Streams of Mercy Read online

  “Ma, would you please pour some coffee in her cup and stuff a piece of cake in her mouth?” Daniel nodded toward his wife, who by this time had progressed from a giggle to an out-and-out laugh.

  Amelia was smirking too. “So, Johnny Solberg. What will you do for him?”

  “Get the swelling down first and pray there are no broken bones. There are so many small bones in a foot, one or more could easily be shattered. I’d rather not have to open the foot and look for bone fragments. That tree is kind of hard on our kids. Inga fell out of it and broke her arm. Another child fell into it and had a mild concussion, and now Johnny with his foot.”

  Daniel was nodding thoughtfully. “I was thinking the other day that we ought to build some swings for the school. That and some monkey bars. Give them some other things to play on during recess.”

  “The women would say build another school first.”

  “Somehow I can’t see the two competing, at least in scope. I think I’ll talk with my class at the machine shop. Let them design it and see if something new comes of it. I sent them out to talk with the farmers about what might be a helpful addition to their machinery. That Tonio is one sharp young man. I’ve been meaning to mention that to Miriam Knutson.”

  “Her other brother and sisters are doing well in school too. Their mother and father raised a fine brood in spite of the father’s death and the ensuing poverty. They are really hard workers, all of them.” Astrid caught a yawn but Daniel noticed anyway.

  “You’re not planning on going back to the hospital, are you?”

  “No, I’m going to bed. I’ve felt really good for the last few months and now I’m feeling really tired again. Hope I am not coming down with something.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Four days later, the nurses and Astrid helped Clara into the lightweight buggy, and Ingeborg drove her out to the farm. On the way she pointed out the buildings of Blessing, including who lived in which house. Patches yipped a greeting soon after they turned into the lane. At least the west wind had helped dry out the mud so that when she drove on the shoulder of the lane, they didn’t sink deep. She caught an almost smile on her patient’s face. Ah. So she liked dogs.

  “His name is Patches and if you give him a bit of cheese, you will be his friend forever.” She continued to speak Norwegian, wishing she had an idea of what was going on in that mind so hidden by the lack of speech. “Freda is my cousin. She lives with me and helps here each day. And she handles the cheese making. I’ve told you about Manny and Emmy, and while Manny is getting tall enough to look like a man, he is still a fourteen-year-old boy. Well, almost fifteen. You must not be afraid of him. In fact, out here there is no one to fear. You are now a member of our family, and we take care of each other. The children will be home from school in an hour or so, but I would like to get you settled so you can rest a bit. Between you and me and Freda, we will get you up the steps to the porch.”

  They’d been walking her for the last two days at the hospital, and while Thorliff and Daniel had both volunteered to help, Ingeborg had turned down the offers. She could have called Reverend Solberg, but he was teaching school and she did not want to bother him. She whoa’d the horse at the back gate, watched her patient’s reaction to Freda coming out the door, and stepped down to the ground. “You wait for us to help you, all right? Clara, please nod so I know you understand.”

  Clara’s chin jerked, but the fear had returned to her eyes, and she was shaking again.

  Freda tied the horse to the post and waited for Ingeborg.

  “Slow but sure,” Ingeborg whispered with her back to Clara. “I’m not sure, I’ve ever seen anyone this fearful. Let’s get her into the house.”

  “I made up that cot in the parlor like you said. You don’t think she can climb the stairs?”

  “These four will be hard enough. She did remarkably well once we got her up, but she’s as weak as a baby bird.”

  Together they helped Clara down, keeping the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. With her between them and each with an arm about Clara’s bone-thin body, they made it to the bottom of the porch stairs before they paused.

  “Can you lift your feet up for each step?” The nod accompanied a shudder. Her fingers dug into Ingeborg’s. “Good. Here we go. I’ll step first.” Feeling as if she were talking to a toddler, Ingeborg put one foot on the bottom step and lifted at the same time as Freda. By the time they reached the porch floor, they were all panting.

  “We made it. Let’s sit her on the bench.” With Clara huddled on the bench by the railing, Ingeborg looked over the young woman’s head at Freda. They both rolled their eyes and sucked in a breath. “Kitchen chair next.”

  “By the stove. We have to get her warmed up.”

  While Clara was shaking, Ingeborg wasn’t sure if it was from cold or fear.

  Patches parked himself right in front of Clara and whimpered, staring at her, his head slightly cocked to one side. Clara reached out one shaking hand and laid it on the dog’s head, earning her a quick lick on the wrist.

  “I’ve never seen him act like this, Clara. It’s as if he knows you. Good dog, Patches.”

  Clara flashed her a look that, had it been words, would have been a poem.

  “You have had a dog before?”

  A nod.

  “In North Dakota?”

  A sharp shake of her head.

  “At home in Norway?”

  Clara moved her hand gently to massage the dog’s ears.

  “Time to get moving again.” Freda gripped Clara’s hand and elbow. They lifted her to standing, crossed the porch, and then Freda pushed the door open.

  “You’ve been baking bread.” Ingeborg inhaled the yeasty fragrance and glanced at Clara, whose eyes were closed but her chest moved with the deep breaths. “Smells good, doesn’t it?”

  This time the nod was full-headed, and another breath brought on a smile.

  Why did such a simple thing as a smile make Ingeborg want to dance across the floor? Tusen takk, Lord God. There is hope, not that I truly doubted, but takk and takk again. “Freda will cut you a slice of bread as soon as it is cooled enough. Along with a slab of cheese and some of that chicken soup ready in the pot to the back of the stove. How does that sound?”

  “I planned on fixing dumplings for supper, but we can have some soup in the meantime.” Freda moved a chair nearer the stove, and they sat Clara down on it. Then before doing anything else, Freda opened the oven to check on the bread. “Pretty near done. I’ll take your coat and hang it up.”

  Clara clutched her lapels, shaking her head.

  “You take it off when you get warm enough, then.” Freda took Ingeborg’s coat and scarf and hung them alongside her own on the pegs by the door.

  Ingeborg lifted a lid to check on the fire, then set it to the side to put more wood in the firebox. Even the rattle of the lids sounded friendly. Leaning over, she tucked the blanket back in around Clara, glancing down at her moccasin-clad feet. Ingeborg’s moccasins showed their age, but at least the girl’s feet were dry. Whoever had left her at the hospital had not even brought her shoes.

  She glanced back at her charge and recognized her eyes were drifting closed and her head drooping forward. “Freda, help me.” Together they lifted Clara to her feet, walked her to the cot near the parlor stove and, after sitting her down, removed coat and moccasins and helped her lie down. Clara was asleep before they got the covers pulled up.

  Ingeborg puffed out a breath. “Scared me for a moment. I thought she might fall off the chair.” She heaved another sigh. “I wish I had some kind of bell here so she could call for help.”

  “Are there any cowbells down at the barn? I know, sleigh bells.”

  “Good idea. While you get the bread out, I’ll walk down to the barn and see what I can find.” Ingeborg snagged a shawl off the pegs and threw it around her shoulders as she headed out into the sunshine. The sun had looked deceptively warm from the inside of the house. She hoped spring was final
ly there to stay. Now that it was late April, it was unlikely they’d get another blizzard.

  She thought back to Easter. For the first time they’d had a trumpet heralding the day along with the other instruments. The alleluias soared even more than usual. She murmured the greeting again. “Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.” Her “Tussen takk, Lord” danced with the sunbeams.

  With Patches trotting beside her, she picked up her pace. Rather than searching for a cowbell, she would grab one of the short lengths of harness leather with a couple of bells attached. The men had let the cows out into the small field right behind the barn. She could hear them gathered in the sunshine, snorting, moving around a bit, chewing their cuds. Hay had been spread out there instead of tossed into their stanchions.

  “I know how you all feel,” Ingeborg said. “I need the sun on my face too.” She pulled open the door and stepped into the dimness. Someone should wash the windows so more light could come in. Barns had different smells in different seasons. Today, used bedding dominated, even though they cleaned the gutters every day and hauled the manure out to the pile. Since the harnesses were hung by the grain bins, oats and corn blended with dust, lending an overlay. Two cats wound around her legs, suggesting that perhaps it was milking time. Studying the harnesses hung from racks on the wall, she located a couple of leather straps with bells on them. At Christmastime they attached them to the harnesses for the joyous bells of Christmas. She unhooked one and, making sure the barn door was fully closed, returned to the house.

  “Uff da,” she said as she came through the kitchen door. “That barn sure does need spring too. I think you notice the smell more when the cows aren’t in there.”

  “They’d better enjoy the reprieve. I have a feeling another storm is on the way.”

  “There are no black clouds in the north or west.” Ingeborg hung up her shawl and stopped at the kitchen sink to wash the dust off the bells. “The bread perfume met me halfway up from the barn. The men are right when they say bread calls them.” She glanced over at the loaves of bread lying on their sides, covered by a clean dish towel.

  “We need to churn tomorrow—we’re almost out of butter.” Freda stirred the chicken soup and moved it back to the coolest corner of the stove. “The kids should be home any time now. I’ll go warn them to be quiet as soon as Patches announces them.”

  The words were no more out of her mouth than Patches barked his welcome-home bark as he charged down the lane.

  “I warned Clara that Manny is tall but is still only a boy, not a man to be feared.”

  “You better not tell Manny you said that. He is convinced he is a man by now.” Freda hustled out the front door to shush the two climbing out of the bus wagon driven by Samuel. The wagon looked like a large outhouse on wheels, or in this case, on iron-rimmed sledges, four runners in place of four wheels. It slid over the mud almost as easily as over snow. The horses’ hooves were not as fortunate.

  Ingeborg had explained to Emmy and Manny that a new girl—she was far too young to call a woman—would be coming to live with them, that she couldn’t speak, and that she was terrified of men. Grateful that Inga had not been there to grill her on all the whys and what fors, she set the cookie jar on the table and checked the teakettle to see how close it was to steaming.

  She had to give it to Freda. The children came inside more quietly than usual.

  “She is here?” Manny did manage to whisper as the two followed Freda into the kitchen. They set their lunch pails on the counter by the sink and hung up their coats and hats. “Can I go upstairs?”

  “She’s exhausted, so she should sleep hard for a while. Just be as quiet as you can.”

  “She can’t be ’fraid of me.” He rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t hurt her.”

  Emmy jabbed her elbow at his ribs. “Be nice.”

  “I am being nice.” He snagged a cookie from the jar on the table and managed to get up the stairs without a sound.

  “No wonder he’s such a good hunter. He even missed the creaky stairs.” In the last year, Freda had finally come to accept Manny and appreciate him for who he was now, not who he had been when he first arrived with his bank-robbing brothers. The scum left him behind with a badly broken leg. They didn’t get far before they were caught, but Manny was in the hospital in surgery by that time. While Manny still limped because one leg was shorter than the other, he could bring in game when they needed meat. Emmy wore a deerskin coat with the hair side in, one that would be passed down when she outgrew it, not worn out. Manny had bagged the deer.

  “Is she better?” Emmy asked, motioning to the parlor.

  “She’s terribly weak, but we got her in the house and to bed.”

  “And she doesn’t talk at all? Not even little words?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Not like she can’t hear? You know, not deaf?”

  “Ja.”

  “Can she sign?” Emmy signed the words as she spoke them. Like all the other children, Emmy had learned sign language in school so that everyone could communicate with the students at Kaaren’s school for the deaf.

  “I don’t think so.” Ingeborg shook her head. “She doesn’t.”

  “We’ll teach her!”

  “She only understands Norwegian.”

  “I speak some.”

  “I know.” Mostly the phrase uff da, but you are learning well, little one. Ingeborg studied Emmy, who stared back at her, dark eyes lacking their normal sparkle, concern visible instead. Emmy took other people’s pain very seriously, seeking ways to help with wisdom beyond her years. “She will do well here.” Ingeborg cupped the girl’s cheek in her hands. “Oh, my child, I love you so.”

  Emmy slipped both arms around her waist and laid her check against Ingeborg’s chest. They held each other close for comfort time, then Emmy leaned back to see her grandmother’s face. “We’ll make her good again.”

  “Ja, we will.” Wiping the ever-near tears from her cheeks, Ingeborg nodded. “We will love her well.”

  “Why doesn’t she talk?”

  “I don’t know. It could be she was born that way, or she got sick and it took her voice, or—or sometimes when something terrible happens, people lose the ability to speak. Perhaps one day, when she learns to sign, she’ll be able to tell us, or we may never know. But God will give her new life here, with us.”

  Manny returned to the kitchen as silently as he’d left. “She doesn’t look very old.”

  “I don’t think she is, maybe seventeen or eighteen I’d guess, or perhaps even younger.” And she’s going to have a baby. We will have another baby in this house. Dare I think, Lord, of this little one as a great-grandchild? She smiled to herself. Grandchildren, great-grandchildren. God certainly was answering her prayers in strange and wonderful ways. Through the years she had often questioned Him about not giving her and Haakan more children. Thorliff was the son of Roald and his first wife, but Haakan had mostly raised him. Andrew was born to Ingeborg and Roald, and Astrid was the only child she and Haakan had had together. For a long time she did not understand why, until she learned that men could become impotent after suffering with mumps. She still remembered how sick Haakan had been and how his face looked more like a pumpkin than her dear husband, due to the swelling.

  “Grandma.” Emmy returned from changing her clothes. “I’ll go gather the eggs and feed the chickens. Are you going to take eggs in to Garrisons’? We have plenty.”

  “Good idea. Please fix a basket. We’ll have extra butter to take too. I’ll take them to town in the morning.”

  As the two went out the door, Manny called back, “I’ll be down cleaning the barn.”

  Freda shook her head. “Never thought I’d hear that boy volunteering to clean the barn or do any other farm work.”

  “I know. Haakan would be so proud of him.” Ingeborg sniffed. “I sure hope those in heaven can see what is going on here on earth. In this case, I’m sure he is bragging up a storm.”

  Patches�
� barking alerted them that someone was coming up the lane. When the bark changed to a welcome, they knew it was family. Thorliff tied up his horse at the fence and, after petting the dog, mounted the stairs to the back porch. When he stepped into the kitchen, he smiled at his mother. “I knew you had baked bread today. Almost called to make sure but brought out your mail and Tante Kaaren’s. Do you need anything to go to town?”

  “Do you have time for coffee?” Freda pulled the pot forward to heat.

  “I’ll stop on my way back from Kaaren’s. Bread and cheese too?”

  Ingeborg and Freda glanced at each other and shook their heads as the door closed behind him. “Some things never change.”

  “That man can smell fresh bread clear from town.” Freda pulled the knife from the drawer and started slicing the bread.

  Ingeborg picked up the mail that Thorliff had laid on the table. “We finally have a letter from Norway.” She slit open the envelope and read through it quickly, then smiled at Freda. “Three people would like to come—two men and a woman. No relatives, but I know their families.”

  “It took them long enough to decide.”

  Ingeborg read her the letter. “Do you know those families?”

  “Ja. They’re good workers. The family owned a store north of Valdrez. The two boys worked for my onkel sometimes on the fishing boat. I’m surprised they want to come here to farm.”

  “Boats.” Ingeborg shook her head while she folded the letter to put back in the envelope. “Sophie and her first husband ran off to Seattle. He drowned when a fishing boat went down. I’ve never had a desire to get back on a boat after we came over those long years ago. That was a terribly hard voyage. I’ll give this to Thorliff.” She slit open another envelope. “Well, look at this.” She sat down at the table. “From Augusta, Roald’s oldest sister, who is in South Dakota.”

  Dear Ingeborg,

  I must apologize for the long times between my letters. I promised myself I would not wait to write until we had bad news to tell. I so often think of you, burying two husbands. I don’t know what I would do without Kane. I see that he is slowing down some, but I would not dare to mention it. He was thrown by one of the younger horses in the fall, and getting back in the saddle took some time. We are still raising beef, along with hay and some grains, mostly for cattle feed. The boys, Thomas and Stephen, are taking over more of the work now that they are growing, and Frank, a nephew of Kane’s who loves ranching too, came to live with us last year. Katy and Lissa are such a help in the house now, although Katy would prefer working with the horses. Lissa is only nine, but already she wants to teach school. It is hard to believe our children have grown up so quickly.