“Yes, someone who likes to learn. I know you do, Tor. I saw it in the schoolroom, even though I only taught you for such a short time. And that’s why I’m here. You see, I have—these funds. From those silly things in the newspapers.” And now it was Raina’s turn to blush.
“Yes, yes, I know. Did you really get a proposal from a rajah?” Tor grinned.
“Oh, goodness. Yes, and so many others! What fools they are. What kind of person do they think I am?” Raina’s skin felt hot with anger. So much of the Heroine Fund had been ridiculous; the milk cow and the gold medals and the stories which were pure fabrication that others wrote about her. Mr. Woodson hadn’t written anything false, but he had set the whole thing in motion, and the very worst part of it had been the ridiculous proposals of marriage. They made her feel too much on display; she found herself looking in the mirror too often, trying different ways of doing her hair, of curling the ribbons that she tied about her throat, which was also a new habit. They made her feel too special—and she was very much on guard against that feeling.
It was what had brought her so much trouble, earlier, with Gunner Pedersen.
“I am not going to marry anyone,” Raina retorted, concentrating on the worms crawling out of the freshly turned earth, nudging a particularly fat one along with the toe of her boot. “In fact, I’m going to college. And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I was hoping you would go to college, too. The money that is mine should be half yours. That is fair to me, and I asked those in charge if I could help with your education, and they said yes. I think you could get a scholarship, and the money could go to your room and board and maybe you could even send some back home.”
“I—a—scholarship? College?” He looked so bewildered, so overwhelmed, Raina realized this was an idea he’d never even formed before; he’d never dreamed this. No boy his age, in his situation, in this place, dreamed such a thing. Tor dropped the reins of the ox, but the animal didn’t move; Tor did, however. He began to walk up and down the furrows, making a mess of them, rubbing his forehead, and Raina wanted to tell him to stop, he was ruining his work. But she kept silent, allowing him to work out this monumental puzzle she’d just placed before him.
As she watched, she thought again how different the fate was of a boy versus a girl, a man versus a woman. There was a time—fleeting, like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings—when women did have a choice, she realized. She’d never thought that before, but now she knew, there was that one moment, after school was over. The choice then—to become a teacher for a couple of years before marrying, or to stay at home—wasn’t much of one, at that. But it was still a choice, a chance—a young woman could travel beyond her own farm, boarding out, meeting new people.
But on the prairie, most young men—these sons of immigrants—didn’t have even that meager opportunity. The land waited, it was always waiting, for the next pair of strong hands, unbent back, sturdy legs and heart. It was only the odd ones—what little Gerda had said of her beau, Tiny, those like him—who got away from it at all. The land made boys become men too soon, turned young men old before their time, so it always needed more men.
Maybe it was different in the city—after all, she knew someone now from Omaha, and he wasn’t a farmer; the notion of Gavin Woodson plowing a furrow made her want to double up with laughter. But while the geographic distance between city and homestead wasn’t all that great, the landscape of possibility was impossible to breach.
“I don’t know—college?” Tor stopped before her, scratching his head, his face red with excitement. “What did Mama say about it?”
“She said it was your decision.”
“I don’t know if it is. I’m not the only one that would be affected. There’s been too much—Papa, Fredrik—and there are the little ones. I can’t think—what would happen to them if I wasn’t here?”
“I can’t answer that, Tor, and I can’t tell you not to think of them, that wouldn’t be right. But I also can’t tell you not to think of yourself.”