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Updated: June 11, 2025
Finally, I felt a large light hand laid softly on my head. I looked up and saw Magnus Thorkelson bending over me. "Forty acres," said he, "bane pretty big farm in Norvay. My fadder on twenty acres, raise ten shildren. Not so gude land like dis. Vun of dem shildern bane college professor, and vun a big man in leggislatur. Forty acre bane gude farm, for gude farmer."
This morning it had been wilderness; now it was a field a field in which Magnus Thorkelson had planted corn, by the simple process of cutting through the sods with an ax, and dropping in each opening thus made three kernels of corn. Surely this was a new world! Surely, this was a world in which a man with the will to do might make something of himself.
I felt that Gowdy would be more likely to bring us safe out of any bad hole in which we might find ourselves, than any one else. But I was glad, sometimes, when he was rawhiding us into shape, that Magnus Thorkelson was drilling with a wooden gun. I wondered how the new captain himself felt about this.
Virginia Royall came to the door, as I sort of suspected she might. At first she started back as if she hardly knew me. Maybe she didn't; for Magnus Thorkelson had got me to shaving, and with all that gosling's down off my face, I suppose I looked older and more man-like than before.
I had offered her all I had when she begged for it, she had taken it, and then restored it, as the dying soldier gave the draught of water to his comrade, saying, "Thy necessity is greater than mine." Once or twice I made an effort to tell Magnus Thorkelson about this, as we worked at our after-harvest haying together that week; but it was a hard thing to do.
This would be fine for a man as fond of cows as I was, though, of course, cows could range at will all over the country. It was fine hay land, he said, too, except in the wettest places; but it was true also, that any one could make hay anywhere. I paid Henderson L., bade good-by to Magnus Thorkelson, drove my outfit up on the "building-spot," and camped right where my biggest silo now stands.
From the way it sounds out there at the front, it will be only one bullet added to a basketful. That's all, Thorkelson." "Captain Gowdy," said Magnus. "Go on, Thorkelson," said Gowdy. "Van Ay bane svorn in," said Magnus, "Ay take you for captain. You bane a dam good-for-nothing rascal, but you bane best man for captain. Ay bane tied up.
"Hello, Thorkelson," said he; "you're quite a stranger. Haven't seen you for a week." Magnus stole a look at me and blushed so that his face was as red as his hair. I was taken aback by this for he had never said a word to me about the frequent visits to the Gowdy ranch which Buck's talk seemed to show had taken place. What had he been coming over for? I wondered, as I heard Gowdy greeting me.
You may go, Thorkelson." Magnus clicked his heels together in the way he had learned in the old country, and saluted; Captain Gowdy returned the salute, and Magnus marched out with his head high, and his stomach drawn in. "Devilish good soldier!" said Gowdy as he went out. "Well, that clears the atmosphere a little! So, Vandemark, you think I need killing, eh?" "Yes, sir."
How many fool things are we doing now, I wonder, to cause posterity to laugh, as foolish as the dying of Sir John Franklin in a land where Stefansson grew fat; many, I guess, as foolish as we did when Magnus Thorkelson and I were Vandemark Township. The sod grew too mature for breaking after the first of June, and not enough time was left for it to rot during the summer; and my cows left with Mr.
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