Dakota Dawn (9 page)

Nora crawled into bed that night with a heavy heart. How could a day that began with heavenly singing end on such a sour note?

Two days had passed and he had not spoken to her. Nora felt her temper simmering like a kettle about to boil over. She stifled the urge to slam the lid of the stove back in place—or the oven door. In fact, she knew if she stepped outside after the sun went down, her cheeks would freeze in the smile she forced past her clenched teeth.

She heard her mother’s soft voice.
“Ah, Nora, do not let the sun go down on your anger.”
But Nora knew that that had referred to keeping a happy marriage. And this . . . this contract she was caught in certainly could not be called a marriage in any terms she knew of.

But this is what you agreed to,
the cool voice of reason reminded her.
So you could go back to Norway, remember?

“Talking to myself, hearing voices. You think my mind is going?” The gray-striped cat in her lap looked up and yawned, showing white dagger teeth and a raspy pink tongue. She stretched her front paws way out, claws digging into Nora’s knee, then curled back up and resumed the rumbling purr that could probably be heard across the room.

Nora set the chair to rocking, letting her thoughts fly back over the last few weeks. Whenever she thought of Carl, his anger came to mind. Had she done anything to make him mad? Well, she tried not to, that was for certain, but he either snapped at her or ignored her.
No, that’s not all true,
she corrected herself.
The English lessons have mostly been peaceful times.

Was it his sorrow that made him so . . . so . . . she searched for the best word. Angry, yes. But lost? She stroked the cat’s back. Lost, yes, but more like an animal that has been wounded and strikes out at anyone who tries to help. She nodded.

So, what do I do?
She let her mind float again, like a thistle seed caught on a summer’s breeze. The answer came strong and clear.
Pray for him. Pray for him daily. Pray for him when he spitefully uses you.
A verse from her confirmation time, part of the “blesseds” that she so loved.

Silence reigned in the kitchen, a peace that gilded each chair and shelf, that glistened on the stove, and sparkled in the window. Even the cat’s purring ceased. Nora felt that peace slip into her heart and fill it to bursting. “Bless this poor hurting man, oh my heavenly Father. Bring healing to his broken heart and bring him back to You.” She whispered the words, as if loud sounds might disturb the moment.

A meadowlark sang from the fence, its song fluting on the morning air.

Nora lifted the hem of her apron and wiped the corner of her eye. “Thank You.” The words had to squeeze past the lump in her throat. “I promise to pray for Carl every day. Amen.”

After supper that evening, Nora brought out her books and paper and put them on the table. When Carl came back into the house after having checked on the animals, Nora met him with a cup of coffee.

“Please.” She nodded to the chair she had already pulled out and extended the cup with both hands. “English lessons I want.”

“Nora, I’m really tired, I . . .”

Nora held the cup and threw all her heart into the smile. “Please.”

“Oh, all right.” Carl took the cup and sat down at the table. He took a sip and set the cup down on the table. “Let’s see where we were.”

Nora sent another “Thank You” heavenward and slipped into her own chair. She took up the pencil and wrote, “When do the roses bloom?”

Carl looked at her with a question in his eyes. “Roses?”

Nora nodded. “I love roses.” She repeated carefully the word he had used.

Carl shook his head. “No roses here. Wild roses in June.” Nora shrugged her confusion. What did he mean?

“Let’s review what we’ve done before.” He pulled out pages they had written on in the past and pointed to the sentences. Nora had been practicing. She said them all correctly.

“Good.” He nodded. One lock of golden hair fell over his forehead.

Nora had the urge to reach out and brush it back. Instead she pulled herself to her feet and went for the coffeepot to refill their cups.

Nora sat down and wrote another sentence. “I want to plant a garden.”

Carl wrote the English and together they repeated the words.

He nodded. “Soon. I’ll plow up the garden, soon.”

That night, as she knelt by her bed, Nora remembered her promise. She smiled to herself as she slipped between the covers—praying for the man wasn’t so difficult when she didn’t feel like pouring coffee on his head.

One morning, Nora had another surprise. Brownie’s barking announced company and, when Nora threw open the door, the entire Moen family waved from their light buggy. Reverend Moen reined his horse to a halt and, after climbing down, helped Ingeborg and the children to get out.

Nora flew down the steps and met them on the walk. “Come in, come in. Oh, you do not know how happy I am to see you.” Her words tumbled over each other like puppies playing in the sun. She hugged Ingeborg and reached out to shake hands with Reverend Moen. “Come in.”

“You look wonderful,” Ingeborg said as she tucked her arm into Nora’s, “And how is that man of yours now?”

“Carl’s out riding the fence line to make sure none of the cows can get out.” She turned to Reverend Moen. “I’m sure he will be so happy to see you.”

“Good. I’ll return to gather my family later this afternoon. Maybe he’ll be back then.” Reverend Moen set a basket on the porch and turned to leave. “You all have a good visit now.”

They waved him away and walked into the house. “I brought you some things.” Ingeborg handed baby James to Nora and went back outside for the basket. “If the coffee is hot, we can share the cookies right now.” She plunked the basket on the table and began removing her gifts. “Jam, bread,
spekemat
, and cheese. One of the church members brought me this the other day. I thought you might appreciate it, too.”

“Oh, like home.” Nora sniffed the wrapped piece of strong-smelling cheese. “Thank you.”

“And sour cream cookies. Mary cut them out for me.”

“I put the sugar on,” said Knute. “Come on, Mary. Let’s play ball on the porch.”

Kaaren took her finger out of her mouth long enough to shove her hands into her coat sleeves and followed the others out the door.

“Stay out of the mud,” Nora reminded them. “Kaaren, you hear me?”

While a “Yes, Ma,” trailed back, Nora looked at Ingeborg and shrugged.

“And here’s the best gift of all.” Ingeborg drew an envelope from the bottom of the basket.

Nora reached for the letter. “From home. Oh, thank you.” She slipped it into her apron pocket to be read and savored later.

With baby James unwrapped from his quilts and lying on another one on the floor and Peder still sleeping, Nora and Ingeborg sat down with their coffee to catch up on the news.

They talked until it was time to fix dinner and continued to talk while preparing the meal. They were both feeding their babies when Nora heard Carl out on the porch, talking with the children.

“All right if these funny people I found on the porch go down to play in the hayloft after dinner?” he asked as he came in the door.

“That would be wonderful,” Ingeborg replied.

Nora could not say a word—shock locked her tongue.

Dinner was a lively affair. And quick. Carl even gave up his second cup of coffee to take the children down to play in the barn.

“I have a favor to ask,” Nora said when she and Ingeborg sat down again.

“What?”

“Will you write the English words to ‘Jesus Loves Me’? I want to teach Kaaren to sing it, but Carl insists we speak English. So many things I can’t give her because I speak Norwegian.”

“Of course I will. But you are learning some?”

“Ja, Carl and Kaaren, they teach me.” She went on to describe her evening lessons.

“And Kaaren calls you ‘Ma’?”

Nora nodded. “Carl was not pleased, but I’ve tried to tell her where her ma is. And he will not talk with her about it. He hardly talks to her at all.”

“What a shame.” Ingeborg laid her hand on Nora’s arm. “He used to have a wonderful smile—Anna would tease him into smiling and laughing. They were happy, those two.”

“And now he says nothing. He works himself into a stupor. You should see the barn. I think he has scrubbed the walls and even the floor. I’m sure the machinery is the same. Every buckle on the horses’ harnesses shines.”

“Men are like that. Sometimes I think God gave us heavy work so we can live through life’s sorrow. And men more so than women—they can’t cry.”

Nora nodded. She picked up her cup and sipped the cooling drink. “But crying and laughing again makes the sorrow easier to bear.”

“Ja. That and praying.”

The silence, sweet and comfortable, lengthened. The clock on the wall ticked away the moments. A robin sang from the cottonwood tree beyond the fence. Coal whooshed as it sank in the firebox.

Ingeborg roused herself first. “Now, to ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ Do you have paper handy?”

By the time Reverend Moen came to retrieve his brood, Nora had most of the English words to the song locked in her heart. And, to refresh her memory, the carefully written words. After they left, she studied the letters. Maybe this new language was not so ugly after all.

That night, as she brushed the hayseeds from Kaaren’s hair, she hummed the song. Kaaren chattered away about the hayloft with Nora listening carefully to pick out words she knew. “Pa’s barn” and “hayloft” she understood, and giggles were a universal language.

Later, after the English language session was finished, Carl brought a box from the pantry and set it on the table. “Go ahead,” he said with a motion. “Open it. These are seeds for the garden. I will plow tomorrow.”

“Plow?” Nora tasted the strange word.

Carl wrote it down so Nora could look the word up in the dictionary. More and more she was able to find the words she needed by referring to the dictionary. She read the meaning. “To turn the soil with a tool.”

“Then we plant?” She gestured to the seeds.

“After the ground dries. Then the harrow. Plant next week.”

“Thank you.” She turned her attention to the packets of seeds. While she could not read the labels, she did not need to. Peas, beans, corn, pumpkins all were easily recognized. She held up one packet of very small seeds.

“Carrots.” Carl identified it as well as the others. “Turnips, rutabaga, lettuce. Potatoes are down in the cellar. I’ll buy onions when I go to town.”

Nora nodded. Her fingers picked through the packets as if they had a delicate life of their own. Her own garden. She would plant and weed and water and they would have fresh vegetables. And some to preserve.

After her prayers for Carl that night, she slipped into bed with a smile still on her face. Her last thought wiped it away—by the time the garden was ready to eat, she would be on her way back to Norway.

She could not bear to remain in the house the morning Carl brought up the team hitched to a plow and started turning the soil. Rich black curls of dirt folded over in perfectly straight lines running north and south. She reached down and picked up a handful of loam, clenching her fist and then letting the dirt crumble back to the earth. She breathed in the aroma of the rich soil, the promise of spring and of rebirth.

“Easy, now,” Carl sang out to the team as they turned another corner. The harness jingled and the horses snorted as they leaned into their collars.

Nora watched when they started back toward her. Sun glinted off Carl’s bright golden hair, the one lock falling over his broad forehead.

Like her, he raised his face to the sun, then brushed the strand back with his forearm. His shirt sleeves were rolled back, exposing skin already turning pink from the sun.

“Ma?” Kaaren tugged on Nora’s skirt.

“Ja?” Nora left off gazing at the man on the plow and bent to see what Kaaren wanted.

“See?” Between two careful fingers, Kaaren held up an angle-worm she had rescued from the turned earth. Nora held out her hand and Kaaren placed it on the flattened palm.

What is the English word here?
thought Nora as she joined Kaaren in oohing over the creature.

“Show Pa?” Kaaren looked up, her eyes dancing with delight.

“Ja.” Nora nodded. “And maybe he’ll tell me what to call it,” she smiled. Who could keep from smiling on a day like this one?

“I’m going into town,” Carl announced the next morning after breakfast. “You need anything?”

Nora thought quickly. Kaaren needed new dresses and they were nearly out of sugar. How she would love to go along and visit with Ingeborg. Maybe he would ask her.

But Carl only wrote down the things she listed for him, including cloth for new dresses. When he drove out of the yard, he was by himself. She and Kaaren were left on the porch, waving good-bye.

“Come, little one. We’ll bake some cookies and go down to the barn to see the new calf.”

Kaaren stared wistfully at the barn. “Go in the hayloft?” She raised hopeful eyes to Nora. “Jump in the hay?”

“We’ll see.” Nora turned back to the kitchen. “Cookies, first.”

Later, Nora wrapped bread and jelly sandwiches in one napkin, fresh cinnamon cookies in another, and poured milk into a pint jar. Then she wrapped Peder in a blanket and the three of them started for the barn.

The new red-and-white calf bawled from his pen as soon as they swung open the door to the otherwise empty barn. The cows were out to pasture, Carl was driving the horses, and the pigs could be heard rooting around in their lean-to at the side of the barn.

“Up.” Nora pointed to the ladder, slanted from the floor to the door in the ceiling to the hayloft. She gave Kaaren a boost and stood beside the ladder until the little girl scrambled out of sight. Nora climbed up halfway and laid their lunch on the smooth boards of the hayloft floor. When she, with Peder in one arm, reached the upper floor, she stopped a moment just to look.

Rafters met in the peaked roof, high and dim in the dust-laden light. Much of the grass hay had already been fed to the livestock, but the densely packed fodder still covered about half the floor to a height of several feet. A pitchfork stabbed into the hay stood erect just like an empty flagpole.