Fervent Charity (30 page)

“Oh, yes, she likes it. But—”

“—it’s old fashioned. Young girls don’t want to look like their grandmas, and I don’t blame them. Why should they? Now, you bring Betty over here this afternoon so I can take her measurements. This’ll be easy because she’s smaller than the dress. I can see that. I did this for Eunice Peterson, you know, but her grandmother was a little bit of a thing when she got married and Eunice, well...you know she’s a big girl. I had a heck of a time! So I’ll be taking away, not trying to add. That’s always easier.”

Alvinia said, “We can pay you in...” she was about to say
a lifetime of free freezer space
, when Lena interrupted her vehemently.

“Alvinia Torgerson, now you listen to me! I’d have died right there on that dining room table if it hadn’t been for you and Betty and Alice.” Lena turned back to the dress, muttering, “There aren’t enough dresses from here to Kingdom Come to make up for that.”

Alvinia quietly backed out of the living room leaving Lena to fuss by herself.

Wherever they went, the Torgersons were met with a similar reaction, though none so outspoken as Lena’s. Alvinia had indeed delivered more babies than Doc Moody, but unlike the doctor, she had never accepted a penny for her services. Carl had performed many kindnesses as well...handing over an extra pound of meat to a poor family, allowing extended credit to someone in hard times, making a delivery when someone was sick.

The Mothers and Daughters of the Holy Rosary, which Alvinia concluded was the rough equivalent in the Catholic Church of the Ruth and Esther Circle in the Lutheran, made beautiful arrangements for the sanctuary out of autumn flowers and small sheaves of wheat.

Every woman in town cooked or baked something for the reception. Carl cleared out the dining and living rooms to provide space for borrowed tables, and the night before Betty’s wedding, the tables were resplendent with the finest linens and china and silver that Charity had to offer. The town had given up its treasures, including Edwina Moody’s sterling silver coffee service and Mrs. Lester Evenson’s crystal punch bowl.

Gifts for the young couple came from all over Stone County. Because of her tenure as waitress in Olna’s Kitchen and her travels with her mother as midwife, Betty was known even by people she did not remember. Carl set up another long table in the back of the house to hold these many gifts until the bride and groom should open them. All gifts, that is, but one.

The afternoon before the wedding, Jack Mohs ran to the Torgerson house to tell them they better get to the depot and bring their wagon, because Betty just got a jim-dandy present to beat all.

“Well, for heaven’s sake, Jack, tell us what it is!” demanded Alvinia.

“No, Ma’am. Pa’d kill me. He said it should be a surprise!”

The entire Torgerson family arrived just as the men that Willie Mohs recruited from the granary, Leroy’s Tavern, and O’Grady’s General Store were straining under the weight of Betty’s present as they unloaded it from the train. When Betty saw it, she gasped and clapped her hands on the top of her head, as if she needed to keep it from flying off. From Gustie’s descriptions, she knew exactly what she had just gotten as a wedding present: Philippa Caine’s baby grand piano, which had, until three days ago, sat for over forty years in the parlor of Gustie’s house in Philadelphia.

Dear Betty,

I want to give you a wedding present. Alvinia said that fixing up your dress is enough, but that’s just ripping out and sewing up a seam or two. After all that you and your mama have done for me, and this being a special and blessed occasion, I want to give you something special. So I’m giving you my pie recipe. So here it is.

It’s easier to make good pie in the winter because you can let your lard and your pastry dough cool outside. But if you make pie in the summer, just make sure you’ve got ice in your ice box. Otherwise it’s a big waste of time and you’ll just be making a mess.

So you take some nice apples and peel them and slice them pretty thin and you can let them sit just covered in cold water till you have your pastry ready. Now if you do that, you can add just a scant tsp. of whiskey to the water but you don’t have to. Then you take two cups of nice white flour, add a little salt and a little sugar, and sift it. I always sift my flour. Then I sift it again. But you don’t have to sift it twice. It’s just nice if you do.

Now your lard has to be fresh and cold. You can add a little butter too, and that has to be cold. You slice up the lard and the butter into small cubes and you add a few cubes at a time while you cut them into the flour. You do this as fast as you can so it doesn’t warm up and get gooey. You add enough lard so that your flour makes pea-sized balls. If you let the balls get bigger, you’re going to have tough pastry. I’m telling you.

Now you have to add a few sprinkles of cold water as you toss your pastry with a fork. Just enough to make it all stick together. Then, you divide the dough into two balls and wrap them up and put them in your ice box or outside in the winter. Let them sit there for about half an hour. If you haven’t already peeled your apples you can do it now. You have to get the steps right as you go along. Some women think that it doesn’t matter so much. If you add too much water you can just add more flour and work it in to the right consistency. But you do that, your pastry will be like tree bark or shoe leather and that’s fine if that’s what you want.

Don’t overwork it. You’re not making bread. You’re making a pie. So now you have two nice round shapes of dough. Put one on a lightly floured board and you start to roll it out. Just sprinkle flour over it so the rolling pin doesn’t stick to it and roll it out nice and easy in all directions. You turn it around, you see, on the board, and you roll in all different directions equally so it stays round. Don’t bear down on it hard. Roll it with a light hand. It takes longer that way but it rolls out nicer and thinner. If you roll it with a heavy hand, you are not really rolling it out, you’re just flattening it. That’s why they call it a rolling pin and not a hammer. When it is the right size, you just fold it in half. Use a wide spatula so you don’t rip the edges. You pick it up, again help yourself with the spatula so you don’t rip it and put the fold side in the middle of your pie pan and open it, and press the pastry down snug in the pan. Well, everybody knows this so I’ll skip on to the apples.

Now you have to go back and drain the apples and blot them with a clean dishtowel. You put a layer of apples in your pastry, and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, a spot or two of butter. Not too much butter. Then another layer. I like to make three layers. Here is where you have to know your apples. If they are sweet or tart. You want enough sugar but not too much. Tart apples—you’ll need a couple cups of sugar. Sweet, not so much. You’re probably going to have tart apples for baking because if it’s a sweet apple you’ll just eat it raw. Now the pie is filled and over your top layer of sugar you sprinkle as much cinnamon as you like, and just a little bit of nutmeg. If you put in too much cinnamon and nutmeg your pie will smell and taste like a pomander ball and nobody likes pomander ball pie. If you can’t do just a little, better not add it at all. I’m telling you. Then you take a teaspoon of whiskey and sprinkle it lightly over the top of everything. Or you can wait and brush it on the top of the crust before you sprinkle that with sugar. Try it both ways and see how you like it. I go back and forth. Can’t make up my mind. Now everybody knows how to close up a pie so I won’t bother to write that down. Your oven should be hot enough to slow-bake a chicken. Hotter than that and you’re in for trouble. And you have to pay attention to the weather, because in different weather it takes longer to bake. I don’t know why. But you have to watch it.

Well, that’s my recipe. With a little practice, you can make a nice pie.

Lena Kaiser

Gustie did not stir at the sound of the soft knocking at the door.

Jordis was reading in the main room. She gathered her shawl around her and went to the door. The time was after midnight. “Dennis,” she said softly, stepped outside and closed the door quietly behind her. “I thought you had gone.” The fragrance of a fresh cut hayfield was carried on a wave of night air.

“I’m on my way. Koenig owed me a favor and tonight I collected.” He took his hat off and pointed with it to the two horses whose reins were draped over the corral fence. Jordis peered into the night and by moon and starlight saw Fever and an animal she didn’t recognize, about a hand higher than Dennis’s little saddle horse.

“Always been a quiet horse. He won’t be no trouble. I was wondering if you’d let him pasture out with your mares. He does good on grass and little oats. Likes a carrot once in awhile.” Dennis went silent. Then he resumed. “He won’t make it where I’m going. He’s too old now. You’re the only one I know who’d let him be,” he paused, “if you wouldn’t mind Ma’am.”

“I’ll take good care of him, Dennis.”

“Here’s some money for his oats.” Dennis reached into his pocket, and Jordis put her hand on his arm.

“That’s not necessary. Do you know where you’re going?”

“Always wanted to see the wild country up in Canada.”

“Keep in touch. We’ll write to you, Dennis, if you let us know where you are.”

He nodded. His eyes darted to the house and back to the space around him, not focusing on anything in particular.

“You want to see her, Dennis?”

He rubbed his hand across his mouth and then over the back of his neck. Then he nodded.

Silently, Jordis led him into the house. She picked up her reading lamp and lit his way into the bedroom where Gustie lay sleeping. Beside the bed was a cradle. Jordis held the lamp so Dennis could look down and see his and Mary’s child sleeping peacefully, covered in a pink crocheted blanket and a square of soft, embroidered leather. He just looked. She held the lamp until he looked away, then she left the bedroom. He came out a moment later. She left the lamp on the table and followed him outside. Neither of them said a word. He gave Fever a light pat on his neck, then walked around him and mounted the other horse.

Jordis raised her hand—a gesture of farewell that she wasn’t sure he’d see. He gave a little salute against his hat and disappeared into the night.

She heard soft steps behind her, then Gustie’s voice. “I knew he’d come.”

“How long have you been awake?”

Gustie stood behind her in her nightgown. “Since he knocked on the door.”

“Why didn’t you get up?”

“I thought it would be easier if he only had to deal with you. I think this was hard for him. I can’t imagine how hard, actually.”

“Here.” Jordis placed half of her shawl around Gustie’s shoulders. They stood together gazing up at the stars.

Epilogue: November 1901

A
n hour before sunrise, I
am at the grave to greet the morning star; to begin the ceremony.

I am too warm under this poncho and the shawl that Gustie wrapped about my head and neck. I drop the shawl and face the southeast, holding the memory bundle close to me, the year-long abiding place of the soul of Dorcas Many Roads.

I do not want to let it go. I know, alone here in the starry dark, that my year of soul keeping has been more for me than for grandmother. The old ones were wise. The loss of those we love is beyond bearing. Yet we must bear it. They knew that to keep a soul, performing all attendant tasks with devotion, eases the way to parting. At the end of the year, when the rites have been fulfilled, grief is transformed, and the parting can be endured. Perhaps even celebrated. Still, can I bear it to end?

I have not performed to the letter of the tradition because I have had no one to teach me, but in this I know my own heart; I have been true to the spirit. For this morning’s ceremony, I have fasted and purified myself in the sweat lodge. This last thing is not usually done by a woman, but neither is the keeping of souls.

The star appears, bright and glowing in the winter sky, and climbs steadily in the dark until it fades into the pale light of dawn. It is time.

I feel Gustie’s approach behind me. She has Rose in her arms. I must let the ending come.

I lower the bundle to the ground and unroll it across the top of Dorcas’s grave. I see her precious things once more: the turtle shell, tobacco bundle, two stones, the decorated leather in the shape of the lizard, the stone spear point, the small piece of buffalo bone, the bundle of porcupine quills, the eagle bone whistle, and the lock of Dorcas’s hair.

A strong gust of wind, as if summoned, lifts the hair, scattering it over the prairie, leaving the heavier items behind on the blanket.

I speak the words in Dakotah. I have had to practice and practice them. My tongue does not fit smoothly around my mother’s language, but Jimmy Saul taught them to me. He says this is the right way to end.