Blossoms on the Roof

by Rebecca Martin

  When they got home from school the next day, there he was on the porch waiting for them. “Father!” screamed Polly, running to meet him.

  Ben ran too, and soon Father had an arm around each of them. “You were gone so long,” Polly whispered.

  “It’s good to be back,” said Father. “Now come in, and I will show you something.”

  On the table lay a big piece of paper. “A map!” exclaimed Ben, bending over to take a closer look. “Here’s where we live.” He put his finger on the state of Indiana.

  “The railroad company gave me this map,” Father said, pointing to the big letters at the top that read: GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY. “Do you see this railway running west and north from Chicago?” His finger traced a line that looked like a twisting ladder. On and on went his finger, across the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

  Then his finger stopped on a square-shaped state. “This is North Dakota, where the United States government is giving away free farmland.” He paused, looking at Ben and Polly. “And we are going up there to get a home of our own.”

  “What?” said Ben. He looked from Father’s face to Mother’s face. They were both smiling.

  “Yes,” said Father, “we are moving to North Dakota. That’s why I went to La Grange County. Some families from there are starting off this month, and we plan to join them.”

  “North Dakota,” said Ben slowly, trying to get used to the idea. He studied the map again. “Why, that’s almost up in Canada!”

  Father nodded. “Right on the border.”

  “It must be awfully cold in North Dakota,” Ben said. “Some people in Canada live in houses made of snow.”

  “You must mean the Eskimos,” Father said with a chuckle. “They live much farther north than the border. Canada is a huge country.”

  “How far away is North Dakota?” Polly asked in a small voice.

  “It’s more than six hundred miles to the area where the other families have claimed homesteads.” Father pulled another paper from his pocket. “Now this shows you the area where we will live—Rolette County. Here’s the railroad going up to the town of Rolla. Here’s Island Lake. We plan to get a homestead in Island Lake Township.”

  “Will we be near the lake?” Ben asked eagerly.

  “Maybe. I won’t know exactly where our farm will be till we get to the land office,” answered Father.

  Ben was full of questions. “How big will the farm be?”

  “We will be getting a hundred and sixty acres of free land. Well, almost free. We must pay sixteen dollars to the land office in order to stake the claim.”

  “Imagine!” marveled Ben. “One hundred and sixty acres. We can grow bushels and bushels of grain.”

  “Not in the first year,” Father said.

  “Will we have to cut down a lot of trees the way Grandpa’s father did when he came to Indiana?” Ben asked while recalling Grandpa’s pioneering stories.

  This brought another chuckle from Father. “There are no trees in this part of North Dakota. It’s prairie! Acres and acres of flat land. No stones. No trees.”

  “Then why can’t we plant crops this spring?”

  “Because the prairie is covered with tough, high grass. We will plow as much as we can to plant a garden and maybe some flax, but it won’t be much the first year,” he said again.

  Ben said soberly, “Plowing prairie grass will be hard work for Jasper and Rob.”

  “Yes, I learned that many farmers use four-horse teams or oxen.”

  “Will there be a log house on our farm?” asked Polly.

  Father looked at her. “There will be no house at all, Polly. We will need to build one. That is another reason why we cannot plant many crops this spring.”

  “A sod house, Polly. We are going to build a sod house,” Mother told her.

  Polly’s eyes were round and questioning. “What is a sod house?”

  “Why, we plow up the prairie grass to make strips of sod about five inches thick, and we pile up the strips like bricks to make the walls,” Father explained.

  Polly blinked. “The house will be made of dirt?”

  “Earth and grass and roots, all together in a nice solid strip,” said Father. “I’m told that sod houses are quite warm in the winter.”

  “But,” said Ben, “what will we burn in our stove if there are no trees?”

  Father’s finger came down on the map of North Dakota again. “Do you see this funny-shaped area? That is a mountainous area where there are lots of trees. It’s called the Turtle Mountain Reserve because that’s where the Indians moved to when the white men began settling the land.”

  “Indians!” exclaimed Polly, her eyes growing wider still.

  Father patted her hand. “Friendly natives, Polly. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that we can fetch all the wood we want in those hills. Wood for burning and wood for building.”

  “You said the house will be made of sod,” Ben said, reminding him.

  “Yes, but we’ll use wood sooner or later.” Father folded up the maps. “I think Mother wants to put supper on the table.”

  Ben had more questions. “Have those other men seen the land already?”

  “Yes. They traveled out there last spring and saw many acres of wheat fields. Lord willing, some day there will be wheat fields on our farm too. The United States is growing so fast that there is a great demand for wheat. We can make money growing wheat,” Father said with a dreamy note in his voice.

  “And out in North Dakota, there’ll be no Paddy Lang coming to see us about the rent,” Ben said happily.

  Mother brought the plates and cups. “We’ll be like Abraham—going to a land we haven’t seen.”

  “We need to be like Abraham,” Father said earnestly. “We need to have faith in God and obey Him too.”

  Between mouthfuls of potato-and-turnip soup, Ben had more questions. “Will we go by train, Father?”

  “Yes, we will,” said Father, smiling when he saw how the children’s faces lit up.

  Polly clapped her hands. “Oh, good! I’ve never had a train ride, but Jakie has. Remember, Jakie, when you went with Father and Mother on the train to Pennsylvania to visit our other grandpa?”

  Jakie put down his spoon and wrinkled his forehead. “Train?” he repeated, trying to remember.

  “To think you had a train ride but don’t know it anymore,” Polly said sadly. “Well, you were only one year old. Just a baby, actually.”

  “Now we’re going on a train again?” Jakie asked. All this talk about North Dakota and train rides was more than his four-year-old mind could grasp.

  “Yes. You know how a train looks. We’ve seen one coming into town,” Ben told him. “It’s that big, smoking engine on the track with dozens of cars coming along behind. And we’ll be in one of those cars!”

  “Car? Ride in a car?” Jakie asked.

  “Oh, now you’re all mixed up,” Polly said, laughing. Jakie had sometimes seen an automobile too, and he knew those “horseless carriages” were called cars. “The railroad cars are like—like houses on wheels being pulled along by the big engine.”

  Ben turned to Father and asked, “What about Jasper and Rob? How will they get to North Dakota?”

  “There will be several cars set aside for livestock,” Father answered. “You see, on this train that is leaving Goshen on March 28, there will be many, many families who are moving to North Dakota—not just the five Amish families we know of. So there will be cars for passengers, cars for freight, and cars for livestock.”

  “So we can take our cookstove and this table and—and our beds?” Polly looked around the room, spotting so many things she would hate to leave behind.

  “We can take all the furniture that’s necessary,” replied Father.

  Ben was puzzled. “But, Father, where will we get the money for the train fare?”

  Father’s eyes glistened as if a few unshed tears lurked there. “Both your grandpas will loan us money, and so will Uncle
Ben.”

  “Oh,” said young Ben. He pictured his uncle toiling away in that dingy little cobbler shop, mending people’s harnesses and shoes. He was pretty sure that Uncle Ben did not have a lot of extra money. Yet he was willing to help Father with this pioneering venture. Suddenly Ben understood why there were tears in Father’s eyes.

  6

  Eskimos and Huskies

  I can hardly wait to tell Susan,” Polly said, panting. She had to run to keep up with Ben as they hurried down the lane the next morning.

  “And I wonder what John will say. He’ll probably wish he could go too,” Ben said. “There he comes around the bend now.” Off Ben sprinted to meet his friend.

  “Susan—we—we are going to North Dakota!” puffed Polly as soon as she reached the other girl.

  Susan stopped short and stared at Polly. “What? You are going on a trip? I thought you said there’s no money to pay the rent.”

  “No, no,” Polly replied, laughing. “We are not going on a trip. Well, yes, we are, but then we’ll stay there—in North Dakota where we can get a free farm from the government.”

  Susan started walking slowly, scuffing her feet in the mud. “Oh. You are moving away. But not soon I hope.”

  Her voice sounded so sad that Polly hardly knew what to say. “Well, yes. At the end of this month.”

  “Oh, Polly, I’ll never see you again.” Two big tears pooled in Susan’s blue eyes.

  Suddenly Polly felt like crying too. Up to now she had only thought of the exciting parts. Moving to North Dakota had sounded like a marvelous adventure, but this was different. Now she started to think of all the friends she would leave behind. Is it true? Will I never see them again? In a very small voice, she said, “Maybe we’ll come back to visit. On the train, you know.”

  “Oh,” Susan said again just as forlornly as before. “How far away is North Dakota?”

  “More than six hundred miles.” Polly’s voice was almost a whisper.

  “Six…hundred…miles. Why, that’s like the other side of the world, Polly.”

  Polly swallowed hard. Was that a sob, trying to push up into her throat? I must be brave, she thought to herself. “No, it’s not, Susan. Father showed us on the map. North Dakota is in the United States so it can’t be on the other side of the world.”

  “Oh.” It seemed Susan had run out of things to say.

  Meanwhile, Ben and John were also talking about North Dakota. John’s first comment was, “Why, that’s almost in Canada where the Eskimos are.”

  “No, they—”

  John cut Ben off by saying, “My father heard that some Amish are moving up there, but I never dreamed it would be anyone I knew. Guess what Father said about North Dakota, Ben. He said the winters get so cold that the smoke from your stove freezes before it ever leaves the chimney.”

  Ben stared at his friend. “That’s not true. Smoke can’t freeze.”

  “Well, Father said so,” John replied with a shrug and pushed open the school gate. He shouted to the other boys, “Guess what! Ben’s going to move up to Eskimo land!”

  Ben was stunned. He had not dreamed that John would react like this. Stopping inside the gate, he waited unhappily to see how the other boys would respond.

  They crowded closer to John and cast curious glances in Ben’s direction. “What did you say? The Yoders are moving?” questioned Tom Ghent, the curly-haired son of an Irishman.

  “Yep,” John answered with an air of importance. “Up to North Dakota. You know, that cold place where they’re starting an Amish settlement.”

  Harry Pontocki said with a smirk, “Oh, yeah. Where it gets so cold at night that your breath freezes on the blankets and you have to break the ice before you can get up in the morning.”

  Ben stood miserably nearby. This was so different than he had imagined. He had pictured himself in the center of the crowd, holding everyone’s attention as he told about the planned move. Instead, John was telling the others, and the only kind of attention he was getting was scorn.

  Ed Dupont yelled over to Ben, “You’ll have to kill a polar bear and make yourselves fur coats to keep warm.”

  And Adam Rheal piped up with, “Might as well trade in your team for a bunch of huskies to pull your sled.”

  Ben had never been so glad to hear the clang of the big brass bell. He scurried in ahead of the other boys and was in his seat before anybody else could think up a scornful remark.

  The desks were double ones—two students to each bench. Ben wasn’t sure if he imagined it, but it sure seemed as if his seatmate, Billy Teddinton, was edging as far away as possible on their bench.

  With so much misery inside him, Ben found it hard to focus on his lessons. He glanced over in Polly’s direction. She didn’t look very happy either. Are the girls treating her badly too? How can our schoolmates be so mean? he wondered.

  Lunch hour was no better. As often happened, they planned to play Wolf-Dog, a game invented by an earlier generation of Oak Grove students. On each side of the schoolhouse, they drew a wolf cage in the mud. In each of the four cages, a student was stationed to be a “wolf.” Each wolf owned ten twigs, which he called his “bones.” The rest of the children were “dogs” with the goal to steal as many bones as possible without being tagged by a wolf, who could never set foot outside his cage.

  Today the game took a strange new twist. “Let’s call the wolves ‘huskies,’ ” suggested Tom, and the rest agreed with cries of delight.

  That was bad enough. Ben knew why they were doing it. But the worst part was when the huskies started chanting, “Look out, here comes an Eskimo,” whenever Ben or Polly drew near to steal bones. Then the husky would growl fiercely and make faces at them.

  “Pretend it doesn’t bother you,” Ben whispered to Polly when he brushed past her. But he could see in her eyes that it did bother her a great deal.

  It was the longest lunch hour Ben had ever experienced. How glad he was to return to the classroom, even if Billy Teddinton slid to the far side of the bench again.

  Ben took one look at Miss Mulligan standing straight and stern at the front of the classroom, and his heart dropped. What now? Her eyes flashed the way they usually did when there was trouble ahead.

  “Your talk of Eskimos and husky dogs,” she said abruptly, standing with her hands on her hips, “is absolute nonsense.”

  Ben tried to catch a glimpse of his classmates without turning his head because he knew that when Miss Mulligan spoke in that tone, it was best to freeze. He didn’t dare move.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the others were dumbfounded. Really, they shouldn’t have been surprised that Miss Mulligan had heard about the Eskimos. Everyone knew she had eyes in the back of her head—and ears in the front, back, and sides.

  “North Dakota,” she continued in a voice that could have frozen smoke in the chimney, “is situated just below the forty-ninth parallel, which is the border between the United States and Canada. Many different crops and vegetables are grown in North Dakota. It has millions of acres of prime farmland just being opened to settlers.” Her voice softened. “And if I were younger, I would be boarding a train for North Dakota too.”

  At that moment Polly wanted to run up, grab her hand, and plead, “Yes, do come with us. We want you for our teacher.” Of course she didn’t say it, but she gave Miss Mulligan one of her best smiles.

  “Now,” said Miss Mulligan, “let’s get on with our lessons.”

  Although Miss Mulligan never said the exact words, everyone understood that not another word was to be said about Eskimos in connection with North Dakota.

  Like magic the other boys’ attitudes had changed by the time school let out. Now they asked Ben friendly, interested questions about North Dakota and the train ride. Now, too, Ben thought he could detect a trace of envy in some of the boys.

  “After all,” he said to Polly when they were almost at home, “just staying here in Indiana looks pretty tame when you have a chance to go
pioneering.”

  Polly nodded and thought, At least Ben is happy again. But in the evening when they were washing dishes, Polly said to Mother, “That was the worst day I’ve ever had.”

  Mother looked at her. “Are your friends sad that you’re leaving?”

  “Uh—well—Susan is. But some of the girls made fun of—of North Dakota and called us Eskimos.” She had not cried all day, but now a sob pushed up into her throat.

  Mother put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Polly. I didn’t think they’d do that.”

  Sniff. “Neither did I.” And Polly sniffed again and then wiped her nose. “But it was better after Miss Mulligan gave us a tongue-lashing.” She wasn’t even sure what a tongue-lashing was, but she’d heard the other girls using the word.

  “Miss Mulligan has no use for nonsense.”

  “No. She called the talk about Eskimos absolute nonsense.” Polly giggled. “And she said she’d like to go to North Dakota too.”

  “Good for her,” said Mother. She looked Polly in the eyes. “I hope you didn’t make a fuss when the others were giving you a hard time. The Bible says of Jesus that ‘when he was reviled, reviled not again.’ That means He didn’t talk back when people mocked and scorned Him.”

  “I tried not to make a fuss,” Polly whispered. And it was true, even though she had wanted to scream at her classmates that they were being unfair.

  7

  Train Ride

  Packing was fun. Mother started on the last Saturday morning before they were to leave so Ben and Polly could help. They carefully placed the dishes into Mother’s high-top, wooden trunk with the polished brass hinges. Towels and bedding were just the thing to pack around the plates, teapot, and blue china bowl to keep them safe on the long trip.

  Father got some scrap lumber at the lumberyard in town and nailed together six boxes. All the other household things and many of Father’s tools were packed into these boxes. Of course, they had to keep out a few things to use over Sunday because they would not be leaving until next week.

  “I guess the table and chairs don’t need to be packed in boxes,” Ben remarked, running his hand over the smooth tabletop. “They can just go in the wagon, and then we’ll pile them in the freight car.”