A Measure of Mercy (13 page)

“Looks good to me. Let’s go measure and cut those posts.” Hjelmer pulled his handkerchief from his back pocket and mopped his face. “Sure is getting hot.”

“You’re just not used to manual labor yet,” Thorliff said, clapping his uncle on the shoulder. “Just soft. That’s all.”

“Who do you think shoveled out a good portion of the basement?” Hjelmer held up his hands. “No more summer hands for me. I’ve got calluses to prove it.”

As the sun was starting to set, they put their tools away and headed for home. “See you here at seven o’clock tomorrow,” Hjelmer called.

Joshua raised a tired hand in acknowledgment and kept on walking. He needed a pair of leather gloves; that was for sure. He climbed the steps to the boardinghouse and pulled open the screen door. Fragrances of fresh bread, sizzling meat, and fresh coffee drew him into the dining room, where Miss Christopherson pointed him toward a seat.

“Your supper will be right out. I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you.”

“I got a job with Hjelmer Bjorklund. We’ll start putting up his new house tomorrow after it comes in on the train.” He sat down, looked at his hands, and quickly stood again. “I’ll be right back. Need to wash off some of the grime first.” When he returned, a plate of sliced roast beef, potatoes smothered in brown gravy, and string beans with bacon waited at his place. Two slices of bread and butter covered a plate beside the other, and a full coffee cup finished it off.

“This looks wonderful.”

“Thank you. I’ll tell Mrs. Sam.” Miss Christopherson glanced around the room. “You’re about the last one to be served, and there’s plenty more where that came from.”

“Thank you.” Joshua tucked into his meal, polishing off that plate and one more before he decided he was full.

“Too full for chocolate cake?”

“Yes, no, I ah . . .”

“I’ll get it.”

He watched the woman, no longer young but not yet old, scurry back to the kitchen. He knew she wasn’t the waitress, but she made sure he got plenty of food every evening and at the other meals too if he showed up.

Waiting for his dessert, he leaned back in his chair and let his gaze wander the room. A family of four sat at one table finishing their supper, the two children, a boy and a girl, sitting perfectly still, sneaking glances at other folks. The parents ate without a word. Something like meals had been when he was growing up. His mother never ate a meal with the rest of the family but served everyone. If there was anything left, she ate it after the others were finished. Smaller children were definitely seen but not heard.

Several drummers shared another table, laughing at something one of them said. He’d heard that many spent the night in Blessing just to have a good meal at the boardinghouse. News traveled on the railroad and brought new people to town. Like him. But the railroad hadn’t been the calling card for him. Maybe he should invite Astrid to have supper with him there some evening. He knew that even in his mind he should be calling her Miss Bjorklund, or even Dr. Bjorklund, but somehow it just didn’t happen.

“Enjoy your cake.” Miss Christopherson set the plate on the table and refilled his coffee cup.

“Oh, I will. Thank you.”

“Can I get you anything else?”

He shook his head. “But thank you.”

“Have a good night.” She left and he watched her check on the other two tables, her graciousness bringing smiles to several, even to the little girl and boy.

After supper Joshua made his way upstairs and down the hall to his room. He sat on the freshly made bed and pulled off his boots, setting them under the edge of the mattress. Washing his hands had not been enough. He gathered up his towel, soap, and a set of clean clothes and walked down the hall to the bathroom, claiming it in use by putting the
Occupied
sign on the outside of the door. How his mother would love having hot and cold running water at her house.

He turned on the faucets in the claw-footed bathtub and finished undressing while the water deepened. When he sank down into the water, his sigh rose with the steam. This was surely a bit of heaven come down to pleasure a body. He sniffed the bar of soap. Even it smelled good. Life in Blessing was “some good,” to quote his sister, Avis. Shame he’d waited so long to come back.

Now all he had to do was convince Astrid—Miss Bjorklund, or rather Dr. Bjorklund—that he was the man for her. But why would a doctor want to be married to a nobody like him? Should he even try? How would she be both a wife and a doctor? Although Thorliff and Dr. Elizabeth seemed to manage. Maybe he needed to rethink his expectations.

10

T
hey’re coming. They’re coming.

The song danced through Ingeborg’s mind as she and
Haakan drove the wagon toward Blessing and the train station. Her
cousins would be arriving today. She was so excited since receiving
the telegram last evening that she’d hardly slept. All those years ago
she’d taught Alfreda how to make cheese and take care of the cows up
at the saeter, the high mountain cabins where the young women and
girls spent the summer pasturing the milk cows in Norway.

It was up there that Freda, as they all called her cousin, had
fallen and broken her leg. The fall had left her with a permanent
limp, and Ingeborg with the guilt that she’d not done a better job
in setting the leg. They should have sent her home to someone with
more experience.

“What is it, my Inge?” Haakan asked softly.

“So many years since I’ve seen her.”

“Ja, that is true. But I am sure she is feeling the same nervousness. As you say so often, all will be well.”

“Uff da, there you go, turning my words back on me. Why do they sound so much better and wiser if I am saying them instead of listening to them? Or do I mean it the other way?” She tucked her arm through his. “She has wanted to come for a long time.”

“I know. Shame her husband never wanted to come. Making a good living is so much easier here. He might still be alive if he had.”

“You call what we all do easy?” She stared at him, purposely widening her eyes to look shocked.

Haakan chuckled. Just the response she’d wanted.

“Would we have had all this were we still in Norway?”

Ingeborg slowly shook her head as she let her gaze rove the fields, some with wheat and others with corn, all swaying in tune with the breeze. Cattle grazing in other fields, her cheese house, the big barns. “God has given us so much.” She shook her head again. “But there is something missing, you know. Something that will indeed make Freda homesick.”

“The mountains?”

“Ja, she always loved the mountains. And here the land couldn’t be flatter. As if God rolled it out with a giant rolling pin.”

Haakan patted her knee. “Leave it to you to think of something like that. Shame we don’t have the soddy any longer. She could have her own house, then.”

Ingeborg nodded. The last big flood in 1897 had floated away Metiz’ cabin and washed out all the soddies in the area because the walls were made of sod blocks cut right out of the prairie. “There is plenty of room at our house. And Solem, her married son, and his family can stay over at Kaaren’s until school starts again.”

Haakan
hup
ped the horses into a trot when they heard the train whistle floating up from the south. “Someone could stay in the cook wagon too, you know. At least until harvest.”

“Are Mrs. Geddick and her girl going to cook for you again this year?”

“Far as I know.” He stopped the horses at the hitching rail and wrapped the reins around the whipstock. Stepping down, he turned to help Ingeborg use the wheel spokes as steps. “We should have put a bench in the wagon. It would make it easier for her to sit.”

After flipping the tie rope around the rail, they left the horses and strolled onto the heavy planks that formed the platform. Ingeborg slid her hand through the crook of her husband’s arm. “Thank you for coming with me.”

He patted her hand. “I wouldn’t have missed it.”

Ingeborg stared into his eyes, no longer the intense Bjorklund blue but still like chips of sky come down to smile at her. Even after all these years, the love that shone in them set her heart from a walk to a trot, and his smile kicked it into a gallop. She fanned herself with the other hand. “My, but it’s gotten warm, don’t you think? I should have brought a parasol.”

Haakan stared at her for a moment and then chuckled. “Do you even have such a thing? I can’t remember when I saw you bring it out last.”

“You don’t mind that your wife doesn’t have milk-white skin?” She batted her eyes, making him grin even wider, and raised her other hand to her cheek. “Why, I declare, I didn’t use my buttermilk poultice this morning.”

“Your what?”

“Astrid and Elizabeth were talking about ladies using buttermilk soaks to keep their skin white and how important
Godey’s Lady’s Book
said it was to keep the sun off our skin so that women would be more attractive.”

Haakan leaned closer so she could hear him over the hissing and shrieking train. “And what did
Godey’s Lady’s Book
say about women wearing britches?”

“Haakan Bjorklund, you know I gave those up at your request all those years ago and never looked back.”

“Never?”

“Well, not too often.” She swatted him on the arm. “You behave yourself. You don’t want to scare poor Freda off now with tales that should be forgotten.”

“As if I would ever do that.”

Ingeborg took a step forward when the conductor placed his stool on the platform. Two drummers stepped off first and headed for the boardinghouse. A young man helped his wife down and set one of his children down beside the mother. Were these Freda’s children? Ingeborg tugged on Haakan’s arm to move forward.

The conductor helped another woman down, this one gray and gaunt, her gloved hand covering her mouth in a coughing spasm. Another young man handed out several valises, and the conductor set them on the landing.

Ingeborg stared at the family, then sent Haakan a questioning look. He nodded and they moved forward.

“Freda?” Ingeborg cleared her throat and raised her voice. “Freda Brunderson?”

The woman turned slowly as if fighting off heavy weights. “Ja.” Her voice broke, and she coughed again, leaning against the shoulder of the younger man. When she could speak, she whispered, “Ingeborg?”

Ingeborg crossed the remaining distance and put her arms around the old woman, speaking her greeting in Norwegian. “Welcome, my dear cousin, to Blessing.” She cradled the now sobbing woman in her arms.

Haakan extended his hand to the older son. “Hallo, I am Haakan Bjorklund.”

“Ja, takk. I am Solem Brunderson. This is my wife, Anna, my younger brother, Gilbert, and my children. Thor is the oldest, and the little one is Signe.”

Haakan shook hands with the men and nodded to the woman, who clutched her daughter to her side. Even with her shawl covering, her advanced pregnancy was obvious.

Solem switched to Norwegian, apparently having used up his English in the greeting. “Please to forgive us. We have all been ill on the voyage, and the train trip was not much better. Mor seems to have fared the worst, but then she wore out taking care of all of us.”

“I am surprised they let you through the inspection in New York.”

“Ja, we were afraid too. But Mor turned worse after we got on the train. Your letters proved to them that we would have work and a home.”

“I’m sorry, folks, but you are going to have to move away from the train. We are ready to depart.”

“Our baggage?” Solem again spoke in Norwegian, but the conductor pointed to the stack of luggage unloaded off the baggage car.

Haakan caught Ingeborg’s gaze and nodded. “Let’s take your mother to the wagon first and get her settled with the children; then we can return for the trunks.”

Freda clung to Ingeborg, but after three steps she began to collapse. Haakan caught her and started to lift her in his arms, but Ingeborg shook her head. “Two of you would be better.” She motioned to Gilbert, who seemed the healthiest of the lot. He stepped forward and locked arms with Haakan to form a chair for his mother to sit on. When she had both arms wrapped around their shoulders, they lifted her and made their way to the wagon.

I should have brought blankets and quilts.
Ingeborg studied the empty wagon bed.
If only she had told me
. . . But that had nothing to do with now. “I’ll get in first, and then I can hold her.” Using the wagon wheel spokes, she climbed into the wagon and propped her back against the front wall. Gently they settled Freda next to her, then handed the children in. “You might find it easier to sit on the wagon seat,” she said to Anna.

“Nei, Mor.” The little girl started to cry. From the tear streaks on her face this wasn’t the first cry of the day.

Solem ignored the child’s crying and handed her and his son in to Ingeborg also. “Now stay there,” he said softly in Norwegian. “We’ll be back.”

Thor clutched his sister’s hand and huddled into the opposite front corner of the wagon. Anna turned on the wagon seat and smiled down at him. “This is good. We will be home soon.”