A Dream to Follow (40 page)

“Yes, sir.” Thorliff followed the man to the end of the hall.

“That’s the press in there, affectionately called Bessie when she is running right, and I have a few other names for her when she isn’t.” Phillip indicated the machine in a room to the left. “And this will be your quarters. I think we will partition off half this room for storage.”

A young woman, a handkerchief covering her hair, stepped from behind a bookcase.

“This is my daughter, Elizabeth. Thorliff Bjorklund, my dear.”

“Oh, it’s you.” Elizabeth whipped the handkerchief off her head. “From the library, I mean.”

“Ja.”
What do I do? Shake hands?
“I-I’m pleased to meet you.” He ducked his head.

“You know each other?” Mr. Rogers looked from one to the other.

“We’ve not met,” said Elizabeth. “I am very happy to meet you, Mr. Bjorklund, and welcome to Northfield and St. Olaf. I know you are going to love it here.”

He kept his face blank. Love it here? All he could think of was going home. “Thank you.”
Dolt, can’t you think of anything more to say than that?

“You are welcome.” She gave him a quizzical glance. “Then let us begin. I’ve asked Old Tom to bring his wagon and help us.” Hands on hips, she stared around the room filled with boxes and old machinery, furniture, and a broken picture frame hanging askew on the wall. A coat of dust grayed everything and made the windows opaque.

“I think I have some things to finish at my desk.” Phillip gestured toward the other room.

“You don’t mind what I throw out?”

“Ah . . .” He stared around at the mess, shaking his head. “I trust your judgment.” He beat a less than dignified retreat.

Elizabeth shook her head. “Okay, let’s move enough to sweep that end of the room, which will be used for storage. I’ll look in boxes to see what we can toss.” A knock at the door admitted a basset-faced man who, after being introduced to Thorliff, looked around the room, his head moving like a pendulum.

“Might just carry it all out to m’ wagon. Be easier.”

“As I said, we’ll clean at that end and move what needs to be saved down there.”

Tom scrunched his mouth from side to side. “If you say so.”

Thorliff moved enough to sweep out a corner, then began stacking the boxes Elizabeth pointed to in that area. She had Tom cart out the throwaways. By the time they’d reduced the mess to half, Thorliff was longing for open fields and threshing dust rather than inside dirt.

“Here, I brought you refreshments.” Phillip stood in the doorway with a pot of coffee and a plate of sandwiches. At Elizabeth’s raised eyebrow, he added, “Cook sent them over. I made the coffee.”

She groaned. “Not your usual.”

“No, fresh and only half the grounds.”

She turned to Thorliff. “We can be grateful for that.”

Since his stomach had been rumbling for the last hour, he fell to, as did Tom, so the conversation was mainly between Elizabeth and her father and mostly regarding the stuff left in the room.

They went back to work, now scrubbing walls, ceiling, windows, and the floor of the area she’d decreed his new quarters. The smell of soap and wet rags filled the room, but the walls turned into white plaster, the floor wore a coat of paint, albeit dark brown, and the gas jets on the wall worked after Tom tinkered with them a bit.

While Elizabeth asked him questions, Thorliff answered with as few words as possible.
She gives orders like a sergeant,
he thought more than once. But since this was her place, he did as told, relieved when she finally announced they were finished for the day.

Elizabeth sat down on the only chair and looked around. “Once we get that other end partitioned off, this should be fine.”

“More than fine.” Thorliff leaned against the now clean wall. His end of the long room, about ten by fifteen feet, included a window, an outside door on one wall, and a door into the hallway of the offices on the opposite. A square grate allowed heat from the furnace below to warm the room in winter. Once he had a bed and perhaps a table and chair for a desk, he would be fine. The thought of an indoor privy and running water in the bathroom seemed like found wealth. He’d nail up a board with pegs for his clothes and be right at home.

“What a difference.” Mr. Rogers brought a tray with coffee mugs into the room.

“I could build that partition over the weekend if you want.” Thorliff nodded toward the other side.

“Can you hang a door?”

“Ja. My pa can build anything, and I always helped him.”

“Good. I will get the materials first thing in the morning.” He handed a cup to Thorliff. “Drink up, son. You can spend the night here if you like. Tom will bring a bed over from the house.”

“I think I’ll go back up the hill for tonight, thank you.”

“Do you have much to bring down?”

“A trunk and a box.” His belongings had grown with the purchase of textbooks.

“I’ll send a wagon up, then. Let’s go on home.”

The three walked as far as the Rogerses’ home, and Thorliff bid them good-night. He caught himself whistling on his way up the path. At least he now had a job and a free place to live. The cloud that had been smothering him seemed to lift somewhat.

He fell into bed without writing on his letter to Anji. To save on stamps, he wrote to her each night but mailed the letter once a week.

The same with the letter for the family at home.

Over the weekend he did as he’d said, sawing and hammering until a wall, complete with door, blocked off the storage area. He painted it with the whitewash provided and fell into bed that night too tired to do more than mutter the most perfunctory of prayers.

Monday afternoon when he returned from school, Mr. Rogers set about teaching him to set type. Phillip showed his new assistant the cases of different kinds and sizes of type, arranged with capital letters in the upper cases and the smaller letters in the lower cases. He set up a slug line and explained spacing and sizing, the inches required for the newspaper columns, and the setup of the press.

“You always have to remember your images are backwards, so you’d best follow the old saying, Mind your p’s and q’s, because they look so alike.”

Thorliff nodded, trying to take it all in.

“Here, I’ll set a line of type, and then you do the same.”

“Okay.” But watching his mentor pick the slugs and set them, his fingers moving fast enough to blur, made Thorliff ’s mouth go dry. Surely he’d never reach that speed.

“I should have Elizabeth teach you this. She’s an expert at it.”

“Really?” Thorliff leaned down to pick up another slug that he’d dropped. Picking type was difficult with five thumbs on each hand.

“The hardest part is remembering where all the letters are boxed. Then after the paper is printed, we return it all to the correct sections in the cases. That will always be your job on Fridays. The paper comes out on Thursday. I print it late Wednesday.” Phillip looked up to Thorliff. “Remind me sometime. I have a funny story about running out of type.”

“Ja—er, yes.” Thorliff bent down to find another piece he’d dropped. The letters had a life of their own, jumping out of the line with the least provocation.

The old building creaked and talked as it settled each night. The wind whistled at the window. Thorliff tried to study, but where the dormitory had been too noisy, now the quiet set his teeth on edge. What was happening at home? He’d not had a letter yet this week.

Lord, I want to go home. I can’t see far enough here. Too many buildings. Too many people. I always thought I was a good student. Pastor said so many things, good things, and I guess I believed him. But here I’m just not good enough. I can’t even get the type back in the right cases, and I’d begun to think I might want to be a newspaper man
.

How can it be so dark even during the day when the sun is shining?
He finished with his prayers for those at home and crawled into his lonely bed. How was Andrew doing? Ever since he was born, they’d shared a bed.
Lord, help me know what to do
.

When he stopped by the mail room at the school and pulled a letter from his box, his step felt lighter. He waited until he was on the path down the hill to open his letter from Anji.

Dearest Thorliff,

I am so glad you are doing well at school. Things are hard here right now. Pa fell out of the haymow and must have broken something in his back. The pain is something fierce. Your ma is taking care of him, as we all are. He sleeps on a padded board and tries not to move any more than necessary.

Other than that, I miss you and pray for you every day.

She continued on with news of the family, but the tone of her letter said far more than the words, and Thorliff knew he must go home.

Tucking the letter into his shirt pocket, Thorliff trotted down the hill and toward the train station. He jingled the change in his pants pocket. Surely it would be enough to pay for a telegram.

Rushing into the station, he headed over to the telegraph desk and gave the operator his message, panting with each word given. “Anji Stop Coming home tomorrow Stop Tell Mor Stop Love Thorliff”

“That will be twenty-five cents.” The telegraph operator looked across the counter. “You must have had bad news, son.”

“Ja, I did.” Thorliff counted out the change and dropped it in the man’s hand. “What time does the train leave for St. Paul tomorrow?”

Back at the newspaper office, he knocked on Mr. Rogers’ office door.

“Come in, Thorliff.” Phillip Rogers set his pen down and leaned back in his chair, stretching his hands over his head. “Good to see you.” He turned his head slightly sideways. “I have a feeling I’m about to hear bad news. What is it?”

“I have to go home. I’m leaving on the train in the morning.”

“Some emergency, I take it?”

“I’m needed there.”

Mr. Rogers waited, obviously hoping Thorliff would say more. “When will you be back?”

Thorliff shrugged. Was he coming back? Could he tell this man such news out of the blue like this? “I-I’m not sure.”

“Will you be back?”

Thorliff ignored the question. “Is it all right if I leave my things here?”

“Yes. This is your home and your place of work. I-I hate to lose you, boy.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course. But . . .” Rogers paused. “You’ll let me know right away?”