“You really jerked that fish out.” Ingeborg reached over and hugged her little grandson. “I didn’t know you were so strong.”
Her grinned up at her. “Me big,” he said and went to fetch his flipping fish.
Ingeborg got up to help him.
“Grandma, your fishing pole.” Emmy leaped up to grab Ingeborg’s pole as the fish on the line started heading downriver. Her pole banged into Inga’s. Inga’s cork went under, and with a pole in each hand, she hollered for help.
Emmy caught the end of Ingeborg’s pole and saved her from having to wade out to save it. Ingeborg retrieved Carl’s fish and, handing him his pole to bait again, ran the stringer through the mouth and gills. She then took care of the fish on her own hook and put the stringer in the water in a shady place, hammering a stick through the end of the chain and into the soft duff.
With all of them laughing and giggling at the fiasco, they settled back down with two fish on the trot line, one that got away, and Carl shushing them with a grubby finger to his mouth. “Pa say quiet or scare fishes.”
By the time they quit, they had ten fish on one line and seven more on the other. Ingeborg carried one line, and the two girls stretched the other between them.
“Enough for supper?” Emmy asked, looking up to Ingeborg.
“Ja, we will call Ellie and tell her we’ll have a fish fry at Grandma’s house.” She held up her string. “We really got some big ones.”
“Dry fish?” Inga asked.
“Maybe later, when there are more.” All those years earlier, Metiz, a woman with both French-Canadian and Sioux ancestors, had taught them the Indian ways of living off the land. They combined her knowledge with the Norwegian customs of preserving fish by both smoking and drying, and the resulting bounty helped them make it through the long winters.
The thought of Metiz made Ingeborg blink. She’d been such a good friend and was still so missed.
That evening, after the fish were fried and eaten and Carl had gone home with his parents, Ingeborg took her knitting out to the back porch, where the breeze would help keep the mosquitoes at bay. She’d rubbed some more comfrey onto her skin just in case. At moments like these she missed Haakan with almost a real pain in her heart. Many a long evening they’d sit out on the porch – she would knit and he would mend or clean a harness or tend to any one of the myriad small chores that always needed doing, the smoke from his pipe keeping away the mosquitoes.
After Jonathan had gone up to his room to write letters and read, Emmy and Inga brought out jars and sat waiting for the first firefly to light up and dance in the dimming light. Ingeborg had agreed to let them stay up much later than usual in order to catch the elusive insects. Bars of the fast-approaching orange and vermillion sunset tinged the few clouds, turning the sky a soft pink.
Lord, keep them safe. Ingeborg released her prayers to float up through the cottonwood leaves overhead, bypassing the sleepy twittering of the birds and rising toward heaven like a wisp of smoke. A “sacrifice of praise,” the verse had called it in her early morning devotions. Right now, praising God didn’t take a sacrifice, but at other times it had indeed. Having Haakan gone this long, now that was the sacrifice.
When dark descended and the girls loosed their fireflies from the jars, the three of them washed their hands and feet and made their way back into the darkened house and up the stairs, where Ingeborg put the girls to bed and heard their prayers. Jonathan had already gone to bed and blown his lamp out. Back in her own room, Ingeborg undressed and slipped her lightweight sleeveless summer nightdress over her head. “Please, Lord, keep them safe. Help the Indians receive the help in the spirit in which it is given. For all those years Metiz helped us, this is small recompense. Without her, there might not have been a town of Blessing, had she not helped us stay alive. Without her, we might have returned to Norway, as others did.” She trapped that idea. No, they might have gone somewhere else, but not back to Norway.
She lay with her hands locked behind her head. Who else could they bring over from Norway? Laborers were so needed in the booming town of Blessing. Tomorrow being Sunday, Thorliff would preach the sermon, and Lars would lead the service with the help of the musicians. Elizabeth was well enough to play the piano again – Jonathan had been filling in for her since he returned from Fargo – and Joshua Landsverk would play his guitar. Worship just wouldn’t seem right without Pastor Solberg.
3
How could the Bjorklunds take in that little Indian girl like they did?
Joshua felt like shaking his head, but since he and Dr. Elizabeth were playing the music before the Sunday church service, he needed to keep a smile on his face, or at least not a frown. If he frowned, people would either make assumptions or plain out ask him if something was wrong. He’d never lived in a place where people were so concerned about each other as in Blessing. Especially Mrs. Bjorklund. Astrid’s mother. And his future mother-in-law if his dreams came true.
His fingers stumbled on a chord, causing Elizabeth to glance up at him. He had to be careful. But his mind refused to obey. After they’d played the final chords and Lars stood to begin the service, Joshua exhaled a sigh of relief. He still wondered how they could have a real worship service without Pastor Solberg.
Everyone rose to sing “Holy, Holy, Holy.” As he lost himself in the beauty of the hymn, he could let his spirit fly.
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty.
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!”
His voice soared, leading the others to put heart and soul into the singing. After the fourth verse everyone sat and Lars Knutson stood with his Bible in hand.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together to worship our Lord and Savior.”
Joshua felt each word settle into his heart, first the hymn and now the lessons. “ ‘Beloved, let us love one another,’ ” Lars started, reading from First John, “ ‘for love is of God. . . . He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.’ ” The words were no longer settling gently but rather were stabbing into the dark spot he kept trying to ignore.
The argument going on inside him started right up again. The contention: his hatred of the Indians. But I have a right to feel so, he argued back. What if they take Astrid away like they did my aunt and keep her captive until she no longer wants to live as a white person? My father spent the rest of his life hating the Indians for destroying his sister.
Right, and look what good it did him. He became mean and bitter. Do you want to do that?
Clapping his hands over his ears would not be good in public, and if he left the service . . . That did not bear thinking about. Think about something else. Lord, please protect Astrid and those with her. The nasty voice snuck in. You think you have a right to ask God to do something for you when you hate some of His children?
Lord, I thought I was beyond this. I even gave Pastor Solberg some money for the first shipment of assistance to this Indian tribe. I thought I knew how to forgive. Why am I back in this situation? I know . . . it’s Astrid. Before it was just giving money, but now part of my heart is down there. Only in the quiet of the church service could his mind sort through his feelings like this.
He heard the first chords of the next hymn coming from Dr. Elizabeth on the piano. He’d done it after all – made a complete fool of himself. He picked up his guitar and joined the music, feeling what he knew to be red heat flaming up his neck.
By the end of the service he just wanted to stalk off across the prairie and keep on going. They played the closing hymn, and after Lars gave the benediction, they segued into the medley of songs they’d chosen and practiced.
“Are you all right?” Elizabeth asked as she closed the lid on the piano.
He nodded, not daring to meet her gaze, which he could feel clear through his skin.
“You know, if you ever need to talk to someone, a doctor is
a pretty safe listener.”
He could see the question marks in her eyes, so he didn’t give her a direct answer, responding with a question instead. “How is Linnea coming with her piano lessons? Will she be able to play with us one of these days?”
“She’s doing well, but learning a guitar is far easier. She is amazing, though. While she is learning to read music, she picks up most of her songs by ear. I play the song once, and she figures out the chording. What a gift she has.”
Linnea was Penny Bjorklund’s daughter and now nine years old. Joshua had taught her some chords on the piano while Dr. Elizabeth was recovering from the loss of her baby. He too had been amazed at the speed with which she caught on. Since she didn’t have a piano at home, she spent hours at the church, practicing on the one there.
“Maybe we ought to add playing a banjo to the ad in the papers for workers.”
“That would be great. Someday we’ll have an organ here in church, and I dream of playing that. Once Jonathan Gould is out of school, he can take over the piano. Who would have dreamed we’d ever have so much musical talent here in Blessing?”
When they left the church, he found Mrs. Bjorklund waiting for him. “Won’t you join us for dinner today, Mr. Landsverk?” she asked.
“I really need to spend the afternoon working on my house,” he told her, hoping his excuse would be accepted. He knew Thorliff and his family would be there as usual, and he didn’t have a chance between those two perceptive women. He’d end up confessing his feelings and feel like an even worse fool.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Perhaps another Sunday, then?”
“Thank you for the invitation. I would much rather go with you, but I’ve been so busy, I’ve not had time to finish the cellar so I can order the house kit.”
“Well, when you do and it arrives, you know we’ll all take a Saturday or two and see how far we can go in getting it up.”
“Thank you.” I don’t deserve such help. But he kept his smile in place and guitar in hand as he headed back to the boardinghouse to change clothes. Miss Christopherson would be keeping a plate hot for him, since he’d missed the noon seating.
A breeze kept the prairie from becoming too hot, rippling the growing fields like waves on water. He never tired of seeing the growing crops, even though he’d chosen not to be a farmer. He loved building things: First he’d built windmills, then houses and barns, and now he was lead man on the crew adding on to the former grain storage building, where the new attachments for improving the seeders would be manufactured. He wished his father had used one of the early seeders pulled by a team of horses. The seeding by hand took far too long, and even though his father was adept at it, the crops were spotty. This new addition would make both old and new seeders far more dependable and efficient. Hjelmer and Mr. Sam had made several prototypes and welded them on to the Bjorklund seeders. The grain sprouted evenly down the rows, row after row. Not one row extra thick and the next one bare.
Knowing he was part of making this idea become a reality kept him going to work with a light step and a smile. With construction, one could see the daily progress, and it wouldn’t have to be done all over again the next year, as in farming. Building didn’t depend on the weather for success either.
But today he would work on his own house. He needed to finish up framing the final cellar wall so they could mix and pour the cement. He never knew who would show up to help him, but someone always did. Life on his father’s farm in Iowa had not worked that way. Thoughts of his father made him grateful he’d gone back home when he did. He never would have believed his father could age so fast had he not seen it with his own eyes.
If only Astrid were here.
That thought led him back to the Indians of the Rosebud Reservation. Not a good thing. He mounted the steps to the boardinghouse and took the inside stairs two at a time, hoping to outrun the devilish thoughts that plagued him. He washed up and then headed back down the stairs.
“How was church this morning?” Miss Christopherson, assistant manager of the boardinghouse, asked when he took his place in the dining room.
“Fine.” He glanced up to see a shadow cross her face. Great, now I’ve offended her. What’s the matter with me? “We missed Pastor Solberg, though Lars did a fine job with the Scripture reading, and Thorliff can speak his piece right well.”
“I could hear the singing clear back here. One of these days I will get to attend church on Sunday.” She nodded and half smiled, a pensive look still shadowing her eyes.
Why someone didn’t marry her was beyond Joshua’s understanding. But then, there weren’t many single men in Blessing. “It sure smells good in here.”
“Thank you. I kept your dinner warm. I’ll bring it right out.”
“Have you already eaten?” His own question caught him by surprise.
“No, we all eat when the guests are finished.”
Joshua glanced around the room. “Looks like I’m the last. If you all will be eating now, why can’t I eat with you, or you come out here and eat with me?” For a man who grew up in a house where not a word was spoken during a meal, he had learned he enjoyed mealtime conversation.
“Well, I . . . ah . . . I mean . . .” She glanced over her shoulder to the kitchen.
“Please.”
“I’ll be right back.”
He watched her hustle back to the kitchen. If he weren’t so pieeyed over Astrid, this young woman would have made a fine wife. He thought of his younger brother, Aaron. Aaron wasn’t married and wasn’t courting anyone either, as far as he knew. Joshua smiled to himself. He’d write to Aaron and invite him to come work in Blessing, where the lack of help was slowing the building down. Aaron had never complained about working on the home farm or hiring out to others when the work slacked off. If only both of his brothers would come to Blessing, and his sister too. He’d have a real family again. He nearly snorted on that thought. Thanks to his father, they’d never been what one would call a close family. But they’d sure welcomed him home last Christmas when he went back to Iowa. Good memories to replace the bad.
Verses from Thorliff ’s talk that morning slipped through his mind. Whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is worthy of praise, think on these things. He knew that wasn’t a direct quote, but he couldn’t remember all of it. And besides, too many of his memories didn’t fit the criteria.
“Here you go.” Miss Christopherson set down a tray and placed one plate in front of him and the other across the table. She added a plate with warm rolls in a napkin and then set the empty tray on another table before sitting down. “The others are already eating in the kitchen. They said to go ahead.”
“I could have come back there.”
“I know, but you know Mrs. Sam. Right is right and there is no swaying her.” She placed her napkin in her lap and glanced up to find him watching her. “Can I get you something else?”
“No, no.” He bowed his head. Saying grace was another growing habit. He silently thanked the Lord for his meal and looked up to see her dropping her gaze. Had she been watching him or praying? Should he have asked if he could say the blessing? What was proper? Ignoring his thoughts, he smiled. “This looks mighty good, as always.” Roasted chicken had become the standard Sunday meal at the boardinghouse, unless it was a holiday, along with mashed potatoes and gravy. Today, the vegetable was canned green beans combined with bacon and chopped onions.
“This week we’ll start serving fresh vegetables from the garden,” Miss Christopherson said with a smile. “The peas are coming in nicely.”
“Do you work in the garden too?” He usually saw Lemuel and Lily Mae, Mr. and Mrs. Sam’s grown children, out working in the half-acre patch that supplied the boardinghouse.
“Not unless there is a rush. Trying to fit the canning and drying in along with the usual duties takes long hours. And since Mrs. Sam isn’t as young or as well as she used to be, we all have to help out.”
“You need more help here, like every other business in town?” Joshua asked.
“We do. Especially as more people are staying here longer. That nice Mr. Jeffers has reserved a room for his mother when she comes. They should be here any day. Whoever thought we would have a housing shortage in Blessing?” She passed him the rolls. “Mrs. Wiste said we might have to ask the men to double up in the rooms, the way we are going. Some places build bunk beds and sleep four to a room.”
“If my brother comes, he can bunk with me.”
“Your brother?”
“Aaron, he’s the youngest. My sister Avis is the eldest, then my brother Frank, then me and then Aaron. I’d like them all to come out here, but Frank will probably stay on the home farm. He doesn’t mind being a farmer.”
“But you did?”
He nodded. “Pa expected us to stay there and farm, maybe eventually build a house when we got married. When I homesteaded the first time I was here, I realized I just didn’t want to farm any longer. I went back home and worked in town. Pa wasn’t happy with that, and he really gave up on me when I came back here.”
“What brought you back to Blessing?”
He couldn’t tell her it was Astrid. He had memories of a girl with golden hair down her back and eyes that captured bits of sky and sparkled when she laughed. Joshua mopped up the remainder of his gravy with a roll. Looked like that dream needed to do some dying. After the way he’d acted, she’d probably never speak to him again. Maybe it was time he moved on.
4
ROSEBUD INDIAN RESERVATION
SOUTH DAKOTA
“The baby died.”
Astrid stared at her father, the words barely registering. One more gone. Even though she’d not had much hope for the little one, the thought of another dead baby lay heavy on her heart. The youngest and the oldest were usually the first to die. Right now she was fighting to keep the young brave alive. While the old woman, called Shy Fawn, was changing the wet cloths, his fever was so high that they dried almost instantly. If only they had some ice to nest him in or at least a tub large enough to hold him.
A Heart for Home Page 3
