A Promise for Ellie

by Lauraine Snelling

  “Hmm . . . thought you burned your britches.” Haakan tamped the tobacco down in the pipe bowl, then with pipe stem clamped between his front teeth, he raked the match tip with his thumbnail. It took two scrapes before the match flared, filling the room with the scent of sulfur. He sucked on the pipe stem while holding the match to the tobacco, then nodded, blew out the match, and set the charred remains on his saucer.

  He used to hold that match for Andrew or Astrid to blow out.

  Ingeborg’s muttered uff da as she cleared the table said far more than words about her lack of appreciation for the pipe smoke.

  It wasn’t like his mor to hold a grudge. Andrew couldn’t remember when there’d been tension like this at mealtimes. Ellie and I will never carry on like this, he thought. He pushed his chair back. “I’ll go get the paper.”

  Not too many days now and Ellie would be living at Penny’s, and then they could go for long walks in the evening. Why did a week seem like a month—or more?

  May 23, 1900

  Dear Andrew,

  How I hated to get on that train and leave you behind. Actually, leaving you is getting harder and harder. I am counting the days until I can come back to Blessing and to you.

  Ellie tapped the pencil against her teeth. How she wanted to share her newfound feelings with him, but somehow that didn’t seem quite proper. All the letters she’d read in books never mentioned the heat that rose from her middle at just the thought of him. Perhaps something was wrong with her; perhaps she was a wanton. She’d read that word in a story once, and it was not a very nice term. Nice girls only allowed chaste kisses on the cheek, if even that. Her mother had drilled the proper behavior of a young lady into her daughter’s head for years. She’d never mentioned feeling on fire with melting knees. Ellie laid her hands on her hot cheeks. At least everyone else in the house was long in bed, so she wasn’t giving herself away. She’d planned to write Hans a letter too but caught herself daydreaming about Andrew until she should be blowing out the lamp.

  Mother has finished the quilt she was making for our bed.

  The thought of the two of them and a bed made her eyes widen. She rolled her lips together and kept writing.

  Rachel is embroidering us a set of dish towels. She says we cannot get married until she finishes them. Is everyone in cahoots at putting off our wedding?

  In cahoots. She’d once read that in a western novel. There were some delightful terms coming from the West, although Thorliff had explained to her that to the publishers, most of whom lived in New York, the Dakotas were considered the West too.

  Manda peppered her letters with western terms, the few that she took time to write anyway. Since she and Baptiste had gone to Montana with Zeb those years ago, her letters were shared around the community when they did come. She said Zeb was off putting up windmills these days, while she and Baptiste took care of the horses and the home ranch, which had been moved to Wyoming.

  What would it be like to travel west and visit with them, just she and Andrew? My goodness, but my mind is just flitting all over the place tonight. Finish your letter, Ellie, and get to bed. After all, you need your beauty sleep. She giggled at the thought. While she knew Andrew thought her pretty—he’d told her so—she didn’t. Except in the dress she’d made for her wedding. In that she did feel beautiful.

  I told Penny I would be there a week from today, although if I had my way, I’d put what I have in my trunk and get back on that train tomorrow. I know you are angry with Haakan, but please let that go. The Bible says to not let the sun go down on your anger, and I know for certain there have been several sunsets on yours. The time will fly past. You just watch.

  Love from your Ellie

  She folded the paper and inserted it into the envelope with a pansy petal she had dried, then dropping wax from the candle she lit for just that purpose, she leaned the already addressed envelope against the base of the kerosene lamp. Black smudged the glass chimney. Time to wash the lamps and trim the wicks. Surely Rachel was old enough to learn how to do that. Perhaps she would give a lesson on lamp cleaning in the morning. Strange how her little cousin had grown as close as a sister, while she often felt more like a mother than a sister to Arne.

  She blew out the lamp and made her way up the stairs by the moonlight that kissed the lightly dancing Priscilla curtains at all the open windows. Upstairs she undressed in the room she shared with Rachel, carefully hanging her dress on one of the pegs along the wall. With her nightdress in place, she knelt by the window and crossed her arms on the sill. The moonlight silvered the maple leaves that whispered secrets in the breeze. Off in the distance a dog barked. Would she and Andrew have a dog to watch their place and bring in the cows? While they had talked of so many aspects of their life together, each day or even each hour she thought of more. Her mother had promised her a few chickens from her flock—somehow having chickens of her own seemed like wealth in abundance. She could sell the extra eggs to Penny so she would have money to store in a tin like her mother did. The wages paid her by Penny would allow her to buy some things for the house. Already she’d had promises of starts from flower gardens and seeds to begin her own.

  My goodness, she thought, there is far more to making a home than I ever believed. No wonder Olaf had crafted her a large trunk to put all her treasures in. Treasures she’d been making and collecting since she was eight, when she finished embroidering her first sampler on linen she’d woven herself from the thread she’d been given for a present. While she’d learned to card and spin wool that she would knit, spinning flax was not so simple.With her chin propped on her hands, she thought of all the sheets she’d hemmed on her mother’s sewing machine and the pillowcases she’d sewn and then embroidered. Fine handwork was almost as much of a delight as sewing on the machine. She’d made most of the clothes for Arne and Rachel, since her mother would rather cook and bake than sew.

  Her eyes grew heavy, but before she fell asleep, she looked up to the sky and found the star she and Andrew both wished on every night. “God, please take good care of my Andrew and help him see that good will come of this time we are preparing for our marriage. And teach me to be the woman you want me to be, a good example of all the fruits of the spirit—love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.” They had been part of her memory work for the last week as she continued to commit the book of Galatians to memory. Pastor Solberg always stressed that memorizing the Bible made it your own so that you could dwell on it, as the heavenly Father ordered.

  “Thank you, Father. I believe you love me and want the best for us all. Amen.” She’d hardly lain down before she joined Rachel in peaceful slumber.

  “As soon as we finish washing the lamps, we can go to the post office, and perhaps we will stop by Pa’s shop and ask him if we can have an ice cream cone at the drugstore.” And I can mail my letter to Andrew, but more importantly, perhaps there is one from him.

  Rachel sighed. “The boys are going fishing over at the creek. I was gonna go too.”

  “Rather than eat ice cream?” Ellie kept a serious look on her face. She knew how much her cousin would rather play with the boys who lived in the house next to them than do chores of any kind.

  Rachel sighed again. “No, I guess not.”

  “If you’d rather go fishing . . .”

  “Wouldn’t you rather go fishing than clean sooty lamps?”

  “Well, when you put it that way . . .” Ellie grinned at her young cousin’s hopeful look. “No, I’ve never been one to like fishing much, especially when you have to put the worm on the hook. Now grasshoppers, I’ll skewer them any day, but not worms.”

  “You think Onkel Olaf will buy us ice cream for sure?”

  Ellie smiled and nodded. He’d been the one to suggest they drop in at the building where he had his furniture shop. “Let’s hurry and get the lamps done. I have a real hankering for ice cream.”

  Together the two picked up lamps as they made their way
to the kitchen, where Goodie sat in the rocking chair, her Bible on her lap.

  “The lamp brigade is here.” Ellie set her two on the table.

  “Out on the back porch would be a good place to do that. It’s cooler than in here.” Goodie closed the book, stroking the leather cover with a loving hand.

  “Good idea. We’ll use the washing bench.” Ellie picked up the lamps again and backed her way out the screen door, holding it for Rachel. “I’ll get the wash pan set up while you bring out more lamps.”

  Rachel nodded and ambled back inside, whistling as she went.

  “Whistling girls and crowing hens always come to two bad ends,” Goodie intoned.

  “Yes, ma’am.” The music stopped, but Ellie knew the admonition never did more than cause a pause in the whistle. Rachel would just wait until she was out of earshot.

  “I don’t know what I am going to do without you here to help,” Goodie said when Ellie returned to the kitchen.

  Ellie nodded. She’d heard the words so often one would think they would fail to wound by now, but that wasn’t the case. Since the wedding wouldn’t be until fall, perhaps she should stay home to help. Not that Grafton was home, but it was where her mother lived. The thought of not seeing Andrew for several months made her toes clinch.

  “But I have agreed to work for Penny so that I can take care of my garden and help with building the house.”

  “I know that. Don’t pay any attention to my wishing.” Goodie rose and placed the Bible on the shelf away from Arne’s busy fingers then returned to the rocker.

  “I wish Onkel Olaf would move back to Blessing,” Rachel said on her way to get more lamps.

  While her mother said nothing, Ellie knew she wished the same thing. But Olaf had found a ready market for his furniture in Grafton. People were coming to him from Grand Forks, and he’d even had some orders from Fargo, many miles to the south. Thanks to the railroad system, he sent his beautiful furniture far away and was developing a solid reputation. He now had four men working for him and was looking for another. Ellie had seen him talking to George Mc-Bride, a young man from Kaaren’s school for the deaf who had worked for him before in Blessing. Olaf had trained several young men from the school in the craft of woodworking.

  Ellie knelt by her mother’s rocker. “If I didn’t love Andrew so much, I would stay with you. You know that.”

  “I do.” Goodie cupped her daughter’s cheek with her hand. “First Hans left us for college and now you are leaving. I know that’s the way of life but a mother always hopes her children will live close by. You will make a fine wife for that young man and he will make you a fine husband. A mother can hope for no more.” She patted Ellie’s shoulder as Rachel returned with another lamp. “Forgive me. I am feeling sorry for myself today. Uff da.What would Ingeborg say if she heard me carrying on like this?”

  “She’d say let’s sit down and have a cup of coffee and a good visit.”

  Goodie smiled and nodded. “That she would, and then she’d bring out the cheese to have with bread. Ah, I am so thankful for the many times she and I sat to visit.”

  “Or more likely visited while you both kept on working. I don’t remember seeing the two of you sitting very often.” Ellie pushed herself to her feet. “If I don’t get moving, I might lose my helper. The boys wanted her to go fishing, but I bribed her with the promise of ice cream.”

  Goodie flinched as she rose to check on the cake baking in the oven.

  “Ma, are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine, dear. I best buy some liniment. I do wish I’d mentioned it to Ingeborg when I was there.”

  Ellie nodded and dipped water out of the reservoir into a pan where she shredded soap to make suds. Taking the pan, dishcloth, and clean towels outside, she set up for the washing. Adding a pan of clean water with vinegar for rinsing, she set the kerosene can on the bench too.

  “Bring the scissors,” she said to Rachel when she placed the last of the lamps on the bench.

  “Where are they?”

  “Hanging on a string behind the stove, where they always are, I imagine.”

  “No they’re not. I looked.”

  “Oh, bother. I wonder who used them last.” The rule was “Always return the scissors to the hook” along with “Put back in its proper place anything you took out.” Goodie trained her family well in keeping things in good order.

  “I’ll ask Tante Goodie.” Rachel darted through the door, leaving Ellie to set the lamp chimneys in the pan to soak.

  With the chimneys removed, Ellie unscrewed the metal cap that held the wick, pulling the wick out at the same time. Once they were all disassembled, she poured kerosene into each lamp base, filling each to the base of the metal wick holder.

  The door slammed open. “I found the scissors.”

  “Where?”

  “With your writing things on your chest of drawers.”

  “Oops. Sorry.” She’d been cutting out an article from the newspaper to put in her letter to Andrew.

  “Always put the scissors—”

  “Back on their hook. I know.”

  The air of superciliousness that surrounded her cousin made both of them smile.

  “You want to trim the wicks?”

  “Sure.” Rachel picked up one of the metal pieces, inserted the wick into the neck of the lamp, and screwed the metal in place. Then, turning the metal screw, she cranked the wick high enough to trim. Cutting off all the black, she glanced to Ellie for approval, then adjusted the wick so about an eighth of an inch showed above the slot.

  “Very good. You want to wash or dry?”

  “Neither. I’ll trim.”

  “I’ll wash and rinse. You polish.”

  Chatting about a book they’d been reading, the two worked as a team until all the lamps were gleaming and returned to their places.

  “Now, doesn’t that feel like we accomplished something necessary? A good feeling?”

  Rachel shook her head and rolled her eyes. “They’ll just get smoky again.”

  “And use up the kerosene, I know. But still, for right now they look very nice.”

  “Let’s go get ice cream, like you promised, before Mor—er, Tante Goodie says it is too close to dinner.”

  “It’s okay. You can call her Mor,” Ellie whispered.

  Rachel nodded and wrapped her arms around Ellie’s waist.

  Ellie kissed the top of her head. “All right. Let’s get the mail.” Within moments they were out the front gate and on their way uptown, all without Arne, who’d been digging in the backyard, none the wiser.While Arne loved ice cream, they almost always had to give him a bath afterward. Neatness did not count, as far as he was concerned.

  Ellie kept her letter to Andrew in her apron pocket, where her fingers could sneak in to caress the stiff paper. Such a flimsy tie to the other half of her heart.

  In a week she would be leaving. This might be the last time she and Rachel would walk uptown like this. When she came back again, she would be a visitor. The thought stopped her like she’d hit a wall.

  “What’s the matter?” Rachel asked.

  “Nothing. I just had a strange thought.” She half trapped a sigh and smiled back at her cousin’s questioning look. So enjoy every moment before you leave. While that was good advice, it wasn’t easy to do. Regret lent everything a shadow.

  Admiring the furniture her pa had made for her at his shop and answering greetings from others at the post office took longer than they had expected, so by the time the girls got their ice cream, they needed to hurry home to help with dinner.

  Eating an ice cream cone and walking at the same time was not difficult, unless one let her mind wander off to the last time she’d had ice cream with Andrew. Ellie stumbled over a root in the path and, but for a convenient tree trunk, might have taken a header.

  Rachel licked around her cone. “You should pay attention.”

  “Thanks for the advice.” The two grinned at each other and kept on walking
.

  The letter from Andrew burned a hole in her pocket.

  “Onkel said he’d be a few minutes late,” Rachel announced when they walked in the door.

  “Thank you. Please set the table, and Ellie, could you slice the bread?”

  Ellie couldn’t get away until later in the afternoon when she stole out to the swing attached to a huge limb of an oak tree in the backyard. Olaf had put up the swing with a wooden board for a seat not long after they moved to the house in Grafton, not long after Rachel came to live with them.

  Ellie sat down and, using her fingernail, opened the envelope and withdrew the single sheet. While Andrew was a faithful letter writer, he never used more than one page.

  Dearest Ellie,

  She paused and reread the greeting. Dearest Ellie. What a beautiful thing to say. She sighed, a slight smile teasing the side of her mouth. Dearest Andrew. Soon she could say that to him in person. She continued reading.

  This has to be fast, but even though I said good-bye to you yesterday, I wanted you to get a letter. Our house will be shipped in two weeks, so once the barn is up, we should be able to begin setting up the house. I’m not sure how many wagon trips it will take to move all the pieces to our land.

  Our land, our land. Hers and Andrew’s but not really. Not hers until after the wedding, but still, it made her feel closer to him.

  We started laying the stones for the foundation for the barn. Even Thorliff came over yesterday to help. Astrid has been helping at their house and some at the store too. Far finally agreed to buy a few more cows, but now Mor must find some to buy. He has no time for buying cows right now. I think Far is right in waiting until more of our own heifers come in, but perhaps there are none to buy. No one in Blessing has any for sale, and everyone sells all their extra cream and milk to the cheese house anyway.