Too Many Stones

By Rodney Nelsestuen

IndieReader reviewed Too Many Stones and gave it a 5 star rating which says in part: "Rodney Nelsestuen's TOO MANY STONES is an emotionally powerful novel... ...A luminous pastoral novel about how a young teen's sexual awakening and rape drastically change her life and those of everyone close to her... ...TOO MANY STONES stretches from the Great Depression to the Vietnam War, but the challenges it presents are timeless... …sure to encourage deep conversation… …It deserves to be discovered and discussed on many levels." ~Alicia Rudnicki for IndieReader.

Inspired by actual events, Too Many Stones is the story of Evelyn Toraason. It begins in 1930 when Evelyn is a bright eleven-year-old girl with the potential to go far beyond the poor, rural, and beautiful, almost spiritual Wisconsin coulee farm where she lives. The bond between Evelyn and her father, Olav, cannot quite fill the void created by her failing mother who continues to retreat within herself over the years. Evelyn's teacher and mentor, Miss Johnson, sees her potential as the fulfillment of her own lost dreams.

As Evelyn grows into a young woman, she suffers abuse at the hands of Alfred, a second cousin eight years her elder, that forever changes the course of her life. Evelyn's courage sustains her in the face of multiple setbacks and crushing losses.

But even as she rises to these challenges, her own insecurities plague her as she navigates life. And in the end, Evelyn searches for a path to reconciliation, and the means to embrace both success and failure as a life well lived.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798350929218

Rodney Nelsestuen

Rodney Nelsestuen has published more than a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction in a variety of literary journals. In addition, his writing has won or been honored in a number of literary contests. He's frequently served as a judge in several writing contests including the Minnesota Book Awards, the Pacific Northwest Writers' Association, and the national Eric Hoffer Award. He has written professionally on financial services and technology. Rod holds an MFA from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota and has previously taught at The Loft Literary Center, Minneapolis.

Book preview

One

The Coulee, Summer 1930

Just a few miles west of the farm, over the ridge, the storm begins to form. Evelyn, intent on her hike, doesn’t notice the darkening horizon on this pristine Sunday in July. She and her dog wind along the hillsides and the cow paths that cut along three narrow valleys to the east. The coulee ridges rise some two hundred feet above them. Her father said the hand of God had stayed the glaciers, making driftless southwest Wisconsin equal to that giant hand, covering fifteen thousand square miles, their own coulee included.

Streams run from shallow springs trickling up in deeply cut veins. They begin as undefined dampness at the back of each valley’s crease, somehow take form, then start to flow. All these are further carved over a million years of water receding toward the Mississippi gorge and eroded by a half century of grazing cattle.

The dog runs ahead on the cow path, then stops and looks back at her.

What’s wrong, Sport?

He answers by chewing on a tuft of grass.

Oh, not feeling well?

He jumps out of her way as she marches past him on the path, then sprints ahead again. I know. I’ll never outrun you. Evelyn’s laugh is crisp and flashes large teeth beneath a sharp nose framed by high, well-defined cheekbones that angle to a vital chin just now emerging from the undefined roundness of childhood. Her tanned, pulsing complexion makes her teeth seem whiter than they are.

They reach a grove on a knoll where small-leafed ash and birch trees flutter the sun across them as they run beneath the trees, then into occasional clearings where it splashes full. Their bodies light up against a goldenrod patch. The smell of early pollen gives the air a mustard taste and gathers yellow in the corners of Evelyn’s mouth. Then the light and scent flicker again as they run back under the porous canopy.

In a final surge, they step deliberately up the crest of the last long hill. She bends her strong, thick torso, pushing off each knee with large hands as she steps upward. Her face is vibrant in the heat. The hem of her cotton dress sways in time to the motion and her calves ripple against the steepness.

At the top a large oak tree stands alone in front of the forest, pushing out as a sentinel, nearly touching the denser woods from behind. Somehow it has survived a century of fire, drought, insects, disease, lightning, and man. The wide trunk slopes into massive roots extending underground and its angle flattens enough to climb. She lunges for the low limb that juts back toward her and pulls her husky frame into the tree in a single, powerful motion.

The dog wanders off through the undergrowth while she soaks in the summer afternoon looking down the hill into the first valley and then across the coulee. Coulee, she thinks, coulee. Her father told her it was a French word for valley. He’d never thought about it, only learned it was French when he was sent there, a stretcher-bearer in the war. It’s always been the coulee to me, he’d said. Right here with all us Scandinavians. Then he asked her, Why do you think we use that term, Evelyn? She’d shrugged and he’d smiled.

The main creek on the coulee floor, where all the streams empty, shimmers in the sunlight. It travels southward a dozen miles to Nelsenville, where it joins another stream and runs freely past the village’s two hundred inhabitants. Back upstream, it winds into the coulee, bends first this way, then that along the dirt road five miles before dead-ending at a steep concave hillside, half a soup bowl, where farmers coax small grains, hay, and pasture into the sunlight from the south-facing fields. Evelyn smiles and lets the shade of the tree settle its satisfaction onto her.

Back down on the coulee floor, in the house, Evelyn’s mother’s hands begin to shake, and she nearly drops the porcelain doll. It is one of four in the collection, two boys and two girls. She holds the brown-haired girl with the red kerchief-covered head in quaking hands and sets it down, tottering momentarily, next to the pig-tailed blonde. She runs outside looking for her husband and glimpses him out of the corner of her eye sitting at the end of the porch.

Olav, I don’t feel good about letting Evelyn run off like this by herself. What if something happens?

Olav looks up from cleaning the tractor’s spark plugs. What could happen to her out there? She’s been going by herself all summer. Besides, Sport is with her. He sighs.

But I’m worried. She’s only eleven and-and what if it rains?

Look at the sky, Louise. Completely clear. He sets down the spark plug, wipes his hands on the cleaning rag and takes out a cigarette paper.

But-but storms come up so quickly in July. And-and I feel something. Louise shifts from side to side. She struggles to quiet her legs.

Olav sighs again. And getting wet won’t hurt her either. You see how much she likes going for hikes in the coulee. And she needs some time just to do what she wants. Lord knows she doesn’t get much free time with all the chores around here.

Still, well, okay, okay; I’ll just keep watching for her.

Suit yourself. Olav pulls the tobacco tin from under the flap in his shirt pocket and begins rolling a cigarette. Louise looks toward the south and up into the bluff. She sees nothing and goes back into the house.

She sits in the slender chair, rocking back and forth. Her motion becomes increasingly deliberate and faster. Then she moves to the armchair and looks out the parlor window. Her hands begin to shake involuntarily, and she folds them as if in prayer. Finally, she rises and goes back outside. Olav. Olav.

He shakes his head. I know. You’re worried she’ll get lost or hurt or run into something dangerous up there. Louise, she knows every tree for miles around and this isn’t the wild country you think it is. He puts his cigarette out on the porch bench and tosses the butt into the yard.

No, it’s not that. I think it’s going to storm. Really. I can feel it now. You know I’m-I’m right about storms. Tense fingers leave white marks where they’ve pressed on the backs of her folded hands.

The heat at the top of the hill builds in the later afternoon and Evelyn listens to the choir of tree frogs increasing their pace. As the sun lowers on the farthest ridge, an animal materializes well down the hill below her in the mix of light green trees and the beginning brownness of summer prairie grass. She cannot make out what it is and imagines first a ghost, then an angel. Then she sees the neck. The head is low to the ground, and it walks. Sniffing? Eating? Yes, and moving uphill in her direction. Angels don’t graze. She wonders if she should be afraid but cannot imagine malice in its pure white form, so instead studies it until, deer, she says in a whisper. A deer. It has all of the deer parts – legs, narrow head, antlers – but no black nose or hooves and no white tail, or at least not one that is discernible against the albino whiteness of its body.

Evelyn watches, breathless. It raises its head, looks around searching the valley with its nose and ears instead of its weak, pinkish eyes, turns and bounds off. Then she hears a faint bark, then another, louder, another. Her dog emerges from the woods behind her and runs, wagging his tail, to the tree where she is already sliding from her perch. Hi, Sport. Did you see him?

The rumble begins. She almost can’t hear it at first. It grows until a deep tremor crosses the coulee. Evelyn looks at the western horizon and sees the distant multicolored grey sky, layer upon layer of clouds rushing toward her. The nearly white thunderheads now loom over the lip of the distant bluff, followed by light grey wisps blowing beneath the blackening ceiling. A lightning bolt sears the earth in the distance.

We better run, Sport. Her eyes grow large as a sharp wind stabs out of the heavy heat and raises goose bumps on her arms. She and the dog begin the risky downhill–uphill run toward home.

Olav finishes putting the cows in the barn as the draft horses, Duke and Bob, snort and trot off into the valley along the small stream. He has no time to go after them. He closes the upper half of the split door and runs to the house, chased by a dust devil swirling in the space between the buildings, a warning as the thunderheads pass over them. The wind blows cold from the west, then changes direction and blows warm from the south. This is going to be a big one, he says. Evelyn’s two younger brothers appear from behind the toolshed and run toward the house.

What about Evelyn? Louise’s face is twisted, her small forehead knit tightly against dark eyebrows. Her shoulders slouch.

John, Peder, did you see your sister? Olav asks.

Yes, spurts John.

No-I mean not for a while, Peder answers. Lightning flashes: a sharp, painful thunderclap explodes and its aftermath rattles through them.

Where did you see her?

She was heading for the big ridge. You know the one. Peder jumps at the second crack that follows his words.

The one where you can see both the church and the school?

Yes, up where she sits in that big tree. Sport was with her. The wind whips the giant cedars in the front yard. A wave of dust blows through the house in a roar as the now straight-line winds pick up speed. It is dark, dark as night.

Louise, close the windows. And don’t light any lanterns. Boys, stay with your mother, Olav shouts. I’m going to get her. He leaves the house, leaping off the high wooden porch. The wind blows hard, then gusts enough so that he lands awkwardly then regains his balance. Olav runs along the field road for a quarter mile, wades through the large stream, then cuts uphill toward the fence a quarter mile ahead.

He’s not run like this since leaving the army. His smoking feels like a blunt spear piercing his lungs, and he begins to heave, then slows down, afraid he will throw up. Halfway there now. Got to keep going. He turns eastward just as the sky opens and the rain comes in waves across the pasture toward the fence, propelling him at an angle across the hill so that running is nearly effortless.

Stay with me, Sport. Evelyn yells through the roar. The dog returns to her side, long ears blowing wildly around his eyes. She puts her arms around his neck and the ends of her short hair flail about her cheeks. We won’t make it home. We need to find a place where we’ll be safe. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. They run into the open pasture, but decide to reverse course. Can’t use that dry gulch. The birch and ash trees lash out, warning them to stay away. The line fence – can’t go near that – lightning travels along it for miles.

The wind resumes a swirling motion and Evelyn cannot see in the blowing dust. Giant drops fall straight down, splatting around her, so heavy they are unaffected by the wind. The trees at the forest’s edge whip back and forth, the wind trying to lever them loose from their roots. A cornstalk, blown nearly a mile from the field below, slaps Evelyn in the face. She cannot see and the sting on her face draws tears. Sport presses against her leg and leans into the wind as rain explodes from the sky.

Evelyn returns to the open pasture, squinting against the wind-driven wall of water. We’ll find a low spot, Sport. Follow me. They run downhill for several yards until she spies a shallow swale. Close to the fence, but it will have to do. It’s too dangerous to be standing up. Plants, rubbish, objects she does not recognize are bounding up the hill toward them, then past them in the downpour.

The two lay flat against the ground in the small depression while the wind sails inches above them. She throws one arm around the dog and digs her fingers into the mud, turns her head and buries it in his wet coat. She draws comfort from the smell of the baked-in sun, washed clean by driving rain. Water runs through their fragile sanctuary. Hold on, Sport. Hold on! We’ll be all right.

Louise sits on the floor next to the stuffed chair. Both hands form fists in front of her face. Olav! Boys. Evelyn? Help me, oh, God, help me!

It’s all right, Momma. John and I are here. It’s all right. Peder says. Even with the rain pounding against the house they hear a snap and look through the window to see the largest cedar breaking off. It blows past the granary into the stream where it is held in place by the water and narrow banks, still rocking in the wind’s force.

Louise wails above the roar outside. God help me, please help me, oh, God, help me!

Peder clings to her and she burrows her head in his chest, sobbing.

I’ve got you, he says, then starts to cry. John crawls over to the quivering pile and sobs on top of Peder, grasping for his mother’s hand.

Breathless again, Olav nearly runs into the line fence in the dark downpour. Not a good idea with the lightning, but it’s the shortest route to that bluff. He begins to push hard straight up the steep hill along the fence, but slips in the water sheeting back down toward him. The wind is now beyond forceful – it is angry, and in its rage, massive bursts erupt out of the chaos flattening whatever stands before it.

But he has his sea legs now. Nothing will knock him down, not even the microbursts from out of the storm. Evelyn knows what to do. She will not panic. He pulls himself up the steepest part, pulling on the top wire of the fence as he goes. He is sure of it now. She will have left the woods knowing it’s too dangerous to be in there. But where will he find her? His work boots are filled with water from running through the stream below, or is it the rain finally finding its way there? He clings to a fence post to catch his breath again as the whipping frenzy buffets his body until – until it stops. It all stops. From violent anarchy to stillness in what seems like seconds, no residual thrust, nothing. The wind ceases, the rain nothing more than a few light drops finishing their journey to earth. He looks around in the quiet while a ghostly light invades the darkness held by the unmoving cloud cover.

Evelyn. Evelyn! No answer. Ev a liiiiin! He swipes his wet hair straight back over his head.

I’m here, Father. Up here! She stands up at the top of the ridge, a few feet from the fence, and waves down at him with both hands above her head.

Evelyn, are you hurt?

We’re not hurt, Father. Here’s Sport. The dog jogs over the hill far enough to see him and bark. She is wet, completely, but she’s smiling. Oh, Lord, how can she smile?

Stay there. I’ll be right there. He pulls himself up the last part of the hill, crawls between the wires and runs to his daughter. They embrace. Finally, the adrenaline fades and exhaustion overtakes them, forcing them down to the ground. She looks up at him. He studies her, worried that her smile covers fear that must still linger inside. Instead, her child’s face begins to fade and traces of his own emerge in hers as if driven to the surface by the storm. Olav smiles back.

The heavy air demands silence. The only sound is their breathing as the wet mix of sweat and mud settles in their nostrils. They watch as dark clouds push the light away.

Louise sits up in her chair, her face in a pillow. She looks up. Peder, do you see them?

Peder goes outside and looks toward the bluff but cannot see in the darkness. He calls through the screen door. No, Momma, but they’ll be coming back soon. They just have to.

John goes outside and looks around. The buildings are all in place. Some shingles are gone, but they will not see the full damage until morning. Bits of trees and bushes, branches and sticks are all around the farmstead in shadows on the ground, the cedar in the stream. We were lucky, weren’t we Peder?

Yes, John, we were. Peder sits on the wet porch steps and lets the water soak up in the seat of his trousers. The sky, it’s too dark, John. I don’t like it. Don’t say anything more to Momma. Just go open the side door to the cellar.

Why? Do you think there’s more coming?

I don’t know. I just wish Father would get back. If there is more, we’re going to the cellar.

The two boys return to the house. They sit with their mother at the kitchen table. Peder thinks to go outside again but grows weak looking into the ashen expression on her face and decides he’ll wait. John looks from him to their mother as Louise stares blankly at the oilcloth table spread, the flowered bouquet pattern, zinnias with blue and pink ribbons. She touches them lightly.

Olav feels the heat return, even after the storm. They sit just below the bluff where Evelyn’s tree remains, surviving yet again. He looks out across the coulee to the west and there in the sky a mottled mixture of clouds hangs below the solid black background. They move in different directions, crisscrossing each other. Then they take form, a single shape that moves in a slow waltz with a deep bass growl growing louder.

Olav looks north into the coulee. He can’t see the farm from here, still more than a mile away and across a ridge. He looks back at the shape in the sky and gauges its distance, calibrating the timing. Evelyn, we need to stay here for a while. He looks around and decides this is as good a place as any. The faraway sky forms a giant maelstrom, so unlike the narrow funnels he’s seen before. He remembers his father telling of the massive tornado that came up the coulee from the south only two years after they homesteaded. It tore down everything the community had built, and they had to start over. Killed two people. Hasn’t been anything like it since.

Will Peder and John see this from down there?

Not yet, not unless they run up the hill behind the barn so they can see over the ridge. Olav puts his arm around her again and smiles. You did well, Evelyn. This is still the best place to be if that new storm keeps forming. Evelyn puts her arms under his, around his chest, and they sit quietly on the wet ground, Sport’s head on her lap. The smell of wet fur fills the air.

Olav wonders how it goes at the farm. Here he is with Evelyn, probably the strongest of them, while thoughts of Louise conjure up so many possibilities. She certainly cannot bear this by herself. Peder is there, and John. Will one of them take over? He is not certain they are old enough to take control, and someone must.

They look to the sky again. The swirling motion seems to have stopped and the clouds are fixed in place. They watch for several minutes, half an hour.

It looks like we may be spared anything worse, Evelyn. The clouds begin weakening and a fresh breeze reaches the threesome. Sport sits up as the air lightens. He sniffs into the gentle gusts.

Finally, the clouds no longer furrow in anger. The stagnant swirl breaks up and lightens, thinning out, allowing the last hour of a natural dusk control of the rest of the day. The storm is over, its final destruction spared. His father’s storm has not been dethroned today.

Are you ready to go home, Evelyn?

Yes, I hope nothing happened to them, to Momma.

They stand up and walk, cresting each new hill to a clearer sky, descending to ever cooler valleys, ascend, repeat, and arrive home as dusk ends in its normal comforting darkness.

Evelyn sees the boys sitting on the porch. Where’s Momma?

She’s in bed.

Olav frowns. She’ll be all right in the morning. Boys, did you see much damage?

No, Father, I walked through the buildings. The cows are all right too, Peder answers.

Good. Well, we’ll need to milk now. Evelyn, you go into the house and put on dry clothes. Peder, you and John come with me. You’re going to help milk tonight. Evelyn can stay in and make us supper. Don’t cook, Evelyn, a cold supper will do.

Peder looks at John and jerks his head toward the barn. Evelyn’s father follows them.

Inside the house the air is damp but freshened by the storm. Evelyn changes quickly, combs her nearly dry hair straight back over her head, the brown bangs flipping forward, and returns to the kitchen. She starts the woodstove despite her father’s words and heats a quart of milk in a pan. She brings it to a near boil, mixing in flour and salt, then beats it into a paste. She covers the porridge and moves it to the back of the stove.

The silence from her mother’s room troubles Evelyn. Still, it draws her to the door and, uncertain, she enters. The stale air surprises her. But then the bedroom is always shut up tight when her mother is alone, and she should know to expect the closeness that presses in around her. She studies the darkness until she can make out that her mother lies on her side, sleeping on top of the covers. Evelyn reaches toward her in relief and touches her hair and the still-troubled forehead with gentle, pitying strokes. She thinks to help her undress and slip beneath the sheets. But there is supper to make and the others still need tending. Evelyn wonders why her mother sleeps when she, not Evelyn, should be the one tending them. She pulls her hand away and a flash of anger washes over her. Then she feels guilty at having let herself become angry. Evelyn sighs and returns to the kitchen more tired than before she went in.

It is late by the time they finish eating. They stack their wet and dirty clothes by the door. The boys are tired and go to bed instead of disappearing outside like they do most evenings. Evelyn’s father helps her wash the dishes and clean the rest of the kitchen.

You should go to bed now, Evelyn. We’ve been through a lot.

She smiles at him, then allows a sigh and exhaustion to overtake her. I will. Her body perks up at the table. I’ve never seen the trees whip back and forth so much. And it rained so hard, like buckets, and Sport’s ears flapped like he was going to fly away. Evelyn beams at her father. But it was so exciting. I wish we could do it again. She chuckles. Olav smiles at her. He puts his hand over his mouth and widens his eyes in mock fear. They both laugh.

Olav carries their dirty clothes out on the back porch, goes to the bedroom and undresses in the dark. He slips underneath the covers and only then realizes Louise is on top of them. Slowly he gets up and pulls the blanket off his wife. She moans as he helps her up, steadying her with one hand and throws back the covers with the other. She lies down and lets him cover her again.

Olav, is everything, is everyone safe? Louise remains groggy.

Yes, we’re all fine. Just go back to sleep.

I was so worried, I couldn’t bear – I couldn’t stand it anymore. It’s like I’m going to smother and the only thing I can do is pull away somehow. Are you sure Evelyn is all right?

Yes, she’s fine, Louise. You should have seen her. I found her after it stopped. She and Sport had been lying in a ditch in the open, just like I’d told her. They were soaked and covered with mud, but they had done the right thing. I don’t know, Louise, there’s something about her. She’s so different than the b– well, she’s so strong.

I wish I hadn’t gone to sleep. I wanted to see her. I should see her, Olav.

She’s in bed now. Leave it until tomorrow.

Are you sure?

Leave it now.

Olav pauses, then touches her shoulder through the bedspread, and Louise falls silent. He leaves the bedroom in the quiet of the moonlit house and climbs the narrow stairs to the attic where the children sleep. The boys are motionless and lie in dark shadows under the slanted ceiling near the chimney. He approaches Evelyn. The air is still fresh from the storm. It penetrates the small, open window and he feels it pass across her bed. She senses him, rolls over and smiles his own smile back at him.

Angels graze, Father, she says and her eyes close. He bends to touch her head then stands to watch the rise and fall of her chest. It grows shallower and more imperceptible until he can scarcely see it in the light through the window. He holds his breath to listen and his love surges even as she sinks deeper into the quiet night. At last, he finds himself nodding, smiling, alone.

Olav returns to his wife and lies down beside her. The tension in his body rises. He wills the muscles in his legs to relax, then his stomach, then his chest, and finally his shoulders. I know you do what you can, Louise. He rolls to his side and drapes one arm over her. Everything is fine now. Everything will be all right. Go to sleep.

Two

The storm had swept through the coulee on a slight northern course from west to east. Trees fell, limbs broke off, an occasional building gave in to the wind and the damage spared no one. Not catastrophic, it was nonetheless broad enough to organize a coulee-wide cleanup, the menial work of breaking even with Mother Nature holding little satisfaction to farmers already on an economic knife’s-edge. So, within two days the people are tired and the community effort wanes.

Still there is more to do. Carl Brygge, the largest farmer in the coulee, volunteers his hired man–unadopted son, Alfred, for another week. Alfred is to cut up, clean up and haul the trash to each farmer’s designated location where it will become their individual problem.

Alfred Toraason is a second cousin to Evelyn and eight years her elder. His father was one of the hardscrabble Toraasons suffering a split-up between brothers a generation ago. It began with one brother cheating the other out of his share of wheat at harvest. Alfred’s father might have been able to shed some light on which brother it was, but he disappeared when Alfred was eight. Olav’s father told him the story went back and forth until no one knew for certain who the culprit was, so only hard feelings remained.

Alfred is tall, over six feet, with wide shoulders but also a wide torso, the forerunner of a substantial stomach in middle age. His shoulders slouch. This makes his long arms appear unnatural with large-palmed hands hanging below his waist. The sharply defined Toraason nose looks out of place, even with the square forehead jutting out under his hairline and the large-boned jaw. It looks in proportion to the rest of his face but just seems wrong, lacking the balance it has on Evelyn’s father.

The plain fact is this, Evelyn’s father had once told her. Brother never spoke to brother again. Our own side is likely as guilty as the other. It takes more than one person for a family split to last generations. He never says why no one tries to heal the rift, just shakes his head and seems annoyed, as if the whole matter is trivial.

But everything in Alfred’s youth established him as a failure, beginning with his first memory. Alfred’s father came into the house one night and found Alfred had knocked over the last of his homemade brandy. Alfred had hit his head on a corner of the kitchen table while getting up from the floor, where he had chased his dog. The impact tipped over the bottle, which rolled off the table and broke. Alfred had a gash on top of his head and had cut his bare foot on the broken glass while running from the scene. When his father was done beating him, he had welts on his back along with the clear understanding he was stupid, even at five years old.

But Alfred is a Toraason and legend, true or not, follows the Toraasons. At the turn of the first millennium the Toraasons issued from a Nordic chieftain’s line in a time when uncommon intellect played itself out in the ability to command the loyalty of barbarians, in the cunning needed to win battles and repel usurpers, and in the insight of when to wield the ax and when to stop its bloody course for greater gain. And Alfred is as bright as any of the Toraasons, hidden though it is.

Alfred discovered the advantages in letting others believe he is dull. Now most people just avoid him and those who don’t have low expectations. He tells himself this is good, that it means he can live independently within himself, and he has practiced an outward disregard for what people say of him. But it still hurts. He learned to avoid the pain by raging, inside himself, against them.

Alfred’s mother died of scarlet fever before his tenth birthday and Carl Brygge came forward to take him in, an act highly praised in the coulee, and well paid for through his unofficial indenture to this new master who, for nearly a decade, has given him every disagreeable job on the farm.

Alfred has not been trouble-free. He’s been accused of stealing and vandalism several times over the years. No one ever caught him flat out in a crime, however, and even when there seemed to be some foundation for the accusation, Carl himself would negotiate with the accuser who, recognizing the case wasn’t strong enough, let it go after giving him an earful. Carl would respond that he’d be glad to take action if there were proof. I’ll lock him up myself, he’d say. Carl doesn’t doubt that, from time to time, Alfred was likely guilty. But he knows Alfred is not fully deserving of his reputation. After all, Alfred has never stolen from either Carl or from the school where he works as janitor.

With Carl’s blessing, after the storm Alfred sets out each day in a small Allis Chalmers tractor and two-wheeled, steel-wheeled trailer. The trailer carries a few tools in a bucket – an ax, a hatchet and a one-man crosscut saw – and Alfred’s lunch wrapped in a towel. He spends three days traversing the entire coulee road in order to clear branches and debris off into the ditch. Then he begins to call at each farm.

Alfred arrives at Olav’s farm more than ten days after the storm. Howdy, Olav, I came to clean up at your place today.

Olav thinks a young man of twenty should call him Mister Toraason instead of being so familiar. Morning, Alfred. Don’t need much. My boys have been working at it some. Just get the cedar tree out of the stream and cut it up. It doesn’t bother anything now, but when spring comes it’d turn into a dam and then we’d have a mess.

I’ll do that. Alfred spits tobacco juice in the dirt and starts up the tractor again. "Sure that’s