December 3, 2022
Bjorg’s first job, when she was about 14, was cooking and cleaning for a man named Frederik.
Bessa: I started right after breakfast, cleaned up the breakfast dishes, cleaned the house, dusted and washed the floors.
Kristen: How did you know what to do?
Bessa: Because I had done it at home for Mama, with chores. Helping in the barn, whatever had to be done…I always had to make his meals. His lunch, his midday meal, that was dinner. I had to cook potatoes and fry him something, either a piece of meat or fish.
He had the public phone in his house, so anyone who had to make a call went to him. But he also had the mail. He was responsible for a family that lived way up in the mountain. He was responsible one day a week to deliver the mail to that family. There was a mama and a papa and a boy and a girl. They lived way out.
Now it became my job. Sometimes the bus would stop and say, Come on, I’ll take you to the top. Then I would have to go across the mountain and go way out with the mail. But if the bus didn’t stop, then I had to walk all the way up the mountain and across. It took me a whole day back and forth.
When I got there in the morning – they were so nice. Normally it was a newspaper, maybe a bill or some kind of stuff. But they looked forward to that. She would have a piece of bread with butter and sugar on and a cup of coffee for me. Come and sit down. And I talked to the kids and thenI walked back home.
One time when I walked back home – this was in the summertime – it was so beautiful and I looked and I saw snow way in the distance. The snow would be so deep up there that it never melted.
Then I heard a noise behind me. I looked and here came all the bulls. One of them was charging after me. The farmers down in Drange would let the bulls – they would be grazing up there all summer.
I ran so. I could taste the blood in my mouth. I made it to the other side before he got me.
Kristen: Did they chase you all the way to the fence?
Bessa: Just that one. The others, they were lazy. When I told Frederik when he I came home, he said, Oh, they don’t do anything. Don’t worry about it. It’s just the bulls. But I was scared.
Kristen: Was he close?
Bessa: Yeah. I could hear him breathing.