The Promise of Dawn Read online

  She reached in the door for the shawl always hanging at the ready. Wrapping it around her shoulders against the early morning chill, she made her way to the outhouse and then to the garden. “Takk for your help.”

  “We all eat from this plot of ground.” He leaned on the handle of the hoe. “I wonder if they grow the same things in Amerika.”

  “Most likely. I looked at a map. We aren’t much farther north than Minnesota. But I hear in North Dakota the winters are worse than here, as there is nothing to stop or even slow down the wind off the northern plains of Canada. We have hills, mountains, and trees to protect us.” I want to go there! The thought echoed in her mind like a trumpet call.

  Johann walked to the fence. “When we go, Mor, we will take you with us. Both Solveig and I would go in a heartbeat.”

  “How you will save the money for that trip is more than I could do. I try to save against a rainy day, but something always eats it up.” Last winter, when Thor had been without work because the cows were dry, had been a tough one. The porridge had been terribly weak at times.

  “Ah, but we are young and don’t have a family to feed yet. If the folks of Blessing—or in Minnesota—send out another call, I will go and send money back for a ticket for Solveig. Just the name of the town, Blessing, makes me want to go there.”

  “Why have you never said this before?”

  “I’ve thought of it but never had someone else depending on me, like I will now. After today, I am no longer a free and easy young man. I will be a husband, a man with responsibilities.” He laid his hand over hers. “But, Mor, I will see that you get to Amerika.”

  And find Ingeborg. But she didn’t voice that dream, for after all, that was all it was.

  Johann’s words dug in and took root in Gunlaug’s mind as they prepared to send Rune and Signe on their way. Their two trunks were tightly packed, and each of the boys had a rucksack of his own. Gunlaug hoped that keeping busy would ease the heartache, but when the tickets arrived, she felt like Signe looked.

  Realization dawned. She drew the younger woman into the bedroom.

  “Signe, is there any chance you are with child?” It had been eight years since Leif was born, and she had figured, as did Signe, that her childbearing years might be over.

  Signe nodded. “I have not told Rune yet, but if I have no showing next week, well, I feel sure . . .” She blew her nose. “If I lose this one on that horrible voyage, how will I forgive myself? Or Rune?”

  “For forcing you to go?”

  The shake of her head was barely perceptible. “He wants to do this, and I cannot keep him from it. If there is hope for a better life there, we must try. But the thought of him out cutting down trees gives me nightmares. He has no experience like that.” She blew her nose again. “And Mor is barely speaking to me still.”

  Gunlaug clamped her teeth together to keep her thoughts back. Forgiveness might be preached in church, but too often those listening didn’t heed the words. “I am so sorry, but I feel my job as a mother is to encourage my children to do what is necessary for the family. I wish your mor felt the same. I pray she will see the light before you go.”

  “Ja, it better be soon. I cannot worry about her, this babe I am probably carrying, and keeping my sons and husband safe on both the voyage and the train rides.”

  “Keeping you all safe is God’s provenance, and He promises to never let us go. Do you believe that?”

  “Ja, I try, but this is all so unknown.”

  “True, but hanging on to His promise to be with us always is what keeps my mother’s heart from breaking right in two.” Someday. Someday she would see them again, if Johann could keep his promise to her.

  Waving goodbye when the wagon took them to the train tested Gunlaug beyond belief.

  Chapter

  2

  JUNE 1909

  The steamship dwarfed the other ships around it.

  Rune and his wife turned to each other with their mouths hanging open. So many stories they’d heard had to do with sailing ships, but indeed, times had changed. Several gangplanks led from the Liverpool dock to various entrances on the ship. Their tickets said steerage. Signs above the gangplanks indicated the level of quarters.

  “Ours is down there.” Bjorn pointed to the steerage sign about halfway along the side of the ship.

  Men and women dressed in the latest fashion strolled up the gangplank nearest them. Dockworkers wrestled trunks and other luggage onto the lowest level. The family followed Bjorn to the entrance to steerage. No one in fine clothing made their way up to this entrance, just people like themselves. Coats and shawls, carpetbags and knapsacks, women carrying babies and small children, everyone wearing hats of some kind, and most of them looking around, fear rampant.

  A man at the dock took their tickets and spoke to them in English. He handed the tickets back to Rune.

  Rune shook his head. The meager amount of English they had learned was not sufficient. He recognized Duluth and Minnesota, so at least they were at the right place. And the name of the ship matched the one on their tickets. “Takk. Sleep where?”

  The man pointed, and they boarded the ship. They descended stairs. More stairs. Another man stood at the doorway to a long, narrow room. He pointed to their belongings and again spoke in English.

  Rune shook his head and shrugged. The man muttered something unintelligible and waved an arm, motioning them in.

  Stacks of bunks rose from floor to ceiling. Another man flagged them forward. He looked at their tickets and said impatiently in Norwegian, “You have three bunks. Come on, come on. Get out of the way.”

  Rune felt Signe cringe at the tone of his voice, her hand strangling his arm.

  Signe sank down on the bottom bunk made of wooden boards, barely wide enough for one person, let alone two. Gaslights were set so far apart in the room that the dim light barely illuminated their features. She clutched her coat around her and closed her eyes. Rune realized how hard this journey would be for her. Dear God, how do we get through this?

  The noise level rose as more people staggered past their bunks and claimed their own. Babies cried, some screamed, and small children yelled to be heard by parents so overwhelmed they could scarcely speak.

  “Mor will have the bottom bunk,” Rune instructed. “Leif, you will sleep with me on the middle one, and you two share the top one. We have our quilts and blankets, so spread them out and tuck your knapsacks in the corners.”

  “But there is no mattress,” Knute moaned.

  “I know. We will have to make do.”

  Signe looked near tears. “Rune, I think of the feather beds we left behind. And the down pillows.”

  “I’m sorry, but they took up too much room in our baggage.”

  “And the basket of food we brought is nearly empty already. When and where will the meals be served? Our tickets include meals.”

  While the section they were in had been chilly at first, with all the emigrants packed into the space, it was rapidly warming up. Who could they get to understand them well enough to answer their questions?

  Rune told his boys to stay with their mother while he went to find someone who spoke Norwegian. But each time he heard people speaking Norwegian, none of them spoke English too. And no one knew whom to ask. The men working for the shipping line brushed him off and pointed him back to his bunk as they would be departing soon.

  Rune heard the change in the engines growling beneath them. Someone was yelling orders, and the hatches slammed closed so that even less light entered the packed steerage section. Someone who could see out one of the small round windows called out in Norwegian, “We’re underway.” The floorboards shook beneath their feet.

  “I want to see, go up on deck!” Bjorn muttered. “But they locked us in this—this hole.”

  They heard murmurs from those around them. Rune sat down and drew Signe to him with an arm around her shoulders. If only they had begun preparing for the trip earlier. Several people had told him
to learn English, but with so much to do, there had not been time.

  “We’re out in the river!” the man at the porthole called back to the others. “And picking up speed.”

  Rune could tell that by the change in the tenor of the engines. It felt like the steam engines were right under their feet. So far they weren’t hitting a lot of waves, or perhaps the ship was too large to be bothered by waves. He wondered how long until they met open water. He’d finally found a map and located Liverpool on the west side of England. It was a shame the man at the window didn’t seem willing to share the view. Perhaps that would change too.

  “How long do we have to stay in these bunk beds?” Leif asked from the top bunk. “I gotta go.”

  If only some of the signs on the wall were in Norwegian. If only he had learned to read and speak English. Rune took off his hat and scrubbed his fingers through his hair. Maybe he should have listened more closely and paid attention to what Signe had said.

  Nei! he ordered himself firmly. When we arrive in Amerika, these things will pass away. I know farming, and I have cut down trees up in our mountains. Perhaps not as large at those giant pines in Minnesota, but I will learn. We will have a new life with land of our own, eventually. He settled his hat back on his head, patted Signe on the knee, and stood.

  “Come along, boys. We will go find the necessary.” All three boys scrambled down from their bunks, leaping and giggling.

  “You find it and come back for me.” Signe lay down on her side and tucked her skirts around her legs. “Do not get lost.”

  As if they could get lost on a ship.

  After standing in line to use the head, Rune turned the wrong way, but thanks to Bjorn’s unerring sense of direction, they found their bunks again. Signe lay sound asleep, the shadows cast by the lamps hiding her face.

  “Can we go exploring, Far? We’ll stay together.” Bjorn spoke for all three of them as usual.

  Rune heaved a sigh. What could be the harm in it? He nodded. “But don’t be gone long. And be polite.”

  “Ja, we will.”

  He watched them disappear into the gloom down the aisle. Surely they would be allowed out of this crowded room once they were on the open ocean. He checked on Signe, but she didn’t waken, so he made his way over to the group of men by the porthole. At least they were speaking Norwegian.

  He learned that breakfast and supper would be served but not to expect much. They dumped porridge or soup in one’s bowl and handed out a hunk of bread. Seasickness wasn’t as rampant in the summer or on the steamships, compared with winter crossings and sailing ships of yore.

  “Do any of you speak English?” Rune asked.

  Most shook their heads, but one man nodded. “Badly, but better than nothing.”

  “Would you be willing to teach me and my family?”

  “Ja, but I won’t be much help.”

  “When? My boys will be back soon. My wife is not feeling well, so she is sleeping.”

  “You come find me when they return. We will start today. Bring a pencil and paper.”

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I was a schoolteacher at home and I hope to do the same in Amerika. But I have to improve my English too.”

  Rune returned to find Signe awake and needing the necessary, so he showed her where it was and waited until she finished.

  “Uff da, that is worse than any outhouse. Don’t they ever dump it?” She hung on to his arm as if afraid he might disappear again. When he told her about the English class, she didn’t respond. “Where are our boys?”

  “Gone exploring. I told them not to be gone too long.” He sat beside her on the bottom bunk. “How are you feeling?”

  “I have missed three cycles now, so I assume I am pregnant.”

  Pregnant! He covered the hand tucked through the bend in his arm. “God willing, you will carry this baby to term. Perhaps it will be the first of others to be born in the new land. When a baby is born in Amerika, it is an American citizen. The rest of us will have to pass a test to become citizens.”

  He watched her shake her head. “Signe, we will become Americans as soon as we can. No more being Norwegians. Americans.”

  “We must get there first.”

  She looked up as the boys skidded to a stop in front of them.

  “Far, did you know we are locked in here? People on the other decks can walk all around the ship, but we are locked in!” Bjorn’s face matched the horror in his voice.

  “A man said that sometimes they will let us out to get some air and sun,” Knute added.

  Signe shook her head. “You can’t know that for sure.”

  “When we tried to open the door, one of the sailors yelled at us.”

  “Didn’t your far tell you to stay out of trouble? What were you doing?”

  “Some other boys said there is a big place where we can walk around, and I wanted to see it. That’s all.”

  “That man, he got real mad.” Leif slid as close to Signe as he could.

  Rune motioned to his sons. “Come with me, all of you. I found a man to teach us English. Signe, we need paper and pencils to write down the words.”

  “But that’s like school.” At ten, Knute had been the one most happy to miss out on school.

  Signe dug in her bag to pull out one pencil and a small pad of paper and handed them to Rune. “You write down what he says for all of us.”

  At least learning English made the time go by faster. The schoolteacher gave them simple phrases and made them repeat the words. The boys learned them quickly, but Signe was either getting sick or . . . Rune couldn’t pay attention to her and keep up with the lesson. She had to try, at least.

  “I need to go lie down,” she muttered with a tug at his sleeve.

  “Bjorn, take your mor back to our bunks and return here immediately.”

  “Ja, I will come right back.” He took her hand. “Come, Mor. Maybe you will feel better after we have some supper.”

  The lesson continued until Rune felt like his head was swimming. “We will meet again tomorrow?”

  “Ja, and you must practice all these words and phrases. Each day we will speak more English.”

  Rune stared at the list that covered several pages. Ja, he had plenty of work ahead of him.

  Signe tried to eat supper after they stood in line to get their bowls filled but finally handed Rune her bowl of soup or stew or whatever it was. “You share with the boys. Perhaps I can eat the bread a bit at a time.”

  “It’s not very good, is it?” Leif muttered.

  Bjorn made a face. “We fed our pigs better than this.”

  “Eat it and be thankful. You will not starve in six days.” Rune forced himself to follow his own orders. Perhaps Signe was better off not eating. If this was a typical meal, they could be grateful the trip was no longer than six days. If only the light were strong enough to read by.

  Signe started retching halfway through the night. He’d already heard others in the same situation. He dipped a bowl of water from the water barrel and, after pouring some in a cup, used the rest to wet a cloth and bathe her face. If only they had brought some peppermint for tea. That was his mor’s antidote for an upset stomach. Would there be peppermint in Amerika? He finally fell asleep after she did but wakened a short time later to more of the same.

  The stench grew stronger now, due to those ill with seasickness, even though the voyage was so smooth that he almost wondered if they were moving. The thrum of the engines assured him that was the case.

  Leaving Signe sleeping in the morning, he took the boys for more English lessons. The buzz that passed from bunk to bunk said the door would be opened so some of them could get air. Not everyone could go outside at once.

  The boys darted away as soon as they heard the announcement about the opening of the door.

  “Wait!” Rune called. But they either did not hear or ignored him and disappeared into the gathering throng. “I will be back later,” he told the schoolteacher. He
tried to see his boys, but the crowding brought movement to a halt.

  “Wait your turn!” The order penetrated the hubbub of languages, but no one could move anyway.

  When Rune finally cleared the door, several boys darted past him, running around the open square, dodging the adults, most of them standing with their faces raised to the sun. Both the upper decks had walkways around the open area, and those were filling with the people in second class. Above that were the elite, the women with parasols to protect themselves from the sun—men and women dressed in the fashions of the day. Rune sucked in a deep breath of ocean air, heavily tinged by the unwashed bodies around him.

  Cries of delight rang out as those on the upper decks tossed pennies and candy down to the children. Watching the children scrambling for the booty made those above laugh and shout comments. Three boys got into a fight over the treasure, and some of the younger ones cried because a coin was snatched out of their hands. Rune saw Bjorn running with some of the older boys, but where were Leif and Knute?

  Staring up at the pointing fingers and laughing faces, he clamped his jaw. So now they were a source of entertainment to those above. Those who could throw pennies away. He forced himself to begin walking around the area, not only looking for his boys but also walking off the disgust that ate at him. He’d hoped things would be different in America, and perhaps they would, but on the ship, the classes were clearly divided. He felt something hit his hat, and a penny fell beside his feet, only to be pounced on by a boy who looked like he’d been through a war. The child scrabbled for the coin, but Rune stepped on it, ignoring the pitiful look on the boy’s face. When the child left, he bent over and picked up the penny. He’d give it to one of his boys if they did not get their own.

  The order went up for those in the open to return to steerage so others could have a turn. Signe was awake but lying in the bunk when he finally made his way back to her.

  “Where are the boys?” Did her voice sound stronger?

  He sat beside her and shrugged as he described the chaos outside.