A Land to Call Home (49 page)

Agnes stared into his eyes as if plumbing the depths of his soul.

He forced himself to stand without shrinking away.

Again she shook her head, slowly this time, as if the weight of it were more than she could bear. “I don’t know, Hjelmer. I believe you are too late.”

“Has she married?” His voice squeaked on the last word.

“No.”

“Is she engaged?” Again a shake of the head. “In love with someone else?” The silence answered him. He could feel his heart tearing, ripping, much like the shredded hat in his hands.

“I see.” Two words. Two simple words but the end of a dream, of a plan, of a life.

“I’m sorry.”
Lord, have I lied? Or did I just not tell the whole truth?
But Agnes held her ground and watched him go out the door. The curve of his back and neck cried out to her.
How does one prove they love another without
. . . She cut off the thought and returned to slicing the meat for supper.

By the time Hjelmer had ridden barely a mile, he could feel the fire begin in the pit of his stomach. “What gives her the right to keep us apart?” he roared to the heavens. The horse flicked its ears back and forth and added a spurt of speed. “It is for Penny to say if she no longer wants to see me!”

A crow flapped, cawing into the air.

He felt like striking someone, something. “God, if you are listening, this isn’t fair!”

He galloped a distance more, drumming his heels into the sides of the now lathering horse. “Why are you hiding Penny from me?” He shook his fist at the heavens. “Your face from me?” The shock of the words made him pull the horse down to a trot. What was he doing? His voice softened. “God, are you hiding your face, or have I not been seeking you?” He stared toward the clouds. “I’ve been begging for help. I didn’t lie to Agnes.” The only answer he heard was the air pumping in and whistling out of the horse’s flared nostrils. He stopped and got off to walk. “Sorry, animal, I . . . I know better than to take my anger out on a poor, dumb creature like you. Far would take the buggy whip to me if he saw my horse lathered like this.” As he strode across the prairie, more of what his father had said in the past came to his mind.
Do your best and a little bit more and you’ll have the approval of others and most important, your own
. The horse’s breathing quieted.

Fear God and love the brethren
. Hjelmer snorted at the remembered words, laughing at himself. “I might not love
all
the brethren, since right now one of the sisters is standing in my way. But I sure do love one of the other sisters. Ah, Penny, does it take losing the dream to make this hard-headed Norwegian realize what a fool he’s been? You’re more important to me than the money. I can always make more money, but only God could make someone like you.” He stopped and stared at the horizon, flaring orange and every shade of red imaginable, the clouds burnished by the master’s hand. The horse rubbed his sweaty forehead on Hjelmer’s back.

“Easy, boy.” He stepped back and used one hand to scratch under the soaking forelock and up around the animal’s ears. So, what was he going to do? What could he do? “I don’t know, God. Guess I’m going to have to wait for you to tell me.”

He mounted the horse again and trotted off to Grafton, where a train awaited, if he hadn’t already missed it.

Toward the end of September, Agnes drove the wagon into the yard at Ingeborg’s house. With harvest finished at both the Baard and Bjorklund places, the men had gone on with the newly purchased separator and the steam engine to thresh at other homesteads. After all the noise and commotion of harvest, and with the older children in school, Ingeborg and Goodie were enjoying a quiet cup of coffee when they heard the wagon’s creaking. Paws barked a welcome and Andrew banged on the screen door.

“Comp’ny,” he sang out. “We got comp’ny.”

Ellie stood beside him, echoing every word.

When Ingeborg saw who it was, she pushed open the door and went to meet her friend. “What a nice surprise. You’re just in time for coffee.”

Agnes wrapped the reins around the brake handle, and after using the wheel spokes as stairsteps, she turned and lifted Gus down, her last chick at home. At five, Rebecca had trundled off to school with her brothers. “Now, you go play with Andrew and Ellie and let us ladies visit.”

The children tore off laughing toward the barn where Olaf had erected a swing from one of the beams.

“Uff da, such energy. I must have answered a hundred, no, make that two hundred questions on the way over here. The only time he’s still is when he’s sleeping.” She reached back in the wagon for a basket and followed Ingeborg into the soddy. “I could use a cup of coffee, that I can.” She greeted Goodie, oohed over baby Astrid asleep in the cradle, and took a chair at the table. “My land, there ain’t nothing prettier than this prairie cloaked in a fine Indian summer like we got now. You get such a sight with the trees by the river. Wish I had planted a tree by the house like you did. That shade will be welcome next summer, let me tell you.”

Ingeborg set a cup of coffee in front of the chattering woman and took her chair. Something was surely on Agnes’s mind.

“Haakan was hoping to have us in a board house by winter, but we shall see. That tree is getting too big to transplant now anyway. I went down to the river one day and chopped a circle deep in the dirt around another sapling. That way the roots will grow more
around the tree, so next spring I can transplant it by the house. Should have done more than one.”

They sipped their coffee in silence, broken only by the crunch of the cookies after they dipped them in their cups.

“Ingeborg, I need some advice.”

“I wondered what was bothering you.”

Agnes dug down in her basket. She retrieved some quilt pieces and scattered them on the table, brought out a jar of applesauce she’d canned, and at last laid a letter on the table. “Brought you some things.”

“Thank you. I’m in need of new colors to piece a quilt for Reverend Solberg’s bunk. We sent some things with Olaf when he moved to his house, and it seems there is never enough.”

Agnes pushed the letter closer to Ingeborg’s hand. “Read that.”

After looking at Agnes with one raised eyebrow, Ingeborg complied. “There’s a letter within this letter.”

“I know.” Agnes still wore the sad face she’d driven up with.

Ingeborg read the single sheet and read it again. She nodded. “I see. So Hjelmer begs you to mail this letter on to Penny and let her make the choice if she wants to write to him.”

“What do I do?”

“What do you want to do?”

“Throw it in the fire and pretend I never got it.” The smile Agnes tried on failed. She sighed. “I thought he was out of her life for good, you know? Then when he asked me what could he do to prove he loved Penny, I just ignored him. I didn’t know what to tell him then. I still don’t.” She pushed the letter with the tip of her finger. “But that don’t sound like the Hjelmer we knew, does it?”

“No, he sounds changed, but . . .” Ingeborg rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “As he says, if God wants him and Penny together, who are we to stand in the way?”

“So I got to send it, right?”

“What did Joseph say?”

“Never showed it to him.” Agnes appeared to be looking for the answer to life’s mysteries in the dregs of her cup.

“Does he know Hjelmer stopped by that day?”

A headshake answered her question.

“Ah, Agnes.”

“I know. It was easy for me to say you had to forgive Roald for leaving you and that you had to get yourself back close to God where you belonged, but . . .” She sniffed. “I ain’t felt close to the
Father for some time, and I . . . I guess what He is saying is I got to forgive Hjelmer for breaking my Penny’s heart and get over being mad at him for all kinds of things.”

“Looks that way to me too.”

“Forgiving is easier when the hurt’s been done to you rather than to one you love.”

“Forgiving isn’t easy no matter what.”

“Ja, that’s right.” Goodie got up to pour more coffee. “It ain’t easy but it’s always necessary.”

“I read in my Bible this morning about having ought against any and saw Hjelmer’s name as if it were written on the page. It was like the Lord God was hitting me over the head with it. Been that way since I saw Hjelmer.” She pointed to the letter. “And now this. Joseph had it in his pocket and forgot to give it to me last night.”

“So?”

“So.” She slapped her palms on the table, making the cups bounce. “I’m gonna beg the Lord to forgive me, drop this letter off in the mailbag at the sack house, and leave it all in the Lord’s hands like I shoulda done in the beginning ’afore I began messing around in things that were none of my business.” A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Our God, He do have strange ways of getting our attention, don’t He?”

“Amen to that.” Goodie laid her hand on Agnes’s shoulder as she refilled the coffee cups.

“With that settled, how about we go over and visit with Kaaren a bit? And how’s Metiz? I seen so little of her this summer.”

They gathered the children together in Agnes’s wagon and headed for the other soddy. After dinner at Kaaren’s, Agnes set out for home. Even her back looked happier as she drove off toward the west.

Penny smiled back at the postmaster when he handed her a letter. “From home,” she said, another smile following the first. “Thank you.”

“You greet Mrs. Johnson for me, young lady. Tell her I expect an apple tart one of these days.” He looked at her over the tops of his gold half-glasses. “I should go claim another for myself, that I should.”

“I’ll remind her, but you need to drop by for a visit. Been some time since we saw you.”

“I’ll do that.” He lifted his hand to wave her off, then turned back to his work.

Penny stopped on the plank sidewalk long enough to slit the envelope open. Another envelope filled the space. With a shaking hand, she withdrew the paper. The sight of Hjelmer’s distinctive writing made her mouth go dry. She stuck the letter in her pocket and headed across the street, through the hotel door, and up the stairs. The closer she got to her room, the faster her feet pounded on the stairs. Once the door closed behind her, she withdrew the letter and sank down on the edge of her bed.

Her fingers refused to move. After all this time, did she want to hear from him? Her heart thundered in her ears. She could see Donald Moen’s face as if he stood before her. Would the news in the letter change their growing friendship?

“Open it, silly!” Her words rang loud in the stillness of the third-story room.

She stuck a fingernail under the edge of the flap and pried the paper apart. Pulling the sheets of paper out, she unfolded them, took a deep breath, and began to read.

Dear Penny,

How can I begin to tell you how sorry I am for not having written to you like I promised. I have no excuses, only remorse. Just as I do not deserve God’s forgiveness, I do not deserve yours. But I plead with you, please forgive me. If you have any pity for a fool, I am in need of it. Even if we can never go back to where we were, know that I love you and have never stopped loving you, even though it must have seemed that way.

If there is someone else in your life now—and I believe there must be from the way your tante Agnes wouldn’t say anything—I will understand, but I sincerely hope he is just a friend.

If you can find it in your heart to answer my letter, I will rejoice. And if God gives you the grace to grant me a chance to call on you and see your face again, I will be the happiest man alive.

Penny wiped the tears from her cheeks for the second time. She read the news of his life on the railroad and sniffed at his signature, “Yours, if you so desire, Hjelmer.”

Did she so desire?

“Heavenly Father, what do I do now?” She laid the letter in her lap and stared out the window.