Chapter
24
Nilda glared at her younger brother. “But you said you would go.”
“Finishing the cellar is more important right now.”
“Then I will come and help dig.”
“You two go to the class. Then you can teach me.” Ivar grinned at her. “This way you can catch up with me.”
Exasperated, Nilda turned to her older brother. “Rune.”
“There isn’t room in the hole for another shoveler. We all take turns pushing the wheelbarrows up the ramp now. I should have devised something else to haul the dirt out.”
Nilda listened for a moment. Had Einar’s snoring changed tempo? While he was now able to walk a few steps, the headaches forced him to lie down again. More than a week had passed since his accident, and he was a long way from being himself.
“Maybe we better stay here with Gerd,” Nilda said.
“No, you two go.” Gerd made a shooing motion with her free hand. “Supper and the dishes are done, and Kirstin and I are going out on the porch to rock in the evening breeze. We like this time of day. Don’t we, little one?” She paused to jiggle the baby on her hip. “Go now, or you will be late.”
While the others headed for the new cellar, Nilda and Signe climbed up into the wagon and clucked Rosie into a trot down the lane.
“Stubborn Norwegians,” Nilda muttered under her breath.
When they arrived at the church, several other horses and wagons were already tied to the hitching rail. Nilda shuddered. “We should not have come, I know it.”
“We are here now, so come on.” Signe climbed down and tied up the horse. The two women followed the sounds of talking and joined the others in the front pews.
“Welcome.” The man who must be the teacher, Mr. Larsson, smiled around at those gathered. “I am glad you are here. Since this is a beginners class, no one from last summer is here, but someone told me these sessions gave him enough help to be able to carry on decent conversations. I hope to do the same for you. Let me introduce myself. I am Fritz Larsson. Most of you know me as the man playing the organ in church on Sunday. Some of your children have been students of mine. I speak both German and Norwegian because of my parents. I grew up in a village near Stuttgart, and while my pa wanted me to go into lumber, all I ever wanted to do was teach at a school and play the organ in a church. Here, I have both.”
Nilda felt like turning around to see who he was smiling at, but when Signe nudged her, she shook her head.
“He keeps looking at you,” Signe whispered.
“Nei. He is looking at everybody.”
“Mrs. Carlson,” Mr. Larsson said, “your sons have been in our classes. Would you please tell us where you came from and when?”
Signe stood. “I am Mrs. Rune Carlson, and we came from Valders, Norway, last June to help some relatives on their farm.”
Nilda noticed she did not mention the name Einar Strand.
Mr. Larsson smiled. “Thank you. And would you please introduce the woman next to you?”
Nilda swallowed the block in her throat as she stood up. “I am Nilda Carlson; her husband is my older brother. My younger brother, Ivar, and I came several weeks ago. We took some lessons in English but not enough.” She sat back down and watched and listened while the six other people in the room introduced themselves.
Mr. Larsson nodded. “Now I will explain how I run this class. I will give you a list of words and phrases that you can study during the week, and we will review and answer questions the following week. Halfway through our class time each week, we will switch into speaking only English.” He looked around the group. “We will keep it simple, and we are not in a hurry. You will enjoy the class more if you do the homework each week. Each class builds on the week before.”
Every time Nilda glanced up, it seemed like the teacher was looking right at her. Was her hair falling down, or was there a smudge of dirt on her face? He was tall, six foot or more, and comely. Not overly handsome, but not plain either, with a wide forehead and hair that waved slightly away from his face. His eyes were his best feature. Amber with crinkles at the edges and thick dark eyelashes and brows. Kind was the word that kept coming to her mind. His hands did not know hard manual work, but those long slender fingers could make the organ sing and dance.
Handsome was no longer a draw for her anyway, not after that handsome devil at home. Like her mor often said, sometimes evil came in pretty packages.
“Are there any questions?” Mr. Larsson looked around the room.
Without quite realizing what she was doing, Nilda raised her hand like a good pupil. When he nodded, she asked, “What made you want to teach school?”
He half smiled. “I love learning, and I want to help children do the same. God gave us marvelous minds, and learning to use them takes a lifetime. Helping others makes life worth living.” He shook his head like a dog coming up out of the creek. “Sorry, I get carried away at times.” He looked around the group. “Anyone else?”
“Do you teach music classes too?” Nilda blurted.
“Not at the moment, but one never knows what God has in mind.” He nodded. “All right, I am going to say a phrase in Norwegian and then in English. Please repeat after me. ‘Gud dag.’ ‘Good day.’” When he repeated a phrase, they did likewise. He led them through several more, all the while nodding and smiling encouragement. “Many of those words most of you already knew. They are on the list for this week. Now, let’s count together, first in Norwegian, then in English.”
They then did the days of the week and the months of the year, followed by identifying body parts and clothes and things around them.
Dusk had dimmed the sky when he raised his hands. “We are done for tonight. Take your papers with you, and I will see you all next week. Thank you for coming.”
Nilda and Signe stood along with the others as they slipped back into Norwegian to discuss the class.
“I was surprised I understood most of what he said, more than I expected,” the woman in front of them said. “This was good.”
“Ja, that it was.” Nilda stretched her neck and shoulders. She’d forgotten what being in a class felt like.
Mr. Larsson stopped in front of them. “Mrs. Carlson, you have learned a lot, I think, in the year you have been here. I know your boys picked up the language quickly. Did they happen to mention that they were each supposed to check out books to read over the summer?”
Signe rolled her eyes. “Not that I recall, and I did not see any books come home.”
“Not surprising.” He sent Nilda a side glance while he spoke to Signe. “We have shelves of books at the school. They could come get some on Sunday after church. Or I can choose several and send them home with you.”
“Perhaps that would be best.”
“Good, I hoped you’d say that.” He leaned down and picked up three books. “They can start with these.”
Signe smiled up at him. “Takk, er, thank you.”
He turned to Nilda. “I’m glad to meet you, Miss Carlson. Welcome to our community.”
“Takk.” She caught herself. “Thank you.”
“May I suggest you all speak English at your house? The boys will enjoy it too.”
“We shall see.”
Halfway home, Nilda swatted a persistent mosquito and chuckled. “Do you think we can do that, speak English, only English?”
“I think our conversations will be mighty short. But I would like Kirstin to grow up with both languages. The teacher said he spoke Norwegian and German and now English, and that is a good thing.” Signe paused and chuckled. “I think you caught his eye, though.”
Nilda nudged her with an elbow. “I think matchmaking does not become you.”
“We shall see.”
Nilda flicked the reins over Rosie’s back. Thinking of Mr. Larsson brought back thoughts of that lech, Dreng Nygaard. Not a good thing. She had hoped she’d left him behind, but it seemed he still dogged her steps.
They reached home just as the evening star stepped out in the western sky. A light breeze lifted tendrils of hair and the horse’s mane.
Knute stepped down from the porch where the rest of the family were all sitting. “I’ll put Rosie away.” He took up the lines and headed for the barn.
“Thank you. We’re supposed to talk only English from now on.” Signe stopped at the steps and turned her head, listening to night sounds. Nilda paused to do the same. Crickets, a bird’s call, the whine of mosquitoes. An owl hooted as it flapped past the house, and bats dipped and darted. “I love evenings like this.”
“Ja, me too. Though I think I should take up smoking a pipe to help keep the mosquitoes away.” Rune tipped his chair back against the wall. “We are nearly finished with the digging.”
“Do you have the timbers to frame the cellar?” Ivar asked.
“Nei. Got to go to the lumberyard.” Rune patted the bench. “Come, Signe, sit yourself.”
She settled beside him. “Where’s Gerd?”
“Over here. In the dark.” A chuckle announced her location.
As Signe sat down beside Rune, Nilda joined the boys on the steps.
“So how was your class?” Ivar asked.
“Like Signe said, we are supposed to only talk English around here,” Nilda said with mock sternness.
Rune shrugged. “We can try.”
Gerd’s voice drifted from the dark. “At the beginning of the day when we are refreshed, ja. At the end of the day when we are weary, nei. Too much work.”
Leif popped from the steps. “Hooray for Tante Gerd!”
“How did Einar do tonight?” Nilda asked.
“Sat in his chair for a while, seemed a bit better.” Gerd’s voice sounded tired. Knute came up from the barn and sat on the floor at his far’s feet.
Signe leaned toward Knute. “Mr. Larsson sent you boys a present. What’s this about you supposed to be reading this summer, and you were to bring books home?”
Knute shrugged. “We musta forgotten.”
“To make up for that, he sent books home for you. Wasn’t that nice of him?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I have three, and I expect you each to read one chapter every evening. You finish one book and start on the next.”
“But, Mor . . .”
“What?”
“They’re in English.”
“Good, you can read to me then.”
“And me,” Tante Gerd chimed in.
Knute nudged Leif. “You think Onkel Einar would like us to read to him?”
Leif’s snort could be heard clear to the barn. He quickly changed the subject. “Far, did you check the gilts? I think they’re getting close.” Since they’d kept the two young gilts from the year before, they now had four hogs farrowing.
“Want to do it now?” Rune asked.
“Maybe we should.”
While Rune and Leif ambled to the barn, the others picked up chairs and went back in the house. Nilda heard Einar snoring in the bedroom. Good. Ivar, Bjorn, and Knute said their good-nights and went up the stairs, laughing about something. Kirstin snuggled into her mor’s arms to be carried upstairs as well.
Gerd started toward the bedroom but stopped. “I think I will sleep on a pallet in the parlor tonight.”
Nilda looked at her. Even in the light from the kerosene lamp, she could see how tired Gerd looked.
Signe asked, “Is he worse at night?”
“Nei, not worse, but he thrashes around and mutters, and I don’t sleep very well.”
“I know, you come upstairs with me, and Rune will sleep by the bed in your room in case Einar needs something.”
“I—I don’t . . .”
“If it is the stairs, I will help you,” Nilda said softly. “That is what we are here for, to help you.” She put the emphasis on the last word.
“I—I’m j-just tired.”
“How long since you’ve had a decent rest in the afternoon?” Nilda whispered.
“I lie down, but . . .”
“How about we help him out to the porch in the afternoon tomorrow, and you take your nap when Kirstin does?” Nilda suggested.
“We shall see. But takk, I will sleep upstairs, just for tonight.”
The next morning Nilda woke early and, grabbing her clothes, tiptoed down the stairs to dress in the parlor. When she entered the kitchen to start the stove, Rune was there already. “You got in here before me,” she said.
“No wonder Gerd wanted to sleep upstairs. I can usually sleep through anything, but I was up with him a couple of times.” Rune was building the fire while he talked. “He is so angry at not being able to be out felling those trees. The boys and I will go out there today just to try to calm him down.”
“One had eight, the other wasn’t quite ready.” He took a match from the holder on the wall behind the stove and lit the shavings, adding more wood when the kindling caught.
“I’ll be right back.” Nilda paused at the edge of the porch to inhale the morning. Walking barefoot through the dewy grass made her want to skip, which she did, and dance, which she didn’t. The outhouse needed lime again, so she hurried.
She was setting the kettle on the quickly heating part of the stove when Signe came in, tying her apron.
“Sorry, I did not even hear you get up,” Signe said. “Gerd and Kirstin are both still sleeping. I told the boys to dress downstairs and let them sleep. Poor Gerd, she was so terribly tired.”
The boys trailed through the kitchen, heading for chores.
At breakfast, Leif announced they now had fifteen baby pigs and two sows left to deliver. “If we can keep them all alive, we’ll have lots to sell come fall.”
“Far, can we go out to the big trees today?” Bjorn asked.
“You think you two can handle that big crosscut?” The twinkle in his eye let them know Rune was teasing. “Ja, I told your mor last night we would be doing that. I will tell Einar too, so maybe he can quit worrying so much.”
“How come he is so mean to Tante Gerd?” Leif asked.
“What are you talking about?” Rune asked.
“Well, you were all at the cellar, and I came back to check on the sows. I could hear him yelling at her clear to the barn. He was calling her names, even.” A frown wrinkled Leif’s forehead. “He made Kirstin cry too.”
“She will not be left alone with him again.” Nilda spoke softly, but those who knew her knew she could be formidable.
Rune’s eyebrows raised. “Still have that temper, eh?”
“If you only knew,” Ivar muttered into his cornmeal mush.
Nilda gave her younger brother a look that made her older brother chuckle.
“Gerd!” The order came from the bedroom.
Rune waved the women back and headed for the bedroom.
Nilda heard Rune speak in a determined voice without yelling, but she knew she would not want to cross him when he used that voice. “Einar Strand, listen to me and listen well. If you want any more of your trees cut before you can get out there again, you will not yell or roar at Gerd, Nilda, or Signe. We are going out to the woods today, but we will not go back if I hear you have been yelling at them again. They are doing their best for you, and you will keep a civil tongue.” He paused. “Do you understand me?”
Einar started to growl but stopped.
Nilda smiled into her hand. This was a new side of her brother that had come about since he left Norway. He had always been so quiet. She nodded at Signe. Yes, the two of them were in agreement, just like all those years as best friends.
Gerd hurried into the kitchen. “I-I’m sorry, why didn’t you wake me?” She cocked her head and turned around.
“You sit down and eat, I will go get her.” Signe patted Gerd’s shoulder as she went by.
“I will!” Leif was up the stairs before Signe got to them. In a minute or so, he carried his grinning baby sister into the kitchen. “She sure is wet.” He dodged Kirstin’s questing fingers and handed her to Signe.
Kirstin babbled at him and her mor.
“You slept so long, no wonder you are so happy.” Signe changed her while the others ate their breakfast, then sat down and touched a spoon of milky mush to her daughter’s mouth. Kirstin tongued it around before shoving it out again.
“Put a bit more brown sugar on it,” Gerd suggested. “She should be hungry.”
“Oh, she is hungry all right, but cornmeal is not her idea of what to eat,” Signe said.
“She does okay with oatmeal, though.”
“When I cook it to death and mash it.” Signe added a bit more brown sugar and repeated the feeding. Kirstin mouthed it, some dribbling down her chin, and finally swallowed.
“Good girl,” Leif said from across the table.
Kirstin looked at him and waved her fist.
“Two down,” Rune announced when the men returned at noon. “Leif is at the barn. The remaining gilt has had her first baby.”
“So he will be staying there?” Nilda asked.
“Yes.” He nodded toward the bedroom and dropped his voice. “How is he?”
“Quiet. Got him up in a chair for a bit, then back down. I offered that you and the boys will help him to the rocker out on the porch before you go back to the woods.”
“Good.”
“Ivar learns really fast,” Bjorn said between bites.
“The teeth on that big saw are different than the crosscut we had at home, but better I think. Trading off, we dropped one earlier, then just did another before we came to eat.” Ivar flexed his shoulders. “I cannot believe how big those trees are. I mean, when you are right there on the end of the saw, they are huge!”
Nilda set another bowl of rabbit and beans on the table and dished up more corn bread. “Perhaps tomorrow you will want dinner out there?”
“We’ll see.”
After dinner, Rune and Ivar went into the bedroom. “You ready to go out on the porch?” Rune asked Einar.
Nilda moved to the door to watch and listen.
Einar nodded. He swung his legs to the side of the bed and slowly pushed himself up to standing.
Rune smiled. “Good. Now we can walk with one of us on each side of you. Put your arms over our shoulders.”
“The chair.” Einar nodded to the one by the bed.
“Bjorn, you bring that chair behind us.”
Half carrying, half walking him, they got the big man through the kitchen and out to the rocking chair on the porch, where they let him down slowly while he puffed and panted as if he’d been running.
“You all right?” Rune asked.
“Ja.” Einar rested against the back of the chair.
Nilda watched from the doorway. “Can Signe and I get him back in?”
“In a couple hours I’ll come back. After we fell the next one,” Rune said.
A while later, Gerd took a bowl of beans and a cup of coffee out to Einar on a tray. “I am lying down with Kirstin. Do you need anything else?”
“Water.”
She brought him a glass, along with a plate of cookies. “To go with your coffee.”
Nilda thought she heard him mutter something about wasting time baking cookies, but she wasn’t sure. She nodded as the realization hit her. The only way he would be happy was if they were all out felling and limbing trees.
She turned to Signe. “He’d even have Kirstin out dragging branches if she could walk.”
Gerd shook her head and rolled her eyes at the joke.
Later that afternoon, Nilda heard Leif out on the porch. The last time she had checked, Einar had been sleeping in the chair.
“Onkel Einar, we have eighteen piglets. That gilt rolled on one, but the others are all under their corner. Just think, eighteen, and two more sows to go.”
“Killed one, eh?”
“Sorry.” Leif came in the house, shaking his head. “I thought eighteen was pretty good.”
“It is.” Nilda handed him a cookie. “You are a good animal husbandman.”
The next time she checked on Einar, he was asleep again. Thank you, Lord, for small favors.
“I’m going out to weed for a while,” she announced. “Signe, you too?”
“Ja, be right there. Let me tell Gerd.”
They were mopping their faces with their aprons after hoeing for an hour when they heard a roar from the porch.
“I need help!”
They both took off for the house at a run.
He shook his fist at them. “I got to get up and—”
“Hold on!” Signe yelled.
But before they could get to him, Einar pushed himself upright and fell forward, flat on his face.