A Song of Joy

by Lauraine Snelling

“No, sorry. And who is that?” He pointed to Gunlaug.

  “Momo.” She clapped her hands to her chest. “Es.”

  “You say kuh.” He made the k sound.

  “Es.” She reached for Gunlaug’s arms. “Momo.”

  “Yes, let’s go change your britches. You stinky.” Gunlaug wrinkled her nose. “Ishta.”

  Kirstin wrinkled her nose in mimicry.

  “How are we going to get you to do your business in the potty?” Gunlaug asked.

  “Catch her quicker. She’s done so a couple of times.” Signe called from the loom room. “How about a cup of coffee?”

  A thunking sound caused Gunlaug to look up and find Leif at the churn. When he was finished, her next job would be to wash the butter. Surely it was about time he learned to wash butter. She snuggle-hugged the squirming little girl who was chanting “Ef-Ef-Ef” and ran to the screen door as soon as her grandmother set her on the floor.

  She banged at the screen, continuing to chant. When she leaned against the door, it opened a foot or so. Gunlaug and Signe stood watching her. She pushed again harder, but by the time she got to the opening, the spring on the door caused it to slam closed right on her hand. Kirstin howled, jerked her hand loose, and turned to her mor, tears streaming down her face.

  Signe scooped her up and motioned to Gunlaug to pump some cold water to run over the little one’s hand. Kirstin tried to jerk her hand out of her mother’s grasp and upped the noise level. “Shh. You’re not hurt that bad.”

  When the water stopped, Kirstin opened and shut her fingers. She studied her hand, looked at Signe, and leaned toward the water again. “I know, you will do anything to play in the water, but it’s all gone now.”

  Kirstin frowned and looked to her grandmother. “Momo.” She waved at the pump.

  “Sorry,” Gunlaug said. “Let’s go talk with Leif.”

  “Ef-Ef-Ef.”

  Gunlaug set the little girl down on the porch. “She lost a fight with the screen door,” she told Leif.

  He grinned when Kirstin held up her hand. “I see. Why don’t you go talk to Rufus?” She headed for the dog lying in the shade by the wall, and Gunlaug returned to the kitchen.

  “She has to try everything.” Signe set the stove lids back in place and pulled the coffeepot forward. “There are a few cookies in the tin. Maybe that is what I need to do next.” While the coffee heated, she brought out the ingredients for oatmeal cookies and set them on the counter.

  “The butter is rising,” Leif sang from the porch.

  “Keep it going a bit longer, and make sure the butter is clumping.” Gunlaug reached into one of the lower shelves and brought out the huge crockery bowl they used for washing butter and then set the strainer on top. Leif pulled the top with the attached paddles out of the churn and set it in the sink while Gunlaug hefted the churn and poured the butter and buttermilk into the bowl. She emptied the buttermilk into a crock and pumped water over the butter still in the bowl.

  “Go tell Gerd the coffee is ready,” Signe said. “She needs a rest. She’s been out in that sun a long time.”

  As Leif darted out the door, it caught Kirstin and knocked her on her butt. She howled and pushed herself to her feet as her mother scooped her up.

  “You’re not hurt. You’re just mad.” She tapped a finger on the baby’s bottom lip, which stuck out like a shelf. Then she hugged her and set her back down. “Come get in your chair. We’ll have a cookie.”

  Kirstin jabbered back at her and caught the chair leg, raising her arms to be picked up and put in the chair. Once the tray was in place, she slapped her hands on the flat surface. All was well until Signe brought a dishcloth over and wiped her hands and face.

  “Hold still and it will go faster.” Kirstin jabbered back at her, clearly not pleased, her scrunched face a testimony to her feelings.

  “I was about to come do this myself,” Gerd said, washing her hands under the running water. She wiped them on a towel and sat down at the table. “What happened to you, little one? Your screams about scared the birds away.” When they told her what had happened, Gerd turned and patted Kirstin’s hand. “Poor baby. You just have to learn things the hard way, don’t you?”

  Gunlaug took a cookie off the plate and handed it to the little one, who tried to shove it in her mouth and instead broke it into pieces. She watched it crumble, then grabbed up a piece with each hand and shoved them in her mouth. Which set her to coughing.

  Gerd held a glass of milk for her. “Drink this.” She shook her head. “You can make messes faster than any baby I’ve ever seen.”

  Kirstin smacked her palms on the cookie pieces, turning them to small bits, which she studiously picked up between thumb and forefinger, only half of them making it to her mouth.

  Supper that night in the new house was a quiet affair. The boys in the woods had managed to down a third tree, since the days had grown so much longer. Rune was rubbing his head and eyes more than usual. So when Leif announced that he and Gunlaug were taking a trip to the store, mostly what he heard back were groans.

  “The reason we are going tomorrow is that Leif and I have been invited to visit Nilda and Mrs. Schoenleber,” Gunlaug said. “We will leave on the train the Wednesday after next and return on Friday.”

  “So he gets to go play, and we have to keep working.” Knute sent Leif a dirty look.

  “I do believe you would rather go fishing,” Rune said, “and I am sure that can be arranged. You choose when you would like to go.”

  Knute thought a minute, then looked to Ivar and Bjorn. “How about we bring down five more trees, get them limbed and dragged to the stack, then take a day and go fishing?”

  “Fresh fish sounds wonderful,” Signe said.

  “The perch should be biting good by now,” Bjorn said thoughtfully, “along with the bass and bluegill. Maybe we could catch enough to smoke some.”

  Ivar and Bjorn nodded at each other. “Five trees? Three days. That will be Saturday. And maybe, if they are really biting, we could go again after church on Sunday.”

  Knute grinned, and Gunlaug relaxed. The last thing they needed was for the boys to be jealous of one another.

  A rolling boom of thunder woke Rune and Signe long before dawn. He lay beside her in bed as they listened to it move closer. Signe slid her hand into his.

  “Should we go down on the porch and watch the storm?” she whispered.

  Together they slipped out of bed and padded down the stairs. A cool breeze blew through the house, so they quickly shut all the windows. They were sitting on the porch, watching the storm move closer, when the rain hit like a bucket being dumped. Lightning lit the yard and the buildings, then snuffed out as if it were a candle. The thunder seemed to crash right over their heads.

  Signe couldn’t help but flinch. “If this were daytime, we’d be out dancing in the rain, washing our hair, loving every cool moment.”

  “You could do so now.”

  “No, I’d rather go back to bed for the rest of the night than have wet hair, even if it is clean.”

  Rune smiled. “I can hear the garden and the fields sighing. This came at just the right time.”

  “Ja, that it did.”

  Without the sun to wake her, Signe slept longer than usual. When she got up, Rune was not in bed, but she could hear voices from the kitchen. She slid her arms into her wrapper and made her way downstairs.

  Gerd was mixing batter for pancakes, the coffee was hot, and the day was gray and dripping. Bacon sizzled in the frying pan. “Good morning.”

  “You should have woken me up,” she said to Rune.

  “Why? You deserve some extra sleep. I think I’d better call the boys, though, or they’ll sleep all morning.”

  Gerd poured Signe a cup of coffee. “To sustain you until breakfast is ready.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Far said no logging today because of the rain. Now we won’t get all our trees down.” Knute sat down on the stairs to shove his feet into his boo
ts.

  “Most people would be happy to have a day off,” Signe pointed out.

  “Most people don’t want to go fishing. And Far said being out on the lake in the rain could be asking for a lightning strike.”

  “It will all work out.”

  Knute sounded bored. “That’s what you always say.”

  Bjorn pushed by him. “Come on, let’s get the chores done. I’m hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry.”

  Bjorn shrugged as he followed the others out the kitchen door. “At least the garden is happy,” he called over his shoulder.

  The men returned to the house laughing at the water running down their hair and faces, their clothes drenched.

  “The chickens just stood in the doorway, then turned back in their house. Even the rooster didn’t come out.” Leif took the towel his mor handed him and scrubbed his head before passing it to Knute, who was shaking his head like a wet dog.

  He grinned around the towel. “I opened the door for the sheep, and they just stood there and watched it rain.”

  “The cows came into the barn shaking their heads and with water running down their sides and dripping on the floor. It ran down my neck when I put my head into their flanks to milk.” Bjorn spattered those around him with a head shake.

  “And I got swatted with drippy wet tails.”

  “The horses were standing under the shed roof,” Ivar threw in. “They went back out to graze when we let the cows out.”

  Leif shivered. “The pigs’ pens are knee-deep in water, and they were running through it, tossing mud and muck. After breakfast we should probably go dig a trench to drain them.”

  Rune watched his boys, smiling at their antics. “So today we work in the shop. Too dangerous out in the woods.”

  “Figured you’d say that.” Bjorn took his chair at the table. “I can’t believe I slept through a storm like that. Not if the thunder and lightning was as bad as you said.”

  “You had the pillow over your head.” Leif poked him with his elbow.

  “What’s your excuse?”

  “No excuse. Just slept sound. I wonder how long I would sleep if no one woke me up.”

  “Let’s have grace before the pancakes get cold.” Rune bowed his head and waited. “Thank you, Lord, for this rain we so needed. Thank you for the food Gerd has prepared. And thank you for good health, work to do, and such a fine place to live. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”

  Kirstin slapped her hands on the high chair tray. “Eat.”

  The boys burst out laughing.

  After digging the drainage trench, the men and boys gathered in the shop. Rune assigned their chores, with three of them on ski sanding. Ivar helped Rune with planning out another pair of skis and setting them to soak to turn the tips up. Rune had built a long water trough to soak the wood in, then carved clamps as forms to mold the tips as the wood dried. Once dried, the sanding would begin, starting with rougher and working into finer with a many layered finish, before waxing and more waxing.

  When the bell clanged for dinner, they stepped out into drizzle.

  “Unless it stops, we won’t be going to Benson’s today,” Gunlaug announced.

  “Wet as it is, even if it stops, I’d say wait until tomorrow. You don’t want to slide off into the ditch.” Rune helped himself to the fried rabbit and looked at Knute. “Thanks for snaring dinner for us. It’s been a while.”

  “Something has robbed them lately. Coyote or fox, I s’pose.” Knute speared himself a piece of meat too. “Maybe with the wet, I can identify any tracks. I’ll check them right after we finish eating.”

  “Remember when that old cougar took our pigs?” Leif said. “Could be another of those. Or a bear!”

  “Much more likely to be a coyote. You could try a blind, possibly,” Rune suggested.

  “What if I put the snares at the base of a tree and waited up in the branches?”

  “Since we are in the dark of the moon, I’d say wait until the moon is near to full so you can see better.”

  Signe and Gunlaug both rolled their eyes and shook their heads.

  Gerd added, “When we first moved here, there was a lot more wildlife than now. We even heard and saw wolves one winter. They would sure have a feast if they got in the sheep pen.”

  “Or the chicken house,” Leif added.

  “We didn’t even have chickens then. A neighbor gave me a broody hen with eggs, and I built her a nest in one of the stalls in the barn. Einar got the chicken house built by the time they needed more room. That old hen raised six chicks the first time, and then when she got broody again, I got more fertile eggs. That lady gave me a rooster too, so I’d have my own eggs. She sure was good to me, but then she died in childbirth, and her husband sold his land and moved back to Norway.”

  Rune watched Gerd talking. To think this was the same woman who was near to dying when he and Signe came here. It was hard to believe that was only two years ago. So many changes, so much progress. Who ever would have dreamed all this?

  Chapter

  11

  What to do, what to do, what to do?

  Nilda gathered all her proposal papers together and tapped them into an even stack. She’d awakened that morning sure that taking the proposal to the meeting in Minneapolis was not the best route to follow. Yes, housing was needed, but what was the best way to accomplish that? She opened the file drawer she had claimed for her own and set the papers on the edge, wedged against the others with a wooden block so she could find them more easily. She would need them for the dinner meeting with the leaders in Blackduck the week after Gunlaug would visit.

  She had already sent out the invitations. Hopefully she would have other ideas for the agenda. With her desk cleared off, she went to stand in front of the window. Fritz would be here any minute, otherwise she would have gone for a walk. A walk down by the river always helped her come up with new ideas, or at least different ones.

  So did deadheading the roses. Or the daisies.

  “I’ll be out in the garden,” she called as she passed the sun-room. Walking through the kitchen, she said, “Sure smells good in here.” Inhaling the fragrances melding in the air, she kept going.

  “Don’t go far,” Cook called. “Dinner is nearly ready. As soon as Mr. Fritz gets here, we can serve.”

  “Okay.”

  Nilda dug the hand clippers out of the apron pocket she’d hung on a hook by the back door and paused on the back steps to enjoy the colors spread before her. Reaching up onto a shelf, she fetched the flat-bottomed basket. Surely she could find enough flowers to change the bouquet on the entry table.

  She snipped spent blossoms as she clipped the sunrise roses with the long stems, a couple of the white ones tinged with yellow, and daisies for filler, laying them all flat in the basket she carried over her arm. The peonies were budding but none were open yet, so she searched out the largest open rose blossom and, after inhaling the spicy fragrance, added it to her sweet-smelling collection. Interesting how different roses had different fragrances.

  She was just turning back to the house when Fritz called to her from the French doors to the verandah and strode out to meet her.

  “Let me carry that for you.” He took her basket.

  “Good day to you too.” She smiled back. “Just think, you could have been out here helping me deadhead.”

  “I’m surprised George allows you to touch his precious roses.”

  “I made a bargain with him. I won’t pull the weeds—not that there are ever any to pull out here—if I can cut flowers for the house and accidentally manage to snip off a few spent blooms. This time I forgot to bring the basket for the compost heap, so he will probably get disgruntled to find the spent blossoms on the ground.”

  “You want me to go back and pick them up? I’d hate to be on George’s bad side.” He smiled down at her. “You look lovely today. I mean, you do every day, but . . .” He rolled his eyes. “Sorry, I mean . . .”

  Nilda shook her
head with a teasing smile. Her eyebrows arched as she watched him stumbling. Should she bail him out or let him dig himself a deeper hole? Why was it more fun to tease him than her brother Ivar? Taking pity on him, she asked, “How did your meeting go?”

  “I’ve been asked to accompany a choir for a concert coming up and play several organ pieces besides.” He paused. “For pay.”

  “How wonderful.” She slipped her clippers back in their pocket by the door and started the water in the deep sink in the laundry room. “Have you played for them before?”

  He nodded. “A couple of years ago.”

  She laid the roses flat to submerge them and set the daisies in water up to their blossoms. Taking the biggest rose, she snipped off the stem, filled a clear round bowl with water, and sank the rose with its petals pointing toward the bottom. She finished it off by laying a matching plate over the mouth.

  “Dinner is ready to serve,” Charles said as she made her way to the dining room.

  “Perfect timing.” With her hand on the plate, she flipped the bowl over and set it on the table. The rose floated, submerged in the water. “There.” She stepped back. The rose glowed against the white tablecloth, the water making the colors even more brilliant. “Miss Walstead taught me this when she gave me instructions on flower arranging. I’ve never had this array of flowers to choose from before. At home, we’d go pick wildflowers and put them in a jar. They never lasted very long.”

  “So lovely.” Mrs. Schoenleber paused in the arched doorway. “Hello, Fritz, I see you found her.” She tipped her head for his kiss on her cheek. “I do wish you would come more often. You don’t need an excuse, you know.”

  He pulled out her chair and seated her, then did the same for Nilda. “I know, but this summer I am redoing the history program for the eighth grade, and I have four new music students twice a week for the summer. Along with my English classes for immigrants. This year I have a couple from Germany and one Swedish family as well as Norwegian.” He smiled at Nilda. “I’m glad to see your mother and Signe back again. They have really progressed over the winter.”