The Reaper's Song

by Lauraine Snelling

  Thank God for Goodie, who made and baked the bread, cooked the meals, and made sure Andrew’s chores were taken over by Hans.

  “We really should start harvesting those wheat fields closest to the house,” Lars said after supper. “Maybe I better talk to Baard and get going on it.”

  “I thought you planned to wait until after the house-raising?” Ingeborg and Lars were sitting on the back stoop, where they could catch a bit of the evening breeze.

  “We did, but it’s been so dry the wheat is ripening faster than I thought it would. We could get a hailstorm any day and knock it all down, you know.”

  “I do know. But . . .” She fell silent, watching the sun paint a silver lining around the tops of the dark clouds on the horizon.

  “It could be some time before Haakan is on his feet again.” Lars stared at his hands, loosely clasped between his knees.

  “I know.” What if those clouds dump hail on us tonight? “Every day is so precious. You could start with the cutting in the morning. You think Thorliff or Baptiste could drive the horses while you keep the binder running?”

  Lars nodded thoughtfully. “Could be. Baptiste, he is better with the horses. He don’t go off in a daydream somewhere.”

  “Thorliff will have to run the trotlines then, besides taking the sheep out to graze.”

  “They were a big help in the barn this morning, not that they always aren’t, but both Baptiste and Thorliff milk almost as good as a man now.”

  “I could take the team up to backset that last sod cutting.” The words came before she had time to think.

  “Now, Inge, you agreed to no more working the fields, remember? It just ain’t seemly no more.”

  “Not that it ever was—seemly, that is. Just necessary.” Her mind skipped back to the hours of soul-crushing labor, breaking the sod with a walking plow behind the oxen. “With the new riding plow it is much easier.”

  “Ja. And between you and Kaaren, you already do the work of three women.”

  “Add Goodie and we make five.”

  “Pert near.” He turned his head enough to smile at her over his shoulder. “I know Haakan will get out of that bed no matter what if you put on britches again and go back in the fields.”

  “Ja, well . . .”

  “I got to git on home. I’ll go tell Haakan what I—we decided.”

  “If he’s awake.”

  “Ja, that too.” Lars stood and stretched his arms over his head. “You planning on a trip to the Bonanza farm anytime soon?”

  “I was, but now?” She shrugged. “Those chickens will just have to get bigger. Leastways they won’t spoil. Penny is selling a lot of our cheese, so I don’t have much of that to take.”

  She turned her head at the sounds of pounding feet in the house.

  “Mrs. Bjorklund, come quick. You know, Andrew. . .”

  Ingeborg leaped to her feet. Dear Lord, now what?

  Ingeborg almost ran Goodie down in her haste to climb the stairs. She could hear Ellie babbling, but the words failed to penetrate the wall of her mind. “Please, God, please,” she pleaded with each step.

  She burst through the curtained doorway.

  Ellie danced beside the bed. “See. I told you.”

  Ingeborg stopped as if she’d hit an ice wall.

  Andrew blinked and smiled a sleepy smile. “Mor, I’m hungry.”

  With tears streaming down her face, Ingeborg fell on her knees beside the bed and she cupped a hand around his cheek.

  “Why are you crying?” Andrew turned to look at her. “You sad?”

  She shook her head, taking his hand in hers and kissing his palm. “No, Andrew, I am not sad at all. I am just so happy.”

  He gave her that look that said you-don’t-make-sense-but-I-guess-it’s-all-right. He’d learned it from his father, as did all boys.

  Metiz and Goodie pushed aside the curtain and entered the room.

  “See, Ma, I wasn’t telling a story. Andrew’s awake.” Ellie turned to her mother.

  “Hush, I can see.” Goodie took the few steps to lay a hand on Ingeborg’s shoulder. “I should think our boy wants something to eat. I can warm up the leftovers from supper.” She looked over at Andrew. “Or would you rather have bread and cheese with a glass of milk?”

  “Ja.”

  “Both?”

  Andrew nodded. “I am really hungry.” He started to sit up but blinked in surprise when his body didn’t do what his mind said. He blinked a couple of times and then fell back. “My head hurts.”

  “You fell on it, out of the haymow.” Ellie climbed up on the bed to be nearer her friend. “You been asleep for . . .” She scrunched up her eyes trying to figure out how long, then shook her head. “Long time. Too long.” She held out an arm that sported a red scratch. “See, that rooster got me when I tried to pick the eggs. You gonna bash him for me?”

  Andrew nodded. “But I gotta eat first.”

  Goodie laughed. “Ain’t that just like our boy?” She turned and headed down the stairs, chuckling to herself.

  “Oh, I must tell Haakan.” Ingeborg braced her hands on the mattress to rise.

  “I go.” Metiz melted out of the room, the swish of the swinging curtain the only sound.

  “I tole ’em you was gonna get better.” Ellie sat cross-legged on the bed beside Andrew, her elbows propped on her knees, chin on hands. “Why’d you sleep so long?”

  “Did I?” Andrew looked from his mother’s face to Ellie’s.

  They both nodded.

  “My ma says you was lucky you didn’t break your fool neck.” The girl shook her head. “She whupped me for playing in the haymow.”

  A frown wrinkled Andrew’s pale brow. “But why? We always play in the haymow. That’s our best place.”

  Another headshake. “She says she hopes we learned our lesson. You gonna play in the haymow again?”

  Andrew yawned and blinked his eyes. “I’m still sleepy.” He reached for Ellie’s hand. “I’ll talk to your ma about the haymow after I eat.”

  When Goodie pushed open the curtain, Andrew lay sound asleep again.

  “He okay?” She set the tray down on the chair beside the bed.

  “He’s sleeping regular now, not like before.” Ingeborg motioned for Ellie to come sit in her lap. “You took good care of our boy, child. You’re the kind of friend the Bible talks about. ‘A friend loveth at all times,’ it says.”

  “Andrew’s my bestest friend in the whole world.” She turned to study Ingeborg’s eyes. “He coulda died, huh?” At Ingeborg’s brief nod, the little girl looked back at Andrew. “My fault.”

  “Oh no, Ellie, it wasn’t your fault.” Ingeborg hugged the stalk-thin body closer. “You didn’t push Andrew out of the haymow, did you?” When the little girl shook her head, near-white hair as fine as corn silk tickled Ingeborg’s chin. “It was an accident,” she assured the child, “and accidents just happen sometimes.”

  “’Twouldn’t a happened if you hadn’t been playing in the haymow,” Goodie said with a sigh. “Young’uns just seem to have to climb and slide and play in high places. Me’n my brother loved to climb trees. Back in Ohio there were trees to climb in everybody’s yard. He fell out of one and broke his arm. Hurt something awful. I never climbed those trees again, let me tell you. And I couldn’t sit down for a week from the lickin’ I got from my ma. She’d warned us, just like I warned you.”

  Ellie nestled closer to Ingeborg, as if seeking shelter, and sighed. “Sliding down the hay and swinging from the ropes is the bestest fun.”

  Andrew’s eyes fluttered open again.

  “Your supper is here.” Ellie slid off of Ingeborg’s lap and clambered back onto the bed. “You want I should help you eat?”

  “Why?”

  “Here.” Goodie leaned over and propped another pillow behind him, then hoisted him by the shoulders so he sat against the pillows. She set the tray across his lap and motioned the wriggling girl to sit still. “You’re gonna make him spill.” />
  Andrew ate the sandwich of cheese and sliced meat, but when he tried to pick up the cup to drink his buttermilk, his hand began to shake. As the liquid sloshed to the brim, Ingeborg took the cup from his hands and held it to his lips.

  “Tomorrow you’ll be lots stronger, you’ll see.”

  A bit later, she left the two friends talking, or rather, Ellie talking and Andrew listening. Strange to see her son so still. “Thank you, Father,” she whispered as she descended the stairs. “You brought him back to us, and he looks to be okay. Now please lay thy healing hands on Haakan. He wants so to help with the house-raising on Saturday. And harvest is ready to start. How will we ever get it all done before the frost comes if he is laid up?”

  She heard Lars talking with Haakan when she neared the sickroom. “Can I bring you both a cup of coffee?”

  “Just water.” Haakan lay drenched with sweat again, the sheet clinging to his body from the moisture. Even from the doorway she could see the swelling. Metiz stopped her with a hand on her arm. She handed Ingeborg a willow twig.

  “Make him chew on this. Helps with pain.”

  Ingeborg nodded. Now, why hadn’t she thought of that? Steeped willow bark helped with pain and fevers. Why not chew the stalk and get the medicine straight?

  Haakan took it without even a grumble. He wrinkled his nose at the bitter taste but chewed anyway.

  “That surely is wonderful news about Andrew,” Lars said, glancing up at Ingeborg from his chair at the bedside. “You want to sit here?”

  Ingeborg shook her head. “I’ll get the coffee.”

  “You could put some of that whiskey in mine,” Haakan said.

  “I could add a few drops of laudanum.”

  He nodded. “Anything.”

  When Lars left the sickroom some time later, he stopped to talk with Ingeborg. “One of the men said you could ah . . .” He studied the hat he clutched between his big hands. “You could make a . . .”

  Ingeborg waited. What on earth could be causing his cheeks to flush like that? Was he coming down with something too?

  Lars took in a deep breath.

  “I could make a . . .” Ingeborg waited for him to finish her—or rather his thought.

  Lars shifted from one foot to the other. He shook his head. “I’ll get Kaaren.”

  “Lars, don’t be silly. What is it?”

  He started again. “A sling.”

  Ingeborg waited. The look on his face almost made her laugh. If only she could figure him out. “A sling . . .”

  “You know . . . for his . . .” A brief sketch with his hands finished the sentence.

  “For the swelling in his—” She stopped suddenly at the horrified look on his face. She nodded, keeping her smile locked carefully away. “So, should this sling—”

  “Truss.”

  She almost missed the word. “Ah, truss, be loose or tight or. . . ?”

  “Firm.” He clapped his hat on his head. “I gotta go check the binder. We’ll start cutting first thing in the morning.” The heat from his face left the room somewhat warmer than when she’d entered it.

  “How’s Pa?” Thorliff asked when he dragged himself into the house sometime later.

  “You can go on in and talk with him. He’d like to hear how the hunting went.” Ingeborg turned to look at her son. “What happened to you?”

  “Ah, I just slipped and fell in the river.”

  “Fell in the river?” While the boys frequently swam in the muddy Red River, they usually did so without clothes. Thorliff looked as if he’d been rolling in the mud. Black river gumbo soaked his clothes and spiked his hair. His Bjorklund blue eyes seemed even bluer peering out of a black face. A streak on his right cheek showed where he’d wiped some away.

  “You know how Metiz says mud keeps the mosquitoes off you?” He winked at her.

  Ingeborg nodded.

  “It works.” He held out his arms. No welts. Sometimes when the boys returned from evening hunting, their arms were swelled twice their size from mosquito bites. The vicious things even bit through clothing, so long-sleeved shirts, tightly buttoned, only helped a little.

  “There’s a washtub outside. The water’s still warm in the reservoir.”

  “I know.” At nearly eleven years old, Thorliff now looked her in the eye, even across. No matter how much food he inhaled, it never stuck to his bones, leaving him nearly as skinny as little Ellie. But the man’s work he did made for muscles that belied their stringiness. If he continued the way he was going, he would most likely top his father, Roald, in height, though he was built more like his onkel Carl, both of whom had died the second winter the family had been in the new country.

  “You all right, Ma?” Thorliff studied her face.

  Now it was her turn to nod. She clapped her hands to her cheeks. “Thorliff, I forgot to tell you. Such wonderful news.” Her mouth opened and shut like a fish caught on the end of a line.

  “What?” He leaned forward, question marks warring with the mud on his face.

  “Andrew! Andrew woke up!”

  She hadn’t finished the words before Thorliff was halfway up the stairs, taking the steps three at a time. She could hear Ellie squeal and the sound of something hitting the floorboards. Ingeborg too raced up the stairs, but when she parted the curtain, she knew what had made the thuds. Thorliff was on his knees by the bed, his little brother clasped close to his chest while Ellie danced on the sheets.

  Tears had streaked gullies through the mud on the older boy’s face, and when Thorliff released his bear-trap grip, Andrew looked like he, too, had been wallowing with the pigs in their mudhole. Ingeborg let the curtains swish closed. Tomorrow would be plenty soon enough to wash the bedding and the boy.

  A bit later she heard Thorliff’s boots thud back down the stairs and into Haakan’s room. She finished sewing the strips of muslin together, frequently holding the unusual garment up to see if she could make rhyme or reason out of it. With tails on both ends to tie around his waist, the thing looked like nothing more than a hodgepodge. But all that mattered was for it to help him. If only she had some ice or snow to pack around him.

  She wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. While they all were dripping wet in the humidity, only water from the deep well was cool enough to help. Maybe she should move a pallet out to the springhouse for him. For once, the evening breeze had failed them, leaving the heat of the day smothering the house and its occupants. Even the song of the crickets sounded raspy, as though they needed a drink.

  Bugs hit the screen like peppering shot, attracted by the light. She slapped at a mosquito on her arm. The things seemed to ride in on anyone who opened the door, hovering there in wait.

  “Pa’s not any better.” Thorliff sank down beside her, looping his arms around his upraised knees.

  “No.” If anything, he was worse.

  “How long?” He looked up at her. “I mean, ah . . . how bad . . . ah . . .”

  He sounded like Lars now.

  “You mean the swelling?”

  Thorliff nodded. A flush shone through the streaks where the mud had been wiped away.

  “I don’t know.” Ingeborg clasped her hands in her lap. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “Metiz?”

  “She hasn’t either.”

  “We could take him to the doctor in Grafton or Grand Forks.”

  “We can hardly roll him over without him passing out from the pain.” Ingeborg thought of the Scripture she’d read just that morning. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.” While she’d agreed that was a good principle, the doing of it—when her husband writhed in pain then froze because the slightest movement caused it to worsen—was taxing her reasoning. “You keep praying with us, son. I sure could use a good dose of God’s wisdom right about now.”

  “What about using the telegraph?”

  “What?” She leaned forward as if she hadn’t heard him right.

  “You know, send a message to the docto
r or the hospital and ask them what we can do.”

  “Thorliff Bjorklund, you are a genius.” She tweaked his ear. “Now, why didn’t I think of that?” Because you aren’t used to all this newfangled equipment, the other side of her mind answered.

  “I could ride into Grafton and do that. One of these days we’ll have a telegraph office right here in Blessing.”

  Ingeborg rose to her feet, the truss falling to the floor in her rush. “I’ll get paper and pencil, and we’ll write it out.”

  Thorliff picked up the material and held it up. “What are you making?”

  Now it was Ingeborg’s turn to feel her neck go from warm to hot in one breath. Discussing such things with a woman was not the easiest thing. With Lars it had been difficult, but now with her son? Impossible.

  “You get the paper, and I’ll tell you what to write.”

  Thorliff opened the paper and reread the message they’d written. “Is Pa really this sick?” His blue eyes reflected the gray of a storm-tossed sea.

  Ingeborg nodded. “Metiz and me—Kaaren too—we don’t know what else to do.” Ingeborg wiped her hands on her apron. She stopped when she realized her hands weren’t wet. More and more often lately she’d caught herself drying dry hands. Was she losing her mind with all this? “Just you hurry. Take Jack. He needs a good run.”

  “You want me to run him all the way?” Thorliff’s open mouth and wide eyes showed his surprise.

  “No, no. Right now I’d give anything if we had someone trained to take and send messages here at the Blessing stop.”

  “Onkel Olaf could do that.”

  “Ja, Onkel Olaf can do about anything, but there just ain’t enough hours in the day as it is. Go on now, hurry.”

  “Mor?” Andrew’s voice floated down the stairway, punctuated by the thunder of Ellie’s feet.

  Ingeborg looked upward. “I’m coming.”

  A groan from the bedroom where Haakan lay sent Thorliff hustling out the door. He hit the ground at a dead run, leaping from the top of the three-stepped stoop. Ingeborg glanced out the window to see him flying toward the corral. Should she have sent Lars? Was Thorliff at ten old enough for a job like this one?