A Dream to Follow (35 page)

“You’re forgiven.” Thorliff rubbed the dog’s ears and head, leaning down for a quick lick on the cheek. Paws wriggled and whined, trying to make up for his gaff. “That’s okay. You didn’t know it was me. You were just doing your job. Good dog.” He adjusted his pack and picked up his trot again. Home had never looked so good. But where was everyone?

Surely they had heard Paws barking.

He dropped his bedroll on the front porch and looked over to Aunt Kaaren’s. Glancing up, he saw the sun stood directly overhead. Dinner should be on the table, but no good smells teased him from the kitchen. He headed for the cheese house. Perhaps they were all working in there. But when he opened that door, all that greeted him was the smell of ripening cheese and the slightly sour smell of whey dripping from the presses into buckets for the pigs.

“Where are they, Paws?”

The dog looked over his shoulder to the other big house, then yipped and started off, now looking over his shoulder to make sure Thorliff was following.

“You better not be leading me on a wild goose chase.” Paws yipped again, tongue lolling from the side of his mouth.

“Halloo. Anyone home?” He leaped up the porch steps and went in the front door. Following the sound of voices, he wound his way back to the school wing.

“Thorliff!” Astrid saw him first and ran to throw her arms around his waist. “You’re early.”

Grace and Sophie followed Astrid, and by the time he’d greeted them all, his mother stood in front of him, waiting her turn.

“Are you all right?”

“Ja. Pa just sent me home early because we were near a train station yesterday. The train had just left though, so I slept at the station last night.”

“Have you had anything to eat?”

“Leave it to a mother.” Aunt Kaaren came to give Thorliff a hug too. “Good to have you home. Welcome to pandemonium alley.” She indicated the room that usually wore a comfortable look with sofas and table and chairs for games and studying. With no furniture, no curtains, and strips of wallpaper on some walls and not others, it was obviously refurbishing time.

“We wanted to have it all done before the threshing crew returned.” Ingeborg wiped wallpaper paste from her hand. “Having someone as tall as you will surely make this job easier.”

“You can have my job,” Ilse called from the top of a ladder where she was smoothing a strip of paper in place with a damp cloth.

“Where’s Andrew?”

“He went with the Mendohlsons to see if they could salvage anything from their burned place.”

“Tante Penny told me about that. Lightning start it?”

“Ja, and they hadn’t plowed a fire break around the buildings. There have been so many fires, but they’ve stayed mostly in the fields. Thank God we haven’t had a real prairie fire.”

“There was one north of Devil’s Lake. We saw it burning one night and still some the next morning. But it was far away from where we were.”

“You didn’t answer me. Are you hungry?”

“Starved. Mrs. Sam sent food with me, but I ate the last of it early this morning.”

“Good. Astrid, you go set the table.”

“Can’t we eat outside?”

Kaaren nodded. “That would be fine. A picnic under the cottonwood tree.”

Within minutes they had taken plates full of venison stew with dumplings outside and found places on benches or the dry grass. Trygve said grace at his mother’s insistence, and amid chatter and laughter, they caught Thorliff up on all the news. There were two new calves. A letter had arrived from Manda saying that they were at the ranch and they loved it. There were three new registrants for the deaf school, one a man of twenty-three, and one of the cats had a new batch of kittens in the barn. The last piece of information was signed by Grace, who always knew when baby animals of any kind were being born. If there were bummer lambs or piglets in need of bottle feeding, she took care of them. Andrew had trained her well.

Thorliff told of the adventures of the threshing crew, not that there were many funny stories to tell this year. The drought was all anyone talked about, or so it seemed. “Far said he should be home in two weeks or so unless someone new comes to get him.”

“Thank the good Lord there were no accidents this year.” Kaaren leaned against the tree trunk. “And we’ll keep praying for their safety.”

Ilse brought out a plate of molasses cookies and passed them around. “You want I should mix up more paste for the wallpaper?”

“Yes, please. Maybe with Thorliff helping we can be finished by suppertime.” Kaaren arched her back, pushing her shoulders into the tree. “I’d rather plant a garden or do the wash any day. Two more weeks, and we’ll have students arriving. Where does the time go?”

“Only one week and Thorliff leaves.” Astrid leaned against her big brother and looked up at him with sad eyes. “I really don’t want you to go away.”

He swallowed a lump in his throat. “Me neither.”

“Thorliff, you’re not having second thoughts again, are you?” Ingeborg stopped folding the blanket she’d been sitting on and stared at him.

“No, no second thoughts, only third and fourth and . . .” He sighed and shook his head at the same time. “I just keep thinking maybe I should wait and go next year.” He didn’t mention that Haakan had refused to even talk about it.

“Ja, well, you cannot back out now. Kaaren and I finished your new suit, and Bestemor knit you two new sweaters, one a vest and the other long sleeved with a V neck. Your trunk is nearly full.”

“I hemmed you six new handkerchiefs.” Astrid grinned when he tugged on her braids. “Stop that. And I did them on the sewing machine.”

“She’s going to be a good seamstress. You just watch.”

“Astrid is good at whatever she does.” Sophie both signed and spoke at the same time so that Grace could be sure what they were saying, although Grace had learned to read lips to go with signing.

“I made you a pi-ow.” Grace spoke slowly and precisely, her eyes dancing at the look of astonishment on her cousin’s face.

“Grace, you can talk!” Thorliff leaped to his feet and, grabbing Grace’s hands, swung her around and around, her skirts flying and her laughter rising like soap bubbles on a breeze.

“We’ve been working very hard all summer, but she wanted to keep it a secret and surprise you.” Kaaren blinked several times before she continued. “Grace wanted to talk so desperately.”

Thorliff stopped swinging her and dropped to his knees so he could see her eye to eye. “Grace Knutson, I am so proud of you I could . . . I could . . .” Bereft of words, he hugged her to him. When she patted his cheeks and threw her arms around his neck, he glanced up to see tears streaming down his mother’s face. Likewise his aunt’s.

He pulled back enough to look Grace straight on so she could read his lips. “Grace, if you can do something so wonderful as this, you are an example to all of us.” She smiled the kind of smile that makes angels sing, let alone humans. He cleared his throat, tried to say something else, then hugged her again instead.
Ah, Gracie, if you can do this, I can surely go to school and do well. Someday I am going to write your story
. He looked up at his aunt.
And yours
.

The days before he was to leave disappeared in a heartbeat. Each day he looked for a letter from Haakan, a telegram, anything that would give his blessing. He spent part of each evening with Anji. When he choked up telling her about Grace’s speaking, the tears rolled down her cheeks also.

“She is the most precious child. I watch her at church and did so when we were in school. She is always looking out for someone less fortunate and sharing something she has without letting anyone know.”

“God knows.”

“She and Andrew are much alike.”

“Ja, but he fixes things with his fists.” Thorliff shook his head.

“He is a boy.”

“Who thinks he’s a man.”

Anji chuckled at the look he gave her. “Ah, my Thorliff, how often I watched you keep him out of trouble. He and the woodpile have gotten to be pretty good acquaintances at times.”

“But you know, he never fights for himself but always for someone else. I know Pastor sees that, but often I didn’t think it fair that Andrew was punished.”

“We did have plenty of chopped wood for the stove.” She laid her head on his shoulder so naturally she might have been doing it for years. “Woodpiles are good for discipline. One has a lot of time to think when chopping wood.”

“A lot of anger gets worked off there.”

She looked up to his face. “Don’t tell me
you
ever had to do that?”

“Fine, I won’t tell you.” Her lips invited his kiss, pleaded for one. He obliged, and their lips lingered together. When he lifted his head, he put a hand to her cheek. “I must go.”

“I know. I will see you in the morning at the train.”

“Ja.” His throat closed. Tomorrow was indeed the day. And he hadn’t heard from his father.

It seemed half the countryside had gathered at the train station in the morning to see Thorliff off. No one from Blessing had ever gone away to school like this before.

“You don’t look as happy as I thought you would.” Ingeborg leaned close so others didn’t hear her.

“I know.” Thorliff sighed. “This is a big thing.”

“True. A gift from God.”

Thorliff chewed on the inside of his cheek and looked up the track. He could see the smoke from the stack in the distance. He really was going off to college, something he’d thought on and dreamed about for years. Why couldn’t he get more excited?

Kaaren hugged him and slipped something into his pocket. “For a rainy day.”

“Must be going to be a lot of rain. You aren’t the first one.” Her chuckle at his sally made him smile in return. He turned to look down at Anji, who clung to his left arm. “Just think, your turn will be next.”

A slight shake of her head said what she thought about that.

Thorliff turned to his aunt Penny. “You make sure of that, will you please? There must be some way Anji can go to school to be a teacher.”

“I will.” Penny and Hjelmer smiled at each other and then at Thorliff. “You can trust us.”

The train puffed into the Blessing station, metal screeching against metal as it braked to a stop. The conductor stepped off.

“Mercy, I don’t have room for all these folks.”

“We aren’t going, only Thorliff.” Sophie pointed to her cousin. “He’s going to college.”

“Well, can you beat that.” He took a gold pocket watch out of his vest pocket. “If he’s going on this train, he better get to moving.”

Amid hugs and handshakes and more “rainy day” gifts, Thorliff picked up his carpetbag of food and books and last minute things. He took in a shoulder-lifting breath and let it out. He turned to Anji. “I will write to you every day.” His eyes promised truth to his words.

Anji nodded, her smile trembling but still radiant.

Turning to his mother, he said, “Thank you, Mor. Tell Far . . . tell him . . .” He rolled his lower lip between his teeth and let out a breath. He reached for the handlebar with one hand and swung his bag up with the other.

“Thorliff!” A call echoed across the prairie.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Northfield, Minnesota
September 1893