Tender Mercies

by Lauraine Snelling

  “The hams for sure. The geese closer to Christmas?”

  “Sounds fine. Now, I’d like to order me a sewing machine. Kaaren and I can share it until those tightfisted husbands of ours agree to buy another.”

  “Ah, would you like to put that on the contract?” Penny stumbled for words.

  “No, I’m taking money out of my account as soon as Hjelmer or Valders gets here. Where’d they go anyway?”

  Penny thought fast. “Hjelmer is in Grand Forks—left on the early train—and Mr. Valders went home for dinner.” She glanced up at the clock.

  “So early?”

  “Ah, well, he had something needed doing. I got to get in the kitchen to finish dinner for the railroad men. Perhaps we can fill out the paper later.”

  “I really wanted to do it now, but I guess I can wait.” Ingeborg frowned. “How come it is so difficult for a Bjorklund to buy a sewing machine?”

  Chapter 20

  Springfield, Missouri

  How many miles to home?

  Mary Martha stared out the train window. Had it taken this long to get to Dakota Territory? So many train changes, so much waiting time. She withdrew her tatting from the bag beside her, the thread flowing freely between her fingers and the shuttle as she created the tiny patterns that were becoming a lovely lacy collar. She’d planned to have it done for Manda for Christmas, and now with all the train time, it was almost ready to mail. Through repeated admonishments, her mother had trained her to not waste time. Her mother—how much care would her mother need? Her mother, who never admitted to anything being wrong with her, her mother, who always took care of everyone else.

  If only Uncle Jed hadn’t been so terse in his letter.

  If only she could have stayed with Zeb and Katy.

  “Next stop, Bolivar.” The conductor made his way through the cars, checking tickets and calling out stops. Two more until she could get off the train, be done with being rocked from side to side, her ears blasted with the screech of steel on steel and the infernal clacking as the train raced over the rails. She felt as if half the coals from the engine now nested in her hair.

  While she had pinned it up again just a few hours ago, she could feel tendrils drifting down to tickle her neck. Her hat now lay beside her on the seat, victim to the curved seat back that hit her just wrong. Everything felt wrong.

  Father, if I didn’t believe you know what is going on, I most surely would have stayed in Dakota. Please watch over my family there and keep them safe. And my friends. And John Solberg. She almost didn’t add that last, but God knew her heart, so she might as well bring their friendship out in the open. If that’s what they were—friends. But she had other friends who were male, and none of them made her go hot and cold within the blink of an eye, noodled her knees, and tied her tongue in half hitches.

  At least John didn’t know of her feelings.

  Was he beginning to feel the same way? She’d seen him blush, the red creeping up his neck. Such an endearing trait.

  She closed her eyes, the better to see him.

  “Springfield, next stop.”

  She blinked and sat up straight. Had she been dozing? Daydreaming? She brushed off her skirt and, after smoothing her hair back into its bun, set her hat firmly in place and anchored it with the pearl hatpin.

  The picture of Manda’s battered fedora flitted through her mind. Since it was one of the few things Manda had from her earlier life, she hadn’t thrown it out. But she’d been tempted.

  Mary Martha settled the things in her reticule and drew her gloves on over hands that showed the work she’d been doing. But then lily white hands had never been a dream of hers.

  She’d sent a telegram so that Uncle Jed would know to come get her. That is if anyone had thought to deliver it, far as they lived from town. Thoughts of the homeplace brought a smile. It seemed as if she’d been gone for years, not just a matter of months.

  As the train screeched to a stop, she gazed out the window. Sure enough, the slight man standing with one boot on the streetlamp pedestal looked familiar. Dear and familiar and older. She picked up her bag and made her way to the door, accepting the hand of the conductor to help her down the steps.

  “Thank you. And my trunk?”

  He pointed up the wooden platform. “Right up there. They might be unloading it now.”

  “Thank you again.”

  She stopped for a moment to let her feet get their bearings after being rocked day and night for the last three days.

  “Well, missy, I sure do be happy you got on home.” Uncle Jed stopped in front of her. “Looks like that Dakota Territory agreed with you.”

  She put her arm in his. “I’m glad to see you too. How is Ma?”

  “Holding her own for right now. That your trunk?”

  At her nod, he looked around for a handcart. “Hate to have to pay someone to haul your trunk, but I guess there ain’t no choice.” He beckoned, and a uniformed man with a face dark as a crow’s wing came their way.

  Mary Martha pointed to her trunk. “That one.” She turned to her uncle. “Where do you have the wagon?”

  “Off to the side, over there.”

  The porter slid the steel plate under the trunk and tilted the cart back to follow them. Once the two men loaded it into the wagon bed, Mary Martha gave the porter a few coins and nodded her thanks.

  As soon as they’d left town, she unpinned her hat from her head and repinned it to her reticule. Then with swiftly flying fingers she removed the net holding her hair in a bun, along with the hairpins, and let her hair fall down her back. She shook her head and rolled it from side to side and in a circle, loosening the tightness in her neck and shoulders.

  “Feel better?”

  “I will in a few minutes.” She dug in her bag for a ribbon, tucked it under the curly tresses, and tied it in a bow on top of her head. “There now. While the lady might be gone, the girl is back.”

  “Yer ma would say you should keep yer hair bound up.”

  “I know. I’m ‘too old to act like a child any longer.’ ” She mimicked her mother’s slow drawl and spare speech. Her face crumbled at the same time. “What is wrong with her? I know you wouldn’t have written if it weren’t serious, and I know she didn’t want you to even then.”

  “Yer right there.”

  “Has she seen a doctor?”

  He nodded and spit a gob of tobacco juice over the wheel. “Not that it done any good.”

  “And?” She waited, knowing Jed would answer in his own time. She had to remember she was back home where time didn’t mean so much. The warmth of the air compared to freezing Dakota reminded her she was plenty warm. She unbuttoned her black wool coat.

  “And whatever it is, it’s eatin’ her alive, that’s all. She’s wastin’ away right before my very eyes, and nothing anyone can do about it.”

  “She been taking her herbs and such?”

  “I think she been dosing on those longer than she let on. Don’t think she woulda told me, but I found her one morning bent over the washbasin, hurtin’ so bad she couldn’t straighten up. That’s when I drug her to the doctor.”

  He shook his head at her unasked question. “He gave us a bottle of laudanum, said to take it as needed.”

  “Oh, Lord our God.” She breathed the prayer, guilt snatching her breath away. She should have been here. But she was needed in Dakota too.

  “This weren’t nothin’ new. Been growing for long time, like I said.”

  “Even before I left?”

  “Long time.”

  The bugling hounds announced their arrival before they topped the last rise. The house and barns lay nestled in the arms of tree-covered hills, bounded to the north by the curve of the river. The trees were in their final blaze of fall glory. A thin ribbon of smoke from the chimney announced that someone was to home. So different from the flat Dakota prairie, these wooded hills and warm golden light. Dry leaves danced across the dirt road in front of them and crackled under the horses�
�� hooves. A rooster crowed, a red squirrel scolded from the oak trees beside the road, and the dogs picked up their howling, knowing the wagon and occupants belonged to them.

  Mary Martha drew in a deep breath. Somewhere, someone was burning leaves, the tang on the wind announced. The earth was settling in for a slumber and sighed its redolent scent into the fall air. She sniffed again. This too was so different from the west. How come even the earth smelled different?

  If only Jed would slap the horses into a gallop.

  She leaped from the wagon before the wheels quit squeaking and bounded up the ancient board steps. Bursting through the door, she found her mother lying on the sofa in a patch of sunlight. The sun shone through skin so thin the bones gleamed white beneath it.

  Mrs. MacCallister stretched out a shaking hand. “Ah, Mary Martha, you come home. Lord a’mercy, thank you. You brought my baby home.”

  Mary Martha sank down on her knees beside the sofa and laid her cheek against her mother’s cold hand. “Why didn’t you write for me earlier?”

  “Now, no need to carry on. Ah knew you would come when you could.”

  The words stabbed the daughter’s heart. She could have come home sooner, but she loved being in Blessing. Admit it, you wanted to be with Pastor John Solberg. Katy was just an excuse. She tried to still the nagging voice, but how do you quiet the truth?

  Mary Martha brushed back the hair from her mother’s forehead. “You’ll feel better now and get your strength back while I do for you for a change.”

  “Maybe so.” Ma turned her head to study her daughter’s face. “You look different somehow.” She stroked her cheek with a trembling finger. “The prairie agrees with you.”

  “It is some different, that’s for sure. Right now they’re most likely having their first snow of the season. The ground was already beginning to freeze, as was the river. You’d like Zeb’s place. He’s raising horses, you know, just like he always wanted.”

  “He never did like hoeing tobaccy and cotton.”

  “How’d you know that?” She continued to stroke her mother’s hair, so thin now she could see the scalp through the limp strands.

  “A mother knows the heart of her children.”

  Do you know then how badly I want to be in Dakota? I surely do hope not. Mary Martha continued stroking as her mother’s eyelids fluttered closed and her breathing slowed. The quiver in it made Mary Martha think of an animal in pain, a forest creature that didn’t want to let the harsh world know it was vulnerable.

  When the younger woman finally stood, her back was stiff with determination. She would do whatever it took to make her mother’s last days as long and comfortable as the good Lord permitted.

  “Lord willin’.” So often she heard those words from her mother’s lips. And now there was no one else to depend on.

  She and the good Lord—were they fighting on the same side or not?

  “You want this in yer old room?” Jed asked from the doorway.

  Mary Martha nodded. “I’ll help.” She shucked her coat and hung it on the carved oak coat-tree by the door. Together they wrestled her wooden trunk up the porch steps and down the short hall to the small bedroom off the kitchen. While during the hot days they cooked out in the summer kitchen, today the wood stove in the kitchen had beans baking in its great oven. She sniffed appreciatively.

  “She set the beans to baking in spite of . . .”

  Jed nodded. “I got a mess a squirrels yesterday and nearly had to fight her to let me skin ’em. They et squirrels in Dakota?”

  “Not so much. The boys snared rabbits, fished, and brought home deer and prairie chicken. With fall, folks were bagging plenty of ducks and geese. You should see the skies, almost dark at times with birds flying south. Zeb hasn’t been hunting much. He’s too busy with his horses and the rest of the farm.”

  “So why din’t you go?”

  “I was helping at the schoolhouse. A one-room soddy with too many children for one teacher. Besides, Katy wasn’t well.” She shook her head. “I was beginning to wonder if carrying that little one might not be too much for her, but she finally rallied and looked the picture of health when I left.”

  “So Zeb will have a son to carry on the MacCallister name.”

  “It could be a girl, you know.” She found herself adding the you know like they did up north. So many things reminded her of the northland. “He and Katy adopted the two girls he found in that soddy near the banks of the Missouri River. Manda and Deborah. You’d like Manda, feisty as all get out, and Deborah, so sweet she’d like to break your heart.”

  “You’ll be goin’ back then?”

  “You could come too.”

  He stared out the window. “Don’t know as I can leave this old homeplace. My bones don’t like bein’ cold, and from what I hear, they got a whole passel o’ cold up there.”

  “True, and I didn’t feel the worst of it. But that north wind, it like to blow right through you. I heard tell of blizzards that lock folks in their houses for days on end. They string ropes to get to the barn and back without disappearin’ in the snow. You can’t see your hand in front of your face.”

  “Ah, yer funnin’ me.”

  She raised her hand. “God’s truth. I heard tell more than once.”

  “Good thing you come on home then to God’s country.” He headed on out the door. “I better get on with the wood cuttin’. Plowin’s all done fer this year.” He stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Ya might want to get on with the apples. She ain’t had the stamina to do much preservin’.”

  That night after she’d settled her mother in a bed with clean sheets and pillows fresh from a hanging on the line, Mary Martha took out paper and pen and settled at the kitchen table. The kerosene lamp shed a golden circle on the oilcloth-covered table, and Uncle Jed in his chair whittlin’ away made Dakota seem in another world, another lifetime.

  She stirred the ink and dipped her pen.

  Dear Zeb, Katy, Manda, and Deborah,

  I made it home all right, the trains running fairly close to on time. How we forget the distances between this home and that until we make the trip again. I thank God for trains and also for letting me get off in one piece. Thought for a while I might be shaken to pieces.

  She knew Deborah would get a chuckle out of that. How she longed already to hear the girls laughter and watch Manda working with the horses. Had the filly already been taken? So many questions to ask.

  Ma is not admitting to any pain, but I can tell. She is so weak, but I think she hasn’t been eating good, and I plan to spoon-feed her myself if I have to.

  That’s what she’d done in the afternoon and at suppertime. Her mother had slept through dinner, and Mary Martha didn’t have the heart to waken her. Jed said she needed sleep. He had often heard her up in the middle of the night and came out more than once to find her sitting in the rocker on the porch, just wantin’ to see the sunrise, she’d said, but he figured it was the pain.

  Mary Martha didn’t include all of that. No need to make Zeb feel worse than he already did. She continued writing.

  The sun is still warm here, and while fall has stolen most of the leaves off the trees, we will go picking hickory nuts and pecans tomorrow before the squirrels get them all. I forgot to tell you that my Christmas presents for everyone are in a box under my bed. Zeb, you will have to ask Penny to tell you when your present arrives.

  She thought about the boots she’d had Penny special order for him. She’d drawn around the pair he had patched and patched over the patches to make sure the size was right.

  Manda, your present will be coming in the mail, since I had to finish it on the way here.

  She looked at the words. She hadn’t been able to write home. Father, if home isn’t here and I’m not there, where is home? I mean my earthly home. I know you have a mansion there for me. And for Ma. The thought brought the sting of tears to her eyes. Please, God, don’t take her yet. She’s not that old, you know. Though I’m sure if I
asked her, she’d say heaven is better than here. Am I being selfish? She added some more news to finish off the page.

  Please tell everyone that I miss them, and while I know it is only November, just in case I can’t write soon again, I wish you all the most wonderful of Christmases. Please light an extra candle for me and know that you are in my prayers all the day through.

  Your loving sister and aunt,

  Mary Martha MacCallister

  She signed her name with a flourish and blew on the ink to dry it. She had managed to keep the tear that fell from blotting the paper. Would they think to pass her greeting on to Pastor Solberg? Would it be proper to write to him before he wrote to her? If he wrote to her?

  Chapter 21

  Blessing, Dakota Territory

  “So, we can order my sewing machine now?” Ingeborg asked.

  “I guess so.” Penny looked toward the banking room, wishing she had told Hjelmer not to let Ingeborg take any of her money out. Now what could she do? “We need to go back there. That’s where I keep the contracts for the sewing machines.” She pointed toward the area of the store now referred to as the sewing room.

  When they sat down to write, she leaped to her feet. “Sorry, I forgot the ink.” What do I do? I can’t tell her Haakan has ordered one for her, so I can’t order another. And yet, there she sits with the money in hand. Lord above, if ever I needed your wisdom, I need it now.

  The bell tinkled, announcing another customer. “I’ll be back in a minute, Ingeborg. Why don’t you go ahead and fiddle with the machine there. See what it’s like, you know.”

  Ingeborg sat down on the stool in front of the machine, and within minutes, Penny heard it whirring away, the ka-thunk of the treadle beating time.

  “Now then, what can I do for you?” All the time she was measuring gingham and weighing sugar, her mind kept leaping back to Ingeborg.

  By the time she returned, Ingeborg had hemmed four squares of muslin that were to be boardinghouse napkins.

  “You know, you ought to keep diaper-sized flannel here to practice on, that way you could be making diapers for Katy’s baby.”