A Touch of Grace

by Lauraine Snelling

  They officially announced the late-afternoon party after church, but most people already knew about it and were planning on coming. Grace looked around the people gathered outside, but Toby was nowhere to be seen. Did he not even come to church anymore? Maybe that’s when he went to Grafton.

  Talk of the slaughter was avoided by discussing the wheat harvest in the men’s circles, and gardens and canning dominated the women’s conversations. Grace joined the gaggle of girls, staying toward the outside. Ellie joined the women, and Sophie returned immediately to the boardinghouse. Grace looked for Astrid, but she was missing too.

  Rebecca Baard wore a long face, and Grace watched her talk.

  “I was almost ready to open my ice cream parlor, but you can’t make ice cream without milk or cream. I don’t know when it can happen now.”

  “It looks really pretty inside,” one of the other girls commiserated.

  “The book I read said the ice cream parlor is an ideal place for young people to meet.”

  We meet all the time. Why do we need something like that? Grace took the thought out and looked at it again. That really wasn’t a very nice comment, so she was grateful she’d not said it. Blurting out something before thinking was more Sophie’s trait than hers, but even Sophie had changed a lot. Between the children and the boarding house, she was so busy, she rarely had time to talk. Besides, Grace had tired of hearing how wonderful Garth was.

  A tap on her shoulder caught her attention. Jonathan smiled at her.

  “May I walk you home?”

  “We can take the wagon with everyone else.”

  “I know, but I thought a walk might be nice.”

  Grace thought a moment. “But we need to get ready for the party.” We don’t have cooks and maids to do the work for us. She was glad she hadn’t said that too. What was the matter with her today? Much as she looked forward to the party, she was really in a crabby mood.

  “I see. Maybe next Sunday, then.” He bowed slightly, reverting to his more formal demeanor, and turned away.

  She watched him go. The sun caught the dark curls that tumbled over his forehead, and his face held a darker tan than the rest of the men’s. Had his shoulders broadened this summer too? It looked as if his shirt was tighter. He walked with an easy grace and joined the group of young men who’d gathered under one of the other trees. Where earlier he’d stood back, now he was a welcomed member. Trygve clapped him on the shoulder and said something that made them all laugh. She didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but she couldn’t let him get the wrong idea about her either. But he was leaving soon. Surely she could be a friend. It seemed like every thought she had lately had to have an argument to go with it.

  Grace gratefully climbed into the bed of the wagon when her pa motioned it was time to go. Maybe planning a party for this afternoon wasn’t such a good idea after all. Curling up on the porch swing with a book to read sounded much more appealing. Now that she thought of it, walking home with Jonathan might have been a pleasure. He at least made her laugh. Sometimes. Except when he looked at her like Garth looked at Sophie.

  Even without ice cream, all those who came to the party at the Knutsons’ had a good time. The raspberry swizzle tasted just right. It was like there was a silent rule that no mention be made of the disaster they were still reeling from, and everyone played ball, teasing the other team as well as the spectators. When they started the bonfire, the mosquitoes left and food arrived. Haakan brought the last of the smoked sausages from the well house, and they stuck them on the end of sticks to brown in the flames. The noodle salad disappeared as quickly as the hot dogs, and the pans of chocolate cake followed suit.

  Grace sat on a log next to Astrid, and Jonathan placed himself on her other side.

  “So how is this party compared to yours on the beach?” Grace asked, trying to make up for her rudeness earlier.

  “What do you mean?” Astrid leaned forward. “I’m missing something here.”

  Jonathan began telling about house parties on Long Island, and soon everyone was grouped around, listening.

  “Don’t you ever have chores to do?” someone asked.

  Jonathan paused and shook his head.

  “Who does them?”

  “The help.”

  Astrid patted his arm. “You poor thing. No wonder you didn’t know how to work a shovel when you came.”

  Everyone burst out laughing, including Jonathan.

  Trygve clapped him on the shoulder, nearly knocking him off the log. “You have learned a lot, Cityboy. I wonder if your family will even recognize you.”

  “Well, I haven’t changed that much. On the outside at least.”

  “Shame you still can’t catch fish, though,” Samuel said, making everyone laugh again.

  “Looks like this is tease Jonathan night,” Haakan said from across the fire. “But I have to say that I am right proud of the way you pitched in and never complained.”

  “On the outside, that is.” Jonathan held up his hands. “Those first days my hands were shredded and my arms screamed all night long, not that I could stay awake to hear them.”

  “You aren’t who we thought you would be.” Astrid poked her stick into the coals. “Funny how things work out.”

  “Speaking of work …” Haakan groaned as he got to his feet. “We’ll be helping the Baards with haying, so morning will come early.”

  “Thank you all for coming,” Kaaren said from beside Lars. “We’ll just take the pans and dishes into the house and wash them in the morning.” Everyone picked up something to carry back to the house, and the boys took shovels and threw dirt on the fire, then tipped pails of water over it.

  Grace walked beside Astrid, aware the others were talking but not making an effort to take part. Communicating in the dark was near to impossible, other than the secret codes she and Sophie had devised using arm tapping. Sophie and Garth hadn’t come tonight. Come to think of it, the only time she saw Sophie was when she went into town and visited her. Somehow there seemed a vast gulf between being one of the young people and having a husband, four children, and a boardinghouse. But Andrew and Ellie came and Thorliff and Elizabeth. The little children were sound asleep in the house and would be carried home most likely without waking up.

  She chewed on her bottom lip. If Toby had come, the evening would have been perfect. He would have realized he was making a mistake with the girl in Grafton and Grace was the one he really cared about. Grace paused. Maybe that was really true. He had no idea about her true feelings because she’d never told him. Maybe she should talk with him. If only she had someone she could ask for advice. She knew what her mor and far would say. Tante Ingeborg? Or would Tante tell her mother? Dr. Elizabeth? Grace wasn’t sick unless you considered an aching heart an illness.

  WHILE JONATHAN HAD THOUGHT haying hard work, shocking the bundles of wheat was another exercise in endurance.

  He, Samuel, and Trygve walked behind the binder, grabbed two bundles of wheat, leaned them against each other, then stood another three to five against the shock and moved on up the field. Trygve made it look easy, but getting the rhythm took some doing, and having to go back to stand up a collapsed shock made him more careful. To put it mildly, wheat was a dusty and prickly business. His neck, under his shirt, itched like fire.

  The girls bringing out water jugs were a most welcome break both morning and afternoon. He had the feeling that Grace was avoiding him by not making eye contact. He wished he had introduced the possibility of coming to New York in a more gentle manner. The look on her face had reminded him of their dog’s yowl when Mary Anne, as a toddler trying to walk, stepped on his tail.

  At the end of the day, Jonathan collapsed on the ground, almost too tired to clean up and eat supper. Even worse than being hot and dirty, the bits of wheat spears that dug into the skin, especially under his shirt collar and pants waist, itched worse than a hundred mosquito bites. When Mrs. Bjorklund passed around a salve she’d made, he smeared it on immediately.


  “You should market this,” he said as the fire in his neck died out.

  “Metiz taught me how to make it. Have you heard of her?”

  “The Indian woman with the wolf?”

  “Yes. She taught us all so many things about living on the prairie. We might not have made it through that first winter without her. People rail about the Indians, but she was a true friend. I miss her still.” Ingeborg stared out the window. “She knew all about the herbs around here, which things are medicinal and which are good to eat. I keep a box of simples of my own now, and Dr. Elizabeth has been writing down all my receipts for the uses and mixtures.”

  As the family sat down to supper, Jonathan couldn’t help but relive the shock he’d had that afternoon when he’d grabbed a shock and felt something moving in it. When the rattlesnake stuck his flat head out between the stalks of wheat, Jonathan dropped the shock with a yelp and leaped about five feet in the air and straight back.

  “What’s the matter?” Trygve dropped his bundles and came running. Together they watched the snake slither away.

  Jonathan laid his hand over his heart, hoping to keep the thundering organ in his chest.

  “Yep, prairie rattler all right. Sometimes they get tossed up on the wagonloads of hay too. They like the cool of the shade.” He turned to grin at Jonathan. “Good thing they can’t strike without coiling. Saves us from plenty of bites that way.”

  “That was too close for comfort.”

  “As pa says, a miss is as good as a mile.”

  But it wasn’t your arm that felt that critter moving. “Shouldn’t we kill it?”

  “Why? Did no harm, and they eat plenty of mice and field rats that do harm when they get in the granary and corncrib.”

  “I see.” One more bit of information he filed away for future use. That, along with a vow to be more careful. “You could have warned me.”

  Trygve half shrugged and dropped his gaze. “Sorry. I forget you don’t know all this stuff.”

  Jonathan decided to take that as a compliment and looked up to see how far ahead of them the binder had gotten. “We better get back to it before we can’t catch up.”

  The snake surprise turned into a huge joke around the supper table when Trygve teased Jonathan about it. Everyone had a snake story to share, including Haakan, who had been bitten once.

  “But I thought a rattlesnake bite was fatal.” Jonathan paused in the act of buttering his bread.

  “Not always. Sometimes there’s even such a thing as a dry strike. A rattler can hold his venom if he so chooses. If you can get the venom sucked out before it gets into the bloodstream, the wound makes you really sick and miserable but it’s not always fatal. Depends too on where you’re bitten. Up around the face and neck or upper arm are the worst. We all wear boots and heavy pants to protect our ankles and legs.” Haakan passed the meat platter again. The deer that Samuel had shot before the disease struck made for good venison roast. Haakan had smoked part of it, so the meat should last them through a few weeks yet.

  “Just the shock of it could give a man a heart attack.” Jonathan thought back to his pounding heart. He raised a hand before Astrid could say something. “I know, just one more thing to get used to.”

  “You don’t have to make snakes your friends, however.” Astrid grinned at him. “And a skirt can be good protection too. A snake struck at me one time and got a mouthful of skirt. I was screaming so hard, I think he panicked and vamoosed as fast as his belly could wiggle.”

  “You get used to listening for the rattle. They hiss too.”

  But what about Grace? The thought made him nearly choke on his bite of venison. She couldn’t hear a rattle or hiss. Did he dare ask? Did no one try to protect her?

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you. There’s a letter for you,” Ingeborg said as she refilled his coffee cup, her hand on his shoulder like she did all the others. “I left it on the table by the desk in the parlor.”

  “Mange takk.”

  She squeezed his shoulder, sending warmth down his arm. “Velbekomme.” Her smile as she moved on to fill Haakan’s cup made him smile back.

  Funny how that simple gesture made him feel like all the hard work was worthwhile, just so they could gather for a meal like this. Jonathan glanced at the faces around the table. Lars, Samuel, and Trygve were as at home at this table as at the one at their house, as if both families were melded into one. This alternating houses to cook for the men gave the woman a day to keep on canning, since putting up the garden was the major event going on besides harvest. Actually it was another form of harvest.

  He’d never paid any attention to where his food came from before. It appeared on the table, and he ate it. What would Cook think if he went into her kitchen and started asking her where she got the carrots and shouldn’t they have more of a garden than just flowers and herbs? What would the gardener say if he asked for a plot to plant himself? Or asked him to plant corn and green beans and potatoes? What would his mother say if he dug up part of the landscaped yard behind or beside the house to plant a vegetable garden? Perhaps he could plant carrots between the roses and use the boxwood as pea poles.

  Thinking of the letter he wanted to read and answer, he excused himself while Haakan was lighting his pipe. After offering “Mange takk for maten,” he picked up his letter and trudged up the stairs. He never dreamed he’d miss milking the cows. And if it still bothered him, what about the others? Was that why Ingeborg’s smile did not come as readily, and if caught unawares she stared at the wall, her face tight with sorrow?

  He slit the envelope with his pocketknife, one of the many things he’d purchased here since he’d arrived, and sat down to read. But instead he stared at the knife in his hand. Like the others, he realized the Blessing General Store was not the same welcoming place it had been under Penny’s ownership. Ingeborg had mentioned several times that Mr. Jeffers wasn’t carrying the amount of stock Penny had, and he didn’t volunteer to order right away what was missing.

  He’d even heard the women discussing it after church, a safe place to talk about it, as the store was still open on Sunday. Not that any of the people he knew would go there to buy on Sunday. Would their boycott make a difference?

  Unfolding the paper, he began to read his father’s letter.

  Dear Jonathan,

  Thank you for your letter, and I am pleased with the things you write. I had hoped this summer would be a life-altering experience for you, and it seems to be so.

  Jonathan paused and looked out the window over the wheat shocks that stood like Indian teepees dotting the fields. Little did his father know how much his life was changing and that his new dreams would change it even further. He mentally composed a telegram. Dear Father, I am staying here to attend college in Grand Forks to learn more about agriculture and farming, which is what I want to do with the rest of my life. Stop. Your steadfast and most appreciative son, Jonathan. He shook his head and returned to the letter.

  Everyone is having a normal summer season at the shore. I go out for long weekends whenever possible. I believe your mother and sisters have a surprise for you when you return home.

  That thought made him shift forward a little. Too many of Mother’s surprises involved meeting people he had no interest in spending time with. But if his sisters were involved, it might actually be interesting. Maybe some new music.

  I heard mention that they have not received many letters from you, but I have an idea of how hard you are working, thanks to Mrs. Bjorklund’s very complimentary letter. I have told your sisters to be patient and that you might like to hear of their escapades. From what they tell me, the summer is flying by too fast.

  I did the research on the Fenway School that you requested. The school’s reputation is impeccable. If Grace would like to attend there, I will gladly pay her tuition, although as proud as my friends in Blessing are, I doubt they will permit that. I am sending the printed information from the school to you under separate cover.

 
; Again Jonathan paused. His letter regarding the animal slaughter had probably not reached his father yet. Money could be a serious issue for these folks this fall. Surely there were cows to purchase further east. Although the price would be high, due to demand.

  If you would like, I will write to Mrs. Knutson and extend our invitation for their daughter to visit here and perhaps attend the school, if that is what she would like to do. I know your mother has been making lists of the articles you will need for college. I suggested she not order clothing for you yet, as I have a feeling you have filled out some with all that heavy labor.

  Jonathan rolled his eyes and glanced in the mirror. “Won’t they be surprised?” His dress coat was too tight in the shoulders and upper sleeves, so he had taken to wearing a dress shirt and vest to church. The shirt was at least wearable, though not comfortable.

  Thank you, my son, for living up to my expectations for you this summer. I know you went out there solely to please me, and you have.

  Your loving father

  Jonathan read the last paragraph again and went to stand at the window. The curtains hung still. The evening breeze had not come up, but since his room faced the north, the air was cooler here than in the rest of the house. With the windows open at both ends, the draft helped alleviate the suffocating daytime heat. He’d earned his father’s approval. This was one letter worth keeping, not that he’d thrown any of them away. He tapped the folded edge on the fore-finger of his left hand. But would the cost be worth the confrontation?