“Are you all right?” Concern made him stop and turn to look at her more closely.
She nodded. “Ja, just show me the new school building, then I think we better not stay for the dancing and supper.”
“Kaaren!”
She shook her head. “No, I want to see my school from the inside.”
He led her around the wood scraps and in through the doorway. The workers paused, and a hush fell.
“Do you like it?”
Kaaren stood in the middle of the room and looked up at the blue sky now fading toward sunset. She stamped the dirt beneath her feet and crossed to lay a hand on the rough surface of the wall, pulling loose a green stalk and tossing it over the beams. “This is the most beautiful school anywhere.” Her voice rang for everyone to hear.
Cheers erupted from all around. Joseph Baard nailed the last rafter in place.
Kaaren sagged against her husband. “I think you better get me home now.”
“Are you sick?”
“Not really, but your son or daughter seems a mite impatient to enter this world.”
“Oh, good Lord above.” Lars dropped her hand and tore out the door. “Harness the wagon . . . ah . . . load up the horses.” He shook his head and spun around. “Kaaren, where are you?”
Her laughing voice came from the soddy. “Right where you left me.”
Lars darted back in the school building. “We’re having a baby.” He started back out, turned, and hooked an arm around her middle. “Come on, what are you waiting for?”
Haakan drove the quilt-padded wagon up to the door. One look at Lars’ face and the man on the wagon seat shook his head. “Think I better drive.”
She is early, so early. Ingeborg kept her fears from her face.
Karen groaned against another spasm.
“Easy now. We have a long time ahead of us.” Ingeborg knelt in the bed of the wagon beside her sister-in-law, who after all they’d been through together was closer than a sister. They were more like pieces of the same heart. “Would you feel more comfortable sitting up?”
“I think so.” Kaaren rotated her shoulders and took a deep breath. Letting it out slowly, she used her elbows to raise up while Ingeborg stuffed two folded quilts behind her.
“If this jolting didn’t bring on the pains, nothing else could.”
“Sister, this is so early.” Kaaren looked over the mountain of her belly to the wagon following close behind them. Thorliff sat straight on the wagon seat, the lines held gently but firmly in his hands as he’d been taught. She waved at him and he nodded, shooting Baptiste beside him a grin of pure pride.
“Are you doing all right?” Lars leaned back from the seat above. “You want I should prop you up?”
“That would be good.” Kaaren clenched her teeth, feeling the cramping starting at her spine and encircling her belly.
“Easy now. Just breathe deep and let it all out. My mor used to say that babies come when they are ready, whether the mother is or not.”
Sighing, Kaaren blinked her eyes and felt her body return to whatever was normal for now. Dust tickled her nose and made her sneeze.
Ingeborg drew a square of white cloth from her apron pocket and offered it with a loving smile. She helped Kaaren sit up for Lars to get behind her, his long legs stretched out to her sides. Folding one of the quilts loaned by a neighbor, she tucked it between the wagon side and Lars’ back.
Kaaren leaned back against her husband’s chest and sighed again. The rocking of the wagon now felt comfortable, like a cushioned chair. He rubbed her shoulders, kneading the taut muscles to some pliancy.
“You know, the cows, they head off to a quiet place all by themselves and return with a bouncing calf.” His words tickled the hair around her ears.
“Ja, and the cat. She, too, goes off and hides. Is that what you want me to do?” She looked up to see his smile bathe her in love. He shook his head.
“No, just helping you think of something else.”
“Ja, well . . .” She clenched her teeth again, digging her fingers into the muscles of his leg. “This baby of ours ain’t thinking anything else, let me tell you.” Her words forced her to breathe in small pants. Her eyes widened. “Ah, that helps.”
“What? My leg that might never work right again?” He rubbed just above the knee. “Glad it was my good one.”
She slapped his hand playfully away. “You want we should change places?”
“Heaven forbid!” The shock in his tone made both women laugh.
“My mor said scrubbing floors on your hands and knees was good for birthing babies.”
“She didn’t have packed dirt floors neither.” Ingeborg stood to ask Haakan a question. Clenching the board seat for balance, she raised her face to talk. When he turned his head, she caught the look, of what? Concern, worry, or was it fear? His eyes darkened under his hat brim, and lines bracketed his mouth. She laid a hand on his arm. “She is all right. This is the way of babies coming into the world. You haven’t been near birthing before?”
He shook his head. “I never knew the hurting was like this. Mor went to the bedroom; we went to the barn, and a while later, she had a sleeping baby in her arms. We would tiptoe in, and she would smile and say, ‘Look what the angels brought us.’ ”
“Ja, well, women been bringing babies into this world in pain and suffering ever since the fall. The Bible says it should be so.” She glanced down to check on her patient. “It is never easy, but the work is worth the pain. ’Twill get a lot worse before it gets better.” She kept her voice low, meant for his ears alone.
“God give her strength.” Haakan clucked the horses a bit faster but knew too much speed would make the wagon jolt even more.
Ingeborg returned to find Kaaren in the throes of another spasm, but this time Lars, in a most gentle voice, reminded her that small breaths helped and rubbed her shoulders and neck.
Please, dear Lord, get us home quickly. I think this baby is in a real hurry.
When the wagon finally halted in front of the soddy, Ingeborg and Kaaren shared a look of relief. Haakan wrapped the reins around the brake handle and swung over the back of the seat.
“You want we should carry you in on the quilt?” he asked, tipping his hat back with one finger.
“Nei. I will walk.”
“Walk!” Lars shook his head. “Has this thing caused you to lose your mind? I will carry you.” He bent to hook an arm behind her legs when Kaaren thumped him on the shoulder.
“We don’t need your back broken, and I don’t need the quilt. Just help me down from the end of the wagon, and Ingeborg and I will begin the walking.”
“Begin the walking?” Haakan and Lars looked from the women with resolution written indelibly on their faces to each other, recognizing they wore the same astounded expression.
“But . . . but . . .
Ingeborg felt Kaaren tighten again. “Here, Lars, help your wife. Haakan, you get down to the ground and make sure we don’t drop her. Walking now will make the baby come more easily later.” Her look left no room for argument.
The men did as told and then followed Ingeborg’s instructions to go about the evening chores as if nothing were wrong.
Lars blustered, but at the wave of Kaaren’s hand, he glared once and led the horses off to the barn to be unharnessed. “You will call if you need me?”
“Ja, we will,” Ingeborg called over her shoulder as she and Kaaren paced the length of the soddy. The temperature dropped with the darkening sky, and still they walked. Ingeborg went inside and returned with Kaaren’s coat and they walked some more. Lars brought up the brimming milk buckets, and after a headshake from Ingeborg, he went about the business of straining and setting the pans for the cream to rise in the soddy they’d built that summer for a cooling room. A trough filled with cold water held the cream cans until there was enough for butter. Ingeborg turned much of the whole milk into cheeses, but Kaaren churned the butter they sold to the store in St. Andrew and to the Bon
anza farms across the Red River.
“You want we should go in?” Ingeborg asked, glancing up at the stars that now dotted the cobalt sky. Lighter blue still lined the western horizon.
“Ja, I guess.” Kaaren stumbled once and bent to cradle her belly. “They are coming closer together.” She stood and sucked in a deep breath. “Oh my.”
“What is it?”
“The water broke. I’m drenched.” She looked down at the front of her dress. “Uff da, such a mess.”
They found Lars sound asleep in the rocker, his head tipped back and gentle snores puffing his lips. A loaf of bread missing several slices and cheese still on the table said he’d fixed his own supper.
“I should have come in and heated something,” Ingeborg whispered.
“Or me.” Kaaren tried to smile around the pinched lines at the edges of her mouth.
“You been busy enough. You want he should go to stay with Haakan and the children?”
Kaaren shook her head. “Maybe that is the right way, but he will help me later. I could tell in the wagon, he . . .” She doubled over again, her gasp waking the sleeping man.
Lars leaped to his feet, the rocking chair banging back against the chest. “Are you all right? How can I help? Is the baby almost here?” His questions rifled the still air.
“You can help your wife continue to walk, and I will make us all some coffee. Then I will run over home and check on the others.” Ingeborg rattled the grate and, as the coals flared, added some wood shavings from the box under the reservoir. When those caught, she placed the kindling and added a couple of slightly larger sticks. As she went about the mundane chores, she kept an eye on Kaaren. Lars’ arm seemed to calm her and lend her strength. Perhaps it would be all right if he helped. She wasn’t about to tell anyone of the impropriety. Like Haakan had said, men were usually banished to the barn or the fields and welcomed home after the baby had made its entrance into the world.
Ingeborg found her family sound asleep in their beds, the boys’ faces washed and the supper things all put away. Paws thumped his tail at the side of the bed, his guilty look saying he’d landed there just before she walked in. He liked sleeping with Thorliff, if given half a chance.
“How is she?” Haakan’s voice came through the dimness.
“Making do. In the wagon, this baby seemed in a hurry but then must have took a rest. Things should speed up now.”
“Do you need me to help?”
“Mange takk, but no. Lars will come for you if . . . if . . .” She turned back to the doorway. “God willing, all will be well.”
Thoughts of her own baby born long before its time and buried before she even knew it existed caused her to clamp her bottom lip between her teeth. Those days when they first arrived at their homestead had brought all kinds of hardships, but with God’s help they had survived.
Kaaren was still pacing the floor, albeit more slowly, when Ingeborg reentered the northern soddy. She’d changed into her nightclothes and wore a shawl around her shoulders. Four paces, turn, and back. “H-have a cup of coffee. It’s hot.”
“You want some?”
Kaaren shook her head. “I think I will sit down for a while, though. We are wearing a ditch in the floor.” She lowered herself into the rocker. “Lars, please read to me, will you?” She motioned to the Bible in its place of honor on the shelf above the rosemaled trunk she’d brought from Norway.
Lars gave Ingeborg a raised eyebrows look but did as asked, pulling the kerosene lamp closer to his shoulder so he could see. The Norwegian words rolled off his tongue as he began with the Twenty-third Psalm.
Kaaren rocked gently in the chair, the squeak of the rockers adding to the night music.
Ingeborg cupped her coffee mug in her hands and let the beauty of the words sink into her soul. The Lord had surely been their shepherd, and now she knew for certain He always would be.
Kaaren’s groan shattered the peace.
Lars leaped to his feet. The table rocked and only through his lightning grab did he keep the burning lamp from spilling over. He shot Ingeborg a terrified look and clasped Kaaren’s shaking hands. “What is it? What can I do?” He clasped one hand around her elbow and helped her to her feet.
“I . . . I think it is time to go to the bed.”
“Keep her walking.” Ingeborg watched for a moment. “I will get things ready.” She dug in the trunk and brought out a piece of worn cloth, tearing it into strips as she moved toward the bed. Once they were knotted together, she lifted the corn husk mattress and tied the length to the rail stretching the ropes. Then she folded back the quilt and laid a second sheet, folded square, in the middle of the bed. “Now, Lars, you sit up against the wall, and we’ll brace Kaaren against you.”
“What are the strips for?”
“You will see.” Now that the time was nearing, she could feel herself settle into the rhythm as Kaaren whimpered with pain. “A time to be born,” the Bible said, and after the suffering would come the joy. She stuck more wood in the stove and moved the pot filled with water closer to the flame. Going back to the trunk, she removed the packet Kaaren had prepared beforehand. Soft clothes to wrap the baby in, tiny shirts, hemmed flannel squares for diapering, and a folded square with a long strip to wrap around the baby’s belly to hold the severed cord in place. Clean scissors to cut the cord. A baby quilt lay underneath the other things.
A cry forced itself past Kaaren’s clenched teeth.
“Can’t you do something?” Lars pleaded.
“It is just beginning.”
“Just beginning! She’s been at this for hours. You said the baby was going to come fast, that he was in a hurry.” He tried to keep his voice low, but the words hissed between clenched lips.
Ingeborg shrugged. “It was a fast start, and the water broke and . . .”
Kaaren moaned and opened her eyes again.
“How many babies have you helped bring into the world, anyway?”
“Lars.” Kaaren tried to look up at his face. “Babies don’t come until they are ready.” She clenched teeth and fingers against another spasm.
“Inge!” Lars shook his head. “Can’t you help her?”
Kaaren pulled against the knotted cloths, a sharp groan matching the grimace of her face.
Ingeborg was glad Lars couldn’t see his wife’s face. “Lars, this isn’t helping her. If you’d rather, go wait in the barn, or better yet, go on over to my house and get some sleep. Women have been enduring this since time began.”
“No!” He settled Kaaren back against his chest and rubbed the thigh muscle her clenching fingers had sent into a cramp.
Kaaren screamed on the next one, which seemed to follow right on the back of another.
But an hour later, with contractions rolling through her body, the baby still hadn’t come.
Dear God, what are we to do? The baby should be showing by now. Is it turned? Is something else wrong? Please, you can’t let Kaaren lose this baby, or Lars lose them both. Please, I beg of you, tell me what to do.
“Never again will she go through torture like this,” Lars muttered, the words lost in another scream.
Ingeborg understood his fear. Father in heaven, Jesus, help us please.
You’d best be praying,” Ingeborg whispered.
Lars shot her a startled look and then nodded. With his chin resting on his wife’s sweat-darkened hair, he closed his eyes, his lips moving soundlessly.
Ingeborg knelt beside the bed, taking one of Kaaren’s shaking hands in her own. Storming the throne of heaven with her entreaties, she felt tears slip down her cheeks, tears of fear and worry, of a breaking heart and a sorrowing mind. She thought He had abandoned them before, would He do so again? She had prayed at other bedsides, and God took them home anyway. Flashes of Kaaren’s two little daughters lying pale and cold, and Carl slipping away from under her ministering fingers whipped through her mind, wrenching her heart.
She gritted her teeth. Taking in a deep breath, she ra
ised her head. There would be no doubting. God said He was with them, and whatever His will, that would be good. He would not let them go. He never had. In spite of her doubts and her rebellion, He had been there waiting for her to turn around and seek Him.
“Kaaren, I am going to see if I can feel the baby’s head.”
Kaaren nodded without opening her eyes. She lay panting from the strain of the last contraction. Ingeborg wrung out the cloth in the pan beside the bed and wiped the sweat from Kaaren’s pale brow and the sides of her face. Then going to the washstand, she took a bar of soap and scrubbed her hands. She held them dripping above the basin, palms up. Her hands were so big and the opening so small. How would she . . . ? She shut off the thought and returned to the bed.
“This will probably hurt.” She put every teeny bit of confidence she could muster into her voice. “I’m going to wait until the pain comes and see if I can feel the head.”
A slight nod showed Kaaren heard her.
When Kaaren screamed again, Ingeborg slipped her fingers into the birth canal, but where there should have been a round head, her fingertips grazed what she immediately knew to be a tiny foot. She bit her lip till the blood salted her tongue. “God above, help us here. Please, I beg of you.”
Kaaren lay back against her husband, gasping and sniffing against the tears that joined the sweat coursing down her face.
What to do, Lord? What to do? Ingeborg felt a presence beside her and turned her head. Metiz stood next to the bed, having entered without a sound. Even the screen door kept silent for her.
“How did you know?”
“Baptiste, he find me. You call me, I come.”
Ingeborg shook her head. “I didn’t call you. God did.” She swallowed and nodded toward Kaaren. “I think the baby is breech. He can’t be born that way.”
“No, must turn.” Metiz looked down at her hands. “I wash.” When she returned, she nodded to Lars, whose eyes were filled with fear. “You help turn her.”
“What?”
“Get her on hands and knees.”
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