[Home To Blessing 01] - A Measure of Mercy

by Lauraine Snelling

  “As far as I know. Thorliff has some rough plans drawn up, and I’ve prepared a report on how many cases we’ve handled through our surgery and how we see the need for a full-service hospital. Or at least the beginning of one.”

  “I know we discussed it at the last quilting meeting. So many don’t want to take on any more debt, but with the flour mill doing so well, we can funnel those monies into more community services, like the hospital.”

  “I think Thorliff is going to suggest that those who want to could buy bonds.”

  “Really? He didn’t mention that here.”

  “He was talking with somebody somewhere who said his community had done that.”

  Ingeborg rubbed her chin. “We’ve come a long way.”

  “We have. I’m hoping we can encourage a dentist to come to town too. Office space at the hospital might be a drawing card.”

  “Ah, my dear, you do dream big.”

  “Well, if Kaaren’s school grows the way we think it will,” Elizabeth said, “we’ll need more services here to take care of people.”

  “I know. But remember, it wasn’t that long ago that I was the only person here with any medical background at all.”

  “You could look at it this way: See what I started.”

  Elizabeth’s chuckle made Ingeborg laugh. “Uff da, such goings on.”

  “We do live in exciting times. Anna didn’t come for her appointment.”

  “Anna doesn’t want to come for anything. Any suggestions?”

  “We have to get her out.”

  “Kaaren sent the children over to Ellie’s,” Ingeborg said. “All Solem can talk about is going back to Norway.”

  “How can they afford that?”

  “They can’t. And Freda has no desire to go back.”

  “Have you heard from Astrid?”

  “No.” But I have a bad feeling, and I don’t know why. Lord, still my heart. I know you can take care of her in Chicago too.

  “She’ll be okay. Althea would contact me if she thought something was wrong.”

  “Ja, I know. You want me to bring anything for supper?”

  “No, we’ll be fine.”

  Ingeborg said good-bye and set the black earpiece back in the pronged holder. How quickly they had become dependent on this new instrument. Thorliff had a crew out planting telephone poles so that all the farms could be connected to town and each other. The switchboard, run primarily by Gerald Valders, had filled so they’d put in a new panel. The men were talking about one day needing a second person on the switchboard. Deborah had finally agreed to take one of the daily twelve-hour shifts, and while Mrs. Valders could fill in, they really needed another person part time. Who’d have ever thought they would have more jobs than people to fill them?

  She turned and told Freda to skip the pies and go ahead with the jelly roll. They would use the leftover gingerbread with applesauce for dinner. Back out on the porch to finish the wash, she marveled at how fast she could get the wash done these days. Thanks to Penny, who’d brought in washing machines like she had the Singer sewing machines and made all the women’s lives easier. No more rubbing one’s fingers raw on the scrub boards. She lifted the last of the work pants from the rinse water and carefully fed them into the wringer with one hand while turning the crank with the other.

  “How about a cup of coffee?” Freda asked from the doorway.

  “That sounds good. Let me hang these first, and then I’ll drain the rinse water onto the roses.” A hose connected to the bottom of the square tub could be opened and none of the water wasted. Not that she’d ever wasted any, carrying all the used household water out to her flowers and the garden when it needed it. So far this year they’d had just enough rain. She turned the spigot and hoisted the clothes basket up on her hip. Nearly eleven already, and the men would be in at twelve or when they heard the clanging triangle.

  How she loved wash day when the sun shone. The wind dried the clothes about as fast as she could hang them, larks trilled from the fields or swooped and dove overhead, scattering notes like iridescent flower petals.

  Nothing smelled better than linens and clothes right off the line.

  “What did Dr. Elizabeth say about Anna?” Freda asked in Norwegian, since her growing English vocabulary was not sufficient for nonessential words yet.

  “She’s concerned,” Ingeborg said as she sat at the table.

  “Anna needs to take care of the children she has and her husband. You are all being too soft on her.”

  Ingeborg sighed. “The children are well cared for.”

  “True, but not by their mother. Since Grace came home, she has taken over all the children.”

  “She does love the little children. She says younger ones like ours here are so much fun after all her school-age students. And these can hear, so she gets more practice in speaking.”

  “I do not know how she has learned to talk. I didn’t know deaf people could learn to do that.”

  Ingeborg took a sip of her coffee and a bite out of her applesauce cookie. “I know. She has worked so hard.”

  “And Anna . . .” Freda shook her head. “I know she had a bad time. I lost two or three babies through the years. You are sad, but you get up and keep going.” She stared out over the fields. “To not like it here, I do not understand either her or my son. They will never have anything like this in Norway.”

  “Does Solem really want to go back, or is he wanting to do that for Anna?”

  Freda shrugged. “Who’s to know? He does not want to talk to me about it. Does he think I forced him to come with me? I thought I was giving him a gift, a new life with a chance to own land.”

  “Has he thought of going farther west to homestead? There isn’t much land left to buy around here.”

  “The only money he has is what he has earned here. As you know, that trip took everything we could save.” She propped her elbows on the table, her round face crowned by a circle of braided hair, concern carving deeper lines from nose to the corners of her mouth and between her eyebrows.

  Ingeborg remembered her as the laughing girl from their summer weeks in the high mountain meadow saeters, where they took care of the cows and turned the milk into cheese.

  “Does Gilbert feel the same too?”

  “No, he loves it here. As do the little ones. I will cut the curds this afternoon on that last setting of milk. You want the whey for the hogs?”

  “Ja. The chickens like it too. And Andrew will take home some of the full cans for the animals at his place.”

  “I am so amazed at all you have managed to do in the years since you left Norway. If only my husband had been willing to come when you wrote so long ago.”

  “God has indeed blessed us, but it has never been easy. I sometimes dreamed of going home, especially when the wind was howling like wolves in a blizzard. When we lived in the soddy, I thought of Mor’s snug house, with the animals sheltered right below us, not across the yard in the barn. You wait. This winter the men will again string ropes on posts to get to the barn without getting lost.”

  “Uff da. You have written of those, and I found it hard to picture. You realize your letters were passed around for everyone in Valdres to read, not just our family but anyone who visited. Johann Bjorklund kept the family land, but it can barely support him. I think he is sometimes tempted to sell out and come over too.”

  Ingeborg shook her head. “All this talk of winter makes me shiver, even in this heat. I’ll make dumplings for the stew when I bring in the dry things.” She smiled at her cousin. “Back to your worry about Anna. I have an idea.”

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT AFTER the town meeting, Haakan yawned and stretched as they prepared for bed. “That hospital won’t happen overnight, you know.”

  Ingeborg tsked as she pulled her nightdress over her head. “Nobody believes it will.” Sitting herself down on the edge of the bed, she unplaited her hair, running her fingers through the wavy strands, then picked up her brush and
started her one hundred strokes.

  “It will cost more than they are estimating, even if we do most of the work ourselves.”

  “Like a barn raising, you mean?”

  “Ja, with all of us donating our labor to assist a building crew. None of us have the training to put up a building like that. We’d have to hire an overseer.”

  Ingeborg nodded. Haakan really believed in the hospital, but he always had to work through things in his own time and way. Talking it over with her seemed to help. “How would it be so different than building a barn? Two stories but with many rooms on two sides of a hall instead of one big one for the haymow?”

  Haakan flipped back the sheet and lay down, locking his hands behind his head. “I hate to see us go into debt for this building. We did for the flour mill, but we knew that would bring in revenue from the beginning. This is far more expensive, and who can afford to pay the prices they will need to charge the patients in order to pay for the building?”

  “You have a point there, and you said it well at the meeting.” She put down her brush and rebraided her hair in one loose plait. “Not to change the subject, but has Solem mentioned anything about his wife?”

  “No, not a word. But I can tell something is weighing on his mind. He’s a quiet man, but he’s frowning much of the time.”

  “Well, be ready. We are going to take Anna outside whether she wants to or not.”

  “You’ll carry or drag her?”

  “If it comes to that.”

  Haakan rolled onto his side and patted his wife’s shoulder. “Leave it to you, my Inge. Anna doesn’t have a chance.”

  Ingeborg listened as Haakan slipped into sleep, a little puff coming on every exhale. Lord God, I have to believe this idea comes from you, so I ask you to go before us and prepare the way. Give us the right words, the love that can come only from you. Please heal her heart and fill her with love for the two children she has. She reminded herself to call Pastor Solberg in the morning and then tumbled into the well called sleep.

  * * *

  AFTER BREAKFAST AND calling Pastor Solberg on the telephone, Ingeborg sprinkled the clothes that were to be ironed that day while Freda cleaned up the kitchen. Today was Kaaren’s turn to fix dinner for the men, so after mixing and kneading bread and setting it to rise, she poured two cups of coffee.

  “We are going over to Kaaren’s to get Anna.”

  “Get Anna?” Freda’s eyebrow lifted.

  “That’s right.”

  The clop of trotting horsehoofs brought her to her feet and the window. John Solberg was dismounting to tie his horse at the gate to the fenced yard. After all these years, Haakan and Andrew had fenced in the yard to protect her flowers from marauding cows; not that they got out often, but one cow could decimate the tasty flowers in minutes, and what it didn’t eat, it stomped.

  “Good. I figured he’d come.”

  “Ingeborg, what are we doing?”

  “Come and see.”

  The three of them walked across the small pasture, as they called the stretch of field between the two houses.

  “Care to enlighten me on how we are going to do this?”

  “Put her in a chair and carry her, if we have to.”

  “Down all those stairs?”

  “That might be enough to get her up, don’t you think?”

  “She is so weak.” Freda rubbed the top of one finger and tongued her lower lip.

  “I know. That is why we have to get her out in the sunshine.”

  Like an advancing army they strode up the steps of the Knutsons’ house and into the south-facing door of the school wing.

  Kaaren met them with Samuel, who at sixteen was fast growing into man size. “I’ve been praying this works.”

  “What do we do if it doesn’t?” Freda asked.

  “We aren’t even considering that.”

  They marched up the stairs, continuing the advance into the bedroom where Anna lay curled in bed, the shades drawn at the window.

  “Anna.” Ingeborg shook the woman’s thin shoulder.

  Anna mumbled and blinked bleary eyes.

  “You must get up now and come with us.”

  Anna shook her head. “No. Go away.”

  Please, Lord. Ingeborg glanced at the unused chair by the window, then back at the bed. While picking up a corner of the bedsheet, she nodded and kept nodding as she indicated Kaaren, Samuel, and Pastor Solberg to each do the same. On three, they lifted the corners, worked their way closer to the now whimpering woman, and hoisted her off the bed.

  “No! No!” Anna’s shriek was too weak to carry even to the bedroom door.

  Out the door they went and, with the men in front, carried her down the stairs and out onto the porch, where the porch posts sent shadows and the honeysuckle vines lent a sweet fragrance. A cot stood waiting, padded with a feather bed and a stack of pillows.

  Gently they settled Anna on the cot, and Pastor Solberg took the chair closest to her head.

  Anna had not ceased shaking her head, one bony fingertip touching her cheek. She lay curled in on herself, like the newborn she had lost.

  Ingeborg brushed away the tear that leaked down her cheek. Lord, I know this is for the best, but . . .

  “Can I go now?” Samuel asked.

  “Yes, thank you, son. Before you go, though, would you make sure the woodbox is full? We have beans to can today after dinner.” Kaaren glanced at the others. “I thought we could snap beans while we visit.”

  “Of course.”

  “Everyone gather round and let’s pray.” Solberg laid his hand on Anna’s head, and the others did the same. In spite of Anna’s attempt to shrink into the bedding, each found a place to lay her hands, and they closed their eyes.

  Ingeborg inhaled the nectar of honeysuckle and exhaled, letting her tight shoulders drop back down where they belonged. So far, so good. Pastor Solberg’s words danced with a robin’s song, carried aloft by the sun, which peeked between the leaves that whispered a lullaby.

  “Heavenly Father, we thank you for this glorious morning and for this place of healing. Thank you for Anna and her family and the care you have taken of them and us. Thank you that you have said to come to you all who are weary and heavy laden, that you will give us rest, not only for our bodies but for our souls. And Lord, Anna needs your comfort and healing. She has been grievously wounded, and we are fearful that without your healing grace, she will slip away. Her husband needs her here, as do her children. So we ask for your mighty hand to beat back the terrors and bring healing to her heart, mind, body, and soul. Fill our dear Anna with your love, your comfort, and your peace.”

  One whimper followed another.

  Ingeborg picked up the prayer. “Breathe strength into her body and break the dam of sorrow that is holding Anna captive. Free her, Lord God, as only you can do.”

  Another whimper punctuated the gentle silence.

  “God, I don’t know how to pray like this.” Freda choked on her words.

  Ingeborg laid her other hand on Freda’s shoulder and rubbed gently.

  “You’re doing fine.” Pastor Solberg’s voice wove baritone into the morning symphony.

  Freda lifted her apron to mop her tears.

  Lack of words did not a silence make as they basked together.

  “God, forgive me,” Freda prayed, gulping between words. “I thought I was doing the best for my family.”

  “God’s Word says, ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ So, daughter of the King,” the pastor pronounced, “you are forgiven, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.”

  All three women were using their aprons as mops.

  Ingeborg glanced down at Anna’s face. A slight smile fluttered her lips. Her body had loosened bone by bone so that one hand lay open instead of clenched in a fist.

  “And everyone said amen.”

  And they did, blinking and sniffing.


  “I’ll bring out the tea.” Kaaren patted Anna’s hip and floated back into the house.

  An hour later, amid the snap of beans and gentle conversation, Anna started to cry. Single tears leaked first and, with the release, built into an outpouring of the sorrow, hurt, anger, and fear that had been dammed inside since she held her dead infant. The women took turns mopping her face, holding her, and murmuring comfort as if she were a child again.

  Ingeborg sent her silent praises heavenward as she snapped beans, took her turn with the grieving woman, and watched Freda’s amazement at what was happening. She had yet to learn that when one prayed for someone else, God frequently tiptoed in and healed the praying heart also.

  When Anna finally fell asleep, this time her face smoothed free of the lines that had fought to become a permanent part of her, Ingeborg motioned to Freda, and the two of them strolled back across the field.

  “Well, I never.” Freda shook her head gently, as if not wanting to disturb the new thought and experience she’d just gone through. “Are you sure this God you all love so and serve is the same one we had in Norway?”

  Ingeborg chuckled. “I am sure. Perhaps we have learned how much we need Him because of the hardships we have endured here. And we have Pastor Solberg, who has taught us what grace really means. We just saw God’s grace in action. No matter how often I see Him work in marvelous ways, I am still amazed. And grateful.”

  “Ja, grateful. Thank you. I think my Solem will be much more content now.”

  “I hope so.” At least he will have his wife back if what we experienced is only the foretaste of what is coming, which I have all faith that it is.I wish Astrid had been here to be part of this. That thought surprised her. Did Astrid need healing too?

  14

  Joshua stared at the metal blades lying on the ground, fanned around the central gears of the windmill head. They’d drilled the well, thanks to the horse-powered auger, and the frame itself was halfway up. Raising the top would be the final stage.

  “Hey, Joshua,” Trygve called down from the top of the ladder, “we’re ready for the next batch.”