The Reaper's Song (18 page)

As the train hissed to a stop and the conductor stepped down, Hjelmer drew close beside him. Setting the stool down for the last step, the uniformed man turned to the crowd. “Well, now, isn’t it nice you all came to see me like this?”

Those who had heard him over the hissing of the train laughed. One man, obviously a traveling salesman by his two cases, stepped down and headed toward the store.

The conductor waited, watching the doorway. The group waited too.

What if she missed a connection somewhere?
Ingeborg kept up her juggle-the-small-child rhythm. If only Haakan could be here. So much he was missing. She watched Hjelmer. Why did he seem so nervous? Fidgeting like that certainly wasn’t like him. But then, how would she be if this were her mother? A lot calmer, she decided, swallowing again. Greeting her own mother would be much easier than greeting the mother of the father of her two sons. All these years of letters back and forth. Had they become friends in the process?

“Katja!” Hjelmer stepped forward and lifted the lovely young girl down from the last step. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him like she would never let go.

“Oh, Hjelmer, we thought never to see you again.” She thumped him on the shoulder. “Now, put me down, you big oaf. Mor should take a strap to your backside for not ever writing.” She grinned up at him. “And in Amerika I am to be called Katy. Much more fitting, don’t you think?”

“Still a tongue on you. I thought you might outgrow that Katy, huh?” He set her on the ground and reached for the hand of the white-haired woman descending the steps. “Mor.”

Bridget Bjorklund stumbled a bit as she fell into her son’s arms. Of four sons, this her youngest, was the one who always made her laugh. “Oh, Hjelmer, Katja—I mean Katy—is right. You should be thumped, but I am so glad to see you.” She stepped back, the better to look at him. “You’ve grown into a man.”

“I should hope so.” He kept her hand in his and drew her over to where Penny waited.

Thorliff looked up at his mother. “Don’t they speak English?”

“I don’t know.”

To Ingeborg the pure Norwegian language sounded like angel songs. Here in the new country, they had changed so many words, made up some from both Norwegian and American, and spoke mostly English now, so it had been some time since true Norwegian was spoken. Andrew had been speaking English from the beginning, and while Norwegian was Thorliff’s first language, he now used English all the time too.

After Bridget came a sturdy boy with a black porkpie hat pulled low on his forehead. Thorliff and Baptiste stepped forward. “Hamre?”

“Ja.” The boy held on to his valise as if they might take it from him.

“I am Thorliff Bjorklund, and this is my friend Baptiste. Welcome to Amerika.” He spoke perfect Norwegian, and Baptiste bobbed his head, a smile lighting his black eyes.

Hamre ducked his head and moved off to stand behind Bridget.

Thorliff looked at Baptiste and shrugged.

“And you are Thorliff, are you not?” Bridget put her hands on his shoulders. “You look so like your far and onkel I would recognize you anywhere. So much you have grown.”

Thorliff nodded. “I remember you.” He cocked his head. “But you are different too.”

“Ja, I am older. More snow on the mountain.” She touched her hair nearly hidden under a black hat with a black feather.

Thorliff shook his head. “No, that is not it. You were so big, tall I mean.”

Bridget and Katy laughed together, their cheeks rosy in the heat. “You were little then. Five years old and trying so hard to be a man already.” She patted his shoulder. “Your far would be very proud of you this day.”

“And every day,” Ingeborg added from her place behind Thorliff.

While Bridget turned at a question from Hjelmer, Ingeborg
smiled at the young woman loaded with two valises and looking more than a bit lost. “You must be Bridget’s niece Sarah. Welcome to Amerika.”

“Ja, mange takk.” She set her cases down and wiped her brow. “I did not know it would be so warm here.” Then even more color came into her face. “I did not mean to complain. I mean . . .”

Ingeborg smiled and took her arm. “You leave those heavy cases for the men and come over here with us.”

Bridget turned then from her greeting of all the others and motioned a half-grown girl to join them. “This is Ilse Gustafson. Her mor and far died on the boat, along with many others. Dysentery ran through those in steerage, knocking people down like a terrible windstorm. Too many of them never got up again. I told Ilse that since she had no more family, she could come with us. That you would have plenty of room for another Norwegian emigrant.”

Ingeborg stepped forward. “Of course we do. Thorliff, why don’t you and Baptiste take those boxes and go load them in our wagon?” She reached out a hand to the girl who had yet to smile. “Welcome to Blessing, and I hope being with us will indeed be a blessing for you.”

The “mange takk” was nearly buried in the girl’s chest as she nodded in return.

Poor child, losing her family like that
. Ingeborg resolved right then to do all she could to help out this poor girl. Surely there would be a place for her somewhere, if not at the Bjorklunds.

“I knew you would say that.” Bridget turned to Ingeborg with another hug. “I never thought to see any of you again, and here I am. God is so good. He has allowed me to cross that ocean and this huge, huge land and come here to meet my grandchildren.” She patted Andrew’s cheek. “I would have no trouble telling that you are a Bjorklund through and through. He looks so much like Carl when he was a baby that this is like stepping back in time.”

Ingeborg put her hand on Andrew’s shoulder. He did not like being called a baby.

“Astrid is the baby.” He looked his bestemor in the eye as he said it.

“Ja, that she is.” Bridget glanced from Ingeborg to Andrew, a twinkle in her eye. “Spoken like a true Bjorklund.”

Ingeborg was so proud of her young son, she could have popped her seams right there. He even spoke in Norwegian, which she wasn’t sure he would do, or could do without prompting. While
Bridget went to talk with Kaaren and fuss over her three little ones, Ingeborg helped shepherd all the group together. When all the baggage was unloaded, including the mail, which the men handed to Penny, the train whistled again, the conductor shouted “all aboard,” and set his stool back up on the car bed. Wheels screeching, steam hissing, the train began to move, and gathering momentum, took off down the track.

Lars and Hjelmer, along with the bigger boys, loaded the boxes and trunks in the wagons and then rounded up the people.

“Come on. Goodie and Agnes have coffee ready and everyone can visit then.” Hjelmer turned to his mother. “Mor, why don’t you ride with Ingeborg? That way you can hold Astrid or Trygve, since I am sure you are not about to let the babies go.”

Bridget laughed. “I feel younger already. It must be this Dakota air.”

“Well, it sure ain’t the altitude or the mountains.” Hjelmer helped her over the wheel.

Bridget fanned herself with a hankie. “I surely can understand why the women here don’t wear wool skirts in the summer.” She smoothed her skirt down and tucked her sweater in beside her. “I will have to get some material and make us clothes like the rest of you wear.” She turned to smile at Katy, who sat in the back with the children, all of them asking her questions about Norway.

Ilse Gustafson sat by herself in the corner, her arms wrapped around her knees. So far she hadn’t said a word.

Andrew stood and leaned close to his mother. “Ma, why don’t she say something?”

“Maybe she is shy.”

“What is shy?”

“Shy is when you are afraid to say something. You feel like no one wants to talk with you. You’re just plain scared of new people.”

Andrew turned to look at the newcomer. He looked back at his mother. “She looks mad.”

“Or maybe sad?”

Andrew studied the girl. He nodded. “Maybe Paws can make her happy?”

“Maybe. Maybe you and Ellie can too.”

“Can she say English?”

Ingeborg shrugged. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her?”

With the wagons loaded, Ingeborg flapped the reins with a hup and a jolt as they headed east to the Bjorklund houses.

In Norwegian, Andrew asked Ilse if she spoke English.

Ilse shook her head. She scowled at Andrew and shook her head again, then buried her face in her knees.

Andrew tried standing again to talk with his mother, but she ordered him to sit down before he fell down. He did so, right beside Ellie.

“She don’t like us,” Ellie whispered.

Andrew shrugged. “Come on.” He led the way, crawling over and around things until they got to the back of the wagon where Katy had Thorliff and Baptiste laughing. Like Ilse, Hamre and Sarah Neswig sat off to the side, not taking part in the fun.

Andrew and Ellie swapped looks and shook their heads.

Katy tried to include her cousin, but he turned the other way when she asked him a question. “Come on, Hamre. Tell them about your bestefar’s fishing boat. I know they haven’t seen anything like that out here.”

“I remember a long trip on a ship when we came to America.” Thorliff hung his feet over the wagon tailboard. “I thought we were going to live on that ship forever, but my far kept telling me about all the animals we would have. He didn’t know how many there would really be. He said one or two sheep, and we have about a hundred. He said one cow, and now we milk twenty-five twice a day.”

Baptiste gave him an elbow in the ribs. Thorliff elbowed him back, and Katy laughed along with them.

“Good thing we know how to milk cows,” Sarah said with a smile brightening her oval face. Like Katy she wore her hair in a bun, trying to look older than sixteen.

Ellie and Andrew perched on a box right behind her.

“So, do you two come as a pair, or . . .”

Ellie looked at Andrew and shrugged. “What’d she say?”

“Are we a pair?” Andrew thought before translating. He looked at Katy. “I don’t know.” He leaned closer. “Ellie is my bestest friend.”

“Andrew just got over a knock on the head. He fell out of the haymow.” Thorliff turned and gave his brother a light punch on the arm. “But nothing can keep our Andrew down.”

“They say Bjorklunds have hard heads.”

“Ja, and blue eyes.” Thorliff looked at Katy. “You and me and Andrew and our pa, we match.” He turned to look at Andrew. “Huh, Andrew?”

“Ja, but Katy is pretty and Sarah too.”

Katy turned around and tousled his near-white hair. “And you, my dear Andrew, I think you got all the family charm, and that’s a real gift to have.”

Andrew looked at her, cocked his head to one side, and asked, “What is charm?”

“You make people laugh.” Thorliff spun around so his feet were in the wagon and leaned over to tickle Andrew.

Andrew giggled, then broke out in his belly laugh that soon had everyone laughing. Everyone but Hamre and Ilse.

Ingeborg looked back over her shoulder. “Don’t you let him fall out of the wagon now. One bump on the head is enough.”

That set them laughing again.

Driving into the yard, Ingeborg said, “That soddy is where you will be staying, but we’ll drop your things off later. Goodie is at the door. She is so excited to meet you all.”

Astrid took that moment to let out a wail. Bridget tried to distract the toddler with a game of peekaboo.

“Astrid’s hungry, Mor,” Andrew sang out.

“I think he is a mind reader,” Ingeborg said, digging in her bag for a piece of dried bread. She gave it to Astrid, who first eyed it with a scowl, then put it in her mouth. “He can tell us what any of the little ones want, even Grace. Between Sophie and Andrew, they’ll figure out a way to get Grace what she needs and wants. I think they have their own language already.”

Astrid whimpered around the bread.

“I know, son, I’ll feed her as soon as we get in the door. Thorliff, will you take care of the horses?” She pulled the team to a halt by the back stoop. Hjelmer met them at the wheel and handed his mother down. Then Ingeborg handed Astrid to Bridget and climbed over the wheel herself. “Haakan says that one of these days we are going to have a buggy, but we sure couldn’t haul a load like this in a buggy.” She whisked her skirts into place and took the now-teary Astrid back in her own arms. “I think when her teeth start to hurt, she thinks nursing is the only answer. Such a child.”

“She’s a lusty one.” Bridget took her son’s arm. “If that is coffee I smell, lead me to it. We haven’t had a decent cup of coffee since we left home.”

“Uff da!” Bridget said later, when she saw the misery Haakan was
in. “Guess I got my job cut out for me. I saw a man with a case like this once. At least in Norway, we had ice to help the swelling. Near as I can tell, time is what helps best, so we’ll just keep you comfortable.” She turned to Ingeborg. “He won’t mind a stranger helping out, will he?”

Ingeborg didn’t dare look at her husband’s face as Bridget took over the sickroom, for she knew she would break out laughing. Haakan was, or had been before he got the mumps, a private man when it came to his own body.

“I feel like I’m on display,” he whispered when Ingeborg had settled herself and her toddler in the rocker.