A Land to Call Home (6 page)

The adults laughed. “You boys,” Kaaren said. “You’d think I beat you every day.”

“Me read?” Andrew looked up from the bread he’d pounded flat, then ate.

“Not today.” Ingeborg spooned more of the stew into his mouth. “You get a nap so I can get something done.”

“Inge, he can come here.” Kaaren laid a hand on the mound of her belly. At the look of concern on the others’ faces, she shook her head. “No, the baby is not ready to come. Just dancing the pols in there, I swear.”

“Did you lie down for a while yet?” Lars asked. When Kaaren shook her head, he looked at her sternly. “You promised.”

“Ja, but the day isn’t over. After the lessons I will.” She leaned back in her chair. “Just think, I will soon be teaching all the children in our own schoolhouse. Won’t that be a dream come true? God is so good.”

“You
look
like you should be teaching a roomful of restless children,” Lars muttered into his coffee cup.

“I won’t look like this much longer.” She grimaced again as the baby kicked so hard her apron bounced.

“Did you see that?” Thorliff’s eyes grew huge and round, the Bjorklund blue showing even more than usual.

“Ja, and I felt it too.” Kaaren knew she shouldn’t talk about the baby around the younger children. It just wasn’t proper. But with all of them here in one room, proper didn’t seem to be so important any longer. The boys had seen sheep, calves, and even a foal born. A baby wasn’t that much different.

“Grandmere said she was coming this afternoon to see how you are.” Baptiste wiped the milk mustache off with his sleeve. “I’m done. You want I should start on the wood?”

“There’s egge kake for dessert.” Kaaren was well known for her egg cake. “I have applesauce for frosting.”

Baptiste flashed her one of his rare grins. “I’ll wait.”

Over the cake, Haakan again picked up the discussion they’d been chewing at for the last several days. “When do you think we should go look for a steam engine and lumber mill? We could get it set up before the snow comes and use it during the winter.”

Ingeborg shook her head. “How can you do that and a barn too?” She ignored his muttered “house.” “As I’ve said fifty times, all those extra cattle we bought need a place out of the cold.”

“Ja, but we could do that with a roofed corral.” He looked up at Lars, the look clearly saying “help me.”

“I’m thinking we should set the boys to splitting shingles, and we could help them in the evenings. The barn will give us more room for indoor work this winter. We could keep one end of it for
a workshop.” Lars winked at Ingeborg. “Maybe even build you two women a loom.”

“So you agree with me, then?” Ingeborg shot a triumphant smile at her husband. She waited for his answer.

Haakan threw his hands in the air. “I give up. Try to give you something you want so dearly and you refuse. There will be no more discussion about building a frame house—this year.”

“The cattle are more important. They bring in money.” Ingeborg pointedly ignored his last statement.

“And you don’t?” Both eyebrows disappeared under the shock of wheaten hair falling on his forehead. But the smile they shared buried their stubbornness in love.

After the plates were soaking in an enameled pan on the stove, Ingeborg picked up the now nodding Andrew and nestled him against her shoulder. “I’ll be going after geese again this evening, but Thorliff can watch him.” She laid a hand on the drowsy child’s back.

“No, bring him over.” Kaaren smiled at the picture they made, with Ingeborg dressed in her britches and a shirt she’d cut down from the clothes of her first husband, Roald, who had died in a snowstorm during the blizzard and flu epidemic of 1882. Even though Kaaren hated to see her sister-in-law dressed like a man, she’d come to appreciate the greater freedom it gave her, especially in the woods and fields. Ingeborg’s golden crown of braids made her look like a queen in spite of her man’s clothing.

“You know, after the baby is born, I might think of making some britches myself.”

“Kaaren!” The shock on Lars’ face made the joke well worthwhile.

“Just teasing.” She gave him that special smile she reserved just for him. His return smile, accompanied by a wink, made her breath catch in her throat.
God, thank you again
for this
man you sent me.
Thank
you for healing
his
foot and for the babe we
share. When she caught her breath the second time, it was for an entirely different reason. That baby had more kicking power than Jack the mule.

“I will see you later, then.” Ingeborg strode out the door, her broad-brimmed man’s hat clapped on her head.

“Mange takk for maten,” Haakan said as he leaped to his feet and, grabbing his hat off the peg by the door, followed his wife outside. “Here, Inge, let me carry him.” The two older boys scampered
out the door yelling “thank you” over their shoulders. Thorliff’s “Far, wait for me” floated back on the breeze as the screen door slammed.

Kaaren smiled again at her husband. “Life surely is different around here, thanks to you two.”

Lars reached above and behind him to bring her face down for a kiss. “I thank my God every day for my life here.” He kissed her again, inhaling deeply. “How come you always smell so good?”

“It’s the egge kake you smell.”

“No, it’s you. Soap and roses and fresh air and you. Only God can make a perfume like that.”

Kaaren could feel herself blush. Every once in a while this man talked like a poet or a dreamer, making her heart ache with the joy of it. Sometimes she felt she could burst from the sheer wonder of loving him and his loving her. “God is good,” was all she could say around the lump in her throat.

“Make sure you listen for the riverboat. Solveig should be here either today or tomorrow. Remember, if you need me, ring the triangle.” He rose, drained his coffee mug, and reached for his hat all in one smooth motion.

“Listen to you. Every day you tell me the same thing. While this might be your first baby, it certainly isn’t mine.” Memory of her two daughters lying in the graveyard with their father caused an instant flooding of her eyes. Sometimes she scolded herself for the tears, but they always caught her unawares. “Go on now. I will know when to call you. I do get some warning, you know.”

“You’re sure?”

“Lars, we talk of this every single day. I am fine, and I will be fine. Besides, the boys will be back in a minute or two. You want they should catch you still in the house in the middle of the afternoon?” She gave him a playful shove and stood at the door to hear him whistling his way back to the sod barn. Flies buzzed at the screen door, demanding entrance, and Paws barked from the other house. She listened to hear if it was his announcing company bark or if he was just playing with the boys. Geese sang their way south, a haunting melody of freedom. Sometimes the sky seemed almost dark with the waterfowl heading for their winter quarters in the Southland. Warm as it was, she could still smell the fragrance of fall in the air. Wishing she could go out and dig the remaining carrots and turnips from her garden nearly drew her outside, but she knew if Lars caught her at it, the look of a wounded boy that covered his
face would make her feel as though she’d been the one delivering the injury.

She sighed. Some women would call him too protective, but she looked on his way as cherishing her like the Bible said. It also said for women to obey their husbands, and that she was determined to do.

“Those dishes aren’t going to wash themselves,” she muttered, turning from the outside that called to her. The boys would be back before she knew it. Picking up her song from where she left off, Kaaren poured boiling water out of the kettle and into the dishpan. She shaved several thin curls of soap from one of the last bars she and Ingeborg had made the year before, and dropping the bits of soap in the hot water, she gave it a moment to soften before sudsing it up. Good thing it was nearly time to butcher the pigs they’d kept for their own use. After she rendered the lard, she could add some of that to the fat she’d saved, and they could make soap again. Getting all the fall chores done with a new baby in her arms would take some doing.

With the dishes dried and put back in her gingham-skirted cupboard, the boys set to their lessons, and one of the geese baking in the oven, Kaaren took advantage of the quiet to settle for the ordered nap in her rocker. She looked longingly at the bed. Perhaps later.

“Tante Kaaren, I’d best go check on the smokehouse.” Thorliff stood at her side, concern knitting his eyebrows. “Are you all right?”

“Of course, why?” She blinked to clear the fog from her vision. Hadn’t she just sat down?

“You were moaning.”

“I’m sorry. Sometimes the baby makes me do that.” She stretched and yawned. “You go. Baptiste, you come sit by me so I can help you with your words as you read.”

A groan from the boy huddled over his slate gave his opinion of her request.

The boys were nearly finished with their history lesson when Paws yipped outside the door. The screen door creaked its way open, and a wizened apple face preceded a body bent only slightly by the age evidenced in the old woman’s nearly white hair. The remaining black strands wouldn’t line a robin’s nest. Metiz nodded at the two boys grinning at the interruption and crossed the room to lay a hand on Kaaren’s bouncing abdomen.

“Baby, he busy.”

“Could be a she.” They’d had this discussion several times before.

“Come soon.” The woman’s gnarly fingers gently probed Kaaren’s belly.

“Metiz, I have more than a month left, remember?”

“He not think that.” She laid her head against the fluttering apron, holding her breath to listen. “Maybe two in there.”

“I know. I am so huge. Bigger than that barn Ingeborg and Haakan are talking of building.” She flinched at the impact of a particularly hefty kick from within. “He, she, they—whatever—sure are busy.”

Metiz reiterated her earlier statement. “Come soon.”

Kaaren bit her lip, studying the dark eyes that shone with knowledge. Metiz had yet to be wrong. “They, if there are two, would be so tiny. If they come now, they might die. . . .” The last word trailed off. Surely God wouldn’t allow her to lose a child again.
God, please don’t ask that of me. I couldn’t bear to bury another. And Lars wants children so much. This is one gift I can give him. Please
.

“Great Spirit not leave.” Metiz’ soft words fell like a soothing spring rain on parched soil.

“I know that.” Kaaren tried on a tremulous smile. It still fit. “Our God is mighty and always here.” She knew she was saying words meant for her own ears as well. “He’s here.” She crossed widespread fingers around her belly, as both brace and protection. “Don’t be in such a hurry, little one. Finish growing first, for out here you need to be strong.” So often she’d found herself talking to the babe, as if she already held him in her arms. She looked up to see Metiz nod.

“I go now.”

“Would you like a cup of coffee first? There is some egge kake left from dinner.”

Metiz shook her head. With a pat on Kaaren’s belly, the old woman turned and left, whistling for Baptiste as the screen door slammed behind her.

“I still wish we’d bought lumber for a house.” Haakan and Ingeborg stood in the moonlight by the piles of lumber that had taken
five days and four wagons to bring from Grafton. Getting the order from Grand Forks to Grafton had been the easy part. All but Kaaren had taken their turns driving into the town. After Andrew got over screaming at the size and noise of the train, he’d had a good time too.

Ingeborg sighed. “I know, and I thank you for that. Windows surely would make the dark days more tolerable, but we can put windows in the barn.”

“Ja, and the animals will live better than we do.” He walked over to the plot he’d staked off for the barn. “Tomorrow I’ll cut this sod. We can use it for the lean-to on the house.”

“Three more days and our barn will begin to rise on the prairie.” Ingeborg couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of her voice. Just like over at the Bonanza farm, she would have a huge wooden barn with a place for the hay up above, stanchions for the milk cows, stalls for the horses, and a place to fence in the pigs at one end. The sheep could take over the sod barn they had put up before any other buildings.

“It means a lot to you, doesn’t it?” Haakan finished his pacing and rejoined her.

“Ja.”

She couldn’t begin to tell him how she’d dreamed of wooden barns and increased livestock the long months after Roald disappeared. The dreams had kept her going at times when her body screamed for rest and her mind couldn’t. Only half a year until the homestead was proved up, and the deed of ownership would be hers. She amended the thought—theirs. Belonging to all four of them, she would make sure hers and Kaaren’s names were on the deeds, too, even if that wasn’t the way most things were done out here.

Haakan took her elbow and steered her toward the house, where the children lay sound asleep. Paws greeted them, tail wagging, when they entered.

“Paws, were you on the bed?” Ingeborg tried to sound gruff. The dog hung his head and, tail drooping, sank to his belly.