Years

  “And hello again, Mr. Westgaard.” She turned and confronted him directly, giving him no alternative but to recognize her.

  “Yeah,” was all he said, his arms crossed over a blue chambray shirt and black suspenders.

  To vex him further, she smiled sweetly and added, “Your mother showed me my room and got me settled in. It’ll do very nicely.”

  With the others looking on, he was forced to bite back a sharp retort. Instead he grumbled, “Well, we gonna stand here yammerin’ all night, or we gonna have some supper?”

  “It’s ready. Let’s sit,” Nissa put in, moving to place one last bowl on the round oak pedestal table covered with snowy linen. “This’ll be your chair.” Nissa indicated one positioned between hers and John’s, perhaps hoping a little distance between Linnea and Theodore might buffer his antagonism. Unfortunately it put them directly across from each other, and even before Linnea sat she felt his eyes rake her once with palpable displeasure.

  When they were all seated, Theodore said, “Let’s pray,” and clasped his hands, rested his elbows beside his plate, and dropped his forehead to his knuckles. Everyone followed suit, as did Linnea, but when Theodore’s deep voice began intoning the prayer, she opened her eyes and peeked around her knuckles in surprise. The prayer was being recited in Norwegian.

  She pressed her thumbs against her forehead, watching the corners of his lips move behind his folded hands. To her dismay, he peeked back at her! Their eyes met for only a second, but even in that brief moment there was time for self-consciousness before his glance moved to her bandaged hand. Guiltily she slammed her eyes shut.

  She added her amen to the others, and before she could even move her elbows off the tablecloth the most amazing action broke out. As if the end of the prayer signaled the beginning of a race, four sets of hands lashed out to capture four bowls; four serving spoons clattered against four plates — whack, whack, whack, whack! Then, like a precision drill, the bowls were passed to the left while each of the Westgaards took the one arriving from their right. Linnea sat agape. Apparently her delay in taking the bowl of corn from John threw a crimp into the works, for suddenly all eyes were on her as she sat empty-handed while John balanced two bowls in his big hands. Silently he nudged her shoulder with the corn bowl, and as she took it Theodore’s eyes took in the bandaged hand again.

  “What happened to her?” he asked Nissa.

  Nissa clapped a mound of potatoes on her plate. “She broke the pitcher and bowl upstairs and cut her hand cleanin’ it up.”

  How dare he talk around me as if I can’t answer for myself! Linnea colored as four sets of eyes turned her way and perused the bandaged left hand holding the bowl of corn. The circus picked up again, bowls and spoons passing under her nose until finally it ended as abruptly as it had begun: four pairs of hands clunked down four bowls; four heads bent over four plates; four intense Norwegians started eating with an absorption so exceedingly rude that Linnea could only stare.

  She was the last one holding a bowl, and felt as conspicuous as a clown at a wake. Well, manners were manners! She would display those that had been drilled into her all her life and see if a good example would faze these four.

  She finished filling her plate and sat properly straight, eating at a sedate pace, using her fork and knife on the delicious beaten beefsteaks that were cooked in rich brown gravy and seasoned with allspice. When her knife wasn’t in use, it lay properly across the edge of her plate. Potatoes, corn, coleslaw, bread, butter, and a bevy of relishes rounded out the meal.

  The entire Westgaard family gobbled it with their napes up!

  And the sounds were horrendous.

  Nobody said a word, just dug in and kept digging until the plates began emptying and one by one they asked to have bowls passed to them again. But they did it with the manners of cavemen!

  “Spuds!” Theodore commanded, and Linnea watched in disgust as the “spuds” were passed by John, who scarcely looked up while mopping up gravy with a slice of bread, then stuffing it into his mouth with his fingers.

  A moment later Kristian followed suit. “Meat!”

  His grandmother shoved the meat bowl across the table. Nobody but Linnea saw anything amiss. Minutes passed with more grunts and slurps.

  “Corn!”

  Linnea was unaware of the stalled action until the sudden silence made her lift her eyes from her plate. Everyone was staring at her.

  “I said corn,” Kristian repeated.

  “Oh, corn!” She grabbed the bowl and shot it across the table to him, too disconcerted to take up the subject of manners on this first night in her new home.

  Good lord, did they eat like this all the time?

  They fell to their second helpings, giving her time to study them individually.

  Nissa, with her little oval spectacles and gray pug head bent over her plate, too. As a mother she had been remiss in teaching manners, but she had indubitable control over her “boys” just the same. Had it been Nissa instead of Theodore who’d decided Linnea was not welcome, she wouldn’t be sitting at the supper table now, Linnea was sure.

  John. Sitting beside him she felt like a dwarf. His red plaid sleeve rested on the table and his broad shoulders bowed forward like a yoke. She recalled his hesitancy to shake her hand, the red flooding his face as he politely called her “Miss.” She would never have to fear John.

  Kristian. She had not missed his furtive glances throughout the meal. He’d been sneaking them at her ever since they sat down. He was so big! So grown-up! How awkward it would feel to be his teacher when he towered over her by half a head and had shoulders as wide as a plow horse. Nissa had referred to him as “Theodore’s boy,” but he was no more boy than his father or his uncle, and it was obvious Kristian had been instantly smitten with her. She’d have to be careful not to encourage him in any way.

  Theodore. What made a man so cantankerous and hard to get along with? She’d be a liar to deny she was afraid of this one. But he’d never know it, not if she lived in his house for five years and had to fight him tooth and nail all that time. Inside every hard person hid a softer one; find him and you might, too, find his soul. With Theodore that would undoubtedly be a difficult task, but she aimed to try.

  Unexpectedly, he looked up, straight into her eyes, and she was startled to discover that Theodore was no old man. His brown eyes were clear and unlined except for a single white squint line at each corner. In those eyes she saw intelligence and pugnaciousness enough for two, and wondered what it would take to nourish the one and subdue the other. His hair was not the color of sunset over waving ripe rye, as she’d fantasized, but brown and thick, drying now after being slicked back with water, rebelliously springing toward his forehead in willful curls. And neither had he an oversized sunburned nose. It was straight and attractive and tan, like the rest of his face up to within an inch of the hairline where a band of white identified him as the farmer that he was. Unlike John, he wore his collar open. Inside it his neck was sturdy; above it no jowls drooped. When he stubbornly refused to break eye contact with her, she self-consciously dropped her gaze to his arms. Unlike John’s, they were exposed to mid-forearm. His wrists were narrow, making both hands and arms appear the more mighty as they swelled above and below. Was he forty? Not yet. Thirty? Most certainly. He had to be to have a son Kristian’s age.

  Then, with a silent sigh Linnea decided she’d been right after all: somewhere between thirty and forty was very old indeed.

  She peeked up again and found him bent low, eating, but still with his gaze pinning her. Flustered, she glanced around the table to find Kristian had been watching the two of them. She flashed him a quick smile and said the first tiling that came to mind. “So you’re going to be one of my students, Kristian.”

  Everyone at the table stopped forking and chewing while an immense silence fell. They all looked at her as if she’d sprouted fangs. She felt herself blush, but didn’t know why. “Have I said something wrong?”

 
The pause lengthened, but finally Kristian replied, “Yes. I mean, no, you ain’t said nothin’ wrong and yes, you’re gonna be my teacher.”

  They all fell to eating again, dropping their eyes to their plates while Linnea puzzled over the silence. Again she broke it.

  “What grade are you in, Kristian?”

  Once again everyone paused, startled by her interruption. Kristian glanced furtively around the table and answered, “Eighth.”

  “Eighth?” He had to be at least sixteen years old. “Did you miss some school — I mean, were you ill or anything?”

  His eyes were wide and unblinking as he stared at her and the color spread slowly up his chin. “No. Didn’t miss no years.”

  “Any years.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “I didn’t miss any years,” she corrected.

  For a moment he looked puzzled, then his eyes brightened and he said, “Oh! Well, me neither.”

  She could feel them all looking at her but couldn’t figure out what it was they were so surprised about. She was only making polite supper conversation. But none of them had the grace to pick up the conversational ball she’d thrown out. Instead, they all clammed up and continued to stuff their gullets, the only sounds those of ostentatious eating.

  Theodore spoke once, when his plate was cleared. He sat back, expanding his chest. “What’s for dessert, Ma?”

  Nissa brought bread pudding. Stupefied, Linnea watched everybody silently wait for their serving, then return to eating with reintensified interest. Glancing around, studying them, it finally dawned on her: eating was serious business around here. Nobody profaned the sacrosanct gobbling with idle chitchat!

  Never in her life had she been treated so rudely at a table. When the meal was over, she was surrounded by a chorus of belches before they all sat back and picked their teeth over cups of coffee.

  Not one of them said excuse me! Not even Nissa!

  Linnea wondered how Nissa would react if she requested a tray in her room from now on. Most certainly she was disinclined to join them at this table and listen to them all carrying on like pigs at a trough.

  But now, it seemed, the inviolable rite was done. Theodore pushed back and spoke directly to Linnea.

  “You’ll want to see the school building tomorrow.”

  What she really wanted to see tomorrow was the inside of a train taking her back home to Fargo. She hid her disillusionment and answered with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, “Yes, I’d like to see what books I’ll have to work with, and what supplies I’ll have to order.”

  “We milk at five and have breakfast right after. Be ready to go soon as breakfast is done. I can’t waste time comin’ in from the fields in the middle of the mornin’ to haul you down there and give you no tour.”

  “I’ll gladly walk. I know where the school building is.”

  He sipped his coffee, swallowed loudly, and said, “It’s part of what they pay me for, showin’ the new teacher the school building and telling him what his duties are soon as he gets here.” |

  She felt the damnable blush creeping up, no matter how she tried to stop it. And though she knew it would have been better to ignore his jibe, she couldn’t.

  “He?” she repeated pointedly.

  “Oh...” Theodore’s eyes made an insolent tour of her lopsided hairstyle. “She. I forgot.”

  “Does this mean I’m staying? Or do you still intend to dump me off on Oscar Knutson when you manage to run him down?”

  He sat back lazily, an ankle crossing a knee, and wielded the toothpick in a way that pulled his upper lip askew, all the while studying her without smiling.

  At last he said, “Oscar don’t have no room for you.”

  “Doesn’t have any room for me.” It was out before she could control the urge to set him down a notch.

  He slowly pulled the toothpick from his mouth, and his lip fell into place, but it thinned in anger, and she saw with satisfaction the blush begin to creep up his face, too. Though she knew he fully understood he was having his speech corrected, she couldn’t resist adding insult to injury. “Don’t and no are double negatives, thus it’s incorrect to say Oscar don’t have no room. Oscar doesn’t have any room for me.”

  The white stripe near his hairline turned brilliant red and he lunged to his feet, the chair scraping back on the bare wood floor as he pointed a long, thick finger at her nose. “He sure as hell don’t, so I’m stuck with you! But stay out of my way, missy, you understand!”

  “Theodore!” his mother yelped, but he was already slamming out the door. When he was gone, the silence around the table became deadly and Linnea felt tears of mortification sting her eyes. She glanced at the faces around her. Kristian’s and John’s were beet red. Nissa’s was white with anger as she stared at the door.

  “That boy don’t know no manners atall, talking to you like that!” his mother ranted.

  “I... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have goaded him. It was my fault.”

  “Naw, it was not,” Nissa declared, rising and beginning to clear away the dishes with angry motions. “He just got ugly inside when — ” She stopped abruptly, glanced at Kristian, who was staring at the tablecloth. “Aw, it’s no use tryin’ to straighten him out,” she finished, turning away.

  To Linnea’s surprise, John made the one gesture of conciliation. He began to reach for her arm as if to lay a comforting hand on it, drew back just in time, but offered in his deep, slow voice, “Aw, he don’t mean nothing by it, Miss.”

  She looked up into friendly, shy eyes and somehow realized that John’s brief reassurance had been tantamount to an oration, for him. She reached out to touch his arm lightly. “I’ll try to remember that the next time I cross swords with him. Thank you, John.”

  His gaze dropped to her fingers, and he flushed brilliant red. Immediately she withdrew her hand and turned to Kristian. “Would you mind taking me to the school tomorrow, Kristian? That way I won’t have to bother your father.”

  His lips opened, but nothing came out. He flashed a quick glance at his uncle, found no help for whatever was bothering him, and finally swallowed and smiled broadly, growing pink in the cheeks yet again. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Relieved, she released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Thank you, Kristian. I’ll be ready directly after breakfast.”

  He nodded, watching her rise to pick up a handful of dishes. “Well, I’d better lend Nissa a hand with cleaning up.”

  But even before she’d gotten to her feet, she was being excused.

  “Teachers don’t clean up!” Nissa informed her. “Evenin’s are your own. You’ll need ‘em for correctin’ papers and such.”

  “But I have no papers to correct yet.”

  “G’won!” Nissa flapped a hand as if shooing away a fly. “Git out from underfoot. I’ll tend to the cleanin’ up. I always have.”

  Linnea paused uncertainly. “You’re sure?”

  Nissa peered up at her from behind her oval lenses while reaching for the empty cups and saucers. “Do I strike you as a person who ain’t never sure of things?”

  That made Linnea smile again. “Very well, I promised my mother I’d write to her immediately after I arrived and let her know I’d made it without mishap.”

  “Fine! Fine! You go do that.”

  Upstairs she lit the kerosene lantern and studied her room again, but it was as disappointing as ever. Nissa had replaced the pitcher and bowl with a blue-speckled wash basin. The sight of it brought back Linnea’s disappointment not only in the room and the Westgaard family but in herself. She wanted so badly to act mature, had promised herself time and again that she’d give up those childish flights of whimsy that forever got her into trouble. But she hadn’t been here thirty minutes and look what she’d done. She swallowed back tears.

  From her first thirty dollars a month she’d have to pay the price of a new pitcher and bowl. But worse, she’d made a fool of herself. That was hard enough to face without having
to confront Theodore’s antagonism at every turn.

  The man was truly despicable!

  Forget him. Everyone told you becoming an adult wasn’t going to be easy, and you’re finding out they were right.

  To put Theodore from her mind, she took up a wooden stationery box and sat on her bed.

  Dear Mother and Father, Carrie and Pudge,

  I have arrived in Alamo all safe and sound. The train ride was long and uneventful. When I arrived I searched the horizon for a town, but found to my dismay only three elevators and a handful of sorry buildings I would scarcely classify as a “town.” Yes, Daddy, you warned me it would be small. But I hadn’t expected this!

  I was met at the station by Mr. Westgaard, who escorted me to his farm, which appears to be of immense proportions like all the others out here, so big we tried to find one of his neighbors working in the field, but could not. Mr. Westgaard — Theodore is his first name — lives here with his mother, Nissa (a little bandy-legged spitfire whom I loved immediately), and his son, Kristian (who will be my eighth-grade student, but is half a head taller than I), and Theodore’s brother, John (who comes here at mealtimes but the rest of the time lives at his own farm, which is the next one up the road to the east).

  We had a delicious first supper of steak and gravy, potatoes, corn, bread and butter and bread pudding and more relishes than I’ve ever seen on a table in my life, after which Nissa would not allow me to lift a finger to help her clean up — Carrie and Pudge, I know you’re green with envy because I don’t have to do dishes anymore! And now I’m settled into my very own private room with nobody to tell me to put out the light when I’d rather read a little longer. Imagine that, a room of my own for the first time in my life.

  But then she glanced around that room, at the bare rafters overhead, the minuscule window, the commode where the new blue washbasin stood. She remembered the untarnished optimism she’d felt while riding toward her new home on the train, and her immediate disillusionment from the moment Theodore Westgaard had opened his mouth and declared, “I ain’t havin’ no woman in my house!” She glanced at the letter from which she had carefully winnowed all the disappointments and misgivings of her first six hours as the “the new teacher,” and suddenly the world seemed to topple in on her.