“And see what it cost her?” He pulled on a grass stem and chewed on it. In the distance we heard the train chugging. “I’ll keep your secret,” he said. “And you need to keep mine. They’d think me a traitor if I said good riddance, let the farm go. But that’s how I feel. At least today.” He smiled.
“We’ll keep our secrets,” I said. I hugged him and whispered, “I’ll miss you most of all.” I thought it was the truth.
The routine of Blair College and the presence of the two women filled my life in ways I’d never known. Days I spent in classes; evenings I assisted with laundry, the heavier work, as both Olea and Louise were in their fifties (or so I guessed) and were pleased by my strong arms and back. Then I studied while Louise plied me with cookies and cakes. On Saturdays, Olea introduced me to their ledgers. I took her training seriously and saw it as the path that would help me move on to full independence, having a business of my own.
The women were frugal and careful managers. I found the bookkeeping well in hand and thought they used it more as an excuse for my learning than because they truly needed an employee. The only real office work I thought they lacked was a secretary to write the letters Olea dictated. I liked the secretarial part, learning how to phrase words. Their correspondence went to places like Romania and France, Italy and Greece, to London and Oslo. Over supper they often told stories of their trips there and of their lives in Norway before New York.
“We were schoolgirl friends in Christiania as well as cousins,” Louise told me one day. “Olea was always smarter and faster than I.”
“And Louise attracted every lost soul in the city,” Olea said, “from children to cats.”
“We complement each other,” Louise said as I served chicken and dumplings for supper. Louise cooked, but I insisted on serving. At first, I also declined to sit with them at their table.
“I’m a servant,” I insisted. “It wouldn’t be right to assume I was your equal, eating with you side by side as though we were family.”
I stood while Louise spoke grace before the meals. She offered not the childhood prayers I’d learned in Norwegian, but original words each day, asking for guidance, talking about the day’s events. After grace, I sat in the kitchen alone to pick at my food. When they were finished and the table cleared, they’d drink their coffees and I’d join them then.
“You treat food like life,” Louise commented once. “Like you don’t deserve a full plate shared with friends.”
I didn’t think that was so, but I had no response to her either.
Olea often explored theological questions during the coffee time, posing thoughts like whether one ought to worship Jesus as a signpost or by following His direction. “If you see the sign saying ‘Seventy Miles to Coulee City,’ you don’t stay there saying, ‘Yes, this is what matters. I will worship the sign.’ No, you follow the directions; you follow Him. That’s true worship, by doing what He asks of us.”
“Would Jesus want to go to Coulee City?” Louise said.
“He might,” said Olea. They laughed and I joined them. Coulee City was a little town an hour’s train ride west that had as many rabbits as people.
Once or twice the conversation turned to lost loves, men who had come into the women’s lives and then departed. Olea had watched her future husband go off to the North Sea fishing and not return. Louise’s love interest had married another.
“My only attraction was to the son of my employer,” I said. “And my mother made sure by taking me on the walk to New York that I didn’t violate any employer-employee rules.”
“Did you meet any interesting young men on your trip?” Louise asked.
“She’s a romantic,” Olea explained.
“No. No one.”
“Well, one day,” Louise said. “You’re a lovely young woman. A nice man to take care of you will be good.”
“A woman ought to be able to take care of herself. I want to be financially independent one day.” I didn’t want to violate that employee barrier, but I added, “The two of you have done well without a man to take care of you.”
“Yes. That’s true,” Olea said. “But one mustn’t ignore the treasures God provides in companionship. We all need companionship,” she said.
“An independent woman can push men away,” Louise said. “Olea finds that true, don’t you? She can be intimidating if you don’t know her. Smart women have to think of that. And frankly, two independent women living together makes some men only worry they might have to support two women rather than just one.” Her eyes blinked rapidly.
“Then three of us must scare them terribly,” I said before I realized how the words might be interpreted, as though we were a set of three and not the two of them with me, an employee, sipping coffee with them at their pleasure. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest—”
“We know what you meant.” Olea patted my hand. “Since you’ve joined us, we do think of us as three women making our way together. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Olea’s words warmed. Perhaps I could alter the employee-employer relationship in the same way that my mother altered dresses that no longer fit. These women were the sturdy dock I needed as I set sail on an unknown sea.
Through the summer of 1900, they taught me about the fur clothing business. Their agent, Franklin Doré, purchased pelts at auctions, then sent them for tanning and dressing in either Montreal or Europe. After the skins were prepared, they were sent to manufacturers. The best were in France and Italy, Olea insisted. Louise said New York was gaining fast. Finished coats and ermine capes or jackets with skunk-trimmed collars were then shipped to New York on Twenty-eighth Street. In the women’s younger years, they often traveled to Europe, China, Russia, and the leather markets of Turkey and Greece. “But our agent does most of the traveling now. We leased our furrier shop in the city earlier this year, when we came here. But we’re still active in the trade,” Olea said, “taking on specific clients who want certain garments.”
“Trends are important,” Louise said as I rubbed my eyes from the hours of looking over the ledgers as the women explained them. “People are fickle about fashion. Sometimes they want silver fox, and sometimes they ‘simply must have sable.’ ”
“Louise is partial to mink,” Olea said and she smiled.
Louise noticed my impolite yawn, and she picked up the large ledger books I’d been looking at. “That’s enough lessons for one night. It’s your bedtime, Clara. We don’t want to work you to death. It seems to me you do little but study and labor.”
Working me to death. I smiled at that. I occupied my own bed in my own room. My labor brought no ache to my back, wasn’t needed to keep cows from sliding on my instep while I milked. No feathers took me to a fit of sneezing while butchering chickens for a Fourth of July picnic. Once, when I had a sore throat, Louise treated it with mustard packs, as Mama would have. When my foot swelled, Louise put ice chips on it. What these women offered me in comfort was as warm as a winter quilt and as far from working me to death as a turkey feather was from sable.
Their kindness extended to more than just me. They gave contributions to the Lutheran church we attended in Spokane. They supported the Sons of Norway and the Norwegian Independence Day and insisted that I take time off May 17 to celebrate. Louise had a place in her heart for orphans; Olea gave to the carpenters’ trade union, the fund that helped Mama when my stepfather was first hurt. Their generosity to that organization brought me even greater trust in these women.
I didn’t go home for Christmas that year. We had heavy snows. Both Olea and Louise assured me I wasn’t a bad daughter by not risking the possible delays and avoiding the drifts. “One day I might own an automobile,” I told them. “It would make life so much easier.” That holiday I ate Louise’s julekaga with the white frosting swirled this way and that across the top of the heavy bread, attended Christmas Eve services with my two friends, and sent the gifts for my family by post on Thursday, the day after Christmas.
r /> We three exchanged gifts. Louise and Olea gave me a jacket made of a Canada lynx’s spotted belly fur. “It’s very desirable,” Louise told me.
I couldn’t stop running my hands over its softness, its elegance, brown spots against the white fur. “It’s too much,” I said. I’d given them each a set of pillowcases I’d embroidered. They were paltry by comparison. “I only gave you—”
“What you had to give,” Olea corrected me. “As did we, ‘every man according to his ability.’ ”
“From the book of Acts,” Louise said. “About people taking care of each other.”
“I’m sure she knows,” Olea said.
I might have, but I’d forgotten until Louise reminded me.
Queen Victoria’s funeral took place in February. Louise, surprisingly, seemed saddened by this event so far away. “The death of someone famous always makes me think of other deaths,” Louise said. “It always does.”
“I’m not sure it needs to be a famous person’s death,” I said. My mind went to Henry and Bertha and Johnny and when I’d last seen them. I needed to make a trip to their graves. I wondered if those pieces of Mama’s Hardanger lace heart had been buried with them.
“Did you ever meet her?” I asked.
“Oh, goodness no. We’ve met the Roosevelts, and of course there was that terrible loss he had in ’84 with both his mother and wife dying on the same day. So tragic. But that’s as close to fame as I’ve come.”
“I met President McKinley and his wife,” I ventured. I’d not talked of the journey in the months I’d been with them. A twinge of guilt caused me to pause, but there was no reason not to speak of it to these women. Speaking of the story couldn’t hurt Mama from here.
“Yes, and Mary Bryan, I believe. And the governors of Idaho and Ohio,” Louise said. “You met so many people on that trip.”
I frowned. Had all of those names been mentioned in the newspaper accounts, if she’d even read them? And would Louise have remembered that? It was so long ago.
“Louise,” Olea cautioned.
“Did I tell you that when we met on the train?” I asked Olea.
The two women were silent, looked at each other.
“It was in the papers,” Olea said.
“That’s it. I read those names in the papers,” Louise agreed. She blinked rapidly, a habit I’d noticed came paired with some distress.
“But only the Minneapolis papers covered some signatures by name,” I said. Had they been in my room, looking at my packet? Impossible—the packet was still at the farm, hidden behind the flour mill cabinet in the kitchen. “I’m sure of it.”
“That must be where we saw it then, before we left for Spokane,” Louise said. “Would you like a cookie? I baked extra today.” She continued to blink as she handed me the Spode plate piled with sweets.
I took one, but it didn’t answer what discomforted in the conversation.
TWENTY-FIVE
A New Walk
Ida’s letter arrived in March of 1901 saying our parents had received the final statement from the mortgage holder, and the loan had been called in. They either had to pay the full amount or our property would be foreclosed and sold. Mama and Ole planned to auction off as much as they could, hoping to keep the land and start again. I felt a clutch in my chest. After all this time, it was coming to pass. I didn’t know whether to feel great sadness for Mama or to secretly share Olaf’s sentiments about letting go of the cow’s tail.
The auction was set for March 28. The sale of cattle and hogs might produce enough to meet the back taxes, but I couldn’t imagine the family would have money left over to keep the land. Selling cows and horses meant even if Mama and Ole raised the payment, they’d have nothing left to farm with.
“If there is any way you could borrow the money from your rich employers, that would be a small thing you could do for this family after all that’s happened,” Ida wrote. “We only need one thousand dollars.” She didn’t even tell me how everyone was.
Ask my employers for that kind of money? I didn’t see how. Still, if I could pay off the mortgage, perhaps then my stepfather might let Mama at last write about the story, for herself if for no one else. I was sure the sponsors no longer looked for the manuscript. That bridge had been blown apart.
But I didn’t want to jeopardize my relationship with my employers. Though I knew of their investments and bank accounts, I was not free to ask for money I knew they had. That would violate a rule that Blair Business College professors spoke of. “The relationship between employer and employee has barriers that must not be crossed.” I’d almost crossed it that one evening by suggesting we were three women living together like a family.
But I thought of Mama, how she had sacrificed for that farm, how much she’d risked. I had to risk too. I would ask for a loan to save the farm. I would find a way to keep it all strictly business.
“Of course we can talk,” Louise said. We’d been shopping—Louise loved that activity—and I wore new clothes that the women had insisted I let them buy for me, telling me that I represented them now and must look the part of a successful associate furrier. I hung the Canada lynx coat and put away my ermine purse with a large black ring on the zippered handle. Both Louise and Olea removed fur coats. I hung these in the closet, then stoked the wood stove. The women wore long skirts over their Gibson corsets and long-sleeved linen blouses with a dozen pleats down the front that I had personally pressed before putting the irons to my own.
“So what can we do for you?” Olea asked.
“I have a business proposition,” I said. Olea opened the windows, letting in the cold air. Louise shivered, causing Olea to think twice and close it. Louise sat, and the cat that she had recently adopted, Lucy, curled up on her lap. Blue jays argued outside where snow lingered on the lawn. “I’d like to borrow fifteen hundred dollars to repay my parents’ mortgage,” I said. I’d rehearsed a preface to my request, but my heart pounded so that I didn’t remember how to sound professional and confident. I cleared my throat.
“What?” Louise said. “You want to borrow money from us?”
“I’d pay it back to you in monthly payments with interest you deem fair. I’ll be out of school soon. I could get other work, pay you cash each week, and continue to do your books and domestic work to cover my room and board. I’m a hard worker, and my grades at Blair are very good.” I caught my breath.
This isn’t begging; it’s business. For family.
The women glanced at each other, an exchange between relatives that excluded me.
“Do you remember,” Olea said then, “the day Louise happened to mention the signatures of people you’d met on the walk east?” I nodded. “You’ve never talked about that trip much.”
“I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t phrase my question well. I don’t want to talk about the trip. I … hope to borrow funds.”
“On the train, you’d been so happy to discuss the journey with me. You described it as worthy of a college education,” Olea said.
“It was that,” I said softly. “I shouldn’t have mentioned meeting the McKinleys that night. I was prideful.” I dropped my eyes.
“Nonsense, you have a right to talk about your own experiences,” Olea said. “They belong to you.”
“It struck us as odd that it was the very first time you mentioned walking to New York,” Louise said. She stroked the black and white cat with shiny fur. I could hear Lucy purring from across the room. “We thought maybe you disliked the new reform dresses after all. It’s the coming thing in the apparel industry. With the death of Queen Victoria, there’ll be changes. Her son Edward is already wearing a different kind of suit. Deaths of prominent people always bring a fashion change.”
“It wasn’t the dress. Nothing like that. Tragedy … happened. After we got back.”
“The death of your sister,” Louise nodded.
“And my brother,” I said. “Then, after we returned our family, my father—my stepfather took our making t
he trip as an affront to him. He—and my brothers and sisters—blame my mother for not being there when the children got sick. She blames herself too. He forbade my mother ever to speak of the trip again. Any of us. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you all these intimate details. You know we Norwegians aren’t like that. We keep things to ourselves. Or should.”
“The old Norwegian ways aren’t always wise,” Olea said. “It can be healing for the soul to share its stories.”
“I’m not to speak or write about it either. Ever. Ole, he’s not a mean man. It’s. He thought our trip shamed him in our family and in Mica Creek. People acted like we were in quarantine long after the sign came down. We’d violated what they expected of a good mother and decent Norwegian women. Some might have even thought the deaths were punishment for our bringing attention to ourselves so publicly.”
“Nonsense,” Louise said. “That’s not how God does things.”
“Part of the reason why I need the loan,” I said, glad for a path back to the subject, “is that if I could prevent the sale of the farm, maybe my stepfather would allow my mother to speak of the trip again. Maybe she wouldn’t be so sad then, so … listless. She only undertook the trip to save the farm.”
Olea inhaled deeply. She looked at Louise, who nodded her head. “The truth is, Clara,” Olea began, “we know something about your trip and what happened when you reached New York.”
“We didn’t make it on time,” I said. “I sprained my ankle and the sponsors wouldn’t pay. That added to Ole’s upset.”
“We never thought that was fair,” Louise said. “After all, a sprained ankle on a walking trip is certainly predictive of a consequence not unlike food poisoning, and we made an adjustment for that.”
I frowned. Had the newspaper articles covered my food poisoning?
“So we felt we ought to tell you …” Louise looked to Olea. “We were going to in time, but your request gives us the opening.”
“What?” I said. My heart started to pound, and my breath tried to disappear. “What do you have to tell me?”