The Reaper's Song

by Lauraine Snelling

“Whatever made you think that?”

  “One of the neighbors come by, and he said that. But I think he wanted our homestead, and if’n we don’t get back there, he just might get it. Zeb, he left a letter for my pa.” Her voice dropped. “If he ever gets home.”

  At the desolate sound of the girl’s voice and the sorrow in her eyes, Penny left her chair and knelt by Manda. “Oh, my dear, losing your ma and pa is about the hardest thing in this whole world. Mine were both killed in an accident when I was just a bit older than you. I still miss them all the time.” She put her arms around the stiff body and smoothed the girl’s hair. “Such a heavy burden you bear.”

  At that Manda collapsed against Penny’s shoulder, her tears soaking the gingham dress and apron straps. “I want my ma and pa back.”

  “Me too. Oh, me too.” Penny comforted and patted the girl until the storm of weeping passed. Finally she handed Manda a handkerchief from her apron pocket. “Here, blow your nose and mop your eyes. We got to think of a way to make sure you get to keep the homestead.”

  “You tell the sheriff, and he’ll put Deborah and me in the orphanage.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  At that a smile tickled the sides of Manda’s mouth. She sniffed and blew again. “Deborah woulda died too if MacCallister hadn’t come along. She was right sick. She ain’t so good yet, but the old Mrs. Bjorklund, she’s taking good care of her. Them’s good folks, the Bjorklunds.” She smiled at Penny. “All of them.”

  “Thank you for the fine compliment, Manda, my dear. Now, as I see it . . .” Penny returned to her chair and propped her chin on her fists. “You can be right glad you still got your sister. I ain’t seen mine since the day I moved in with my aunt and uncle Baard.”

  “Oh. That’s bad. Deborah’s the most special person in the world to me. I woulda died too, if’n she did.”

  “Well, as you can see, I didn’t die, and now we got to figure out a way for you to keep the land. Where did you say it was?”

  After Manda told her, Penny sipped her coffee and let her mind work on the problem. “You have any other relatives?”

  “Not so I know.”

  “And MacCallister is no relative.”

  “Nope, none.”

  “You think he could find his way back there to your homestead?”

  “I s’pose. Why?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to find out the legal proceedings. I think we better talk all this over with Hjelmer and Haakan and Ingeborg. All together we’ll find some way, I promise you that.”

  At the look that turned Manda’s face to sunshine, Penny bit her lip. Lord, please don’t fail us now. But as she well knew, sometimes the good Lord seemed to take an awful long time to answer the requests of His children. And sometimes the answer was no.

  It’s all yours, Metiz. We should be able to finish the inside after the weather turns.”

  “Many windows.” She looked up at Haakan, her eyes sparkling in the sunlight.

  “Just like you wanted. And with it raised like that, if it floods, you won’t get a house full of water.”

  “Just in under room.”

  “The cellar. Ja, can’t do much about that. But now you won’t have to go outside in the dead of winter to get things from the cellar.”

  “Never did.”

  “I know. This will be your first winter with us.” Haakan looked from Metiz to the house. “Probably should’ve built it bigger.”

  “No want bigger. Too big now.”

  “I suppose, compared to your tepee, this house is a mansion.”

  “What mansion?”

  “Huge, fancy house. Many, many rooms. Big like a hotel.”

  “Ah. Whole tribe live in mansion.”

  “Sure enough could. I hope that idea of Lars’s works—filling the walls with sawdust. But it works with an icehouse, so why not houses? And why didn’t we think of it earlier?”

  “Icehouse?”

  “Big building to keep ice in for summer.”

  “Ice melt.”

  “Not if you pack enough sawdust around it. You’ll see. Next summer we are going to have ice cream in July.”

  “Really, Pa?” Thorliff looked up from the butt he was splitting into shingles. He and Baptiste had already split the ones for Metiz’ house and were now working for Lars and Kaaren’s.

  “You can’t have ice cream in July.” Manda split off another smooth shingle. After coming back from Penny’s, she’d got the hang of it real quick, much to Thorliff’s dismay.

  “If’n my pa says it is so, it is so.” Thorliff spoke so emphatically that his hair bounced. He brushed it back with one hand and reset his porkpie hat.

  “’Tain’t.”

  “’Tis.”

  “All right, you two, that’s enough.” Haakan raised his hands for silence.

  “’Tis,” Thorliff muttered under his breath.

  “Thorliff Bjorklund, what’s got into you?” Haakan looked down at his son seated on a chunk of wood and tapping the froe just right.

  Thorliff split another shingle without looking up. His lower lip stuck out far enough to rest one of his shingles on.

  Baptiste looked up at Haakan and grinned. “Fish are biting.”

  “They are, huh?” Lars stopped beside them. “Now wouldn’t a mess of fish taste good for supper?” He looked at Haakan. “I think all these hard workers deserve some time off to go fishing, don’t you?”

  “Up to you. It’s your roof they’re splitting now.”

  “Then, fishing it is.”

  Baptiste leaped to his feet. “Come on.” Thorliff, the Baard boys, and Hamre followed him.

  “Me too.” Andrew darted after the big boys.

  Katy leaped and snagged him by the shirttail. “Hold up, short stuff.”

  Barefeet churning the dirt, he pulled against the restraint.

  “Nei. No,” his father told him, but Katy sent Haakan a pleading glance.

  “Hey, Andrew, my boy, you can go when you get bigger.” Haakan lifted the boy in the air and whooshed him down again, the breeze fluffing his near white curls. “Right now you can put all those chips in a basket, you and Ellie. Maybe Anji will help too.”

  Andrew stared longingly after the big boys. “I’m bigger now.”

  Haakan whirled him around and set him down with a tickle. “First one with a full basket gets a . . . a . . .” He closed his eyes to a squint. “A cookie?”

  Andrew squinted back at him, hands on hips. “Two cookies.”

  Haakan nodded. “Two cookies.”

  “He’s a horse trader already.” Lars shook his head. “What a boy.”

  The tap of the mallet on the froe caught Haakan’s attention. “Manda, did you want to go fishing too?”

  She shook her head. “Not with them dumb boys.”

  The men swapped glances and raised their eyebrows.

  “You don’t like to fish?” Lars asked.

  “Don’t know. Never been. But if I did, I’d catch more than all of ’em put together.” Tap, crack, and another shingle fell to the ground.

  Zeb joined them just in time to hear Manda’s growling. He raised his shoulders in the age-old shrug of men who have no idea why women or even young girls do what they do. The others matched it and, gathering their tools, headed for the place where Lars had dug out his cellar. If they hurried, they could get some of the cellar groundwork done before chores. With all the boys gone fishing, the men would have to do the milking too.

  But Ingeborg had the female crew from Bridget to Ilsa in full steam, and they took over the milking, even going to the Baards. By the time they returned, the strings of fish were already cleaned and ready for the frying pan. The batter-fried fish, fried potatoes, and green beans with bacon made a meal that left everyone patting their stomachs after second and even third helpings.

  “I thought we were going to fry fish clear on till morning,” Ingeborg said when the last filet had disappeared down someone’s gullet.

  “Ran out rig
ht time.” Metiz handed Ingeborg a plateful of food. “Kept for you.”

  “Thank you.” Ingeborg sat down in the rocker with a sigh and wiped her forehead with her apron. “This was just like feeding a threshing crew.”

  “They building crew. Same thing.” Metiz picked a fish bone out of her teeth. “Good fish.”

  The next day Lars took some good-natured ribbing about pouring sawdust in his walls, but he laughed it off. “You’ll be singing a different tune come winter. I bet you’ll all be knocking on my door, asking for a warm place to sit.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Haakan put in. “I’m thinking there must be a way to get the sawdust inside the walls of my house, too, and maybe even the barn. Hey, even the soddies can be warmer than these wood frame houses.”

  “Heaping manure and straw around the base will help. We did that in Ohio.” Joseph Baard finished nailing off the length of flooring. “Then you spread it out on the garden come spring. Does double-duty that way. Horse manure works the best. Takes longer to rot.”

  “The things we learn when we get together,” Haakan said, shaking his head.

  As the walls went up, the men scurried over the building like ants at their nest. While to an outsider it might look haphazard, each one knew his best skill and did it.

  “Sure do miss Anner on the measuring and cutting,” Joseph commented.

  “He’s one who checks and double-checks so everything fits.” Haakan threw down a board. “We got to be more careful.”

  Reverend Solberg looked up from sawing. “I went to see him yesterday. He’s not doing good at all.”

  “The arm bad?”

  “No, the arm seems to finally be healing, but . . .” Solberg shook his head. “I’m afraid for him, that I am.”

  Haakan let it go until the others were out of hearing range. “Is it the drinking?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Oh, I got ears and eyes.”

  “He’s angry, Haakan, so terribly, terribly angry. And nothing anyone says makes a whit of difference.” Solberg wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his shirt sleeve. “I’m afraid for him and for his wife. She looks twenty years older. She even walks like an old woman. How do we get him to understand that losing an arm isn’t the end of his life? Or the end of the world?”

  “God only knows.”

  “Wise words, my friend. Wise words.”

  “So what are we to do?”

  “Pray for him.”

  “Anything else?”

  “That isn’t enough?” His smile said he was teasing.

  “You know, it ain’t easy being a two-handed farmer, let alone a one-handed one. Like the measuring here. It takes two hands.” Haakan demonstrated unfolding the wooden measuring stick, laying it out, holding it in place with one hand while marking the cut with the other. “See?” He refolded the tool and put it in his back pocket. “And have you ever tried milking with one hand?”

  “It would take longer, but once the cow got used to it, would she give less milk?”

  Haakan thought a moment. “I doubt it.”

  “And if he sold the land, surely there is something else he can do.”

  “Right now I can’t think of anything, but I’ll ask around. I just don’t know what kind of things he is good at besides farming.”

  “And building. Measuring and cutting accurately, especially.”

  By evening the house was framed, windows and doors set, sided on three sides, and the sheeting laid in close rows ready for the shingles.

  “Pa, I bet I can shingle a roof now too.” Thorliff stood as tall as he could beside his father.

  “If you do that, then who will split the shingles? You’re the best splitter we got.” Lars ruffled the boy’s hair, tipping off his hat in the process.

  Thorliff leaned over and picked it up, dusting it against his leg before setting it back on his head. “Manda can take my place splitting. She’s good at it.” His tone said he offered this grudgingly.

  “Well, we’ll see.” Haakan eyed the roof. “If you fell off there, your mother would nail my hide to the barn wall.”

  “I wouldn’t fall.” Thorliff wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Nailing shingles is easier than lugging them, and I been doing that long as we been using shingles for the roofs.”

  The next day he lived up to his word. Slow at first, but when he gained the rhythm, he nearly kept up with the men.

  “Son, you are right good with that hammer,” Lars said when they quit for dinner. “Between the four of us, we’ll have that house weatherproof in no time.”

  “I could miss school to help finish. Lots of the older boys stayed home through the harvest.”

  Haakan shook his head. “No, you missed today and that is enough. You can help again when you get home.”

  “But it gets dark so early these days. And we’re going to have frost any night now.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Metiz said to watch the moon—it will tell you. And last night there was frost in the low places.”

  “Thorliff, you amaze me. You hear something one time, or read it one time, and you remember it from then on. What are we going to do with you?”

  “Let me stay home and help finish the house.” Thorliff gave his father a sly look out the side of his eye. “I’m so far ahead of the other kids, they’ll never catch up.” But when Haakan shook his head, the boy didn’t argue any further.

  That night when Haakan told Ingeborg about the conversation with Thorliff, she just shook her head. But the light in her eyes told of her pride in her elder son. “So . . . are you going to let him stay home?”

  “You crazy? I like my hide too well.”

  “What?”

  “Just men talk, dear. Come to bed.”

  Since Saturday had become market day and Penny couldn’t leave the store, the women held their October quilting day on Friday at the church. The women gathered as soon as their older children left for school and the dinner had been set to cooking for those at home.

  Kaaren started their time together with reading from Proverbs 31 about the ideal woman. “ ‘A good wife, who can find . . .’ ”

  “Well, we do all that but the grape things. I’d guess our gardens and fields can take that place,” Agnes said when the reading was finished. “I sure could use a few more handmaidens and a slave or two. Or servant,” she added at the gasp that went up.

  “We’re all slaves to the land, that’s what,” said someone else.

  “But the labor is returning to us a hundredfold, wouldn’t you say?” Kaaren looked around the group. “And we have one another for both help and encouragement.”

  “Speaking of help. I tried to do more for Hildegunn and Anner and she run me off.” Goodie shook her head. “They let Ephraim work out in the fields, but that is all. She’s trying to kill herself off, that’s what.”

  “Or Anner is ordering her so.” Ingeborg looked around the group. “We got to do something here, and I don’t know what.”

  Bridget, Sarah, and Katy sat side by side, waiting until Kaaren translated for them. Then Bridget said, “Best thing to do is pray and let God tell us what to do.”

  “Ja, you are so right.” Agnes, sitting next to Bridget, laid a hand on her arm. “One thing we can do right here is speak more Norwegian so these two can understand. I know we want all to learn English, but they ain’t had time yet.”

  And so they all switched to Norwegian and the conversation continued. Finally Kaaren raised her hand. “Let’s pray now and then we can get on with our quilting.”

  “I have something to say first.” Penny took the floor. “You know we talked about starting a bank here in Blessing, and I know Ingeborg sent out letters about that—”

  “Got an answer too,” Ingeborg raised an envelope. “Came yesterday.”

  “Good. But the other day I run into a problem concerning Manda and Deborah, who came to our community with Zeb MacCallister.” As she said his name she glanced at Katy, wh
o turned bright red. “Well, those two children are going to lose their inheritance if we don’t do something about it. Their ma is dead, their pa disappeared, and now they aren’t on the land either. Someone could come jump their claim, and all their parents’ sacrifice would be gone for naught.”

  “Uff da,” said one.

  “Oh my,” another murmured.

  “We got to do something.” Agnes said what they all were thinking.

  “So MacCallister and the girls are not related?”

  Penny shook her head. “He just saved their lives, is all.”

  The women looked at one another, then back at Penny.

  “No relatives?”

  “Not so they know.”

  “So what does the law say? Could one of us buy the land and hold it in inheritance for the girls? Or take over the farming until Manda marries or is old enough to go it alone?” Agnes shook her head. “Those poor children.”

  “I don’t know the answers to any of those questions, but I know that all together we women can come up with something. And that brings up my next problem.” Penny paused and again looked around the room, catching the gaze of each woman present. “Dakota Territory, be it one state or two, must let women have the vote. We have to help that happen.”

  “I don’t see why,” said one of the women. “What good is voting going to do us?”

  “You think the men make all the right decisions?” Penny drew herself taller. “We need to be able to own land and have a say in our government. The constitution says ‘for the people,’ not just for the men. Women are part of the people too.”

  “Whew, when you get on the soapbox, you do it good.” Agnes wiped her brow as if she’d been thinking hard. Or working hard.

  “We aren’t chattel like the horses to be bought and sold, or dumb animals who slave from dawn to dusk.”

  “No, we work far beyond dusk and many before dawn.” Ingeborg’s sally drew a laugh from the rest but nods of agreement.

  “Guess I’ve said enough.” Penny leaned back in her chair.

  “But how do we go about getting the vote?” Mrs. Magron asked. Without her friend Hildegunn, she hadn’t said much.

  “We read newspapers, ask questions, and I’m going to write to a group I heard of for help out here on the prairie.” Penny leaned forward again. “But first, we got to save the land for those children.”