An Untamed Heart

by Lauraine Snelling

  He had to walk again and soon.

  Mari brought the Dutch oven over to the fire and set it off to the side, wiggling it down into the coals as she always did.

  “You are letting the pot heat, right?” He shook his head. “Our cook at home sure has it easy compared to you.”

  “Ja, that’s probably true. You’ve been getting cooking lessons whether you wanted them or not, haven’t you.”

  “I have been getting lots of lessons I did not know I needed.” He inhaled as she lifted the lid on the other pot, which was hanging over the fire, and stirred. “If that tastes as good as it smells, there will not be any left over. That is for sure.”

  She dipped some stew out on the wooden spoon and held it out. “Here, taste and see what you think. It is hot.”

  He blew on the spoon and waited, inhaling the fragrance. When he tasted it, he could feel the grin that stretched his cheeks. “How do you make everything taste so good?”

  “I just add salt and pepper and other things until it tastes right. Easy. Anyone could do it.”

  He shook his head slowly, from side to side. “You are wrong. I know people who have cooked for years and nothing they make ever tastes really good.” He was thinking of his mor. She could cook, her own mor had made sure of that, but delicious was not a word one used to describe a meal his mor prepared. It was one of the reasons they had a cook.

  He heard shouts outside. “What is wrong now?”

  “Nothing. This is a big rite. They just sheared the last sheep. Now we concentrate on other things: we wash and clean the fleece, and we spend a lot of time carding the wool to keep the two spinning wheels in motion. And we keep making cheese.”

  “Does all the work never end?”

  Mari stared at him. “Is it supposed to?”

  “Well, in the city, people go to their jobs, where they work, and at the end of the day or the shift, they stop working and go home.”

  “Here we live with our work.”

  “I see that.”

  Mari put coals in the bottom of the Dutch oven and placed the biscuit dough in the upper level on the rack. After making sure there were plenty of coals surrounding the oven, she stoked the rest of the fire, and wiped her forehead with the corner of her apron.

  “I agree. Gets right hot in here.”

  ———

  “Go wash,” Mari ordered as the others hit the doorway. “Down in the creek and bring back two buckets of water. Takk.”

  One would think Mari was much older than her ten years, as the others did her bidding. She would make a fine general some day.

  When Ingeborg and Gunlaug came in laughing, the wet edges of their skirts said they had not only been to the creek but in it. Water dotted their shirts too. Someone had been splashing.

  “The others are having too much fun to come right now.”

  “The biscuits are not ready yet. Would one of you please bring in the buttermilk and butter?”

  “Come on, Gunlaug, we will cut and hang the curd at the same time.” The two left again along with the sun they had brought in.

  “So what are they doing out there?”

  “Cheese is made from cream that has been heated and mixed with rennet to make it solid.”

  He nodded. She had told him this before, but he was listening harder now.

  “We cut the curd, what the cream forms, and drain the whey away. We have been drinking that, and I use it in cooking. The animals love it too. It is good food. The curd is hung in cheesecloth bags to drain. When it is dry enough, we put it in a cheese mold, or maybe just a large flat pan, and press it down tightly to force the rest of the whey out, what little is left. We can eat some at that point—”

  “The soft cheese that we have been eating?” Tasty soft cheese. Fresh, yet not fresh.

  “Ja! Most of it is molded in big rounds—wheels—and we wax them so they don’t spoil or dry out. Then we store them to age in the cheese house. Some farms use a cellar, but we have a cavern cut away back into the hill. It always stays the same temperature.”

  “And goat cheese is made the same way?”

  “Ja, and I have heard that in different parts of the world they use different kinds of milk. Camel, sheep, whatever kind of animal they can milk. But cows produce the most and goats after that.”

  “What about gjetost?”

  “We do not usually make that, although Ingeborg knows how. Sometimes people add other things to the cheese too, to give it different flavors. And different countries make different kinds. The Swiss make a kind with holes in it—Emmental. I, for sure, don’t know how they manage to put holes down inside.”

  “I never really gave much thought to cheeses, well, not really to most food. Cook buys things at the market, and then he cooks them and serves them in the dining room at home.”

  Mari studied him curiously. “After dinner would you tell me about your home? What it looks like?”

  “I will.” Maybe Ingeborg will join us. His personal angel of mercy. He had a new thought. “How is Tor coming with the leather gloves? I would have him make me a pair if he has the materials.”

  Mari shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him. I do not really know.”

  “And do not really care?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Probably only to someone who has nothing to do but observe. You hide it well.”

  “Takk.” She lifted the lid on the Dutch oven, nodded, and with a smooth motion pulled it out of the fire. She immediately swept the trailing coals back into the fire, even though the floor in front of the fireplace was made of slate to prevent fires from happening in just such a situation.

  She stepped outside to ring the bar, returned to lift the biscuits out onto a plate on the table, and then came over for the stewpot she had removed from the fire.

  Nils would have given anything to offer to help. They all worked so hard, and there he sat. I will not live the way I have in the past, he promised himself. I am no longer taking wealth for granted. There is too much to be done in this world. All his life he had had servants to wait on him. What were their lives like? Did they work as hard as these people did?

  In noisy high spirits, the shearing crew came tumbling in and seated themselves at the table. Hamme said grace, and Gunlaug began filling plates and passing them down the table. Mari prepared a plate of stew and biscuits for Nils and brought it to him.

  He thanked her and discovered the stew was even better than that foretaste he’d had. Here he sat in his chair by the fire; there they sat at their table. All together and yet apart. He was not with them, not of them. Very near them, yet not in their world. It was an unsettling thought.

  “I think we should lift Nils’s chair and haul him outside.” Hjelmer made his announcement when they were nearly done eating. “Tor has a good idea.”

  Tor took the cue. “We stick two poles under the seat of that chair and four of us can carry him out, kind of like we did with carrying him home.”

  “What a good idea.” Ingeborg smiled at Tor. “Why did we not think of that sooner?”

  “He hasn’t been in the chair that long.” Tor tried to look like it was nothing, but his almost smile gave him away.

  Nils applauded. “Thank you, young man. I am looking forward to real sunshine on my face. It’s a good thing you are all strong. I could not have carried weight like that when I was your age. And to think you all carried me clear from that creek. Up to the trail.” He shook his head as he spoke, and when his voice broke, he stopped to clear his throat. After rolling his lips together, he continued. “You saved my life. All of you.” He caught Ingeborg blinking and Gunlaug sniffing.

  After heaving a heavy breath, he added, “I heard a story once about two men; one saved the other man’s life. The one saved said, ‘I owe you my life, so how can I help you now? It is yours.’ I feel that way about all of you.”

  The room was silent as most of those around the table studied their hands or the plates or the spoons in front of them. J
on finally broke the silence.

  “Are there any more biscuits?” The laughter made him look around. “What?”

  “Yes, there is one more, and you may have it.” Mari passed the plate. “Go ahead and have more of that cheese on it too. I wish we had more jam.”

  “Maybe whoever comes up will bring some.” Jon moved the biscuit to his plate and carefully split it open.

  Ingeborg and Gunlaug exchanged smiles and slight nods.

  Nils watched them. The two took their responsibilities to not only teach skills and get the work done, but to teach morals and the Bible and how to live the kind of life they lived. Did they even begin to understand all they were doing? Or was it a natural thing? They quoted Bible verses like he quoted Plato or poets, mostly dead men. This family made the Bible seem alive and useful and a pleasure.

  He realized his education was lacking something that might make his life richer too. Ingeborg prayed as if she were talking to a friend and yet much more than that. This was not the God he heard about in church every Sunday, where they went all dressed up and saw other well-dressed people and smiled and went home and figured they had done their duty for the week. Even confirmation had been an experience to get through to please the grandparents or Mor and Far. He had passed, and that was the end of that.

  Until now.

  Ingeborg stood up. “All right. I’ll get the staves, and we will haul you outside. If that is all right with you, Nils. I mean, do you want to go outside?”

  “Do sheep smell bad and get bugs in their fleece?”

  Hamme snickered, Jon giggled, and the others fell into laughter that spread like the circles at the lake after the rock.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I heard you all complain. That’s how.” He leaned forward. “Let us go forth and prosper.” Now, where had that come from?

  Ingeborg, Gunlaug, Tor, and Anders took the ends of the poles and lifted. And grunted, but headed for the door, where they turned sideways to get through. Good thing my knee bends, Nils thought as he was eased out the door. One chair leg caught on the sill and almost dumped him, but they compensated and planted him in the sunshine.

  “Oh, tusen takk, tusen takk.” He closed his eyes and raised his face to the sun.

  The others were just going about their next things to do when they all turned at the “Halloo, the seter!” that echoed across the valley. A man on horseback leading a packhorse waved his arm and continued up the track toward them.

  Gunlaug’s eyes widened with a smile that brought brightness to her face, rivaling the sun. “Ivar! That’s Ivar!”

  “Not the Ivar that I have heard so much about?” Nils grinned up at Gunlaug, but she ignored him and ran partway out the track, then apparently thought the better of that and walked sedately.

  “Hush!” Ingeborg said, glancing at Nils with her eyes dancing.

  He sniggered. “What all is he packing?”

  “It might be fresh vegetables from the gardens down below. We never know. But the important thing is that he will bring letters from home. We will get to hear how the wedding went and all the other news.” She clasped her hands to her chest. “Oh, Ivar, kick that horse into a canter.”

  Nils watched Ingeborg, her cheeks pinking, her smile as broad as one of those cheese presses. I thought she didn’t like him. He thought for a moment. No, for Ingeborg it was getting news of home. Would there be a letter from a man who was waiting for her to return? The thought dimmed the sun. Was there someone she cared about? If so, she had not mentioned anyone. Gunlaug or the others did not tease her about a beau, not like they did Gunlaug. Of course, she might have a beau by correspondence only, or perhaps even a favorite that no one else knew about.

  Teasing Gunlaug was such fun because she got all flustered and red-faced and dropped things. Perhaps now, if he met this Ivar, he would understand why Ingeborg did not approve of this match. Not that she’d ever said those words, but he was learning to read her well. And he didn’t care for the idea that there might be a man down below waiting for Ingeborg. Not one bit.

  19

  The next morning Ingeborg watched as Ivar walked with Gunlaug up the track toward home, leading his horse, followed by the packhorse, now loaded with rolled and bundled fleeces. She’d just turned away when something caught her attention. They had stopped to say good-bye, but instead of kissing her, which is what she knew Gunlaug was hoping, Ivar shook his head and mounted his horse.

  Was Gunlaug crying? Was she that sad to see him go? Ingeborg had a hard time believing that. Had he said something to her? Yes, Gunlaug was weeping, not just crying the way you express sadness at a loved one’s departure, but sobbing lustily.

  Ingeborg charged out to meet her. “What’s the matter?” What had that weaselly mamma’s boy said to her best friend, the one who loved him, or at least thought she did?

  Gunlaug collapsed in her arms. Her great gulping sobs made it impossible to understand her.

  Ingeborg patted her back and made loving shushing sounds to help calm her.

  “He . . . he said . . .” The onslaught ripped onward again.

  “All right. I know something is terribly wrong, but I don’t know what it is. Gunlaug, tell me before I have to go in and get the gun and shoot him.”

  That put a pause in the storm. “He . . . he said his mor . . .”

  I knew it had to be something to do with his mor, that grasping old tyrant. “His mor what?”

  “Has found a woman with two children for him to marry—” sobs and a hiccup—“and they will all live with his mor.” More sobs and hiccups.

  “Oh.” Ingeborg hugged her cousin close, although she felt more like stamping her feet and screaming. How could a grown man . . . ? Of course. That was part of the problem. That woman wanted her son to remain a boy all his life and take care of his mor. Gunlaug, Gunlaug, if only I could convince you that Ivar is not worth your tears. “What else?”

  “They are to be married before the end of August.”

  Ingeborg nodded, tonguing her lower lip and then catching it between her teeth. Swallowing words was never easy for her, and right now she was about to choke on them. She could not say what she was thinking, that was for sure.

  Gunlaug shuddered in her arms. “I know you always said he is not good enough for me, that he’s a mamma’s boy, but Ingeborg, I love him.”

  “I know. Hush now. All is going to be all right. We will talk about this, and then we will go bushwhack him, knock him off his horse, and roll him down the hill to land on an anthill and get bitten so bad he dies.”

  “We do not have anthills like that.” Sob. “Those are in Africa.”

  “Oh, humph, that’s right. I know, a bee tree instead. He will bump against a bee tree, and the bees will chase him all the way down the mountain.”

  “We do not have wild bees and bee trees here either.” Shudder. Despite Gunlaug’s sorrow, a smile tried to break through the clouds. She sniffed and used the corner of her apron to wipe her eyes.

  “Then you and I will stand at the road and throw pinecones at him and laugh when he tries to dodge them.”

  Gunlaug mopped her face. “Is that before or after the bee tree that we do not have? But it sounds like a good idea.”

  “Both.” Ingeborg hugged her friend. “Please listen to me.”

  Her voice was low, sad, defeated. “I am.”

  “You are better off without him. Just think. Would you like to live with his mor for the rest of your life? And you would, serving her.”

  Gunlaug shuddered. “No, not at all. Eee-ew.”

  “We should pray for that poor young woman and think of her children.”

  “Ivar’s mor likes children. That’s what he said.”

  “Do you know what her name is?”

  “Whose? His mor or the woman?”

  “His mor.”

  Gunlaug wrinkled her forehead, trying to think. “Mor must know but I . . . I guess I do not. I just know she never liked me.”

 
; “Ja, well, may she someday rest in peace.” Without you around, my dear friend, to wait on her. Ingeborg locked her arm through Gunlaug’s, the way they used to when they were little girls and went skipping down the path to school. “Come. He might be worthless, but he brought us some licorice. I think right now is a good time to open that.” And it’s a good thing he did, since he forgot the letters, leaving them all feeling bereft.

  They ignored the questioning looks from all the others and went into the house to the cupboard, where Ingeborg had hidden the tin of candy, keeping it for a special occasion. She unwrapped the tin and finally pried the cover off. Together they inhaled the intoxicating fragrance of licorice.

  “Since you need consoling, you get the first piece, and then you can share the rest with the others.”

  “You take one too, and we will pop a piece into our mouths.” She did. “Oh, I do love licorice.” Her eyes grew dreamy, like when she talked of Ivar. “Someday there will be just the right man for me, and he will be a real man, not a permanent boy.”

  Thank you, Lord. Ingeborg figured this was not the end of Gunlaug’s sadness, but it was sure a good start.

  “Come and have licorice!” Gunlaug hollered from the doorstep. “If you do not come quick, I will eat your piece.”

  When she brought the tin to Nils, he nodded and thanked her gravely. “If licorice is so important to all of you, I will have to send you some from my favorite place in Oslo. When I get home, that is.”

  Gunlaug nodded. “We would all like that. So that means we have to work extra hard to get you well enough to walk again and soon.”

  He surely saw her puffy red eyes, but he said nothing about it. “We do. Anders said he is working on a crutch for me. I would make one, but I have no idea how to do such a thing, and we don’t need lopped off fingers or portions thereof in the bargain.” He put his piece into his mouth and smiled wide. “Have you ever had horehound drops?”