Blossoms on the Roof

by Rebecca Martin

  “Pretty soon this place won’t be empty anymore,” Ben declared. “North Dakota, here we come!”

  9

  Home at Last

  Far away on the horizon of that big, empty land, the sun was starting to go down, and the train slowed. From across the aisle, Kettie asked excitedly, “Do you see that town? That’s where we get off. Father says our farm is only six miles from here.”

  “Is this our town too, Father?” Polly asked her own father.

  “No. Remember, we are going to a town called Rolla.”

  Polly looked sadly across the aisle at Kettie and Mattie. They had heard Father’s reply. They were sad too.

  When the train stopped, Kettie and Mattie helped their parents gather up their baggage. “Goodbye,” they said to Polly. “Surely we’ll see you again soon.”

  “Goodbye,” Polly replied. She felt like crying as she thought, North Dakota is so big. What if we never see each other again?

  Ben watched the passengers pouring off of the train. “Will all those people sleep in this little town tonight?”

  “No. Some of the passenger cars will be unhooked here. Of course, the freight cars with their belongings will stay here too,” Father answered.

  As they left town, the train seemed to move faster than before. Maybe it was because so many cars had been left behind.

  It was dark when the train stopped again. “Here we are,” Father said softly. “This is Rolla. Tomorrow, as soon as the sun is up, we will load the wagon and drive to our new home.”

  “I don’t know if I can sleep tonight. I’m too excited,” Ben said as he followed Father out to care for the livestock.

  Polly climbed up into her berth. She could not sleep right away. Maybe it was because the train stood still. Tonight she would not be rocked to sleep.

  Then suddenly it was morning, and she heard Mother say, “Polly, wake up. We are going home this morning, remember?”

  Home, Polly thought. Where is home? Back in Indiana on the farm that belongs to Paddy Lang? No, home is here in North Dakota, somewhere out there on the prairie. Polly climbed down quickly.

  Mother told her, “Father and Ben are hitching up the team to the wagon they loaded early this morning. We will eat breakfast on the way.” She picked up a sleepy Lisbet, and Polly took Jakie’s hand.

  “Goodbye, train,” Polly whispered as she stepped out of the passenger car. For more than two days, this had been her home on wheels. Now it was time to find her home on the prairie.

  There were Jasper and Rob, already hitched up and jiggling around as if they could hardly wait to get going. The wagon was piled high. “Is there room for us too?” Mother asked with a smile.

  Father swung Lisbet and Jakie up and onto the seat. “Mother, you may sit on the seat. Ben and Polly, you can find room in the back.”

  Polly squeezed in beside one of the packing boxes. Ben sat on top of the box. Father looked back to make sure everyone was ready. Then he lifted the reins, and they were off.

  Minutes later they turned off the street, and the wagon rolled along in high, waving grass. Swish, swish, swish went the wheels in the grass. Polly peered down to see that the road was nothing more than a muddy track in the grass.

  “I wonder how Father can find the road,” said Ben from his perch on the box. “I can hardly see it.”

  At first the horses trotted, but after a while they slowed to a walk. The grass swished against their legs as they plodded along.

  “Nothing to be seen but grass,” reported Ben from his lookout. “Acres and acres of grass.”

  “Like an ocean,” Polly said with a laugh. “We are on an ocean again—an ocean of grass.”

  The sun rose higher in the sky. “I see a house and barn!” called Ben.

  Polly stretched her neck. “Where? I don’t see a house.”

  “There. Those humps. The buildings look like grass because they’re made of grass.”

  “That’s a house?” Polly rubbed her eyes as if she had been dreaming. “Will our house look like that too?”

  “That’s what sod houses look like,” Father told her. “They are really quite comfortable. They don’t look very high, but inside they are dug down. As soon as we get to our place, we will start building our house.”

  “Oh,” said Polly. She watched the small, low, sod house until it disappeared from view in the waving grass. Soon they passed another sod house and then another.

  “How will you know which is our farm?” Ben called to Father.

  “I will check the number on the stake. Have you noticed the stakes that are driven into the ground? They mark the corners of the hundred-and-sixty-acre plots,”

  At last the horses stopped. Father got down and checked the stake. “This is it!” he declared. “This is our farm.”

  Polly looked around. All she saw was grass…and more grass.

  Ben stood up on the box. “I see some trees. I think there’s a creek back there.”

  “Then we will build our house near the water,” Father replied. “Giddyap, Jasper and Rob. Just a little bit farther.”

  When they stopped near the trees, Ben was off the wagon in an instant. Polly followed him down to the creek. Patches of gray snow still clung to the north bank. The water looked icy cold.

  Cupping his hands, Ben drank some. “Mmm. Fresh water! The water we had on the train wasn’t very good.”

  After drinking some water too, Polly climbed back up the bank to see what Father and Mother were doing. Already Father was hitching Jasper and Rob to the plow. In town he had bought an attachment meant especially for cutting sod strips.

  “Now watch us make bricks out of this sod,” Father said to Mother.

  The horses strained forward, and the plow bit into the grass. Slowly a strip rolled away from the plow. Ben used a knife to cut the strips into three-foot pieces.

  After a while Father had cleared a patch of grass to reveal the bare soil, and the horses rested while Father and Ben started to build the house. They began by piling sod strips like bricks around the bare patch.

  “Will the house be finished by tonight?” asked Polly.

  “No.” Father grunted as he lifted one of the big sod bricks. “It will take us some days.”

  Even Mother helped lift and carry the bricks, but soon it was time to get dinner so Mother went to the wagon to get some firewood. They had brought the firewood from Indiana because Father had said there were no big trees on their farm. They would have to fetch their wood from far away in the Turtle Mountains.

  Mother opened the cookstove lid and put in the wood. Polly laughed and said, “Will you use the cookstove out here in the field?”

  “Yes,” answered Mother with a smile.

  Building a sod house was hard work.

  Polly helped peel potatoes for dinner. “My hands are cold,” she said while holding her hands over the cookstove.

  The spring wind was chilly, making the whole family huddle near the stove to eat their hot potato soup. Father declared, “It’s a real treat to have soup after two days on the train.”

  After dinner Father and Ben cut more bricks. Mother put Lisbet and Jakie to sleep on the south side of the wagon where the sun helped to keep them warm. Polly felt sleepy too and soon lay down beside Lisbet.

  When she awoke, she heard Father saying to Mother, “We should start off soon if we want to go to town for the night.”

  “Couldn’t we sleep here?” Mother suggested. “Some of us could sleep in the wagon, and the new house wall would be a shelter for the rest of us.”

  Polly scrambled to her feet and said, “How can we sleep in a house without a roof?”

  “We will put up blankets for a makeshift roof,” Mother told her.

  “Tomorrow Ben and I must go to the forest to cut poles. We need those poles to build a good roof,” said Father.

  Polly thought, I’m glad we will have a wooden roof. A house made of grass is all right, but it will be better with a wooden roof.

  For supper
that night, the Yoders ate the rest of the potato soup. They had just finished eating when a man, a woman, and two small children came strolling along the track. Ben whispered to Polly, “They must be our neighbors. Look! The man has hair the same color as you and Jakie.”

  Polly looked again. The newcomer was tall and had a freckled face and sandy-colored hair. Maybe there was a hint of orange, but to Polly, the man’s hair did not seem nearly as red as her own.

  “Hello,” called the man. “I’m Bill McLellan, and this is my wife, Cynthia.”

  Cynthia was small, pretty, and had white-blonde hair and blue eyes. She introduced their children, saying their names were Thomas and Aileen.

  Bill said in his booming voice, “Since we’re neighbors, we thought we’d come and see if there’s anything we can do to help. I see you’ve started your house.”

  “Yes. It went quite well. Tomorrow we must make a trip to the forest for roof poles,” Father told him.

  “No need for that. I have a pile of poles that you could use for now. Later you can get some to replace them.”

  “We’d appreciate that,” Father said.

  Bill helped Father and Ben with the building until the sun went down. Cynthia helped Mother and Polly make the beds. They stuffed the mattresses with sweet-smelling grass. On the wagon they fashioned a blanket-covered spot where Ben and Jakie would sleep.

  Inside the new sod walls, they arranged two more blankets like tents. Inside one tent they put a mattress for Polly and Lisbet, and in the other they set up one for Father and Mother.

  Darkness was falling as Bill and Cynthia left for home. Mother said happily, “We have good neighbors.”

  Polly shivered in the cold night air. How glad she was to snuggle under her woolen blanket! Just before she fell asleep, she stuck her head out from beneath her tent. There were the stars, hundreds and hundreds of them, like pinpricks of light in the huge, black prairie sky.

  10

  A Roof Made of Grass

  Polly, please get some water from the creek!” called Mother first thing the next morning.

  Off went Polly with her skirts swishing in the dew-covered grass. There was Father with Jasper and Rob already cutting more bricks. He had been up before the sun.

  Near the creek Polly heard a sharp chip-chipping sound. Two bright little black eyes peered at her from a hole in the ground. The animal was brown with white stripes running along its back. With a flick of its striped tail, it disappeared into the burrow.

  Polly ran home as fast as she could with her pail of water. “Mother, I think I saw a chipmunk! It was striped and brown and tiny—no bigger than a kitten.”

  “Ah, you must have seen a flickertail squirrel. Bill told Father that North Dakota has many flickertails.”

  Polly clapped her hands. “What a nice name! I hope I can make friends with the flickertails. The one I saw looked friendly.”

  Mother put some wood on the fire in the cookstove. When Father came in for breakfast, she told him, “The firewood we brought along is nearly used up.”

  “Then we must make a trip to the forest next week,” replied Father.

  “How can we cook without firewood?” Polly asked.

  Mother knew what to do about that problem. “We must find some buffalo chips.”

  “What are those?”

  Ben was quick to add his thoughts. “Have you forgotten what buffalo are, Polly? Miss Mulligan taught us about them. Thousands of buffalo used to live on the prairies.”

  “Of course I remember the buffalo pictures she showed us,” Polly snapped, “but what are buffalo chips?”

  “The chips are dried dung left by the buffalo from years ago,” Mother explained. “Many pioneers in the West have used chips for cooking.”

  Polly made a face. Dried dung did not sound like good fuel to her, but when Mother and Jakie set off to hunt for chips, Polly went along too. Soon their basket filled up with hard, dry chips.

  “What if we meet a buffalo?” Polly asked, remembering how fierce the animals had looked in Miss Mulligan’s book. They had huge, shaggy humps and broad heads with curved horns.

  “We won’t see a buffalo. Even though there were millions of them on the prairies a hundred years ago, almost none are left. They were killed by the buffalo hunters.”

  In a way Polly felt sorry about all those buffalo being killed. Still, it was a comfort to know they wouldn’t meet one.

  They did see four more flickertails. Jakie squealed with delight and tried to catch them, but they were too fast for him.

  Flip wanted to catch them too. His paws worked furiously as he dug into a hole a flickertail disappeared into.

  “Come on, Flip,” called Mother. “You will never dig down to that flickertail’s den. They have deep burrows.”

  They moved on down the creek. Mother told Polly, “Flickertails have more than one doorway to their homes. Even if Flip should dig all the way down into the den, the flickertail would be long gone through his back door.”

  “Flickertails are smart,” Polly said admiringly.

  A nice surprise waited for them at home. Bill and Cynthia were there helping to build the walls! Polly played happily with the four little children the rest of the day.

  Before the McLellans left that night, the men moved the cookstove into the house. Even without a roof, the stove helped to warm the house.

  In his bedtime prayer, Father thanked God for their new home. He asked God to bless their family and all the other families pioneering on this vast, new prairie land. Then he asked God to bless their friends and relatives in Indiana—especially Grandpa and Grandma.

  That made Polly feel a little homesick. How nice it would be to run down the road once again and see Grandma!

  On Saturday morning Ben was eager to start putting up the roof. “Maybe we can have the house finished by tonight!” he said.

  Father shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Putting up a roof is hard work for one man and one boy, but we can start anyway.”

  Then along came a happy surprise. Peter Mast came driving up with his six children.

  “We want to help you build your house,” Peter said as he and his boys unhitched the team from the wagon.

  “Is your house finished already?” Father asked.

  “Not quite, but we have more help than you do,” replied Peter, looking at the three Mast boys who were older than Ben.

  Father said happily, “Building our roof will be much easier with so much help.”

  Polly watched them lifting the poles into place. “Why don’t they put the poles closer together?” she asked Mother. “The rain can get in between them.”

  “They will lay sod bricks on top of the poles,” Mother explained.

  “Oh.” Polly was disappointed. They would have a roof made of grass after all. She had hoped for a wooden roof, but she did not say that to Mother.

  Now Father was cutting some long grass with the scythe. When Polly asked what he needed that for, he said, “We will put a layer of grass across the poles before we put the sod on top.”

  “Why do we need a layer of grass?”

  “Think about it, Polly,” said Father. “When you are sitting in our new kitchen, which would you rather see above your head—grass or soil?”

  “Grass, of course,” Polly answered promptly.

  “If we didn’t put on a layer of grass, you would be looking at the underside of sod bricks. Besides making a nicer ceiling, grass will also help keep the rain out.”

  By evening the Yoder home was quite snug. Mother hung a blanket over the door and said, “This will do until Father has time to build a door.”

  Mother also hung curtains to divide the house into rooms. One tiny bedroom was for Ben, one was for Polly, and the third was big enough for Mother, Father, and the two little ones.

  The next day was Sunday. “I wish we could go to church,” Polly said wistfully. She longed to see Susan and her other friends. She wished she could sit on the familiar worn benches and listen t
o Abe or Henry preaching.

  “Next Sunday all five North Dakota families will get together,” Father said. “We planned that on the train. Today we will have church just for our family here in our new sod house.”

  So they sang songs together, and Father read from the big leather-covered Bible. He read the story of Jesus blessing the little children. Polly imagined how happy the children must have felt to be near Jesus and to feel His hands touching them.

  “The disciples thought Jesus was too busy for children,” Father said. “They told the mothers to take the children home again, but Jesus called them back. He wanted to bless the children.”

  Father put the Bible back in the packing box where it was kept. “Do you remember one of our last Sundays in Indiana when Henry preached about Abraham and Isaac? God rewarded Abraham’s obedience with many blessings. And do you remember what Henry said was the greatest blessing the world has ever known?”

  “The coming of Jesus,” said Mother.

  Father nodded. “So from this story of Jesus and the children, we know His blessings are for the little ones too.” He smiled at Ben, Polly, Jakie, and Lisbet.

  Polly looked around their little house. It smelled of damp earth and grass. It was gloomy because not much light could get in the window, but Polly knew that Father was right about those blessings.

  11

  A New Team

  Today,” announced Father, smiling at Polly and Ben, “you may help Mother plant our garden.”

  Polly clapped her hands. “May I get the seeds?”

  “Yes, you may,” answered Father.

  Polly left the table and went to the packing box that was their storage cupboard. She knew exactly where to find the precious seeds they had brought with them from Indiana.

  One by one she laid the little oilcloth-wrapped packages on the table. Each one was marked in Grandma’s neat handwriting: PEAS, BEANS, CORN, LETTUCE, CABBAGE, TURNIPS, PUMPKINS, SPINACH.

  Father looked over the seeds. “You have forgotten our most important crop.”