RR05 - Tender Mercies by Lauraine Snelling

Manda said.
    “Teacher said we could go outside or eat inside, whichever we wanted. What would you like?” Deborah tucked her hand in Mary Martha’s.
    What would she like? She’d first like to strangle Pastor John Solberg, and then she’d like to go home and take a three-week nap, that’s what . Instead, she smiled and brushed a strand of hair back from Deborah’s cheek. “Outside would be wonderful.”
    One good thing , she thought on the drive home that afternoon, I’m learning Norwegian about as fast as they are getting the English . The other thing, Solberg had invited her back. He had thanked her for coming, and Ingrid had almost smiled. That last was what made her determined to keep going. That and Anna Helmsrude. If I sewed her a new dress, could I give it to her somehow without causing a fracas? Guess I need to talk with Ingeborg .
    That evening she and Katy finished up the dishes and took their handwork into the parlor, where Zeb sat reading the Grand Forks Herald newspaper in the lamplight. When they were settled, Mary Martha asked, “So then, what do you think I should teach them next?”
    “Go on with what you started and add names for the subjects in school. Then teach them simple things like ‘go outside,’ ‘come inside,’ ‘sit down,’ ‘stand’—you know, the commands Pastor Solberg uses all the time. ‘Open your books,’ ‘put your things away,’ and everyone’s favorite.”
    “What’s that?”
    “ ‘Class dismissed.’ ”
    “I always liked that one best.” Zeb joined the conversation.
    “Why don’t you read to us?” Katy smiled at her husband. She turned back to Mary Martha sitting beside her on the settee. “While I speak English pretty good now, I can’t read it much.”
    A snort from her husband made her flap her hand at him.
    When Mary Martha caught the look the two exchanged, she felt a lump in her throat. What would it feel like to have someone love her like Zeb so obviously loved Katy?
    Zeb began reading, and Mary Martha listened while she hemmed the dress she’d been sewing for Deborah. She’d finished the one she made for Manda before school started. He read about the new elevator being built and the Lutheran church having a harvest festival. There was a renewed push for support of the Farmer’s Alliance organization, asking all the farmers to join so that their voices could be heard before the Territorial Assembly. Walter Muir, one of the leaders of the Farmer’s Alliance, had written an impassioned editorial, more like a diatribe, against the railroad, the elevators, and the flour-milling consortium for their efforts to gouge the farmers.
    “Those buzzards,” Zeb muttered after reading an editorial about the statehood party and their push for one state, with the capital located in Pierre.
    “So what is wrong with that?” Mary Martha knotted her thread and clipped the end. “There now, Deborah can wear that tomorrow.”
    “It would make the state too large to govern efficiently,” Zeb answered, “besides which, we in the north just think different from those in the south. They can’t grow wheat like we do here in the Red River Valley.”
    “Just so they let women have the vote,” Katy said, changing the subject.
    “Katy, that is nothing but a dream, and not a good one at that. Women don’t need to vote. That’s what their husbands are for.”
    “And what about women who don’t have husbands?” Mary Martha raised an eyebrow. “Who do they have to speak for them? Besides, it isn’t just about the vote. Women should be able to purchase land in their own name and dispose of their own property.”
    “They can do that now. Look at Ingeborg and Kaaren.”
    “Yes, but there’s also Manda and Deborah. That still isn’t settled, and you know . . .” Katy looked up from her needlework.
    Zeb held up a hand. “How about if I just read this, and we not get into a war over it?” He folded the paper and set it on the round table near his chair.