The Daughter's Walk (5 page)

“Hedvig, fill your plate,” my mother said as she poured the milk. “But wait to say grace.”

“My name is Bertha, Mama. It's more American.”

“Nothing wrong with Norwegian,” Ida said. She refilled our brothers' coffee cups, brought a small amount of sugar, and set it in front of Papa.

“Silence,” Papa said. “We pray over the food, then you eat your
potet
without chatter.”

We all sat now, except for the little children, who still slept. All bowed our heads in silence while Papa prayed in English. Then the sounds of forks on ironstone interrupted while the occasional “please pass” and
mange takk
, a Norwegian thank-you, punctuated the rest of the meal.

As we finished, the younger children skipped downstairs in their nightclothes, and Ida and I assisted with their dressing. Even though it was May 1, the air felt chilly and I imagine the stove was a welcome comfort to their birdlike legs and slender little bodies. They sat at the table while I served them hot
rommergrot
, pouring milk on the creamy porridge I'd begun to prepare as soon as I heard their feet on the floor
above us. Johnny, William—Billy, we called him—and Lillian ate silently as Mama stood at the end of the table.

She looked at me and a shiver went through me. What she was about to tell the little ones would change their lives forever. Mine too.

“You older children know we are facing a difficult time,” Mama began. “Your papa's injury makes it difficult for him to work, and the world now makes it hard for people to find jobs doing carpenter work even if he could do more. No one builds in either Rockford or Spokane. The farm feeds us, and that is why Olaf comes home so often. Now he works two places, Spokane and for the family.”

“He got sick,” Bertha piped up. “He came home so you could make him well.”

“Yes. He had diphtheria but now he's better. He is a big help on this farm, and the farm is very important. So important that we must find a way to pay what is due. This year, even the ten percent interest on our loan is playing hide-and-seek with us. So it is very important that we keep the farm from foreclosure. Very important.”

“What's four closure?” eight-year-old Johnny asked. “Is there a five closure?”

“It means we need to pay back money we don't have,” I told him. I touched his blond hair with my hand. “They will take the farm instead of money.”

His eyes were big and round, but I only spoke the truth.

“Where would we go if we lost the farm?” Bertha asked.

“It will work out,” Papa said. “It always has. What your mother proposes is not necessary. We could live with my sister if needed.”

The boys looked at each other. Our parents were disagreeing in front of them, an event as rare as snow in July.

“Not this time,” Mama said.

I looked at my father. His eyes drooped. It must be difficult for him to have his wife talking about finances, something a Norwegian man usually took care of, saw it as his duty, not his wife's.

“Without the farm we cannot sustain our family,” my mother insisted. “I've found the help.” She spoke to the children now, turning her back on my father. “Sponsors, wealthy women, will pay us ten thousand dollars if we can walk from Spokane to New York within a certain time.”

“Ti tusen dollar,”
Ida whispered. She was shorter than I, slender, with perfect gold hair braided in a crown at the top of her head. She sank back into her chair.

“Why would anyone pay that?” Bertha asked.

“Where is New York?” Arthur asked. “Can I walk there too?”

“No. It's too far away and you're too young. And to answer Bertha: for a fashion campaign, to show off the new reform skirts that women can wear when we bicycle or go on a picnic, without having to wear corsets.” Olaf raised his blond eyebrows at our mother. She said, “Nothing risqué. Goodness, no. Legs all covered by stockings or boots or skirt. But it will show that women are strong, that we are more capable than men give us credit for. Imagine, earning our way across the continent.”

“If you finish the walk,” my father said. “Unharmed. The danger does not go away because you tell us so.” The little ones had stopped eating their
rommergrot
and watched, heads turning back and forth as each parent spoke.

“We've been given this great opportunity. God will be with us in the danger, and walking thirty-five hundred miles will prove a woman's endurance.”

“But not so much her sound judgment,” my father said.

I agreed with him, for all the good it did either of us.

“I'm so sorry, Ida,” I said. My sister sobbed as we slopped the pigs in the pig shed, their grunting and squealing loud enough that we had to raise our voices even to share a confidence. “I wouldn't go at all except that Mama needs a companion.”

“If you refused, maybe she wouldn't go,” Ida cried.

“Mama never changes her mind. You know that. She'd go on alone or get someone else to go with her, and none of us would know what was happening.”

“I hated it when she went to Wisconsin to help
Bestemor
when
Bestefar
died,” Ida said.

“Her mother needed her.”

“
Ja
, I remember,” she said, then mocked Mama. “ ‘You had your father here and Clara and each other, much more than
Bestemor
had in her time of grief.' ” Anger seasoned Ida's tone. “What if one of the children gets sick?” Ida said. She set the bucket down and turned to me. “What'll I do if—?”

“Papa is here. You're not alone,” I said. She was more frightened than angry; I could see it in her face. “The big medicine book is in the kitchen. Neighbors will help.” But I knew what she feared. Accidents happened. Diphtheria sneaked into a household and ravaged it. Fires burned houses down. “You'll be proud that you kept the family fed.” I didn't tell her how the days dragged like a weighted iron attached to my foot when Mama had been gone before. There'd been another feeling then too: emptiness. No,
empty
wasn't the right word either. My mother was our anchor, and when she left, even for short periods, I felt adrift.

“What is it about her that makes Mama go like that?” Ida said.
“Why can't she be a good wife like Olga Siverson or Nora Olson? They never go anywhere. Do we make Mama want to leave us?”

“No,” I said, though uncertain. “No. This is Mama's way of being a good mother. We have to be good children and do our part.”

Ida wiped her face with her apron. “Aren't you afraid of walking that far?”

“Yes, I am. But I'm more … mad, that I have to leave my job and maybe.” I decided not to tell her about Forest.

Ida's lips quivered. “I'm really scared she won't come back this time.”

“No. Don't worry about that. I'll bring her back. There's no sense putting your worries in a wheelbarrow,” I said.

“It's heavy enough as it is,” Ida said with me. We both smiled at one of Mama's sayings. Ida sighed. “I guess it's going to happen and there's nothing I can do about it.”

“At least I won't have to wear a corset after Salt Lake City,” I said.

“You're so like Mama,” she said, “finding the good in a bad.”

A
ccording to the contract that I never did get to see, we had to start from Spokane. So on May 5, 1896, we rode the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company line to the Spokane terminal, walked to the
Spokane Daily Chronicle
to verify our presence, and then walked the twenty-eight miles from Spokane, home to the farm on Mica Creek. We spent our first night of the journey in our own beds. I dreaded the good-byes in the morning.

I walked out onto the porch with my parents there, Mama saying, “We cannot lose the farm, Ole. We can't.”

“A man is the head,” he said lamely.

“Maybe in Norway. But we are here now. We decide together.”

He snorted at that, and I made a noise to alert them to my presence.

Mama turned but didn't acknowledge me. Instead she left the porch, walking toward Olaf. My brother brought the horses from the barn, and as she patted the animals' rumps, a puff of dust rose up. I
followed her out. She told Olaf how good they looked as he brought them up beside the pig shed. Olaf hugged Mama with one arm, holding the harness in the other. “Godspeed, Mama,” he said. “Write to us.”

“You know I will,” she said. She brushed the blond hair from his forehead. “You're well,” she said. “You are.”

He nodded. “I'm strong as an ox.” He flexed the muscles of one arm. “I'll look after Papa, make sure he doesn't reinjure himself.”

“That's good. Take care of yourself too, my son.” Olaf nodded, checked a ring on the harness. I thought he avoided her eyes so that she might not see his tears or maybe how her kind words affected him.

“Don't go driving anyone while we're gone,” I teased. He smiled. I wasn't sure he'd ever courted a girl, though he had lagged behind with Mary Larsen while walking back from church once or twice. “The little ones will tattle on you.”

“Don't you either,” he said.

“Tattle? Or drive with someone?”

“Both.” He grinned. I hugged him. We had our secrets, the two of us, trouble we'd gotten into as children, wasting precious time in the fields telling stories instead of working, things we thought about farming and our futures. We looked as different as night from day, he so blond and muscular, me so dark and lean. The horses stomped their impatience and Olaf took the signal to nod to Mama, then spoke to the horses and flicked the reins across their rumps. He jerked behind them with the harness trailing until they reached the field and could hitch up the plow.

Bertha ran out of the house as we moved back toward it. She carried two hard-boiled eggs. “For your lunch, Mama,” she said. “And yours, Clara.”

“A good idea!” Mama said as we returned to the porch where our leather grips sat waiting. “You're so thoughtful, Bertha.”

“It was Arthur's idea. He said we should boil them.” Arthur stood off to the side patting the dog's head. Sailor panted. I wished that dog was going with us.

“Then we thank you both.” Mama pulled Arthur forward, kissed his face, Bertha's forehead. I took the eggs and put them in my grip.

Johnny pushed his head between his siblings and wrapped his arms around Mama's neck. Then he came to hug me and whispered, “Bring me back a New York frog. It will jump higher than Arthur's from Mica Creek.”

“I'll look for the very best,” I whispered back.

“You be a good boy for Ida and your papa, all right?” Mama said, tapping him on the shoulder. Johnny nodded. His lower lip quivered. She pulled him into her skirts, held his arms as he lowered his head into her side. The two stood rocking side to side until four-year-old Billy cuddled close.

Mama started to lift him, but Billy said, “I'm too big for you to carry.”

“So I can't put you into my little case and take you with me?”

I winced at her mistake.

His eyes grew large. “Yes, take me! I'll climb right inside!” He wiggled free, pulled at her grip, which weighed less than he had at birth.

She opened the bag, snapped the frame and handle back, and it stood open, wide like a jaw. He peered inside as she squatted beside him. “You are too big, son,” she said. “See?”

“You need the lantern,” he agreed. “If I go, you won't have room for light.”

“That's right. And we need the light very much.”

“All right,” he said and stepped back. “I'll stay here.”

Lillian waddled over and wove her sticky fingers into Mama's hair.
In the seven months we'd be gone, Lillian would change the most. Lillian's blond hair, soft as peach fuzz, glistened in the sunrise.