Dawn's Rising

Dawn's Rising; chapter 1, Farewell to Norway

Julianna took one last look at the small farm that had been home to her and her family all of her life. This was all that she had ever known, and now she was expected to turn her back on all that was familiar and enter into the unknown. The strong morning sun of late August wrapped her with its warm embrace and caused small beads of perspiration to break out upon her brow and upper lip. Beside her, her mother Silje gently blew her nose and dried yet another tear with her embroidered handkerchief.  

Suddenly a soft light breeze picked up. Finally the afternoon winds started, bringing with it welcomed relief from the heat of early fall. Small strands of fire red hair escaped from both Julianna and Silje's braids and danced about their flushed faces in a swirl of sparkling color. At forty two Silje's thick main of hair was only now starting to be touched by age. A few white strands blended into the red at her temples, softening the burning glow to a more gentle strawberry blond. In silence both Julianna and Silje drank in every detail of the scene in front of them through their sky blue eyes. They both shared an equal passion to imprint everything as clearly as possible into their minds so they could remember it the rest of their days.  

For hundreds of years this little plot of land embraced protectively between high mountains and deep fjord had been home to every Jakobsen born. Since their forefather Karstein Jakobsen claimed it for his own its fertile soil had produced a bounty of various fruits, vegetables and grains for its owners as well as an unceasing supply of lumber from the thick forests surrounding their cleared homestead. Fish from the fjord and the small stream running through the little valley as well as elk and deer was also plentiful. They had always had all that they needed. 

But now the Jakobsens would no longer call this place home. Their small farm had already been sold to their neighbors, the Karsteins, who lived on the other side of the fjord in a small mountain farm suspended high above the fjord's crystal waters. Hermon Karstein's still growing family had long outgrown the confines of their small notch carved into the sheer mountain side. He had been more than willing to purchase the Jakobsen farm when they offered it to him after they suddenly decided to follow the suit of countless other Norwegians who had turned from their old home land in favor for the new world of unlimited opportunity across the ocean's void.  

Hermon's oldest son Johannes was to marry in two weeks and would then take over the Jakobsen farm. Hermon planned to send over three of Johannes' eight siblings with him to help with the management of their family's newest acquisition, thereby freeing up enough space for Hermon's still growing family. His tenth child was soon to make his appearance into the world so everyone in his clan was relieved that there would soon be more room to move about in.  

Karl Jakobsen's farmstead was now completely empty. All his livestock had already been sold off the week before, along with their furniture and everything else that they could not bring with them on the long, long journey ahead of them. Only their sturdy plow horses, Blakken and Odin remained to assist them in their trip down the hillside to their waiting boat. Then, Julianna would have to say goodbye to the two shaggy sturdily built beasts as well. Being so isolated from the rest of the world as they had been, Julianna had opened her generous heart wide to the animals which she had helped tend practically from the time she had started to walk. Hermon Karstein had bought their plow horses as well as flock of nineteen sheep, two milking cows, one bull, five goats and eleven chickens so Julianna no longer had any animals to call her own.  

With a heavy heart Julianna gazed at the little log constructed house that had been the only home she had ever known. Their little homestead was nothing impressive to an outsider, but to Julianna it had been all that she had ever desired.  

And now this place which held so many fond memories looked so empty and abandoned standing in the open clearing with no livestock running around it, no clothes hanging on the drying lines, or the familiar clutter of the family's possessions scattered about. To the left and slightly behind it stood their small barn surrounded by a little corral, now raked spotless, ready to accept its new occupants. A skirt of thick foliage enclosed the small clearing their little home was built in. Birch and lark trees growing straight and tall blended their graceful forms into the masses of tightly woven pine trees which otherwise dominated the forested mountainsides. Then rising up from this blanket of foliage were the sheer faces of two glacial sculpted granite peaks. And pouring out of the cleft between the nearly twin mountains, about a quarter mile away from where Julianna stood, was the crystal clear spout of a wildly churning waterfall which culminated in a spray of white foam hidden from view by the shielding tree tops. Its rumbling murmur had been a constant accompaniment to their every activity. What would it be like not to hear it anymore?