The Reaper's Song

by Lauraine Snelling

  Ingeborg dug in her pocket for a handkerchief. Who was comforting whom here?

  “Why can’t we put these things behind us and go on like Paul says in the Scriptures. Why, O Lord, why?” A sob choked off the word.

  “Maybe because Paul never had a baby?” Ingeborg tried to smile through her tears.

  “Maybe.” Agnes nodded and mopped her eyes and nose. “Things are different for men than women, that’s for sure.” She got up and refilled their coffee cups, taking the time to put wood in the stove before sitting back down. “Ingeborg, do you really think that—about killing the baby?”

  Ingeborg shrugged. “Yes and no. When the pit yawns before me, I think falling in would be just punishment, but then I read my Bible and it says God forgets our sin, puts it as far away as the east is from the west.” She took a sip of coffee. “Sometimes I have a hard time believing that. If only I had not gone out in the field, none of this would have happened.”

  “How do you know that? Besides, I thought a long time ago you and I agreed to not listen to the ‘if only’s.’ ” She reached a comforting hand to clasp Ingeborg’s. “I think God brought you here today so we can cry together and talk all this out and let God’s healing light come deep inside us where the hurts dwell.”

  “And burn them out?”

  “Or love ’em out. I ain’t sure which.”

  By the time Ingeborg left for home, the two had prayed together, cried some more, dug deep and laid bare all the heart hurts, prayed some more, searched the Scriptures for renewed promises, and finally laughed again.

  Agnes looked ten years younger when Ingeborg went out the door, and Ingeborg felt ten pounds lighter. She turned and hugged her friend once more. “God surely did know what He was doing when He created friendship.”

  “Amen to that and to the power of the cross. You drive careful now going home.”

  “You send one of the boys over, if you need help?”

  “I already got the help I need.” Agnes blew her a kiss.

  On the way home, Ingeborg let her mind wander. What other poor souls out there were suffering in silence when God gave them friends to share the burden? Hildegunn immediately leaped into her mind. “I’ve got to go see her one of these days, and it better be soon.”

  “Whoa.” She tightened the reins at the same time, and the horse stopped. “Maybe I should go right now.” She looked up at the sky. The sun had already slid beyond the midafternoon mark. To go or not to go. She looked toward the north to the Valders’ then back to the town nearby. “Instead of that, maybe I’ll give the children a ride home from school since I’m so close. Then I could get the mail too.” She swung the horse around and headed for Blessing. Mrs. Valders would have to wait for another day.

  All right now, folks—er, class, come to attention.” Reverend Solberg rapped his ruler on the desk.

  The group kept on talking, a mixture of Norwegian and English that sounded like pure babble.

  “The schoolchildren mind me much better than you do.” He raised his voice and spoke in Norwegian.

  The adults and children both exchanged sheepish looks and quieted down.

  He smiled out at them. “There now, that is better.” Turning to the blackboard he wrote four words in English and their Norwegian counterpart. “I have written both because some of you want to learn to speak Norwegian. Now let’s say them together: Hello. Hallo. Good-bye. Adjø. Please. Vær så snill. Thank you. Mange takk.”

  They parroted what he said and smiled back at him.

  “Very good.”

  “Very good,” the echo came. They waited for the Norwegian.

  “No, wait.” He raised his hands. “Please, you are trying too hard.”

  “Cannot say that,” Bridget said in Norwegian. “You must slow down. You talk too fast.”

  Solberg switched to Norwegian. “Now, let me make myself clear.”

  As the pastor explained the rules of the classroom, Zeb glanced over at Katy sitting at the table across the aisle. Even in the dimness from the kerosene lamps on stands attached to the walls, her hair caught the light and made it seem brighter. Spun gold, he thought.

  Her mouth quirked up and she slanted him a look out of the side of her eye.

  She can tell I’m watching her. She can always tell, just like I can tell when she is watching me.

  “Mr. MacCallister.”

  Zeb jerked his attention back to the front of the room. He could feel the warmth creep up his neck. Had anyone else noticed him watching her? “Yes, sir?”

  “Do you speak any languages other than English?”

  “Yes, sir. A bit of French.”

  “Shame it’s not German. That would make Norwegian easier for you.”

  “Anyone else speak another language?”

  Katy raised her hand. “Some German, a bit of French, and Swedish. We all learned Swedish in school.”

  Zeb wished he could understand everything she had said. Let’s get on with the Norwegian. We don’t have all night. How do I say, “You are beautiful”? But he kept his face straight and eyes forward. Was that her mama’s eyes he could feel drilling into his back. Next time he would sit in the last row.

  By the end of the class, he’d learned fifteen Norwegian words or phrases. Katy had learned fifteen English ones.

  There had to be a way to speed up the solution to his problem. To have Ingeborg or Kaaren or even Haakan translate for him to ask Katy to go on a walk with him—just the two of them—would not do.

  Bridget sat beside him on the wagon seat going home. Did she suspect? From the look on her face, he was sure of it. It seemed as though Katy’s mother did not like him at all.

  There was no one he could talk to.

  With the first heavy snowfall, fieldwork ended for the year. Haakan and Lars parked their machinery in a three-sided shed they had built for that purpose and cranked up the steam engine for sawing lumber. People from up and down the river brought logs to be sawed into boards, leaving a fourth of the lumber in payment. As soon as the Red River froze over, folks from the Minnesota side would be skidding logs across the ice.

  Lars and Zeb took the wheels off the wagons and replaced them with heavy wooden runners that curved up in front, with sheet metal nailed to the underside. After soaping and cleaning the harnesses and making sure there were no weak spots, they added bells to the collars. The horses seemed to enjoy the music as much as the people did.

  “One of these years I’m going to buy a real sled for winter and a buggy for summer,” Haakan said one afternoon as he sat in the parlor reading the Grand Forks newspaper.

  “Wouldn’t that be fine?” Ingeborg looked up from her knitting.

  “We had a sled in Norway,” Bridget said. “Gustaf built it and kept it painted black with red trim. So shiny it was. I wonder if Johann is keeping things up like his far would have liked.”

  “His last letter sounded like it.” Katy looked up from mending her long black wool stockings. “Are you homesick, Mor?”

  “Sometimes. Think, they are ice fishing on the lake now. And there would be lutefisk and baked cod for dinner. Ja, the food is surely different here. But we will make lefse tomorrow, and that will be just enough of home to keep me happy.” Her needles flashed in the lamp already lit, though darkness had not yet fallen.

  All was silent but for the click of needles and the snap of wood in the parlor stove, the little ones being down for a nap. Haakan rattled the newspaper when he turned the pages.

  “Why don’t you read to us?” Ingeborg asked.

  “But it is in English.”

  “True, but you could translate. Not word for word, just the ideas, you know.”

  So Haakan read, translated, and answered questions about the meaning of some of the issues and stories. Finally he laid the paper aside. “I’ve got some work out in the barn I better get at.”

  “You want some coffee first?” Ingeborg started to rise.

  “No, no. You just sit still and keep on doing what you are
doing.” He fled out the back door like being chased by bees.

  Ingeborg leaned over and picked up the paper. As she folded the pages, an article caught her eye. Suffragettes were on the march in Minneapolis. There had been speeches and a call for the women to unite that they might be given the vote. She read the quotes from the speeches aloud.

  Bridget shook her head. “I think it’s a big to-do about nothing. What good is the vote for women? You want to run for a public office someday?”

  Ingeborg thought a minute, then answered quietly. “No, I don’t want to, but generations from now, perhaps that will be important to some of the women. You never know.” She thought again. “But I know how important it is for women to be able to own land in their own name, to own a business if they want, or go to college, just as the men do.”

  While Katy smiled at Ingeborg and gave a slight nod, Bridget looked at her, mouth in a perfect O. “Well, I never.”

  Weeks passed and somehow Ingeborg never made it over to the Valders’. Every Sunday when she saw they weren’t in church, she thought this would be the week, but one thing after another seemed to come up, like Thorliff’s eleventh birthday, and the weeks flew by. Birthday parties were a welcome break, even though they only invited their own family and the Baards. Then there was the disappointing meeting in Grand Forks with Mr. Brockhurst. Ingeborg still fumed at his refusal to be any more than the most basic of help. He declined Hjelmer’s offer to work for free in exchange for training in banking ways and acted as if they were trying to steal his livelihood. It wasn’t like he had no other customers than the farmers of Blessing, many of whom banked in Grafton anyway. She couldn’t wait to remove their money from his establishment and begin their own.

  Norwegian classes continued on Tuesday nights, and each week Zeb hoped Bridget would decide not to go that time. She often thwarted his attempts to sit next to Katy in church on Sunday too.

  But when Reverend Solberg came calling at the Bjorklund farm, Mrs. Gustaf Bjorklund was all smiles and delight.

  Zeb was finding it difficult to like the Reverend very much. Or was he having more trouble not liking the man? If only they weren’t interested in the same comely young woman. If only John Solberg weren’t so secure in his faith. Zeb had tried to forget his.

  Through the months, Deborah’s health improved until, as far as Ingeborg could tell, the little girl was back to normal. Andrew still missed seeing Ellie every day, but he took his responsibility of caring for Deborah very seriously. Ilse, however, only cheered up when she was playing with or caring for the twins. When Kaaren suggested that maybe the orphan girl would be happier living with them, Bridget agreed. One Saturday, Ilse moved her meager belongings to the other house and into a room of her own.

  When Lars and Kaaren had moved into their new house, Zeb and Hamre had moved from the barn and taken over the other soddy, so now they had the women’s soddy and the men’s, besides the two frame homes where everyone ate, studied, did the winter handiwork, and enjoyed one another’s company. Ingeborg looked around and smiled in contentment. This was life as she’d dreamed it . . . almost.

  As the stack of lumber grew, they began making plans to help Penny and Hjelmer add another room onto the store, as Penny had suggested. And to build an icehouse. Building an icehouse out by the river was under discussion too. They needed to dig it out before the ground froze solid and finish it in time to cut ice before the spring melt.

  “Who do you think will pay for ice in the summertime?” Ingeborg asked when all the adults, including Penny and Hjelmer, were gathered around the table after Sunday dinner.

  “In the cities they do so all the time. Men go around with wagons, selling ice to all the housewives. They come by two or three times a week.” Olaf tipped his chair back so it teetered on two legs.

  “Where do they keep it? The ladies, I mean.” Kaaren rocked Trygve, trying to get him to sleep. Another tooth about to break through made him unusually cranky.

  “You can buy iceboxes from the Montgomery Ward Catalog.”

  “Really?” Kaaren patted the little one’s back, whispering sweet words in his ear at the same time. “How do you get a catalog?”

  “You write and ask for one.” Penny swooped down and grabbed Astrid about the middle, bussing her cheeks and bringing forth the contagious chortle that made everyone smile. “I might have one in the cupboard where I keep the books I order from.”

  Ingeborg poured a round for everyone. She leaned over Goodie’s shoulder and whispered in her ear, “You feelin’ all right? You look a mite peaked.”

  Goodie shook her head. “I’m fine. We need to be thinking about adding on to the house too. For us it’s a baby, but Olaf needs more space for his workshop.”

  Her whisper brought smiles to both Kaaren and Ingeborg.

  “Where’s Katy?” Bridget asked, returning from a trip to the outhouse. “I looked in the soddy and she isn’t there either.”

  Ingeborg shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe she is out in the barn with the bigger kids. They’re talking about making an ice-skating circle out beyond the barn, you know, where that dip is in the pasture. I said if they wanted to haul water enough to do that, they were welcome to it.”

  “I haven’t been ice-skating for so long,” Kaaren said with a sigh. “Or skiing either.”

  “They could wait and skate on the river,” Lars offered. “It’ll be frozen clear across soon.”

  “But the river ice gets so rough. Besides, you never know where there might be a weak spot.”

  “Can’t be too weak, the way they’ll be skidding logs over.”

  Ingeborg and Kaaren exchanged glances as soon as Bridget went into the parlor to pick up her knitting. “I bet Katy’s with Zeb,” Kaaren whispered.

  “I bet they’re both out helping to make the skating pond.”

  “I bet they could use some more help too.” Haakan waved to Lars and Olaf. “Hjelmer, get your hunkers off that chair and let’s see how much water we can haul. Ingeborg, you better get the cocoa hot and maybe think of making taffy for pulling later.”

  The men bundled into their coats, hats, and gloves and went out the door laughing, reminding one another of skating exploits when they were young.

  It was cold enough that the water froze about as fast as they poured the buckets. That night after chores were done and supper over, they built a bonfire beside the sheet of ice and took turns with the four pairs of skates they had. Those without skates skidded on their boots, and others, like Andrew, ran and sat to slide.

  “I can see I need to go into the skate business,” Hjelmer said when he had to pass the skates on to someone else. “Hey, Zeb! You make the straps, and I’ll fashion and sharpen the blades. How about that?”

  “Sure enough. I just can’t get the hang of this, though.”

  “Didn’t you skate when you were a kid?”

  Zeb shook his head. “Nothing froze this much back home.” Just then Thorliff called him and off he went.

  “Well, we know a little bit more,” Lars said in an undertone to Haakan.

  “We already knew he came from the south somewhere by the way he talks.”

  “I know, but this confirms that.” Lars turned to warm his backside at the fire. “That Katy might like Reverend Solberg as a friend and teacher, but she’s got eyes only for our southern mystery man.” He rubbed his mittened hands together. “You might want to have a talk with him.”

  “Me! Why me?” Haakan lowered his voice. “Let Bridget have a talk with him.”

  “She would, but what good would it do? She can’t understand him, and he can’t understand her.”

  “So what’s so different? Ain’t that almost always the case when men and women try to have a real talking?”

  Lars cuffed him on the shoulder. “Now, what kind of an attitude is that? Kaaren and I talk just fine. I talk, she listens.”

  Haakan snorted and shook his head.

  At the next quilting meeting, Ingeborg gave her report on their meeting
with Mr. Brockhurst, owner of the bank in Grand Forks. While she tried to be fair and businesslike, she still got her back up, telling about the man’s perfunctory refusal. They discussed the addition going up on the store and how this would be a good business thing for them all. But who would run the bank? The question was repeated over and over. Everyone was too busy as it was.

  “I can put out the mail once a day,” Penny said, “but with the new tables, sometimes I don’t have time to see to the store. Cousin Ephraim does most of that for me. And now with Hjelmer building the new room . . . uff da, things are so busy.” But the smile in her eyes told everyone she wasn’t really complaining.

  “In my mind, ’tis Hjelmer what should run the bank. He knows more about making money than all the rest of us put together.” Dyrfinna Odell spoke with utter conviction.

  “He’s not doing so good with his blacksmithing.” Brynja surprised them all again with her comments made so freely and emphatically.

  “Ja, but Anner, that’s kind of his fault. He got so bitter about Hjelmer making money on the railroad land. I thought it rather brilliant myself.” Agnes kept on stitching as she talked. “If he hadn’t talked so bad about Hjelmer, then everyone would be trading at the store and getting machinery fixed at the smithy. I know Hjelmer has saved Joseph a lot of time and money.”

  After their dinner of soup and bread, Ingeborg sat down by Agnes again. “I had hoped Hildegunn would be here today, but since she isn’t, you and me are going to call on them tomorrow. I got a bad feeling something is terribly wrong.”

  “Me too.” Agnes nodded. “Me too.”

  You ain’t comin’ in and that’s that!”

  Agnes and Ingeborg looked at each other and shook their heads. Had Anner gone out of his mind? When a string of expletives followed his terse order, they backed away from the door.

  Ingeborg gathered all her courage and called out, “We just came to see Hildegunn. Brought her some quilt pieces and such.”