Dakota Dawn Read online

  Carl looked at her with a question in his eyes. “Roses?”

  Nora nodded. “I love roses.” She repeated carefully the word he had used.

  Carl shook his head. “No roses here. Wild roses in June.” Nora shrugged her confusion. What did he mean?

  “Let’s review what we’ve done before.” He pulled out pages they had written on in the past and pointed to the sentences. Nora had been practicing. She said them all correctly.

  “Good.” He nodded. One lock of golden hair fell over his forehead.

  Nora had the urge to reach out and brush it back. Instead she pulled herself to her feet and went for the coffeepot to refill their cups.

  Nora sat down and wrote another sentence. “I want to plant a garden.”

  Carl wrote the English and together they repeated the words.

  He nodded. “Soon. I’ll plow up the garden, soon.”

  That night, as she knelt by her bed, Nora remembered her promise. She smiled to herself as she slipped between the covers—praying for the man wasn’t so difficult when she didn’t feel like pouring coffee on his head.

  One morning, Nora had another surprise. Brownie’s barking announced company and, when Nora threw open the door, the entire Moen family waved from their light buggy. Reverend Moen reined his horse to a halt and, after climbing down, helped Ingeborg and the children to get out.

  Nora flew down the steps and met them on the walk. “Come in, come in. Oh, you do not know how happy I am to see you.” Her words tumbled over each other like puppies playing in the sun. She hugged Ingeborg and reached out to shake hands with Reverend Moen. “Come in.”

  “You look wonderful,” Ingeborg said as she tucked her arm into Nora’s, “And how is that man of yours now?”

  “Carl’s out riding the fence line to make sure none of the cows can get out.” She turned to Reverend Moen. “I’m sure he will be so happy to see you.”

  “Good. I’ll return to gather my family later this afternoon. Maybe he’ll be back then.” Reverend Moen set a basket on the porch and turned to leave. “You all have a good visit now.”

  They waved him away and walked into the house. “I brought you some things.” Ingeborg handed baby James to Nora and went back outside for the basket. “If the coffee is hot, we can share the cookies right now.” She plunked the basket on the table and began removing her gifts. “Jam, bread, spekemat, and cheese. One of the church members brought me this the other day. I thought you might appreciate it, too.”

  “Oh, like home.” Nora sniffed the wrapped piece of strong-smelling cheese. “Thank you.”

  “And sour cream cookies. Mary cut them out for me.”

  “I put the sugar on,” said Knute. “Come on, Mary. Let’s play ball on the porch.”

  Kaaren took her finger out of her mouth long enough to shove her hands into her coat sleeves and followed the others out the door.

  “Stay out of the mud,” Nora reminded them. “Kaaren, you hear me?”

  While a “Yes, Ma,” trailed back, Nora looked at Ingeborg and shrugged.

  “And here’s the best gift of all.” Ingeborg drew an envelope from the bottom of the basket.

  Nora reached for the letter. “From home. Oh, thank you.” She slipped it into her apron pocket to be read and savored later.

  With baby James unwrapped from his quilts and lying on another one on the floor and Peder still sleeping, Nora and Ingeborg sat down with their coffee to catch up on the news.

  They talked until it was time to fix dinner and continued to talk while preparing the meal. They were both feeding their babies when Nora heard Carl out on the porch, talking with the children.

  “All right if these funny people I found on the porch go down to play in the hayloft after dinner?” he asked as he came in the door.

  “That would be wonderful,” Ingeborg replied.

  Nora could not say a word—shock locked her tongue.

  Dinner was a lively affair. And quick. Carl even gave up his second cup of coffee to take the children down to play in the barn.

  “I have a favor to ask,” Nora said when she and Ingeborg sat down again.

  “What?”

  “Will you write the English words to ‘Jesus Loves Me’? I want to teach Kaaren to sing it, but Carl insists we speak English. So many things I can’t give her because I speak Norwegian.”

  “Of course I will. But you are learning some?”

  “Ja, Carl and Kaaren, they teach me.” She went on to describe her evening lessons.

  “And Kaaren calls you ‘Ma’?”

  Nora nodded. “Carl was not pleased, but I’ve tried to tell her where her ma is. And he will not talk with her about it. He hardly talks to her at all.”

  “What a shame.” Ingeborg laid her hand on Nora’s arm. “He used to have a wonderful smile—Anna would tease him into smiling and laughing. They were happy, those two.”

  “And now he says nothing. He works himself into a stupor. You should see the barn. I think he has scrubbed the walls and even the floor. I’m sure the machinery is the same. Every buckle on the horses’ harnesses shines.”

  “Men are like that. Sometimes I think God gave us heavy work so we can live through life’s sorrow. And men more so than women—they can’t cry.”

  Nora nodded. She picked up her cup and sipped the cooling drink. “But crying and laughing again makes the sorrow easier to bear.”

  “Ja. That and praying.”

  The silence, sweet and comfortable, lengthened. The clock on the wall ticked away the moments. A robin sang from the cottonwood tree beyond the fence. Coal whooshed as it sank in the firebox.

  Ingeborg roused herself first. “Now, to ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ Do you have paper handy?”

  By the time Reverend Moen came to retrieve his brood, Nora had most of the English words to the song locked in her heart. And, to refresh her memory, the carefully written words. After they left, she studied the letters. Maybe this new language was not so ugly after all.

  That night, as she brushed the hayseeds from Kaaren’s hair, she hummed the song. Kaaren chattered away about the hayloft with Nora listening carefully to pick out words she knew. “Pa’s barn” and “hayloft” she understood, and giggles were a universal language.

  Later, after the English language session was finished, Carl brought a box from the pantry and set it on the table. “Go ahead,” he said with a motion. “Open it. These are seeds for the garden. I will plow tomorrow.”

  “Plow?” Nora tasted the strange word.

  Carl wrote it down so Nora could look the word up in the dictionary. More and more she was able to find the words she needed by referring to the dictionary. She read the meaning. “To turn the soil with a tool.”

  “Then we plant?” She gestured to the seeds.

  “After the ground dries. Then the harrow. Plant next week.”

  “Thank you.” She turned her attention to the packets of seeds. While she could not read the labels, she did not need to. Peas, beans, corn, pumpkins all were easily recognized. She held up one packet of very small seeds.

  “Carrots.” Carl identified it as well as the others. “Turnips, rutabaga, lettuce. Potatoes are down in the cellar. I’ll buy onions when I go to town.”

  Nora nodded. Her fingers picked through the packets as if they had a delicate life of their own. Her own garden. She would plant and weed and water and they would have fresh vegetables. And some to preserve.

  After her prayers for Carl that night, she slipped into bed with a smile still on her face. Her last thought wiped it away—by the time the garden was ready to eat, she would be on her way back to Norway.

  She could not bear to remain in the house the morning Carl brought up the team hitched to a plow and started turning the soil. Rich black curls of dirt folded over in perfectly straight lines running north and south. She reached down and picked up a handful of loam, clenching her fist and then letting the dirt crumble back to the earth. She breathed in the aroma of the rich soil, the p
romise of spring and of rebirth.

  “Easy, now,” Carl sang out to the team as they turned another corner. The harness jingled and the horses snorted as they leaned into their collars.

  Nora watched when they started back toward her. Sun glinted off Carl’s bright golden hair, the one lock falling over his broad forehead.

  Like her, he raised his face to the sun, then brushed the strand back with his forearm. His shirt sleeves were rolled back, exposing skin already turning pink from the sun.

  “Ma?” Kaaren tugged on Nora’s skirt.

  “Ja?” Nora left off gazing at the man on the plow and bent to see what Kaaren wanted.

  “See?” Between two careful fingers, Kaaren held up an angle-worm she had rescued from the turned earth. Nora held out her hand and Kaaren placed it on the flattened palm.

  What is the English word here? thought Nora as she joined Kaaren in oohing over the creature.

  “Show Pa?” Kaaren looked up, her eyes dancing with delight.

  “Ja.” Nora nodded. “And maybe he’ll tell me what to call it,” she smiled. Who could keep from smiling on a day like this one?

  “I’m going into town,” Carl announced the next morning after breakfast. “You need anything?”

  Nora thought quickly. Kaaren needed new dresses and they were nearly out of sugar. How she would love to go along and visit with Ingeborg. Maybe he would ask her.

  But Carl only wrote down the things she listed for him, including cloth for new dresses. When he drove out of the yard, he was by himself. She and Kaaren were left on the porch, waving good-bye.

  “Come, little one. We’ll bake some cookies and go down to the barn to see the new calf.”

  Kaaren stared wistfully at the barn. “Go in the hayloft?” She raised hopeful eyes to Nora. “Jump in the hay?”

  “We’ll see.” Nora turned back to the kitchen. “Cookies, first.”

  Later, Nora wrapped bread and jelly sandwiches in one napkin, fresh cinnamon cookies in another, and poured milk into a pint jar. Then she wrapped Peder in a blanket and the three of them started for the barn.

  The new red-and-white calf bawled from his pen as soon as they swung open the door to the otherwise empty barn. The cows were out to pasture, Carl was driving the horses, and the pigs could be heard rooting around in their lean-to at the side of the barn.

  “Up.” Nora pointed to the ladder, slanted from the floor to the door in the ceiling to the hayloft. She gave Kaaren a boost and stood beside the ladder until the little girl scrambled out of sight. Nora climbed up halfway and laid their lunch on the smooth boards of the hayloft floor. When she, with Peder in one arm, reached the upper floor, she stopped a moment just to look.

  Rafters met in the peaked roof, high and dim in the dust-laden light. Much of the grass hay had already been fed to the livestock, but the densely packed fodder still covered about half the floor to a height of several feet. A pitchfork stabbed into the hay stood erect just like an empty flagpole.

  Kaaren ran across the floor to the hay and slipped and slid until she perched on top of the mound. Then, she sat on the edge, legs straight in front, and, like sledding down a hill, slipped down the incline. She landed with a thump, giggling and calling, “See, Ma. Come, slide.” She turned and scrambled back up. This time, she lay back flat and slid down again.

  “Well, this hardly makes up for the hills in Norway, but we’ll make our fun where we can,” Nora muttered to herself as she laughed and encouraged Kaaren. When Nora left Peder on the hay and slid down the hay pile, Kaaren laughed and raced back up.

  Nora lay back on the hay and looked up at the dust motes dancing in the light streaming through the high window. On the other end of the barn was a square door. It took up most of the wall and was meant to be opened to bring in the new hay. What a wonderful place to have a dance. When she thought about it, she missed the dances at home. People laughing, whirling, and tapping to the music. One thing Norwegians knew how to do—dance and have a good time.

  Kaaren plunked down beside her. When Nora did not get up, the little girl snuggled down and laid her head on Nora’s shoulder. “Hungry, Ma. Eat now?” She patted Nora’s cheek with her grubby hand.

  “Ja, we’ll eat.” With Peder propped in her arms and Kaaren sitting cross-legged in perfect imitation of her, they devoured their dinner. Between bites, Nora sang the first line of the new song she had learned. “Jesus loves me, this I know” rose to the rafters and echoed back to form a heavenly chorus.

  When Carl returned home that evening, he brought in the supplies. One little sack he handed to Kaaren.

  She carefully opened the top of it and squealed. “Candy. Yummm.” She plopped down on the rug and stuck one piece in her mouth. Sucking on it took all her concentration.

  Nora opened her package carefully, too. “So much?” She held up the light blue cotton material with small, dark blue flowers.

  “You need a summer dress, too.”

  “Thank you.” Nora held the fabric up to her cheek. “It’s beautiful.”

  “You’re welcome.” He continued to move packages around until he pulled something out from behind the flour sack. He set the burlap packet on the table in front of Nora. “For you.” He spoke like he had a rough patch in his throat.

  She stared at him, wondering what else there could be. Carefully, she folded back the edges of the burlap. Inside, the roots still planted in a clump of moist soil, was the start of a rosebush. Tiny red nubbins, ready to sprout into new growth, glowed on three dark green, thorny stems.

  Tears filled her eyes and blurred the gift. “Thank you.” With the back of her hand, she dashed away the falling drops. When she raised her gaze to Carl’s, he dropped his.

  The silence vibrated between them like a fine piano wire tapped by the hammer. Unheard, unseen—the music crept into their hearts.

  Carl cleared his throat and the silence tinkled to the floor to lie in quivering fragments. “Uhhmm.” He started to say something but had to clear his throat again. “I’ll be putting the horses away . . . and milking . . . If you could have supper ready later?”

  “Ja, I will.” Nora whispered, never taking her eyes off his face. While there was no smile, she realized the lines between his eyebrows had smoothed away.

  The next day, while Nora dug a hole by the front porch and planted her rosebush, Carl readied the garden spot. Now the soil was loose and flat, clods breaking down as the team and harrow cut pass after pass across the land.

  “You can plant now.” Carl reined the horses in and stepped off the harrow to stand in front of Nora. “The hoe is in the cellar.” He made hoeing motions with his hands and pointed to the cellar door slanted against the side of the house. “After dinner, I’ll begin plowing the fields.” He pointed off to the east. Stubble from the previous fall lay gray on the land. “Wheat first, then oats, and finally corn. Maybe potatoes, too.” He took off his broad-brimmed, black hat and the teasing breeze lifted his hair.

  Nora stood transfixed. He glowed—burnished by the sun and the wind—his love for the land, part and parcel of his soul, shining from his eyes.

  She looked out across the fallow land, flat as her eyes could see. A meadowlark soared and sang above them, its notes trilling down like bits of sunlight to be caught in her heart.

  Later, serving the dinner, Nora laid one hand on his shoulder while she set a plate on the table in front of him. The need to touch him, to feel the strength of this man, welled up from that same place within her that hoarded the sunbeams. How right it felt.

  “Thank you, Nora, for the good food.” Carl pushed back his chair. “See you tonight.”

  Nora stared after him. Was God working His miracle?

  Nora stacked the dishes in the sink and fed Peder. Then, taking a shawl, she settled him in it crosswise and, knotting two opposite corners together, formed a sling that she lifted over her head. She tied another shawl the opposite way and now the baby was clasped snugly against her chest.

  With her hands
free, she picked up the box of seeds. On the porch waited the hoe that Carl had brought up from the cellar. “Come Kaaren, we are going planting.”

  The sun had passed the midafternoon mark when Nora looked up from her labors at the sound of the dog barking. She shaded her eyes, looking off to the west where the sound came from. Two men strode across the field.

  “We have company,” she announced to Kaaren, who was busily digging a trench with a stick she had found. Nora watched them come closer. Dark hair, long, held back with a band. Dark faces, tattered shirts, leather leggings. One carried a rifle.

  “Indians.” Nora clutched the baby to her. All she had ever read and heard of the thieving, murdering, American savages flooded her mind.

  Chapter 10

  “God, help!” Nora leaned over and grasped Kaaren by the hand, jerking her to her feet. The Indians stopped at the edge of the garden. They stared at her.

  She stared at them. Her heart pounded in her chest, loud enough she was sure that they could hear. “You must welcome strangers.” Her mother’s words could barely be heard over the bellows of her lungs.

  Nora tried to swallow. Not even enough juice to spit, let alone swallow—or talk. What good would talk do anyway? What language did they speak? Certainly not Norwegian. She stepped forward like she had a board stuck to her spine. “Hello.”

  Black eyes did not blink. The taller one surveyed her from the crown of her braids to her boot tips that peeked out from under her black skirt and back up again, slowly. When he muttered something, the shorter one shrugged.

  Welcome strangers, welcome strangers. What do you do when strangers come, especially if they are the type that might take your hair and scalp with them when they leave? She clamped her teeth against the bile that rose from her stomach, threatening to make her disgrace herself. What do you do with company like this?

  Offer them food, of course. “You, eat? Drink?” If that slight motion of the tall one’s head was agreement, Nora needed no second response.