A Measure of Mercy (31 page)

“What was she wearing?”

“Deerskin top, leggings laced to her knees, and moccasins with leg coverings with the hair side in. I have to figure how to scrub them too.” Ingeborg paused at a click on the phone line. Who had been listening in? That was one thing about the telephone. You never knew who all would hear your news. Not that it mattered if others heard at this point.

Kaaren chuckled. “Well, the news is out now. I better get back to helping Ilse get breakfast on the table.”

“How are your sick ones?”

“All on the mend. Why don’t I send Freda back with the clothing? You might need help with the scrubbing.”

“Good idea. Takk.”

Ingeborg hung up and turned to see Haakan pulling on his boots. “Think of a name for her.”

“You want me to tell Andrew?”

“I guess. It doesn’t really matter. Someone was listening, and I’m sure the entire town of Blessing will know by ten.”

“If it takes that long.” He pulled his wool winter hat with the earflaps down on his head. “Keep the coffee hot.”

Ingeborg brought the washtub back in and filled the boiler with water to heat. She could feel the dark eyes watching her as she moved about the kitchen, stirring up oatmeal for breakfast and slicing bread to be dipped in beaten eggs and fried. As the fragrances permeated the kitchen, she returned to the bedroom to get dressed, turning to find the child right behind her, as if she didn’t dare let her out of sight. She exchanged her robe and nightdress for the layers of clothing needed to keep warm enough. Wool stockings, flannel drawers and camisole, padded woolen petticoat with another over it and then her wool serge skirt and a sweater over her waist, finishing off with an ankle-length apron.

All the time she kept up a running monologue describing what she was doing and why, although she wondered why she did that. If the child did not speak English, she hoped the river of words sounded comforting. When the little girl shivered, Ingeborg returned to the kitchen, where it was warmer, to brush and braid her hair.

“Ingeborg, I’m home,” Freda called as she opened the door.

“Good. Come over here, where it is warm.” Ingeborg laid the brush down and divided her hair into three sections. “How was the walk? Did you use the lane or the path across the field?”

“I followed the path the milkers used. The sun is trying to break through the clouds.” While she talked Freda unwrapped her long scarf and hung her outer things on the pegs on the wall. “I brought several sizes. She doesn’t look very big.”

“She’s not.” Ingeborg wrapped her braid around and around at the nape of her neck and pinned the coil in place. “There, that’s better. Now, let’s see what you have. After we finish breakfast, we are going to bathe her, and I’m thinking perhaps cut her hair to make it easier to wash.”

“Lice, eh?”

“Not surprising. Kaaren has to delouse a child or two every year.

I know you’ve been washing bedding day and night, but we’ll have to do that here too. Everything she might have touched, including our bed. She crawled in with us during the night. I never even thought of lice. All I could think was to get her warm again. She was so cold.”

“Any frostbite?”

“Remarkably little. Some spots on her toes is all.” Ingeborg laid the clothes on a chair where the little girl could see them from the rocker. “These are for you.” She held up a woolen shift and shirt, along with knit woolen stockings. “Oh good, I was wondering how quickly I could knit her some.”

When Haakan came in from milking, they sat down at the table.

“Andrew suggested we call her Emaline. I thought that was kind of pretty.” Haakan bowed his head, and the others followed.

Ingeborg glanced up from under her lashes to see the stubborn look had returned to the child’s face. If she thought sitting at the table was bad, wait until she had to endure the kerosene.
Lord, help
us through this.

“I think we should cut it.” Freda shook her head as they studied the rat’s nest that was Emaline’s hair. Ingeborg was still debating whether they should give her an English name or perhaps call her Shy Fawn in honor of her heritage. But then the other children would probably tease her, so an English name would be better.

“I guess you are right.” Ingeborg fetched the scissors from her sewing basket in the parlor. She handed Emaline two cookies, one for each hand, and lifted a hank of hair. When the sound of the scissors made the child whip her head around, the women sighed. This was not going to be easy.

Thunder settled on the girl’s brow.

“You distract her,” Freda suggested. “I’ll cut. We can make it pretty later.”

They developed a rhythm. Ingeborg held out a piece of cookie. Emaline reached for it, and Freda snipped off more hair. By the time they finished, both of them were shaking their heads. Now the hair no longer looked like a rat’s nest but like something had been chewing on the black mass. Freda dumped the cutoff hair into the fire.

“Pew! Burning hair stinks something awful.”

“Let’s get the bath done. Some children enjoy the water. Maybe this won’t be so bad.”

Emaline liked the warm water, splashing and holding her hand up with the soap bubbles. Even when Ingeborg rubbed the rose-smelling soap into her hair, she didn’t mind, sniffing the bar and nodding. But when they applied the kerosene, she scrunched up her face and let out a shriek that made the cat leap out of her box and slink off into the parlor. Ingeborg offered a piece of ham to distract her. Cookies would disintegrate into the water. They rinsed, soaped again to get the kerosene smell out, and rinsed some more. By this time all the fight had gone out of the child, and when they bundled her in warm towels and settled her in Ingeborg’s lap in the rocker, Emaline curled into as small a piece as she could, without a whimper.

“I sure hope we got ’em all.” Freda blew out a sigh. “I do not want to go through that again.”

Ingeborg didn’t remind her that it usually took at least two doses. Right now she just held the little one close and rocked gently, singing like she’d done the night before. She was glad they had few tangles to comb out, with her very short haircut.

The sound of boots on the porch caught their attention. Thorliff pushed open the door with a smile. “I hear you have company.”

Ingeborg looked at Freda. “What did I tell you? Everyone has heard.” She smiled at her son. “How about bringing Inga with you tomorrow? We’re hoping playing with her will make our little guest talk.”

“She hasn’t spoken?”

“No. Only a shriek when we poured the kerosene on her head for the lice.”

“Well, who wouldn’t shriek?” He set a package on the table. “Thelma sent some things she’d made for Inga that are too big yet. See if they fit.”

“Who told you?” Ingeborg asked, nodding to the sleeping child in her lap.

“Thelma. No idea who told her, but—”

“Coffee?”

“If it is hot. I told Far I’d be back out to the barn to discuss something with him. The clouds are still arguing with the sun.”

“Good. I wasn’t ready for winter to settle in yet.”
And perhaps we
can find out more about our little one if it clears enough so someone can
ride out to the reservation.

“I brought you a letter from Astrid.” He handed the envelope to Ingeborg. “Care to read it aloud?” He nodded his thanks for the coffee that Freda poured for him.

“Of course.” Ingeborg slit the envelope open and drew out the single sheet of paper. She glanced down the page. “Oh my. She has a little boy who had to have both legs amputated, and she is wondering if someone here in Blessing would be willing to take him in.” She looked up to see Thorliff and Freda exchanging looks of astonishment. “This must be the time to take care of God’s little ones, children that no one else seems to want.”

WITH THE STORM gone, after breakfast Joshua waded through snow knee-deep in places and bare ground in others, depending on how the wind drifted it. Smoke rose straight above chimneys, and the warming sun sparkled the iced tree branches. One of the Geddicks waved to him from behind the team dragging the snowplow to clear the streets where needed. Penny was sweeping the porch of the mercantile.

“How’d you like our blizzard?” she asked.

“I didn’t. Nothing to do at the boardinghouse but eat and drink coffee.” He neglected to mention the party in the kitchen.

“Shame you couldn’t have made it over here. I could keep ten people busy cleaning and building new shelves and display racks. Well, maybe not ten.”

“Hjelmer out yet?”

“Oh yes. He and Mr. Sam are working on something over at the smithy. He’s planning on you being there.”

“Good. Do you have a big pad of paper I could buy and some more pencils?”

“How big?”

Joshua held his hands out about twenty-four inches apart.

“If I don’t, I know you could get some from Thorliff. He sometimes has odd sized newsprint paper left over and gives it to the schoolchildren. Pardon me if I’m nosey, but what are you drawing?”

“House plans. Where I want changes from the plans from Sears and Roebuck’s.”

“I see. Did you get the basement all dug?” Penny asked.

“Nearly. Still a pile of dirt in the center.”

“I think they are fixing something then going over to work on our house. I hear you were the star of quite a party at the boardinghouse during the blizzard.”

“We did have a good time. Made the time pass right quick.”

“Made me wish we were still living at the boardinghouse too.” She leaned on the broom handle. “I can’t wait for our house to be finished. The house we’re renting is much smaller than our house in Bismarck. Made us feel closed in during the blizzard. I do hope we have more fall now before winter really sets in.” She shook herself. “I better get this done instead of jabbering the morning away. And keeping you from working on my house.”

Joshua touched the brim of his hat with one finger and headed for the smithy, where he could hear a hammer ringing on metal. One thing for sure, if you were looking for a place to get warm, the smithy was it. The fire glowed red-hot in the forge, changing to white as Hjelmer pumped the bellows. Mr. Sam held a steel bar by the tongs with one hand and set it in the middle of the hottest flame until it glowed red, turning to white. Then he laid the bar on the anvil and set to pounding it into another shape with the heavy hammer.

“What are you working on?” Joshua raised his voice to be heard over the roar of the forge and the clanging metal.

“Good morning.” Hjelmer turned at his question. “Thinking on a way to get the grease to last longer on the windmill head so the men don’t have to go up and grease ’em so often. There’s got to be a way. You given any thought to this?”

“No. I’ve been thinking on the drill. I know the horses are easier since we got to have them along anyway, but what if we used a kerosene engine, something similar to what’s on the washing machines Penny carries at the store? I’d bet the company makes all sizes.”

“I thought about using a steam engine, but they’re too big to be practical. Something I read . . .” Hjelmer narrowed his eyes trying to remember. “I think they’re using kerosene engines to run the machines that make ice. You looked through a Sears and Roebuck catalog lately?”

“Nope, sorry.” Joshua shook his head. “Been concentrating on their house plans.”

“Think we’ll order a couple of the catalogs. May be something in there we can adapt.”

They left the shop a bit later and spent the rest of the day working on the interior of the house. Joshua nailed rough-cut two-by-quarter-inch strips on the walls so they’d be ready for the plaster later. One of the wise things about Hjelmer, he was always looking ahead. Like here they were running wire in the walls and ceilings for the day when electricity would come to Blessing. He knew there were electric lights in big cities, but gaslights were a new commodity in the country, where most people still used kerosene lamps. Joshua figured he would do the same. All he was learning on this house he could apply to his own. Indoor plumbing like they had at the boardinghouse, a furnace in the basement with heating vents and ducts to the rooms upstairs and down. He would give anything to be able to show his house to his mother. It would be a far cry from the tar paper shack he’d built out on his farm.

What would Astrid want in a house?
kept coming to his mind. As he hammered away on the slats, he realized more and more how little he really knew about the young woman who was taking medical training in Chicago. One thing he did know, she had strong opinions.

“When you’re done in here, come help me in the parlor,” Toby Valders said from the doorway.

“Sure enough.” He returned to his lath laying. Thinking of Astrid reminded him of the bit he’d heard about her and a half-breed from the Rosebud Indian Reservation. He had no idea where that was, but how did a half-breed qualify for medical training in

Chicago? After what the Indians did to his family, his pa never had a good word to say about them. He figured his pa was right on that count. Which brought him to more thoughts on his brother. He slammed a nail home with enough force to dent the piece of wood. He hit his thumb and finger with the hammer while holding the next nail.

He bit back a yelp and the stream of words his mother had never tolerated in her house by stuffing the wounded members into his mouth. When he calmed down enough to think, he heaved a sigh. Served him right. Maybe if he’d put to work the things Pastor Solberg spoke about, he’d not get so angry. Or maybe not.