A Dream to Follow (4 page)

Anji and Thorliff pushed up the three windows on each side of the long room. The floors had been swept and the blackboard washed the night before, so there was little to do since they didn’t need to light the stove or bring in wood. Laughter and shouts floated in as children of all ages arrived by foot or wagon or even on horseback, as did the two who lived way south of the small town of Blessing. Dinner buckets clattered on the shelf, and their owners pounded back outside to get in one game of Red Rover before the bell rang.

Pastor Solberg came to stand beside Thorliff as he stared out the open window. “I imagine your ma and pa are right proud of you.”

Thorliff nodded. “Tante Kaaren too.” He heard his teacher take in a deep breath and let it out.

“Was there any mention of college?”

“Ja, Mor said I should save the money to use for books at school in the fall.”

“And Haakan?”

“I don’t need college to farm. Then he left the room, but his face said it all. He believes I should stay home and work on the farm. As he’s said in the past, there’s no need for more schooling to be a good farmer.” Thorliff shook his head, his shoulders slumped. “He . . . he might be right, but I don’t care that I’m the oldest and the farm will be mine one day. Andrew wants the farm, not me.”

“I know. Andrew is a natural-born farmer, with his love of all things growing.”

“Do . . . do you think you could talk with Pa?” Thorliff studied his finger.

“Your pa is a fine man, and I believe he will come to agree with you in time. I can speak with him, but you know we’ve talked about this before. If God wills for you to go away to college, and I hope it will be St. Olaf, then He will change Haakan’s mind. Our job is to pray for that and for the money to be there for you to go.”

“If it is God’s will.” Thorliff clamped his teeth against the rush of frustration he could feel trying to swamp him. “How . . . how am I to know if this is God’s will? Why would He—I mean, if it isn’t His will, why do I love to write like this?”
Does God play games with us? Hold out a prize on the end of a stick and then jerk it away if we get too close?
But no matter how much he treasured his pastor as a friend, he didn’t dare voice the last questions.

“I have learned there are many paths to a goal, and when God bars one, He swings wide the gate on another. Remember, if God be for us, who can stand against us?”

“But my pa thinks God is on his side.”

Pastor Solberg nodded slowly. “That is true. Children are to obey their parents, but you are soon to be a man, and honor is given in many ways. You have plenty of time before fall. Now go ring the bell. We are late in starting class today.”

“But what about applying for school?” Thorliff crossed to the desk and picked up the brass handbell, holding the clanger silent with his other hand.

“One thing I have learned. After praying, you go down the path you see before you until a gate closes in front of you. God guides us when we are moving.”

“Yes, sir.” Thorliff strode outside and rang the bell as if the schoolchildren were a mile away instead of running to take their places in line in front of him.

CHAPTER THREE

“You think Tante Penny’s going to have a baby?”

“Andrew, you know better than to ask questions like that.” Thorliff glared at his brother lying in the wide bed beside him, his arms clasped behind his head. “That’s not proper.”

“Well, she’s gotten fat only in her middle, and Ma is knitting baby things again. I heard her and Bestemor talking about a baby, so what do you think?”

“I think you better go to sleep. Morning comes awful soon.” Thorliff reached over and blew down the lamp chimney, putting out the flame. The smell of smoke and burning kerosene curled into the air.

“I hope she does. She’s been wanting a baby for a long time.”

“How do you know?” Thorliff felt his brother’s shrug.

“I listen.” The rafters creaked as the house settled for the night. Their breathing sounded loud in the stillness until Paws barked from the back porch. Coyotes yipped and sang their wild free song somewhere down by the river. The peeper chorus rose and fell with the breeze.

“You going to marry up with Anji?”

Thorliff reared up on his elbows. “Andrew Bjorklund, would you hush up and go to sleep? Now!” Thorliff flopped back down. “Besides, like the other, that is none of your business.”

“Sure it is. You are my brother, so she would be my sister-in-law.” Andrew’s voice cracked on the last word, as it had a tendency to do lately. “I’m going to marry up with Ellie as soon as we get out of school. You want to help me build a house across the field?”

“I want you to go to sleep so that I can too. If you aren’t tired, go sit somewhere else.”

“I’m tired.” Andrew yawned wide enough that his cracking jaw could be heard. “See? But sometimes my mind won’t be quiet. Just keeps on asking questions.”

“Well, hold ’em until tomorrow.” Thorliff rolled to his side facing away from his brother in the hopes that would cut off the chatter. But now his mind took up the chase. What would happen? Would he go to St. Olaf? Would Far be mad at him? Would Anji wait for him? Did he want to marry her? Did she want to marry him? Round and round the questions teased, but with no answers. He heard Andrew slip into the even breathing of sleep.

Paws yipped again. Through the half-open window night sounds floated in, one of the gifts spring brought. He rolled over to his other side, left hand underneath his pillow.
Father God, please believe that I truly want to do your will, but that is hard when I don’t know what it is. Forgive my doubts. But do you mind if I ask questions?
He waited, wishing and hoping for an answer.
Maybe you could answer in a burning bush as when you spoke to Moses. We’ve got bushes around here you could use
. Lassitude stole up from the bottoms of his feet, bringing with it warmth and a fuzzy mind. Thorliff sighed and fell asleep like a candle being snuffed out.

Saturday morning they took out four rigs with Haakan on the disc. This was Andrew’s second season helping with spring fieldwork. The women and younger children took over the milking and home chores so the men could spend every minute getting the fields ready to seed.

Midmorning Astrid brought out to the field jars of coffee and sandwiches, her basket on her arm as she jumped from one furrow to another. Crows and blackbirds rose in a cloud behind the plows, rushing to feast on the upturned bugs and worms.

When Thorliff stopped for his turn to eat, he looked up to see two V’s of geese honking their way north. Astrid looked up too.

“You think Baptiste is off hunting?”

“Lucky dog. Of course he is.” Thorliff swallowed his mouthful of bread and cheese. “Mor isn’t threatening to take out the rifle, is she?”

Astrid shrugged. “She said to ask if you would turn the garden after dinner. She says her green thumb is aching to dig in the dirt.” Astrid held up a thumb. “Don’t look green to me.”

“It’s just a saying.” Thorliff took another swig of the tepid coffee. “Next time bring buttermilk, please.”

“Trygve or one of the twins will bring it out this afternoon. I’m going to help Bestemor at the boardinghouse.” Bridget Bjorklund had joined her family in America after her husband passed away in Norway. Seeing the need for accommodations for folks arriving on the train, she opened a boardinghouse in Blessing.

Thorliff handed the jug back to his sister. “Mange takk.” He slapped the reins on the horses’ rumps and set the plowshares back down with a pull on the lever. Turning to look over his shoulder at the curl of black dirt, he saw Astrid leaping from one flat surface to another, her braids flying with each leap. His mind went back to the story he’d been cogitating on. If only he could stay awake long enough tonight to write it down.

“Pastor Solberg and Mary Martha are coming for dinner with Manda and Deborah,” Ingeborg announced in the wagon on the way home from church the next morning. “I thought since it is so warm we could have a picnic.”

“Down at the river?” Andrew glanced up from watching the lines his dragging stick made behind the wagon. He, Thorliff, and Trygve had claimed the tailgate, leaving the girls to chatter, with both mouths and hands, in the wagon bed. Now that there were so many pupils at the deaf school, they had to take three wagons to church.

“No, I was thinking of the south side of the house, by the cottonwood trees. That one we planted when we built the house is big enough to make real shade this year.”

“Tante Penny and Onkel Hjelmer coming too?” Andrew asked over his shoulder.

Thorliff elbowed him.

“No, just Kaaren and Lars with the schoolchildren.” While the two families used to share most meals, now with all the students at the deaf school, Ilse and Kaaren did most of their own cooking there. Students helped with the cooking as well as the cleaning and farm chores. Part of the program was to help the deaf learn to live normally like everybody else. Too many people figured that if someone couldn’t hear, they couldn’t think or see or do much else. Grace and Sophie changed lots of people’s minds as they talked with their hands, a skill all the local students and many adults had learned in the regular school too, now taught by Pastor Solberg but started by Kaaren after Grace was born deaf.

And I thought I could spend the afternoon writing
. Thorliff sighed. Perhaps he would be able to sneak off for a bit, but he’d be expected to help entertain the young ones. Of course with the diamond already laid out in the short pasture, everybody would be out to play baseball, even the men and women. He watched the furrow carved in the dust by Andrew’s stick. That’s the way he felt at times, like the stick or the furrow, not the one holding it.

“We’ll have enough for two teams.” Andrew poked his big brother. “Won’t we?”

“More than enough.”

“Not if we don’t let the girls play.” Trygve hunched his shoulders.

“You’re just jealous ’cause Astrid hits better than you.” Now Andrew poked his cousin.

“No, I ain’t.” Trygve pushed back.

“Are too.”

“Not.”

“Are.” The two nearly fell off the tailgate, pushing and shoving.

“All right you two back there, jump off and walk.” Haakan looked over his shoulder.

The two boys leaped to the ground and raced up the road.

“Oh, to have that kind of energy.” Ingeborg shook her head.

“I’ll put ’em to chopping wood. That oughta take care of the push and shoves.” Haakan tipped back his fedora. Already he’d been out in the sun enough that he wore the telltale sign of a farmer—a tanned face and a white forehead.

“If we weren’t having company, I’d take the shotgun out this afternoon.” Ingeborg looked up at the V of ducks flying over. “A couple of geese would taste mighty good.”

“I heard Baptiste’s gun this morning. He might have got a deer. They sure aren’t as plentiful as they used to be.”

“Pa!” Andrew came running back. “That sow’s farrowing.”

“You go watch her. Don’t let her lie on the babies.”

Andrew tore off again.

“Change your clothes first,” Ingeborg hollered after him. A raised hand said he heard her.

Haakan clucked the horses into a faster trot. “At least she isn’t having them in the snow like she did last year.” The sow had chosen to farrow outside, and a freak snowfall had them carrying baby pigs to the house to warm on the oven door to keep them alive. All in all she’d lost only three, but Haakan often remarked she wasn’t the smartest sow in the herd.

“I should have stayed home. I knew she was making her nest.” Haakan stopped the team by the back door of the house.

“Andrew asked, and I told him no.” Ingeborg laid a hand on her husband’s arm. “I’ll get a warming box ready.”

By the time the others arrived for dinner, they had thirteen baby pigs, two in the warming box behind the stove. Andrew refused to leave his post, sitting in the corner of the box stall where they had nailed boards across the corners for the baby pigs to be able to get away when their mother lay down.

Thorliff leaned on the stall door, watching his brother make sure that each piglet had a chance to nurse. “How many teats does she have?”