The Reaper's Song (22 page)

Lars, Haakan, and Joseph all grinned at one another.

“We cut more if needed,” Baptiste offered.

“Ja, we will burn wood while we have it. I heard of a boiler that exploded with straw fire.”

“Two men killed.” Joseph shook his head. “We got to be real careful. Some of these men get in such a hurry.”

“I checked all the belts before . . .” Haakan sighed. “Just be careful, you hear?”

After more discussion, the men filed out, leaving Haakan to force himself to count his blessings rather than curse his own body for betraying him this way.

In the morning he heard the crack of the whip, the horses’ hooves digging in, the shouting, and finally the moving of the steam engine. When silence finally fell again, he stared at the ceiling. Had he told them everything they needed to know? How could he lie there and let others do his work for him? But when he tried to turn over, he knew why. He couldn’t get his pants on even if he could stand up.

But with the aid of the women, each day he walked a little farther, from wall to wall in the bedroom, then out to the kitchen, the parlor, and finally he could sit in a chair on the front porch. He stared at his hand, shaking as if with palsy just from the effort of walking out the door. Every night Lars reported how the day had gone. By Saturday, Haakan could get his pants on. On the third Sunday morning in August, at the wedding service following church, he stood beside Olaf, and Ingeborg stood up for Goodie as Reverend Solberg united the two in holy matrimony.

“Mor?” Andrew tugged at his mother’s skirt when the wedding party joined the rest of the congregation at the tables groaning with hams, fried chicken, beans, mashed potatoes, vegetables of all kinds, both cooked and pickled, rolls, salads, and lemonade. Off to one side, the desserts decorated a table of their own.

“Ja?” Ingeborg finally turned from the person she was talking with and answered her son.

“Mor, Thorliff said Hans and Ellie are going to live at Onkel Olaf’s new house.”

Ingeborg nodded. “Sure they are. Olaf is now their pa. You saw them get married.”

“But”—he shook his head—“Ellie lives at our soddy.”

“Not anymore. I told you.” Thorliff came up beside his brother.

“Go away.” Andrew turned on his brother and pushed him with all his might.

“Andrew, whatever has come over you?” Ingeborg took her younger son by the shoulder. “Come with me.”

She walked him over by the wagons that sat in the shade of the church with the teams tethered to the wheels. “Now, what is this all about?”

Andrew looked up at her, his eyes swimming in tears. “But Ellie can’t move away. She’s my bestest friend.”

“It isn’t like she’s moving to Grand Forks or something. You’ll still get to see her at church, and they’ll come to our house to visit and we’ll go to theirs.”

Andrew shook his head until his curls bounced. “Please, Mor, keep Ellie at our house.”

Ingeborg sank to her knees and pulled her little son to her, wrapping him in her arms. “Ah, Andrew, we can’t always make people do what we want. Children live with their parents, and things change. Pretty soon Sophie will be big enough to play with you, and . . .”

“Can I go live with Ellie?”

“No, but she will come stay with us tonight yet.” Ingeborg stood, keeping his hand in hers. “Come now, let us go eat and show your pa what a big boy you are.”

Andrew rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and sniffed again. “When Ellie and me gets married up, she can stay with us, huh, Mor?”

“Let’s just get through this wedding before we begin planning that one, all right?”

Andrew sniffed the air like a dog on a scent. “I want a drumstick. No two. One for me and one for Ellie.”

Ingeborg shook her head. “Oh, Andrew, the things you come up with.”

Later, when she told Haakan the story, he chuckled. “That boy of ours! You got to admit he’s smarter than many kids lots older than him. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he does what he says.”

“Haakan, he’s just a baby.”

“That’s what you think.”

Before the sun rose the next morning, Haakan and Hamre backed the loaded wagon out of the barn where they’d stored it overnight to keep the dew off the bundled wheat. Along with another wagon that Lars drove, they headed off across the fields to where the steam engine and separator were set up at the junction of four properties. Wagons full of bundled grain were already lining up by the time he and Lars got the steam engine burning hot enough to begin building steam in the boiler. While they waited for the gauge to reach the needed pressure, Lars oiled all the moving parts, and Haakan showed Hamre how to reset and check the long belt for the proper tension.

“Why is it crossed like that?” Hamre pointed to the
X
made in the middle of the wide belt that joined the separator to the steam engine.

“Keeps the belt on the pulleys that way. If that belt flies off or breaks, it could mean the end of a man’s life.”

“Like the winches on the fishing boat?”

“That’s right. It’s dangerous to be around machinery if’n you don’t know what you are doing.” Haakan studied every inch of the belt, pointing out the places where he’d restitched it. “Better to fix it before it busts.” He turned to the boy at his side. “You want to be in charge of the oil can? When Lars or I holler, you climb up and pour oil into whatever hole we tell you.”

Hamre nodded. “Ja, I can do that.”

“Come on then, I’ll show you where all the places are.” Haakan and Hamre climbed all over the separator and the steam engine, being careful to keep from getting burned as they neared the firebox. “You can help keep the fire up too. Between the three of us, we should be able to keep this contraption going.” He gave the steam engine a slap on the side.

“She-e’s ready,” Lars shouted. When he threw the lever, the pulleys began to turn. The
kerplunks
of the engine joined the screech of metal against metal, and in a few moments the rig settled into the rhythm for the day. At Lars’s nod, Haakan threw the long-handled lever on the separator, and the belt engaged. With more screeching and grinding, the separator bed began to bring the bundled grain closer to the maw of the monster.

The men on the first wagon forked the bundles onto the moving canvas, and within a few moments chaff flew out of the stack, and golden grain poured into the sacking bin. Lars finished hooking the gunnysack over the square frame at the side of the machine, and
with the twist of another handle, kernels of wheat began rounding the bottom of the sack.

When the first sack was full, he spun the handle to shut off the golden stream and, grabbing the sack by the two sides of the open mouth, hoisted the entire thing off to the side and between the knees of one of the older men, whose job it was to stitch the mouth closed. His big needle, threaded with hemp, flashed in and out as he whipped the sack closed. Swen, at almost fourteen the oldest of the Baard children, hefted the sack and tossed it into the waiting wagon. As the day progressed, the men changed jobs but the rhythm remained the same.

As did the wheat chaff that worked its way into shirts and pants and made everyone itch. The sun rose higher in the sky, raising sweat to pour over the rash from the chaff. When Knute Baard brought the water bucket and dipper around, he had instant friends.

“Noisy, huh?” He shouted to be heard. When Hamre ignored him, Knute set the bucket down and clapped his hands over his ears. “I said noisy, huh?”

Hamre wasted no motion with his nod. He took the dipper, drank, and handed it back. Knute took it and poured some over his own head, then motioned for the other boy to do the same. Hamre shook his head, his eyebrows meeting to finish the frown.

Knute shrugged and went on his way. When he got to Haakan, he looked over his shoulder at the newcomer.

“Just give him time,” Haakan said, clapping a hand on Knute’s shoulder. “I sure do thank you for both the drink and the shower.” He used two dippers full like most of the men had. One to drink and one to pour.

“He’s some mad, ain’t he?” Knute looked over at Hamre again.

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t nothing you did.” Haakan waved to catch Hamre’s attention, then pointed to a place on the steam engine that needed oil. “You just go on about your water carrying. Far as I can see, you’re the most popular man on the crew.”

Knute touched a finger to the brim of his flat hat and, picking up the now empty bucket, headed to the water wagon for a refill.

With Bridget, Katy, Kaaren, and Sarah doing the cooking for the threshing crew and Ilse watching the younger children, Ingeborg drove the wagon for Thorliff and Baptiste to load with bundled wheat. Only by convincing Andrew that Ilse needed his help was she able to get out the door without him. She could still hear his pleading “M-o-o-r.” He woke up crying during the night, asking for
Ellie. Ingeborg sighed. They really didn’t need another young one underfoot, not with all the cooking to be done. Once they finished with dinner, they had to start right away on supper. She left the full wagon and team, waved at Haakan, and slapped the reins over the backs of the waiting horses. Halfway home, she met Ephraim on his way out to the Bjorklund farms.

“I come to help.” He swung up onto the wagon seat beside her.

“Well, we sure do appreciate every spare pair of hands we can get.” She swung the empty wagon out onto the field. Just ahead of her plodded a team of oxen, pulling a nearly full wagon. The boys jabbed three-tined forks into the bundles and lifted them into the wagon, trying to keep them straight and balanced so the wagon would hold more and the unloading would go easier.

When Ephraim looked around, Ingeborg tipped her broad-brimmed hat back and smiled. “The men are over running the steam engine and the separator. We’re the team here.”

“Oh.” The one word carried a multitude of meanings. Ephraim stepped over the wagon wheel and to the ground. “I’ll help them load then.”

At midmorning Katy brought out a jug of water. “I can come help if you want. We got things nearly done up at the house.”

“Won’t turn down any offers.” Ingeborg jumped to the ground and waved Katy up on the seat. “You have driven before, haven’t you?” Katy nodded. “Good, and by the way, that bonnet looks good on you.”

“It should. It’s yours.”

“I know. But I like this one better.” Ingeborg touched the wide brim of her felt hat, a last relic of Roald’s.

Katy nodded, setting her sunbonnet to bobbing. “With this sun, you sure got to have something on your head. I can handle a pitchfork too, you know. Back home we all had to help with the haying, even though we never had fields the size of these.”

Ingeborg thought back to Norway to the hay draped over wooden fence rails to dry and the wheat they cut and bound by hand, then shocked and flailed in the winter. No, things surely were different here. She caught herself nodding. She knew for certain she had no desire to return to the old farming ways of Norway. She looked toward the west where they could see the smoke rising from the steam engine furnace and hear the
chunk-a-chunk
clear across the fields.

Haakan said that one day there would be steam engines doing most of the work of horses. While she found it hard to believe, that belching, brawling machine they were using over west was certainly increasing their wheat yield.

They switched teams and she left Katy driving the empty wagon while she headed back to the threshing. Next trip they’d bring the dinner.

Later, after helping serve the two wagonloads of food they brought out, she drove a load of filled wheat sacks to the sack house. When her turn came to unload, Olaf weighed the wagon, counted the sacks, and wrote the tally down on his board.

“Aren’t you going to check the sacks like you do the others?” Ingeborg asked.

“If I thought a Bjorklund would put rocks in a sack of grain or bring in moldy wheat, I’d hang up my shingle right now and take up rocking.”

Ingeborg shook her head and laughed at the same time. “No time for rocking with the family you got now.”

“No, but I’ll never doubt a family member either.”

“I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be here. And knowing Goodie, she will too. Right now she’s up to her elbows in bread dough.”

“Hey, Mrs. Bjorklund!” Hans leaped off the unloading platform and, arms flying, raced up to the wagon.

“Hey yourself.” Ingeborg tugged on the reins.

“You think you could use another hand out there?” He looked up at her, eyes pleading his case.

“What would your ma say?”

“I can ask. Onkel Olaf—er, Pa said I could if you said so.”

“You go on and get her permission while I get a drink from Penny.” Ingeborg stepped down from the wagon, stifling a groan as she straightened. That wagon seat got harder as the day grew longer.

“Penny, you there?” She rapped on the frame of the back door.

“Come in and sit down! I’ll be right there,” Penny called from the store.

“I’ll come in,” Ingeborg muttered, “but that sitting down can be better left for another day. While she waited, she poured herself a basin of water and sloshed it on her face and arms, deliberately getting enough on her dress to make her feel cooler instantly. Once she started drinking, she feared she may not stop.