Chapter
28
Leif burst into the clearing in the woods where the men were working. “Far, come quick, Onkel Einar fell.”
Rune called Bjorn to take his place on the crosscut saw. “You and Ivar finish this. Come for dinner at noon if I am not back. Knute, keep on limbing the tree you are on.”
Rune caught up with Leif, who had started back to the house. The two of them jogged all the way, and Rune had a hard time catching his breath by the time they reached the steps to the porch.
Nilda met him at the door. “I don’t think he’s hurt badly, because he is awake and furious that we won’t help him get up.”
“How did it happen?”
“I was walking with him to the chair by the window, and he stumbled. He tried to grab me, but I couldn’t stop his fall.”
“Any idea why he stumbled?” When she didn’t answer, Rune turned to look at her.
She heaved a sigh. “He wanted Gerd to help him, but I couldn’t let her do that, or they might both go down. He wasn’t angry until he stumbled. Well, he was still Einar, but he was not yelling at me.”
“Rune, he actually asked for help.”
“Miracles do happen,” Rune muttered as he crossed the bedroom to the man swearing into the floorboards. “All right, Einar, let’s get you up.”
“Tried walking to the window, and look what happened.” He pounded his fist on the floor. Another string of expletives followed.
“Okay, let’s get you up on your hands and knees.”
“What, you want me to-to crawl over there?”
“Not a bad idea, really, but I was going to bring the chair here so you can use it to help you.”
“Just get the chair.”
Nilda plunked the chair down beside him. Rune held it steady as Einar gripped the seat, dragged his uncooperative legs under him, and made it up. He twisted to sit, but he kept his eyes closed, barely shaking his head. “Will this dizziness ever go away?” The pauses between each word showed that though his speech had improved, it was not by many degrees.
Rune wisely kept his mouth shut. “The window or the bed?” he asked softly after an extended period of silence.
“Bed.” When Einar was settled back against the pillows, he glared at Rune. “Go back to the woods, I—won’t yell at that Nilda. No need to send for you.” The effort to talk cost him, Rune could tell.
“It is almost dinnertime. The boys will be up to eat soon, and I will go back with them.”
“How—how many trees?”
“Two down. Two more this afternoon.”
Einar groaned. “I should be out there.”
“As soon as you are strong enough.”
“Walk out to porch after dinner.”
Einar declined dinner, but for a cup of coffee and a piece of bread. Nilda slipped some laudanum into the coffee at Rune’s suggestion.
“I will help him out to the porch when we come back to the house,” he said.
“What if he wakes up and insists?”
“Do not try to stop him, but don’t help him either. I know that is hard-hearted, but the three of you should not have to pay for his stubborn mistakes.”
The boys came in from the woods for their meal, and Leif hopped up from the table as soon as he finished eating. “Got to get back to the barn. Daisy is going to start having her babies any time now.” He jumped down the steps and ran for the barn.
Knute headed for the woodpile to bring in an armload. “We need to split wood tonight too.”
Nilda waved him off. “You get out to the woods. I’ll take care of the woodpile here.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Rune purred. “And here I was going to ask you to come and start limbing or dragging branches.”
Nilda smirked at him. “I’m thinking about that.”
“Not really.” Rune gave her a big brother is right look.
Nilda smiled with a wide-eyed look of innocence. “We’ll see,” she called out over her shoulder.
Ivar clapped his older brother on the back. “You might not want to order her around. She has a stubborn streak two feet wide, or so Mor says. Come on, let’s go knock down a couple more big trees.”
When they returned, Leif and Nilda had the chores done, Einar was seated in the rocking chair on the porch, and supper was ready. Split wood not only filled the woodbox but lay in a neat stack by the chopping block.
“Kirstin likes the sound of wood chopping,” Signe said with a smile. “Put her right to sleep.”
“She could hear it clear in here?” Rune asked.
“No, she was on the porch in her rocking chair.”
“I see. Is it about time for Einar to come in?”
“Ask if he wants his supper out there. I’ll bring him a tray.”
Rune got a yes from Einar, which was unusual, so he took out a tray with chicken and dumplings, bread and butter, and coffee and got him set up. When the rest of them had finished eating, he found Einar asleep with his chin on his chest, but the plate was clean. After getting him back to bed, Rune and his crew headed for their new home’s cellar.
“We’re going to need eight flat rocks to go under the vertical posts, so Knute, you and Leif take the horse and wagon to the rock piles and search some out. There are a couple in that pile behind the machine shed, I know, and two more piles out on the southwestern corner of the hay field. I’d go there first. The flatter the better, but we can flatten them with a chisel if we need to.”
The boys climbed up on the wagon seat and urged the horse out to the hayfield. They knew where the rock pile was, since they had thrown many of the rocks on it. Dusk was dimming the land when they returned with six.
Rune and the others had hauled the posts and joists down into the hole and were measuring and sawing two-by-tens into twelve-foot lengths on the saw horses. Rune looked over the rock collection the boys threw down into the hole.
“Pretty good. We need two more, and then find a few more just in case.”
Other than Einar’s snoring, all was quiet at the house when they trudged up the steps later that evening.
“Daisy had thirteen babies,” Leif told Gerd, who was sitting out on the porch in the soft evening air.
“Does she have that many teats?”
“No, only twelve, but I made sure the little one nursed too.”
“Onkel Einar would tell you to knock the runt on the head and throw it on the manure pile.”
“But why would I do that?” Horror squeaked his voice.
“The runt never does well and takes away nourishment from the others.”
Leif turned to Rune. “Far!”
“My far used to say the same thing,” Rune said, “but we hand-raised more than a few runts through the years. If you can get them to nurse from a bottle, they might make it.”
Leif relaxed. “Can I try that?”
“Help the small one get to a teat for these first days of colostrum, and then you can switch it to cow’s milk on a bottle. It’ll be a gamble, but sometimes you win.”
“But more often you lose. Aren’t twenty-six babies with another sow to farrow, enough?” Gerd’s voice came gently from the darkness.
“I still want to try,” Leif said stubbornly, and Gerd patted his arm.
Rune swatted at a persistent mosquito. “Let’s get to bed, woodsmen. The morning will be here before we know it.”
Three days later, Signe stared at the tired faces around the breakfast table. “You can’t keep working so many hours. You all look like you should just go back to bed.”
As if on cue, Rune yawned. “The day after tomorrow is Sunday. We’ll go to church, and then I want the boys to go fishing. I’ve been dreaming of having fried fish for supper.”
Knute nearly leaped out his chair. “You mean it?”
“I hear there’s a lake not far from here. Can we fish off the banks?” Ivar asked.
“The Garborgs have a rowboat; they said we can use it. We can ask them at church.” Knute’s excitement lit up the table.
“What will you use for fishing gear?” Signe asked.
“I’ve got three willow poles, but only two hooks.”
She smiled. “I’m going to take butter and eggs to Benson’s. Surely they would have hooks and line, maybe even corks.”
“What are you going to do, Far?” Bjorn asked.
“I’m going to work in the cellar.”
Bjorn straightened. “Me, too.”
“I thought you’d want to go fishing.”
“I prefer hunting.” Bjorn shrugged.
Rune turned to Ivar. “He brought down two deer this last year. Between his hunting and Knute’s rabbit snares, we’ve had meat most of the year.”
“I could help you in the cellar,” Ivar offered.
“I know, but Knute and Leif love to fish, and—”
“So do you, Far,” Leif piped up. “Besides, who will check on my babies?”
“I will,” Gerd said firmly. “I should have been down to the barn more by now anyway. Seeing piglets and chicks”—she wagged her head—“best part of farming. That was always my responsibility, and here you are doing such a good job with it.”
Leif smiled. “But you have Kirstin to take care of now.”
Gerd nodded. “Ja, she is even better than baby pigs and chicks.”
“Next summer she can come to the barn with me.”
Signe rolled her eyes. She could just picture her little daughter playing in the dirt or the straw. “We shall see.”
The order came Saturday evening as the men were returning from working in the cellar. Caught unaware, Rune blurted, “Why now?”
“Because I need help, and you just got here.” Even Einar’s bark was weaker.
Ivar leaped the porch stairs and offered his arm. “Do you have your cane?”
“Ja.”
“Then here we go.”
“Wait, I can help too.” Bjorn stopped on the first step. “Use my shoulder.”
Rune felt himself grinning from ear to ear. These were indeed young men to be proud of. Ivar clasped Einar’s hand and arm, and together they took one step down. Bjorn braced himself as the older man’s hand clamped down on his shoulder. The three of them paused to let Einar blow out a breath. One more step, and then the final one to the ground.
“You want to sit or walk?” Ivar asked.
“Sit on the steps.”
Both young men hovered, ready to help as Einar used his cane and an extended arm to lower himself to the middle step and sit with a grunt.
Rune felt like applauding but knew better. “You are a great deal stronger, Onkel. I know it is hard work.”
“Next week, out in the woods.”
Sitting on the porch, Rune could hear the June bugs slamming against the screens. A mosquito buzzed his ears. Crickets sang in the darkening dusk.
“The fireflies are out.” Leif pointed to a dancing dot above the path to the outhouse. And then another. “How come they only come out at night?”
“Some things like the day, and some like the dark. Besides, how could they see one another’s lights when the sun is out?”
“Mor brought back hooks, lines, and corks,” Knute reported. “She said there is a card about puppies on the board at the store.”
“Don’t need a dog here,” Einar almost barked, but not quite.
“Why not?” Knute asked, making Rune nearly choke.
“Dogs kill chickens and chase sheep.”
“We don’t have sheep.”
“The women want sheep. Got that spinning wheel and loom now.”
Rune reminded himself to breathe. Shock did that at times.
“Rugs might bring in some money,” Einar mused.
Swallowing a snort could make one cough. Rune covered his mouth and cleared his throat.
“Help me up.”
“To walk or back inside?” Ivar asked.
“Back up.” Einar shook his head. “Might not make it if I walk a ways first.”
“Can you believe that?” Rune whispered as he and Signe mounted the stairs to bed.
“We could hear him through the screen door. I thought Gerd was going to choke on her coffee.”
“You were drinking coffee and didn’t bring us any?”
“Didn’t want to interrupt.”
Rune’s chuckle danced softly through the darkness.
That night a rainstorm struck with only a smatter of warning before the deluge tried to pound the roof in on top of them. When the thunder crashed right above them, Kirstin woke with a shriek that matched the wind.
“Is she all right?” Nilda asked, raising her voice to be heard over the tumult.
Signe was already picking up her wailing daughter. “Shhhhh.” She stroked her baby’s back and spread kisses mixed with murmurs over her cheeks and forehead, swaying all the while.
Rune mumbled, “You okay?” before joining the boys as they slept on in spite of the uproar.
A few minutes later, when the storm had blown over, Signe whispered, “Nilda, you still awake?”
“Sort of.”
“Come on, let’s go sit on the porch.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Possibly.” Signe could only hear rather than see Nilda in the black of the room. Together they felt for the stairs with their feet and padded down. Dark as the house was, the darkness outside seemed to glow. Rainwater still gurgled through the down spouts and sang into the rain barrels. A breeze blew a few sprinkles into their faces as they sank down into the porch chairs.
Signe inhaled. “Nothing smells as wonderful as a rain-washed garden.”
“If it were daylight, I would have been out in it, washing my hair,” Nilda said.
“I know. I thought of that too.” Signe tipped her head back. “One day when there are trees by the house, the rain perfume will be even more healing.” Kirstin wriggled in her arms and then sighed herself back to sleep. “I could sleep out here in the coolness.”
“If we had porch screens, you really could. I saw them in a magazine.”
“When did you see a magazine like that?”
“On the ship.”
They sat outside for a few more minutes, then silently crept back up to their beds.
In the morning on the way to church, they detoured around mud puddles. Some trees were down, and a creek rushed by at the top of its banks.
“It really rained hard last night, huh?” Ivar looked to Rune.
“Seems so. Guess we slept through most of it.”
The two women in the bed of the wagon swapped smiles. “The fish should be biting well,” Signe called up to them.
Ivar smacked his lips. “Mmm, fish for supper.”
“We could probably catch more fish if we went now,” Knute added.
Rune shook his head. “Sorry, son, church comes first.”
“Did you go look in the new cellar?” Ivar asked Rune.
“Nei. If there is water in it, which is most likely, I will either work in spite of it or drag my feet through the mud it has left behind. I wish we could put up concrete walls and floor, but not this year. Some river gravel would be good down there in the meantime.”
After church, Mr. Benson greeted Rune and Signe and asked, “We going to be raising a house on Saturday?”
Rune nodded. “We’ll be ready.”
“Good to hear.” Benson clapped him on the shoulder. “When are they delivering the lumber and supplies? I’d have thought they’d have done so by now.”
“Starting tomorrow. After that storm last night, we’d have had some wet wood.”
“True. Good thing the roads will dry up quickly. I’ll let the others know. We’ll be there bright and early on Saturday.”
“Have you mentioned the house-raising to Mr. Strand yet?” Reverend Skarstead asked when they were shaking hands at the open door.
“The rest of us have talked about getting the house done, but not to him directly, no,” Signe said.
“You might want to, to keep him from coming out after us with a shotgun. Folks don’t take too kindly to that.”
“Yes, sir, we will take care of it,” Rune said. “I don’t think he’ll be up to much, even by then. Although he walked down and up the porch steps last night with the help of Ivar and Bjorn. He was nearly pleasant about it too.”
“Now that is good news. I’ve been praying for him. I’ll keep on it.” The reverend turned to Signe. “Now don’t you worry about feeding that crew on Saturday. The women will take care of that. Part of the package.”
“How will we ever repay you all?” Signe asked.
“You don’t. You just pass it on when someone else is in need.”
On the way home, the boys could talk of nothing but going fishing. The puddles in the road were already half gone. And Signe could not get Einar out of her mind. What if he did threaten all their new friends with a gun? Would he possibly do more than just threaten?