Dakota Dream (10 page)

That night while Ingeborg was explaining the alphabet, Clara caught herself watching Dag. He didn’t participate, but sat observing. He looked so different. From wild man to handsome. She couldn’t wait to tell Mrs. Norgaard.

“I’ve been thinking,” Mrs. Norgaard said over breakfast, and after they’d wondered at the change in Dag, “about ways to help you with your English. Now that Mrs. Hanson is back and I’m so much better, your duties will be of a different sort.”

Clara stopped with a spoonful of hot cereal halfway to her mouth. She set the spoon back in the bowl. “What do you mean?”

“I know how hard you are trying with your English lessons, so I have decided we will speak only English in this house. Mrs. Hanson and I agree. We’ll help you, prompt you, whatever we can do, but there will be no more Norwegian. What do you think?”

I think I’m going to throw up
, Clara thought. She stared from Mrs. Norgaard to Mrs. Hanson and back again. “But, but . . . I—” She licked her lips. One of her favorite Bible verses floated through her mind. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” She sucked in a deep breath. Her smile flickered like a candle in a draft and then steadied. “Alright.” She let her rigid shoulders slump. What on earth had she agreed to?

Thanksgiving passed in a daze for Clara. The English-only rule applied when Dag and Will joined them for the annual feast. Will thought it was great fun, while Dag and Clara sneaked each other commiserating glances.

But Clara never felt persecuted. While discouragement sometimes dogged her, she knew they were all taking great pains to help her learn the language quickly. And it was working. With the daily repetitions, lessons with Mrs. Norgaard morning, afternoon, and evening, and her classes at the church twice a week, Clara could finally communicate.

She practiced on the shopkeepers, people at church, the postmaster. She talked to the woman in the mirror and dreamed of taking her new skill out to the Detschman farm.

All the while she spent learning English, she also prepared for Christmas. She fashioned a cloth baby doll dressed in a baptismal gown for Kaaren and sanded wooden blocks for baby Peder. While memorizing vocabulary words, she worked the hardanger lace for an apron for Nora. Mittens and a stocking hat for Carl could be knitted while she conversed with Mrs. Norgaard.

Her present for Mrs. Norgaard was the main problem. No one had found her a canary yet.

One night Dag walked her home from the church. “Won’t you come in for coffee?” she asked, her English no longer halting on the simple phrases.

“Yes, thank you.” While Dag sounded more stilted, he, too, followed the English-only rule.

“Ah, welcome, Dag. Come in, come in.” Mrs. Norgaard beckoned from her chair in the sitting room. “You know, I’ve been thinking,” she began after the coffee was served.

Clara felt her stomach fall down around her knees. Every time she heard “I’ve been thinking” from Mrs. Norgaard, their world turned upside down.

“I think you should come over every evening when there is no school and join us for extra work on English, both speaking and reading. And you could bring Will. I have a hunch he needs some help and is afraid to ask.” She peered over her spectacles. “Or embarrassed. Not everyone is able to finish school, in fact, few are.”

Dag stroked his chin. He stared right back at the woman across the room. “Yes.”

“That’s all?” Clara’s voice squeaked on the last word.

“It won’t be easy.” Mrs. Norgaard continued her observation. “Nothing is.”

Clara thought about that bald statement when she lay in bed that night. “Nothing is.” Was that the way Dag’s entire life had been? She thought to her childhood, to the laughter, the pranks, and even school. For her, learning was easy. Even this learning a whole new language was more time-consuming than hard. But then, look at the people she had helping her.

She snuggled down under the covers. Now Dag would have those same people helping him. Plus her. She’d be glad to help. Would he be able to accept
her
help? She thought of the stubborn look on his face when he read aloud in class. If determination was all it took, Dag had it by the mountainful.

Each night as she said her prayers, she included him. After all, she’d promised to do what she could and if Mrs. Norgaard could pray for Dag all these years, could she do less?

Funny, lately she hadn’t been praying for her curly haired husband-to-be. When she thought about it, several weeks had passed with him not even entering her mind. “Please take care of him, wherever he is and whoever he is,” she concluded. “Amen.”

Several days later when Reverend Moen came to call, Clara stopped him in the hall and, in a low voice, asked him if he’d located a canary yet. At the shake of his head, Clara felt a moment of panic. Christmas was almost here and she’d been so sure she’d have a singing present for her friend.

“I’m sorry,” Reverend Moen said.

“Me, too.”

That evening Clara asked Dag to come into the kitchen with her while Will was settling down with his books by Mrs. Norgaard in the dining room.

“Do you know anyone who might sell a singing bird?” She paused, trying to remember the word. “A canary. I will give this to Mrs. Norgaard for a Yule present so she has music in her life.”

Dag nodded as she finished speaking. “Ja, yes,” he caught himself, “I do. My mother raises canaries to keep her company. I will ask her.”

Clara stared at him in amazement. “Can you do everything?”

“I will see about this.” He reached out with one finger and touched her smiling cheek. When he pulled away as if burned, both he and Clara returned with all speed to the other room.

For the rest of the evening, her cheek felt hot to the touch, as if it had been fire that leaped between them.

The doorbell rang several days later. When Clara opened the door, she saw Will nearly buried under the green needles of a pine tree. “The train brought in a load of Christmas trees and Dag made sure you got the finest.” He dragged it inside. “Where do you want it?”

“In the sitting room. We cleared out in front of the window. Mrs. Hanson brought up a bucket of sand from the cellar.” Clara felt like a child again, dancing with excitement. She wanted to clap her hands and whirl around the room but instead she helped Will stand the tree up. “Oh, it is just perfect.”

“There are more branches for you to decorate with, but I couldn’t carry everything at once.” Will started to brush the needles off his coat but looked around, guilt flagging his already red cheeks.

“Let me take that for you.” Clara helped him shrug out of his coat and took it outside to shake. By the time they had the tree set in the bucket, Mrs. Hanson had brought the decoration box down from the attic.

“I gotta be going.” Will stared wistfully at the colorful balls and candle clamps in the box.

“Would you like to help us decorate the tree?” Mrs. Norgaard caught his look and asked.

Will nodded. “But I gotta get back to the stable. Dag needs me.”

“That is fine. But both of you be here at six tonight, instead of class, we’ll pop popcorn and decorate the tree.”

Joy sparkled in Will’s eyes as he darted out of the room, returned to grab his hat and coat, and went plunging out the door. They heard his “Yee-haw” as he leapt off the porch and ran down the walk.

Dag hadn’t looked her in the eyes since the night he touched her cheek. Clara frowned at the face in her mirror as she gave her golden hair a final brushing and swooped the sides back and up with her mother-of-pearl combs. What was she to do with him? After all, it was just a
touch
. She caressed the spot with her fingertips. And what was a touch between friends?

Should she mention it tonight while they were decorating the tree? She shook her head. No, better to act as if it never happened.

She nodded and tried on a smile. A fingertip touched the place again. He had been so gentle. Like the kiss of a butterfly’s wing. Her eyes flew open—wide open—at the word kiss. She turned and ran from the room as if chased by . . . by the thought of hugs and kisses and love.

The evening was an unmitigated disaster as far as Clara was concerned. Dag never once spoke to her. He acted as if she were invisible. Clara lifted her chin higher and teased Will like she did her younger brother at home. She kept everyone laughing with her antics—all but the big man with the somber mountain lake eyes.

The tree, however, became the most beautiful she’d ever seen. Because she couldn’t resist any more than a child, Mrs. Norgaard broke tradition and let them light the candles, just for a minute.

“Ohhhh.” Their breath, expelled all at once, became a sigh of gratitude for something so lovely. The tree shimmered and sparkled, each glass ball and icicle refracting the candlelight and magnifying the glory.

As they pinched out the flames, the memory lingered, a preview of Christmas to come.

Clara and Mrs. Hanson spent the days baking.
Krumkake, fattigmanns
, and frosted sugar cookies. Clara took one day rising and kneading the sweet dough for
julekake
, the Norwegian Christmas bread, studded with currants and candied fruit and flavored with cardamom. The house smelled heavenly. And each evening, there were new goodies to share with her two fellow students.

Dag rapped on the back door early on December twenty-fourth. He put his finger to his lips when Mrs. Hanson started to greet him.

“Is Clara here?” he whispered.

Mrs. Hanson nodded. “Come in and I’ll get her. You want some coffee? Breakfast will be ready soon.”

“I have the canary for her for Mrs. Norgaard.”

Mrs. Hanson pressed her hands together in delight. “I’ll get her.”

Dag had returned with a quilt-padded bundle and was unwrapping it when the two women tiptoed into the room.

“How did you keep it warm enough?” Clara asked, reaching to help in the dismantling. At the bottom were several stones, still warm from the oven.

“Ma and I packed him real careful. She says he’s one of her best singers.”

Just then the bellpull from Mrs. Norgaard’s room chimed. They started, like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Mrs. Hanson clapped a hand over her mouth to stop the giggles. “I’ll go see what herself wants. If I’m talking with ‘er up there, she might not hear you.” She turned back at the door, her eyes alight with excitement. “Like we talked, Clara, I think the furnace room is the safest place for him. It’s warm and dark so maybe he won’t sing.”

“Ma says that sometimes when you move them like this, they don’t sing for a while.” Dag removed the last cloth. A bright gold canary cocked his head and looked the two of them over. He cheeped and hopped down from his perch, then up to the sides of the cage, all the while watching his observers. He cheeped once or twice and then attacked the seeds in his dish.

“He’s beautiful.” Clara clasped her hands together. “Do you think she’ll like him?”

“I’m sure she will.” He began folding the quilts. “I brought a bag of seed and Ma says you can sprout some for him in the windowsill. He likes greens sometimes and fresh water.”

“How much do I owe you?” Clara couldn’t take her eyes from the bit of sunshine hopping around the cage.

“Nothing.”

“But, Dag—”

He picked up the cage and turned toward the cellar door. “Maybe we should put a lamp down there with him for a time, just to keep him company.”

“But Dag, this is my present to give.”

“Just include Ma in it. She was pleased to be able to return a favor.”

“And you. Without you I wouldn’t have found him.” Clara looked up into the face of the man towering over her. Why was it that she felt both safe and . . . and . . . she put her hand on Dag’s. “Thank you, my dearest friend.” Warmth flowed up her arm and curled in the pit of her stomach.

“Ah, good,” Mrs. Hanson said as she reentered the room. “I’ll check on the bitty thing every hour or so. This is turning into the best Christmas this house has seen in years. Hurry with that and we’ll all eat together. Clara, help Mrs. Norgaard get ready, and Dag, you can bring herself down as soon as she rings.”

Clara flew up the stairs to help Mrs. Norgaard with her toilet. “Who is that downstairs?” the old woman asked.

Feeling caught, Clara stuttered. “D—Dag.”

“What did he want so early in the morning?”

“Ah-h-h.” Even a little fib was outside Clara’s capabilities. She resorted to the ruse her parents always used. “You shouldn’t ask questions. Remember, this is Christmas.”

“I’m not about to forget with all the secrecy that’s been hatching around here.” Mrs. Norgaard tried to look stern but failed miserably.

The weather held fine for Christmas Eve, so Clara hoped her sister and her family would be able to attend the service. Dag promised to bring a sleigh so Mrs. Norgaard could attend also. This would be her first time in church since her illness.

“Are you sure going out won’t lay you low again?” Mrs. Hanson asked quietly, but Clara heard the exchange.

“No, I am fine in health and thankful for this my new family, since this will be the first Christmas without my Einer.”

Clara started. In all the excitement, she hadn’t thought about Mrs. Norgaard’s feeling sad. No wonder she had been quieter lately.

“But this huge house needs lots of people like this coming and making Christmas right. We need little children here. We must invite the Moens, they have no family in town either.”

They were gathered in the hall when the jingle of harness bells announced the arrival of the sleigh. When they stepped out the door, the cold bit their noses and cheeks, but Dag soon had them all swaddled in robes, right up to the tips of their noses.

Once out on the street, Clara looked up to see the stars hanging low and brilliant in a cobalt sky. “Oh, look.” She pointed to the north. Aurora borealis, the northern lights, danced on the horizon, flaring reds, blues, and greens in an unending heavenly display.

“Only God could create something so magnificent,” Mrs. Norgaard whispered. “And to think He brought them out tonight just for me to see. Only He knows how much I have always loved the northern lights.”