The Endearment (29 page)

James came back from a trip to the wagon with a basket. "Did you get one up?"

"Yes, Karl helped me."

"It probably won't grow for you if it didn't grow for him," James returned.

James' heedless opinion made Anna feel like crying. He's probably right, she thought. Still, it cut her to the quick to realize James was so devoted to Karl he scarcely spent time caring about what she felt or boosting her spirits like he'd always done in the past.

Karl returned with moss, packed it around the root, then arose, saying, "It is best you take two, Anna."

"Two?"

"Ya." He seemed self-conscious all of a sudden. "Hops grow in both male and female plants. The one you picked is a female, but if you take one male, too, you will have a better crop if they decide to grow."

"How do you know this is female?" she asked.

His eyes met hers momentarily, wavered away, then he stepped nearer to show her the remaining few cones that hung on the mother plant. "By the catkins," he explained. Reaching out a fingertip he touched the nubbin. "The female's are short, only a couple inches long." He stepped to another plant that clung to a nearby tree and reached to stroke a panicle remaining there. It was about six inches in length. "The males are much longer." Then quickly he turned, picked up a basket and left her to dig up a male bine by herself, if she would.

Resolutely, she freed the second bine and took it to the wagon, carefully avoiding Karl's eyes. She wrapped it in the moss with the female, while Karl waited patiently for her to board the wagon. Come hell or high water she would make those two plants grow!

When they had traveled more than halfway home, Karl pulled the horses to a stop. "I have made up my mind to have cedar shingles," he announced. "Although the trees are not my own, I do not think this land is owned by anyone else, so I would be taking nobody's timber. It will take no more than a single tree to make shingles for the entire house, and I will have it down in no time."

To Anna, all conifers looked the same. But once Karl started chopping, she smelled the difference. The cedar fragrance was so heady she wondered if one might become intoxicated by it. Again, she was watching the beauty and grace of Karl's body as he wielded the axe. She had not seen him do any felling since they had become estranged. It moved her magically, creating a longing in the pit of her stomach for this fence to be mended between them.

Suddenly, she realized that Karl had slowed his axefalls, changed the rhythm somehow, which was something he never did!

He took two more swings, and each was answered by an echo. But when he stopped chopping, the echo went on. He stood alert, like a wild turkey cock at the cluck of a hen. He twisted his head around, thinking he was hearing things, but the chopping continued somewhere off to the north.

Anna and James heard it, too, and poised in alert.

"Do you hear that?" Karl asked.

"It's just an axe," James said.

"Just an axe, boy? Just an axe! Do you know what this means?"

"Neighbors?" ventured James, a smile growing on his face.

"Neighbors," confirmed Karl, "if we are lucky."

It was the first genuine smile Anna had seen on Karl's face in days. He hefted the axe again, this time forcing himself to keep his own measured beat, forcing himself not to hurry, which tired a man and only slowed him down in the long run.

The answering echo stopped momentarily. The trio imagined a man they had never met, pausing in his felling to listen to the echo of Karl's axe making its way through the woods to him.

The far-off beat joined Karl's again, but this time as a backbeat, set evenly between Karl's axefalls, and the two axemen spoke to each other in a language only a man of the woods understood. They measured their paces into a regularity that beat out a steady question and answer, back and forth.

Clack! went Karl's axe.

Clokk! came the answer.

Clack!

Clokk!

Clack!

Clokk!

The wordless conversation drummed on, and Karl worked now with a full smile on his face. When he stepped back to watch the cedar plummet, Anna felt the same exhilaration she'd felt the first time she witnessed the spectacle.

Karl's eagerness affected her, too. When the roaring silence boomed in their ears, his eyes were drawn to her, as always. He found her beaming in the scented silence and could do no less than smile back.

Into their silence started the other woodsman's axe.

"He heard!" James said.

"Get a basket and take the cedar chips," Karl said, "while I buck the tree. Cedar chips are good for keeping the bugs away. A few in the trunk will keep the moths out. Hurry!"

Never since she'd known him had she seen Karl Lindstrom hurry. But he did now. She hurried, too.

While she was picking up the chips, Karl again surprised her by suggesting, "Try sucking on a chip."

She did. So did James. "It's sweet!" Anna exclaimed, amazed.

"Yes, plenty sweet," agreed Karl, but he was thinking of the sweet sound of the distant axe.

 
It took little doing to find the source of the sound. There was a new road carved in such a way that the hazelbrush had hidden it from view when they'd passed it earlier in the day. Now, approaching it from the other direction, it was clearly visible. Led, too, by the sound of the axe as they neared, they were as metal shavings to a magnet.

And so it was that they came upon a stocky, middle-aged man working his stand of tamarack along his newly cleared road. They pulled the wagon to a halt while the man let his axe poll slip down to rest against his hand, just like Karl did when he stopped chopping. He pushed back a small woolen cap much like the one Karl owned. Then, seeing Anna, he removed the cap and came toward the wagon.

Karl alone alighted, walking toward the man with hand already extended. "I heard your axe."

"Ya! I heard yours, too!"

Their two outsized hands met.

Swedish! Karl thought.

Swedish! Olaf Johanson thought.

"I am Karl Lindstrom."

"And I am Olaf Johanson."

"I live perhaps four, five miles up this road here."

"I live a few hundred rods up this road here."

Anna watched in amazement as the two greeted each other with disbelief at finding another Swede so close by. They laughed aloud together, pumping those big, axemen's hands in a way that raised a response of happiness within Anna, for she knew how deeply Karl had missed his countrymen.

"You are homesteading here?" Karl asked.

"Ya. Me and my whole family."

"I hear other axes." Karl looked off in the direction of the sound.

"Ya. Me and my boys are clearing for the cabin." Johanson's Swedish accent was far more pronounced than Karl's.

"We have been raising our cabin, too. This ... this is my family." Karl turned to the wagon. "This is my wife, Anna, and her brother, James."

Olaf Johanson, with hat still doffed, nodded his head repeatedly, coming to shake their hands before donning the little wool thing again.

"Oh, my Katrene will be happy to see you-us-us! She and our girls, Kerstin and Nedda, have been saying, `What if there are no neighbors or friends?` They think they will die of loneliness, those three. How could a person die of loneliness in a big family like ours?" He finished with a chuckle.

"You have a really big family?" Karl asked.

"Ya. I have three overgrown boys and two daughters, maybe not so overgrown, but pretty big girls, I tell you. We will need a big cabin, that is for sure."

Karl laughed, overjoyed at the news.

"Come, you must meet my Katrene and the children. They will not believe what I am bringing home for dinner!"

"You will ride in my wagon."

"Su-us-ure!" Johanson agreed, climbing aboard the load of cedar. "Wait till they see you! They will think they are dreaming!"

Again Karl laughed. "We cut down a cedar tree for shingles, but I think we have cut it from your land. I did not know you had settled here or I would have asked first."

"What is one cedar tree among neighbors, I ask you!" Olaf boomed vibrantly. "What is one cedar among so plenty?" His hand swept, gesturing toward the woods.

"It is a good land, this
Minnesota
. It is

much like
Sweden
."

"I think it is better, maybe. I have never seen such tamaracks."

"They make a wall straight, all right," Karl agreed.

By the time they reached the narrow clearing where the axes were still ringing, the two men were in their glory.

There was a canvas-covered wagon in the clearing, and evidence of the family's having lived by roughing it since they'd arrived. There were homewares scattered around an open fire, furniture looking hapless out in the elements, makeshift pens to hold an assortment of animals. Trunks, bedding and clothing were airing on the earth, draped over wagon wheels or strewn over bushes.

A woman was stirring something in a pot that hung on a tripod over the fire. Another was climbing down from the back of the covered wagon. A girl about James' age was sorting blueberries. At the edge of the clearing, three broad backs were swinging axes. Everyone seemed to stop what they were doing at once. Olaf called and waved to the entire assemblage, bringing them all from far corners to stand around the wagon as it pulled to a halt.

"Katrene, look what I have found for you," Olaf bellered, climbing down over the back of the wagon. "Neighbors!"

"Neighbors!" exclaimed the woman, wiping her hands on her copious apron.

"Swedish neighbors!" Olaf bellered again, as if he were responsible for the existence of the nationality.

Indeed, the clearing was filled with Swedish. Everyone seemed to be yaa-ing and ooo-ing at once. Everyone except Anna and James, that is. At last Karl broke away from the eager handshakes to reach up and help Anna down.

"This is my wife, Anna," he said, "but she does not speak Swedish."

Sounds of pity issued like a swoon.

"And this is her brother, James."

There was no doubt of the welcome, although it irritated Anna the way they all broke into the foreign language she could not understand. But to her and James, they spoke English. "You will stay here and have dinner with us. There is plenty for everyone!"

"Thank you," Anna returned.

Olaf introduced his entire brood, from oldest to youngest. Katrene, his wife, was a rotund woman who chuckled gaily at everything she said. She looked much like Anna imagined Karl's own mother looked, from past descriptions Karl had given. Katrene was braided, aproned, apple-cheeked and jolly, and had dancing eyes that never seemed to dull.

Erik, the oldest son, seemed to be about Karl's age. Actually, he seemed like Karl in many ways, but was a little shorter and not quite as handsome.

Kerstin, the oldest daughter, came next. She was a young replica of her mother.

Then came Leif and Charles, strapping young men of perhaps twenty and sixteen years.

Last came Nedda, fourteen years old, who made James' voice go falsetto when he said hello to her.

Anna thought never in her life had she seen a more robust bunch of people. Pink-cheeked and vigorous and built solidly, even the women. Blond heads, all, nodded and beckoned the newcomers near the fire to have a seat on the felled logs that were the only chairs there. Excited voices exchanged news about
Sweden
with Karl, who reciprocated with bits about
Minnesota
.

While the conversations went on, Anna and James were left to listen to the unintelligible jargon and smile at everybody's enthusiasm. She glanced around the circle at all the blond heads. One in particular caught Anna's eye, making her self-conscious of the way her hair flew at will, untethered, around her head.

The oldest daughter, Kerstin, turned to stir up the smell of tantalizing food cooking in the big cast-iron pot. From behind, Anna watched the head with those flawless braids that looked stitched onto Kerstin's scalp, they were so painfully neat. The braids came away from a center part, ended like the wreath of a Roman goddess in a flawless coronet at the back of her head. Kerstin wore a meticulously clean dress and apron, which she protected from the fire when she leaned over to stir whatever it was that smelled so delicious in the pot.

Anna, in her brother's britches, felt suddenly like a tomboy. She hid her hands behind her back. They were filthy from digging up the hop bines. Kerstin's hands were as clean as her dress. She moved efficiently around the fire, obviously knowing what she was doing with food.

It was unbelievable what materialized for the meal! Where it all came from, Anna was wont to guess. There was Swedish crusty rye bread that had Karl drooling in no time. Limpa! went up the hosanna! Butter! There was actually butter, for the Johansons owned several cows. The stew pot produced the most delicious sausage Anna had ever tasted, and though Katrene said it was made of venison, it was nothing like any venison Anna had ever had. It was spicy and rich and full of flavor. They had barley cooked in the meat juices, and a tempting pan of cobbler dumplings steamed atop wild blueberries, crowned with rich cream.