Years

by LaVyrle Spencer

  She curled into a ball and wept miserably.

  Oh, Mother and Daddy, I miss you so much. I wish I was back home with all of you, where suppertime was filled with gaiety and talk and loving smiles. I wish I could pick up the dishtowel and complain loudly about having to help Carrie and Pudge before I was excused from the kitchen. I wish all three of us girls were back together, crowded into our pretty little flowered bedroom with the two of you siding against me when I wanted to leave the lights on just a little longer.

  What am I doing out here in the middle of this godforsaken prairie, with this strange family, so filled with anger and reticence and a total disdain for manners?

  I wish I had listened to you, Daddy, when you said I should stay closer to home my first year, until I knew how I liked independence. If I were there, I’d be sharing all this with you and Mother right now, instead of burying the hurts inside and sobbing out my sorrow in this sad little attic bedroom.

  But she loved her family too much to tell them the truth and give them the burden of worrying about her when there was nothing they could do to comfort her.

  And so, much later, when she discovered her tears had fallen upon the ink and left two blue puddles, she resolutely dried her eyes and started the letter again.

  3

  BY TRADITION, THE school year officially began on the first Monday of September. Linnea had arrived on the Friday preceding it. Saturday hadn’t quite dawned, when some faraway sound awakened her and she groggily checked her surroundings in the muted lavender light of the loft.

  For a moment she was disoriented. Overhead were the unfinished beams of a roof. She groaned and rolled over. Oh yes ... her new home in Alamo. She had slept poorly in the strange bed. She was tempted to drop off for a few more precious winks, but just then she heard activity below, and remembered the events of yesterday.

  Well, Miss Brandonberg, drag your bones out of here and show ‘em what you’re made of.

  The water in the basin was cold, and she wondered if she’d run into Theodore or Kristian if she sneaked down to warm it. Maybe nobody’d lit a fire yet: a glance at the window told her it was very early. She eyed the stovepipe, scurried out of bed, and touched it. Ah, someone had been up a while. She drew on her blue flannel wrapper, buttoned it to the throat, tied it at the waist, and took her speckled washbasin downstairs.

  She tried to be very quiet, but the stairs creaked.

  Nissa’s head popped around the doorway. Her hair was already in its tight little bun, and she wore a starched white ankle-length apron over a no-nonsense dress of faded gray and red flowered muslin.

  “You up already?”

  “I... I don’t want to keep anybody waiting this time.”

  “Breakfast won’t be for a good hour yet. The boys got ten cows to milk.”

  “Are they... ” She glanced above Nissa’s head and pressed the basin tighter against her hip. “Outside already?”

  “Coast is clear. Come on down.” Nissa dropped her eyes to the bare toes curled over the edge of the step. “Ain’t you got no slippers for them bare feet?”

  Linnea straightened her toes and looked down. “I’m afraid not.” She didn’t want to mention that at home she’d only had to slip down the hall to reach the lavatory.

  “Well, appears I better get out my knitting needles first chance I get. Come on down ‘fore you fall off your perch. Water’s hot in the reservoir.”

  In spite of Nissa’s brusque, autocratic ways, Linnea liked her. The kitchen, with her in it, became inviting. She whirled around in her usual fashion, reminding Linnea of the erratic flight of a goldfinch — darting this way and that with such abrupt turns that it seemed she wasn’t done with one task before heading for the next.

  She lifted a lid from the gargantuan cast-iron stove that dominated the room, tossed in a shovelful of coal from a hod sitting alongside, rammed the lid back in place, and spun toward the pantry all in a single motion. Watching her, Linnea almost became dizzy.

  In a moment Nissa breezed back, pointing to a water pail sitting on a long table against one wall. “There! Use the dipper! Take what you need! I draw the line when it comes to givin’ the teacher a bath!”

  Linnea laughed and thought if she had to put up with some nettlesome tempers around here, Nissa would more than make up for it. Upstairs again, all washed, with the bandage removed from her hand and her hair done in a perfect, flawless coil around the back of her head, Linnea felt optimistic once more.

  She owned five outfits: her traveling suit of charcoal-gray wool serge with its shirtwaist of garnet-colored silk, a brown skirt of Manchester cloth bound at the hem with velvet and a contrasting white-yoked shirtwaist, a forest-green skirt of twilled Oxford with three inverted plaits down the back and a Black Watch plaid shirtwaist to match, a navy-blue middy dress with white piping around the collar, and an ordinary gray broadcloth skirt and plain white shirtwaist with no frills except a pair of narrow ruffles dropping at an inward angle from each shoulder toward her waist.

  The suit was strictly for Sundays. The middy made her look childish. The Manchester cloth would be too warm yet, stiffened as it was with percaline. And she was saving the new green skirt for the first day of school because it had been a gift from her parents and was the most adult of all her outfits. So she chose the utilitarian gray skirt and plain white blouse. When she was dressed, she eyed herself critically.

  Her hair was perfect. Her skirt was dry. Her bandage gone. Her clothing sensible, sober, even matronly. What could he possibly find to fault her for?

  Suddenly she realized what she was thinking, and her chin took on a stubborn thrust. Why should I have to worry about pleasing an old grouch like Theodore? He’s my landlord, not my lord!

  She returned downstairs to find breakfast cooking, the table set, but the men still absent.

  “Well, look at you! Now don’t you look pretty!”

  “Do I?” Linnea smoothed the front of her white shirtwaist and looked at Nissa uncertainly. “Do I look old enough?”

  Nissa hid a smile and gave the girl a thorough inspection over the tops of her wire-rimmed spectacles. “Oh, you look old, all right. Why, I’d say you look at least... oh... nineteen, anyway.”

  “Do I really!”

  Nissa had all she could do to keep from chuckling at the girl’s pleased expression, then Linnea’s tone lowered confidentially. “I’ll tell you something, Nissa. Ever since I saw Kristian I’ve been awfully worried about looking younger than some of my students.”

  “Aw, go on,” Nissa growled, pulling her chin low. “You might even look twenty in that crisp little skirt. Turn around here. Let me get a gander at the back.” Linnea turned a slow circle while Nissa rubbed her chin studiously. “Yup! Twenty for sure!” she lied.

  Again Linnea beamed, but the smile was followed by another sober expression as her hands pressed her waistband and she looked as if she were about to admit to a horrible crime. “I sometimes have... well, a little trouble, you might say. Acting grown up, I mean. My father used to scold me for being daydreamy and forgetting what I was about. But since I’ve been to Normal School I’ve been trying really hard to look mature and remember that I’m a lady. I thought the skirt helped.”

  Nissa’s heart warmed toward the youngster. There she stood, all dressed in grown-up clothes, trying to act like she was ready to face the world, when she was scared out of her britches.

  “I reckon you’re going to miss your family. We’re a strange bunch here, lots of new things to get used to.”

  “Why, no! I mean... well, yes, I’m sure I’ll miss them, but—”

  “You just remember,” Nissa interrupted. “Ain’t nothing stubborner nor bullheadeder than a bunch of hardheaded Norwegians. And that’s about all there is around here. But you’re the schoolteacher! You got a certificate says you’re smarter than all the rest of ‘em, so when they start givin’ you sass, you just stand up square and spit in their eye. They’ll respect that!”

  Giving me sass?
Linnea silently quailed. Were they all going to be like Theodore?

  As if the thought materialized him, Theodore stepped through the door, followed by Kristian.

  Catching sight of her, Theodore paused a moment before moving to the pail and washbasin. Kristian stopped in his tracks and openly stared.

  “Good morning, Kristian.”

  “G... good morning, Miss Brandonberg.”

  “Goodness, you do get up early.”

  Kristian felt like he’d swallowed a cotton wad. Not a word came out while he stood rooted, admiring his teacher’s fresh young face and pretty brown hair, all slicked up spruce and neat above a skirt and blouse that made her waist look thin as a willow whip.

  “Breakfast is ready,” Nissa advised, moving around him. “Quit your dawdling.”

  At the basin Theodore soaped his hands and face, rinsed, and turned around with the towel in his hands to find his son standing like a fencepost, gawking at the little missy who looked about thirteen years old again this morning. She even stood like a girl, her prim little shoes planted side by side. Her hair wasn’t bad though, all hoisted up into a clever female puff that made her neck look long and graceful.

  Theodore put a tight clamp on the thought and said, “The basin’s yours, Kristian,” then turned his back on the teacher again.

  “Good morning, Theodore,” she said, somehow managing to make him feel like a fool for not having said it first. He turned back to her.

  “‘Morning. I see you’re ready in time.”

  “Most certainly. Punctuality is the politeness of kings,” she offered, and turned toward the table.

  Punk-what? he thought, feeling ignorant and rightfully put in his place as he watched her take her chair.

  “Didn’t John help you this morning?” she asked, forcing him to talk to her when he didn’t want to. He plunked himself down with a surly expression on his face, at the same chair he’d taken last night.

  “John’s got his own livestock to tend to. Kristian and me milk our cows, he milks his.”

  “I thought he ate all his meals here.”

  “He’ll be along in a minute.”

  Nissa brought a platter of fresh bacon, another of toast, and five bowls containing something that looked like hot school paste. While Theodore said the prayer — again in Norwegian — Linnea stared down into her bowl and wondered what it was. It had no smell, no color, and no attraction. But when the prayer ended, she watched the others to see what she was supposed to do with the glutinous mess. They slathered theirs with pure cream and sugar, then decorated it with butter, so she followed suit and cautiously took a taste.

  It was delicious! It tasted like vanilla pudding.

  John came in shortly after the meal had begun. Though they all exchanged good mornings, Linnea’s was the only one that included a pause in her eating and the addition of a smile. He blushed immediately and fumbled to his chair without risking another glance at her.

  Like last night, the meal was accompanied by serious smacking and no conversation. Testing her theory, Linnea said, loud and clear, “This is very good.”

  Everybody tensed and stopped with their spoons halfway to their mouths. Nobody muttered a word. When their jaws started working again, she asked the table at large, “What is it?”

  They all looked at her as if she were a dolt. Theodore chortled and took another mouthful.

  “What do you mean, what is it?” Nissa retorted. “It’s romograut.”

  Linnea tipped her head to one side and peered at Nissa. “It’s what?”

  This time Theodore answered. “Romograut.” He gestured toward her bowl with his spoon. “Don’t you know what romograut is?”

  “If I did, would I have asked?”

  “No Norwegian has to ask what romograut is.”

  “Well, I’m asking. And I’m only half Norwegian — my father’s half. Since my mother was the cook, we ate a lot of Swedish foods.”

  “Swedish!” three people denounced at once. If there was a Norwegian born who didn’t think himself one step better than any Swede on earth, he wasn’t in this room.

  “It’s flour cereal,” Linnea was informed.

  They were in a hurry to get on with the day’s work, so she was spared the burping session at the end of the meal. As soon as the bowls and platter were empty, Theodore pushed his chair back and announced peremptorily, “I’ll take you to school now. Get your bird wings if you need ‘em.”

  Her temper went up like a March kite. What was it about the man that gave him such pleasure in persecuting her? Happily, this time she had an answer she was more than elated to give.

  “You won’t have to bother. I’ve asked Kristian to take me.”

  Theodore’s eyebrows lifted speculatively and his glance shifted between the two. “Kristian, huh?”

  Kristian’s face lit up like a beacon and he shuffled his feet. “It won’t take long, and I’ll hurry back to the field soon as I get her there.”

  “You do that. It’ll save me the trouble.” And without another word, he left the house. Linnea’s glare followed him out the door, and when she turned, she found Nissa watching her shrewdly. But all Nissa said was, “You’ll need cleaning supplies and a ladder to reach them windows, and I packed you a lunch. I’ll get it.”

  Kristian drove her to school in the same wagon she’d ridden in before. They hadn’t gone twenty feet down the road before Linnea totally forgot about Theodore. It was a heavenly morning. The sun was up a finger’s width above the horizon, peering from behind a narrow strip of purple that dissected it like a bright ribbon, making it appear all the more orange as its golden rays radiated above and below. Its oblique angle lit the tops of the grain fields to a lustrous gold, making the wheat appear a solid mass, unmoving now in the windlessness of early day. The air was fragrant with the smell of it. And all was still — so still. The call of a meadowlark came lilting to them with clarion precision and the horses perked up their ears, but moved on as before, their rhythm never changing. In a field on the left several sunflowers lifted their golden heads.

  “Oh look!” She pointed. “Sunflowers. Aren’t they beautiful?”

  Kristian eyed her askance. For a schoolteacher, she didn’t know much about sunflowers. “My pa cusses ‘em.”

  She turned to him, startled. “Whatever for? Look at them, taller than all the rest, lifting their faces to the sun.”

  “They’re pests around here. Get ‘em in a wheat field, and you’ll never get rid of ‘em.”

  “Oh.”

  They rode on. After a minute she said, “I guess I have a lot to learn about farms and such. I may have to rely on you to teach me.”

  “Me!” He turned amazed brown eyes on her.

  “Well, would you mind?”

  “But you’re the teacher.”

  “In school. Out of school, I guess there’s a lot I can learn from you. What’s that?”

  “Russian thistle,” he answered, following the path of her finger to a patch of pale-greenish blossoms.

  “Ah.” She digested that a moment before adding, “Don’t tell me. Theodore cusses it too, right?”

  “It’s more of a pest than sunflowers,” he verified.

  Her eyes strayed behind, lingering on the blossoms as the wagon passed. “But there’s beauty to be found in many things, even when they’re pests. We just have to take a second look. Perhaps I’ll have the children paint pictures of Russian thistle before winter comes.”

  Me didn’t quite know what to make of a girl — a woman? — who thought Russian thistle was pretty. He’d heard it damned all his life. Oddly enough, he found himself craning to look back at it. When she caught him, she smiled brightly and he felt confused. “That there’s John’s place,” he offered as they passed it.

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “I got aunts and uncles and cousins scattered all over around here,” he volunteered, surprising himself because he’d always been tongue-tied around girls before. But he found he enjoyed tal
king to her. “About twenty of ‘em or so, not counting the greats.”

  “The greats?”

  “Great aunts and uncles. Got a few of them, too.”

  “Crimany!” she exclaimed. “Twenty?”

  His head snapped around in surprise and he smiled wide. He hadn’t imagined a schoolteacher saying crimany that way.

  Realizing what she’d said, she clapped a hand over her mouth. Realizing she’d clapped a hand over her mouth, she dropped it, looked at her lap, and nervously smoothed her skirt. “I guess I have to watch myself, don’t I? Sometimes I forget I’m the teacher now.”

  And for the moment, Kristian forgot, too. She was only a girl he wanted to help down from a wagon when they drew up in the schoolyard. But he’d never done it before and wasn’t certain how a man went about these things. Did he tell her to stay put while he hustled around to her side? What if she laughed? Some girls he knew would have laughed at him — girls laughed at the strangest things. The idea of taking Miss Brandonberg’s hand made him feel all flustered and queer in the stomach.

  In the end he deliberated too long and she leaped to the ground with a sprightly bounce, promising herself she’d do something about the manners of the Westgaard men if it was her only accomplishment here.

  From the back of the wagon Kristian grabbed the ladder and followed her across the school grounds while she carried a bucket and rags.

  At the door she spun to face him. “Oh, we forgot the key!”

  He looked at her in amazement. “The door ain’t locked. Nobody locks their doors around here.” He leaned over and placed the ladder next to the foundation.

  “They don’t?” She glanced back at the door. In the city, doors were locked.

  “Naw. It’s open. You can go right in.”

  As she reached for the doorknob her heart lifted expectantly. She had waited for this moment for years. She’d known since she was eight years old that she wanted to be a teacher. And not in a city school. In a school just like this one, a building all her own, where she and she alone had responsibility for the education of her charges.