Perhaps the fight with Ellie was all your fault. The little voice had whispered those same words more than once since Sunday. He’d heard them first thing every morning when he opened his eyes before daylight. He needed to ask his family’s forgiveness too. Surely that had been drummed into his head often enough through the years. Maybe he needed a few hours at the woodpile to remind him.
He stripped the last milk from the cow’s teats and rose from the three-legged stool, swinging the full bucket away from her feet as he stood.
“One more to go. You want her, or should I take her?” Trygve looked up from pouring the milk through the strainer and into a milk can.
“I will. You go on home.”
“You going to work on the forms for the basement tonight?”
“For a while.”
“I’ll help you.”
Andrew emptied his foaming pail. “Thanks, but you don’t have to.” He’d snapped at Trygve today too, and here his cousin was offering to help some more.Why did everyone have to be so good to him? They made him feel even worse.
“I know, but I like building things. You’ll help me with my house someday.”
“That I will.” I’ll never be able to repay all the help people have given me. Now if only Ellie would come through that door. He sat himself down at the final cow and, after washing bits of grass and leaves off her udder, planted his head in her flank and picked up the squeeze-and-pull rhythm again. One bad thing about milking cows, it gave one too much time to think. When guilt weighed heavy on his soul, thinking time was not comfortable.
Just apologize and get it over with. How many times have you heard Mor say that through the years?
“All right! I will! Just as soon as I finish here.”
“What’d you say?” Trygve stopped pushing the flat shovel that cleaned out the gutter.
“Nothing. Just muttering.” As soon as he finished, he poured the milk into the milk can, saving the last in the bottom for the barn cats. Barney sat wagging his tail in anticipation, so he set the pail down and let the dog lick out the bottom. Mor would scold him for that, but the cats did not appreciate the dog lapping out of their dish.
He and Trygve each took a side of the barn and, one by one, released the cows from their stalls. Head to tail they paraded out of the barn and over to the watering trough, got their drink, and ambled on out to pasture, limp udders swinging from side to side as they walked. Andrew watched them go. Always the same routine except in the winter when they were kept inside overnight. Did they ever get mad at each other and carry a grudge?
All the talk at the supper table circled around the visit from Joshua Landsverk.
“How many acres?” Andrew asked.
“Half a section, between five and six miles south of here.”
“Beyond the Peterson place?”
“Ja, another two or three miles. He’s not planted it this year. We could go cut the hay if we buy it.”
“Why didn’t he cut the hay?”
“Started to and just gave up. He’s going to walk away from it.”
“What did Lars say?”
“Buy it. We could split it, all kinds of ways to go.”
“We can afford it.” Ingeborg passed the meat platter around again. “Is it fenced?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How much does he owe the bank?” Andrew propped his chin on the heel of his hand.
“Not real sure. He paid the owner what he had in it and took over the mortgage.”
“So we will buy the cows too.” Ingeborg’s tone made Andrew smile inside. His mor wasn’t arguing on this one. More land, more cows.
“Is there a house?” Astrid joined the conversation.
“A shack more than a house and the same for the barn. I’ve seen the place. It will take some work. There’s still sod that’s not been broken. Will make good hay, but that’s a long way to haul hay. We’ll get it planted to wheat next year, then just go harvest it.”
“It sounds to me like you’ve decided.”
“If he will take a lump sum, and we take over the mortgage,” Haakan said. “We could pay it off after harvest if all goes well.”
“If all goes well.” The same phrase one heard time after time. That and Lord willing. Andrew thought on them both while he chewed his meat. Fried rabbit, thanks to Trygve and his snares. Tending the snares used to be his job before Trygve took it over, and soon it would pass on to Samuel. He was surprised Trygve hadn’t given it up already.
Andrew cleaned the last of the gravy off his plate with a piece of biscuit. When he finished chewing, he cleared his throat. “I have something to say.” His throat muscles tightened as the others looked at him.
“Ja?” Haakan nodded slowly.
“I ask you all to forgive me for the way I’ve been acting.” His voice broke, but he kept on going. “You were right, Astrid. I have been rude and mean, and I’m sorry.” He looked from face to face, and all he could see was love shimmering back at him. Tears glinted in his mother’s eyes as she nodded her approval.
“Of course you are forgiven.” Haakan was the first to answer. “That is good.”
Astrid winked at him, raised her shoulders, and dropped them again in what was meant to mime surrender. “I guess so, but I sure hope you plan to ask Ellie’s too. I hate it when people are mad at each other.”
“Me too. Thank you.” He pushed back his chair. “And now I better get over to work on those forms before dark falls. Trygve is coming to help.”
“I am too, and I’m sure Lars will be there.” Haakan drained the last from his coffee cup. “We buy that place, and it will mean another wait on your house.” The moon shone bright by the time he’d finished working and had walked on into Blessing. The lights were all out at the store. He’d been hoping she would still be up. Standing under her window, he whistled. Nothing. He picked up a couple of pebbles and tossed them gently to rattle against the windowpane. He waited—nothing.
“I figured that, but there isn’t much land left to buy around here. Have to take what we can get.”
Haakan clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Spoken like a true farmer.”
“Don’t forget Ellie,” Astrid called as Andrew turned toward the door.
As if I could, just like I’d forget to breathe. “I won’t.”
“Come on, Ellie, please wake up. I couldn’t come earlier.” He tossed more pebbles. One went through the open window and clattered on the floor. “Hjelmer will never let me live this down if he comes out.”
He leaned over to find some more small stones when a giggle floated down. He straightened and smiled up at her.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” Her whisper drifted on the breeze.
He swallowed hard. “I came to ask you to forgive me. Will you please?”
“Oh, Andrew.”
“Well?” Dare he ask her to come down?
“Yes, I’ll forgive you if you forgive me.”
He could hear the tears in her voice. Had she had as bad a time as he? “For what? You weren’t the one being so contrary.”
“I could have agreed to go fishing.”
“Ja. How is your foot?” To think he had let her limp off that way.
“It’s getting better.”
“Forgive me for that, too?”
“Oh yes, Andrew. Don’t let’s ever argue again.”
“We won’t.”
“Yes, you will.” Hjelmer’s voice cut into their whispers. “Andrew, go on home. It’s late.”
“Yes, sir.” Andrew blew his love a kiss and took off running. Ellie forgave him. Her laughter floated right over his shoulder. He leaped into the air and whooped his joy.
Now if he could just get that house up so they could be married.
MIXING CEMENT WAS A GRIMY JOB.
“Last batch for tonight.” Haakan raised his voice to be heard over the rush and scrape of cement poured from the wheelbarrow into the wall form for the cellar of Andrew’s house. All t
hey could get poured each evening was half a wall.
“Good thing you built these forms in smaller sections.” Lars tamped solid the last of the pour.
“Pa said to.” Andrew scraped the drying cement from his shovel, then rammed it up and down in a pail of water to wash the residue away. They had two walls finished and needed to bring in some more rock and gravel.
“Amazing thing to have to travel west to the gravel quarry.” Haakan raised his hat to wipe the sweat away with his handkerchief. “Most people have to haul away the rocks or at least pile them up so they have enough good soil to plant in. When they homesteaded here, all they saw was miles of horse-high prairie grass. No idea what kind of soil lay under it. That’s what Ingeborg told me.”
“Talked with a man from out west. He said those smart Norwegians took all the good soil, left the rocky land for the others.”
“I don’t know so much about smart. We just got here first. Or at least Roald and Carl did. I’m ever grateful to those first Bjorklund men who homesteaded so wisely.” Haakan washed off his shovel and the heavy iron bar they used to tamp the cement in amongst the gravel.
“And the wives they left behind.” Lars followed Haakan as he strode up the ramp to ground level. Andrew knew the stories of the terrible winter that took both his far, his onkel Carl, and the two babies, because Ingeborg had told them many times. He’d been a baby, but Thorliff, at five, remembered, too.
“Thorliff said he put so many windows in his house because he never wanted to live in the dark again like the soddy.”
“Better than that tar-paper shack Landsverk is living in. Don’t know how he kept from freezing to death last winter.”
“Or burning it down like that fellow over at Park River. Got the chimney so hot the roof caught on fire, and it was gone in a minute. The soddies were cooler in summer than most of our houses today—when they were built right.”
The three men walked across the fields to their houses, going around the wheat fields instead of through them.
“What do you think of this new scheme of Hjelmer’s?” Lars asked.
“Be a good thing if we can find a way to pay for it.”
“He’s convinced it will pay for itself in five years or less.”
“I know, but you still have to have money to build it. You want to run it?”
“No.” Lars nudged Andrew with his elbow. “What about you?”
“All I’ve ever wanted to do is farm. You know that.”
“We need someone real experienced in milling and someone real good with a steam engine. You could run that engine, Lars. You’ve kept ours humming for years and rebuilt them when they needed it.”
“I know. I thought about it. Where do you think we should put it?”
“Near the railroad track in Blessing would be central. Right by the elevator, I’d imagine, if there’s enough room there. But I don’t think our bank has enough money to handle an undertaking like this. Hjelmer says he’ll find the money, but at what kind of interest?”
Andrew listened to the discussion but had nothing to add to it. Providing milk for his mother’s cheese house was more to his liking, along with raising the hogs on the leftovers from the cheese process. He had four sows so far with two more to farrow. They should have a good crop of butcher-sized hogs come fall. Which reminded him—it was getting past time for cutting all the boars.
“How much more hay to cut?” he asked.
“Another ten acres at Solbergs’ and we should be done. Unless we buy that new piece.”
“I thought you made up your mind.” Andrew leaned down to pet Barney, who’d come running to greet them.
“Guess I have, but doubts still creep in. Told Landsverk I’d let him know tomorrow. All Ingeborg can think about is more cows and land to grow grain and hay for them. Night, Lars.”
Haakan and Andrew stopped at the wash bench and, after cleaning up, left their boots on the porch before pausing at the water bucket for a long drink.
“The coffee can be hot in a minute if you’d like.” Ingeborg’s voice came from the parlor, where the sound of the spinning wheel announced what she was doing. “Do you want some strawberry and rhubarb pie?”
“Does a cow moo?” Haakan continued on into the parlor and settled into his rocking chair. “Ah, now this feels mighty good.”
Andrew stuck some wood into the fire and pulled the coffeepot forward. “Hey, isn’t Samuel supposed to be keeping the woodbox full?”
“He filled it earlier, and then I made the pie.”
“Where’s Astrid?”
“Over to Elizabeth’s. And don’t ask why.”
“Why not?”
“Just because.”
Andrew wandered into the parlor. “Is Ellie there too?”
“I don’t know.” She frowned at him. “Sometimes it is better not to ask questions.”
“Give it up, son. She’s not going to tell you. You’re going to have to learn that at times, especially when an important event is coming, you don’t question anything. You just eat your pie and go to bed.”
Andrew started to ask what important event, then clamped his mouth shut. The wedding. “I’ll get the coffee.”
“Half a pie is not considered a piece,” warned Ingeborg.
“There are two of them.”
“I know. I want some for tomorrow too.”
“Fours?”
“Fives.”
Andrew threw his father a glance and returned to the kitchen. Nobody made pies as good as his mor. Maybe Ellie should take lessons. Not that her pies were not good. They just didn’t quite measure up to what he was used to. Astrid had learned well, so he knew Mor could pass on the knack.
He cut the pie and, sliding each piece onto a plate, took them into the parlor. “I’ll get the coffee as soon as it’s hot.” He handed his mother hers.
“Thank you, Andrew. That was kind of you.”
“You look pretty busy. This year’s wool or last’s?”
“Last. I washed the first of the fleece today. Wish I had some sheepskins with the wool on. We haven’t kept any like that for a long time.”
“Come butchering time we’ll have some. What do you want to make?” Haakan scraped the last of his pie from the plate. “Mange takk, wife. That hit the spot.”
“Oh, the coffee.” Andrew headed for the kitchen. “Don’t touch my pie.”
“Now, who would ever do that?” False innocence dripped from Haakan’s voice.
“Mor!”
“You better bring yourself another piece.”
Andrew delivered the coffee, giving his father a stern but entirely useless glare.
“Mange takk,” Haakan responded with a chuckle. He raised his cup in salute.
Andrew rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I think I feel a tsk coming on.” He sat down to finish his new piece of pie, not a bad deal since he’d eaten more than half of the other piece. Then holding his coffee cup in both hands, he let his gaze blur over the rim so he could imagine his finished house and barn—Ellie hanging clothes on the line, Ellie with her golden hair blowing in the wind that dried the sheets almost as fast as one hung them up. He knew she left her hair down for him while many of the young women wore theirs braided in a coronet like his mor’s or tucked neatly into a bun at the base of the neck, or at least tied back along the top. He liked Ellie’s best with combs picking up the sides. How beautiful she was, slim like a willow branch that bent and danced in the wind. Ellie. His Ellie.
He pushed himself to his feet. It seemed their wedding would never come. For the first time in years, he couldn’t wait for harvest to start. But they had to get through haying first.
Haakan sat in his chair, chin on his chest, the coffee cup on the floor beside him. Ingeborg continued to hum along with her spinning, the spindle filling with yarn, even and strong. Like everything she did, his mor spun the nicest yarn. Not that he was any judge, but he’d heard others complimenting her.
“Good night.”
&nb
sp; “Good night, Andrew. It’s so good to have you back.”
He leaned over and kissed her forehead.
“Why, how nice. Thank you for that too.” Ingeborg patted his cheek.
“I’m the one who has much to be thankful for. I’m sorry I don’t say so more often. That pie was the best.”
He’d planned to write Ellie a note. Funny, or perhaps not funny but strange, here they were living only a mile from each other, and they hardly had any time together at all. Unless he went there now and called to her window like he had the night before. Instead, he crawled into bed. There was too much to do to go out again tonight. Eating pie had taken the time away.
As soon as they finished up with the Solbergs’ hay, they headed on over to the newly purchased farm.What had been sowed to wheat the year before was nothing but weeds, needing to be plowed again for the next spring. The hayfields were almost too dry. Sophie and Grace drove the cook wagon to see if they could handle the work. With Mrs. Sam cooking at the boardinghouse, she would not be able to cook for the threshing crew this year. The girls’ laughter and teasing almost made up for the food—almost but not quite.
“If you two want to drive the wagon for the threshing crew, you’re going to have to get up earlier and cook longer.We’ll have three times as many men along then as now.” Lars mopped the gravy up with a piece of bread.
“I know that now.” Sophie sat on the wagon tongue, her elbows on her knees. “It sounded pretty simple when Ma told us about it.”
Grace leaned against the wheel. “I’d rather be home milking cows.”
“Ilse said she’d do this.”
“But she can’t for harvest.”
Andrew listened to the discussion. He’d been on the rake, and his rear hurt from the metal seat. He’d rather be home milking too. Now that was a chore he enjoyed.While the yield on this place didn’t come up to that at home, it would be a good addition after some plowing and fertilizing.
A Promise for Ellie Page 19