Gifts of the Spirit

by Patricia Eilola

  The big question came when they were nearing the top of all of the walls: would the cinder block walls support the weight of the house?

  In order to make it work, Arvo fashioned pieces of lumber at each corner to provide additional support.

  Then—after two months of work, near the end of October and the first winter snow—they lowered the house down—taking it wall by wall just as they had raised it.

  “Whoohoo! Whoohoo!” Arvo shouted as the house sat perfectly square on the edges he had constructed. All they had to do was finish off the upper part of the basement walls with pieces of lumber to seal the cracks.

  And to make sure it would be sound, Arvo had ordered a carton of cement, which the three of them mixed with water and gravel and spread over the lumber placed between the timber and the roof of the basement, which they had also built out of lumber.

  All we needed was a stairway to get down there! Thank God Arvo had thought ahead and had the fellows build an addition to the front porch, which included the stairway to the basement. We didn’t even have to go outside in order to go downstairs!

  Mother and the children and I all shouted and exclaimed! I think everyone in the entire neighborhood heard us, and a lot of them had come to watch the final steps being taken in this novel addition—something that others were to mimic in future years.

  I hugged Arvo, and he, me. We hugged Mother and the children and even Toivo and Eero were included in that celebration.

  In honor of the first night in the “new” house, Mother had outdone herself—making fried liver with bacon and onions out of the deer that Toivo had shot just the night before.

  Carried away with his enthusiasm, he had basically pointed his gun at the field, and lo and behold a deer fell! It was an incredible ending to what had been two incredible months.

  I couldn’t wait to write to Eino about it all—that it had all worked just as Arvo had hoped and prayed and believed it would.

  Now if we would just hear from Ronny, I couldn’t help but think, everything would be perfect.

  But life is never perfect, as I should have known by that time, and by the time we heard about him, it was almost too late.

  30: Ronny

  Unlike Milma, we did not receive the bad news in a telegram. It came in a letter—just an ordinary letter. But when we opened it, we all fell apart: Ronny was dead—or almost dead, the writer told us.

  “To the family of Ronny Jackson:

  “We finally found your address mixed in with his things. We’re sorry to have to send you bad news, but earlier this week when we were out riding trying to move cattle to a lower pasture, your brother/son took a very bad fall from a horse. The horse, frightened by an approaching cougar or mountain lion, bucked him off. When he fell, he must have hit his head on a rock as well as broken either his neck or his back. We are not sure—our doctor is not sure—of the extent of the damage because he remains in a coma.

  “He is now lying in an extra bedroom in our house rather than in the bunkhouse, but we are unsure about what you want us to do with and for him as time goes on.

  “Our ranch lies about ten miles from the train depot in Grand Forks, North Dakota. It would be possible for us to meet you there to bring you to see him and care for him if you could let us know the date and approximate time when you would arrive.

  “You have our very best wishes as does Ronny. We continue to pray that he awakens and once he does that he is able to move his body—his arms and legs.

  “With our sincere sympathy and our wish that we did not have to send you this news, we remain, yours truly,

  “Ingemar and Walfred Johansen of Green River Ranch, North Dakota.”

  “One of us will have to go,” Arvo said. So did I. So did Mother.

  “I don’t think it should be you, Maria, because you need to be here to nurse the baby,” Mother said. “And I don’t think it should be you, Arvo, because you’re not really his kin. I’m the one who needs to go.”

  “But…” I stuttered, “how will you get there? How will you bring Ronny home from there if you can? I mean… if it’s possible to move him…” I sat down in a kitchen chair, all out of words.

  Brooking no argument, Mother told us, “I had better get going. What’s the date on the letter?”

  “Oh, my gosh,” I exclaimed, “it was written at least two weeks ago. Anything could have happened in two weeks. He could be all better… or…” I couldn’t voice the alternative.

  “Write a letter right now,” Mother told me. “Say I’m on my way and I’ll let them know when I reach Minneapolis. The railroad should have a time-line, giving the distance from Minneapolis to Grand Forks and the amount of time it takes to get from one place to the other. Tell them I’ll leave… tonight… from Virginia. Arvo, if you’ll drive me to the station, I can catch an evening train to Duluth and transfer from there to Minneapolis. If I book just a seat, it shouldn’t cost too much—certainly not over $10.00. I’ll take $20.00 just in case I need to hire a buckboard to drive Ronny back to the railroad station—just in case he isn’t able to ride. If he is, we’ll hurry home. If he isn’t, I’ll try to get the doctor’s opinion about the kind of care he needs and whether he can manage a train ride home.”

  All the time she was talking, she was preparing herself to leave, emptying her carpetbag of its knitting, changing from her housedress into her good black dress, packing extra under-clothes, a clean housedress, an apron, and stockings. She’d wear her good black shoes and the black hat we had bought her for Christmas just a few weeks ago.

  Digging into the flour barrel, she pulled out $20.00 in cash, put it carefully into Father’s wallet, which she had kept and always used when it was necessary to carry money, and put $10.00 up her sleeve to pay for the first leg of her journey. She was ready to go.

  Nonny understood, of course, what was happening. He was going to turn seven in a few weeks and continued to be a great help to me and Mother. Now, he sat quietly, took Elsie on his lap, shushed her, and kept her still. Susie jumped around, getting in the way, but still grasping the gist of what was happening. She knew she could help most by taking care of the baby, but instead she insisted upon getting in Mother’s way until Mother had to tell her in a very firm voice to “sit yourself down, young lady, and be quiet.”

  Such an order was so unusual coming from Mother that Susie obeyed her right away, for which I was thankful because I could just barely hold back the tears—for Ronny and for Mother, who would have to make the terrible journey by herself, never knowing what she’d find when she reached the Green River Ranch.

  Arvo stepped up right away. Hurrying outside, he got the car going, and once inside, took the carpetbag from Mother, who had stuffed her most recent knitting project on top to work on during her train ride.

  I pushed my copy of One Hundred and One Famous Poems into her carpetbag, too, along with a small copy of the New Testament, for I knew she enjoyed reading the Psalms. “These will remind you of home,” I said. She thanked me with her eyes as she reached for a towel and washcloth and, at the last minute, stuffed in a sheet, thinking, no doubt, if there were bones broken or wounds unhealed, she might need bandages.

  Before we could do more than kiss her and hug her and say goodbye, she had climbed into the auto and waved to us as they drove down the driveway toward Highway 25 and Buhl, from where she could pay ten cents to ride a trolley to Virginia.

  We had not wasted a second. I had a letter ready for her to post once she got to Virginia. All we could do was hope the Johansens received it before Mother arrived in Grand Forks.

  The children started to cry—all four of them, including Nonny, when they saw their father leave, too. “Oh, dears,” I reassured them, “he’ll be right home. He’s just going to bring Mother to Buhl.”

  But the tears continued, unabated. The children had not known a single day
of their lives their Grandmother—whom I still called “Mother”—had not been there. They were bereft. So was I. I realized Mother would not be there to do the things I counted on her to do. I would have to do them myself. The first thing I had to do was to quiet the children. “Why don’t we make taffy?” I suggested, quite sure the suggestion would be greeted warmly.

  It was.

  I had them help me get the ingredients together: Susie was responsible for the sugar, the molasses, and white vinegar; Nonny had to get butter from the ice box, and I set Elsie to picking up the container of baking soda, a small enough container for her to handle.

  Then they “helped” me measure what we needed: Susie was remarkably careful to get only two cups of sugar and not to spill one bit. Nonny measured one cup of molasses, and I helped Elsie get quarter cup of water. I added the two teaspoonfuls of vinegar.

  Into a saucepan they all went. I had to warn the children many times not to get too close to the stove as I brought the mixture to a boil, stirring it until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water formed a rigid ball.

  Once it was off the heat—but still hot—I allowed Susie to stir in the two tablespoons of butter. I added the half teaspoon of baking soda.

  Then I poured the mixture onto a baking sheet I had allowed Elsie to grease. By the time she finished, she had lard all over herself, the table, as well as the “jelly-roll-size” baking sheet. The ten or fifteen minutes we had to wait for the mixture to cool enough for us to pull seemed forever, but I nursed Junior, who, like the angel he was, fell back asleep for his afternoon nap.

  At last we could start pulling. I folded the batter in half, and we each took a corner—even Elsie—and pulled until it was double in size. Then I scooped it up, folded it again, and we pulled it again. We kept doing that until the taffy had turned golden brown and was too stiff to pull anymore.

  Finally, I cut it into small pieces I gave to each child to wrap in squares of waxed paper. I paid absolutely no attention to the amount each ate, thinking that, for once, they could really use the treat. We ended up with forty-one pieces so I figured each of the children had eaten three. That wouldn’t make them sick. All the pieces we had wrapped went into the cookie jar—except for three we left out for Arvo to eat when he got home.

  It wound up being a nice surprise for him, and once we had finished, the three older children were more than ready for a “lie-down”—not a nap necessarily, I reminded them, but a “quiet time.”

  When Arvo opened the door, expecting to be greeted with squeals and cries, he walked into a quiet house with me braiding the pulla dough Mother had put to rise before we got the letter. I knew it had risen too long, but I hadn’t the heart to stop the children’s fun in order to braid it, and I was also aware that pulla of any kind was always delicious—even if it wound up a little flatter than usual.

  I greeted Arvo with a hug and a kiss and a question, “Did you see Mother get on the trolley?”

  He laughed. “You’d have been surprised at her… what is the word?… aplomb? She marched up those stairs as if she had done it a million times, handed the driver the dime, and went to sit down next to a woman who was holding a basket of garden vegetables. She must have been Italian, but as the trolley left, they were jabbering to each other, each in her own language, using hand gestures and facial expressions. I almost laughed, but I was too grateful. So I just waved to her and left. I sure hope that there’s a late train to Duluth.”

  There was worry in his voice. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “Remember Milma will be living in the parsonage in town now that it’s winter, and she always had an open door for visitors, especially if they’re from Alango.”

  “You’re right,” he said, tasting the taffy. “This is good!” It came out as an exclamation. I asked him, rather archly, if he didn’t think I knew how to do things with the children they would enjoy and would give us something good as a result.

  Rather sheepishly, he grinned. “I know… I know… I’m just so used to having Mother here it’s hard to think how we’ll get along without her.”

  “We’ll do it… together,” I said.

  He agreed immediately. We were fortunate the accident had happened during the winter when Arvo’s farm work was largely on hold so he had more free time. This year his free time had been used mainly to prepare the house for the furnace, which we had planned to order before Christmas, but instead we had used the money to buy presents and postponed the order until February. We had gotten along with only the “cottage stove” for so long I couldn’t even imagine how the house would feel once we had a good furnace.

  Under Arvo’s tutelage, the farm had prospered last summer and fall as never before. Our two pigs each had eight little ones, so we were able to sell fourteen piglets. Instead of asking the full price of our neighbors, however, Arvo had virtually given them away, charging only their help with the threshing and haying. He had also planted a field of corn and one of soybeans, which we took to the grain elevator in Hibbing, where the price of both was rising. We made good money on those crops. Not to be outdone, three of the heifers he’d bought had calved, giving us a total of seven cows and a bull. Arvo had bought the bull after much consideration, a lot of talk, and a lot of reading. The agriculture department at the University of Minnesota published a newsletter periodically, and Arvo read each from cover to cover, virtually memorizing the contents. It had been a suggestion he’d read the previous spring that had caused him to plant fields of corn and soy beans. He had also researched the bull before he bought him, made sure he was “registered,” came from “healthy stock,” and was young enough to learn. Old bulls, the article had said, were often “cantankerous,” “used to having their own way” and “sometimes hard on the cows.” Arvo had trekked all the way to Wisconsin to buy the bull, and, according to what I had been able to see, he had been worth every cent.

  The bull was gentle with the children, allowing them to touch him, to pull his horns, and even to ride him on occasion. He had been remarkably gentle when he mounted the cows, giving each one a good bit of nuzzling and licking before inserting his gigantic penis into her vagina. Arvo had kept the children inside on the days when the “mounting” was going on.

  “No sense to giving them ideas,” he had said, laughing. But I could see his point. The whole act felt cruel to me, and so it might to the children. He had done the same with the pigs, kept the children inside when the sow was bred.

  Two other additions to our stock included goats and sheep. I loved the lambs, who, unfortunately, tended to be born during the worst part of winter. That year I had nursed one whose mother had died giving birth, making it a bed behind the kitchen stove, and using one of the bottles we had never had to use for the children.

  Arvo insisted the goats would keep the yard clean and would happily down any garbage left-over from our meals so we had less to compost, which was another of his innovations—a compost pile. We fed it the grass cuttings from the front lawn (because now we had one), and the left-overs the goats didn’t eat. Another of his innovations was a rain-barrel. The one he used had a spigot on the bottom, a cover, and sat on top of the ground. We removed the cover when it started to rain and put it back when the rain stopped so mosquitoes couldn’t breed there—or flies. They didn’t breed on the compost pile either.

  That fall we’d canned over a hundred jars of green beans, corn, and peas. The potatoes and carrots sat in our root cellar, protected from the cold, along with the squash and the braids of onions and of herbs Mother had raised—parsley, sage, basil, oregano—and some new kinds she had heard about from an Italian woman who had heard about Mother’s excellent milk, butter, and cream and come to buy all they could. She brought Mother cuttings from her herb garden.

  Altogether the summer had been filled with work for all of us—including Nonny and Susie, whom we sent up and down the rows picking potato bugs and dropping the
m into cans of kerosene.

  Fall had brought hunting season. Arvo had shot two bucks—both legally—and a brace of partridges and sharp-tail grouse. He had rigged up a smoker so we could handle the pork we got from one of the sows he, regretfully, killed. Mother and I had rendered all the lard from it, and Arvo smoked bacon and ham. Mother made sauerkraut with cabbage we didn’t make into slaw. We had pork chops and pork steaks galore—enough to exchange with one of the neighbors—Mr. Perala, who had butchered one of his cows and had more meat than he or his wife could handle. They didn’t have any children. Eleanor’s baby—the one she had carried about the same time as I did Nonny—had been stillborn, and since then there hadn’t been any more children. I don’t think Eleanor could have borne another dead child.

  As it was, one Saturday night when she and I were in the sauna together, we talked about how both of us had experienced “the abyss.” Hers had been even more pervasive. I gave her much praise for withholding its pull. It felt good to talk openly about that whole experience with someone other than Milma. I’m not quite sure how the topic came up. Once it did, we were open with each other. It did me good. I’ve hoped it helped her, too. But I’m not sure. I had four healthy children, and she hadn’t been able to give birth to one. The scales weren’t equal.

  And now back to the topic at the heart of all of our souls and beings for the weeks following Mother’s departure: How was Ronny? Had he awakened from his long sleep? Was he able to move his arms and legs? Could Mother bring him home with her? Could he walk normally, talk and communicate?

  We wished we had a telephone. But, of course, here in the country, news came either by word of mouth or by letter. We longed for and feared every mail delivery. It had taken two weeks for the initial letter to reach us, so we waited the two weeks to hear from Mother.