would be ready for the men when they came home. She waved at Thorliff and Baptiste and their family of sheep. She would have breeding stock to sell this summer and fall as the settlers moving west continued to pass them by.
The flood of pioneers had slowed down some with the railroad gone north of them to the west. Those who could afford to take the train did so. The government was still giving out homesteads to those who would settle farther west, beyond the Red River Valley. She’d heard tell the land wasn’t near as good out there. More rocks, for one thing, and less water.
The drive gave her plenty of time to think. She thought about buying more machinery, about going further into debt, about Polinski moving on and the possibility of buying up his homestead. She thought about the Strands and tried to wish them well, but committing them to God’s care was about as far as she could go. If the truth were to be told, and she had to ’fess up, most of her thoughts were about the man who’d walked into her life a little more than two months before and about how fast the time was flying until he would walk right on out again.
“The Bible says to let the day’s own troubles be sufficient for the day.” The horses flicked their ears back and forth to listen and check out the things ahead. “So, that’s what I got to do. Rejoice, it says, and again rejoice.” She tried to put the life of the day into her words, but the thought of Haakan leaving made it more than a mite difficult.
After crossing the river on the flat barge that served as a ferry, she clucked the horses up the small grade and broke out on the eastern plain of the Red River Valley. Bonanza farms lined both sides of the road, and about half a mile up, she turned to the right to the Franklin Farm. Every time she came, she had to fight the insidious worm of envy that wriggled into her heart. There were barns and sheds of sawed lumber, a two-story house painted white, an entire corral of horses, besides the ones already at work in the fields. Machine sheds accommodated machinery she’d never even heard of, and silos held extra grain until it could be shipped.
Farming Bonanza style seemed to not even dwell in the same world as homesteading.
Mrs. Carlson, the mother of the manager, came out the back door as soon as Ingeborg halted the horses. “Oh, Mrs. Bjorklund, I have been wondering about you and hoping you would return.” With her white hair pulled back in a bun and her stiff black bombazine dress, she looked the lady of the manor to Ingeborg, and yet she always welcomed the guest like a long lost relative.
“I finally had both enough produce to bring you and the time to do so.” Ingeborg wrapped the lines around the brake handle and climbed down from the wagon. “How have you been?”
The two women exchanged small talk as Ingeborg displayed her wares. Mrs. Carlson declared she hadn’t had cheese like these since last fall from the Bjorklunds’ final trip of the season.
Her son George strolled up to the wagon and tipped his hat to Ingeborg.
“Oh, George, can you get one of the men to load these things into the springhouse? Tell Cook we will be having fried chicken for supper. How many did you say you have here?” When Ingeborg told her fifteen, the woman nodded. “Good, that should feed everyone tonight.”
George nodded to his mother. “I will.” Then he turned to smile at their guest. “How are you? I hope this year has been better for you than last.” Slender and not much taller than Ingeborg, George had an easy smile and brown eyes that about matched his hair. Both had golden highlights, more visible when he tipped his tan fedora back on his head. She’d heard rumors that he’d never been married, but not for want of available applicants, even sparse as women were in the valley.
“Ja, it has.” Ingeborg looked around her. “You have made more improvements, I see.”
“We painted this spring and built a new shed. Those new reapers can’t take the weather like some of the other machinery.”
“Surely you can come in for a cup of coffee and some cake.” Mrs. Carlson waved toward the house.
“Please, don’t say no. My mother doesn’t have many women to visit with. She gets lonely out here.” This last was meant for Ingeborg’s ears alone.
“Ja, but I cannot stay long. It is a long trip home again.” Ingeborg let him lead her toward the house, opening the door for her and ushering her in. Never before had he joined the women for coffee. He was always about the job of overseeing the many workers, the teams, and all the myriad details of running such a huge operation.
Mrs. Carlson returned from her library with a purse full of cash. “Now, how much do I owe you?” When Ingeborg named a sum, the woman counted it into her hand. “Are you sure that is enough? You bring us such good cheese and fresh eggs. I keep telling George we should have hens and milk cows of our own, but he insists he has no time for such. If it weren’t for people like you, I swear we should starve.”
“Now, Mother.” George folded his lank form into the chair by the long oak table. He set his hat on the chair next to him and motioned the two women to sit.
“I will in a moment. Let me go tell Hannah—that’s our maid—to serve.” She bustled down the hall to the kitchen in the rear of the house.
Ingeborg forced her gaze to the man across from her, but she really wanted to admire the lovely furniture, the rugs, the pictures on the walls. Such wealth. Man
aging a Bonanza farm must be very lucrative.
“Mrs. Bjorklund, before my mother returns there is something I would like to ask you.”
“Ja?”
He rubbed one finger over a knuckle on the other hand. “I . . . ah . . . I know it has been some time now since your husband died, and I was wondering if . . . that is . . . could you . . . would you be willing to let me call on you?”
“Call on me?”
“Yes. Maybe we could go for a buggy ride, or—”
“Mr. Carlson, my farm is a far piece to go for a buggy ride.”
“Ah, here we are.” His mother took her seat at the table and pointed to the place in front of her for the maid to set the tray. “Thank you, Hannah. Now, Mrs. Bjorklund, I hope you enjoy this cake. I know your sister-in-law makes an egg cake that knows no parallel, but many visitors have told Cook how tasty this one is.” She passed the rich spicy cake on a china plate to Ingeborg and followed it with a cup of coffee. Tiny purple violets trimmed both the plate and cup. “You take it black, if I remember?”
“Ja, mange takk. Ah, thank you.” Ingeborg couldn’t bring herself to look George in the face again. Did he mean he wanted to court her? Or was he planning to purchase more supplies from them at the farm? Why ever would he want to take her on a buggy ride?
The time passed swiftly, and knowing the distance home, Ingeborg refused a third cup of coffee and pushed back from the table. “Thank you for the cake and coffee. I must be going now. I will return in a few weeks when the next cheeses are ripe.”
George and Mrs. Carlson rose, too. “Oh, I wish you could stay longer, my dear. I’m sure those boys of yours are about full grown by now. When you come next, please consider bringing them to visit. This house needs the sound of children’s laughter.” She took Ingeborg’s hand in hers. “Now you take care of yourself and tell the other Mrs. Bjorklund hello for me. I hope she is happy in her new marriage.”
“Oh, she is, and by late fall there will be another little Bjorklund living on our farm.”
Lauraine Snelling - [Red River of the North 02] Page 24