A Heart for Home Read online

  “Have you planted a garden? That was one of the first things my mother did when she arrived in North Dakota. Fresh food is so important.”

  “Thomas did, but it is not doing well. The lack of rain, you know.”

  So why don’t you carry water to it? “I take it you don’t go outside much?”

  “Thomas says it is too dangerous out there for me. And besides, this sun is so hot that it beams right through my parasol.”

  “Where did you come from? Where’s home?” Being polite was getting more difficult by the minute.

  “I grew up in Philadelphia, and I met Thomas at a cotillion. In his blue uniform with gold trim, he was the most dashing young man there. Land sakes, but he was the delight of every woman who saw him.” She spread her fan and fanned her heavily powdered face. “Doesn’t this heat bother you?”

  I’m sure I don’t have all the petticoats and corset and other feminine underthings that you are wearing. “We who live on the prairie learn to dress to fit the climate, so the heat doesn’t do us in. Fashion isn’t as important here as in the cities.”

  “That is such a shame. I would hate for my mamma to come clear out here and see what a hovel we are living in. I try to make it as nice as I am able. Also to show the savages that there is indeed a better way to live. Keeping up a stylish appearance is one of the ways I encourage my husband.”

  Astrid nearly dropped her teacup. She set it back in the saucer and wiped her mouth with the dainty napkin. Casting back through their conversation in an effort to change the subject, she thought of the uniform. “So Mr. Moore was in the army?”

  “Yes, but when he learned they wanted civilians as Indian agents, he left the service. He felt he could be more useful this way. My Thomas has always desired to help those less fortunate.”

  “That is a very good thing.” Astrid paused, again trying to think of what to say. “You know, you could read to the children.”

  Mrs. Moore stared at her. “Why? They wouldn’t understand the story.”

  “You could teach them.”

  “Mr. Moore is seeking for a teacher to come out here. And while I have not met Dr. Red Hawk, he will be back in the fall.”

  “I am acquainted with Dr. Red Hawk. I attended school with him for a time. Medical school in Chicago. He cares deeply for his people.” He and I did a lot of sparring over that corpse we dissected. “His request for help is what brought me and my companions here.”

  “I do hope he is learning some culture while he is there.”

  Astrid placed her saucer and cup very carefully on the table and rose. “Thank you, Mrs. Moore, for a lovely dinner, but I need to return to my patients for a last check before bedtime. No, don’t bother to see me out. I’ll leave the men talking and slip out the back door.”

  She smiled again and made sure she walked sedately out through the kitchen, where Ann was cleaning up from the dinner. “Good night,” she said with a smile to the young woman.

  She hoped stomping her feet all the way to the infirmary would release her anger, but it didn’t. In the infirmary, she cuddled a baby who was crying, and that did help. The smile that she received when handing him back to Gray Smoke, a woman with silver hair and only two lower front teeth, did the rest. If the price of having a meal with the Moores was making polite conversation in the parlor with Mrs. Moore again, she would simply choose not to attend supper.

  2

  BLESSING, NORTH DAKOTA

  Ingeborg Bjorklund brushed the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead. July was surely trying to make up for the cooler June. A rain shower had blown through, and while that had cooled the air for a bit, now everything dripped moisture. Including her. She flipped her sunbonnet back off her head so the slight breeze could fan her face and hair. If Astrid were there, she would laugh and say, “I told you so.” They had always been in contention about sunbonnets and sunburned skin. So much for the dictates of proper etiquette. Not that she’d been much of an adherer to the rules of society this far west, since keeping food on the table was far more important than milk-white skin.

  She pulled her leather gloves back on and continued hoeing the potatoes, hilling the dirt up around the plants to keep the sun from burning the potatoes that grew too close to the surface. Emmy, the little Sioux Indian girl who had been found in their haymow last November, came behind her with the kerosene can, picking off the potato bugs and dropping them into the kerosene to die.

  “Gramma, this can stinky.” She held up her can.

  Ingeborg had failed in keeping sunbonnets on Emmy and Inga, her oldest granddaughter, too. One day she’d found the one she’d sewn for Inga hanging from its strings on one of the apple trees. Whatever Inga did, Emmy copied.

  “I know it is stinky, but the bugs will eat our potato plants. Then what will we eat?”

  “The bugs?”

  Ingeborg smiled at the joke but wondered if perhaps the little girl’s tribe had been forced to eat bugs or starve to death. The thought made her shudder. While she felt Emmy was a gift to her from God so that she could have another child in the house, she knew that the old man they’d assumed was the girl’s uncle could come back for her at any time. He’d come to visit one day, but after he and Emmy had talked, he’d left her there, and the little girl had seemed relieved.

  “When is Inga coming?”

  “After dinner.”

  Thorliff had promised to bring his daughter out to visit that afternoon and to spend the night so the three of them could go picking wild strawberries early the next morning. The plants in the garden were not ripe yet, but the secret patch of wild berries was, since it was always ready first.

  “All done.”

  “You looked under all the leaves?”

  Emmy sent her a disgusted look. Once shown how to do something, Emmy always did her best.

  “Good. I am almost finished here. Why don’t you go pick some lettuce for dinner?”

  “How much?”

  “An apronful.”

  Emmy looked down at her apron, then at Ingeborg’s.

  “Your apron.” She’d shown Emmy how to pick the biggest lettuce leaves so new ones would grow back. Once the plants went to seed, she would sow new seeds to keep the lettuce growing all summer. She smiled to herself. The first time she’d put salad on Emmy’s plate, the little girl had stared at the torn green leaves and shaken her head. But when she tasted the salad, the dressing sent her back for more. Ingeborg mixed milk, sugar, and vinegar together and shook them well before pouring it on the salad. As soon as the green onions were large enough, she’d chopped and added them too. She’d also introduced the girls to the delicacy of just-washed lettuce dipped in sugar and rolled lengthwise like a cigar. Emmy had not needed further instructions.

  After hoeing the potatoes, Ingeborg searched through the peas and picked a good handful. She’d seen baby potatoes, so creamed peas and new potatoes would soon be an option.

  She picked lettuce leaves along with Emmy until they had enough for dinner and strolled toward the house. Dinner would be ready right on time since the sun was at about eleven o’clock high now. How she wished Astrid were there to enjoy the garden. While she’d agreed that someone needed to go help the Rosebud Indians, she’d been so looking forward to Astrid being home, at least for a while.

  A letter would help. “Let’s wash the lettuce at the pump, and our feet too.”

  “I pump.”

  “If you want.” Since they now had running water in the house, she’d not had to pump water at the well that spring. The hand pump on the side of the kitchen sink saved them all plenty of hours. Emmy loved to pump. The first time she’d seen water come out of the spout on the pump, she’d been mesmerized. She’d looked under the sink and kept shaking her head. Did the Indians have wells, or were they still getting water from the creeks? Another question to add to her list. Getting wells dug would cut down on the diseases. She and Emmy laughed together as they took turns pumping cold water over their feet, then filling the
bucket for washing the lettuce.

  “Men coming.”

  Ingeborg glanced up at the sun. Sure enough, they’d managed to fritter away nearly an hour. “Come, let’s get dinner on the table.” At least they’d set the table before they went out to cultivate the garden. While Emmy cut the lettuce, Ingeborg mixed the dressing. She would pour it over the salad just before setting it on the table.

  The pot of rice sat on the back of the stove, kept warm from cooking earlier. The roasting pan full of rabbit pieces that had been baking smelled delicious when she pulled it from the oven. Adding sour cream to the gravy was her own special touch and always brought raves from the diners.

  “You want to slice the bread?”

  Emmy nodded and brought a loaf of the bread they’d baked the day before from the pantry. She set it on the cutting board and pulled a knife from the drawer. Holding thumb and forefinger about half an inch apart, she raised her hand. Emmy never wasted words when an action could speak for her.

  “Yes, about that thick.”

  “Men here.”

  “Oh, I forgot to set out the basins. Uff da. Where has my mind gone lately?”

  Ingeborg filled two basins with hot water from the stove reservoir and then each carried one outside, getting to the bench just as the men did. Had she been thinking ahead, she’d have set the basins out and let the sun warm the wash water.

  “You heard from them yet?” Lars Knutson asked. He and Haakan farmed the homesteads together, along with the Bjorklunds’ younger son, Andrew, who’d never wanted to do anything else but farming.

  “No, it’s too soon for a letter to get back from clear out there.” Spoiled as they were by the telephone system they’d installed in Blessing a couple of years earlier, waiting for letters to arrive seemed like forever.

  “Did Far say how long they would be there?” Andrew splashed water on his face and dried it with a towel.

  “He figured at least two weeks, but Pastor Solberg seemed to think that was optimistic.” Ingeborg returned to the kitchen to place the roasting pan on potholders at the head of the table, where she could dish up plates rather than transferring the meat to a platter.

  Andrew said the grace, which was usually his father’s job, and held a plate for Ingeborg. Serving bowls went round the table as the meat was passed out.

  “Thanks to Solem, we have fresh meat today.” She nodded at her cousin’s son, whose snare lines kept three houses in meat. While she was feeding the men, Solem’s mother, Freda, was over helping Kaaren refurbish the boys’ dormitory at the school for the deaf. They’d done the girls’ the year before. What they really needed was another building altogether, because the school was bursting at the seams. Then the classrooms in the main house could be converted into bedrooms. As more deaf students arrived in Blessing, the community was already talking about needing another public school building or adding on to the one they had. Once the students at Kaaren’s school learned how to communicate, they would attend the Blessing school, as well as continue to learn life skills at the Knutson farm.

  There was so much building to be done. The hospital was under construction, and the new company that manufactured the improved seeder attachments, designed by the deceased Daniel Jeffers, had already outgrown the old grain storage building, where Onkel Olaf once had his furniture factory. As people often said, Blessing was growing faster than they had laborers to build it. And thanks to the Jeffers-styled seed attachments, the wheat fields were growing without bald spots and the yields had greatly increased.

  Jonathan Gould, who had been staying with the family since late June, shook his head when she offered more of the baked rabbit. “I cannot. I am full already.” He returned to work on the Bjorklund farm every summer, both to see his beloved Grace Knutson, Ingeborg’s deaf niece, and to learn more about farming. He spent the school year at the state college in Fargo, studying in the agricultural program.

  “I had a letter from Grace yesterday,” Ingeborg told them. “She said she’d be home soon.”

  “Well, not soon enough for the rest of us,” Jonathan commented. “I think they don’t want to let her go.”

  “You are right. That is making it hard for her to leave, but she knows there is so much to do here.” Grace had tried to resign from her post at the deaf school on the East Coast but still hadn’t made the break. If she didn’t arrive in Blessing soon, she would have little time with Jonathan before he left with the harvest crew and then went back to school.

  Lars pushed back his chair. “Well, better get at it. Takk for maten.”

  “You are welcome,” Ingeborg replied as she and Emmy began clearing the table.

  “Carl was begging to come and see Grandma,” Andrew told his mother. “Is that all right?”

  “Of course. Inga is coming out later too. Tell Ellie to send him on over. I’ll stand on the porch to watch for him.”

  Later that afternoon Ingeborg sat on the back porch with her three little ones and told them stories of Norway while they drank their strawberry swizzles and nibbled on sour cream cookies.

  “What are mountains?” four-year-old Inga asked.

  Ingeborg shook her head. To think her grandchildren had never seen a mountain, or hills covered with pine trees, or streams leaping and cavorting down a rock face and meandering across a meadow. “I’m trying to think how to describe this, Inga. Mountains are part of the earth, very tall, and covered with rocks and snow and pine trees.”

  “Bigger than the barn?”

  “Oh yes. Taller than ten barns stacked on top of one another.

  They go on as far as you can see, and when you stand on a mountain, you can see across the land to the sea, which is water like the river but goes on farther than you can see, and the sea is salty. You have to ride in a boat to get across the sea.” She could tell they did not understand what she was talking about. Did she have any pictures?

  “I rode in a boat on the river.” Inga propped her elbows on her knees.

  “I ride in a canoe,” Emmy said.

  “I wanna ride a boat,” two-and-a-half-year-old Carl said as he reached for another cookie. “Pa me fishing.”

  “Can we go fishing, Grandma?” Emmy set her glass on the table and went back to sit with the others.

  “We’ll go fishing if we can find some worms.” While she had cooked dinner for the men at noon, they would all eat supper at their own homes. There were now plenty of leftovers for supper that evening. She stood and headed for the kitchen. “You bring your glasses and the cookies in here. I’ll get the fishing rods from the porch.” Together they carried the willow poles with lines and hooks stuck in the cork bobbers.

  “Worms in ’nure pile?” Carl was carrying the lard pail Ingeborg had handed him.

  “That’s the easiest place to find them.” Ingeborg swung by the east side of the barn, where she had planted the comfrey, once she learned that smearing the broad comfrey leaves on one’s skin kept away the mosquitoes. She handed a leaf to each of the children. “Now, rub this over any skin that’s not covered.”

  “So the ’squitoes don’t bite us.” Emmy had learned the lesson earlier.

  It didn’t take them long, digging around the edge of the pile where the manure had already deteriorated into rich dirt, to get enough fat worms for fishing. Carl held one up, giggling as the worm wriggled from both ends, then plopped it into the pail. Ingeborg rammed the manure fork back into the pile, and they headed across the pasture to the tree and brush line that once again bordered the river. In the early days all the trees had been cut for lumber and firewood.

  Carl trudged along beside his grandmother as the two girls ran ahead. They found a butterfly and beckoned Ingeborg to come see it. A yellow and black swallowtail lifted on the breeze as she arrived by the thistle bush. Bending over, she wrapped her skirt around her arm and dug under the prickly leaves to the stalk and, with a grunt, pulled it out.

  “Always pull out the thistles before they go to seed, so they don’t take over the pas
ture and the fields.”

  “But the butterfly?”

  “Will find another flower to feed from.”

  Amazing how fast the thistles grew. Andrew had hoed all the fence lines and sprouting thistles not a month earlier. Keeping them down took constant vigilance.

  As they took the path down to the Red River, which bordered their property on the east, Ingeborg automatically searched out the game trails for any signs of deer. A young buck would taste mighty good about now, as their hogs and steers were not yet large enough for butchering. When she saw deer pellets in an area of crushed grass and leaves, she showed the children and wished she’d brought along a rifle.

  If she allowed herself to think about it, she missed the early times when she’d gone hunting, not as a sport but as a necessity, to keep her family from starving. She’d learned to shoot a rifle when they’d first homesteaded. Carl Bjorklund, brother to her first husband, Roald, had taught her to shoot deer and geese. Nowadays, it wasn’t considered proper for a woman to hunt; it wasn’t proper to wear britches either, as she’d done in the early days. She’d hung both rifle and britches up after marrying Haakan, because she knew it would please him.

  She and the children clambered over a tree that had fallen and approached the slow moving river. Through the seasons the river dug deeper pools in some places and dropped sediment to fill in others. Samuel had told her about this pool.

  “Can we go wading?” Inga asked.

  “Not if you want to catch some fish.”

  “You go in water, scare fish away.” Carl set his lard bucket down beside the log and parked himself at the same time. “Pa said so.”

  Ingeborg rolled her smile back inside. According to Carl, if his pa said so, it was gospel. Inga, however, questioned everything and everyone.

  Each of the children took a pole and carefully unwound the line from the willow bark. Like seasoned fishermen, they threaded a worm onto the hook and tossed their line in the water, where the cork bobbed on the surface. Carl’s bobber went under first, and he jerked back on the line to send a fish flying over their heads. Together all of them looked up to see the line caught in a willow bush. Giggles broke out like popping corn.