A Promise for Ellie

by Lauraine Snelling

  “Ellie.” He grabbed her hand. “Is she all right?”

  “All but the smoke in her lungs, I think.”

  “Ingeborg?”

  She heard Elizabeth calling. “Over here.” She held the cup for Ellie to drink again. “Easy now.”

  Elizabeth dropped to her knees beside the two patients. “Are her burns bad?”

  “No, not that I can tell.” They both kept their voices low. “I’m more worried about their lungs.”

  Sitting on the ground, Andrew held Ellie close to his chest.While his words to her were soft, his face wore anger like a cloak.

  Ellie coughed and gagged.

  “Honey will help soothe that throat.” Elizabeth moved her fingers gently over Ellie’s head.

  “I’ll go get it,” Andrew offered.

  “No, you stay where you are. That’s what you can do best for right now.”

  “M-my chickens,” Ellie croaked.

  “Ellie, it’s you that’s important.We can always get more chickens.” Andrew clutched her fiercely, holding her hand against his cheek.

  “How did the fire get started?” Elizabeth asked as she smoothed salve on Ellie’s other hand.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ellie thought she heard someone hammering but we decided it came from far away.” Rebecca brought more water. “We were brushing our hair when we heard someone yell ‘fire.’ Or at least I think we did. It all happened so fast. Ellie told Sophie to get help, and Grace and Deborah ran to ring the church bell. I tried to keep Ellie from going into the barn, but she shoved me away. I’m sorry, Andrew. I tried to hang on to her.”

  “Shh, child, you did your best.” Ingeborg gathered the now sobbing Rebecca into her arms.

  Ingeborg glanced down at her son. Since she’d wrapped Ellie’s head in soft bandages, he might not have realized her hair was mostly singed off. The salve she’d applied to the burns on her scalp would help the pain.

  As the rising sun lightened the eastern sky, the firefighters stopped by to tell Andrew how sorry they were.

  “Sure wish we’d had the fire wagon,” one said.

  “Wish we could have saved it.” Knute Baard shook his head. “Fine barn. You think the hay wasn’t dry enough?”

  “No. I walked through there earlier in the day and didn’t find any hot spots. Thank you for coming.” Andrew shook his head from side to side. Did I check closely enough? The thought tormented him. Surely I did.

  “Who rang the church bell?” asked Pastor Solberg.

  “Grace and Deborah did. Remember? The girls were sleeping here last night,” Ingeborg answered.

  “No, I heard it ringing before we got halfway there, so we came on back,” Deborah said.

  Solberg shook his head. “Strange.”

  “Could someone have been working in the barn?” Rebecca joined the group. “Ellie heard hammering.”

  “But who?” Haakan wiped his sooty face with a cloth that had been drenched in the bucket. “We were all home in bed.”

  “I should have stayed here.” Andrew held his sleeping Ellie close.

  He could hear her breath wheezing like an organ bellows with a leak.

  “I thought about it but figured Mor would say it was improper or some such.”

  Sophie had tied a rag around her head to keep her hair back out of her eyes. Her nightdress gaped along the hem where she had ripped it running across the field. Smoke and grime stained all their faces and clothes.

  “There is no reason anyone would have been working in the barn at that time of night—especially without Andrew,” Haakan said.

  “You think someone set the fire deliberately?” Sophie asked.

  “Now, who would do a thing like that?” Ingeborg took the honey Sophie brought from home. “Mange takk.” She knelt by Ellie and, pouring the honey into a spoon, held it up and said, “Wake her, Andrew. This will help.” When Ellie stirred, Ingeborg moved the spoon to her lips. “Take this, dear one. It will soothe your throat.”

  “We need to get her breathing easier.” Using her stethoscope, Elizabeth listened to Ellie’s chest.

  Haakan thanked those who came in from beating out burning embers. After everyone had gone but the family and the girls who had stayed overnight, Andrew sat back down beside Ellie.

  “I know what my throat and chest feel like, and I wasn’t in the barn that long.” He gave his father a studying look. “I’ve sure got a sore spot on my chin, though.”

  Haakan flexed his hand. “Haven’t had to knock anyone out for a long time. Guess desperation makes us do foolish things.” He looked over the still smoldering barn remains. “What a shame.”

  “What a tragedy,” Andrew said.

  “No.” Haakan half turned toward his son. “A tragedy would have been if someone had died in the fire. We can rebuild the barn.”

  “But what if someone did set it on purpose?” Andrew got up and stood beside his pa, hands in his back pockets, staring at some of the studs, now blackened spears against the brightening day. “Surely not. But if someone was pounding—what could that have been?” He turned to Sophie. “You didn’t see any lights in the barn?”

  “Andrew, we didn’t look. The only time we went outside was to use the outhouse.”

  “Sound carries at night. Must have been someone somewhere else who couldn’t sleep.”

  “Maybe Ellie will know more when she wakes up.”

  “That will be awhile. I’ve given her some laudanum to help relax her lungs.” Elizabeth stood. “Let’s get her over to my surgery so I can keep an eye on her.” She turned to Rebecca, who held baby Inga and was trying to keep her from fussing but not succeeding much. “Here, let me take her. She’s just hungry. We had a rather rude awakening.”

  A rooster crowed, greeting the rising sun.

  “Ellie’s rooster!” Astrid clapped her hands as the rooster and three hens came clucking from the other side of the barn. “Some of them lived. She’ll be so happy.”

  “Sure, she almost gave her life for three stupid chickens!”

  “Easy, Andrew. Right now be grateful things aren’t a lot worse.”

  Andrew stared at his mother, shook his head, and knelt down to pick up Ellie. As he stood, the cloth wrapped around her head fell to the ground. When she whimpered in her sleep, he turned his head to comfort her. His eyes widened, his arms locked around her. “Her hair!

  Her hair is all gone!” He stumbled at the first step, then strode toward the wagon. “If someone started this fire and I find out who did it, I swear I’ll kill him.”

  “ALL BECAUSE OF THOSE STUPID CHICKENS.” Andrew paced in Elizabeth’s surgery.

  “Easy, Andrew, Ellie doesn’t need your anger now. She needs your strength to survive this.”

  He watched as Elizabeth listened to Ellie’s chest again and flinched at whatever sounds she heard. “Survive?” Andrew stared at the doctor. That first day Ellie had been coughing and sleeping, sleeping even while coughing. But yesterday and today she had seemed better—she’d smiled at him. His poor little hairless darling. He wanted to run, to smash someone, to find out who set the fire. He forced himself to not flinch when he looked at her, but Elizabeth had assured him Ellie’s hair would grow back. He thought back to the night before.

  “Andrew Bjorklund, don’t you dare let her see how her hair being gone affects you.” Elizabeth had backed him up against the wall. When he’d tried to sidestep her, she stepped right with him. “I believe you are a good man who loves this young woman, and right now she needs to know only that you love her and that she will get well. Do you understand me? Nothing about the chickens, nothing about someone who might have set the fire. All that matters is Ellie.” She shook her finger at him. “Do you understand?”

  He had nodded. No one in his entire life had lectured him like that.

  Because you didn’t need it before, the small voice inside now said, and it sounded far more patient than he felt. So many animals he’d nursed back to health, just like his mor with pe
ople. But this was Ellie! And she went into a burning barn to save her chickens. What was the matter with her? What had she been thinking? You would have gone in for a horse or a cow. That voice again. But that’s different.

  They are big animals of real value, with feelings and . . . He didn’t need help to see the errors of his reasoning.

  If only he had been there. But he’d been over this ground too many times to count. After the scolding from Elizabeth he’d gone over to the station and sent a telegram to theWolds, telling them that Ellie was terribly ill from the smoke, but she would be all right. Please, God, that she will. He leaned his head in his hands, his elbows propped on his knees. As Ellie fought to breathe, he fought to think clearly. But all he could think and hear was Ellie.

  “Why don’t you go lie down on the other bed, and I’ll try to get her to take some broth.” Elizabeth set her tray down on the small table by the bed.

  “I’ll feed her.”

  “All right. You sit on the other side of the bed and prop her up.

  Rub her back, pat her back, and we’ll do this together.”

  Andrew did as she asked, holding Ellie so liquid could slide down her throat more easily.

  “Ellie, you have to eat something. We have to get liquids into you to fight off the infection. Now open your mouth and swallow this.”

  Elizabeth held a spoon to Ellie’s mouth. She opened and swallowed.

  “Good, now again.” Three times and then she broke into coughing, choking, and gagging.

  Elizabeth set the cup and spoon down. Then with Andrew holding Ellie upright, she cupped her hand and thumped on the girl’s back. “I saw this done once, the theory being to break loose the con- gestion in her lungs. Think of tiny sacs that hold air. Right now they are filled with fluid and infection, so they can’t hold air. I saw them. The lungs work like bellows—inhale and the bellows expand; exhale and they deflate. With all that fluid in there, they can do neither. Right now she’s breathing with a very small part of her lungs.”

  Ellie started coughing again and spit out a clump of phlegm.

  “Good girl. Let’s get it out.” Elizabeth continued with the thumping. “At least there seems to be something I can do. Good thing you are such a healthy young woman, dear Ellie.”

  Ellie collapsed back against Andrew, her mouth open, struggling for every breath.

  Elizabeth propped the pillows behind her. “I think she can breathe easier sitting up. Make sure she stays this way.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll be back in a while. Oh, Astrid said your mother will be coming over to relieve you in a bit. You should go get some sleep.”

  “But, I—”

  “Andrew, I do not need another sick person on my hands. Ellie will need you even more later. Thank God your father got you out of the barn when he did, or you’d be in the same shape.”

  “Any change?” Ingeborg asked a bit later when she entered the room.

  Andrew shook his head. “Elizabeth thinks so, but I don’t know.” He squeezed Ellie’s hand. And when she squeezed back, he gave his mother half a smile. “She knows I’m here.”

  “I’m sure she does. She’s not deaf, and it’s a good thing if she doesn’t try to talk.”

  “I know, but—”

  “But nothing. You go get some sleep. I’ll be right here.” Ingeborg settled into the chair Elizabeth had vacated and stared at Andrew on the other side of the bed.

  “Come on, Andrew, you heard Mor.” Thorliff spoke from the doorway. “You’ll sleep better if you take this other room. And my wife gave me this to give to you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, but if I were you, I’d just drink it down. One thing I’ve learned, you don’t want to get on the wrong side of Dr. Elizabeth.” He emphasized the doctor part. He handed the glass to his brother. “Come along now.”

  “Did she send you in here after me?”

  “Andrew, I need to explain something to you as one older and wiser brother to a younger and sometimes more bullheaded brother.”

  Andrew rolled his eyes, but he stood and followed Thorliff.

  “Take your medicine,” his mother called gently after him.

  I’ve been taking it for some time now. But I’m not seeing that taking my medicine has had any effect on Ellie. He glanced over his shoulder.

  Ellie was smiling. Not a big smile but enough to make curves in her cheeks. If he had to dance on the ceiling, he’d do it if he could make her smile again. He took the glass Thorliff proffered and gulped it down. He hardly got his boots off before he fell back on the bed, sound asleep.

  “He’s sleeping.” Elizabeth returned to the sickroom sometime later.

  “What did you give him?”

  “Let’s just say he will sleep for a while. He needs it too. Smoke in your lungs like that is no joke. How’s Haakan?”

  “Still coughing once in a while, but I think he’ll be fine.”

  “Let’s see if we can get some more broth into Ellie.”

  Ingeborg laid the back of her hand on Ellie’s cheek. “She’s running a fever.”

  “I know, but so far she’s holding her own. You prop her, and I’ll feed.”

  The two women worked well together, almost reading each other’s mind. While Ingeborg held Ellie upright and forward, Elizabeth thumped on her back again. After the coughing subsided, they bathed Ellie in cool water, changed the sheets, and settled her against the pillows again.

  When Ingeborg took her hand, Ellie squeezed it. Her eyes fluttered as if to open, but with a slight shake of her head she drifted back to sleep. Ingeborg took her knitting out of the bag she’d brought and settled back in the chair. Picking up where she’d left off, she lent herself to the ancient rhythm of flying needles and yarn.

  “What are you making?”

  “A sweater for Andrew for Christmas. He’s filling out in the shoulders so much that everything is getting tight on him.”

  Elizabeth adjusted the pillows behind Ellie again to keep her as upright as possible. “Watch that she remains like this. She’ll breathe more easily.”

  “I will. I wish I’d known that for some of my patients through the years.”

  “I am so thankful that I insisted on going to medical school and then was able to work with Dr. Morganstein in Chicago. She was so wise in patient care, partly because she saw so many patients. I wish I could ask her what else we could do for Ellie.”

  “Praying is the most important thing we can do.”

  “You know, it is easy to overlook that. Thank you for reminding me.”

  “Pastor Solberg will be by, so we’ll all pray together. But Jesus said ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ ”

  “You used a different verse another time. ‘Where two or three agree’—wasn’t it something about ‘I will do it’?”

  “Close. He said all we have to do is ask.”

  “But what if . . .” Elizabeth chewed her bottom lip. “I know too much. It is hard for me to have the faith to believe God will heal, and yet I know that He does. Does that make any sense?”

  “He said faith as big as a mustard seed was all that was needed to move mountains into the sea.”

  “Sometimes I think mountains might be easier than lungs full of fluid.”

  Ingeborg laid her knitting needles down. “So we shall pray for your faith too, for faith for all of us, for peace for Andrew, for healing for our dear girl here. Lord God, you know us so well, inside and out.

  You see Ellie’s lungs, and you know how to make her well again. We thank you that you said you would give us what we ask for.” She paused and blew out a breath. “Holy Ghost, breath of life, breathe your life into Ellie’s lungs and her entire body.” The peace in the room settled like a benediction of love.

  “Lord, help me to believe when I doubt. Remind me again what you’ve done in the past.”

  Pastor Solberg joined them from the doorway. “And help us,
Father, to trust you with those we love. For you are our God and our King, our Father and our healer. To you alone we give all the praise and glory. Amen.”

  Ingeborg sat with her head bowed. Father, my Father, giver of all good things. Thank you. Mange takk. She heard Pastor Solberg cross the room and felt him by her chair. Felt him kneel beside the bed and take Ellie’s hand in his.

  “Ellie, we are believing for you, and if you can hear me, let me remind you of the faith you live by. The faith that says God is mightier than any sickness, that Jesus died and rose victorious so that we might live, both eternally and on this earth.” He smoothed her hand, then her forehead. “Dear child, I’ve seen you grow into such a beautiful young woman, beautiful inside and out. Now we command that Satan take his attack away, that he leave you alone, for you are a daughter of the King of Kings. You are free of him and free of this illness, for Jesus said so.” He stood and leaned against the windowsill.

  A breeze lifted the curtains and wafted across the bed.

  Ingeborg opened her eyes and smiled up at her longtime friend.

  “Thank you. As always you know just how to pray.”

  “You were doing a fine job before I came. Are you taking turns tonight?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Andrew is sleeping now.”

  “I’ll be back before daybreak, then, but if you need me, send for me immediately.” He patted his pocket and withdrew a telegram.

  “This came from Olaf.” He handed it to Ingeborg, who read it aloud. “Goodie is sick Stop Can’t come now Stop Praying Stop Olaf.”

  Elizabeth looked over at Ingeborg and then back to the pastor. “You know what? I have a feeling that all will be well. I believe Ellie is breathing more easily already. We’ll let Olaf know, so they don’t worry so.”

  “I’ll be praying.”

  “Good night, and thank you for coming.” Ingeborg listened to him leave, the screen door shutting softly behind him. “He and I’ve sat many a vigil.”

  “He’s a fine man.”

  “Yes, he is. God has taken some and healed others. I finally had to realize that all were healed, just some on this side of the grave and some on the other side. You go on to bed, dear. I’ll be here until you or Andrew come back.”