The Reaper's Song (35 page)

All was silent but for the click of needles and the snap of wood in the parlor stove, the little ones being down for a nap. Haakan rattled the newspaper when he turned the pages.

“Why don’t you read to us?” Ingeborg asked.

“But it is in English.”

“True, but you could translate. Not word for word, just the ideas, you know.”

So Haakan read, translated, and answered questions about the meaning of some of the issues and stories. Finally he laid the paper aside. “I’ve got some work out in the barn I better get at.”

“You want some coffee first?” Ingeborg started to rise.

“No, no. You just sit still and keep on doing what you are doing.” He fled out the back door like being chased by bees.

Ingeborg leaned over and picked up the paper. As she folded the pages, an article caught her eye. Suffragettes were on the march in Minneapolis. There had been speeches and a call for the women to unite that they might be given the vote. She read the quotes from the speeches aloud.

Bridget shook her head. “I think it’s a big to-do about nothing. What good is the vote for women? You want to run for a public office someday?”

Ingeborg thought a minute, then answered quietly. “No, I don’t want to, but generations from now, perhaps that will be important to some of the women. You never know.” She thought again. “But I
know how important it is for women to be able to own land in their own name, to own a business if they want, or go to college, just as the men do.”

While Katy smiled at Ingeborg and gave a slight nod, Bridget looked at her, mouth in a perfect
O.
“Well, I never.”

Weeks passed and somehow Ingeborg never made it over to the Valders’. Every Sunday when she saw they weren’t in church, she thought this would be the week, but one thing after another seemed to come up, like Thorliff’s eleventh birthday, and the weeks flew by. Birthday parties were a welcome break, even though they only invited their own family and the Baards. Then there was the disappointing meeting in Grand Forks with Mr. Brockhurst. Ingeborg still fumed at his refusal to be any more than the most basic of help. He declined Hjelmer’s offer to work for free in exchange for training in banking ways and acted as if they were trying to steal his livelihood. It wasn’t like he had no other customers than the farmers of Blessing, many of whom banked in Grafton anyway. She couldn’t wait to remove their money from his establishment and begin their own.

Norwegian classes continued on Tuesday nights, and each week Zeb hoped Bridget would decide not to go that time. She often thwarted his attempts to sit next to Katy in church on Sunday too.

But when Reverend Solberg came calling at the Bjorklund farm, Mrs. Gustaf Bjorklund was all smiles and delight.

Zeb was finding it difficult to like the Reverend very much. Or was he having more trouble
not
liking the man? If only they weren’t interested in the same comely young woman. If only John Solberg weren’t so secure in his faith. Zeb had tried to forget his.

Through the months, Deborah’s health improved until, as far as Ingeborg could tell, the little girl was back to normal. Andrew still missed seeing Ellie every day, but he took his responsibility of caring for Deborah very seriously. Ilse, however, only cheered up when she was playing with or caring for the twins. When Kaaren suggested that maybe the orphan girl would be happier living with them, Bridget agreed. One Saturday, Ilse moved her meager belongings to the other house and into a room of her own.

When Lars and Kaaren had moved into their new house, Zeb and Hamre had moved from the barn and taken over the other soddy, so now they had the women’s soddy and the men’s, besides the two
frame homes where everyone ate, studied, did the winter handiwork, and enjoyed one another’s company. Ingeborg looked around and smiled in contentment. This was life as she’d dreamed it . . . almost.

As the stack of lumber grew, they began making plans to help Penny and Hjelmer add another room onto the store, as Penny had suggested. And to build an icehouse. Building an icehouse out by the river was under discussion too. They needed to dig it out before the ground froze solid and finish it in time to cut ice before the spring melt.

“Who do you think will pay for ice in the summertime?” Ingeborg asked when all the adults, including Penny and Hjelmer, were gathered around the table after Sunday dinner.

“In the cities they do so all the time. Men go around with wagons, selling ice to all the housewives. They come by two or three times a week.” Olaf tipped his chair back so it teetered on two legs.

“Where do they keep it? The ladies, I mean.” Kaaren rocked Trygve, trying to get him to sleep. Another tooth about to break through made him unusually cranky.

“You can buy iceboxes from the Montgomery Ward Catalog.”

“Really?” Kaaren patted the little one’s back, whispering sweet words in his ear at the same time. “How do you get a catalog?”

“You write and ask for one.” Penny swooped down and grabbed Astrid about the middle, bussing her cheeks and bringing forth the contagious chortle that made everyone smile. “I might have one in the cupboard where I keep the books I order from.”

Ingeborg poured a round for everyone. She leaned over Goodie’s shoulder and whispered in her ear, “You feelin’ all right? You look a mite peaked.”

Goodie shook her head. “I’m fine. We need to be thinking about adding on to the house too. For us it’s a baby, but Olaf needs more space for his workshop.”

Her whisper brought smiles to both Kaaren and Ingeborg.

“Where’s Katy?” Bridget asked, returning from a trip to the outhouse. “I looked in the soddy and she isn’t there either.”

Ingeborg shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe she is out in the barn with the bigger kids. They’re talking about making an ice-skating circle out beyond the barn, you know, where that dip is in the pasture. I said if they wanted to haul water enough to do that, they were welcome to it.”

“I haven’t been ice-skating for so long,” Kaaren said with a sigh. “Or skiing either.”

“They could wait and skate on the river,” Lars offered. “It’ll be frozen clear across soon.”

“But the river ice gets so rough. Besides, you never know where there might be a weak spot.”

“Can’t be too weak, the way they’ll be skidding logs over.”

Ingeborg and Kaaren exchanged glances as soon as Bridget went into the parlor to pick up her knitting. “I bet Katy’s with Zeb,” Kaaren whispered.

“I bet they’re both out helping to make the skating pond.”

“I bet they could use some more help too.” Haakan waved to Lars and Olaf. “Hjelmer, get your hunkers off that chair and let’s see how much water we can haul. Ingeborg, you better get the cocoa hot and maybe think of making taffy for pulling later.”

The men bundled into their coats, hats, and gloves and went out the door laughing, reminding one another of skating exploits when they were young.

It was cold enough that the water froze about as fast as they poured the buckets. That night after chores were done and supper over, they built a bonfire beside the sheet of ice and took turns with the four pairs of skates they had. Those without skates skidded on their boots, and others, like Andrew, ran and sat to slide.

“I can see I need to go into the skate business,” Hjelmer said when he had to pass the skates on to someone else. “Hey, Zeb! You make the straps, and I’ll fashion and sharpen the blades. How about that?”

“Sure enough. I just can’t get the hang of this, though.”

“Didn’t you skate when you were a kid?”

Zeb shook his head. “Nothing froze this much back home.” Just then Thorliff called him and off he went.

“Well, we know a little bit more,” Lars said in an undertone to Haakan.

“We already knew he came from the south somewhere by the way he talks.”

“I know, but this confirms that.” Lars turned to warm his backside at the fire. “That Katy might like Reverend Solberg as a friend and teacher, but she’s got eyes only for our southern mystery man.” He rubbed his mittened hands together. “You might want to have a talk with him.”

“Me! Why me?” Haakan lowered his voice. “Let Bridget have a talk with him.”

“She would, but what good would it do? She can’t understand him, and he can’t understand her.”

“So what’s so different? Ain’t that almost always the case when men and women try to have a real talking?”

Lars cuffed him on the shoulder. “Now, what kind of an attitude is that? Kaaren and I talk just fine. I talk, she listens.”

Haakan snorted and shook his head.

At the next quilting meeting, Ingeborg gave her report on their meeting with Mr. Brockhurst, owner of the bank in Grand Forks. While she tried to be fair and businesslike, she still got her back up, telling about the man’s perfunctory refusal. They discussed the addition going up on the store and how this would be a good business thing for them all. But who would run the bank? The question was repeated over and over. Everyone was too busy as it was.

“I can put out the mail once a day,” Penny said, “but with the new tables, sometimes I don’t have time to see to the store. Cousin Ephraim does most of that for me. And now with Hjelmer building the new room . . . uff da, things are so busy.” But the smile in her eyes told everyone she wasn’t really complaining.

“In my mind, ’tis Hjelmer what should run the bank. He knows more about making money than all the rest of us put together.” Dyrfinna Odell spoke with utter conviction.

“He’s not doing so good with his blacksmithing.” Brynja surprised them all again with her comments made so freely and emphatically.

“Ja, but Anner, that’s kind of his fault. He got so bitter about Hjelmer making money on the railroad land. I thought it rather brilliant myself.” Agnes kept on stitching as she talked. “If he hadn’t talked so bad about Hjelmer, then everyone would be trading at the store and getting machinery fixed at the smithy. I know Hjelmer has saved Joseph a lot of time and money.”

After their dinner of soup and bread, Ingeborg sat down by Agnes again. “I had hoped Hildegunn would be here today, but since she isn’t, you and me are going to call on them tomorrow. I got a bad feeling something is terribly wrong.”

“Me too.” Agnes nodded. “Me too.”

Y
ou ain’t comin’ in and that’s that!”

Agnes and Ingeborg looked at each other and shook their heads. Had Anner gone out of his mind? When a string of expletives followed his terse order, they backed away from the door.

Ingeborg gathered all her courage and called out, “We just came to see Hildegunn. Brought her some quilt pieces and such.”

“She ain’t to home.”

Agnes caught a glimpse of a curtain falling into place. If he was at the door, then who was at the curtain? Ingeborg’s look said she’d seen it too.

“Then we’ll leave this basket here by the door and come back another day.”

“Take yer basket with you and don’t come back. We don’t need the likes of you.” At the profanity that followed, their ears burned on their way to the wagon.

“She’s home,” Agnes said.

“I know.” Ingeborg gave Agnes a boost up the wheel spokes and went around the front of the horse to get in herself. While she stopped to check the bit, she glanced back at the house. Smoke from the chimney meandered into the still air. Cows stamped near the ice-cleared water trough by the barn, so at least they were taking care of the animals. Or someone was. Her foot slipped on the icy spoke.