The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [74]
“Aunt Olea, you went on hayrides, didn’t you? Tell Mama it’s all right.”
“I did,” Olea said. “But my parents went with me. Chaperoned the ride.”
“We could do that,” Priscilla offered. She smiled at her daughter. “Would you like that, dear?”
“No. I wouldn’t,” Clarissa said and stomped out.
“Our parents never chaperoned a hayride,” Priscilla told Olea. “You made that up.”
“Maybe not one of yours, but they did mine.”
“Mama was much stricter with me,” Priscilla said. “I never even got to go on such events. You, she indulged.”
“Every child suffers differently,” Olea said. Her sister scoffed and returned to her needlework.
Through that winter, I spent long hours in my room reading the financial section of the Minneapolis Tribune and novels while thinking of what I wanted to do now. I was letting the women lead me, and I could feel their will sucking me under as if I were boots in a bog.
“So,” Inger said to me one evening over dinner, “Olea tells me you’re interested in investing in an up-and-coming industry. Do you have one in mind?”
I shook my head. “I’ve considered a number of things.”
“I tell her she should find a suitable husband, invest in that,” Louise told him.
“Well, you are of an age,” he said, too polite to ask for specifics. “What do your parents do?”
“My stepfather felled trees in Michigan, then came here to Minnesota, near Canby, where they farmed before moving to Spokane. Now he’s a carpenter.”
“Ah, the trades,” he said as though he’d eaten a pickle. “The bank is always the safest place to invest,” he said.
“Spoken like a true banker,” his wife chided.
“They pay so little interest,” I said.
He grunted. “What sort of return are you expecting?”
“I want to be able to provide for myself. Perhaps make enough to assist my family, send my younger brothers and sisters on to school.” I had only recently come to that thought, but in the face of Olaf’s refusal to go, it seemed a wise one. Mama had insisted we all learn English as children, had even prohibited us from speaking Norwegian so my stepfather would learn English more quickly once we moved to Spokane. If I offered her money for Arthur and Billy and Lillian for schooling, would she refuse it because it came from me?
“Have you considered importing European furniture?” Priscilla asked.
Again her husband grunted. “It can be quite a lucrative business if the cost of furnishing this house is any indication.”
“You’d get to travel,” Louise piped up.
“Not a very tried-and-true business though,” Inger said. “Too many unknowns. I’d suggest railroad shares. Transportation will grow mightily in the years ahead. Thank you, Else,” he told the servant girl, who replaced his soup bowl with a clean plate and set the platter of meat in front of him. “Timber is still huge. And of course wheat. The Cargill Brothers built one of the world’s largest grain-storage facilities right here in Minneapolis ten years ago, and the business has done nothing but grow. The hold stores grain from the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa. I suspect the plains states will ship here as well if the cooperatives will stay out of it. Railroads are attached to that industry. Great potential.”
“What have you invested in?” I asked.
He sat a little straighter. Whether flattered or offended, I couldn’t tell. He cleared his throat. “I’m diversified,” he said. He took a bite of beef. He chewed. “But coal is my main interest. I expect the demand to grow, and there’s an unlimited supply. I’m certain there are mines in your region of the country, assuming you want to return there, of course. I hear you’re headed to New York next? Be sure to visit the investment houses there,” he said. “They’ll have quite a number of options for you.”
“New York?” I said. Olea combed her long blond hair with highlights of gray, the braids making kinky waves that flashed like gold in the gaslights of her room. I stood behind her, watching in the mirror. We wore wrappers, waiting to finish our undressing and put on nightclothes after the light