Sophie's Journey - Chapter 15
The Danish Saints
The morning dawned hot and humid. Sophie stood by her handcart at Clark's Mill, watching the other Saints prepare. The air smelled of wood smoke and canvas tents.
People around her spoke Danish, the language she grew up with. Sophie watched dust float in the sunlight through the trees and wondered what would happen next.
Their lives had changed. They used to have stone churches and settled homes, but now they lived in tents and rough camps at the edge of the frontier. Sophie knew faith was not about buildings. It was something you carried inside. She gripped the handcart handle and said a silent prayer. She would face whatever came next with the same courage that brought her here.
They were being separated again. The clerks had their lists and formed groups, but to the Danish Saints, it felt as though their lives were being divided even more. The Danes stayed together, drawn by their own language. There were five hundred people in the company, but the Danes kept to themselves, surrounded by English speakers.
It was a comfort for Sophie to pray in words she understood, to hear her own tongue in the voices around her. But it also reminded her how alone they were. The leaders had the maps and the authority. They spoke English. The Danish families followed where they pointed, not always knowing where they were going.
Sophie held onto the sound of her mother's language like a lifeline. It was all she had left of her now.
"Ninety-three of us," Peder said, coming up beside her. He walked with a limp, favoring his left side. His face showed the weariness they all felt. He wiped his forehead with his hand, leaving a dark streak of dirt behind. "Twenty handcarts and five tents for nearly a hundred people. The Brethren have their own kind of math, Sophie. They figure we don't need room to breathe, just room to endure."
Sophie looked at the people near their carts. Most were women. In their group from Denmark, there were twelve women and only four men in her tent assignment.
"It is the math of survival," she said. "The cholera took the men, and the sea took the rest."
"And now the handcarts will take what is left," Peder said quietly, keeping his voice low so the children would not hear. He pointed at the line of carts. The green wood was sticky with sap in the hot Iowa sun. "Look at them. They're made for a short walk, not for crossing a continent. We're mostly widows and broken families, Sophie. Not frontiersmen."
Sophie tightened the knot on her cart's canvas cover. Her fingers were numb from the morning's work. "We have our testimonies," she said. "That's what the missionaries promised would carry us when our legs gave out. Strength isn't just in the body, Peder. It's in the spirit, too."
Peder laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "The spirit can't haul a hundred pounds of flour through the mud," he said. "We're short on men, so the women and boys will have to do the heavy lifting. You can't pray a mountain flat, Sophie. It takes muscle and bone."
He turned and walked away, his shoulders hunched. Sophie watched him go. She knew he was right. She looked at her children. Peter was trying to walk like the teamsters, puffing out his chest to look older than ten. Emma sat in the grass, braiding clover into a crown for little Anne. Otto was asleep under the cart, his small chest rising and falling. It was the only peaceful thing in the camp.
Marianne came toward them, her face pale. Her eyes kept darting around, like she was looking for an escape. "They're saying we'll be separated by language, Sophie, that we'll walk in our own line. Is that because we're special, or because we're a burden?"
"Neither," Sophie said. "It's because they need us to understand the orders. If we stick together, we can help each other. We can share the translating and the pulling."
Marianne looked at the handcart. She was afraid, though she tried to hide it. "I'm not like you, Sophie. I don't have your strength. My father was a tailor. He worked with silk and fine wool, not with dragging wooden carts across the wilderness. When I look at that cart, I don't see a path to Zion. I see a cage on wheels."
"It is only a cage if you refuse to move it," Sophie said. She felt a little sorry for Marianne. "The children are watching us, Marianne. They need to see we are not afraid. That our fear does not control us."
She walked to the front of her handcart and grabbed the pull-bar. The wood was smooth and damp. She gripped it tight and began to pull. The wheels made a loud noise as they rolled over the earth. The cart was heavy, heavier than it looked when the men built it. Now she understood what Peder meant. It was harder than she had thought.
Near the fire, a group of Danish men talked. They argued about the flour and the tents. Sophie could only hear some of what they said. Their faces looked tired and worried.
Among them stood a young man named Niels. His face was bright with a feverish kind of zeal. Sophie found it more frightening than Peder's cynicism.
"The Lord will provide!" Niels shouted, his voice cracking with the effort of conviction. "Did He not part the Red Sea for the Israelites? Will He not smooth the path for the Saints of the latter days? We must not let doubt be the rust that destroys us!"
The older men nodded, but their eyes showed doubt. They were farmers and laborers, men who had spent their lives working the soil. They knew that the Lord usually helps those who help themselves, through strong backs and sharp tools. The handcarts were neither of those things.
Sophie went back to work. She carefully packed the cart. She put the rations box and cooking pot near the axle, then stacked the spare clothes and bedding on top. It was a shaky pile of everything they owned. She wrapped her hymnal, with its lock of hair, in oilcloth and put it in the center to keep it dry. It reminded her of home and gave her hope for the future.
As the afternoon went on, the split in the camp grew more obvious. The English Saints moved differently. Their laughter was louder. They could talk directly to Elder Willie and the captains, and that gave them confidence.
The Danes stood at the edge of the camp and watched. They did not understand everything that was happening. The language barrier made them feel separated from the others.
"Mother, let me help," Peter said, coming to stand beside her as she struggled with a particularly heavy sack. He reached out his small, dirt-streaked hands and gripped the side of the cart, his jaw set in a line that reminded her painfully of his father.
"You are a good boy, Peter," Sophie said, her hand resting briefly on his head. "But you must save your strength for the trail. We have many miles before us, and the cart will feel heavier tomorrow than it does today."
"I am strong," he insisted, his eyes searching hers for a validation she wasn't sure she could give. "I watched the men at the mill. I know how to grease the axles and how to balance the load. I will not let you pull it alone."
Sophie turned away so Peter would not see her tears. She looked at the horizon. The sun was setting behind the trees, and shadows stretched across the mill. The camp was changing. Carts were lined up in a row, ready to head west.
Later that evening, after the children ate, Sophie sat on the cart. The camp was quiet. She heard the fires crackling and voices speaking in English. She looked at the other Danish women, widows and mothers with many children and little strength. She saw determination in their faces, the same feeling she had inside.
The women would carry the weight of the company. It was not the captains or the missionaries, but the women who would pull the carts and bring their families west. They were tired. It showed in their hands and faces.
Sophie touched the handcart. The wood was still damp with sap. The cart would either carry them to the valley or be left behind in the wilderness. She remembered the jasmine in Gentofte and how it smelled in summer. For a moment, she could almost feel the cool grass under her feet.
A child cried out in the next tent. Sophie stood up. Her back ached, and she knew it would keep hurting in the weeks ahead.
She looked west. The Danish group was ready, as ready as faith and preparation could make them. The trail waited in the dark.
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