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I THINK WE WILL BE fine camping out this way while we build the barn,” Karl said to Jan as they surveyed the proposed outline of their barn. “Many settlers traveling west sleep under their wagons the entire journey. What do you think?”
The men had chosen the site for the barn and were determined to begin work on it as soon as they had plowed up the garden area. They planned to take the empty wagon down the creek to the river, a journey of several hours, and bring back a load of large river rock to begin the barn’s foundation as soon as the garden was plowed.
“Sure. We might have some rain, eh?” Jan replied, focused on the plans for the barn. “But we had some rain as we were coming from the train. It was not bad.”
Karl clapped Jan on his back. “So. We must work hard to build the barn and put in a crop. We don’t have any extra time. It is summer, and we will be fine under the tent and wagons for now.”
Jan and Søren unpacked the field tools and stood them upright against the lumber. “Søren,” Jan said, “You will clean the tools when they are used and wipe them dry, ja? See this oilcloth and rope? After you clean the tools each day, you will cover them to keep the rain off them. When we have a barn, we will always hang the cleaned tools in a dry place.”
“Yes, Pappa,” Søren answered. “Just like at home!”
“This is our home now, eh?” Jan smiled. “It will just take some time and work to make it feel like home.”
Karl yoked and hitched a pair of oxen to the sod cutter while Jan watched to see how the new tool would work. Karl shouted to the oxen to pull. After a few feet he frowned. He realized he could not get the cutter to “bite.” He gestured to Jan.
“Stand on the cutter, will you?” he asked, pointing. “It is not heavy enough to dig into the sod.”
The cutter was a flat, sled-like frame with a wide blade on the underside of the tool. Jan stepped atop the cutter in front of Karl. Karl called to the oxen and the beasts strained; the cutter dug down into the grass.
After Karl had cut a swath of about twelve feet, Jan dropped back to check the results. Søren was already lifting up a sod block.
“It is so heavy, Pappa!” Søren exclaimed. Jan agreed. They were both amazed at the weight of the sod blocks still damp from the rain.
Karl called to them. “So? What are you looking at?”
“Come see,” Jan pointed.
Karl left the oxen standing in the garden and bent over to look. He lifted one of the blocks. “Very thick, these grass roots! We should thank Herr Rehnquist for selling us a sod cutter,” Karl muttered.
Jan nodded. “Heavy, too. Søren and I should hitch the wagon to carry them.”
Progress was slow. By late morning Karl had cut the swathes of sod for the garden. Jan and Søren had removed about half of them, stacked them onto the wagon, hauled them away, and taken them off the wagon.
“I will clean and oil the cutter and then help you finish removing the sod,” Karl told them. “After that I will plow the garden for the women.” He wiped his face with a sleeve. “I see now why it is so hard to plant this ground the first time. It is good, rich soil, but a man must work hard to get to it!”
He looked up at the sky. “I think by the time we finish, it will be too late to go to the river for rock today. And I do not like the looks of the horizon.
Jan and Søren looked where Karl was gazing. Dark, heavy clouds were building to the west. Just then Amalie called them to their midday meal.
“We will have your garden plowed soon,” Karl told the women as they ate. “But it is too late for us to go to the river today. We will go first thing in the morning.”
“Ja, we had thought to be planting it by now,” Amalie replied. “But we can see how hard it was to cut out the grass! We will plant it this afternoon when you are done.”
Karl plowed the quarter-acre garden three times, first one way, then across, and again the first way. Jan and Søren walked behind the plow breaking up clods and tossing out rocks. Kristen and Sigrün piled the rocks on the edge of the garden.
Karl unhitched the oxen and Jan and Søren led the team away with the other oxen and the cow to the slough to drink. Karl lifted the plow onto his shoulder and carried it to where the other tools rested against the lumber. He wiped it clean, covered it with oilcloth, and tied the cloth with a piece of rope.
He glanced at the sky again and his brows drew together. “Amalie! I think it will rain soon. Let us make sure everything is covered up, ja?”
The women and girls retrieved drying laundry and made sure the families’ food supplies in the wagons were safely under canvas and tied down. Karl checked the chicken coop and pigpen. The pens for the chicks and pigs provided some shelter from the rain; it was the oxen and the cow he was concerned for now. He went to find Jan and Søren and hurry them along.
“Eh! There is a storm coming, I am sure. I think we should tie the oxen together,” Karl told Jan as they brought the animals back from the slough. “We don’t know how they will act if there is thunder.”
“The cow, too,” Jan agreed. “Molly we can tie to the empty wagon, but not the oxen. If they panic, they might tear it apart. I will drive some stakes into the ground and run a rope between them. We can tie the oxen to the rope. If they break free, they are still hobbled and tied together. Surely they will not go far.”
“You know,” Karl said slowly. “We could have built two walls of a sod pen today with the sod we cut. I think we should do that tomorrow. We must give our animals some protection from storms while we are building a barn.”
The women were heating a stew for supper when the first rolls of thunder reached their ears. White arrows of lightning streaked the sky to the west, and the clouds were certainly closer, heading their way.
“We won’t have time to bake biscuits,” Elli noted, watching the storm march toward them. “I will get out a loaf of bread instead.”
A gust of wind, a precursor to the storm, caught the tenting over their table and lifted it for a long moment. Amalie and Elli looked at each other.
“What if the wind tears away the canvas?” Amalie asked, her voice trembling.
“Then we will get wet,” Elli replied shrugging.
Lightning sizzled not far away. The women felt the static in the air. Thunder answered immediately and the air freshened. Rain was near. They could see it sheeting from the clouds to the ground, still hundreds of feet away, but closing quickly on the Andersons—and then them.
At the thunder, the oxen began to panic, their bellows loud and frantic, their eyes huge and wild. Molly pulled at her rope then lowered herself to the ground and cowered there, partially under the wagon.
“Children! Come!” Amalie called. She grabbed up the pot of stew while Elli banked the fire. The children were already huddled at the table when the women ducked underneath the tent. The men were right behind.
Thunder split the air. Kristen and Sigrün screamed, and each climbed into her mother’s lap. Søren gripped Elli’s arm until she winced.
As the wind howled and screeched, thunder crashed over them—so loud they could not hear each other. The tent canvas jumped and fell. For several minutes they sat, still and waiting, yet the storm did not abate. Rather, it increased.
The wind grabbed the canvas, whipping it up and down, up and down. Jan and Karl reached for the outside edges of the tent and held on, but they could feel the canvas being ripped from their hands.
Jan shouted to Karl. “Get our families under the wagons! Let us take the canvas down and wrap ourselves in it before it is torn away!”
Karl, his booming baritone barely heard over the storm, commanded, “Amalie! Take Sigrün! Under the wagon! Hurry!”
Elli, not waiting to be told, grabbed up Kristen and rolled under their wagon. Søren scooted in, and Elli opened her arms to him. She could see Amalie under the opposite wagon, her mouth open, her face white with terror.
Jan ran to the outside of one of the wagons and untied the ropes holding one of the tarpaulins forming their tent. Karl untied his side, wrestled with the flapping canvas, and pulled it in, shoving it at Elli. “Grab this! Hold it tight!”
As Jan loosed the second canvas, Karl dragged it to the ground. The table and benches were now uncovered, the pot of stew left sitting alone. Karl crawled under their wagon, clutching the canvas, trying to spread it over Amalie and Sigrün.
Just before Jan dove for cover, he stared into the heart of the storm . . . at something he had never seen before. A narrow funnel dropped from the clouds to the ground. It skipped and jumped, backed and skittered sideways. And then the clouds sucked the funnel up and it was gone.
Jan stared. What was that? Another crash of thunder jolted him, and the funnel—wider, fully formed, and whirling—dropped from the sky not far from them.
Jan’s mouth opened in astonishment and fear. Then he leapt for cover under their wagon.
Lightning burned their closed eyes and thunder cracked over their heads. And then the clouds burst, and water poured from an angry sky. It beat the wagons and the ground. Blasts of wind whipped the torrent sideways. The deluge streamed under them, drenching everything it touched.
The rain pelting the wagons hardened and became even louder. Something heavy struck Jan’s head. He pulled back the canvas and found a rock made of ice—perhaps a quarter the size of his fist—lying near him.
Hail pounded the wagons, terrifying in its fury. Over the shrieks of the storm Elli and Jan heard something else—Amalie, screaming in terror: “Nei! Nei! Make it stop! Karl, make it stop!”
Jan held Elli as tightly as he could, Kristen and Søren sandwiched between them. He drew the canvas over all of them, pulled it in as tight as he could, and prayed for morning.
~~**~~
