Fervent Charity (2 page)

Someday, she thought, the Rosary would do the same for her; but now it was Mary’s anchor to life, her sustenance, and, along with the two rose bushes outside her house, her connection to her beloved grandmother.
Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name; Thy kingdom come...
Mary spun the words out in her mind. The repetition was not meaningless. The sense of each word, of each prayer, was planted deeply in her heart and flowered in their continuous flow, like Babka’s roses transforming sunlight into blush and fragrance.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Mary nodded her head on the sacred name as her prayers and thoughts continued, uninterrupted. She could see the rose bushes through the window—twiggy stumps covered with straw and tarpaulin, and in her mind’s eye could see their summer plumage—the one bearing crimson blossoms; the other, mauve which aged through the summer to magenta. These same two bushes had survived the journey with Mary’s grandparents from Poland, bloomed in prairie earth, and again survived freezing winters, drought, and a blight of grasshoppers that utterly consumed everything else. Babka had covered the two bushes, and without sleep fought the swarming plague for three days with broom and fire.

The wheat was lost, and the garden. Only the roses were saved, and Babka’s family decided she was crazy. Little Mary knew that Babka was as sane as all the saints.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.

A few years after Babka’s death, the roses survived another transplanting when she married Walter Kaiser and moved to town. Mary nurtured them, worried over them, and loved them like children.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Mary moved into the next decade of the Rosary and hoped for a wind that would carry warmer weather, weather with no mean surprises, when she could carefully remove the bed of straw that had sheltered her roses all winter and work some sheep manure into the soil. Sheep manure was not as readily plentiful as horse or cow dung but it was better, Babka insisted on that. So Walter rode far from his rounds as a well driller to find farmers that raised a sheep or two, collecting manure for his wife’s roses.

Mary’s devotion to her religion, to her roses, and to the memory of her grandmother sprang from one root. The child who traversed the swamp to look after Babka, learned to tend the roses, say the Rosary, and pay devotion to the Blessed Mother—all from this old Polish woman who wore bangle earrings and treasured flowers more than food.

Hail Mary, full of grace...

Mary brought her soup or bread, emptied her chamber pot, washed her bowl, and brushed her hair. On warm days, before Babka became too sick to leave her bed, they sat outside between the rose bushes. Later, Mary sat on the bed with her, and they did the beads and said the prayers. The sound of the words, over and over, like the lapping of waves, transported them—above the smells of sickness and old age, the urine-soaked rags, the unwashed body, the hunger that seemed always to gnaw at them—to a place where death seemed like an invitation to something better.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Mary told Gustie how she crossed the slough. “It was Babka’s good luck that it never got too deep. The water was never above my knees. Mostly it was just mud squishing around my ankles. I liked it best in the winter, though, when I could walk on the ice.” Besides Walter, Gustie was the only person who knew about her babka. Augusta Roemer was the only friend Mary had ever had.

Hail Mary, full of Grace...

“When Babka died, I took her rosary and her prayer book. It’s in Polish. I can’t read it.”
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us... “
Babka said that flowers bring life. When she first came to this country as a girl, she said, the prairie was quiet. There was just the tall grass—grass as high as a pony’s back—and the wind. All grass, no trees...no birds except during migrations. Everybody said it was the grain crops and then the trees that brought the insects and birds and the life to the prairie, but Babka said it was the flowers. Only flowers, with their color and perfume, could do that.”

Chapter 2: May 1900

A
lvinia was favored with light
blue eyes and corn silk hair, traits she had given to each of her children. She was sixteen when she gave birth to Betty, her first child. Leaving her comfortable Minnesota home at fifteen to traipse off with Carl Torgerson had been a reckless and foolish thing to do, and Alvinia had not regretted it for a moment. Carl had been the hired man on her father’s farm and five years her senior. When her parents found out that Alvinia and Carl had gotten married at the city hall, they carried on so, that the newlyweds started west, with Carl working whenever he could. It took them two years and two children to get as far as Charity, South Dakota. Elef Erdahl, the butcher, hired Carl and, more or less, adopted the young family as his own. When Elef, an old bachelor, died, he left his business to Carl who made the most of it.

Carl Torgerson was a man with no education who had been taught to read and write by his young wife. He was an orphan who treasured his family, a man with no prospects who had turned a modest butcher business into a prospering enterprise. The first in Charity to avail himself of electricity for profit, he installed freezers, which he rented out to people to keep their meat. With his freezers came ice cream. In the last year, he had added on to his establishment a comfortable parlor where people could enjoy a hot cup of coffee and a cold dish of ice cream served up by one of the smiling Torgerson children.

Alvinia had seen in this quiet, unremarkable looking man, a vein of gold. He had never told her he loved her. But she felt loved. His reticence complemented her ebullience, and their children fell in between their two extremes of temperament. Alvinia was also aware of how simply lucky she had been. Every young woman marries a man in whom she has high hopes. Not every man is able to fulfill those hopes as well as Carl had.

Lena, nursing her baby in the chair across the room from Alvinia, was a case in point. Will was a hard-working man. And a hard-drinking man. Lena had certainly not bargained for that when she married him. But things happen and people change. An accident at a drilling site lost him an eye in the same year that an altercation with his brother Oscar robbed him of the hearing in one ear. Those two disabilities coming upon him all at once started him on the drink. He hadn’t been able to leave it alone for long since.

Lena’s home was tiny. Alvinia, used to larger spaces, felt like she was in a doll’s house. Lena’s immaculate housekeeping and her skill with a needle didn’t conceal her poverty. Will made a decent living, but most of his money ended up with Leroy, the local tavern keeper. To Leroy’s credit, he threw Will out more often than he invited him to stay.

But Alvinia and Lena were discussing Betty, not their husbands. Lena was saying, “Betty is a sensible girl.”

“I know, but she’s so taken with this boy...” Alvinia shook her head and watched Kirstin happily thumping the floor with chubby hands and feet.

“You don’t think she’ll get herself in a family way, do you?”

Alvinia was silent.

“Well, if that’s what you’re worried about, you’d better let them get married. ‘Better to marry than to burn.’ Martin Luther said that. And he ran off with a nun! Ha!” Lena caressed the infant’s forehead with her finger. “If you don’t give them your blessing, Alvinia, they’ll just run off like you and Carl did. Come to think of it, you two haven’t done so badly.”

“This is different.” Alvinia’s lips clamped together in a hard line.

“Wirkus’s have that farm. It’ll be Pauly’s one day.”

“Farm! Half of it’s a slough and the other half’s a rock patch. They barely scratch a living out of that place. And they’re Catholic! I don’t want Betty leaving our church.”

“Maybe Pauly will join ours.”

“You know that won’t happen. You know how the Catholics are.”

“You should watch how he treats her,” Lena added, trying to be helpful. Then she said, “The two of them might make something of that place.”

“I don’t want her marrying a polack and living on a rock patch, Lena! She’s a beautiful girl. She was first in her class. She can do better. We hoped to send her on to do something with her music, but we just couldn’t manage it.” Alvinia’s voice broke, and she busied herself with reaching into a voluminous pocket and taking out a ball of red yarn, which she passed down to Kirstin. The ball became a fascinating point of interest to the child who stopped abusing Lena’s floorboards. “So, Lena, how are you getting along?”

“I’m sure grateful for your girls, Alvinia. I don’t know what I’d do without them. Wish I could do something for them.”

“There’s nothing they need doing. So, don’t you worry about it.”

“They’ve been doing all my washing and ironing and cleaning my house...that must mean more work for you at home. You don’t have them to help you. I feel bad.”

“Now you listen. Carl and I came here with not two pennies to rub together. People helped us all along the way. That’s the way it is. Or if it isn’t, it should be. And I have Malverne and Lavonne at home who are good help to me.”

“Mary has been here every day, too, to make sure I get a little nap in the afternoon. She’s turned out to be a real brick.” Lena felt a lump rising in her throat so she changed the subject. “What do you hear from Severn?”

“Got a letter yesterday.” Alvinia puffed with pride at the mention of her oldest son. “He’s too busy to be homesick. Doc Moody did a wonderful thing for Severn, getting him a scholarship.”

“He’ll make a good doctor. He has a nice way about him.”

Lena felt sorry for Alvinia that someone hadn’t been able to give Betty the same kind of help to go off and study music that Doc Moody had given to Severn. But Betty already played the piano like nobody’s business, so she did all right.

The baby had her fill. Lena tucked her breast inside her dress and did up her buttons.

Alvinia held out her arms. “Give me that chicken and you have your dinner.”

“Can I fix you something?”

“No. I ate with Carl at the shop before I came over.”

“Then just have a piece of pie with me and a cup of coffee so I don’t have to eat by myself.”

“Never turn down a piece of your pie, Lena. But you know you don’t have to bake. I’ll be happy to send...”

“Oh, fiddlesticks! I can bake a few pies. I’m not as lazy as all that!”

Alvinia followed Lena into the kitchen with Gracia in her arms and Kirstin toddling after, still clutching her ball of yarn.

Lena dished up a slice of apple pie for Alvinia, home-made bread covered with clotted soured cream and sugar for herself, and a black coffee for them both. “Now, what can I get for you, Precious?” Lena bent down and touched Kirstin’s nose with her finger.

“She can have some of my pie.” Alvinia settled in comfortably with Gracia in one arm and Kirstin leaning into her knee. She gave Kirstin the first bite of pie off her fork. “I saw Oscar and Nyla at the shop this morning,” Alvinia said. “They were picking up a couple packages of meat. Nyla sure looks tough.” She enjoyed the next forkful of pie herself. “What do you put in your pies, Lena? They are always better than mine.”

“They are no better than yours. You always like something better when you didn’t have to make it yourself. I know I do. Except for Ma’s cooking.”

“Is Nyla sick?”

“I think Ma is just working her to death. And she doesn’t have the gumption to say no.”

“I see them going in and out over at Gertrude’s. They’re not still living there, are they?”

“You bet they are! Ma whines whenever Nyla says she wants to go home, and Oscar doesn’t mind because he’s got two women waiting on him now instead of just one. He’s something, that one! He doesn’t care how much extra work it is for Nyla in that big house or that she might not want to live with her mother-in-law.”

“Well, Gertrude is what? In her seventies? She needs somebody to look after her.”

“Fiddlesticks!” Lena spat out in disgust. “There’s nothing wrong with that old battleax that a good swift kick in the bloomers couldn’t fix.”

Alvinia stifled a laugh behind her hand. Anybody who knew Lena knew that she was not fond of her mother-in-law, Gertrude Kaiser.

“Will looks in on her and so do Mary and Walter. I go over once in a while, not so often now since Gracia was born, and she sure doesn’t hurt herself getting over here to see her only grandchild. I’d go over there more often if I knew she gave a snap about Gracia, but she doesn’t. Walter told me that she said to him and Mary once that she wasn’t taking care of any more babies. That she’d brought up four and that was enough. The idea! That I would want her to take care of my baby! I’ve never asked her and I never would.

“I felt sorry for her after Pa was killed, but she’s so kind of hard like. She’s not easy to be nice to. But she’s Will’s mother…” Lena shrugged and took a big bite of her cream-soaked bread. “I feel bad for Nyla, but she’s going to be stuck as long as she doesn’t put her foot down. That’s what I had to do with Will. Oh, he’s good to his mother and there’s nothing wrong in that. But we’re not going to run over there every time she has a pain. Especially since I know she’s strong as an ox.” Lena did a good job of eating and talking at the same time. She finished her bread and cream, cut a slice of pie for herself, and continued.

“She can just sit over there being a sour puss with that sour-puss Oscar. I don’t know how Mary stands to be around them but she goes over every day.” Lena remembered finding her mother-in-law, alone, swathed in black taffeta, sitting like a fat spider in the web of her cluttered house the day that Pa’s body had been found in the barn. For a while, Lena even suspected her, like a spider, of killing her mate. It turned out that she hadn’t, but the nasty old thing had sat there, rocking back and forth, mewling about Will having done it. Lena had never forgotten how quick she had been to throw Will to the dogs. She had not forgotten and she had not forgiven. Ma Kaiser had remained in her widow’s weeds and tried to draw her children in and had succeeded in entrapping Oscar and Nyla. Lena didn’t care about Oscar one way or the other, and when she thought of Nyla, she just shuddered. Better Nyla than herself.

Alvinia had heard Lena go on about her in-laws before, especially her mother-in-law, and she sympathized. Even though Gertrude had always been, as Lena said, cold and stand-offish, after old man Kaiser’s death, Alvinia, as Gertrude’s nearest neighbor, had extended herself, visiting her with gifts of food, produce from her garden, and a little conversation. She was always received with an irritability that bordered on suspicion, even hostility. Alvinia gave up her neighborly overtures.

Gracia had fallen asleep in Alvinia’s arms. She carried her back to the living room and laid her in her cradle, covered her up with the crocheted blanket that Lena had made, and took Kirstin by the hand.

“I think I’ll get back. See what kind of trouble my chicks have gotten into. Thank you for the pie, Lena.” Smiling, Alvinia wagged her finger at Lena. “I still think you put something in your pies that I don’t.”

Lena just shook her head and laughed. “Thank you for stopping by.” She chucked Kirsten under the chin. “Bye now, Precious.”

“I’ll be sending one of my chicks over to check on you. Lena, you say something now if you need anything. You hear me?”

“I will, Alvinia. I will.”

“And say hello to Gustie for me. I haven’t seen much of her lately.”

“I’ll do that. Bye bye now.”

Say hello to Gustie.
Well, that was nice of Alvinia, since Lena knew Alvinia didn’t care a lot for Gustie, but Gustie was Lena’s friend so she made allowances.

Lena Kaiser and Augusta Roemer were about as different from one another as two women could be. Yet, they shared a love of horses and a sense of humor that flared up out of nowhere over trifles, and for awhile, they had also shared a condition unusual for women of their age: childlessness. After Gracia was born, however, things had not been the same between them. Lena was busy now with the baby, and while Gustie helped her with shopping and a bit of cleaning when she was in Charity, she was spending at least half of her time on the reservation, something Lena still couldn’t understand. Lena didn’t like Indians.
No matter what you do for them
, she thought,
they always end up back in a tipi
. Of course, allowances could be made for Jordis, who had a college education. But that just proved Lena’s point. Jordis, with her college education, was where? Living in a shack with an old Indian woman back on the reservation and succeeding apparently in dragging Gustie down with her. Lena tried to shake such thoughts out of her head, but they stuck there. She couldn’t help it, even though Jordis had suffered on Lena’s behalf. Well, she reasoned, that wasn’t really true. Gustie had come in just in time to save Lena’s life and Jordis had just got in the way. Technically, Jordis had suffered for Gustie, not Lena. And no matter what, she didn’t like Gustie spending so much time out there with the Indians. It didn’t look right.

She heard a squeak from the living room. Gracia was awake again already. She put a spoonful of pie in her mouth and savored it. Yes, her pies were better than anybody else’s. It was the tablespoon of whiskey that she sprinkled over the layer of sugar that did the trick. She licked her lips and went to pick up her baby.