More Than a Dream Read online

  But instead of rising, Elizabeth opened a piece of music she’d been working on. It was a sonata by Chopin that she had struggled with. She couldn’t seem to master the intricate fingering. Taking the first six measures, she played it through slowly, setting the metronome to count the beats. And played it again, changing the emphasis. Liking that better, she played it through four more times before going on to the next several measures. She concentrated solely on the music, listening for the meaning, for what she wanted it to say. Note by note, rest by rest, the effort erased everything else from her mind. Her hair loosened from the bun she’d pinned into place, perspiration trickled down her spine, and yet the music beckoned her on. After playing the entire piece through again, she took a deep breath and nodded with satisfaction as the final chord faded.

  ‘‘Dinner is ready.’’ Cook stood in the doorway. ‘‘I didn’t want to disturb you. It’s out on the verandah.’’

  ‘‘Thank you.’’ Elizabeth smiled, feeling cleansed from the inside out. ‘‘I’m famished.’’

  ‘‘Good. Thorliff Bjorklund came by a bit ago, and now he is out visiting with your mother.’’ Cook started to leave, but spoke over her shoulder. ‘‘You might want to fix your hair first.’’

  Elizabeth raised a hand to find curls dangling over her ears. ‘‘Thank you. I’ll be out shortly.’’ She trotted up the stairs wishing she had time for a real washup, just now aware of her dress sticking to her. Jehoshaphat, her gold-and-white cat, lay curled in the middle of her bed and yawned, showing teeth and tongue when she blew into her room. He uncurled in the way of all felines, arching his spine and stretching limb by limb. Elizabeth stroked his back and cupped her hands around his face, dropping a kiss on his pink nose.

  ‘‘Here, I’ve been working away, and you’ve spent the morning snoozing. What shall I do with you? Were there no mice to chase?’’ The comment made her smile. Jehoshaphat had no more idea what to do with a mouse than she did with a crochet hook. She washed, changed into a green-and-white gingham dress, brushed and tied her hair with a green ribbon and, humming, made her way back down the stairs. Amazing what learning a new and complicated piece of music did for her mind. Right now she wished she could go back to studying. But soon, after all, Thorliff needed to go back to work too. And he had final exams same as she did. Just that his weren’t the last ones before graduation.

  ‘‘And how are you today, Thorliff?’’ Elizabeth said, stepping out onto the verandah. ‘‘Ready for tomorrow?’’

  Unfolding his more than six-foot length, he stood and shook his head. Thorliff Bjorklund had come to Northfield, Minnesota, to attend St. Olaf College two years earlier and had started working at her father’s newspaper, the Northfield News, in exchange for room and board. Now he wrote for the paper as well and was a trusted employee and confidant of Phillip Rogers. Through shared meals, walks up the hill to college, and working together at the paper, he and Elizabeth had become good friends. ‘‘I brought you a copy of an article I read on women in medicine,’’ Thorliff said with a smile.

  ‘‘Oh?’’ Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder as he held the castiron chair for her. ‘‘And what is their opinion?’’

  ‘‘You should stay home and raise children.’’

  ‘‘Thorliff Bjorklund, then why did you bring it for me?’’ She glared at him, ignoring her mother’s tsk of remonstrance.

  His arched eyebrow pushed her instant ire up another notch. ‘‘I’ve already read more than enough editorials with that bias, thank you.’’ She shook out her napkin with more force than necessary and spread it in her lap. ‘‘I thought you were planning to keep your nose to the books today.’’

  ‘‘I was, but your father asked me to bring some things over for your mother, so here I am.’’ He took the offered bowl of chicken salad from Annabelle and helped himself. ‘‘Sounded to me like you were trying to beat the piano into submission. Having a hard time studying?’’

  ‘‘You have such a way with words.’’ Honey dripped from her words—rancid honey.

  His chuckle made her chew on her lower lip to keep from smiling. She didn’t dare to look at her mother, knowing the frown that rode her brow. Just what I needed. Piano time and a sparring match with Thorliff.

  She took the bowl and dished up her own salad before passing it to her mother, who had started the basket of rolls around. When she glanced up, she caught Thorliff staring at her, his eyes blue as the skies above and the dappled shade of the oak tree catching glints of gold in his hair. ‘‘What is it?’’

  ‘‘Nothing. You remind me of my little sister in that dress.’’

  Elizabeth could feel a blush start on her neck. Leave it to Thorliff. She sucked in a breath and huffed it out. ‘‘Have you decided what you’ll do when school is out?’’

  He nodded. ‘‘Your father has convinced me to stay here so we can put The Switchmen out in time for fall.’’

  ‘‘And your family?’’

  ‘‘They won’t be happy, but they’ll understand. I warned them of the possibility at Christmas.’’

  ‘‘Astrid will really miss you.’’ Elizabeth thought of the little girl she’d learned to see through Thorliff’s tales of life in the Red River Valley.

  ‘‘I know.’’

  Elizabeth glanced at her mother, who was shaking her head.

  ‘‘It’s hard when our children leave home. After having Elizabeth gone so long last summer, I know how your mother feels.’’ Annabelle buttered a roll. ‘‘I so wish . . .’’ She stopped and sighed. ‘‘At least your mother still has others at home.’’

  Ah, guilt. How you sting. Elizabeth and Thorliff exchanged glances. Why did one person’s happiness so often seem to come at the expense of another’s?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Blessing, North Dakota

  ‘‘But, Mor, I want Thorliff to come home so bad.’’

  ‘‘I know. Me too.’’ Ingeborg Bjorklund put her arm around her ten-year-old daughter as Astrid turned to lean into her mother’s chest, both arms around her waist.

  ‘‘I don’t like Mr. Rogers.’’

  ‘‘You don’t know Mr. Rogers. How can you like him or not?’’ Ingeborg smoothed wisps of nearly white hair back off her daughter’s forehead and leaned her cheek on top of her daughter’s head, an act that would not be possible much longer unless she stood on a box. Ah, child, you are growing so tall and capable. Where has my little Astrid gone?

  ‘‘Well, he made Thorliff stay in Northfield. We need him here with us.’’

  ‘‘That’s the way of jobs. You might have to be far away from home to do your work. Look at Onkel Hjelmer. He has to travel around some. And during threshing season, Far is gone and Onkel Lars too.’’

  ‘‘But that’s different. They come home again when the threshing is done.’’ Astrid tipped her head back so she could look into her mother’s face. ‘‘I’m afraid Thorliff will never live here again. Like Tante Solveig, we’ll only get letters and never see him again. And Northfield is lots farther than where Tante Solveig lives.’’

  Ingeborg cupped her daughter’s strong jaw in her hands and smiled into her eyes, eyes the Bjorklund blue that proclaimed her heritage. ‘‘If Thorliff doesn’t come home, one of these days we will go to Northfield and visit him.’’

  ‘‘You mean that?’’ Astrid’s face lit up like the sun peeping over the horizon. ‘‘Really?’’

  ‘‘It is something to think about.’’ Ingeborg ran her tongue along her front teeth and let her thoughts chase after. ‘‘I could call on businesses in Minneapolis that sell our cheese.’’ Her stomach clenched at even the thought of such audacity. But if they were to turn more of their acreage over to hay, pasture, and grain to feed more milk cows to produce more cheese, they would need to add new customers. Would Haakan want to go along on a trip like that? Could both of them leave the farm for that long? Of course they could. Lars and the others would take over all the milking and run the cheese house. It would have to be before or after ha
rvest, and then Astrid would be in school again. Would Pastor Solberg allow her to be gone for a few days? And Andrew? ‘‘Uff da. So many things to think about.’’

  ‘‘What do you mean?’’ Astrid looked over her shoulder to the door, where the cat meowed to be let in. ‘‘I’m coming, Goldie, just be patient.’’

  ‘‘Oh, about a trip like that. So much more than just going to see Thorliff.’’

  ‘‘Someday maybe we could go see Tante Augusta too. South Dakota isn’t that far away.’’

  Ingeborg tweaked her daughter’s nose. ‘‘You think you want to travel all over like that?’’

  Astrid nodded. ‘‘I want to go to Chicago and New York and Norway and—’’

  ‘‘Really?’’

  ‘‘Ja. Mr. Moen talked at school about Norway and the mountains and the fjords and all. I asked Bestemor about Norway too, and she told me about her home there. We could visit Onkel Johann and Tante Soren.’’

  Ingeborg closed her eyes as a pang of homesickness, so acute that she had to catch her breath, stabbed her in the heart. Her parents were getting up in years, like Bridget, and while she had always told herself she would see them next in heaven, suddenly the urge to see them in this life seemed as necessary as breathing. Letters back and forth had grown further apart through the years, and she’d never been able to convince any of her family to emigrate. Not like the adventurous Bjorklunds. Only Johann, the eldest Bjorklund son, had remained behind, and he held the home farm, deeded to him as the primogeniture laws ordered. While Roald, her first husband, who had died in a North Dakota blizzard, had grumbled about such laws, once he’d claimed the land they now farmed, he’d never looked back. In truth, neither had she. Until now.

  What would it be like to go home to Norway for a visit? She thought on the words. Was Norway home any longer? She gave a mental shrug. Not really. This rich land they farmed was home of both her mind and heart. She watched as Astrid opened the door and picked up the orange-and-white striped cat, his fur impeccably groomed, his feet so white he appeared to have floated over dust or mud without touching down. Goldie’s purr could be heard clear across the room as Astrid held him under her chin and rubbed his ears and cheeks.

  Like her older brother Andrew, Astrid had a way with animals. They gentled at her touch and voice, even the cows and pigs. The horses came when she called them, and the chickens flocked around her feet, knowing she always carried a scattering of oats in her apron pockets. Only Astrid could pick up the barn cats, who were friendly just at milking time and never tolerated more than a quick pat or two.

  Ingeborg often wondered at the many gifts these two children of hers had been given and what would happen to both children and their gifts as they grew older. Watching Astrid with the cat, smiling at the picture they made, she scolded herself. You know better than trying to think ahead like that. Jesus said we should let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day. You’d think I’d have learned that clear down to my toes by now.

  But thoughts of the possible trip didn’t leave her. They took up residence in the back of her mind, popping out at strange times to cause her to stop again and think. When I get it thought out, the next step will be to talk it over with Haakan. Father God, is this something you want me to do, or is it that prowling jackal sending me dreams that I ought not to own? She glanced around her kitchen. Fresh yellow-and-white gingham at the windows, braided rag rugs on the dark blue painted floor, the chest that she and Roald had brought from Norway painted in rosemaling patterns. A big black stove. Such riches for which she was grateful. She sighed. Was one ever grateful enough?

  ‘‘Astrid, would you please bring in some buttermilk and sweet milk both? I think a chocolate cake would be just the thing for dinner. Oh, and some cream. We can whip that for the frosting.’’

  ‘‘Anything else?’’ Astrid paused at the door and looked over her shoulder. The sun glinted off the fine white hairs that haloed the top of her head, and her skirt swished well above her ankles. Another indication of how much she had grown.

  ‘‘No, I have the ham baking, and we’ll make scalloped potatoes from those poor shriveled things that made it through the winter.’’ Ingeborg shook her head. ‘‘Ah, the thought of new potatoes . . .’’

  ‘‘And peas. Some are blooming already. How come the weeds grow so much faster than the vegetables and the wheat?’’

  ‘‘You ask that every year.’’

  ‘‘Ja, and you always say God made it so, and so it is. That means you don’t want me asking anymore.’’

  Ingeborg made a shooing motion, her hands fluttering in front of her. ‘‘I need the buttermilk.’’ Astrid’s laughter floated back over her shoulder and mingled with her mother’s chuckle as the girl leaped from the top step to the ground.

  ‘‘Uff da. Such a child.’’

  Even though in the past she had pleaded for more children to fill their house, God had seen fit to send her and Haakan only one. But she knew her second husband loved their two strong sons as if they were from his own loins. He’d told her so with such firmness in his voice and touch that she’d never questioned him again. Thinking of Haakan made her reach up and tuck trailing strands of hair back up in the two braids that circled the crown of her head.

  Astrid returned, laden with the milk jug and the crock of buttermilk, set them on the table, and watched her mother creaming the butter and sugar. ‘‘You want I should help in here or go on back to the weeding? The sweet corn needs hoeing too.’’

  Or you could bake the cake and I could go outside. Oh, to be outside with the sun beating down on her back and chasing away the winter cold that still seemed stuck in her bones. But she glanced at Astrid, who shifted from one bare foot to the other. ‘‘You go on outside. I’ll get this in the oven and join you.’’

  ‘‘Mange takk, Mor. You are so good.’’ Astrid dashed out of the kitchen just in case her mother might change her mind, her long braids flopping against her back. As soon as she had returned home from the last day of school two weeks earlier, her shoes came off for the summer, only to be worn to church on Sundays.

  Ingeborg finished mixing the cake, poured the batter into the greased and floured pan, and checked the temperature gauge on the oven door before adding more wood to the firebox. She slid the cake into the oven and placed the bowl and wooden spoon in the dishpan full of water keeping warm on the back of the reservoir. She had a good hour before she’d need to put the potatoes in.

  The garden beckoned, and Ingeborg followed its siren song.

  She stood a moment on the top porch step of the white two-story house and, shading her eyes with her hand, stared across the fields to where the men, including her younger son, Andrew, were cultivating the acres they had planted to corn this year in order to have more cattle feed. With wheat prices down and shipping prices up, cattle, both beef and dairy, looked like a better crop all around. They’d kept all the piglets too, since more whey could feed more pigs, and more pigs going to market would add to the income.

  Diversifying from wheat to other crops took courage and unending discussions.

  She reached back into the porch and snagged her wide-brimmed hat from the nail where it hung most of the time, even when it should have been on her head. Sunbonnets, straw hats, heavy skirts—sometimes she remembered back to the ease of wearing britches in the days when she and Kaaren fought to save the land after their husbands died. Britches would make kneeling to weed the garden far more simple.

  But she’d promised Haakan she’d wear skirts instead of the men’s pants she had been forced to wear in the early days while trying to save the farm, and so she would. She took the other hoe that leaned against the post and attacked the weeds in the potato patch, hilling up the rich black soil around the growing plants so the new spuds would not get sunburned. While the hat shaded her eyes and neck, it kept the breeze from blowing through her hair. There was always a trade-off.

  ‘‘We need rain.’’ Ingeborg glanced west in the hope there
were thunderheads amassing.

  ‘‘I know. Far said we might have to haul water again.’’ Astrid looked up from weeding the carrots, a job that had to be done by hand.

  ‘‘Are you thinning those as you go?’’

  ‘‘Mor.’’

  ‘‘Sorry. I keep forgetting you know all about gardening by now.’’ After one row Ingeborg’s shoulders already felt the bite of muscles unused to the push and pull of hoeing. The fine dirt crumbled beneath her feet, bare like her daughter’s. Give Red River dirt a steady drink of water, and it would turn to black gumbo that could be slick as ice and bring horses and humans both to a stop when it clung to hooves, boots, and wheels. Give it just enough moisture and it could grow anything. She chopped the weeds out, leaning over to pull pigweed too close to the four-inch-high plants. Quack grass, the bane of her existence, also needed to be pulled out; the slightest bit of root left in the soil would take over the patch seemingly overnight.

  Sweat trickled down her back. She squashed a potato bug with the back of the hoe and checked other plants. Wasn’t it early for potato bugs? Bugs and weeds, drought and hail, all the forces that fought to keep them from getting a good harvest. And grasshoppers. Another drought year could possibly bring that scourge again.

  A meadowlark trilled off in the hayfield and robins hopped and foraged behind Astrid, keeping a safe distance but making sure no worm dug back down beyond beak level. Barn swallows dipped and stole the mud from around the watering trough to build their nests along the overhang of the barn and shed roofs.

  Ingeborg inhaled the heady scents of spring sliding into summer. Fecund earth, mint from the patch she’d planted in an old tub so it wouldn’t take over the garden, green grass, daisies, and cottonwood leaves, the breeze as it blew over the water trough and surrounding mud bringing the smell of cows and manure, all a rich potpourri of farm and growing life. She dug into her midback with her fists and rolled her shoulders back and then forward.