The Children's Blizzard Read online

  “And her mother?” Mrs. Halvorsan’s brows drew together in disapproval. Raina had no idea how the neighborhood had heard about Mrs. Thorkelsen’s visit, but somehow they had.

  Raina still didn’t quite understand what happened to Anette’s mother; she simply didn’t believe she could have been paid off, as Anna Pedersen insisted, by all the pin money she’d been saving up. And that she disappeared in the middle of the night, depriving herself of a touching scene of farewell for all to witness—that, too, made little sense.

  “We’ve not heard anything more from her,” Raina finally said. And that was the truth. “And Anette will be leaving the Pedersens soon. She’s going to have a holiday in Omaha with Mr. Woodson! Then she’ll go to boarding school in Lincoln, but I’ll be nearby, so she won’t feel so out of place. Mr. Woodson has found someone he knows in Omaha to be her legal guardian, to see to the trust that they put the money in, and protect it until she is finished with her schooling—I hope she will go to college, too, when the time comes. But she will be free to make her own choices—imagine all that! For Anette—it’s simply wonderful.”

  “That is good.” Mrs. Halvorsan nodded, clearly pleased. “That something like this happened because of my Fredrik—that is good.” And she looked as proud as if it had been Fredrik himself offered a scholarship.

  “Yes, it is. Now, I would like to discuss this with Tor, if that’s all right with you?”

  “Yes, do.” Still Mrs. Halvorsan struggled, obviously, over the dilemma before her. This woman! To have lost so much in such a short time, to have gone through her own dark night of the soul, to emerge from it because of her oldest son who wouldn’t let her succumb—and now to have to contemplate him leaving, as well. Even though it was for his own good. It could not be easy.

  Nothing about this place was easy, even when good fortune fell from the sky, no less disorienting than a blizzard.

  Raina bundled up in her shawl—it was spring, the sun shining, but still the winds carried the memory of winter. She went out to find Tor, who, when he saw her coming, yelled at the ox to stop. He remained in the field, however, patiently holding the reins, so Raina had to pick her way through the mud, careful not to destroy any of the neat furrows he had already produced, ready for planting.

  The earth smelled of manure and promise. The same promise it held every spring. Raina automatically said the farmer’s prayer for a good crop this year. She would always be a farmer’s daughter, she understood. No matter what fate awaited her in Lincoln.

  As she approached, suddenly Raina felt shy; she and Tor hadn’t spoken since his father died, when Tor had been so angry at her.

  “Hello, Tor.”

  “Hello, Miss Olsen.” Tor nodded respectfully.

  “You look well—are you?” Anxiously, Raina studied him; he was taller, thinner than he was the last time she’d seen him. But his neck looked thicker, more like a man’s; his jaw, too, had a set to it that hadn’t been there before.

  His eyes—

  They shone softly with forgiveness, his gaze once again frank and blameless, and Raina had to look away, she was afraid to show him how joyful she was to see it.

  There was a long pause, while Tor—like the man he suddenly was—looked at his boots, patiently waiting for Raina—like the woman she had become—to gather herself, blink away her tears. Then she turned to him and they smiled at each other, and Raina felt some missing piece of her heart settle back into place; it was a small piece, but surprisingly important.

  “Tor, I’ve been talking with your mother. She seems so much better!”

  “She does?” Tor looked so relieved, and Raina understood how much he had suffered this winter, not just with the loss of his brother and father, but with worry for his mother.

  “Yes, she does! Almost like her old self!”

  “I hoped—I thought so, too. But it is good to hear that from someone else.”

  “We’ve missed you in the schoolroom these past weeks.”

  Tor hung his head, gestured about him at the field. “Yes, but—you see how it is. I am the man here now.”

  “I know. It’s not fair, but I know.”

  “I do miss school, though. I have some of your books, that you lent me—I’ve read them many times this winter, but I guess you want them back now?” He couldn’t keep the hungry question out of his voice, and Raina smiled, pleased.

  “No, you may keep them. They’re not enough, though—it’s not enough to reread something over and over again. Not for someone like you.”

  “Like me?” Tor looked up, astonished. Raina knew that he had never considered himself different from any farm boy. Different, special, deserving—these were not words that homesteaders, particularly Norwegians, approved of when discussing themselves or others. In fact, they rarely discussed themselves at all; introspection was not an asset here.

  “Yes, someone who likes to learn. I know you do, Tor. I saw it in the schoolroom, even though I only taught you for such a short time. And that’s why I’m here. You see, I have—these funds. From those silly things in the newspapers.” And now it was Raina’s turn to blush.

  “Yes, yes, I know. Did you really get a proposal from a rajah?” Tor grinned.

  “Oh, goodness. Yes, and so many others! What fools they are. What kind of person do they think I am?” Raina’s skin felt hot with anger. So much of the Heroine Fund had been ridiculous; the milk cow and the gold medals and the stories which were pure fabrication that others wrote about her. Mr. Woodson hadn’t written anything false, but he had set the whole thing in motion, and the very worst part of it had been the ridiculous proposals of marriage. They made her feel too much on display; she found herself looking in the mirror too often, trying different ways of doing her hair, of curling the ribbons that she tied about her throat, which was also a new habit. They made her feel too special—and she was very much on guard against that feeling.

  It was what had brought her so much trouble, earlier, with Gunner Pedersen.

  “I am not going to marry anyone,” Raina retorted, concentrating on the worms crawling out of the freshly turned earth, nudging a particularly fat one along with the toe of her boot. “In fact, I’m going to college. And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I was hoping you would go to college, too. The money that is mine should be half yours. That is fair to me, and I asked those in charge if I could help with your education, and they said yes. I think you could get a scholarship, and the money could go to your room and board and maybe you could even send some back home.”

  “I—a—scholarship? College?” He looked so bewildered, so overwhelmed, Raina realized this was an idea he’d never even formed before; he’d never dreamed this. No boy his age, in his situation, in this place, dreamed such a thing. Tor dropped the reins of the ox, but the animal didn’t move; Tor did, however. He began to walk up and down the furrows, making a mess of them, rubbing his forehead, and Raina wanted to tell him to stop, he was ruining his work. But she kept silent, allowing him to work out this monumental puzzle she’d just placed before him.

  As she watched, she thought again how different the fate was of a boy versus a girl, a man versus a woman. There was a time—fleeting, like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings—when women did have a choice, she realized. She’d never thought that before, but now she knew, there was that one moment, after school was over. The choice then—to become a teacher for a couple of years before marrying, or to stay at home—wasn’t much of one, at that. But it was still a choice, a chance—a young woman could travel beyond her own farm, boarding out, meeting new people.

  But on the prairie, most young men—these sons of immigrants—didn’t have even that meager opportunity. The land waited, it was always waiting, for the next pair of strong hands, unbent back, sturdy legs and heart. It was only the odd ones—what little Gerda had said of her beau, Tiny, those like him—who go
t away from it at all. The land made boys become men too soon, turned young men old before their time, so it always needed more men.

  Maybe it was different in the city—after all, she knew someone now from Omaha, and he wasn’t a farmer; the notion of Gavin Woodson plowing a furrow made her want to double up with laughter. But while the geographic distance between city and homestead wasn’t all that great, the landscape of possibility was impossible to breach.

  “I don’t know—college?” Tor stopped before her, scratching his head, his face red with excitement. “What did Mama say about it?”

  “She said it was your decision.”

  “I don’t know if it is. I’m not the only one that would be affected. There’s been too much—Papa, Fredrik—and there are the little ones. I can’t think—what would happen to them if I wasn’t here?”

  “I can’t answer that, Tor, and I can’t tell you not to think of them, that wouldn’t be right. But I also can’t tell you not to think of yourself.”

  Raina allowed his big hands, not yet as rough as they would be in even a few months of this work, to grasp hers tightly; then he released them and sat down on the plow. He watched the ox standing so complacently. He looked up at the sky, squinting; he reached down and picked up the muddy earth he’d plowed. Then he looked back at his house, and Raina followed his gaze. Mrs. Halvorsan was standing in the kitchen window, gazing out at the two of them, but the glare on the window obscured whatever expression was on her face.

  There was no sound other than the rustle of the wind, the constant music of the prairie, kicking up dust and rustling grass and causing clothes to flap on the line. But Raina could have sworn she heard gears turning in Tor’s head. New, stiff gears, creaking in protest.

  Finally Tor rose; he wiped his hands on his dungarees, and stood halfway between the plow and Raina. He looked back at the farmhouse.

  “I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I know it’s ungrateful of me, but I can’t. I can’t leave them, I can’t leave the farm now that it’s proved up, actually making a yield. It’s still such a thin line, between good and bad here—success and failure, I mean. If there was more of a cushion, if Mama had the means to hire some hands, maybe. But even then, I think I would be torn, all the time—my head in school but my heart here. If I stay home, I’ll be here, my whole self. I won’t be missing anything. Do you see?” He looked so desperate for her understanding, maybe her absolution, that Raina could not let him know how disappointed she was. Unsurprised, but disappointed nonetheless. She wanted her time in the schoolhouse to have meant something to someone—like one of those preachy stories of how a teacher inspired a student to go on to greatness. But Tor’s decision shouldn’t be about her in any way, and she had to give him the gift of not letting him see her disappointment.

  “Of course I understand, Tor. But I couldn’t have lived with myself if I didn’t give you the chance.”

  “Then it is good, between us?” Once more he reached for her hands.

  “Yes, Tor, it is good between us.” She smiled up at him and felt her heart twist a little. She would go off, come back sometimes to her own home to visit. But she couldn’t see herself coming back here to this community—the Pedersens, the Halvorsans, the schoolhouse. And that was a shame, because here was a decent person whom she would always miss, even when she filled her life with other things, other people. Other goodness.

  “You will write to me?”

  He nodded eagerly. “I would like a postcard from Lincoln,” he asked shyly. “If you can? I’ve never had a postcard before.”

  “Of course I will! As many as you want, for as long as you want. I wish…goodbye, Tor.”

  “Goodbye, Miss—Raina.” He lifted his hand in farewell, as she picked up her skirts to trudge back across the land, still soft with melted snow, that softness that was so fleeting, for soon it would be as hard as pavement, baked dry. She headed toward the Pedersens’, where her trunk was already packed, and in the morning Papa would come for her. Waving at Tor, she watched as he went inside the house to tell his mother his decision. And she moved over the prairie, feeling strange as she did so—almost as if she were a ghost, revisiting a lost life. Even though she stopped to pick flowers, sticking them in her hair like she was a little girl again; even though she paused now and then to inspect a gopher hole; even though she waded into a patch of prairie grass, not yet waist high, but still she felt the grasses tickling her knees, embraced that feeling, from her childhood, that if she just kept walking, she would be swallowed up, which might not be a bad thing.

  And when she got to the ravine behind the Pedersens’, she stopped to peer into it one last time, seeing once again the body of Fredrik Halvorsan. Then she shut her eyes resolutely to memory, marched across the log bridge—

  And looked forward to tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 36

  •••••

  “RAINA IS HOME! RAINA IS home!” The words rang out like bells clanging as Mama ran outside to welcome her daughter. Soon the little house would be filled with neighbors to welcome home the prodigal schoolteacher, and Gerda was already planning her escape. She would take her crutch and stomp around to the barn and hide out there until the party was over.

  She wasn’t angry; she didn’t begrudge her sister or her parents their celebration. Mama and Papa deserved, finally, to bask in the glow of a daughter who had done them proud. Gerda no more had it in her to feel jealous of their happiness than she had it in her to feel jealous of her sister. Her emotions—dulled these last few months of confinement, of banishment—never reached out to embrace or hurt anyone else but herself. Her mind was a constant waterwheel, ever churning up the same pattern of guilt, recrimination, the desire to go back in time and change that fateful decision, and fear for her future. It went round and round, churning up the waters of her soul.

  As soon as Mama flew out of the house to greet Raina, Gerda took her crutch and a basket of knitting and slipped—well, stomped—out the back door. The crutch still hurt beneath her armpit; it had rubbed her skin almost raw, despite all the various materials—calico, sheepskin—that Mama had tied on it, hoping to find the perfect one that wouldn’t cause her daughter any extra pain. But nothing would help, except time, she supposed. In the same way that now the phantom pains of her missing foot had dulled to an ache, not electric jolts, the pain beneath her arm would dim, as well.

  Gerda actually wished that it wouldn’t.

  She heard Raina’s happy cry at seeing Mama, and then the voices dropped and she knew they were talking about her. Gerda could not bear it one more second, this constant discussion of what was to become of her, a conversation that never included her at all, for she was assumed, apparently, to be unable to make decisions anymore, since she’d made such a tragic one. She thumped hastily through the yard to escape it, scattering the chicks and chickens in her wake. Her movements were uneven as her new boot, strapped to the stump just above where her ankle had been, made such a heavy track in the dirt while her other foot left only the ball of it as an imprint. The heavy fake boot wasn’t quite tall enough to match the length of her other leg so she was always slightly tilted, swaying as she walked.

  The crutch wasn’t necessary inside the house; there, she could hobble about enough so that she had two good arms to use to work, to help, to seek atonement through extra sewing, feverish sweeping, scrubbing the clothes on the washboard so intently, Mama teased her that she might scrub them into rags. Anything that she could do with her arms and one good leg, she would do, and do it better than anyone else, and maybe then Papa would look at her again with that pride in his eyes. So far, he had not.

  He still couldn’t meet her gaze; it made mealtimes especially awkward. He could talk to her, say her name, but he always looked down at his plate or the bread in his hands or his cup of coffee or at Mama. But not at Gerda.

  She was almost to the barn now; there
was a special little corner she had fashioned into a hiding place. It was silly, really, as if she were still a little girl, playing house with Raina. The two of them were always making a little playhouse out of corners and shadows, fixing it up with twig furniture and cups made of grass; they got so good at weaving these tiny fairy cups that they actually did hold water. What was it about children and hiding places? But here she was, eighteen, nineteen in a month, and she was still hiding away. During the winter, there had been no visitors, naturally. But once the thaws and the floods were through, some of the neighbors did come around, ostensibly to see how everyone had gotten through the winter, to ask if Mama’s preserves had lasted, if they had any laying hens to trade for some seed—and to ask about Raina. But also, to gape at Gerda. She imagined they were hoping to find she’d grown a horn, or warts, or some outward symbol of evil. But she looked the same. The few that caught a glimpse of her always seemed disappointed by that. She didn’t let many catch her, though.

  Now she heard her name being called by Raina—“Gerda! Gerda?”—so she hobbled even faster to her corner, where there was a milk stool, a lantern, a blanket, some of her schoolteacher books. She reread them—she’d memorized them. Anything to try to take her mind off…things.

  Or course, she couldn’t teach again, not anywhere around here in northeastern Nebraska or Dakota. But she also couldn’t imagine remaining in her parents’ house much longer. She couldn’t forever blot out the sun that still shone on her parents and her sister. She had received several letters that Mama and Papa would not allow her to read, they’d burned them up without a word after they had read them first, but she knew what was in them. How could you? My son is gone forever, my daughter. How could you do that to them? How could you let them go to their deaths?