The Endearment

  During that last day Karl put the stove up. It fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but Anna did not rejoice over it as he thought she would. She remained almost timid now since he had killed that rattler and held her while she cried and trembled.

  James worked at stringing the ropes for his own bed while Anna worked on those for her and Karl's bed. Karl showed them how to weave and splice the tough fibers of the prairie grass into tough, thick-gauged rope.

  Once when James' fingers got tangled up and his weaving slipped loose, he asked Anna how she could do it so smoothly.

  “Don't ask me,” she answered. “Ask Karl. If anyone knows his way around a bed rope it's Karl.” But she never glanced up, just kept weaving away at her own rope, sitting cross-legged in those britches in the middle of the cabin floor. Even James might have suspected a play on words had Anna looked amused or sprightly. But she only pulled her lip between her teeth, concentrating hard on her chore.

  Meanwhile, Karl finished the door. He used the undauntable oak, which took more work splitting than any other wood because of its hardness. Karl worked away patiently, shaping and rubbing the panels smooth, then fashioning cross braces onto which the panels would be pegged.

  In the early afternoon James and Anna began carrying their belongings from the sod house into the log house. They lugged dishes and bowls and barrels that were half empty, leaving the full flour barrels for Karl to fetch. Karl watched them parade past him, while he hinged the door, then tightened the final wooden pins. Then he set about tying the loosely placed ropes that needed only fastening to become beds.

  Anna, a little withdrawn, sometimes almost shy, continued carrying their goods to the log cabin. Once, as she paused across the way to stretch her back after a heavy load, Karl watched her tuck her shirt into her britches, pulling in a deep breath and thrusting her breasts forward, standing that way, unaware that he watched her. Then she looked as if she sighed, though he heard no sigh from this distance, and she ran her hand deeply into the recesses of those pants, both front and back, ostensibly tucking in her shirttails again. She did all this in full profile to Karl. Just when he began to ask himself if Anna knew that he watched her, she looked up and discovered him with his hands idle upon his work, his eyes busy on her silhouette. She snapped almost guiltily away and fled into the sod house.

  After she was gone, Karl contemplated what he had seen. When had her sharp-boned thinness mellowed and molded? How long had this contoured woman been hiding in boy's britches? Karl smiled, thinking of Anna's cooking, realizing she'd done all right eating it herself, in spite of all the self-criticism she heaped upon it.

  Anna watched James taking down the blanket that had served as her dressing room ever since they'd lived here. He stepped off the trunk and she offered, “Here, I'll help you fold that.”

  “All right,” he said. They each took two corners and stretched them out; there was scarcely room to do so in the cramped sod hut.

  “James, I have a favor to ask you.”

  “Sure. What is it, Anna?”

  “It's a very selfish one,” she warned.

  “Don't kid me, Anna. I know you better than that.” He angled her a knowing smile.

  “Oh, but it is! Especially because I ask it today, of all days.”

  “Well, ask!” he demanded brightly.

  “I want you to ask Karl if you can take the team and ride over to the Johansons as soon as all the work is finished.”

  “You mean tonight?”

  “No, this afternoon,” Anna declared, feeling uncomfortable at this suggestion, for surely James would guess her intentions.

  “What do you need from over there?”

  They came nearly chest to chest, folding the blanket.

  “I don't need anything from over there.”

  “Well then, what am I going for?”

  “Just to get away from the house for a while.” Her face went pink.

  “But, Anna—”

  “I know, I know. Today we're moving into the log cabin and everything. I told you it was selfish. You'd have to miss our first supper on the new stove and our first meal in the cabin together.”

  “But why?” James balked, and Anna despaired of ever enlightening him without drawing pictures.

  “James, things have been—I need some time alone with Karl.”

  “Oh,” he said shortly, the light suddenly dawning. “Well . . . in that case, sure. I'll be gone just as soon as I can.”

  “Listen, little brother,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm, “I know it's unfair of me to ask it tonight, but believe me, it's got to be tonight. Karl and I have to straighten out some differences between us that have been festering for too long already. I'm afraid that if we don't get things ironed out now, they may drag on forever, and I couldn't stand—Oh, James, I feel just awful asking you tonight.” She suddenly plopped down on the bare rope bed and looked at the floor dejectedly. “I know you've been looking forward to moving in just as much as we have. Believe me, I wouldn't ask if it wasn't absolutely necessary. I can't explain it all, James . . .” She looked up beseechingly. “But it's got to be today, tonight.”

  “What should I tell Karl? I mean, I never asked to take the team out alone before.”

  “Tell him you want to go calling on Nedda.”

  “Nedda?” James' Adam's apple did monkeyshines.

  “Am I too far wrong in thinking you won't mind?”

  “Go calling on Nedda?” James seemed thunderstruck by the idea, even though he, himself, had been toying with it ever since Nedda suggested it herself. “No! No, I won't mind a bit. But do you think Karl will let me?”

  “Why not? He made you a teamster himself. He trusts you with Belle and Bill. Anyway, you went to Johansons the night I got lost in the woods, and made it just fine.”

  “I did, didn't I?” He remembered how proud Nedda had been of him then.

  “That's not all I need you to do, James.”

  “What else?”

  “I need for you to get Karl away from the house first, for at least an hour, longer if you can.”

  “How can I do that? He won't want to leave the log house.”

  “Make him go to the pond with you for a bath. Try to get him playing like we used to do all together, remember? That should keep him there a while.”

  “What are you going to do while we're gone?”

  Anna arose with the blanket folded over her arm. She ran her hand over it with a little look of slyness. Then she smiled at her brother in a way he was soon to learn meant some fellow was going to meet his match. “James, that is a woman's secret. If you're old enough to go calling on Nedda, you're old enough to know a man doesn't ask a woman to tell all her secrets.”

  James colored a little, but he was unsure of something and didn't know what to do but ask about it.

  “Anna, do I—should I ask the Johansons if I can stay all night?”

  “No, James, I wouldn't ask that of you. I know how you've been waiting to sleep in your own loft for the first time. There's no need for you to stay out long past mid-evening. We'll be looking for you to come back then.”

  “Okay, Anna.”

  “You'll do it?” she asked breathlessly.

  “'Course, I'll do it. I'm sorry I didn't think of it myself. From now on, if Karl lets me go this once, I'll go more often. I like visiting at their place. Besides,” James added, hooking a thumb in his back pocket, gazing down at the floor almost guiltily, “I'd do darn near anything to see you and Karl the way you were before. I know things've been sour between you for a long time and I hate it. I just . . . I just want us all to be happy like before.”

  Anna smiled and reached to lay her hand on the long hard forearm and force him to take his hand from his back pocket so she could hold it. “Listen, baby brother, if I haven't said it for a long time, it's been my fault, not yours . . . but, I love you.”

  “Gosh, I know that,” he said with a sideways smile lining his face. “Same goes for yo
u.”

  Anna put her arms around him, taking the blanket into her hug as she pressed him to her. She had to reach up now to get her arm around his neck, he was so tall. She could sense James' having grown up not only physically but also emotionally this summer, for he made no attempt to pull away in embarrassment. He allowed himself to be hugged, and returned the pressure with a silent wish that whatever Anna had planned for tonight, it would work.

  She pulled away. “Thanks, baby brother.”

  “Good luck, Anna,” replied James.

  “You, too. That's one stubborn Swede out there, and if he decides he doesn't want to go to the pond, you'll have your work cut out for you getting him away from the clearing.”

  The hanging of the freshly hewn door was symbolic to all of them, but mostly to Karl. When it swung on its wooden hinges at last, he stood in its opening, looking first into the cabin, and then out of it.

  “Due east,” he said, glancing contentedly off across his cleared grainfields to the rim of the woods, which waited yet to be cleared.

  “Just like you always said,” James confirmed.

  Karl turned to rub his hand over the panels of the door. “Oak,” he said, “good, tough oak.” And he gave the door a slap.

  “Just like you said, too.”

  “Just like I said, boy, and do not ever forget it.”

  “I won't, Karl.”

  Karl now looked at Anna. “And you have not forgotten you made me promise to let you be the first to pull the latchstring in.”

  Pleased he had remembered this from the days of early summer when they had lain in the dark whispering of such dreams to each other, Anna beamed and turned pleasantly rosy. But she hung back yet, wondering if this meant a reconciliation. The way he gazed at her, the way he stood with the light from the doorway behind him making his hair into a golden halo, the way he reminded her of those whispered secrets from long ago . . .

  “So, Mrs. Lindstrom,” Karl said, “why do you not try out your new door?”

  Flustered now, she hastened to do so, saying, “Well, come on in, both of you. I'm certainly not going to take the latchstring in against my two favorite men, leaving them on the doorstep for the first time!”

  Karl and James went inside to join her. James closed the door. Karl raised the bar and dropped it in place. Anna pulled at the latchstring, finger over finger, until a little round ball filled the hole and dropped inside.

  “Did you carve this?” she asked Karl, holding the small wooden ball in her fingers. It was so perfectly round!

  “No. It is a hazelnut. I promised I would show you a hazelnut.”

  She smiled mischievously. “But the squirrels will eat it right off the string.”

  “The squirrels must eat, too. So, let them. I will get another. I have plenty.”

  She looked up into Karl's face, keeping her own carefully expressionless, yet sincere, as she said, “Yes, Mr. Lindstrom, I believe you do.”

  James observed the way both Karl and Anna seemed to have forgotten he was there. Suddenly, with high heart, he believed he would have trouble getting Karl away from the clearing, but not for the reason Anna had predicted. He broke into their reverie, suggesting, “Karl, why don't you get that stove stoked up and then we'll go down and have a swim?”

  “A swim? When we only just got into the log cabin? A man needs time to get acquainted here first.”

  “But I'm in kind of a hurry, Karl.”

  Karl was reluctant to tug his eyes away from Anna, but the boy was persistent. “You are in a hurry? What is it that makes you hurry? All these days we rush to finish the cabin. Now it is done and it is the time to ease up and enjoy it.”

  “Well, I want to—I got something I need to ask you.”

  “Ya, well ask then.” Anna had turned away and had started fiddling with the stove lids. She'd probably never built a fire in a stove either, Karl thought, seeing what she was doing. So he went to do it.

  “Could I take the team down to Johansons by myself?” James asked.

  Karl turned around from the stove, genuine surprise on his face. “The team?”

  “Yeah . . . I . . . I wanna go calling on Nedda.”

  “Today?”

  “Well, yeah . . . what's the matter with today?” James had his thumbs hooked in his rear pockets again.

  “But this is the day we are going to have our first supper in the cabin. Anna's going to cook on the new stove.”

  “Today's the first chance you give me to set down, too. We've been working on this cabin practically all summer. And when it wasn't the cabin keeping us busy, it was harvesting or trimming hooves or something else. What else have you got for me to do today?” James sounded genuinely irked.

  Anna turned away, smiling at her brother's ingenuity, thinking, good for you, James! You can be a little shyster if you want!

  Karl was truly surprised. He hadn't realized the boy had been hankering to get away from the place. If there was one thing Karl was gullible about, it was about James' deserving some time away. Without realizing it, James had tripped upon the weakest spot in the big Swede.

  “Why nothing,” Karl admitted. “There's nothing for you to do here. We are finished with everything.”

  “Then why can't I go?” James actually managed to sound persecuted.

  “I did not say you could not go.”

  “Is it the team, Karl? Don't you trust me to take 'em out alone?”

  “Sure, I trust you with the team.”

  “Well, can I take 'em, then?”

  “Ya, I suppose you can. But what about supper?”

  “I'd just as soon eat with the Johansons if it's all the same to you. That way I can get an early start over there.”

  “But, Anna was maybe planning something on the new stove.”

  “No offense, Anna, but if it takes you as long to get used to cooking on the new stove as it did to get used to the fireplace, I'd just as soon eat at Katrene's. Do you mind?”

  Anna almost giggled out loud. Here all this time she'd thought her brother had forgotten how to be a little con man, but James was a genius at it!

  “No, I don't mind. There'll be other meals at home.”

  “I don't think Katrene will mind either, and I sure do like her cooking.”

  To herself, Anna thought, all right, brother, enough is enough!

  “I'd like to go as soon as possible, Karl, but first I need to talk to you. I thought maybe you'd come down to the pond with me. I want to clean up before I go, anyway.”

  “I was not planning on going down to the pond. Could we talk here?”

  “I . . . I wanted to sort of . . . you know, talk man to man.”

  Bravo! thought Anna.

  “Well . . . well, sure.” Karl looked hesitantly at Anna.

  At the look Karl gave her, Anna encouraged, “Listen, you two go. The water is too much for me now. I don't think I could stand getting into it when it's that cold. I'll stay here and play with my new toy,” she said, indicating the stove.

  Karl could only go along with the boy's request. “Get your clean things, James. We'll go now and you can get to their place before supper, like you want.”

  James climbed the ladder to the loft where his articles were neatly laid out, next to his own rope bed with its new tick of cornhusks.

  Downstairs, Karl turned his eyes again to Anna. “I wish you would come with us today, but I think the boy has something on his mind.”

  He's not the only one, Karl, thought Anna, before she said, “It's his first time going to call on a girl. He's probably nervous and the swim will calm him down a bit. You remember your first time, Karl.”

  There was something different about Anna today. Something almost provocative as she laid that seemingly innocent reminder on her husband. She merely continued doing little things around the stove while she said it, but at her words Karl certainly did remember his first time, quite vividly. His first time with Anna. The incredible wonder of his first time with Anna.

 
“Ya, I remember,” he said. “I was plenty nervous.”

  “Tell him that then, Karl, so he'll know he's not the only one to feel that way,” Anna said.

  At last she looked at him. Was it a challenge in her eye now? The words were spoken in simplicity, but what ulterior meaning was behind them? She was talking about herself and her first time with him, Karl was sure of it. She had kindling in her hands, a look of utter artlessness upon her face. With all this talk, that fire had never been built. That first fire in the stove had never been built.

  “I will build the fire before we go,” Karl said, breaking the invisible grip that had him clutched by his windpipe. He reached out, and she placed the pieces of kindling in his hand. He turned to build the fire in the stove which he had brought home for his Anna, thinking to her, I will build my fire always for you, Anna. What a fool I have been to keep it banked for so long.

  James came clattering down the ladder and crossed to Anna. He put an arm loosely around her shoulders, casually, in a grown-up brotherly way.

  “So, you have your stove at last. I just hope it does the trick.”

  Anna thought, don't you worry, baby brother, it will. I'm sure of it!

  When the fire was going strong, the two left the cabin. Karl had carefully refrained from eyeing his wife too much in the presence of the boy. Things had suddenly kindled in himself, things that he was sure would show if he wasn't careful.

  She watched them walk across the clearing. When they reached the far side, Anna called, “Karl?”

  He turned to see her standing in the open cabin door with a hand shading her eyes.

  “Ya, Anna?”

  “Would you take a little water with you and water my hop bines as you pass them in the woods?”

  He raised his hand—a silent salute of consent—and went to the spring for a pail. Anna knew that the hop bines had already taken root out there in the woods.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Anna sprang into action the minute their backs disappeared up the trail to the pond. Her stomach hurt with the old familiar ache of unsureness. Every nerve in her body, every muscle, every fiber wanted this to work. All she could think about was pleasing Karl. How much time did she have? Enough to wait for the water to warm on the stove?