Blessing in Disguise (17 page)

“Best wait till she gets on her feet again. She might like company more then.”

“Ah, good point.” If restless had a name, it must be Kane this day.

Chapter 15

Blessing
September 7

“Ja, I have a room to let.” Bridget forced a smile.

“For two nights, then?” The man looked as if he’d been traveling without sleep for half of his young life.

“Ja. Henry here will show you up. The towels are on the end of your bed. A hot bath is extra, but he will bring up a pitcher of hot water. Supper is at six.” She pointed to the closed doors of the dining room. “In there.”

Henry Aarsgard raised one snowy eyebrow in question and shook his head just enough to let her know that he didn’t approve. When he returned to the parlor on the first floor, he shook his head again.

“I thought you were keeping that room for Augusta.”

“I am—was. But she’s not here, and that nice young man needed a room. Augusta can sleep in my bed if she comes before he leaves.” Bridget didn’t add “if she comes at all,” but the thought was implicit.

“You mustn’t give up the hope, you know.” His tone was gentle, like his spirit.

“I-I’m not. When my babies were baptized, I put them in the Lord’s hands and promised I would leave them there. All these years, with my sons crossing the ocean and dying in this land, with Gustaf leaving me behind when he went to meet his Lord, even with Katy dying, I keep the hope, the faith.” She stared at her hands crossed in her lap. “Maybe . . . maybe the faith is too weak and the hope dying. I do not think I can bear to lose one more of my children.”

Henry knelt on the braided rag rug in front of her rocker and took her hands in his. “Ah, my Bridget, you have borne so much. Let me help you. See, I have strong shoulders. Sharing a burden makes it lighter, like two oxen pulling instead of one.”

Bridget rubbed the backs of his thumbs with hers. “Henry, I am too old to think of marrying again. That is for young people.”

“No, no. Not at all. We who are older are also wiser, and we know how important it is to love and have someone love us in return.”

“But . . . but this is so soon. I have only known you since the summer.”

“No. I been eating at the general store since before the first timbers went up on this boardinghouse. You heard me say more than once that Blessing needed a boardinghouse. Remember? And I always liked your pies the best.”

Bridget reached out with one finger and traced the line from eye to chin on his seamed face. So different from her austere Gustaf, who had lost the gift of laughter when his sons left home. But before, when he was young, even though he tried to act stern, his children knew that he could be won over with merry laughter and loving patience. So did she. And since then, she’d had no one to fuss over like that. True, her grandchildren thought her the best, and they were the real reason she had come to this country, but still that was far different than having a man in her life, in her bed again. Did she really want to take this step?

Henry shifted and his knee creaked. “Ach, this getting old makes the joints complain an unhappy tune.”

“Then get on up and sit on that chair.” Bridget pointed to a chair beside her. When he sat down, she looked at him again, this time her eyes and chin resolute. “I tell you this. I will not say yes, and I will not say no. Not until I have my Augusta beside me.”

“But . . .”

“No. That is the way it must be.” She leveraged herself to her feet with her hands on the arms of the rocking chair. “Now, I better get in there and help Goodie with the supper, or we will all go hungry.”

Henry sighed and got to his feet too. “I think I smell chickens baking.”

“You should. You butchered them this morning. I should ask Kaaren to bring in a couple of layers if she has any extra. My hens are barely keeping up with the eggs we need.”

“Maybe you should just have her bring eggs.”

“Ja, but then Lemuel won’t have enough to do. He needs to keep busy, that boy, but Sam says he can use him at the smithy too. I tried to talk him into going to school, but his eyes rolled white then. I think when his ma comes back, things will be different.”

“She has the two youngest ones with her, right?” Henry had been off on his job as a conductor on the railroad when Sam brought his family to Blessing, and immediately his wife and daughter, Lily Mae, left to run the cook shack for Lars and Haakan’s threshing crew. They pulled the huge steam engine and separator from area to area, threshing grain for the farmers in return for either money or a portion of the grain in payment. The farther they were away from home, the more they appreciated getting cash instead of kind.

“Um-hum, but the two little ones are his brother’s children.”Bridget pushed open the door to the kitchen, her mind now on fixing supper. How many would they feed tonight? “Ilse, bring in eggs and buttermilk from the well house, would you, please? I think we need eggekake for dessert. Lemuel, start peeling the potatoes. Goodie, did you use all that dried bread for the stuffing? I was thinking we could use some for bread pudding.”

Seeing that Bridget was back in action, Henry headed for the woodpile. He could tell the box was nearly empty. That rascal Lemuel was a good worker if someone kept their eye on him. But otherwise he tended to slack.

In exchange for room and board the few days he was in town, Henry helped out around the boardinghouse, making sure the wood was chopped and stacked, the house made ready for winter, and fixing anything that had broken while he was gone.

His main goal was to marry Bridget, and everyone in town knew it. The men made jokes about how long she would hold out, and the women teased her about her beau until her grandmother’s cheeks blushed like those of a young girl in her first courting. If he’d had his way, they’d have been married during the summer, but Bridget kept shaking her head. At least now she’d made a commitment to make a decision.

But when he brought the evening telegram to her just before dark, he knew that decision wouldn’t be soon. Hjelmer had still to find anyone who could remember seeing his sister.

Bridget listened as he read the few brief words. Had Hjelmer written in Norwegian, she’d have read them herself, but while she spoke fairly good English, she hadn’t learned to read it yet.

“Uff da.” She sighed and shook her head. “Where can that girl have gone to? My Augusta would never have just run off without telling us.”

“I think I will request a transfer to the Minneapolis station for a time. That way I could maybe ask questions of people that Hjelmer might not know of. Conductors get moved around all the time, you know. Maybe he just hasn’t found the right one yet.”

Bridget picked up her knitting again. “Where would you stay?”

“On the trains. Just not take a day off like I do now. Wonder if Hjelmer is planning to come home sometime soon. We could talk more.” Henry had been on a trip west when the news came about the missing daughter and had returned only after Hjelmer had already set out.

“I don’t know.” Bridget shook her head. “I just don’t know.” She turned back from the fear that lurked like a hungry wolf at the edges of her mind. What if Augusta were never found? “Do you think you could really help look for her?”

“I will go after my shift tomorrow. I been needing to pay my daughter a visit too. Get several birds with one stone this way.” He went to stand in front of the screen door. The day had been cloudy, and now a chill wind whistled of coming fall. “Ja, I will do what I can.”

“Mange takk.” But as she watched him rocking back and forth in the doorway, Bridget realized she didn’t really like the idea of him being gone for who knew how long.

Uff da. Crazy old woman. You’re going to have to make up your mind
.

Chapter 16

Blessing
September 8

“All right, let’s form the letter
R
.” Kaaren held her fingers in the correct position.

Beside her, Pastor Solberg did the same, and then they walked around the schoolroom, helping childish hands do the same.

“No, this way.” Four-year-old Sophie instructed Ellie, who was having difficulty getting her fingers to cooperate.

In the front of the room, Kaaren nodded and smiled. “All right, let’s go back to the beginning, and we’ll go through all the letters.
A
. . .
B
. . .” As she formed the letters, so did the students. “Now, remember, if you get stuck, ask for help.”

“I wish I could learn this as fast as they do,” Pastor Solberg said in an undertone.

Kaaren smiled and kept on signing. She added
S
and
T
and reviewed them all again. Fingers flew as the signs were made.

“Now, everyone sign your own name.”

While several hesitated, with help they all managed.

“Now, watch and see if you can understand what I am saying.” Kaaren signed good morning, rejoicing inside at the concentration on the faces before her.

“Good morning,” Anji Baard called out, so excited she about leaped out of her seat.

“Please raise your hand first.” The gentle reproof from Pastor Solberg made Anji’s cheeks flame.

“Sorry.”

“Teacher?” Toby Valders raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“Can you make a
V
again?”

Kaaren showed him the finger position, and he copied her, a grin splitting his face when he spelled his name.

“It is exciting to understand, isn’t it?” Kaaren signed good morning again, slower this time and very precisely. “Now, let’s do this together. G-o-o-d m-o-r-n-i-n-g. Again. Very good.”

Clara Erickson raised her hand. “Can you sign in Norwegian too?”

Kaaren thought a moment. “I’m sure we can, but we would need new signs for the Norwegian letters that don’t occur in English, like the
O
with a slash through it.” She turned to Pastor Solberg and raised an eyebrow. “Good question, eh?”

“Well, these signs were made up by a person, so why can’t we make up our own?”

“Clara, let me think on that.”

Thorliff raised his hand. “Why not make an
O
with a finger over it, like this?” He demonstrated.

“Why not?”

“Your big brother sure is smart,” Deborah said, leaning over to Andrew on the bench across the aisle.

“I know,” Andrew whispered back.

Kaaren heard them both. She smiled at them and then at Thorliff, who was concentrating on forming a word using the new symbol. He’d gone ahead of the class in learning the signing by borrowing Kaaren’s book. He always had his lessons done far ahead of the others.

After class, Pastor Solberg finished setting his desk in order while Kaaren waited for the children who were riding home with her to gather their things. “You know, learning signing has been really good for Thorliff. Trying to keep ahead of him takes more than I’ve got at times. He’s reading Latin now, and the other day he asked me if I would teach him Greek.”

“And you said?” Kaaren’s eyes twinkled.

“I said, ‘Here’s the book. Teaching you will be good review for me.’ ” Solberg shook his head. “So now he can speak Norwegian, English, Latin, and signing. Oh, and I gave him a book in German one day, and he’d figured out half the story because of his Norwegian.”

“Has he started on this year’s Christmas program yet?”

“I think so.” He ushered her ahead of him out the door. “I wish my advanced mathematics were stronger so I could be more help to him there. But he seems to pick things up well enough with the book. You know, we are going to have to either have a high school here soon or send the older ones off to board in Grafton.”

“I hate to see them leave so young. I remember how hard it was for Penny when she went to Fargo for her senior year, working at the hotel and all. If you had another teacher to handle the little ones, could you teach the higher classes?”

They stood at the corner of the soddy and watched the game of tag going on. Thorliff had the horse hitched to the wagon, waiting for his aunt Kaaren.

“You see how crowded the room is now, and the bigger boys are out helping with harvest. I know Joseph says his boys are done schooling, but Agnes insists they should go on.”

Kaaren took in a deep breath of the cool air. Clouds blocking the sun and a brisk breeze carried an autumn chill, reminding them that summer was on the wane. “And if I do this school for the deaf the way it looks like I should, that might add more children to the school.”

“But not right away. They’d have to become proficient in signing first, right?”

Manda MacCallister drove the Solbergs’ wagon around the building and brought it to a stop next to Kaaren’s wagon.

“True.” Kaaren studied the gleaming white church next door. “We could use the church for the older children.”

“Or we could add on to the soddy.” Solberg helped her up to the wagon seat while the children scrambled into the back. He waved good-bye and climbed up in his own wagon. “Thank you, Manda.” He patted his pockets. “I’ve got a list for the store here somewhere. Maybe Mrs. Bjorklund will have some cheese for us to take home.”

“There’s a letter for you,” Penny sang out when John Solberg and his two girls entered the store. “I just got a fresh wheel of cheese, and . . .” She paused to wink at Deborah. “New peppermint sticks just arrived this morning.”

Deborah looked up at her uncle, who nodded, so she whisked over to stand in front of the candy jars, trying to make up her mind.

Manda made her way to the boots, where Penny met her. Glancing down at the girl’s shoes, she nodded. “I can see it is time for new ones. Those look to have patches on their patches. Are they too tight?”

“I keep growing right out of my clothes.” Manda indicated the sleeves that no longer reached her wrists and the far-too-tight bodice. She nodded to Solberg, who was now deliberating with Deborah. “And they can’t afford to keep me in clothes. Pa said I could keep some money when I sold a horse, so I better buy me some boots at least.”