by Ann Treacy
Martin sneezed himself awake in the middle of the night. Blinking into complete darkness, he slowly recognized the noises and scurrying sounds within the barn’s creaking walls. He sat up, wide-awake. Even the rooster hadn’t started his racket yet. With care he felt for the matches and lantern.
Out here he was his own man. He could read Cora’s diary without feeling embarrassed. It wasn’t that he enjoyed the girl’s writing, he told himself, but that he had always been good at ciphers and puzzles. That’s why he needed to study up on her life. She’d been so happy on this farm. Martin reached for the diary. He shoved a trunk over to his bedding and leaned against it. From this higher perch the lantern hissed and threw a thicker light.
We have just arrived home after a full day’s journey from our visit to the Morrows. Everywhere their shelves are lined with objects. Mother says they have more things because they moved here from Ohio. People who come from the east have more than the immigrants. They have more clothes and lanterns and cooking implements. They even have more rags to use as cleaning cloths. They light a candle every evening.
Martin tried to school his mind into reading carefully for clues, but he kept getting lost in the story of Cora’s life. Martin thumbed ahead, choosing paragraphs here and there, anticipating an entry announcing his father’s birth. The last entry he had time to read discussed gathering wildflowers. He marked his place with a pressed flower, one of several that cascaded from the volume whenever he picked it up. The morning sun leaked in through cracks in the walls and ceiling, warming the barn’s smells and illuminating the heavy air, which swirled with floating particles of dust and hay. He turned down the wick and dressed for another day.
I also sorted through Mrs. Morrow’s button collection. Mother says hers in Sweden was as fine! She left many behind, since several sets would do nicely (them going from shirt to shirt or shirtwaist to shirtwaist as the clothing is replaced). My friend March gave me six jet buttons for a gift on my birthday last. I have not used them yet, preferring to hear them rattle in the tin where I save them.
—Miss C. L. Gunnarsson
Chapter 8
Martin looked forward to tilling season with Pa so he could quit school and work in the fields. In the country girls stayed in school later in the spring than boys, who were indispensable on the farm. But it was still the “season of mud and ruts,” and none of the boys had quit yet.
Walking home from school, he met no one on the county road for half a mile. Then Frank Barker and his younger brother, Dale, came racing across a field on their horses.
The Barker boys weren’t twins but looked alike. They teamed up well to intimidate, and even Miss Abrams gave them a good leaving alone. They bounced up to Martin on their mounts. “What’sa matter, Martin? Horse pull up lame today?” Frank taunted.
Dale pulled his horse in tight so that the two animals flanked Martin who walked steadily forward. He studied them on either side. The boys’ coats were newer than his own, which was patched but pressed. Theirs were dirty and unkempt. Martin wondered if they had a mother. For the first time he appreciated Aunt Ida’s help to Ma.
“Hey, town boy. Don’t nobody live around here without horses. Ain’t your pa a farrier to boot?”
Frank chuckled. “Yeah, that’s kinda like the baker’s son having no bread.” The boys edged their horses closer, trying to crush Martin between them.
“What’s your name again?” Frank jerked his horse sideways, even closer. “I remember now. Goonerson. If Anderson means son of Anders, and Carlson is son of Carl, you must be the son of a goon.”
Martin saw that the saddles the boys used were in a sorry state of disrepair. The animals’ feet lurched dangerously close to his own. The buckle above Frank’s stirrup scratched Martin’s left arm. Martin longed to yank that foot out of the stirrup and pull the boy to the dirt road.
“You sure have been a disappointment, Goony. Your lunches ain’t hardly worth stealing.” Dale kicked the pail out of Martin’s hand. “Cold boiled potatoes.”
Martin could ignore taunts, but no one took anything away from him without a fight. Planning to fish on his way home from school, he’d brought a short pole concealed under the extra shirt he carried. Martin took it in both hands and held it across his chest. He wouldn’t need to strike the horses or boys with it. The stick was only slightly longer than the width of Martin’s body, but the next time the boys brought the horses slamming into him, the pole’s ends rammed their flanks. They reared their heads and separated. He’d seen Pa use this trick when entering a stall where an unusually large or unruly animal was tethered. Pa kept a stick only slightly wider than himself, which he’d whittled to a dull point at one end. Edging toward the horse’s head, he’d scrape the stick along the wallboards so that if the animal tried to crush him against the stall, it would jab itself and sidle away.
The boys repeated the maneuver twice more without realizing Martin’s tactic. The second time, Frank’s gelding kicked off to the side of the road, snorting. He glared backward with an almost disgusted look at his rider.
Now at the Perry fields, Martin hopped onto a fence rail and swung his legs over. The rebellious boys thought better than to attempt the jump and whipped their mounts off down the road. The stupid Barkers hadn’t figured out what he’d done, and it gave him satisfaction to know he’d bettered them.
Martin thought about Sam. He decided to hike over to the Gypsy meadow after checking in at home. He approached the house through the back fields and entered the garden door. Not having seen Mr. Meehan’s automobile, he was surprised to find the man in the front room. Ma held the hem of her apron in one hand and rested her chin on the other. She sat, head bowed, in her sewing rocker, and it didn’t take Martin long to piece out that she’d been crying.
“Ma?” he said.
She held out her arm to him. “Mr. Meehan brought out a telegram from town,” she said. “Your pa had an accident and won’t be able to come home for a long time.”
The rocker was so low, Martin knelt by his mother to bring them face-to-face. The chair had no armrests so that a woman’s arms would be free while doing needlework. She looked terribly sad now with her fingers limp in her lap. He took a mangled scrap of onionskin paper from her hand, unfolded it, and read:
Logging chain snapped. Broke Jacob’s leg. Traction. Unable to move 6 weeks or more. Dr. B. Castleman.
He straightened, placed a hand on her shoulder, and said, “That’s lucky. Pa’s lucky, Ma. He’s always telling me about men getting killed when one of those chains lets fly.”
Meehan put in vaguely, “If I can help in any way with the farm . . .”
“I should go to him,” Ma said softly.
“Anything I can do to help, Martha.”
Martin held up a flat hand to silence the man. “I’ll be the one to go, Ma. Mr. Perry will want to help. He can bring me to town tomorrow, and I’ll wait for a freight wagon out. I have to be the one to go; I’ll need to bring back the horses.”
Martin strode to the door and held it open for the banker. “Thank you for bringing out the telegram, Mr. Meehan. We’ll be just fine now.”
Aunt Ida and Lilly came inside with armfuls of crab apple branches to bloom indoors. Worry was written on Aunt Ida’s face. She had clearly been distracting Lilly, and not for the first time, Martin felt thankful for her presence here with them. He explained he was going to get Mr. Perry’s help. Lilly, with tear-stained cheeks, mumbled repeatedly, “I want my daddy.”
27 May 1864
There is a war. It is not in Minnesota. The news we get is always old, and passed from Mrs. Perry. She sends newspapers through her son, Robert. Pa talks of going to fight when the crops are in. They are fighting other states in the country. Pa says unification is an important cause. “Unification is as important to the country as freedom is to the individual.” Minnesota became a state only six years ago. I have never seen Pa fight.
—Cora Louise
Chapter 9
Mr. Per
ry came with his team at first light. Aunt Ida and Ma saw Martin out to the wagon with pails of food, including many of Pa’s favorites. There was also a jar of buttermilk and a loaf of braided bread with currants for Martin to share with Mr. Perry on the way to town.
The first mile they rode in silence, encountering nothing more than morning songbirds and one red fox. Martin stole glances at the man he knew as the object of Aunt Cora’s long-ago girlhood affections. Mr. Perry, at sixty-two, was nicely rounded everywhere—a round nose, fat belly, and beefy fists. His size tipped the springs under the wagon seat in his direction, making Martin feel he would slide left on the seat if he didn’t occasionally reposition himself against gravity.
Martin could picture Mr. Perry as a young man from Cora’s diary descriptions. He wanted to ask Mr. Perry about his aunt and the people and things that she wrote about. But he was not about to admit to reading a girl’s diary.
Over and over Mr. Perry sneezed. He reached into a wooden bucket by his feet, wrung out a cloth in cold water, and tied it over his nose and mouth, cowboy style.
“Ever since I was a boy,” Mr. Perry said, “I’ve had a sensitivity to this time of year. Some say it’s weeds or certain trees; I don’t rightly know. But come a certain week each spring I can’t hardly stand to be outdoors.”
Pa once told Martin how Robert Perry suffered like this every year. Martin knew he could rely on the man like an uncle, but he wouldn’t ask him for help on the farm.
As they drove along, Mr. Perry rinsed his breathing cloth in the spring water whenever the sneezing started again. After an hour he handed Martin the reins and swung the cloth in the air to cool it off, then rode a ways with it pressed onto his red eyes.
Almost nothing but a feather tick made Martin sneeze. He thought to distract Mr. Perry with conversation and asked, “Mr. Perry, do you remember when my pa was a boy?”
“Why, I surely do.” Smile lines shot out from the doughy folds surrounding his eyes. “I must’ve been twenty or so, and it was a novelty for me to have so small a boy around. My sainted mother doted on Jacob until she died when Jacob was ten.”
Martin hissed softly to the horses.
“I reckon we did all right by Jacob at that. I remember when Jacob was a little tad, he decided it was money he needed more than anything. That boy begged and begged for a job until my pa spilled the cooking pepper out onto the oilcloth and told him to pick the fly specks out of it.” Mr. Perry grinned and shook his head in memory. “Damn if Jacob didn’t spend all afternoon sifting through that pepper looking for fly specks. The boy fooled us though; we ended up paying him a whole dime piece.”
Martin laughed at the story. He missed time alone with a man, occasionally saying cuss words and not worrying about what the women thought. He decided to ask, “What about my grandpa, what became of him?”
“Your pa never told you much about him?”
“No, sir. He talked plenty of you though.”
“Well, your grandpa Carl died of war wounds or some such sickness. He got home first though. Seems many died that way after the war. Then before your grandma Anna could decide what to do with the homestead, she and Cora died of the diphtheria. We took over the Gunnarsson place and farmed it some. Then last year, my pa took to bed, and Lord knows I couldn’t do another planting, so I offered it back to your pa.”
They drove in silence until Martin mustered the courage to ask, “What was she like? My Aunt Cora, I mean?”
Mr. Perry sat hard against the backrest. He had not sneezed in a time; still, he wiped his face and eyes thoroughly, then bent forward to dip the cloth up and down in the water. “Well, now, she . . . she was a fine girl.” He looked up into the treetops as they passed through a stand of hardwoods. “She sewed fine things, all the time. She’d make doll clothes and give them away to little girls around here. I think she had made just about everything for the new baby. For Jacob. After . . . well, my mother would study those clothes when she dressed the baby and sometimes weep over the fine handiwork.” He shook his head and stared into the water. “I remember Cora walked lunches out to the field for us. Her ma was too big with child that last season. Cora sat at the start of a row and she’d be sewing something, and every time we turned she’d wave. She’d sit like that and watch a time; then we’d turn and she’d be gone.”
Martin didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to stop the memories.
“She was the image of your own sister, and that’s a fact.”
Again he considered telling the man about Cora’s diary, but thought better of it. “Some say my grandma had a fortune and that she died before telling anyone where it was.”
“Oh, a dowry, a Swedish dowry. Yes, my mother believed that story. Maybe Anna told her, I don’t know.” He nodded his head in a way that could have meant the story was true, or that he had heard it but it was just a story, or that the entire thing was foolishness. It wasn’t clear what he thought, so Martin waited for him to find more to say.
“It was a common enough practice to give money to girls headed to the new country. Often their young husbands didn’t even know the amount until they arrived. Then they would exchange their Swedish riksdaler for American notes, and that’s when the husband would see how many hundreds his wife had. Maybe even a thousand or more. I never heard that Anna surprised Carl by exchanging any money when they landed. Either she didn’t have cash, or she kept the Swedish currency.”
Mr. Perry slapped his knee. “It’s likely just a tale that follows from the old country. Folks bring their stories of trolls and leprechauns and such. My pa and I and Jacob never set store in it, no more ’n’ Jacob believes those Paul Bunyan stories the lumbermen tell. Folks just need a good yarn now and then is all.”
Ahead, wagons coming from town had been turning into a driveway, and as they approached Martin read a sign:
BANK
SALE
AUCTION
He looked at Mr. Perry. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go.”
They turned the team, walked up to the farmyard, and joined a crowd that was forming around the hand pump. Everything that belonged inside the house was outside. Two men stood like preachers in a wagon bed with their congregation of mostly men—farmers and townspeople—fanned about in the yard. Those from town clustered together in shade cast by the barn. Mr. Meehan relaxed among them, watching the proceedings.
They were almost finished with household items. The auctioneer would point to an item, holler its name and a few details, and the bidding would begin. The other man helped him spot the folks who raised a hand to signal an offer. Things sold quickly.
A davenport.
A wardrobe.
Large items sold individually; others were grouped. Stacked in a wash boiler were an ironing board, butter churn, and dasher.
A bushel basket of dishware.
The family stood to one side, watching. Martin wondered what the bank would and would not take. Could the mother keep the eyeglasses she was wearing? The dog? Would they have to walk out of here?
The sale had been neatly and logically organized and now proceeded to tools and implements. Martin followed Mr. Perry, who circled behind the crowd.
“That there’s a disc harrow,” Mr. Perry said. “It’s used to break up the earth after plowing. And that’s a sulky plow. A very modern piece of equipment. Lets you ride like you’re going to church instead of having to walk behind and steer the plow yourself. I might still be farming if I had that.”
“Maybe you could get it cheap today.”
“Even at ten cents on the dollar, I won’t profit off a neighbor.”
“You know these people?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
They left. But the family’s image wouldn’t leave Martin’s mind. Two boys (the youngest clutched a blanket scrap as tightly as Lilly clutched her doll), mother, and father. And that father had two good legs.
25 June 1864
Mother never speaks to me of the baby that is coming. I kno
w she is with child because I remember when we lived in with Mrs. Berg to wait for Ole to be born. Mrs. Berg looked this same way. Then one morning, they showed me something small and said the baby came in the night. Even on their borning day, babies have ten finger and toenails. I unwrapped Ole and checked right off.
—the future Mrs. Cora ????
Chapter 10
“Why did you want to go?” Mr. Perry asked.
“Mr. Meehan.” Martin shook his head in disgust. “He’s come around, talking about selling. Talking about foreclosures. I’ve been wondering what it means, is all.”
“Meehan’s no farmer,” Mr. Perry said. “He made me an offer for my farm and yours too. I couldn’t rightly let the place go to the likes of him without offering it back to Jacob first. That’s right about a loan. It’s small but we bought the property outright when Carl and Anna died. They didn’t own it since they didn’t live on it the five years required to prove up the claim. They call those relinquishments, and they happened all the time with homesteads for lots of reasons.”
Martin said, “He just buys up all the land and everything next to it! But he’s a man who wouldn’t even know which end of a chicken the feed goes in.”
Mr. Perry thought a while. “God makes all kinds, but the world has a hand in it, too. Roger Meehan was orphaned like your pa when he was a boy. He’s a fancy dandy now, but he had a time, too. Most people do—they have a refining time; they have difficulties.”
“What happened to him?”
“Meehan worked out. Not uncommon for a boy, but he was powerful young. He started sweeping for the banker, who taught him the value of a dollar. I wonder, should we have done more for him like we did for Jacob? It’s just so easy to see the need with a baby. Meehan may have finished his growing in town, but maybe he didn’t grow up with much society. The society of a family is a powerful thing.”
