A Dream to Follow (20 page)

Ingeborg nodded. “Easy time she had. How would you like to run over to Tante Kaaren’s and ask Ilse if she is free to go help the new mother for a day or two?”

“I could go help, Mor.” Astrid slid the final loaf into the pan and dusted off her hands.

“I know you could. You are so capable in the kitchen already.” Ingeborg put an arm around her daughter’s slim shoulders. “But it is good practice for Ilse. She might soon be having a house of her own.”

“Not without someone courting her, she won’t.” Astrid washed the bread dough and flour off her hands in the basin kept on the back of the stove.

Ingeborg cocked her head. “You are wise beyond your years, Astrid.

Sometimes you amaze me.”

Hauling water from the river to the garden took up a good part of the day for Andrew and Astrid, even with the twins and Trygve assisting. Andrew backed the sledge pulled by the oxen right down to the water, so all of them kept cool from the water splashed as they passed the filled buckets from hand to hand and Andrew dumped them in the barrels. With the barrels full, the oxen pulled the sledge back to the gardens, and the children, barefoot and soaked, raced back to start the reverse. They poured water carefully at the base of each plant, making their way down the rows of growing beans, corn, carrots, and potatoes.

“There must be an easier way.” Andrew wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He handed a small full bucket to Trygve. “Now you be more careful. Water is too precious to waste.”

“Why not pour it in the rows like a river?” Trygve demonstrated what he meant. The black soil sucked up the water, never letting it flow to the next plant.

“Takes too much water. The earth is too dry.”

“But it runs off the plants when we pour.”

“Maybe we should build dams around them.” Andrew fetched a hoe and heaped dirt so the water couldn’t run off. “There now. That will help.”

Astrid, her sunbonnet hanging by its strings down her back, came back to see what the boys were doing. “That’s good.”

Andrew handed Grace, the deaf twin, the hoe and signed his instructions. All the children and many of the adults had learned sign language at school. He showed her how to mound the dirt, and she flashed him a grin that said she understood. The three barrels never went far enough, but they kept the plants growing, even though not at the speed a good rainstorm would have provided.

Day after day, week after week, the sun had been shining, with hardly a cloud to dim the heat. When thunderheads did build up in the west, they all prayed for rain, but the clouds passed over, the heat lightning flickering in the distance like a broken promise.

“If only there were some way to water the fields like you children are doing the gardens.” Haakan and Lars watched as the twins emptied the last of their buckets.

Andrew emptied the last of the barrel water into a bucket for Astrid. “We could try.”

“If we could save the pasture, that would help. When you’ve finished giving the gardens a soaking, go out in the pasture and throw out buckets of water.”

“You think once would help?” Lars rubbed his chin with thumb and forefinger.

“I wonder if we could build a sluice, you know, like those they built in Montana to bring the logs down from the mountains?”

“But how . . .” Lars shook his head. “We don’t have a hill to run the water down.”

“Don’t need much of a drop.”

“I know, but the river is already so low you’d have to go up the banks and then over to the fields. Hard to believe it’s not even July yet.”

Haakan sighed. “Guess you’re right, but there should be a way. Seems to me I heard about some newfangled machine that pumps water.”

“Better’n our windmills?”

“Ja. If only we dared pump more from the well . . .”

“If the wells go dry, we’ll be hauling water for the stock too.” Shaking his head, Lars turned his head and spat. “Bad times.”

“But we are so much better off than others.” Haakan stared out at the crops that should have been knee high already. “We made it through the other years. We can survive this one too.”

“Ja.” Lars hawked and spit again. “We best start the haying tomorrow.”

“Let’s sharpen the scythe bars then. I’ll get Thorliff too.”

“I can help.” Andrew spoke from beside his father.

Haakan tousled his son’s hair, knocking his hat to the ground. “You keep the water flowing, son. At least until we get the fields turned and raked. Then we’ll all haul hay.”

The short hay dried nearly as fast as the mowers laid it over. What should have taken weeks was finished in a matter of days. While the barns were full, there were only two outside stacks.

“We’re going to have to sell some of the cows,” Haakan announced one night at supper. “We won’t have enough to feed so many through the winter.”

Ingeborg sighed. “I know, but the cheese house is what kept us going before. It can do so again.”

“Ja, so true.” Smoke from his pipe circled his head.

Thorliff sat at the kitchen table writing another story. The look he gave his mother made her force a smile to lips that wanted to quiver. “God will sustain us. He always has and He always will. Before we do anything, we will pray and seek His will.” She waited until each of her men looked her in the face and nodded.
Father God, I speak so surely, and yet my heart is screaming out fear. I don’t want to sell any cows
.

Haakan stood and stretched his arms above his head. “Bedtime.” “I want to finish this.” Thorliff motioned to his paper.

“Blow the lamp out when you’re done.” Haakan tamped his pipe out into the open stove, took out his knife, and scraped out the bowl. He yawned as he settled his pipe on the rack he’d carved. “Morning comes soon.”

“I’ll be done in a bit.”

Ingeborg set the dried beans to soaking. She would bake them in the morning. When Haakan and Andrew had left the room, she crossed to stand behind Thorliff, laying a hand on his shoulder. “No matter what happens with the drought, you are not to consider staying home from college. Do you hear me? I can see it in your face when you hear discussions like this.”

“But, Mor . . .”

She gripped his shoulder harder. “No. You
will
go to school. I believe with everything in me that God is calling you to St. Olaf, and you must not doubt.” She stepped to his side and turned his chin up so he had to look at her. “Promise me.”

Thorliff struggled against the clasp on his chin, then wilted like a plant gone without water. “I . . . I cannot promise. It all depends.”

“Ah, Thorliff. God asks for faith the size of a mustard seed. It all depends, all right. Your school, my cheese house, our farm, our family— we all depend on Him. Isn’t that what we believe?”

“Ja.” He stopped the “but” before he said it, but it rang like a church bell in the silence of the kitchen.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

July 1893

“Guess who came home.”

Thorliff shrugged. “How should I know?” He studied the look on Manda’s face. Manda rarely showed much emotion unless someone had made her mad, which happened more often than not. “Baptiste?”

“He wasn’t gone anywhere.” Disgust was another of her visibl emotions, and right now it dug under his skin.

“Why can’t you just tell me?” He felt like someone had clappe him upside his head. “Your pa?”

“Well, Zeb.” He was her pa, but by adoption. Her real father had disappeared back in South Dakota on a trip to the store for supplies years earlier. Some said he had run off, but Manda pounded whoever said that right into the dirt. No matter what had happened, no one had ever seen a trace of him. Zebulun had found Manda and her sister starving in a dugout near the swollen Missouri River and convinced them he would help them if they came with him. Eventually they had all ended up in Blessing.

“When did he get here?”

“Last night.”

Thorliff waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he sucked in a deep breath. Getting information from her was about as hard as dragging it out of Baptiste. Neither one ever wore out their tongues from talking.

“So how many horses did he bring?” He knew that was the subject she’d most likely be excited about. Manda was already gaining a reputation as a good horse trainer.

“Ten.” Her eyes sparkled. “Says he has more in Montana.”

“You going to train them for pulling or for riding?”

“Some of each. He’s got a real purty filly. She’s smart too.”

“How do you know that already?”

“Worked with her since sunup. Already got her bridled and saddled. She stands good as can be.”

Thorliff could tell she’d like to keep the filly, but knowing Manda, she wouldn’t ask for such a gift. Just getting to train the horse would give her hours of pleasure.

“He’s going back, then.”

“Yep. And he don’t know it yet, but I’m goin’ with him.”

“But what about Ba—” He stopped himself before finishing.

“That’s what I come to ask you about.” She scuffed her boot toe in the dust before looking back at him, the skin tight around her eyes. She cleared her throat. “You think Baptiste will come along?”

Thorliff knew what it cost her to ask. He squinted his eyes to think better. The silence stretched as he considered all the possible answers.

“I don’t know. Guess all you can do is ask him.” The look she gave him said what she thought of his answer.

“Sorry.” Thorliff had known for a long time that Manda and Baptiste were sweet on each other, no matter how hard they had tried to keep it a secret.

While it made no nevermind to him, he knew others in the community would have six kinds of conniption fits. It didn’t matter that Baptiste and his grandmother had helped out nearly everyone in and around Blessing. Some still thought of them as Indian and didn’t hold much truck with Indians. Especially not Indians and whites sweet on each other.

Thorliff hated the thought of anyone hurting his friends. It didn’t make sense. When he and Anji were together, people smiled at them, benevolence evident in everything said or not said. Some teased them, sure, like Astrid. He thought sometimes of stuffing a rag in her mouth. If only he wouldn’t blush so fast. Burning ears stood out like flaming torches. But even so, no one meant any harm.

Not so for Manda and Baptiste.

“I wish it were different.”

Manda sighed. “Me too.” Her lower jaw tightened. “But it ain’t, and wishin’ don’t make it so.” She turned and slid her foot into the stirrup, swinging aboard smoothly as any man. She’d given up skirts the day Zeb left for wherever he was headed, taking Ingeborg’s stories of the early homesteading days for her model. That was back when Ingeborg had scandalized some settlers by wearing britches while out working in the fields or hunting. Her shooting ability embarrassed some of the men because she was so good.

Manda touched the brim of her felt hat with one finger. “Don’t go frettin’, Thorliff. This’ll all come right in the end.”

Or you’ll make it so,
Thorliff thought but didn’t bother saying aloud. “God willing.”

“Yeah, there’s that too.” She nudged her horse with her heels and loped back down the lane.

Thorliff watched her go, listening to the argument going on in his head that he should have had something wiser to say to her.
How come I can come up with a million questions but never any answers?
He climbed up on the metal seat of the cultivator and
hupped
the team back to the corn rows. Slow as the crop was growing, this was still the last pass through with the horses. If only they would get a day or two of slow drenching rain.

Since the team would follow the rows almost without him, Thorliff let his mind wander from story to story and back to Manda, then from Manda to his own concerns about leaving home for school. Often enough he’d heard Pastor Solberg say that worrying was a sin, that it showed lack of trust in their heavenly Father and caused all manner of problems. How come it was so easy to believe something and so hard to put it to work?