RR05 - Tender Mercies (21 page)

“Olaf said he would draw a picture of the man’s face, and maybe we could do like they do with those wanted by the law.” Lars motioned toward Onkel Olaf, who nodded in return.

“You mean put up Wanted posters?” Pastor Solberg’s voice sounded like his throat had been sandpapered. The smoke had given everyone who fought the fire a case of raw throat.

“Not exactly. He weren’t wanted for anything, far as we know.” Lars cleared his throat too. “But if something like that went out to the bigger cities and towns, someone might know him.”

“Or we could just bury him and put his valuables in a bag in the bank vault and see if anyone ever comes asking for a Mr. Frank So-and-So,” Joseph Baard offered. “Be far easier.”

“True. But I keep thinking about his widow. She has a right to know.” Solberg pursed his lips. “No, she has a
need
to know.”

“Maybe we should let the sheriff in Grafton know about him. Wouldn’t he be the one to get any missing persons report? Surely his widow will turn in something like that.” Haakan leaned his elbows on his knees.

“Only if she wants him back.” The men chuckled at Joseph’s sally.

“Any other suggestions?”

“We could send letters to some newspapers, saying we got this man’s belongings, like maybe in Grand Forks and Fargo.”

“You could include Bismarck and Minneapolis.”

“I could ask Kaaren to write the letters. She writes real good.”

“All right, I get the feeling we want to send letters to the papers, and I believe contacting the sheriff is a good idea. That way no one here will be accused of murdering the man.”

“I told him we didn’t allow drinking and smoking,” Olaf repeated.

“No one in his right mind smokes around hay barns and grain storage. We all know that,” Hjelmer threw in.

“That was the problem. No man who’s been drinking till he’s drunk is in his right mind.” Joseph rolled his eyes. “Just ask my Agnes. She’ll tell you. Her and all the women. They hate drinking worse than dust under the bed.” Several of the men chuckled along with him. Drinking at community events had caused a real stir for a time, until the women got their way and drinking was outlawed.

“Now, we don’t know for sure he was drunk.” Solberg earned a communal snort for that comment.

“If he weren’t drunk, the smoke woulda woke him up, or at least his coughing woulda.” Joseph leaned back against the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Drunk as a skunk he was. I’d bet on it.”

“Be that as it may, I’m not going to include it in the letters.” He turned to Lars. “Thank you for volunteering Kaaren, but I better do the letters myself. Sounds more official coming from the pastor.” He looked at Hjelmer. “You going in to Grafton in the next day or so?”

“Guess I could.”

“Good, then you’ll talk with the sheriff?”

Hjelmer nodded.

“Anything else we need to discuss then?”

“I think we should have a funeral for him. That way if his widow or family comes asking, they’ll know we did right by him.” Haakan glanced around the room. “I know it might help me feel better if I was the grieving party.”

“I’ll make the box,” Joseph volunteered, “first thing in the morning.”

“Thanks.” Olaf was usually the one who made the coffins.

“And we’ll bury him here in the cemetery.”

“What if he weren’t a believer?”

“Since only God knows that, we’ll do what we can.” Solberg looked at each face. “Anything else?”

When they all shook their heads, he bowed his. “Let’s close in prayer then.”

At the “amen” they all stood. “See you tomorrow, then, those who can come. Otherwise, remember the debate here at ten on Saturday morning. The women have planned a dinner for afterward.”

“To keep them politicians from talking all day long.”

“And talking our ears right off.”

They all left chuckling.

That sunny Saturday people began arriving an hour before the debate, tying their horses and throwing down hay for them. The men started the cooking fire and helped set up the tables on the south side of the church while the women set out the food, all covered and ready for the noon meal.

Some had brought coffee in jugs they emptied into buckets to hang over the fire to warm. Huge coffeepots were hung on tripods and filled with water to make coffee later.

The church filled to standing room only, so they opened all the windows in order that the people outside could hear.

At ten o’clock Pastor Solberg stepped to the front and raised his hands for silence. As the crowd quieted, the younger children could be heard playing at the schoolhouse. “Welcome, everyone, to our first political debate here in Blessing. Let us ask our heavenly Father to bless this day and us.” He waited until the shuffling and throat clearing stopped. “Father in Heaven, God of all the universe and God of this great country of ours, we thank thee for putting governments on earth to help and guide us. We thank thee for all the folks gathered here and our interest in being wise citizens who understand the issues and choose carefully the people we vote for. Bless thou this day and this meeting. Please grant us wisdom and peace. In Jesus’ precious name.”

The crowd joined him in the “amen.”

Pastor Solberg waited until everyone took their seats again. “Thank you. I now have the honor of introducing to you two gentlemen who have come here to inform us of the issues as they see them. Please stand, gentlemen, so everyone can see you.” As the two well-dressed men rose from the front pew and took their places on either side of him, Solberg nodded and shook their hands. “Now, on my right we have Mr. Walter Muir, who has a reputation as an excellent farmer from up near Pembina. On my left is Mr. Porter J. McCumber, who is known for his association with the railroads.” A slight shuffling greeted that announcement. “I believe our two guests have decided who will speak first.” Solberg looked to his right.

“Mr. McCumber will go first.” Walter Muir nodded to his opponent, so Muir and Solberg took their seats, leaving McCumber in front.

“Friends, fellow citizens of this great territory of Dakota, Pastor Solberg, thank you for your kind invitation to share the floor with my esteemed colleague, Mr. Muir. Thank you also for coming today. I know you all have plenty of work to do, so I will keep this as brief as possible, yet there is much to cover.”

Penny, Ingeborg, and Agnes left the debate several times to check on the coffee and the children.

“That McCumber must think we don’t have a brain between us,” Agnes grumbled after the first man finally sat down. “I wouldn’t vote for him if my life depended on it.”

“You don’t have to worry. We won’t be able to vote. I heard there’s talk of letting the women vote in school elections, however.” Penny shook her head. “He’s pretty condescending though. Probably thinks that since we are Norwegians we don’t understand English.”

They returned to the back of the church in time to listen to the beginning of Muir’s speech. He was one of the Farmer’s Alliance leaders and knew how much he needed the farmers’ votes. Looking around the room, Ingeborg knew right away who was the favored speaker here. The question and answer time would be downright interesting.

Noon came and went and still the discussion continued.

The audience began to cough, shuffle their feet, and raise hands to ask questions.

Finally Pastor Solberg stood. “We’ll entertain a few questions now.” He pointed to a man in the back. “Yes?”

“What I want to know is how they are going to regulate the railroads so they can’t rob us blind!”

The more questions that came, the more obvious it was that McCumber was on the side of the railroad companies. Muir talked about the proposed legislation concerning shipping and elevators.

Finally Pastor Solberg called a halt as the tempers heated up. “You can talk with these gentlemen over the dinner that’s all set up for us outside. How about letting our guests go through the line first? They deserve a good meal after sharing such important information with us. Let’s give them a hand, shall we?”

The applause was less than thundering.

“And now we’ll have grace before we dismiss.” He said the grace, and some were out the door before the second half of amen.

“That man never did recognize one woman who had a question,” Agnes muttered to Ingeborg. “I’m half tempted to—”

“Don’t even consider whatever you—”

“I just thought to be the coffee pourer. Wouldn’t be my fault if salt got put in their coffee rather than sugar.”

“Agnes Baard!”

“Well?”

“They need plenty of sugar after the vitriolic talk I heard up there.” They both turned at the same time to see the two candidates shaking hands. While men crowded around them, the two made their way to the tables at the insistence of Pastor Solberg.

“Uff da,” Agnes said after listening to several men get into a shouting match. “If this is the way of politics in this country, I’m glad I can’t vote.”

“Not me,” Penny replied. “I’m more convinced than ever that the women’s vote is needed, to keep things sane if nothing else. Think I’ll write to Elizabeth Preston Anderson of the Christian Women’s Temperance Union and ask if she would like to come here and talk with all the women. If I hear anything more about how wonderful the Louisiana Lottery is, I swear I’ll scream. Gambling and drinking are two things that should be outlawed for sure if and when we ever get to be a state, or two states.”

“How do you know about her?” Ingeborg leaned over and picked up Astrid, who had again managed to escape her sitters.

“I read about her in the newspaper lots of times. She writes editorials better than most of the men, I can tell you.” Penny held out her arms. “Come on, Astrid, let’s go get something to eat.”

“Eat.” Astrid nodded as she went into Penny’s arms. “Astid hungry.”

Penny grinned at Ingeborg around the little girl. “Spoken like a true Bjorklund.”

Ingeborg laughed and turned to Agnes. “I think we should send Penny to one of the meetings of the CWTU in Grand Forks. What do you think Hjelmer would say to that?”

“If you think he would let her go . . .”

“He would if someone went with her, I imagine.”

“Inge, are you thinking what I think you are thinking?” Agnes tried to keep a straight face, but the chuckle won out. “Maybe a whole group of us should go and show our support. Women who can think for themselves don’t live just in the cities.”

“Maybe we should.”

“You have that look in your eye.”

Ingeborg shrugged. “Me?” She rolled her lips together and nodded. “I wonder when their next meeting is.”

Chapter 17

Please come home.

Mary Martha read the line again. Her uncle Jedediah had written the letter, one of the two or three he’d written in his whole life. She scanned the page again, trying to read between the lines. How sick was her mother? She must be bad for Jed to write.

“Who’s that from?” Katy came out of the bedroom rubbing her eyes. “Why did you let me sleep so long? I only needed a short nap.” She glanced down at her slippered feet. “See, even most of the swelling in my feet is gone. I’ve turned the corner, just as I told you I would.” She patted her rounded belly. “Young Zeb here has decided I should sleep more too. He’s calmed down from whatever was bothering him.”

Mary Martha studied her sister-in-law, the dark circles that gave her raccoon eyes were gone, her cheeks had color in them again, and she hadn’t thrown up or mentioned spots of blood for over a week now. She finally did indeed wear the bloom of a mother-in-waiting.

Mary Martha breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s from my uncle Jedediah. He lives at the homeplace. He says Ma is sick and I should come home. He wouldn’t write unless it was serious.”

Katy sank down on her knees in front of the chair where Mary Martha sat. She laid her cheek against her best friend’s snowy apron. “I don’t want you to go and neither will the girls, let alone Zeb. But if you must, you must.” She raised tear-filled eyes to see that Mary Martha wore the same sad look. “I will miss you more than I can even begin to say in Norwegian, let alone English.”

The little sally made them both smile, one no more wobbly than the other.

“I had hoped to stay until after the baby was born.” Mary Martha’s thoughts careened to the schoolhouse. Oh, how she would miss the children. Who would help them with her not there? If only she’d been able to talk her mother into coming west and leaving the homeplace to Eva Jane and her husband. After all, she was the eldest.

She could hear her mother’s voice plain as if she were in the room.
“I was born not five miles from here, I buried two children and a husband here, and here I will die.” Please, God, don’t let it be that serious. Surely the doctor can do something if I am there to make her go. And beyond that, thou art the God of healing. The Bible says so. You promised
.

And Pastor Solberg, John as she called him in her heart. Were they becoming more than friends? Might that even be a possibility? But if she left, then what?

God, I don’t want to leave!

“When will you go?”

“Tomorrow.” The word sounded as empty as the Dakota prairie in the winter.