Sophie's Dilemma Read online

  ‘‘As soon as you change your clothes, please bring in the rest of the wash, unless you’d rather fill the jars.’’

  ‘‘The wash. I’ve been inside all day, and I need the sun.’’

  Astrined around her mother and sneaked a piece of rolled dough. Laughing at her mother’s halfhearted grumble, she mounted the stairs to her bedroom to change into work clothes. She hung her new red-and-white gingham dress on the hook on the wall rather than in the clothespress because she would wear it again tomorrow. The blue calico dress she’d started sewing the week before had yet to be hemmed and so still hung down in the sewing room. While she’d not had to cut her dresses longer for the last couple of years, she’d had to add more fullness in the bosom area. There hadn’t been a lot of time for sewing with the rest of the garden ready for canning and drying. The race to finish before the first frost arrived happened every year. Sometimes they won, like this year, and sometimes the frost caught them unprepared.

  Back downstairs, clad in a faded shift that often needed the ministrations of needle and thread and a full apron with deep pockets on the front, she poured herself a glass of buttermilk, grabbed a handful of cookies, and headed for the clothesline. The world outside seemed strangely silent with all the men and machinery gone threshing. The dried sheets and towels barely flapped in the lazy breeze. Though halfway to the horizon, the sun streamed warmth onto her head and shoulders. Instead of lying flat out on the grass like she might have a few years earlier, she sat down and leaned against the post that held up the clotheslines while finishing her drink and cookies. A robin fluttered down and, keeping a beady eye on her, watched for worms with the other one. She tossed him a bit of cookie, and he snatched it up, watching to make sure she didn’t make any rash moves.

  Astrid stretched her arms over her head, pulling out the tightness that came with starting school again and sitting for so long on the wooden benches. There had been some new students this year, including a boy named Heinz Geddick from the German family that had recently moved to the area. He was a senior but spoke very little English. While Pastor Solberg spoke Norwegian for him at times, he had asked Astrid to help also. Though they communicated well enough because of the similarities in Norwegian and German, she could see he was frustrated. There were several German pupils in the lower grades too, so she would most likely be tutoring them all in English. It was a shame her older brother, Thorliff, didn’t have time. He spoke all three languages fluently.

  She folded the towels and sheets as she took them down, inhaling the clean fragrance that came from the sun and the wind, and laid them in the oval willow basket. One of those Metiz, a French Canadian Sioux woman who became their friend and mentor, had woven for them before she died several years earlier. With her hands busy, Astrid’s mind roamed across the small pasture to think of Sophie. Why Sophie wasn’t happy here she just didn’t understand. And dreaming about Hamre Bjorklund. Astrid shook her head. While she was sure Hamre, a distant cousin, had grown up since he left Blessing years ago and went to Seattle to go fishing, all she could remember was his silence. Getting him to talk more than a sentence or two was harder than splitting kindling with a dull ax.

  Off in the distance she could see Andrew, the brother closest to her in age, striding across the fields. He’d stayed home from the threshing crew to keep the home chores done. Milking forty cows and hauling the milk to the cheese house took full-time male help, not that the girls couldn’t have handled it, but not along with school starting. Besides, his wife, Ellie, was very large with their first child, and Astrid knew her sister-in-law had some deep fears about having a baby. She waited for Andrew to join her before taking the wash inside.

  ‘‘How was school?’’ he asked, pushing his straw hat back on his head.

  ‘‘Sophie cut her hair in a fringe.’’

  ‘‘A what?’’ Andrew made a noise of disgust, matching the look on his face.

  She motioned across her forehead. ‘‘Short here above her eyebrows.’’

  ‘‘Why would she do that?’’

  ‘‘You know Sophie. She wants the latest thing. Before you know it, she’ll be wanting a horseless carriage.’’ Astrid raised her eyebrows. ‘‘Anything to be different and in the fashion.’’

  Andrew snorted and shook his head. ‘‘Leave it to Sophie.’’

  ‘‘You should see our reading list for this year.’’

  ‘‘Most likely the same as ever. I didn’t think I’d get through it all.’’ Andrew whistled for his dog, Barnabus, who came running from inspecting a gopher hole. ‘‘Go get the cows, Barney.’’ He waved toward the pasture, and the dog charged off.

  ‘‘I’ll be out pretty quick, soon as I gather the eggs and feed the chickens. How’s Ellie?’’

  ‘‘Looks like she swallowed two watermelons.’’ Andrew held his hands in a circle, way out in front of him.

  ‘‘I know that. I meant any changes?’’

  ‘‘Nope, but she sees Dr. Elizabeth tomorrow.’’ Andrew headed for the barn, and Astrid took the wash inside.

  ‘‘Mange takk,’’ her mother called. ‘‘There’s a bucket of scraps on the back porch for the chickens.’’

  ‘‘I’ll get it. Do we need to take eggs to Garrisons’?’’

  ‘‘Andrew can take them in tomorrow along with the cheese. I have a big shipment going out.’’ Ingeborg’s cheese house had grown through the years and now shipped wheels of cheese to many of the major cities of the United States. The Norwegians, especially, enjoyed being able to get their favorite cheeses made here just like in their homeland.

  Ingeborg threatened Haakan often that they should invest in goats so she could make gjetost, but her teasing only got teasing back. They fattened many hogs for the market on the whey and had expanded the cheese house itself twice. Garrisons’ Groceries, the new store in town, bought eggs, cheese, and smoked hams from the Bjorklunds. Penny had turned her mercantile into a dry goods store and no longer carried the foods needed in the community.

  ‘‘We’ve got a hen that’s eating eggs,’’ Astrid announced when she brought the eggs to the well house, where her mother was cleaning eggs and packing them into crates to ship. ‘‘Thanks to her, some of these are pretty dirty.’’

  ‘‘If we can find who it is, she’ll go in the stewpot.’’ Using a damp cloth Ingeborg wiped a spot of manure off an egg and set it tip down in the slatted wood crate that held twelve layers of twenty-four eggs. ‘‘We need more straw in the nest boxes.’’ The chickens too ate the whey from the cheese house, and as soon as the garden was finished for the season, they would be loosed into the fenced plot to clean up the garden residue.

  While some people burned back the tip of their hens’ upper beaks to prevent them from cracking eggs or pecking at each other, Astrid refused to do that to hers, choosing instead to keep an eye on them and discover the culprits. The chickens were her responsibility, and she and her mother split the money from the eggs, which gave Astrid some school money. She was still intent on going to Chicago to train as a nurse with Dr. Morganstein, the same doctor her sister-in-law, Elizabeth, had trained with for her physician’s license. Astrid had spent much of the summer helping at Dr. Elizabeth’s surgery.

  ‘‘Is George milking tonight?’’ Astrid asked.

  ‘‘Far as I know. Why?’’ Ingeborg paused in her egg cleaning.

  ‘‘He hurt his back falling off the ladder yesterday while fixing something at Tante Kaaren’s.’’

  ‘‘She never mentioned it.’’ Kaaren and Ingeborg had taken time out for coffee that morning, the last opportunity for Kaaren before the students started arriving for their sessions at the school for the deaf. Some of the older boys and girls would help with chores on the farm; others would learn woodworking from George McBride, a former student who also worked on the farm and was married to Ilse. Lars taught machinery repair, and Ilse taught weaving. The deaf students attended Blessing School too, once they learned signing well enough to be able to participate in class.r />
  ‘‘Maybe no one told Tante. Grace told me at school. And I thought I would laugh myself silly when she and Sophie talked about cutting the fringe. . . .’’ She emphasized the words and rolled her eyes at the same time. ‘‘Now Sophie is ready to cut hair for everyone.’’ Astrid and Ingeborg shook their heads at the same time. Sophie’s antics had caused plenty of laughter through the years as well as a few tears.

  ‘‘She was flirting with Heinz today. The poor boy wore a red face much of the day, even though he didn’t know what she said.’’ Astrid shook her head again. ‘‘And she thinks she’s in love with Hamre, so how can she be making eyes at Heinz?’’

  ‘‘I’m sure she said nothing improper.’’

  Astrid laughed again. ‘‘It isn’t what she said, but how. You know Sophie.’’ Astrid picked up four milk buckets, slipping the handles over her arm, and out the door she went.

  Still smiling at her daughter’s comments, Ingeborg set the dirty eggs to soak in water while she buffed and dried the remainder. While her hands did the mundane chore, her mind roved off to pray for Haakan and Lars with the threshing crew, asking guidance from her Father for the cheese business as to adding more varieties, asking blessing on the new year of school and all the students, and praying for strength for herself.

  The bleeding had started again this afternoon. If it got bad again, her daughter-in-law, Dr. Elizabeth Bjorklund, Thorliff ’s wife, had threatened her with surgery to remove her female parts inside. Hysterectomy, she called it. Such a strange name. Lord, I thought we were through with all this foolishness. I felt better again. Uffda, can’t you please take care of it so that we don’t have to resort to cutting everything out? You said to ask in faith, that I can say to that mountain, ‘‘Be cast into the sea,’’ and it would move. Well, I’ve never tried to move real mountains, that’s for sure, but this seems like a mountain to me. Just as that woman in the Bible touched your garment, Jesus, I ask for you to stop the flow of blood. It’s not been going on for twelve years—I don’t know how she stood it—but it has come back. So I ask for this healing, knowing that you are our great healer and you can do this. If only you will.

  3

  Mid-September

  WHOLE WEEKS and he had yet to smile at her.

  Sophie listened to Grace slightly puffing out her sleep breaths.

  TWO While Heinz seemed like a boy compared to her, his was the only new male face that appeared even slightly interesting—in school that is. His older brother, Abram, was another story. But he saw her as still a schoolgirl, even with her fringe. This Sunday for church she decided she’d put her hair up. Surely that would help her appear older. But then again, if the threshing crew had returned, perhaps some of the other young men would be in church.

  ‘‘Sophie, time to wake Grace,’’ their mother called from the bottom of the stairs. ‘‘Please call the boys too.’’ Trygve and Samuel slept in the room next to the twins, and no one could sleep harder than those two. They’d probably sleep through until dinner if no one woke them.

  At least when the threshing crew got back, the girls wouldn’t have to milk the cows before school. She tapped her sister on the shoulder and threw back the covers to go shake the boys. None of the new students for the deaf school were ready for milking cows yet, most of them being younger this year, but two boys Samuel’s age from last year would be waiting at the barn to help.

  After rousing her brothers, Sophie returned to her bedroom to dress. She and Grace slid into their chores clothes and then made their way downstairs. Trygve sat on a chair tying his boots. A big yawn traveled the air and made her yawn too.

  ‘‘Looks like it froze last night.’’ Samuel, the youngest of the family, turned from looking out the window.

  Sophie handed Grace a shawl and threw another one over her own shoulders. ‘‘Let’s go. Andrew will have all the cows in and fed. You know how snappy he gets if we are late.’’

  ‘‘Bring a couple pails of milk back. If there is extra cream in the springhouse, we need to churn today.’’ Kaaren leaned over to check the oven. Whatever she had baking smelled heavenly as they all trudged out the door. ‘‘Breakfast will be ready when you return.’’

  ‘‘You’re late,’’ Andrew announced as soon as they came through the barn door.

  Sophie poked Grace and mouthed, ‘‘I told you so.’’

  Since Andrew was in charge of the home farms while the crew was off threshing, he took his responsibilities very seriously, no longer the easygoing youth he had once been. They all took a bucket and a three-legged stool and started down the aisles, each of them having favorite cows to milk. A newly freshened first-time cow still needed the kickers, so Grace, who was more sensitive to the cows, chose her. Murmuring her own off-key tune to the cow, she stroked its neck before sitting down to wash the udder and set the bucket between her legs. The song of the pails commenced as the milkers all fell into the rhythm of squeeze and pull, releasing the milk to froth in the buckets. As one finished, they poured the milk into a can with a metal strainer set on top and moved on to the next cow.

  ‘‘You kids go on and get ready for school,’’ Andrew said when they were down to the last couple of cows. ‘‘George and I will finish.’’

  ‘‘You’ll feed the calves too?’’ Samuel asked. Feeding the calves had become his job when Trygve took over the market hogs. The sows now lived in Andrew’s newly built barn, and the dry cows and heifers grazed the pasture around there.

  ‘‘For today. Saturday you can work with the deaf boy from Fargo. He seemed to really like the young animals and has lived some on a farm.’’

  ‘‘Good. You want me to bring another team out to plow?’’ Trygve had tried to talk his parents into letting him drop out of school to work on the farm, but they were adamant that he finish, just as Andrew had.

  ‘‘Ja, you can get in a couple of hours. The girls will take your place milking.’’

  Sophie gave him a half glare. ‘‘Thank you, Sir Andrew.’’ Milking was one of those chores she would never miss when she went on her travels. Nor working in the cheese house, where the odor of sour milk bonded to one’s hair and hands no matter how clean they kept the floors and equipment. She picked up the last bucket of milk, and she and Grace stopped by the springhouse to get a can of cream to take home with them. They walked across the field carrying the can between them. Should have brought the wagon, she thought as their burden grew heavier with each stride.

  Halfway home Samuel and Trygve took the can and the buckets.

  ‘‘Thank you, kind sirs.’’

  Her brothers looked at her as though she were daft.

  ‘‘Tell Mor I’m going to hitch the wagon before I come in,’’ Trygve said when they reached the house.

  Samuel took the can they’d set on the porch and carried it into the kitchen, which was abuzz with activity as the deaf students made their way to the long table that sat eighteen in the dining room.

  ‘‘You’d better hurry,’’ Kaaren urged when they’d washed and sat down with the students. ‘‘Let’s pray. I Jesu navn . . .’’

  The Norwegian table blessing flowed from the lips of the family as easily as one in English would have. Grace signed the words in English for the students who shared the dormitory-style rooms on the second floor of the school section of the house. Expecting them to learn Norwegian was beyond the possibilities.

  Kaaren had baked cinnamon rolls for breakfast to accompany the oatmeal that had been cooking all night on the back of the stove. They poured cream and molasses over the cereal, a much more simple meal than they would have when feeding the men too.

  As usual, Sophie was the last one out the door, kissing her mother’s cheek as she picked up her lunch pail. ‘‘I didn’t get that wool carded yet, but I will tonight.’’

  ‘‘Yes, you will. I need it to teach my first class on spinning. I’ll have two of the students help you after supper.’’

  Sophie sighed and flew out the door, knowing if she didn’t
get to the wagon when Trygve was ready to leave, she would walk the mile to school. It had happened before.

  Once Sophie was in the wagon, Grace, with a patient look, handed her sister the book she needed to take back to the library. Her smile acknowledged her twin’s shrug of apology.

  ‘‘You are so good to me. Pastor Solberg said if I forgot it today, I would have to walk home to get it.’’

  ‘‘I know.’’

  How Grace knew and did so many things when she couldn’t hear, Sophie now took for granted. Some of the time she forgot to turn so Grace could read her lips and would get a tap on the shoulder in reproof. Like the chemise, Grace would often pick up something Sophie had left unfinished for a long time and quilt, knit, or sew it herself and then leave it on their bed for Sophie to find. Guilt used to assail her, but now it barely nibbled, or she could ignore it more easily. She was never sure which, nor did she spend much time dwelling on it. Instead, she gave Grace’s hand a squeeze while bestowing her best smile of gratitude.

  The day dragged by like all school days. Sophie received a reprimanding look from Pastor Solberg for doodling flowers and trees on her tablet rather than writing the essay he’d assigned. She sighed and flipped the page, but words failed to come to mind. What did she care about the forming of unions to supposedly help the workers? Now, if he’d let her write about Teddy Roosevelt and his adventures in the West, that would have been another matter. He was hero material for sure, even if he did wear those funny glasses. Clara Barton and the American Red Cross or Susan B. Anthony and the suffragettes—now those were things that truly interested her.

  Or Hamre. Why had she not heard from him for so long? Two letters she’d sent with no reply. Perhaps he had found someone to love out there on the West Coast. But his earlier letters had sounded like more than something just written from distant cousin to distant cousin. Had she been reading more into them than what he’d really meant? There were lots of Norwegians out there; he’d told her that, but surely he wouldn’t settle for a dull Norwegian girl. Hamre needed someone with fire in her soul, and Sophie knew just the Norwegian girl with that.