Streams of Mercy (36 page)

“Take heart, milady. This quarantine should be lifted shortly.”

“But I am so glad the doctors were wise enough to impose it. No one from town has fallen ill, except, of course, those who worked directly with the circus people. Imagine if any of our children got sick.”

“Aye, we be blessed. And see, we also be at Rebecca’s front door.” He opened it for her and entered behind her.

Anji stood a moment at the counter, undecided. What flavor? She loved them all. Finally she picked chocolate.

Mr. Devlin bobbed his head. “A fine choice. I shall have the same, please.” He ushered her to a table and held her chair. It had been a long time since she had been treated so royally.

He sat down across from her. “Thank ye from the bottom of
me heart for yer help this day. Thorliff was so certain the paper could not be put to bed without him. Dr. Astrid assures me that when the papers arrive at the hospital, she will straightway take one to him. Reassuring him thus should help him greatly as he battles this disease. Ease his mind.”

Anji’s mind needed easing too. What was going on between them? And what was going to go on between them, if anything? “I can see how important it is to ease his mind. Yes.”

The ice cream arrived. Anji skimmed half a spoonful off the top. That first taste was always the most delicious of all. “I feel just a little bit guilty, enjoying this while my children cannot. I will take a container home to them.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes.

Then Mr. Devlin cleared his throat. “I must apologize, Mrs. Moen. Ye may recall the time that ye approached me and I hastened away. I ask yer forgiveness for being so abrupt.”

Now her brain really was in a muddle. What could she say? She couldn’t even think! “Uh, er, of course I accept your apology. Uh . . .” How lame!
Say something intelligent, Anji Baard Moen!
Instead, “Why did you, may I ask?” sort of burst out of her.

He wagged his head. “A fine mixup. One of the first symptoms of diphtheria is usually a headache, and I was suffering a bad one. I feared greatly that I had contracted diphtheria from the patients around me, for I was living aboard the train as a nurse. I had the disease as a tad, but I thought the doctors must be wrong and ye can indeed suffer the ailment twice in yer life. Later I learned that the headache was caused by fumes from the kitchen car. So I was not contagious after all.”

A most happy tidal wave of relief washed over her. She was not rejected! All those miserable, sad, and sorry thoughts had been for nothing. “Mr. Devlin, I am so very pleased that you do not dislike me, and of course, that you are not ill. Everyone
associated with the hospital has been so careful to not bring it into the community. I’m grateful for that too.”

A real smile, not just a polite one, broke on his face too. “About this
Mr. Devlin
ye use so freely. Might we address each other by the first name again? I suggest we’ve earned the privilege, having put a newspaper to bed all by ourselves and doing it without one of those splendid new linotype machines. I’ve counseled Thorliff frequently on the wisdom of buying that labor-saving device.”

“Oh, I agree. Yes.” She smiled and nodded. “I believe he feels the machine would be too costly. I’ve known Thorliff a long, long time. He is entirely too practical.” Yes, she knew him well. She would not mention to Mr. Devlin—that is, to Thomas—that once upon a time they had almost married.

“The very thing.” He glanced out the window. “’Tis getting late, and I shall be helping me patients with their dinner.”

“I must get back as well.” She stood up. Her heart was singing happy songs.

He insisted on buying the container of ice cream for her children. “Tell them Mr. Devlin is proud that they be obeying so well.” And they left. They shook hands as they parted on her doorstep. She was a happy, happy, happy woman.

Devlin was a happy, happy, happy man. She had accepted his apology! His social clumsiness was not a relationship destroyer after all, though he was certain it was a relationship strainer and she was just too polite to say so. As he approached the train, he saw them starting to load the goats, so he walked down to the animal cars.

Manny was there, expertly herding the critters. The lad was certainly good with animals.

And it startled him that Johnny Solberg was there as well. Had the quarantine been lifted? Despite that Johnny had two good legs and Manny only one, he was not doing the job half as well as Manny. The last of the goats clambered up the ramp, and Manny disappeared inside.

He came back out and grinned. “Evening, Mr. Devlin! Johnny, the camel is next.”

The cat handler called from the next car back. “Can somebody help me here a few minutes?”

“I’ll do it.” Johnny slogged off. The lad appeared quite tired.

Devlin pointed. “Manny, lad, ye best get yer horse, Joker, out of the corral there before they accidentally load him too.”

“He’s going too, Mr. Devlin. Mr. Stetler says I can take him even if he can’t do tricks.”

“Going too.” Alarms went off in Devlin’s head. He kept them from reaching his face.

“Yes, sir. I’m joining the circus.”

“I see.” In fact, Devlin saw quite a lot. He well knew that if you oppose a boy’s dreams, he locks on to those dreams more solidly. This would require extreme diplomacy. “Well, then, I want to toast yer new life. Let us do so with some ice cream.”

Ice cream? Or more smelly work? You could see the tussle, the choice to be made, but only for a moment. “Yes, sir, I’d like that. Do they happen to have chocolate?”

“They do indeed.” Devlin led the way toward Rebecca’s shop. He should be helping to serve dinners, but this was far more important. “When be ye leaving? Do ye know yet?”

“Tomorrow, Mr. Stetler says, or the day after. The engineer has to get the locomotive to run. So far it ain’t.”

“I’ve heard from Mr. Ranson himself that the engine be a persnickety beast.”

Manny cackled. “Sure ’nuff. And pulling all them cars takes
a lot of power. Why, just the elephants have to be ten tons at least. One of the clowns was telling me that if they have to go up a steep hill, they leave half the train behind and pull the front half up. Then they go till they find a siding—a town or a water stop—to put the first half while they go back and pull the other half up. Takes a long time. And it gobbles a lot of wood. You can’t imagine how much wood it eats.”

“I should think. Too bad Mr. Stetler will not spend some money on a decent engine.”

“Yeah. Coal fired. Mr. Ranson says coal takes up a lot less space in the tender than wood, and they could go lots farther on a tender load of coal. And out here on the prairies coal is sometimes cheaper.”

They arrived at Rebecca’s and went inside. She looked surprised to see him again so soon, but she didn’t say anything.

Manny chose chocolate, Devlin ordered the same, and they each took a chair.

Devlin grinned. “I be muckle happy ye’ve found yerself a paying job!”

Manny licked his lips. “Well, it ain’t paying, at least not yet. Mr. Stetler says if I do good and prove my worth, then he’ll pay me. Maybe the end of the season or next spring. They go south to winter over, so’s it’s warmer, then come north.”

“Well, sure, and he’ll pay ye sometime. After he pays the rest of his crew. They’ve not seen any money lately either.”

“That’s what Mr. Ranson says.”

Devlin wagged his head. “Mr. Ranson ought to be paid the very most, for the whole train depends upon him.”

“Ain’t that the truth!”

Rebecca set their ice cream in front of them. Manny dug right in.

Devlin had just eaten a serving of ice cream, but there was
always room for a little more. “I be glad the horses and cows be fattened up again. They were looking so poorly when they arrived.”

Manny nodded. “Yeah, they was clear out of feed when they got here. Nothing left at all. That’s why they wanted to put them out to graze right away. Out of water too.”

“I hope things get better for them quickly. I wouldn’t want to see Joker suffer like that. He’s a beautiful horse.”

Manny was obviously going to say something, but he stopped. He ate in silence.

Perhaps Devlin was getting through to him. “Ye were doing so splendidly with school. I assume they have some sort of school aboard the train—so many tykes of various ages.”

“Some circuses do. Don’t know if this one does.”

“I hope so. A good education is the only defense a man has that he won’t be fleeced by some shyster. To be able to read and understand contracts, for example.”

“Johnny heard some of the folks on board had contracts, but it don’t do any good. They still ain’t getting paid. So why bother? Johnny works with the other animals too. He don’t like the camel. But we like Mr. Mason a lot. He never beat his boy. Not like my pa.”

Ingeborg said Manny had come a long way. How true. “If you have a contract, you can take the person to court, and the judge will make him pay what he owes. That’s about the only advantage I see, but ’tis a beauty.”

“Sure would be.” Manny stared at his empty dish. “Dr. Elizabeth was such a great lady.”

“She was that. We all be grieving.”

“And crazy little Inga. She’s been such a good friend.” He looked across the table to Devlin. “Her and Benny, they made me want to learn to walk again.”

“Aye, and baby Roald. Thorliff is going to have a hard time this winter without the children’s mother to help.”

“Grandma Ingeborg.”

“She not be getting younger. Astrid is worried. Ingeborg is not frail, but she not be as strong and spry as Astrid remembers. No, they’ll need more help than what Ingeborg can offer.”

“I grew up in Kentucky. Never felt a winter as fierce as this place gets.”

Devlin sat quiet. Let the lad’s thoughts work.

Manny looked up at him. “They really need me on the train, Mr. Devlin. But Grandma needs me too. I don’t know what to do.”

Devlin nodded slowly. “I wager ye never wanted to run away to sea.”

“Work on a boat? It’d be interesting, though.”

“It is. And hard. The boat is how I came to America, working me passage over. There be a truism aboard ship: ‘One hand for the ship and one hand for yerself.’ That is, ye work for the ship, but ye must always keep yerself safe as well. When I have a hard choice, I try to remember that saying. If I must do one of two things, and one is better for me, that should be the choice.”

Manny nodded. “I see. If both choices need me, which one is better for me. Prob’ly staying here would be, you think?”

“Probably better for Joker too. I don’t like the way those animals were so starved.”

Manny bobbed his head. “Me either, Mr. Devlin. It really upset me the way all those animals didn’t have no feed at all. And those poor elephants. And with Grandma getting old . . . I’m staying. She needs me.”

“A wise decision, Manny.”

They walked back to the train talking and joking. Manny
seemed in a happy frame of mind. The decision must have been weighing more heavily on him than Devlin had guessed. At the train, he brought his saddle down out of the car while Devlin caught up his horse. They took it down to Thorliff’s and tied it out behind the house. Manny waved to a face in the window as they left.

“I’m gonna help ’em load, then I’ll go back to the farm. Can I go back to the farm?”

“Aye, but I can help them load here. Ye should go see Mrs. Geddick in the hospital kitchen. Tell her you want to wash up thoroughly in order to go back to the farm. She’ll know what ye should do. No dirt, no germs.”

“Yes, sir.” Manny went off to the hospital’s back door.

Near the horse car, Johnny Solberg sat off to the side on a steamer trunk, his elbows on his knees and his head in both hands.

“Ye don’t look well, son.” Devlin knelt beside him.

“Got a headache. It will go away. I think I’m catching a cold.”

“Ah. Sore throat, eh?”

“Yeah.”

Devlin thought about all this a moment. “Did ye get that shot they gave everyone?”

“What shot? They gave them that already?” He raised his head. “You mean the shot everyone was going to get so they wouldn’t get sick? Far was inside the hospital and didn’t come home, so I just stayed here and helped Manny with the animals. If I didn’t, I woulda had to stay home like all the rest of the children had to. And I didn’t want to do that.”

Devlin stood. “Come with me.”

“I gotta help load.”

“This is more important.” Devlin assumed his schoolmaster voice. “Come with me.”

Johnny stood up and started walking.

Devlin guided him to the hospital and led him inside with a heavy, heavy heart.

No, Dr. Astrid, this
impossible nightmare is not over yet. And now I am
certain it is striking the heart of John Solberg’s family.

C
HAPTER 28

T
hey were gathered in Dr. Astrid’s office: the good doctor, Nurse Deborah, Devlin, and John Solberg. He wondered idly just how sturdy this hospital building was. Sure, and his heart just now was heavy enough to go through the floor. And his heart’s burden was nothing compared to poor Astrid’s. He had never seen her looking so weary, drawn, and pale. What a horrible toll life was taking on her.