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THROUGH THE REMAINDER of the summer and into harvest, Jan, Søren, Ernst, and Frank met weekly. Mostly they read a chapter of Scripture and then Jan invited questions and discussion.
Heidi was beside herself with delight knowing she would see her grandsons on a weekly basis. Before long, Ernst and Frank were regulars at their dinner table on Wednesday evenings.
The commitment to meet weekly—especially during the harvest—was not an easy one, but it was a price Jan paid willingly. Søren, with no little awe, watched as his father drew Ernst and Frank into the fiber of their family.
As fall came on and time was a little more relaxed, Jan occasionally rode over to visit the two brothers by himself. Søren imagined he understood the once or twice when Jan returned heavy-hearted and closemouthed. Søren had witnessed Adolphe’s treatment of his stepsons and could only imagine the painful things Ernst and Frank shared as they unburdened their hearts to his father, so Søren understood when Jan declined to discuss those visits.
Lord, Søren prayed, please give my Pappa the ear that can hear and the words that can heal.
The small church that met in Norvald’s barn was surprised to see Ernst and Frank one frosty Sunday morning. Jan clapped both of them around their shoulders and introduced them to members who had not attended the German church.
Ivan sidled up to Søren. “What’s this I hear? You and Ernst and Frank have Bible study with your father each week? Why have you not told me?”
Søren shrugged and grinned. “If you ask my father nicely, he may let you come.”
The following Wednesday Ivan and another young Swedish man showed up. The study and discussion were lively and warm, the best Søren could recall.
“Pappa, this is a good thing, our study night. Can we open it to others?” he asked before the gathering disbanded that evening.
Jan looked around. “I think it is up to us, ja? I will only say that it should be for young men. This is the vision the Lord spoke to me that we might grow up into men together, ja?”
The others nodded their heads in vigorous agreement.
“Gud. Then we are agreed.”
—
BY THE TIME WINTER was spent, the group of young men had grown to nine. They had missed a few meetings when storms came through, but the study and fellowship was growing in importance to them all.
“You have changed, Jan,” Amalie observed again one evening, but she was smiling. Heidi was smiling, too.
Jan chuckled. “So. A gud change this time, eh?”
“Yes. Very good,” Amalie laughed, something that was becoming more common.
“And you, too, Søster, eh?” Jan studied Amalie—the woman who had been nearly conquered by the hardships of their first months on the prairie and who had withstood the crushing loss of her husband. “You have changed, too.”
Jan and Amalie smiled at each other, the bittersweet and knowing smile of those who have fought a battle and survived together.
—
ANOTHER SPRING AND summer passed. The Thoresens gathered in good harvests and Jan was able to put money in the bank.
We have been in America ten years now, he mused. And Elli, Kristen, and Karl have been gone four years.
He was surprised that the pain that had accompanied such thoughts for so long did not stab quite as deeply as it had in the past.
—
AND THEN ANOTHER BUSY year passed. Thank you, Lord, for your faithfulness, Jan prayed. And thank you for the contentment and joy I have found again!
The young men’s study had become a community affair. Some evenings fifteen young men crowded into the Thoresen living room. Many of them were bachelors who had struck out on their own and who had no family in the community. On those nights, the house resounded with good-natured ribbing, much laughter, earnest conversation, and heartfelt prayer.
“Be a father to the fatherless,” Jan remembered on such a night. Never, Lord, did I expect to render such a service to you. How I thank you!
—
HEIDI SURPRISED JAN and Amalie one evening by asking Søren to help her say something to them. “You are both as dear to me as my own children,” she began, and she clutched Jan’s hand in hers. “For what you have done for my Dieter’s sons, I can never, never thank you.”
Amalie paled and looked to Jan.
“But?” he asked softly, his eyes watching Heidi’s face.
“Ja, but,” she whispered. “But I have been praying and I feel the Lord has spoken to me. It is time I go back home. Neither one of my grandsons has yet found a wife, and they need me.”
Amalie shook her head and wept.
“Nein, nein, Liebschen,” Heidi murmured patting her hand and shoulder. “There’s no need to cry. We will see each other at church each week . . . and every Wednesday, if you will allow me to come with Ernst and Frank when the men have their Bible study?”
“Of course,” Amalie cried. “Whenever you wish. You will always be welcome here.”
As she sobbed into her apron, Jan looked a question at Heidi.
“Jan, my dear son in the Lord, there will be no questions of propriety when I leave,” Heidi answered through Søren. “The lives you and Amalie live are open books to our community.”
“Still, I will stay in the barn, I think,” Jan answered. “I am quite comfortable there and . . . and I never wish to give any reason for gossip or suspicion. Søren, perhaps you would like the downstairs bedroom when Heidi leaves?”
Jan had no idea where that suggestion had come from, but Søren grasped it eagerly. “I would. Thank you, Pappa.”
“Ja, maybe you will be bringing a wife home someday soon, eh?” Heidi asked, a tease lighting her eyes.
Søren blushed scarlet at the suggestion, but he also couldn’t hold back a grin.
—
1878
JAN! SØREN! PLEASE help!” Abigael’s desperate cries reached across the creek and to the fields where Jan and Søren were working. They dropped what they were doing and ran down the slope, splashed across the creek, and up the other side. Abigael, seeing them coming, ran back toward their tiny barn.
Then Jan and Søren could hear Henrik’s screams. Jan shuddered. No man would shriek like that unless in unbearable pain. Søren looked at his father, his face white with apprehension.
Just outside the small barn’s door they saw Henrik’s ox thrashing on the ground. Henrik was pinned beneath the massive beast. The traces of the plow were tangled about its feet; the sharp edge of the plowshare was digging into the ox’s legs. The more the ox thrashed, the deeper the sharp edge cut.
Henrik and Abigael’s boys had hold of their father’s arms but could not budge him. Each time the ox thrashed, trying to free itself from the plow, Henrik’s cries of pain pierced the air.
Jan moved around the deadly hooves until he was near the ox’s head. The wild look in the animal’s eyes increased when it saw Jan. Jan, speaking softly, reached out a hand and placed it on the ox’s head, careful of the animal’s horns. He stared the animal in the eyes and rubbed its knobby head.
While he tried to calm the ox, he reached around to the back of his trousers and pulled a sheathed knife from his waistband. Søren knew immediately his father needed him to cut the traces.
As the exhausted ox settled, Henrik’s screams died to heartrending groans. Finally, Søren had cut the traces and was able to pull the plow away from the ox.
The ox struggled to his feet, eliciting fresh shrieks from Henrik. Jan slipped a rope through the ox’s nose ring and led him to Henrik’s corral.
When Jan returned to his friend’s side, Abigael, desperate and scared, was trying to assess Henrik’s injuries. The man lay panting in the dirt, his face gray, his body motionless. A small dribble of blood hung on the corner of his mouth.
Ah, Lord, Jan prayed. Help us in this great need.
Abigael encouraged Henrik to climb to his feet, but Jan put a hand on her arm. “Nei, Abigael.” Jan could tell that something inside Henrik was broken. “Søren and I will carry him, ja?”
Henrik’s two boys, now thirteen and eleven years of age, showed Jan their scrap lumber. Jan and Søren cobbled some boards together into a makeshift stretcher. He and Søren lifted Henrik onto the stretcher with as much care as they could. Jan took pains with Henrik’s left arm; he could tell by the bulge under the skin that it was broken. They carried him into the one-room house and laid him on the bed.
“Oh, Henrik!” Abigael moaned. “Where are you hurt?”
Henrik looked for and found Jan’s eyes. “Send her outside,” he mouthed.
Jan nodded. “Abigael, please take the boys outside and calm them. I will talk with Henrik, ja?”
Abigael looked at Jan and then at her husband. Jan knew that she saw through his request. Her shoulders slumped, but without another word she ushered her sons outside.
“Jan,” Henrik groaned through gritted teeth, “I am done for.”
Jan shook his head vehemently. “Nei, it is not your decision, friend. We will let God decide that, ja? Now tell me where it hurts.”
“First fetch me a rag. There is blood in my mouth.”
Jan found Abigael’s rag bag and wiped the blood from inside Henrik’s mouth. Henrik coughed and Jan wiped more away.
“Now tell me,” Jan repeated.
Henrik stared at Jan. “My arm and my chest hurt. I think my arm is broken. Perhaps my ribs also.”
“Ja, I can see that.” Jan gingerly felt along Henrik’s left forearm where the break was. “We will send for Fraulein Engel, eh? She knows how to set broken bones.”
Henrik was quiet and avoided Jan’s eyes. “You are not telling all. What are you not saying, Henrik?”
Henrik continued to avoid looking at Jan. Jan sat beside him and wiped more blood from the corner of his mouth. And waited.
When Henrik at last spoke, his words pierced Jan’s heart. “When the ox fell on me, I felt something break in my back. At first it hurt. Now I cannot feel my legs.”
Jan blinked. He reached over and touched Henrik’s left foot. “Do you feel that?”
“No.”
Jan touched his other foot. “And that?”
“I feel nothing.”
“Try to move your foot, Henrik.”
“I have been trying since you and Søren freed me from the ox,” Henrik whispered.
Jan covered his eyes with his hand. Ah, Lord!
—
FRAULEIN ENGEL CAME and tended to Henrik’s injuries as best she could. She set his arm and with a grave expression nodded when Søren translated Henrik’s fears to her.
“You know what this means?” she asked Henrik softly.
Henrik looked away and nodded.
When she had done what she could, she called Abigael and asked her to sit next to Henrik. Seating herself, Fraulein Engel took Abigael’s hand. Jan and Søren stood nearby so that Søren could tell Abigael and Henrik what Fraulein Engel was saying.
“Abigael,” she began gently, “Henrik is injured inside. His back is likely broken. He cannot move his lower body.”
Abigael’s eyes skittered from Fraulein Engel to her husband and back. “What does that mean?”
Fraulein Engel squeezed Abigael’s hand and recaptured her attention. “He will not leave this bed, dear sister. I know you will care for him as long as is needed.” That was all Fraulein Engel said, but the sympathy in her eyes told Abigael everything.
That had been more than a week ago. Henrik had not improved.
Jan and Søren helped Henrik and Abigael’s sons with the work. Jan encouraged and prayed with the two boys who, in the span of a day, were required to shoulder all their father’s responsibilities.
Jan stared toward the Andersons’ farm. Henrik would not see another spring, perhaps not even another month. The signs were certain. Then what would Abigael do?
Lord, please strengthen Abigael and Henrik for what is ahead.
—
IN FEBRUARY THEY BURIED Henrik. At Abigael’s request they laid him to rest within the Thoresens’ cemetery.
“My sons do not wish to give up their father’s land,” Abigael told Amalie and Jan. “But Henrik told me before he died that they are too young for us to hold out here. I can already see that—but my sons do not see it . . . yet.”
She looked from the graves toward their house. “I do not want them to give up their schooling forever either. In a year, I think, we will return to our families, mine and Henrik’s, in Illinois. It would break my heart to leave Henrik buried on land that will someday belong to others.”
Amalie put her arm around Abigael and wept with her. “It is good that you bury him here with our loved ones. We will tend his grave for you when you leave.”
~~**~~
