Nellie Girl: Nilla Pedersen Christensen, Pioneer Woman

By Martha Pettijohn Morrise

Norway

Nellie girl,

Mark well the music of the blue fjords

Strumming their glaciered mountains;

And store for future desert thirst

The snow-touched streamlets.

Remember, as well as your nineteen summers can,

And write it all in the Book of Forever.

Slip into your mind’s valise

Haneborg.

You go alone,

And for you, Lot’s child,

There will be no mirrored glance.

No, never.

Ocean Journey

Night, Nellie girl,

Time for star wondering

And moon dreaming.

White sea tongues

Lap the Tapscott’s planked seams,

And dream doors open,

Beckoning fantasy’s return:

You can escape the ponderous now.

Day

And restless wave.

Your young body and spirit,

Alike in strength,

Spend themselves freely

In love-rewarded labor.

Overland

Nellie girl, look—

The handcarts are prepared.

Outstretched wooden arms

Strain for your firm clasp.

Frail willow, along the way

You bend—but there is Andrew,

Who at journey’s end

Will husband your eternity.

Days merge and melt

Vast upon the glowing plain,

Their ovened glaze,

Pain-hallowed,

Proclaiming Stoddard’s Company

Tenth and last.

Mount Pleasant

Zion, Nellie girl,

Your soul’s thirst quenched;

Sheltered deep at first

In a dugout nest of sod

You bear Nicoline, Andrew, David,

Christian, Nephi, Bertha, Hilda—

Spirits from whose seed

Will come an apostle of God.

Now thirty-five, heart spent,

Your loved ones grieve;

For He dispatched twin angels

Who come to take your hands

And lead you gently home

To rest.