The Endearment

by LaVyrle Spencer

  They cradled and raked the wheat field first, Karl, James and Anna. It was a backbreaking chore even though they had only a few acres in wheat. Karl handled the cradle, crossing and recrossing the plot with its giant, curved fingers sweeping out before him while his shoulders swayed rhythmically in the sun. The rake's fingers were fashioned of weighty steel. Its handle was shaped from sturdy green ash and was abominably heavy, too.

  Again, Anna marveled at the stamina of her husband. The massive cradle seemingly became an extension of the man. Like a switch that turned his power on, once it touched his hands he could wield it uncomplainingly in that unbreaking rhythm for endless hours.

  The bundling of the grain was done by gathering it in clusters and using loose hanks of it as a self-tie. Self-tie? thought Anna tiredly—if only it would. This required much bending and stooping, though not as much muscle as cradling or raking.

  If cradling and bundling were backbreaking, flailing was soulbreaking. Flogging the grains on smooth, cloth-covered earth in the clearing, Anna vowed that henceforth she would eat bread only once every other day to save on flour, if it took all this to produce it! Never had she experienced such aching shoulders as the day after flailing.

  But at last the gunny sacks were filled, ready for loading, and Karl announced that all they had left was to gather wild cranberries, then he could make the trip to town.

  The cranberry bog was deep in the woods where no trails had yet been cut. Karl fashioned a travois, which a single horse could pull easily through the woods with the baskets of berries loaded on it. Karl and his two helpers picked cranberries by hand and had many inquisitive visitors during the days they spent at the chore. The bogs, it seemed, were the favorite feeding grounds of many wild creatures who were perhaps put out at having their dinner table usurped by the marauding humans. Karl kept his gun close at his side while they garnered the berries, ever on the lookout for the black bears that considered this territory their own.

  The group was busily picking the cranberries one day when James asked, “Why don't we move into the cabin, Karl?”

  “Because it is not yet finished.”

  “It is, too! All but the windows and door.”

  “We cannot live in a house without a door, and I have been too busy to make one yet. And without windows it is too dark inside. We would use too many tallow dips.”

  “The windows in the sod house are so thick not much light comes through them. Besides, we use tallow dips there, too.”

  “It is customary to make the door last,” Karl said adamantly, “and I cannot make the door last if I must yet make windows.”

  “Well, I'd move into the cabin all by myself even without windows and a door. I can't wait!”

  Karl threw a look at Anna, but she was picking cranberries as if she didn't hear anything. “When the door closes on us for the first time, it will be on a finished house. I have promised Anna a dresser for her kitchen, which I have not yet made.”

  Anna glanced up sharply.

  “Well, I wish you'd hurry so we can move in,” James went on. “I wish I could sleep in there tonight.”

  “Without a door the wild animals could come right in and sleep with you.”

  “Not in the loft! They couldn't get up there!” James was suddenly excited by the idea, thinking he was only a few hours away from using his loft for the first time. But Karl remained firmly opposed to the idea.

  “You will wait until we have a proper door fashioned, and windows and furniture. Then we will all move into the log house together.” Karl's face now felt as red as the cranberries. Actually, he wanted James to stay in the sod house in his place on the floor for other reasons, too. Whether or not he admitted them to himself, he had spoken more harshly to the boy than he'd intended. The boy looked aside while Anna, too, turned her attention back to the berries.

  “It won't be long now,” Karl said in a more kindly tone. “We have only to finish the cranberries and Olaf and I can make the trip to town.”

  “Can I go with you?” James asked.

  Anna longed to ask the same thing.

  “No, you will stay here with your sister. Olaf and I will have a wagonful by the time we buy windows and bring back our winter flour. There are things you and Anna can do here that will be more useful than riding to town.”

  Anna was so disappointed she had to turn her back on Karl to hide the glint in her eyes. Karl had treated her kindly since their talk, but now she felt he was eager to get away from her for a couple of days. She turned to peek at Karl again, but froze. Across the clearing, at the edge of the willow bushes stood a massive black bear. He was standing on his hind legs, sniffing the air as if it had flavor.

  “Karl,” Anna whispered.

  He looked up to find her startled eyes riveted on something behind him. Instinctively, Karl knew what he'd find. But he had worked his way several feet from his gun, and there was a basket of berries between him and it.

  James, unaware, was picking away. “How long will it take you to get your flour milled?”

  “Pass me the rifle, boy,” Karl said, his voice silken, unequivocal.

  James looked up, then glanced to where the other two were already staring. The blood dropped from his face.

  “Pass me the rifle, boy. Now!” Karl snapped in strained, hushed tones.

  But James stood stricken by the sight before him. The bear caught sight of them and dropped down on all fours and lumbered off into the pressing thicket of willows with a grumble that raised shivers up Anna's arms.

  “Boy, when I tell you to pass me the rifle, I don't mean next Tuesday!” Karl snapped in a tone such as neither James nor Anna had ever heard from him before.

  “I . . . I'm sorry, Karl.”

  “There might come a day when sorry will not be good enough!” Karl went on in the same dissecting voice that somehow made his Swedish accent far more pronounced than usual.

  James stood defenseless before the big man, frozen, a palmful of cranberries forgotten in his hand.

  “Do you know how fast a bear can run?” The question was rifled at the boy unmercifully.

  “N . . . nossir.”

  “The first lesson I ever taught you was that when I give the order to get the rifle you do not tie your shoelaces first! Your life and your sister's life might depend on how quick you move! If that bear had decided he did not like us helping ourselves to his cranberry patch he would not have stopped to tie his shoelaces! Besides that, you have just watched our entire winter's supply of candles and meat run off into the brush!”

  “I . . . I'm sorry, Karl,” James quavered. The blood that had earlier fallen from his countenance now scorched it to a deep, burning red. In his stomach burned a molten trail of shame.

  But still Karl continued his attack. “I warned you the bears come to this spot, so if this happened you would be prepared!”

  James stared at Karl's knees, speechless before this barrage that had flared up so quickly out of nowhere. It was doubly effective in cutting the boy because from Karl, who was normally so patient, so understanding, it was totally unprecedented. Defenseless, James turned to pick up his heels and run.

  “Come back here, boy!” Karl shouted. “Where do you think you will go? To find that bear again?”

  James stopped, brought up sharp by Karl's command, yet unwilling to turn around and be chastised in this unfair manner before his sister. Karl's unnecessary wrath brought tears to his eyes.

  “He said he was sorry!” Anna snapped.

  “Sorry is not enough, I said!”

  Suddenly, the dam broke in Anna and she was answering Karl with venomous indignation of her own. “No, it never is for you, is it, Karl? What is enough? Do you want him to take the gun and go after the bear singlehanded? Would that be enough for you, Karl?”

  His face was redder than Anna had ever seen it. “I expect him to do no such thing. I expect him to act like a man when it is necessary, not to freeze into his boots on the spot!”

  “Wel
l, he's not a man,” Anna shouted, defying her husband with hands on her hips. “He's a boy of thirteen and he's never seen a bear in his life. How did you expect him to act?”

  “Do not tell me how to teach the boy, Anna! This is a job for a man!”

  “Oh, sure, this is a job for a man all right. If you had your way you'd stand there and yell at him about your stupid bear until he was in tears, but I won't let you! He's my brother and if I don't defend him nobody will. He won't talk back to you and you know it!”

  “I said keep out of this, Anna.”

  “Like hell I will!” she spit, glaring at Karl, defying him. “He's trailed after you all summer, doing everything you ever asked him to do, and now when he does the first little thing wrong, you jump on him as if he was an ignorant fool. How do you think he feels? How could he possibly know how fast a bear could run? How could he possibly be thinking about your precious tallow candles when all he sees is a black monster standing on his hind legs, for the first time in his life?”

  “It would have been the last time in his life, if that bear had decided to run in our direction instead of into the woods. You do not seem to realize that, Anna!”

  “And you don't seem to realize that you're treating him like he committed the biggest crime of the century when he only reacted like any thirteen-year-old boy would.”

  “He has cost us enough meat to feed us and the Johansons for the entire winter!”

  “Ah, the Johansons! Naturally, you'd have to bring them into this!”

  “It is true! That meat was enough for them, too.”

  “And I just bet you'd love to haul a bear carcass over there and present it to Kerstin with some little pink ribbons tied on its head!”

  “What is that supposed to mean, Anna? Just what are you saying?” His fists were clenched and he glowered menacingly.

  “It means exactly what you think it means! That you're more concerned with running over to fawn over Kerstin than you are about staying here with us. Of course, who could blame you when Kerstin does all that lovely cooking, and has those lovely yellow Swedish braids?”

  Karl raised his nose to the sky and let out a solid snort. “At least when I am at the Johansons I do not have a senseless woman chewing on me when I take a boy in hand for what he deserves!”

  “He doesn't deserve it and you know it, Karl Lindstrom!”

  “How would you know? Just how would you know? He came to me as green as these cranberry leaves and I have taught him well all summer. So far he has not done too bad listening to me!”

  “So far! But not now. He doesn't have to listen to you now! Why should he when you're being an unreasonable, stubborn, bullheaded fool!”

  Karl threw his hands up in the air. Both had forgotten that James stood by listening to them, watching them face each other like fighting cocks with their necks arched. “Ya, you can call me a fool and know what you are talking about. You are good at finding a fool, aren't you, Anna? An eager, blushing fool!”

  Her mouth was pinched and her eyes slitted as she spit, “You can go straight to hell, Karl Lindstrom!”

  “Is that the way they teach you to talk in that place you come from? Some lady I married, with a mouth like a sailor. Well, let me tell you something, Anna. I have been in hell. I have been in hell for weeks now! You think Boston was hell for you—”

  “You leave Boston out of this! It's got nothing to do with it!”

  “It has everything to do with it!”

  “You just can't forget it, can you? I can work until I get dizzy around here. I can cook over your . . . your stupid smoky fireplace and flail your damn wheat till I can't straighten my shoulders, and scrub clothes with your rotten lye soap and pick blueberries till I'd like to die, and it doesn't matter one bit to you! I'm still the same fallen Anna, isn't that right? No matter what I do you want to punish me because you can't admit to yourself that maybe . . . just maybe . . . I was justified. Maybe, just maybe you are wrong to hold it against me all this time. But you can't back down and admit maybe the holier-than-thou, self-righteous Karl Lindstrom should lower himself! Well, let me tell you something! You're just a big, stubborn, stupid Swede, and I don't know for one minute why I slave my britches off to try to please you!”

  “What kind of wife thinks she pleases her man in britches. Ya, you have britches all—”

  “You leave my britches out of this!” she hissed. “You know why I wear these britches. I'll wear them until they fall off my bones before I'll put one of those dresses on! I remember a time when you didn't exactly cry over the way I looked in britches!”

  “That was a long time ago, Anna,” he said more quietly.

  “Ya-a-a, you-u-u bet it vas!” she retorted, using the exaggerated Swedish accent now as a hurting weapon. “It vuz before the beau-u-u-tifful Kerstin mu-u-uves in next door vitt her blu-u-u-berry cobbler and her big bu-u-u-som.” Anna put a hand on her hip and swayed it provocatively while she drew out the vowel sounds, taunting Karl until his rage became fury.

  “Anna, you go too far!” he shouted.

  “Me?” she shouted back. “I go too far?” Then she kicked viciously at a basket of cranberries, upsetting it so the berries rolled around Karl's feet. “I can't go far enough to get away from you! But you just watch me try, Karl! You just watch me try!”

  She swung around and strode across the lumpy earth and grabbed James by the arm. “Come on, James, we don't have to stay here and take any more of this!”

  Karl stood in his mound of cranberries, shouting at their backs. “Anna, you come back here!”

  But Anna only pulled James along, forcing him to walk faster.

  “Anna, that bear is out there! Get back here!”

  “No bear would want to touch a paw to me any more than you would!” she threw back over her shoulders.

  “Anna . . . get—Dammit! Get back here!” swore Karl, who had never sworn at a woman in his life. But she only swooped away, riding on her wave of anger.

  He tore his hat from his head and threw it on the ground, but knew nothing would make Anna turn around now. He bent to scoop the spilled berries back into the basket, glancing up at the diminishing figures disappearing across the bog. If he left the cranberries the bear would surely return and eat up Karl's most valuable cash crop, and all his richest earnings along with it. Karl could hardly leave the horse either, with the travois attached behind and loaded with the day's pick. The best he could do was hastily take what he could slap into the basket, load it as fast as possible and follow the willful wife who was striding away with her britched backside defying him with every step.

  Anger and concern turned Karl's face a mottled red. The woman had no idea of the danger she'd just put herself and the boy into by running off through the woods with that bear around! Karl finally got the baskets somewhat secured and led poor Belle off across the bog at such a pace that the horse resisted on the precarious footing and got herself unjustly yelled at for the first time in her life.

  By the time he reached the clearing James and Anna had been there for some time. Relieved to find them safe when he arrived, everything exploded inside Karl's head as he strode into the sod house like a war lord.

  “Woman, don't you ever do a thing like that again!” he shouted, pointing a finger at Anna.

  “I'm not deaf!” she spit back at him.

  “You are not deaf, but you are certainly dumb! Do you know what that bear could have done to you? You put not only yourself in danger but the boy, too. It was a stupid, senseless thing you did, Anna!”

  “Well, what do you expect from a stupid, senseless woman?”

  “That bear could have torn you to ribbons!” he exploded.

  Hands on hips, defiance in eyes, sneer on lips, Anna flung words at him she didn't mean. “And would you have cared, Karl?”

  His face looked like he'd been slapped with a dirty rag for offering to wipe dishes. Anna knew immediately she had gone too far, but there was too much anger and pride and pain built up inside of he
r to pull back the words. Karl's blue eyes opened in surprise, then the lids lowered in hurt. The golden cheeks became mottled beneath his expression of disbelief.

  They stared at each other across the rough-hewn table and it seemed like a lifetime passed in those few strained moments. Certainly, an entire marriage did. Anna saw the forced relaxing of muscles as one by one they eased from the tight hold Karl had upon himself. And by the time he turned to grab a canvas bag and stuff it with some food, too much time had passed for Anna to apologize gracefully. She watched as Karl silently went to the trunk, raised its lid and found a couple pieces of clean clothing and jammed them into the sack as well. He brushed around Anna to reach the spot above the fireplace where he kept his extra shot. He grabbed a handful of lead balls, thrust them into a leather pouch that lay on the mantel. Then he shouldered his way around Anna, picked up his gun, which he'd braced beside the door as he entered, and resolutely left the house.

  Anna watched his back as he strode angrily across the clearing. Then, halfway across, he stopped, did an abrupt about-face and marched back into the hut, slammed the gun onto its hooks above the fireplace, slapped the bag of balls onto the mantel again and once more strode outside.

  She continued watching him from the deep shadows of the dwelling. He disappeared into the barn, then came out with Bill and Belle, hitched the team to the wagon, loaded up all the sacks of grain, the hops, then all the baskets of cranberries—and left the yard without so much as a backward glance.

  It was nearly evening. There was no question in Anna's mind where Karl would spend the night before starting out for town. That realization finally made Anna collapse onto the cornhusks and sob her heart out.

  Poor James stood with his hands dangling at his sides until finally he couldn't stand listening to her and watching her any more. Helplessly, he went out to climb the ladder to his loft. There he, too, cried at last.

  Chapter Seventeen