RR05 - Tender Mercies (9 page)

Flummoxed, that’s what he is
. While she didn’t know the exact meaning of the word, old Uncle Jed used it often to show complete confusion.

I may have to take a buggy whip to Haakan Bjorklund
. The thought of that made him almost smile. At least he could feel a little grin tickling the right side of his mouth. This woman knew how to make a point, and that point stabbed him right in the gullet.

“I said I was sorry.”

“That was for the other day.”

“Can it cover today too?”

Children laughing caught his attention. “Glory be, they need to come in from recess.” He started to rise. “Could you please call the children in?”

“Yes, surely.” And so she answered both his questions in two words.

He sank back down in his chair, and this time his hands straightened the sandy hair that started waving back well beyond his forehead.

Mary Martha stood at the door and rang the handbell, which called the children in from play. The sun shone brightly, and the air nipped her nose, pleading with her to come and enjoy the fall. Winter would soon be on its way.

She glanced back inside the dim room. Even with the door open and the two windows that faced south, the long room was dark. While the women whitewashed the walls every year, the dirt floor seemed to absorb the light. Wouldn’t it be better to meet in the church where there was some light?

“Mith MacCallithter.” Anna looked up, her face a picture of delight.

“Yes, Anna?”

“Your dreth ith tho pretty.” The little girl fingered the royal blue serge of the skirt. “Like the thky.”

Mary Martha wanted to pick up the little girl and hug her. She was so thin, it seemed the sun could shine right through her. “Thank you, Anna. I think you are a poet in that little heart of yours.”

“A po-et?”

“Yes.”

When the shoving, giggling, and bustling stopped, she stepped aside and motioned the children into the room. Several of the older boys’ ears turned red as they passed her. Manda smiled as if they had a secret, she and the teacher’s helper. Mary Martha wanted to tweak her nose and make her laugh.

Manda did more scowling than laughing much of the time. And all the time she’d rather argue than agree. Far as Mary Martha was concerned, the young girl wrote the book on independence. But no one could ever fault her for being lazy or telling lies. Like her mother used to say,
“The child is honest as the day is long.”

When everyone had taken their seats again, Mary Martha included, Pastor Solberg stood and began assigning tasks. Far as she could tell, he’d left her out again. And here she thought they had come to an understanding. While she usually kept her temper under control, she could feel it starting to fire up.

“And Miss MacCallister . . .”

She quit simmering so she could hear the remainder of his sentence.

“Could you please help these three children?” He pointed to three who looked so alike she’d thought they were triplets but for the difference in size.

“Of course.”
Now what does he want me to do?
She beckoned the three to come sit with her and looked up at Solberg for assistance. He was answering a question from another part of the room.

The three sat down, staring at her out of blue eyes that appeared to have looked at life and found it wanting. She now knew what that phrase meant.

“First thing, could you please tell me your names?”

They stared at her without moving. Finally the tallest one, a girl, said something. It was something all right, but all in Norwegian, and Mary Martha had no idea what she’d said.

“Oh.” She sent a glance to the man in the front of the room that could have melted his shirt buttons. She should have sent Katy here instead of coming herself. But Katy still didn’t feel well and was doing her best to hide it. Tomorrow she’d stay home where she belonged and help Katy. If this self-righteous such-and-such wanted help, he could just sing for it.

The three stared at her.

She glared again at Pastor Solberg.

He must have felt her consternation because he turned to her and said, “I’ll be right there.”

Mary Martha nodded. She could handle this, of course she could. She laid a hand on her chest. “I am Miss MacCallister.” She spoke slowly and enunciated carefully. Then she pointed to each of them.

“I am . . .” She waited for the older girl to fill in the blank.

“Ingrid.”

“Good.” Her smile brought a hint of life to the girl’s eyes. “Now say it all.” She waved her hand as if she were conducting an orchestra. Nodding, she started, “I am Ingrid.”

The girl followed her and earned a pat on the hand from a teacher who could hardly sit still.

She followed the same routine with the others.

“Very good.” John Solberg had joined them, and she hadn’t even noticed.

“Why didn’t you tell me they didn’t speak a word of English?”

“I thought I’d be right over.”

Now what could she say? A few names came to mind, none of them complimentary.

He turned to the children and spoke in Norwegian.

She wished she knew what he’d said.

“I explained that we only talk English in school, that you will be giving them English lessons, and that they are to repeat what you say. I can always send Thorliff or one of the others over to help you. I’d start with some useful phrases if it were me.”

At a call from another student, he turned back to his classroom.

Mary Martha smiled at her three charges again, wishing she would get a smile in return. No children should be so solemn. She could hear the little ones piping their
ABC’s
. How much easier that would be. Her mind searched frantically for necessary phrases.

“Pastor said I should come help you.” Thorliff appeared at her elbow.

“Ah, good. When I say a phrase in English, you say it in Norwegian so they understand it. Then after they repeat it, I will write it on the slate.”

“And I can write the Norwegian on another slate.”

“You better ask them first if they can read and write Norwegian.”

Ingrid could, but her sisters, Marta and Clara, shook their heads.

Mary Martha’s stomach did a flip-flop. Why hadn’t she stayed in Missouri? She sent another glare in the direction of the teacher, silently threatening him with death and destruction. To her charges she sent a smile that she hoped conveyed some form of confidence.

“All right.”
Please, Lord, show me what to do, how to help these children. Please, right now. There’s no time to waste
. “We’ll begin with ‘good morning.’ ” She nodded to Thorliff, who repeated both her phrase and the instructions in Norwegian. When they looked back at her after talking with Thorliff, she smiled and repeated, “Good morning.”

Their response was less than enthusiastic, but they answered.

She continued with “hello,” “good-bye,” “please,” and “thank you.” Some of those she had picked up from Katy. While they went back and forth, she racked her brain trying to decide where to go next. After reviewing one more time, she switched to the alphabet, printing the letters on a slate.

By the time they were all excused for the dinner recess, she felt as if she’d been run over by a twelve-up hitch of horses pulling a loaded freight wagon. Manda and Deborah brought her dinner pail over to her.

“You can eat with us if you like,” Manda said.

“Teacher said we could go outside or eat inside, whichever we wanted. What would you like?” Deborah tucked her hand in Mary Martha’s.

What would she like? She’d first like to strangle Pastor John Solberg, and then she’d like to go home and take a three-week nap, that’s what
. Instead, she smiled and brushed a strand of hair back from Deborah’s cheek. “Outside would be wonderful.”

One good thing
, she thought on the drive home that afternoon,
I’m learning Norwegian about as fast as they are getting the English
. The other thing, Solberg had invited her back. He
had
thanked her for coming, and Ingrid had almost smiled. That last was what made her determined to keep going. That and Anna Helmsrude.
If I sewed her a new dress, could I give it to her somehow without causing a fracas? Guess I need to talk with Ingeborg
.

That evening she and Katy finished up the dishes and took their handwork into the parlor, where Zeb sat reading the
Grand Forks Herald
newspaper in the lamplight. When they were settled, Mary Martha asked, “So then, what do you think I should teach them next?”

“Go on with what you started and add names for the subjects in school. Then teach them simple things like ‘go outside,’ ‘come inside,’ ‘sit down,’ ‘stand’—you know, the commands Pastor Solberg uses all the time. ‘Open your books,’ ‘put your things away,’ and everyone’s favorite.”

“What’s that?”

“ ‘Class dismissed.’ ”

“I always liked that one best.” Zeb joined the conversation.

“Why don’t you read to us?” Katy smiled at her husband. She turned back to Mary Martha sitting beside her on the settee. “While I speak English pretty good now, I can’t read it much.”

A snort from her husband made her flap her hand at him.

When Mary Martha caught the look the two exchanged, she felt a lump in her throat. What would it feel like to have someone love her like Zeb so obviously loved Katy?

Zeb began reading, and Mary Martha listened while she hemmed the dress she’d been sewing for Deborah. She’d finished the one she made for Manda before school started. He read about the new elevator being built and the Lutheran church having a harvest festival. There was a renewed push for support of the Farmer’s Alliance organization, asking all the farmers to join so that their voices could be heard before the Territorial Assembly. Walter Muir, one of the leaders of the Farmer’s Alliance, had written an impassioned editorial, more like a diatribe, against the railroad, the elevators, and the flour-milling consortium for their efforts to gouge the farmers.

“Those buzzards,” Zeb muttered after reading an editorial about the statehood party and their push for one state, with the capital located in Pierre.

“So what is wrong with that?” Mary Martha knotted her thread and clipped the end. “There now, Deborah can wear that tomorrow.”

“It would make the state too large to govern efficiently,” Zeb answered, “besides which, we in the north just think different from those in the south. They can’t grow wheat like we do here in the Red River Valley.”

“Just so they let women have the vote,” Katy said, changing the subject.

“Katy, that is nothing but a dream, and not a good one at that. Women don’t need to vote. That’s what their husbands are for.”

“And what about women who don’t have husbands?” Mary Martha raised an eyebrow. “Who do they have to speak for them? Besides, it isn’t just about the vote. Women should be able to purchase land in their own name and dispose of their own property.”

“They can do that now. Look at Ingeborg and Kaaren.”

“Yes, but there’s also Manda and Deborah. That still isn’t settled, and you know . . .” Katy looked up from her needlework.

Zeb held up a hand. “How about if I just read this, and we not get into a war over it?” He folded the paper and set it on the round table near his chair. “Better yet, I’m going to check on the stock and go to bed before you two tear me limb from limb.” He flexed his arm as if they’d been tugging on it.

“Coward,” Mary Martha said, just loud enough for him to hear.

“I do not understand why men are so stubborn,” Katy said after he left the room. “Letting us vote doesn’t mean they can’t vote.”

“They’re just afraid that women might get smarter than they are.” Mary Martha’s grin held a hint of devilry. “Leastways, that’s what I think.” She waited for Katy’s scandalized look to change to a chuckle. “You sure you wouldn’t rather go work with those poor children tomorrow and let me stay here? After all, you speak Norwegian and English both, and you know them all, besides.”

Katy shook her head. “I’d rather work with Zeb and the horses any day. Who would want to be cooped up in that soddy hour after hour?”

“I thought of that too. Wonder what we can do to make it brighter?”

“I’ll ask at the next quilting bee. Somebody there will have an idea.”

The next morning Mary Martha arrived at the schoolhouse armed with a list of things she wanted her three charges to learn. By the end of the day, she’d elicited smiles from the two younger girls. Ingrid was another matter.

“Marta said that Ingrid said she was too old for school anyway,” Manda informed her when school was over. She had the horse all harnessed and the wagon hitched up by the time Mary Martha had put her things away and said good-bye to Pastor Solberg. “Can I drive?” Manda asked.

“Yes,” Mary Martha said and swung up, using the wheel for a step, then settled on the wooden seat. “How come?” she asked, referring to what Ingrid had said.

“She thinks Norwegian is just fine.” Manda slapped the reins. “Giddyup horse. We got plenty to do at home.”

“She’s only thirteen.”

“Same as me. I’d rather be home too.” She sent a pleading glance sideways.

Mary Martha shook her head. “Don’t look to me. Ask your mother—er, Katy.” She caught herself. While Deborah called Katy Ma, Manda still didn’t. “Besides, it isn’t how old you are but how much you know.”

“Horsefeathers.”

“Manda, Ma don’t like cussin’.” Deborah leaned across Mary Martha’s lap to glare at her sister.

Katy wasn’t in the kitchen when Deborah and Mary Martha entered. She wasn’t in the parlor either.

“Ma?” Deborah called.

“In here.” A weak voice came from the bedroom.

Mary Martha felt a hand clutch her heart. Something was wrong for sure. She knew she shouldn’t have gone to help at the school.

Chapter 8

“You got any idea where I can spend the night?” Mr. Drummond asked.

Penny thought a moment. “Olaf Wold, who runs the sack house, lets people put down a pallet there if there’s room. His building might be kinda full right now though, with harvest just finished. If he says no, then you can try Pastor Solberg in the soddy by the church.”