Tender Mercies

by Lauraine Snelling

  “How come his skin is black?” Ellie whispered to Andrew, loud enough to be heard back at the church.

  “I don’t know.” Andrew motioned her to shush.

  Sam hunkered down where the children sat on the bottom stairs so they wouldn’t miss anything. “God made you with yellah hair, right.” Ellie nodded, her eyes round as teacups. “He made me with dark skin. That’s all. He just made us all a little different.”

  “Oh.” She thought a minute. “In the summer do you get sunburned?”

  “Yep, ah do. But ah don’t turn red like you do.”

  “Oh.” She reached out a tentative finger, and he held out the back of his hand for her to touch him.

  “I got a little girl too, but she’s growin’ so fast, I bettah git her out here befoe she’s too big for school.”

  “Does she have black skin too?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good. I like you.” Ellie looked at Andrew. “Want to play Hide the Thimble?” The two turned and raced up the stairs, laughing and calling for the others.

  “Thank you, Mister Sam,” Ingeborg said with a smile. “Please forgive their curiosity.”

  “It’s just Sam, ma-am. Ah don’t go by no mister.”

  Ingeborg smiled. “You might have to here, especially with the children. Mister is only polite, and so they will call you Mister Sam, unless you want to use your last name.”

  “I like the sound of that, thank you.” He dug in his pocket and handed her a cloth-wrapped piece. “This is fo inviting a stranger to yo home for Christmas.”

  “The Bible says to entertain strangers, for thereby we might know angels unawares.”

  Sam laughed, the skin crinkling around his eyes. “Well, ah sure enough not an angel, but I am beholden to you.”

  Ingeborg unwrapped the gift and held up a carved Canada goose, neck arched for grazing. “Oh, how beautiful. I love to watch the geese. You couldn’t have chosen anything more perfect.”

  “She likes to shoot them and bring them home on a travois too.” Haakan stopped at her side. “That’s what we’re having for dinner.” He touched the feather detail in the wings. “You are a master.”

  “No, suh, just a man with a lot a time on his hands.”

  “You most likely won’t find much time for carving here. You can go to work with me on the sawmill any time Hjelmer doesn’t need you in the smithy.” The men moved off to talk among themselves, out of the way of the bustle in the kitchen.

  “I think that’s everything then,” Ingeborg said, looking over the array of food.

  “Looks to me like there’s enough to feed the Norwegian army,” Bridget said with a shake of her head. “Anyone goes home hungry, it’s their own fault, for sure.”

  After Pastor Solberg said the blessing, the guests lined up with plates and helped themselves. Ingeborg had wanted everyone to sit down at a table, but since that would have had to be done in shifts, she bowed to the inevitable. Just having everyone in one place was treat enough. What a large family they had become.

  After everyone was finished eating and the dishes done, they all packed into the parlor, where the tree Haakan and Lars had brought back from Minnesota shimmered in the corner. Very carefully, Haakan and Lars lit the candles that were clamped to the larger branches.

  “Oh, pitty.” Astrid and Sophie clapped their hands. Grace stared up at the tree, entranced. Ever since they’d arrived, Kaaren had been trying to keep Trygve from chewing on the branches.

  Kaaren began and everyone joined in singing the Norwegian words with cheer. “ ‘Oh, Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how lovely are thy branches. . . . ’ ” When they finished, she stood and, taking the twins by the hands, led them to stand directly in front of the tree. “We have something we’d like to share with you.” She bent down and made a sign in front of Grace’s face. The little girl smiled and held up her hands. Sophie did the same. Together, the three made a series of signs.

  “How lovely,” Penny said. “What does it mean?”

  “We said . . .” Kaaren nodded to Sophie, who then signed with her, “Merry Christmas.”

  When everyone applauded, Kaaren and her two curtsied, and, before sitting down, Kaaren took the sleeping Samuel back from his father.

  “Pwesents now?” Astrid asked, giving everyone a chuckle.

  “Come on, Thorliff, you can help me.” Hjelmer came to stand by the tree and beckoned to Thorliff, who was on his feet in the blink of an eye. Together they picked up presents, read the name tags, and Thorliff delivered them.

  Each little girl got a new rag doll and the little boys a carved train engine. There were books and shirts, hats and mittens. Metiz had made each child a pair of rabbit skin mittens. Trygve kept his on and stopped playing with his train every once in a while to rub the soft fur across his cheek. Manda’s eyes shone at the hand-braided bridle Zeb had made for her, and Thorliff gazed at his stack of three books by Charles Dickens as though the minute he could begin reading couldn’t come too soon.

  Such riches, Ingeborg thought, remembering back to the early years when a peppermint stick was beyond her power to purchase.

  Baptiste stood like he’d been struck when they handed him a new rifle.

  “We thought since you’d been supplying all of us with game, we ought to make sure your gun was safe,” Haakan told him.

  “Who . . . who do I thank?” Taller now than Ingeborg, the boy stroked the rifle stock.

  “We all pitched in. There’s a box of shells under the tree too.” Haakan pointed to a square box toward the back. “We had to hide it to make sure Trygve over there didn’t chew on them.”

  That brought a laugh from everyone.

  Baptiste looked from face to face. “Thank you. Thank you very much. I will bring you more meat soon.”

  “Here, take this to your bestemor.” Hjelmer handed Thorliff an envelope.

  “What’s this?” she asked, her eyebrows raised in question.

  “Open it, so we can find out.”

  She withdrew a sheet of parchment and handed it back to Thorliff. “You read it.”

  “I . . . I think it says you now own an acre of land by Tante Penny’s store.”

  “I do?” She snatched it back and studied the letters. “I wish I could read it.”

  “Here, Mor.” Hjelmer stepped over children and around gifts. He read it aloud, and though it was said all legal-like, Thorliff had been right. The bottom was signed by Mr. and Mrs. Haakan Bjorklund.

  Bridget cleared her throat once, and then again. “Mange takk.” She sniffed. “My boardinghouse. Land for my boardinghouse.”

  “We’ll get it up as soon as the land dries out enough. I just wish we had started this fall.” Haakan sat back down next to Ingeborg, and the two exchanged smiles before another present was given out, this one to Pastor Solberg. He unwrapped the box to find a cream-colored cardigan sweater with a snowflake design in tones of black and gray.

  And maybe if there had been a boardinghouse, that man wouldn’t have lost his life, Ingeborg thought as she hugged Astrid, who was clutching her doll to her chest. So easy to not make mistakes when looking back. But then she had to remind herself that the man chose to smoke and drink before falling asleep. Thank God Ephraim had been off to the Johnsons, helping them, or he might have died too. She looked over at him, admiring the buckskin shirt Penny had asked Metiz to make for him. It was beautiful soft deerskin, with a fringe of quills and beads. She looked down at the beaded elk skin moccasins on her feet, also made by Metiz. With the hair on the inside, she knew her feet would stay warm.

  Looking up, she saw Metiz watching her, so she smiled and pointed to her feet.

  Metiz nodded and smiled back, patting her red wool blanket.

  Who says we don’t all use sign language?

  Pastor Solberg held up his sweater. “Bridget, I think I see your hand . . . er . . . knitting needles in this. How beautiful.” He stood and put it on right then, giving everyone a chance to clap.

  “Look
s right good on you, Pastor,” Zeb said from the corner he and Katy were squished into. The box beside her was filled with things for their coming baby: diapers, knitted sweater, hat, booties, soakers, and gowns. Her eyes glowed as she read the tag again, “From all of us,” and the names of all the women.

  Ingeborg sat wishing she’d gotten her machine, because the coat she’d planned for Haakan still lay within the folds of the heavy wool material she had bought for that purpose. It lay in her trunk, awaiting the arrival of the machine. She would have started on it much earlier had she but known.

  “I’m sorry, Haakan,” she said softly. “I planned on using my new sewing machine to make you a coat. If I’d known I had to wait so long, I’d have started your coat long ago. The material is folded up in my trunk.”

  “No matter.” He held up his knitted knee-high socks and new gloves. “These are just what I needed. Now my others can go in the mending basket.”

  Thorliff carried a box large enough that he could barely see above it to his grandmother. “Here, Bestemor, you went from littlest to biggest present.”

  Bridget untied the bow made of a bit of red calico. “But what more do I need?”

  “Just open it, Mor.” Hjelmer shook his head and leaned forward with a smile on his handsome face.

  “Ah, me.” Bridget put her hands to her cheeks. “Look at all this.” She lifted out tablecloths, napkins, calico curtains.

  “For your boardinghouse, huh?” Thorliff knelt beside the box and peered inside. “There’s even some kettles in here.”

  “Mange takk.” Bridget looked around the room. “To whom?”

  “All of us.” Thorliff pulled out three wooden spoons. “I carved these.”

  “How did all this get done without me knowing?”

  Ingeborg and Penny exchanged glances. “We’ll never tell,” Ingeborg said. If I’d had my machine, there would have been even more, like another quilt or two. “We hope it’s enough to help you get started.”

  “Oh, it is.” Bridget smoothed a stitched sampler.

  “I thought you could frame that and put it on the wall,” Goodie said. “Ellie did most of it.”

  When there were no more presents, Haakan and Lars stood. “We’ll be back in a minute. Don’t anyone go away. Thorliff, Hjelmer, come on with us.” And out the door they went—snickering.

  Kaaren and Ingeborg shook their heads at the antics of their husbands. The level of noise rose again as people thanked each other and admired all the gifts. They heard the banging of the back door and Haakan called, “Okay now, Ingeborg, Kaaren, shut your eyes, you two.”

  Kaaren and Ingeborg rolled their eyes at each other and did as bid.

  What in the world have they done now? Ingeborg sat with her eyes scrunched closed. She felt Astrid slide from her lap and heard Haakan shush his daughter.

  Giggles came from around the room, and when one of the little ones started to say something, the sound was cut off, most likely by a mother’s hand across the youngster’s mouth.

  Ingeborg fought the desire to just peek through her eyelids.

  “What is going on?” Kaaren asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  “All right, you two, I am going to count, and on three you may open your eyes.” They both nodded.

  “Oonnne.”

  “Haakan!”

  “Twooo.”

  “You’ll pay for this.”

  “Three.”

  “Oh, my!” Ingeborg stared at the Singer sewing machine in its cabinet with the black iron treadle. She looked next at Haakan, then at Penny. “B-but you said . . .”

  Kaaren leaped to her feet and threw her arms around Lars. “Thank you, mange takk, oh, thank you.” Then she blushed a brilliant shade of red, and everyone broke out laughing.

  “You know when you were trying to buy your machine, and Penny kept putting you off?”

  Ingeborg nodded.

  “Well, this one was already in the storehouse, waiting for today.” Haakan tapped a finger on the cabinet. “You didn’t want two, did you?”

  Ingeborg tried to keep a sober face, as if she was scolding them, but a laugh burst forth in spite of her. “You . . . you two.” She stroked the wood of the cabinet. “Thank you. Oh, such a surprise.”

  “Ma like supise.” Astrid crawled under the machine and sat on the treadle.

  Ingeborg and Kaaren looked at each other and laughed again. “And here we were going to share one.”

  “You can share that one with me,” Bridget said. “I already know how to use it.”

  “I should have just made you another cheese press at the rate you are making cheese. Maybe after we build the boardinghouse, we should put up a whole separate building just for making cheese.” Haakan exchanged looks with Lars.

  “Not a bad idea.” Lars nodded. “Kaaren could churn the butter there too. Cheese needs two rooms, one cool room to age it in, like the well house now. You know, if we . . .”

  “There he goes, he’ll have it all planned by tomorrow.” Kaaren picked up Trygve and took a rubber ball out of his mouth. “No, son, you don’t chew on the toys.” His scowl said quite clearly that he heartily disagreed with her.

  “Looks like we better be heading home,” Zeb said after looking outside. “Be dark before we get there now.”

  By the time everyone had gathered up their things and said their good-byes, dusk cast purple shadows across the fields of snow. The last of the sunset gilded the clouds and pinked the horizon. Ingeborg and Bridget stood in the doorway, waving and calling good-bye as the teams pulling the sleighs gathered up their loads and jingled off across the prairie.

  “Such a day.” Ingeborg finally closed the outside door and returned to the warmth of the kitchen. “This had to be the best Christmas ever.”

  “Tomorrow we go visiting, huh, Mor?” Andrew looked up from putting together the wooden puzzle Olaf had made for him.

  “Right. Who would you like to go see?”

  “Ellie and Anna.”

  “But you saw Ellie today.”

  “I know, but I like to see her every day. And Anna wasn’t at church. You think she is all right?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, she’s been coughing a lot, sometimes it makes her not breathe good.”

  “Yes, Andrew, we’ll go see Anna and her family. Let’s think of some things to take them, all right? We’ll visit the Baards too, since Gus was sick and they couldn’t come.”

  Chapter 24

  “She’s sleeping right now, poor little thing.” Mrs. Helmsrude twisted her hands together.

  “When did she get so sick?” Ingeborg asked.

  “During the night. Woke up coughing like to tear her throat apart.” She beckoned. “Please, won’t you come in?”

  “Just for a minute then. We brought you some Christmas things.”

  “Can I see her?” Andrew stood beside his mother.

  “If ’n you want, but let her sleep. It’s almost a miracle to not hear her coughing.”

  “I will.” Andrew tiptoed to the doorway Mrs. Helmsrude pointed. Anna lay in the bed, her face whiter than the sheets, the bones trying to poke holes in her transparent skin. He walked on over and stood beside her. “Please hurry and get better,” he whispered. But Anna didn’t move.

  Ingeborg watched from the doorway as her son knelt at the foot of the bed and prayed for his friend. She watched his lips move and whispered “amen” along with him. He stood again and, after another long look, tiptoed toward the door.

  “She’s awful sick, Ma,” he whispered, when he saw Ingeborg standing in the doorway. “You better ask Metiz to come. ’Tween you and her, Anna needs you.”

  Ingeborg turned to Mrs. Helmsrude. “Would you mind if Metiz and I came to help you with her?”

  “Heavens, no. Would you really do that?”

  “Of course. Let me go home and get my things, and we’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  “Thank you, Andrew, for coming. I’ll tell her you w
ere here when she wakes up.”

  “She knows.”

  Ingeborg looked at Andrew when they were back in the sleigh. “What makes you think Anna knows you were there?”

  Andrew shrugged. “I just know.”

  “Like you know when Astrid is awake?”

  “Ja, I guess.”

  She clucked the horses into a trot, and the sleigh flew over the frozen ground.

  As she had promised, within two hours they were back, carrying in baskets filled with every healing simple they could think of.

  The wrenching sound of Anna’s coughing met them before they stepped up to the door.

  “Come in. Come in.” Einer Helmsrude pulled open the door, shrugging on his coat at the same moment. “I’ll go care for your horses. You go right on in.”

  Ingeborg headed for the bedroom where she’d seen Anna earlier.

  Magda Helmsrude held her daughter in her arms, trying to spoon liquid into her mouth. The child gagged and choked, her stick arms flailing the air, her face bright red from the effort to breathe.

  “I heat water.” Metiz set her basket down and returned to the kitchen.

  Ingeborg tossed her coat over another chair and stopped with a hand on the mother’s shoulder. “Ah, Magda, so terrible this is. Have you tried tenting her with steam?”

  Mrs. Helmsrude shook her head. “I just tried to give her some chicken broth. She has no strength to fight this.”

  Anna doubled over, and the terrifying whooping that racked her body make Ingeborg flinch. “Have you tried an onion poultice?”

  “No. This just struck her so fast. Christmas Eve she was fine and coughed some on Christmas morning, but this . . . I ain’t never seen anything like this, have you?”

  “Ja, I have. We must clear the airway.”

  “Water heating.” Metiz stopped at the doorway. “Blanket?” She pointed to the bed.

  Magda looked up at Ingeborg. “What do we need?”

  “We are going to make a tent over a steaming kettle on the stove. Metiz will put some herbs in it to help the steam. Then we will take turns sitting in the steam tent holding Anna.”

  Mr. Helmsrude came to the door in time to hear Ingeborg. “How will you hold the blanket up?”