“Warm showers can wait. The cow and chickens come first. Milk, eggs, and meat, Niclas. We all have to be strong enough to work. I’ll start laying out a vegetable garden tomorrow.”
Papa and Mama took the bedroom. Baby Rikka in her crib and Hildemara, Bernie, and Clotilde on cots slept in the living room. Hildemara lay curled up as content as a cat in front of the fire, even with rain pattering against the roof and windows.
Mama came out of the bedroom just as dawn lightened the horizon. She swung her shawl around her shoulders and went out the back door, heading for the outhouse. Papa came out a few minutes later, pulling up his suspenders. He took his coat from the hook and went outside. Hildemara heard Mama and Papa talking outside the back door. Mama came back inside alone, bringing a rush of cold winter air with her. She started the fire in the stove and pumped water into the coffeepot. She opened the potbelly stove and stoked the fire.
“I know you’re awake, Hildemara. Get dressed, fold up your cot, and put it on the front porch.” Mama shook Bernie awake.
“Where’s Papa?”
“Working.”
And they would be, too, when Papa finished building the henhouse and hutches for the rabbits Mama wanted to buy.
It was a long, cold, two-mile walk to school, and it rained most of January. Bernie didn’t care that his pant legs were caked with mud, but Hildie stood in line with her classmates, mortified and waiting for Miss Hinkle, the new teacher, to say something about her mud-soaked shoes and socks and the dirty hem of her coat and dress.
“I hear you have a new home, Hildemara.”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s on Hopper Road.”
“Congratulations! That’s a long way to walk in the rain. Take off your shoes and socks and put them by the heater.” A few, like Elizabeth Kenney, had nice clean shoes beneath pairs of nice yellow galoshes they lined up by the door. Relieved, Hildemara saw she wasn’t the only student who had shoes and socks to dry.
It was still raining when school let out. Hildemara felt damp to the skin despite the rain slicker and hat she’d kept pulled down over her head. Mama shook her head when they came in. “You look like drowned rats.”
Hildemara sat silent through dinner, too tired to eat. Mama leaned over and put her hand against Hildie’s forehead. “Finish what’s on your plate and set up your cot. You’re going to bed right after dinner.” Mama scooped more potato and leek soup for Papa. “We need a table and chairs.”
“We can’t afford furniture.”
“You’re an engineer. You can figure out how to build a table and chairs and a bedframe. I already ordered a mattress from a catalog at Hardesty’s General Store, and a sofa and two chairs.”
Papa stared at her. “Anything else?”
“Two reading lamps.”
Papa paled. “How much did all that cost?”
“The floor is clean, Niclas, but I’d rather eat at a table. Wouldn’t you? It would be nice to have a comfortable place to sit and read in the evenings after a long, hard day of working in the vineyard and orchard.” She cut off a piece of freshly baked bread. Slathering it with apricot jam, she held it out as though making a peace offering. “It isn’t enough to just live inside a box with a woodstove.”
Papa took the proffered bread offering. “Seems to me a lot of money is going out and nothing coming in.”
Mama looked at him for a tense moment, mouth tight, but she didn’t say another word.
For some reason, winter always made Mama pensive and quick to anger. Sometimes she would sit and stare into space. Papa would sit beside her and try to draw her into conversation, but she would shake her head and refuse to talk, other than to say January brought back memories she would rather forget.
Hildemara’s birthday was in January. Sometimes Mama forgot that, too. But Papa would remind her, and she would go through the motions of celebrating. Long, cloudy days made Mama go quiet and cold like the weather.
A month after they moved onto the property, Papa mounted a big brass bell next to the back door. When Clotilde reached up to pull the cord, Mama slapped her hand and told her to listen to Papa. “This is for emergencies only,” Papa told them in a grim voice. “It is not a toy. You ring it only if someone is hurt or the house is on fire. When I hear it, I’ll come running. But if I come and find someone rang a false alarm, they’ll have a very sore bottom.” He pinched Clotilde lightly on the nose and looked from Bernie to Hildemara. “Versteht ihr das?”
“Ja, Papa.”
Hildemara lay in bed that night imagining all the terrible things that might happen. What if the potbelly stove caught on fire? What if Clotilde tried to put coal in and fell in headfirst? Hildemara smelled smoke. She saw flames coming out the windows and licking up the outside of the house. Crying out, she ran around the outside of the house. She tried to reach the bell cord, but it was too high. She jumped, but still couldn’t reach it. She could hear Mama and Clotilde and Rikki screaming.
Mama shook her awake. “Hildemara!” She put her cool hand on Hildemara’s forehead. “Just a dream.” Pulling her shawl around her shoulders more tightly, she sat on the floor. “You were crying again. What were you dreaming this time?”
Hildemara remembered, but didn’t want to say. What if speaking it aloud made it come true?
Mama stroked her hair and sighed. “What am I going to do about you, Hildemara Rose? What am I going to do?” Standing, she leaned down and brushed a light kiss against Hildie’s forehead. Pulling the blanket up, she tucked it in firmly around Hildie. “Pray God gives you better dreams.” She crossed the room and quietly closed the bedroom door behind her.
Papa hired four men to help him prune the almond trees and make burn piles in the alleyways between the rows. Then they went to work pulling up old posts and putting in new ones on which they strung wire. They pruned the vines and tied the healthy shoots, wrapping them so they wouldn’t freeze.
While Papa and Italian day laborers worked on the orchard and vineyard, Mama worked on the house. Every room got a fresh coat of yellow paint. The windows had flowered chintz curtains. The mattress, sofa, chairs, and standing lamps arrived. Her trunk became a coffee table. Papa built the bedframe. When he said he was too busy to make a table and chairs, Mama walked to town and ordered them from Hardesty’s catalog.
Papa put his head in his hands when she told him. She put her hand on his shoulder. “It cost less than if you’d bought the materials and built them yourself.” He got up and left the house.
Mama didn’t have much to say for the next few days. Neither did Papa.
“We should build a big porch bedroom along the back,” Mama said over dinner.
“We’re not spending another dime. It’s going to be months before this place produces anything but weeds, and we have to pay taxes.”
Not even Bernie talked after that.
Hildemara could hear Mama and Papa talking in low, intense voices behind the closed bedroom door. “Well, what did you expect? It would be easier having your own place?” Papa’s voice stayed low, indistinct.
The next evening, Mama turned their world upside down. After grace, she scooped meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and carrots onto a plate and gave it to Bernie to pass to Papa. When everyone was served, she prepared her own plate. “I have a job at Herkner’s Bakery. I start tomorrow morning.”
Papa sputtered. Coughing, he put down his knife and fork and took a gulp of water. “A job!” He coughed again. “What are you talking about? A job!”
“We can talk about it later.” Mama cut up meat loaf for Rikka.
Papa glowered at her through dinner. Mama cleared dishes and told Hildemara to keep out from underfoot. “Go and sit with Papa. He’ll want to read to you.” Papa always read the Bible after dinner. Tonight, he told them all to go to bed. Hildie watched and listened silently from her cot.