Streams of Mercy

by Lauraine Snelling

  “Breakfast, Grandma.” How Emmy could walk the porch without making the boards squeak was another one of those mysteries.

  Ingeborg reached out an arm and gathered the little girl close. “Takk. You should have come to see the sunrise.”

  Emmy leaned her head against Ingeborg’s apron. “I like spring. One more week and school will be out.”

  “Do you ever wonder about your people?”

  “Ja, at times. At bedtime I pray for them. Someday I want to go visit.”

  “Ja, we will do that when you tell me you must. God will lead us.”

  “Can we sew dresses for them again?”

  “We can. As soon as we get the garden planted.”

  “Good.” She took Ingeborg’s hand. “In summer Inga can come here more.”

  “And we’ll go fishing after the school party.”

  The two made their way around the porch that wrapped three sides of the house to the back and into the kitchen. Clara flashed them a smile and picked up the pot to refill Ingeborg’s coffee.

  Another reason to rejoice: Clara busy and smiling and gaining enough weight to have lost her gaunt look. While she would never be a beauty, the smile overrode any plainness. Even her hair, while thin, no longer hung in limp strands. She wore it braided and tied the two braids together with one of the ribbons Ingeborg insisted she have, at the nape of her neck. She signed “Sit down, please,” and Ingeborg did so with a smile to Freda.

  A week later at breakfast, Ingeborg announced that sheep shearing would start the next day. She looked to Clara. “Trygve and Thorliff will be here to shear the sheep, with Manny helping. They should get done in one day. Have you ever seen sheep sheared, Clara?”

  She shrugged and shook her head, looking puzzled.

  “We cut off their wool so they can grow more. The wool in one piece is called a fleece, which we wash and dry, and that is what you have been carding. We have eleven ewes now, and some neighbors are bringing their sheep here. Our barn makes a good shearing floor. We will card some of the fleece into batting for quilts. That’s what we did with most of the wool from last year. The rest we spin into yarn. One of these days when we have a lot of shanks of yarn, we’ll have a dying day. While you can buy many of the dyes now, I like to use some of the natural things too. Onion skins make a nice yellow, and dark blue comes from indigo.”

  Clara picked up her carding paddles and began the back and forth motion. When all the hairs lay in the same direction, she rolled them up and laid the roll in the basket.

  Ingeborg watched her. Reverent was a word that came to mind. Clara did so many things with that same sense of awe. What had her life been that such simple things were not part of it? Lord, please fill me with your love and wisdom for this young woman you have brought into our house. I take so many things for granted, and perhaps you are showing me not only new things but the value of what I have. I get the feeling I am rich beyond measure, and I don’t even know it.

  Manny blew through the door, washed at the sink, and headed upstairs to change out of his overalls into pants for school. Emmy had insisted he not go to school in chores clothes. Back at the table, Clara set a plate of bacon, fried eggs, and fried cornmeal mush in front of him.

  “We have big tests today and Monday.”

  “Are you ready for them?”

  “I guess so. I’ve never studied so hard in my life.”

  “You didn’t used to go to school.” Always practical Emmy.

  “Maybe this is why.” He wolfed down the meal. As he cleared his plate, Clara set a second with a smaller serving on the table and patted his shoulder.

  Ingeborg and Freda swapped looks of astonishment. Clara had voluntarily touched Manny.

  Patches barked a family welcome, and heavy boots scraped on the porch. “Anyone home?” It was Trygve’s way of letting Clara know who was there. While she stiffened, she did not run to hide in Ingeborg’s bedroom. They had put away her cot, and she had slept with Ingeborg for a few days, until the stairs were no longer a problem. Now that she could handle the stairs, she had a room upstairs.

  Trygve stopped inside the open door, being careful to keep the screen door from slamming. “Good morning, Clara.” She nodded and jumped up to get the coffeepot.

  “Have you eaten yet?” Freda asked.

  “Ja, we ate early since Miriam is on the day shift.” He eyed the platter of fried cornmeal mush. “Unless you’ve got extra of that.”

  “Figures.” Freda handed him a plate off the warming shelf.

  Manny and Emmy grabbed their lunch pails and headed out the door, throwing good-byes over their shoulders. They greeted someone else, and boots again sounded on the steps.

  By the time Lars came in the door, Clara had disappeared into the bedroom.

  “I thought you already ate.” He greeted his son and looked to Ingeborg, shaking his head. “You’d think he was still growing.”

  “I am.” Trygve patted his middle. “Besides Freda makes the best fried cornmeal mush of anyone.” He looked to Freda. “What do you do that makes it different?”

  “Cracklings.”

  “You still have some left since last fall’s butchering?”

  “Not much.”

  “I heard you were going hunting tonight,” Lars said to his son as he accepted the cup of coffee and sat down.

  “Me and Manny. Do you want to come?”

  “No, but Samuel does.” He smiled at Freda, who set a cinnamon roll in front of him.

  “How come he got one of those and I didn’t?” Trygve looked longingly at the warm roll sitting in front of his father.

  “You asked for fried mush. Besides, this is the last one.”

  Lars nudged his son. “Sometimes there are privileges for being the elder.” He glanced around the kitchen and raised an eyebrow with his voice lowered. “Clara?”

  Ingeborg nodded to the bedroom. “She’s getting better and braver all the time.”

  “And Thorliff never found out where she came from?”

  “No and perhaps that is just as well. At least that’s what I remind myself.”

  Lars sipped his coffee. “How old is she?”

  “Sixteen. She came from Norway two years ago, but she will not answer any of my questions about her life in America. Or about Norway either. It’s like she has closed the door on anything that happened before she woke up in the hospital.”

  “I stopped by to ask if you want more help with the shearing tomorrow. I’ve got some extra time now that the machinery is all in order.”

  “Far, shearing sheep is a young man’s job.” Trygve looked to Ingeborg rather than his pa. “I’ll be training Manny.”

  “Is that a challenge?”

  “Why, not at all, just a fact.” He pushed his plate away and picked up his coffee cup.

  “And what time do you plan to start the shearing?”

  “Right after breakfast.” Ingeborg crossed to the bedroom door and found Clara sitting on the bed. “I think you should come out and meet Lars Knutson, Trygve’s father and Kaaren’s husband. He is safe.” She held out her hand, praying all the while. Clara closed her eyes and stood, head down. She sniffed and let out a slow breath before sliding her hand into Ingeborg’s.

  Ingeborg led the way back to the kitchen and stopped at the end of the table. “Lars, I want you to meet Clara. She is unable to speak, so she is learning sign and English at the same time. Clara, this is Mr. Knutson.”

  Clara lifted her chin to look from Trygve, who smiled at her, to Lars, whose smile looked so like that of his son. She nodded, very slightly, but a nod nevertheless. And she did not run back to the bedroom to hide. Her hand clutched Ingeborg’s so hard she almost winced.

  “It looks like both of these men will be shearing sheep tomorrow, along with Manny. I thought you might like to come watch so you can learn all about sheep shearing.”

  “Maybe next year you can help us,” Trygve said, his smile again seeming to calm her. “I know you like to go watch the sheep
.”

  Ingeborg could feel the pressure relax on her hand. Thank you, Lord. We are moving forward.

  The next morning the cows were milked and let out to the pasture that was now fully green. The sheep baahed You forgot us, confused when Manny did not let them out too. As soon as breakfast was finished, everyone gathered down at the sheep corral. Lars and Trygve teased back and forth about who was best. Manny held a pair of newly oiled and sharpened shears in his hand, squeezing them, watching the blades open and shut.

  Ingeborg and Freda had a table set up for the fleece.

  The sheep milled in a tight knot, all bunched in the shed, their lambs now corralled off and bleating for their mothers. Emmy and Clara waited outside the corral, watching every move.

  “Okay, Manny, and anyone who needs a refresher, gather round.” Trygve grinned at his far and Thorliff. “You old-timers might pay close attention too, as I demonstrate how to shear a sheep.”

  He strolled over to the bunch, grabbed a sheep by the neck and, with a smooth move, flipped the sheep up to sitting on her rump, her legs jutting out straight ahead, her belly exposed. He braced her tightly between his knees. Both hands free now, he sank his shears into the fleece and started clipping. The fleece began to fall away in one matted piece, as more and more of the sheep was converted from a wooly gray blob to a naked white goat-like animal. Within a couple of minutes, it was done. He tipped her forward, back on her feet, and off she trotted to where Emmy and Clara opened the gate and let her through, then released her lamb from the other pen.

  Trygve rolled up the fleece and laid it on the table. “Any questions?”

  “Can I watch a couple more?” Manny asked.

  “As you wish. Thorliff, Far, you ready?” The three strode toward the sheep. Thorliff missed his first catch. Lars caught his and dumped her on her rump. Seemingly without hurry he snipped and clipped, bending low over the beast to reach the back and odd spots. When he let her go, Manny came and scooped up the fleece, rolling it as he went to Ingeborg.

  By that time Thorliff had caught his and was clipping away. Trygve caught his second, and the routine was established through the next six sheep. “You ready now, Manny?”

  “I . . . uh . . . yes, sir. First I got to catch one, right?” He moved gently into the sheep flock, grabbed one, and dumped her butt down. “Easy, girl, we’ll get this done nice and easy.” He pulled the shears out of his back pocket and clipped exactly as Trygve had done, but a lot more slowly and carefully.

  “You need to get closer to the skin,” Trygve said, watching closely. “But you don’t want to nick her skin either. Flies find bloody spots faster than we can. You’re doing fine.”

  Manny nodded, talking to the ewe the whole time and, when done, tipped her onto her feet and watched her trot off.

  Ingeborg threw the latest fleece across the table. “I have some salve for the one you just nicked, Lars. If you can catch her again, we’ll smear it on.”

  “I shouldn’t have let her go. Sorry.”

  Clara reached for the ewe as she came toward the gate and caught her around the neck.

  “Grandma, we have her,” Emmy called. “Clara caught her, but we don’t have any wool to hang on to now.” Together the two girls wedged the ewe between them and the corral fence while Ingeborg brought over the salve and smeared it over the wound.

  “We’ll doctor her again tonight after they come into the corral. You can let her through now.” She turned to Clara, speaking Norwegian as usual. “That was quick thinking. Takk.”

  Clara beamed back at her, nodded, then signed “Welcome.”

  Freda returned to the house and brought back a jug of water, along with a bowl of cookies.

  “What? No coffee?” Thorliff wiped his forehead with the shirt on his arm, his leather gloves protecting his hands.

  “Be grateful for water.” Freda handed him the cup. “You can dump this over your head too if it will help.”

  “What are the scores?” Trygve asked after drinking one cup dry and pouring another.

  Ingeborg read from the slate. “Thorliff, four; Lars, five; Trygve, five; and Manny, two.”

  “Even up. And we’re over half done.” Lars poked his son.

  “I had to train the new guy.” Trygve winked at Manny, who grinned back.

  “All right, push on through now, and we’ll be done before dinner.” All three men and the boy grabbed a sheep and set to the shearing. Lars was the first to release his and grab for another. Ingeborg fetched his fleece and laid it on the table. Quickly, she and Freda ran their hands over the wool, picking out the brush stems, grasses, dried manure, whatever had lodged in the fleece and would not easily wash out. Trygve was only seconds behind.

  “I’m not cut out for shearing sheep,” Thorliff said, deadpanning his own pun.

  Ingeborg chuckled. “Remember Sheep that first year we homesteaded? That’s what you named her, Sheep.”

  “I do. She lasted a good long time.” He rubbed his back and returned to the dwindling flock. “I’d rather milk that cranky ewe than shear these stinky sheep.”

  Manny grabbed the final ewe, Trygve having just snagged the ram. They clipped away with Lars and the others cheering them on. Manny finished only seconds behind Trygve and the two shook hands as the animals scampered over to the gate. With all the ewes and lambs together, most of the lambs began nursing as soon as their mothers paused long enough.

  “The tally is . . .” Ingeborg dragged out the announcement. “Manny, three; Thorliff, four; Lars, six; and Trygve six. I declare a draw. Neither the older nor the younger has won. We all won, because the sheep are sheared. And all before dinner.”

  “Dinner will be a bit late.” Freda and Ingeborg piled the fleeces on the wagon, and everyone helped carry them up to the house to stack on the porch.

  At the house, Freda said, “Clara, you take a water jug around; Emmy, you get water from the reservoir so they can wash up on the back porch; and Ingeborg and I will get dinner on the table.”

  “You keep pushing her out there, don’t you?” Ingeborg whispered with a smile.

  “I do. And she keeps trying. She has come a long way.”

  “And yet she has even further to go. What will become of her?” Ingeborg shook her head.

  Freda shrugged. “How many times do you say, ‘God knows, and He is the one in charge.’ Why would it be any different with this one?”

  CHAPTER 14

  The picnic is at noon and the awards and games after,” Manny said as he and Emmy both grinned at Ingeborg.

  “I will be there. The beans are baking and the cakes are ready.”

  Emmy looked to Clara. “Will you come too?”

  Clara shook her head, her eyes suddenly full of fear. She looked frantically to Ingeborg, who smiled back. “You don’t have to go, but we would like you to. There are many good people in Blessing who would like to welcome you. Soon you’ll be coming to church with us too. And quilting. You are part of a much larger family than you realize.”

  Emmy patted her hand. “People are good here. You do not have to be afraid.” She glanced up at the clock. “Got to leave.”

  Manny mopped up the last of the eggs with his toast and drained his cup. “Thank you for breakfast.” He grinned at Freda and Ingeborg. “I’ll get to cutting pieces for the cheese crates when I get home.”

  Emmy asked, “Can Inga come home with us?”

  “We’ll see.”

  At Patches’ welcome bark, the two flew out the door.

  Clara got up to clear the table, as she had taken over doing the dishes. While she had regained some weight, her arms and legs were still sticklike, and the baby rounded her out like a ball in front.

  “We need to sew you some summer shifts with pleats on the sides,” Ingeborg said. “The one you are wearing is about to split.”

  Clara nodded and pointed to herself with a quick flick of her wrist.

  “What color would you like?”

  Clara paused, her eyes widening, al
ong with a smile that was coming more frequently all the time. She walked over to the windowsill that held a pink geranium with a white eye, along with tomato and cabbage starts, and fingered the blossom.

  “That is pink.” Ingeborg signed pink and said it in both English and Norwegian. Clara signed the p and i and frowned when Ingeborg shook her head. She signed the four letters back. Clara nodded and copied her exactly. Then added “Thank you.”

  “As soon as you finish the dishes, you can come help us plant the garden. Hopefully we can get it done before the picnic.”

  Clara pointed to the plants in the window.

  “Ja, we plant the cabbages, and we’ll plant the tomatoes and put jars over them to protect them from the cold nights.”

  Freda checked on the beans that had been in the oven all night and were again bubbling and filling the kitchen with the fragrance.

  Out in the garden both Ingeborg and Freda set to work with hoes, hacking out the weeds that always grew faster than the vegetables. The carrots and lettuce were up, as were the peas and beets. They mounded more soil around the thriving potato plants. A meadowlark trilled for them from the far fence posts, and swooping swallows were bringing mud from the riverbank to build their nests under the eaves of all the buildings. A pair of bluebirds had taken over the birdhouse, making Ingeborg wish they had more birdhouses to put up. “Perhaps Manny would like to build us some birdhouses.”

  “The robins are nesting in the lilacs. Inga will be happy to see that.”

  Ingeborg shaded her eyes with her hand to look out across the fields. They had finally dried enough that the plowing and discing were nearly finished. Now the seeding could begin, the wheat fields first, then the oats. This year she had requested a field of flax, partly because she loved the blue blossoms and partly because flax was a profitable crop—not only the seeds but the stalks, since a mill she had heard about in Grand Forks now processed flax for weaving linen thread.