The Reaper's Song

by Lauraine Snelling

  Ingeborg debated. Maybe some further good news would help cheer him. “How about some cool water here, and while I do that, I have something wonderful to tell you.” She dipped the cloths and, wringing them only partially, laid them across his body.

  “So?”

  “So you are going to be a father—again.”

  “Ahh.” This time the smile almost looked like one. “That is good.”

  “Good?” She planted her hands on her hips. “Is that all you can say about something this important?” She chuckled and sank down on her knees beside the bed. Taking his hot hand in her own cool ones, she kissed his knuckles. “I think Metiz already figured it out. She gave me one of those looks of hers yesterday.” At his sort-of smile again, she continued. “You could be thinking of names while you lie here.”

  “Wasting time?”

  “I’d say getting better isn’t really a waste of time. I could prop the Bible on a pillow so you could read that. Maybe you’d find a good name in there.”

  “We’ll name her after your mother.”

  “You better think of a boy’s name this time around.” Ingeborg returned to cooling the cloths. “Let’s see, August, July, three months back, we should have another April baby.”

  “Give Astrid a birthday present?”

  Ingeborg smiled into his face. “Ja, and you too.”

  “Did Thorliff bring a newspaper?”

  She nodded. “Perhaps someone will read it to you later. You want the Bible?”

  He shook his head. “My eyes don’t focus right.”

  “Can you sleep?”

  “Get me a few swallows of that rotgut and I will.”

  After dosing him with willow-bark tea and a chaser of Anner’s homemade whiskey, she left him dozing just in time to hear Astrid stirring. She checked on the three playing in the shade. Andrew and Ellie were telling Sophie a story using sticks and bits of cotton to make people. After changing Astrid, Ingeborg settled into her rocker and put the baby to her breast. She could hear Goodie in the kitchen. A fly buzzed against the window, trying to bang its way back out. The rocker sang its own song, playing the bass line for the guzzling baby.

  Ingeborg let her head rest against the chair back. She could be reading to Haakan while the baby nursed, but she was so tired her bones seemed to melt into the chair. How easily one forgot the harder things of bearing children, tired inside out, swollen feet, aching back. She looked down at the silken-haired infant in her arms.

  “You’re worth every bit of it, you know.”

  Astrid drew back her head and smiled up at her mother, a bit of mother’s milk dribbling from the side of her mouth. Then she sucked again in earnest, her blue eyes fast on her mother’s face.

  “I pray to God you are always healthy like this,” Ingeborg whispered. “And that our new baby will be just like you. Fat and sassy and the best baby ever.”

  Astrid gurgled and waved her fist.

  “Please, God.” A shadow drifted across the sunlight streaming in the window.

  That Anner! I swear he is going to break his neck looking the other way when he sees me.” Hjelmer shook his head. “You’d think I robbed him or something. He could have done the same as I did if he’d been paying attention.”

  Penny looked up from her account books spread across the kitchen table. “He’s jealous, that’s all.”

  “Short of giving him the Booth property, I don’t know what else to do.” Hjelmer stared out the window.

  “He’d never take that.”

  “I know. He says he’ll never take or buy anything from me again.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Oh, someone told me.” Hjelmer glanced back over his shoulder. “You think he is hurting your store too?”

  Penny tapped her front teeth with the end of her pen. “Not so’s I’d notice. Some come in spite of him. They don’t want to take sides, but they don’t want to go all the way to Grafton either. You watch, he’ll come around.”

  “You know Mor and the others are coming in tomorrow. I wish we had room for them with us.” Hjelmer changed the subject.

  “We can always add on.”

  “You say that like adding on is easy as . . . as baking a pie.”

  “Speaking of which . . .” Penny got to her feet and crossed to the stove. Taking up potholders, she opened the oven door and stood back a moment to let the rush of heat out.

  “Umm, that smells like heaven itself.”

  “I didn’t know heaven would smell like apple pie.” She removed the three pies and set them on the counter to cool. “Now, take the blossoms on those red roses at Ingeborg’s—that’s what heaven will smell like.”

  Hjelmer inhaled again. “You set those on the windowsill where the folks from the train can catch a whiff, and you’ll be baking pies twenty-four hours a day.”

  Penny spun around, sending her skirts above her ankles. The sight brought an appreciative grin to her husband’s face. “Yes, pies would do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Bring more people into my—our store.”

  He waited for her to continue.

  “If we had a sign out front, ‘fresh pies’ . . .” She shook her head. “No, that wouldn’t work. Everyone around here bakes their own pies.”

  “The men on the train don’t. Like your bread, they buy a whole loaf at a time, you know?”

  Penny nodded. “Well, we’ll be plenty busy soon as harvest starts.”

  “They started cutting at Baards’. Haakan is laid up, you know.”

  “What? No, I didn’t know. What happened to him?”

  “Caught the mumps. All the kids had it.”

  “So?”

  “So when a grown man gets the mumps, the swelling travels to other parts of his body.”

  Penny raised her eyebrows. “So?”

  He stared at her without saying a word, only one eyebrow cocking in that way he had.

  What is he talking about? So the swelling went to . . . “Oh no.” “Ja, he can hardly move. Think I’ll go ask if they need some help. You could send someone out to get me if need be.”

  She knew he meant if someone needed some blacksmithing done immediately. “You could take Ephraim with you.”

  Hjelmer nodded. “He’s got enough wood split to size every wheel for a five-mile radius. I figure I can do that while they wait in line to empty their wagons there at the sack house. We’ll go on out in the morning, and I’ll be back in time for the train. Then I can take Mor out to Ingeborg’s. She’ll find plenty to do taking care of Haakan and Astrid.”

  “Saturday we have the house-raising for Olaf and Goodie.”

  “I know. He’s got enough sod cut for the lower walls, and we’ll frame the rest. Haakan said he’s donating the lumber.”

  “Well, I have curtains sewn for two kitchen windows. And the quilt will be done in time for the wedding. You’d think they could have waited until after harvest to get married.”

  “Like we could have waited longer?” There went that eyebrow again.

  “We didn’t dare wait. You might have taken off again, and then where would we have been?”

  “Pretty sad, at least on my side.” He sat down in his big stuffed chair. “Come here, wife, and I’ll show you why we didn’t wait.”

  “Now, Hjelmer.”

  He crooked his finger and patted his lap. “You scared?”

  “Scared? Me?” Penny flounced to her feet and, crossing the room, plopped herself in his lap. “What if someone comes in?”

  “Like who?”

  “Oh, Cousin Ephraim.”

  “He’s sound asleep over in the sack house. He believes wholeheartedly in working from dawn to dusk. Up with the roosters and to bed with the hens.”

  “Hjelmer!” She thumped him on the shoulder at the leer on his face.

  “Chicks, hens . . .” He nuzzled her neck with gently biting kisses. “I was scared, you know. Half out of my wits.”

  “Why?” She turned and leaned her for
ehead against his.

  “I kept hearing about some Donald fellow, and it sounded like you were pretty serious about him.”

  “I was, until I realized I had to settle things with you first.” “So.” He kissed her, butterfly kisses on her nose and eyelids. “Are we settled?”

  “More or less.” The warmth his kisses always brought was traveling from her middle out to her fingers and toes.

  “More?” He settled his lips on hers.

  “More what?” She whispered back after a time of silence.

  “I love you more each day, Mrs. Bjorklund, and I can’t wait to introduce you to my mother. She still can’t believe someone actually got her youngest son to settle down.” He set her off his lap, rose, and took her hand. “I think it’s bedtime. This rooster is getting mighty droopy eyed. And he needs his hen.”

  The two of them blew out the lamps and, giggling, made their way to the bedroom. Later, with Hjelmer snoring gently beside her, Penny lay still, watching the wind flutter the white curtains. She had heard so many things about Bridget, all of them good, but all of them leaving her wondering if she’d measure up. If I was carrying a babe by now, then . . . She quickly shut off that line of thinking. She’d prayed for a baby, and as Ingeborg had reminded her, “The good Lord sends babies when He decides the time is right.” But please, God, let your time be soon. I want a baby so I can have a real family of my own. She thought of the brothers and sisters she’d never seen after they were split up among the relatives. Five children, with her the oldest. But at least Ephraim had given her news about those who were alive. How exciting to hear that she still had brothers and sisters. Were any of them wanting to find their family as she did?

  The next afternoon the train whistled its arrival.

  The wooden platform was buried under Bjorklunds. Hjelmer stood off to one side with Penny glued to his side. Her cousin was minding the store, but anyone who had come to town had come to the wood-planked stretch from the sack house to the tracks to see what the ruckus was about. Once their questions had been answered, they stayed. Happy occasions like this didn’t occur every day.

  Kaaren and Ingeborg tried to keep track of their children and keep them clean long enough to greet this new and much heard about group of relatives. Andrew, bouncing back from his head injury with the speed of children, tried to keep Sophie in hand. Between him and Ellie, the giggling twin only fell down twice.

  Andrew brushed her off and hissed, “Stand still.”

  “Andoo, run.” Sophie tried to slip by him, but Ellie headed her off.

  “Sophie!”

  The little girl came to a skidding halt. She knew better than to keep going when her mother’s words wore that tone.

  Grace clutched her mother’s skirts with both hands. Her eyes took up her entire face.

  Trygve waved his arms and crowed as Andrew ran by.

  “He wants down.” Ingeborg rocked Astrid on her hip, calming the child against all the noise.

  Thorliff and Baptiste corralled all the young ones, threatening them with bodily harm if they didn’t stop the running around.

  “Do you think she’ll recognize me?” Thorliff asked his mother.

  Ingeborg nodded. “All she has to do is look for a young Roald-and-Carl combination. You look more like them every day.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Well, parts of each.”

  He smiled at her, nearly on eye level with her now. He’d spurted up these last months, and he wouldn’t be eleven until November. He swung Sophie up into his arms, much to her delight, and motioned Andrew to stand beside their mother.

  Lars joined Kaaren and bent down, picking Grace up and settling her on his hip. The love shining in her eyes when she patted his cheeks and looked him straight on brought a catch to Ingeborg’s throat. It took so little to make that one happy. Gentle Grace was already living up to her name.

  As the train hissed to a stop and the conductor stepped down, Hjelmer drew close beside him. Setting the stool down for the last step, the uniformed man turned to the crowd. “Well, now, isn’t it nice you all came to see me like this?”

  Those who had heard him over the hissing of the train laughed. One man, obviously a traveling salesman by his two cases, stepped down and headed toward the store.

  The conductor waited, watching the doorway. The group waited too.

  What if she missed a connection somewhere? Ingeborg kept up her juggle-the-small-child rhythm. If only Haakan could be here. So much he was missing. She watched Hjelmer. Why did he seem so nervous? Fidgeting like that certainly wasn’t like him. But then, how would she be if this were her mother? A lot calmer, she decided, swallowing again. Greeting her own mother would be much easier than greeting the mother of the father of her two sons. All these years of letters back and forth. Had they become friends in the process?

  “Katja!” Hjelmer stepped forward and lifted the lovely young girl down from the last step. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him like she would never let go.

  “Oh, Hjelmer, we thought never to see you again.” She thumped him on the shoulder. “Now, put me down, you big oaf. Mor should take a strap to your backside for not ever writing.” She grinned up at him. “And in Amerika I am to be called Katy. Much more fitting, don’t you think?”

  “Still a tongue on you. I thought you might outgrow that Katy, huh?” He set her on the ground and reached for the hand of the white-haired woman descending the steps. “Mor.”

  Bridget Bjorklund stumbled a bit as she fell into her son’s arms. Of four sons, this her youngest, was the one who always made her laugh. “Oh, Hjelmer, Katja—I mean Katy—is right. You should be thumped, but I am so glad to see you.” She stepped back, the better to look at him. “You’ve grown into a man.”

  “I should hope so.” He kept her hand in his and drew her over to where Penny waited.

  Thorliff looked up at his mother. “Don’t they speak English?”

  “I don’t know.”

  To Ingeborg the pure Norwegian language sounded like angel songs. Here in the new country, they had changed so many words, made up some from both Norwegian and American, and spoke mostly English now, so it had been some time since true Norwegian was spoken. Andrew had been speaking English from the beginning, and while Norwegian was Thorliff’s first language, he now used English all the time too.

  After Bridget came a sturdy boy with a black porkpie hat pulled low on his forehead. Thorliff and Baptiste stepped forward. “Hamre?”

  “Ja.” The boy held on to his valise as if they might take it from him.

  “I am Thorliff Bjorklund, and this is my friend Baptiste. Welcome to Amerika.” He spoke perfect Norwegian, and Baptiste bobbed his head, a smile lighting his black eyes.

  Hamre ducked his head and moved off to stand behind Bridget.

  Thorliff looked at Baptiste and shrugged.

  “And you are Thorliff, are you not?” Bridget put her hands on his shoulders. “You look so like your far and onkel I would recognize you anywhere. So much you have grown.”

  Thorliff nodded. “I remember you.” He cocked his head. “But you are different too.”

  “Ja, I am older. More snow on the mountain.” She touched her hair nearly hidden under a black hat with a black feather.

  Thorliff shook his head. “No, that is not it. You were so big, tall I mean.”

  Bridget and Katy laughed together, their cheeks rosy in the heat. “You were little then. Five years old and trying so hard to be a man already.” She patted his shoulder. “Your far would be very proud of you this day.”

  “And every day,” Ingeborg added from her place behind Thorliff.

  While Bridget turned at a question from Hjelmer, Ingeborg smiled at the young woman loaded with two valises and looking more than a bit lost. “You must be Bridget’s niece Sarah. Welcome to Amerika.”

  “Ja, mange takk.” She set her cases down and wiped her brow. “I did not know it would be so warm here.” Then even more color came
into her face. “I did not mean to complain. I mean . . .”

  Ingeborg smiled and took her arm. “You leave those heavy cases for the men and come over here with us.”

  Bridget turned then from her greeting of all the others and motioned a half-grown girl to join them. “This is Ilse Gustafson. Her mor and far died on the boat, along with many others. Dysentery ran through those in steerage, knocking people down like a terrible windstorm. Too many of them never got up again. I told Ilse that since she had no more family, she could come with us. That you would have plenty of room for another Norwegian emigrant.”

  Ingeborg stepped forward. “Of course we do. Thorliff, why don’t you and Baptiste take those boxes and go load them in our wagon?” She reached out a hand to the girl who had yet to smile. “Welcome to Blessing, and I hope being with us will indeed be a blessing for you.”

  The “mange takk” was nearly buried in the girl’s chest as she nodded in return.

  Poor child, losing her family like that. Ingeborg resolved right then to do all she could to help out this poor girl. Surely there would be a place for her somewhere, if not at the Bjorklunds.

  “I knew you would say that.” Bridget turned to Ingeborg with another hug. “I never thought to see any of you again, and here I am. God is so good. He has allowed me to cross that ocean and this huge, huge land and come here to meet my grandchildren.” She patted Andrew’s cheek. “I would have no trouble telling that you are a Bjorklund through and through. He looks so much like Carl when he was a baby that this is like stepping back in time.”

  Ingeborg put her hand on Andrew’s shoulder. He did not like being called a baby.

  “Astrid is the baby.” He looked his bestemor in the eye as he said it.

  “Ja, that she is.” Bridget glanced from Ingeborg to Andrew, a twinkle in her eye. “Spoken like a true Bjorklund.”

  Ingeborg was so proud of her young son, she could have popped her seams right there. He even spoke in Norwegian, which she wasn’t sure he would do, or could do without prompting. While Bridget went to talk with Kaaren and fuss over her three little ones, Ingeborg helped shepherd all the group together. When all the baggage was unloaded, including the mail, which the men handed to Penny, the train whistled again, the conductor shouted “all aboard,” and set his stool back up on the car bed. Wheels screeching, steam hissing, the train began to move, and gathering momentum, took off down the track.