An Untamed Heart (4 page)

I stayed awake during philosophy
was probably not a good thing to say, nor was
I was late to my first class
. His father had probably already heard that anyway. “Did you read what the king had to say this morning in his address to the Parliament?”

Since Norway was under the control of Sweden, the Swedish King Oscar II, no matter how highly respected he was worldwide, still managed to say things to offend RA, especially in regard to business measures.

“Ja.”

The one-word comment stated clearly his father’s opinion. While there was talk about Norway becoming independent, so far nothing was happening. When the question had been asked and answered, general conversation moved around the table. The parents had always encouraged their children to think for themselves and be able to converse intelligently, with much of the training accomplished at the dinner table. But when discussions became heated, Mor intervened with a look that took the place of many words.

Nils contributed but didn’t bring up any new topics if the conversation lagged. His mind kept leaping forward to the forthcoming meeting. Would his father be willing to compromise? While he said that was an important business tactic, he often failed to use it with his family.

When Mor rose to signal the end of the meal, the girls followed her to the drawing room, where they took out their needlework and drank tea. Nils followed his father into the den.

As soon as they were settled into their leather chairs in front of the fire, Nils, ever mindful of the time, broke the silence. “Today you asked me what I planned to do about my failure to try my hardest at my studies.” His father nodded, tamping the tobacco into his pipe at the same time. “I have an idea that could be very effective.”

RA nodded again and leaned back to draw on the pipe, puffing a smoke ring into the air, something that had enthralled his son when he was small.

“I propose that instead of working at the office this summer, I take the summer off to spend in the mountains. I believe time there will help clear my head and get my feet on the right track so that in my senior year I will strive to be at the top of my class. I will agree to settle down, as Mor has also requested, and we will plan the next steps for me in life.” He paused. Had he said enough? Too much? Would adding “I promise” make a difference? He watched his father blow another smoke ring and nod slightly.

“So you think you can do that? Be at the head of the class?”

“Yes, sir, I do.” Nils kept his eyes from slitting to match his father’s.

“Turn your studies around and take honors in each class?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And this plan of yours to clear your head and rejuvenate your ambition is not just a ploy to avoid working in the business?”

“I have already learned the lessons of business and would simply be relearning them were I to stay here. You yourself extol the value of compromise, of tempering the absolutes of life.”

RA nodded thoughtfully. Nils’s hopes soared.

The gentleman leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “In a word: no.”

V
ALDRES
, N
ORWAY

“Jonas is serious about going off to Amerika?” Hilde asked her husband at the breakfast table the following Saturday.

“I believe so. I reminded him that we never heard from our Bjorn again, but Jonas is sure nothing could happen to him.” Arne shook his head. “Pass the ham, please.”

Ingeborg recognized the tightening of Mor’s jawline that said she was fighting the tears that had flowed so often over the last year. She’d often said it was the never knowing. And the dream that her second son was still alive. But if he were alive, why had they not heard from him? It was strange that they’d never heard a word. Surely if he had died on the passage, the shipping line would have notified them. And now Mor’s youngest brother was planning on leaving too.

“So when does Onkel Jonas plan to leave?” Mari asked.

“Yet this spring, it sounds like. As soon as they’ve gathered enough money for his passage. He wants to farm there so he will take the railroad up on the offer to help him find land.”

Ingeborg knew Far sometimes let himself dream of the
challenge of crossing to Amerika. But he owned land in Norway, even though it was not enough. Did one ever have enough land? But were it not for the seter in the summer, they would not have sufficient pasture and hayfields to feed the number of cows and sheep they ran.

She caught her mother’s glance and got up to bring the coffeepot to refill the cups. Surely they would need midwives in Amerika, not that she was anywhere near trained enough. What if she were to ask Onkel Jonas if she could go along? What would Mor and Far say to that? But if she left, who would run the seter? Gunlaug could.

She paused by the fireplace. Today she needed to churn the cream into butter. Why that had become her job, she had no idea. Mari needed to be learning to do this and let Ingeborg go out and work in the garden.

She looked to Gilbert. “Will you have time to plow the garden today?”

“We are going into town,” Far said in that flat voice that brooked no argument.

“Then may I use the team?”

“I will help you,” Hjelmer offered, glancing at Far, who nodded.

She ignored the daggers she could feel coming her way from Mor. She was sure to hear more later, after the men left.

“Berta, you take over churning the butter. As soon as we get the garden plowed and run over with the disk, we can all go out there to rake and plant.”

“You would do better to wait a day or two. It is time to wash all the bedding and hang it out in the sun to dry.”

She looked to Mor, who wore the sour expression so often associated with her oldest daughter.

“Katrina and Berta can do that. We have to get the garden started while we have nice weather.” Ingeborg almost flinched. That was why they were to do the bedding today.

Mor glared at her but didn’t say any more.

Ingeborg knew she would pay for the victory later. Why did Mor dislike her so? What had she ever done to deserve her being angry all the time? Whom could she ask? Since Katrina was preparing for her wedding in June, she had been relieved of many other house duties to finish her linens and things for her chest—the beautiful chest Far had made for her. Katrina was doing what Mor wanted. Ingeborg blew out a sigh. She never had been able to just do what she was told. Sometimes . . . sometimes . . . She picked up a piece of firewood and stoked the fire with several vicious jabs of the poker.

A short time later, Ingeborg and Hjelmer escaped to the barn. They would harness the lighter of the two teams for the garden work. Ah, spring. The horses were shedding pounds of hair. It rose in clouds around them.

There was always a challenge between the three Strand families as to who would get their garden in first. The Arne Strand family had won last year and Ingeborg intended to make that two years in a row.

“I didn’t think Far would say yes.” Hjelmer stood on a stool to set the collar over the team’s withers. He’d not begun to get his growth yet, something that Ingeborg knew worried him. Gilbert of course had his full height, but Hjelmer still wore the look of a boy, slender and not even as tall as Ingeborg by any means. Most of the Strand men wore their height proudly—all but Hjelmer, who was the shortest of the male cousins his age too.

“You know Far would never say this, but he wants to beat his two brothers in the garden race as bad as I want to.”

“Mor thinks the race is silly,” Hjelmer said.

“I know, but you have to admit that making a game of it makes the hard work more enjoyable.”

“I get to plow too?” Hjelmer hopped up on the stool again to check on the horse’s rump, making certain that there would be no chafing under the crupper.

“Thank you for checking for rubbing,” she said. “I forgot.” His grin and quick nod rewarded her. She suggested, “Let me drive the first rows and you try the next?”

Hjelmer nodded. “If I can reach the plow handles well enough.”

“If not, we’ll do it together.” The look of gratitude he sent her made Ingeborg glad she was paying attention. They hitched the team up to the plow, and Ingeborg looped the lines over her shoulder like she’d seen Far do. This too was something most women didn’t attempt. Often she wished she’d been born a male, but no longer. Now she wanted to be an even better midwife than her mother.

The shine on the blade showed it had been sharpened. Another thing she’d forgotten to ask. But then Far would have said no, the plow wasn’t ready. Hjelmer swung the garden gate open, and she drove the team in, setting the angle of the blade to cut through the dirt. Good thing they’d disked the garden in the fall and then spread cow manure over it through the winter. She gripped the handles, pointed the blade down, and clucked the team forward. The blade bounced free of the ground and leaned to the side. “Whoa.” She had to use more muscle. And more size would be helpful too.

Mor stood on the back stoop and shook her head before returning into the house.

The team stood patiently while Ingeborg reset herself. Hjelmer came to stand beside her.

“What if I drive so you can concentrate on the plow?”

“Good idea.” She moved the wooden handles up and down to figure the best place and gripped them fiercely this time. Hjelmer clucked the team ahead, and Ingeborg gritted her teeth. Surely she could outsmart brute strength. After all, Far and Gilbert made this look so easy. “Keep ’em straight.” She’d never hear the end of it if the rows turned out to be crooked.

The first steps were the hardest, but once the blade angled correctly and the horses moved forward smoothly, it was somewhat easier. After they had made a trip up and back in the garden plot, Ingeborg signaled a halt. Through narrowed eyes she studied their work. A wee bit crooked, but not erratic. Her arms and shoulders screamed in protest. “I need to get some heavy leather gloves. You wait here.”

“I’m too short, aren’t I?”

“Ja, I’m afraid so, but without you, I could not do this.” She made herself smile at him before she headed for the shop where Far kept a stock of leather gloves. Most of them needed patching. Resolved to do that in the evenings, she found two with no holes in the palms and returned to her purgatory. They were about half done when Mari came out to say that the midday meal was ready.

She let Hjelmer unhitch the team and drive the horses back to the barn, where they could rest too. “Don’t water them.”

“I know. Too hot.”

Ingeborg nodded and started up the rise to the house. Wet sheets and airing bedding flapped in the breeze that dried the
sweat on her face and neck. Could she go back for more or cry defeat? With tears near the surface, she washed up and sat in her place at the table.

“Have you had enough?” her mother asked, her eyebrows arched and head shaking.

Ingeborg glanced over to see Hjelmer sliding into his chair. His slight headshake put the steel again in her backbone. “It is not done yet but soon will be.”

Her little brother’s grin was worth the effort. At least she hoped so.

The two men hadn’t yet returned from their trip to town, so the others ate without them before returning to their chores.

Far and Gilbert drove into the yard as Ingeborg and Hjelmer were hitching the team to the disk. Two heavy rocks sat on the frame, the weight needed to keep the disks in the ground and not riding on top.

“You finished the plowing?” Gilbert stared at his sister, who managed to nod only through sheer force of will.

“Hjelmer will do the disking.”

Far started to say something but cut it off and drove the wagon on up to the house to unload the supplies.

Looking elated, Hjelmer hupped the team and returned to the now plowed garden. Walking behind the disk, he held the lines firmly, focusing on the job ahead. In moments he stepped up onto the back frame of the disk, his slight weight added to that of the rocks. How like his far he was in that way, able to ignore things around him to work solely on the job at hand. Ingeborg felt a fierce pride in her little brother.

The sun was still high in the sky when Hjelmer drove the team out of the gate and back to the barn, where he and Ingeborg removed the harnesses and hung them on the wall.
Lifting the heavy leather up onto the waiting pegs took her last bit of energy, but they had done it. Plowed and disked the garden. Now the others could start raking.

At supper, Ingeborg could hardly haul the fork all the way up to her mouth. Her chin dropped to her chest, but sleep could not come with every muscle screaming and tightening at the same time.

“You foolish girl,” Mor said. “Come. We have some liniment that will help. Women are not cut out to do the men’s chores. I hope you learned your lesson.”

Too exhausted to even respond, she followed Mor to the bedroom and, after removing her top, sat on the edge of the bed.

Ingeborg woke up the following Saturday, grateful to be able to move with ease. The morning after their plowing session, she’d awoken with every muscle and joint screaming. After hauling herself out of bed, slowly and carefully she’d stretched her hands over her head and turned from side to side. By the third time, she could feel the muscles relent, even to letting her exhale a big breath and drop forward, also slowly and with restraint. That was most assuredly not her normal way of preparing for the day. She’d groaned her clothes on and stumbled her way out of her room.

“Mor said to go on out to the garden,” Mari said now when Ingeborg entered the kitchen. “They are raking.”

Ingeborg muttered an answer and poured herself a cup of coffee, reflecting that the morning after plowing, her hand and arm had barely been able to lift the pot. Half a cup later, she dished up the mush, still warm in the pan sitting in the coals before the fire, poured cream on it, and sat down at the table.

Mari turned back to washing and rinsing the dishes. She had finally grown tall enough that she no longer had to stand on the bench Far had built for growing children to work from.

Ingeborg closed her eyes. After several days of on and off spring showers, the garden was finally dry enough to start planting. Today they’d sow all but the more sensitive crops that would not tolerate the heavy frosts that might still visit. Some years they’d even had a late snow. One could never trust the weather.

Mari finished her chores and stopped next to Ingeborg. “Mor was really upset with you last week.”

“I know.” Ingeborg said nothing, but she knew she’d done the best thing, whether Mor could ever bring herself to admit it or not. The men hadn’t had time to do the garden then, and who knew when they would. And they couldn’t afford to waste good weather when they got it. Besides, with warmer weather, perhaps the women would leave for the seter early. Just the thought made her stand up.

When she got out the door, the sun greeted her with an extra benediction of warmth, while a slight breeze invited her to go see the lambs before grabbing a rake or hoe from where they leaned against the side of the house.

Propping herself on the top rail, she automatically counted the lambs, paused, studied the pasture again, and recounted. Still short one. She opened the gate and crossed to the fold where the animals were penned at night. Had anyone counted them before shutting the gate last night? Empty. She walked behind the barn to find one ewe basking in the warmth from the wall, her lamb by her side. With a smile, she returned to the back yard, grateful that nothing had happened. Surely the dogs would have let the whole valley know if a predator
attacked during the night. And the ewe would have been bleating and running around looking for her baby.