Blessing in Disguise (29 page)

“At the table.”

While Astrid made her way down the stairs, Ingeborg headed for the bedroom to scoop up the red-faced toddler, who quieted the moment he was in her arms. Ingeborg laid him on the padded dresser top and swiftly changed his soaking diaper. “Was this what was making you yell so, or are you really hungry?”

Now that he had her attention, Samuel grinned and chuckled and reached for her face. She blew on his tummy, making him laugh again. A new flash of white brought Ingeborg to check his mouth. Sure enough, a new back tooth. No wonder he’d been fussy lately.

“One of these days you are going to wake up dry, and then no more diapers for you.” She tickled his tummy again. “Such a big boy!”

“Ma?” Astrid stood in the doorway, her doll now grasped by one arm and trailing on the floor.

“What?” Ingeborg pulled a dry pair of knitted soakers over Samuel’s chubby legs and lifted him to her hip.

“Trygve . . .”

“Oh, now what?” Ingeborg, toddler in arms, whirled through the door to find Trygve now on the table, reaching for the cookie plate.

“Trygve Knutson, get down!”

“But . . .”

“Now!”

One foot feeling for the chair, he backed up, and his foot slipped. Ingeborg grabbed him again, jostling Samuel, who set up a howl at the abrupt motion.

“Trygve’s bad, huh?” The smug expression Ingeborg caught on her daughter’s face made her want to laugh or scold. Astrid did like to lord it over her cousin at times. Ingeborg sat Trygve back down on his chair, pointed Astrid to another one, and settled Samuel in the high chair Olaf had made during the winter. It was so much easier than the box on the chair that Trygve was using. She tied a bib around his neck before pouring three cups of milk. She set them in front of the two at the table and let them each choose a cookie from the plate, all the while giving Samuel sips from his cup and a cookie to mangle as well as eat.

The jingle of harness and Paws’ barking answered her unspoken question. Kaaren was home again—just in time.

“Now, isn’t this a peaceful scene?” Kaaren swept in, followed by Grace and Sophie, who were being herded along by Andrew.

“You should have been here five minutes ago.” Ingeborg poured three more cups of milk and refilled the cookie plate. Sometimes, like the few minutes earlier, she didn’t regret not having more babies, but that was the odd moment, not the usual. There was something about a sweet-smelling baby that reminded her not only of her love, but the love of the Father. The Father who chose to withhold from her the joy of giving Haakan a son of his own. Sometimes the hurt made her weep, sometimes it flared in anger, but often now it seemed more like a passing dream than a driving need.

“So how did the signing go?”

“Ah, those children are so bright. They are even learning from Grace and Sophie.” Kaaren kissed Samuel, ignoring his plea to be picked up. “You girls get up at the table.”

“Andrew, you want cookies and milk?” Ingeborg glanced around the kitchen. Usually he was the first one up to the table, and now he wasn’t even in the room. “Where did Andrew go?”

“Upstairs.” Astrid motioned over her shoulder.

Ingeborg and Kaaren shared questioning glances, and Kaaren shrugged. “He seemed all right at school.”

Ingeborg settled the others at the table, poured Kaaren a cup of coffee, and set it on the table. “I’ll be right back.” She made her way up the stairs, wondering both if Andrew was coming down with something or if there’d been another conflict between him and the Valders boys at school.

She found her son lying flat on his stomach across the bed he shared with Thorliff. “Andrew, are you all right?” She sank down on the side of the bed, automatically laying a hand against his cheek to check for fever.

“Umm.” Andrew twisted away from her hand.

“All right, son, what’s going on?” Ingeborg waited, knowing Andrew would talk in a minute or two. She felt his head again. No, there was no fever, and he didn’t have a runny nose or blood anywhere.

“I hate Toby Valders.”

“What happened now?”

“Pastor Solberg yelled at me.”

“Oh, really?” Ingeborg stroked her son’s hair back off his cheek.

If Pastor Solberg yelled, which she seriously doubted, there must have been something terribly wrong.

“And it is Toby’s fault. I hate him.”

“So what did he do now?”

“He sat next to Grace.”

Ingeborg could feel her brow furrow. “Was he mean to Grace?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“He might be mean to Grace.”

“Ah.” Ingeborg breathed a sigh of relief. Andrew, champion of the weak and helpless, got his feelings hurt when someone else stepped in. “So what did you do?”

“I told him to go sit somewhere else.”

“And?”

“And Pastor Solberg yelled at me.” Andrew turned a tearstained face to his mother. “That’s not fair.”

“What did Pastor Solberg say?”

“He said”—Andrew stopped and sniffed—“that I had to be polite.” Another sniff came. “That . . . that I should be grateful that Toby was helping.” He dashed the back of his sleeve across his eyes.

“Was Toby or Jerry teasing Laban and Mary Jane?”

“No, they don’t want to go chop wood anymore. They don’t like looking up all the Bible verses neither.” Andrew rolled to his side. “Did you know there are black people in the Bible?”

Ingeborg nodded. “God made people all different colors, but inside they are just the same as all the others.”

“That’s what Pastor Solberg said.” Andrew thought a moment. “I can sign lots more than Toby and Jerry.”

“That’s because you have been learning it lots longer.”

“I know. Ellie does good too.” Andrew made the signs for his name. “Pastor Solberg said I had to be nice to Toby and Jerry ’cause that’s what the Bible says.” He looked up at his mother. “Did God make Toby and Jerry mean like that?”

Ingeborg shook her head. “God doesn’t make anyone mean. We do that. You remember how we talked about where those boys came from? How they didn’t have a ma and pa to make them mind and to take care of them?”

“I know.” Andrew signed something that Ingeborg didn’t recognize.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Andrew?”

“I said Toby Valders is a pig.”

“Andrew Bjorklund!”

“Pastor Solberg said I have to pray for Toby and Jerry—every day, Ma, every day.”

Ingeborg put her arm around her son and drew him to her side. “Ja, that sounds like something Pastor Solberg would say, and he’s right, you know?”

“He read me a verse. It said to pray for your enemies and those who spit on you.”

“Spit on you?” Ingeborg kept her smile from her face. “You mean spitefully use you?”

“I guess.” He looked up at her, near-white hair brushing his eyebrows. “I don’t want to pray for them, Ma, I really don’t.”

“How about if I help you, then? Tonight when you go to bed, we’ll pray together, okay?”

“Okay.” He stood in front of her. “But I don’t have to like them, do I?”

Ingeborg fluffed his hair. “How about we let God help you do that? We can pray that He makes you to love them.”

Andrew stared at her, shaking his head. “Love them? How can I love them when I hate them?”

Ingeborg chuckled. “Good question, my son, but God can work miracles. You’ll see, but we have to ask for His help.” She stood and took Andrew by the hand. “Come on, milk and cookies might make things seem a bit better.”

That night in bed, Ingeborg told Haakan what had gone on. “Pastor Solberg is really asking a lot of Andrew, don’t you think?”

“Spit on us, huh?” Haakan chuckled again. “That son of ours. What a boy.” He shook his head. “No, I think he is asking of Andrew just what he needs to do to grow strong through this. Pastor Solberg is a wise man and an excellent teacher and pastor. We are indeed fortunate to have him here in Blessing. When I think of that man Hildegunn wanted us to hire.” He shuddered. “We’d have booted him out long ago, or the church would have died by now.”

“Umm.” Ingeborg tucked herself a bit closer to his side, if that were possible.

“God is good to us, huh?” But it wasn’t a question, and Ingeborg knew it.

“Umm.”

Haakan laid his arm around her side and cuddled her to his warmth. “Good night, my beloved.”

“I like that.” She pulled his hand up and kissed the back of it. “Thank you for my cheese house.”

Morning came long before daylight. They all rushed around to get the chores done before the laborers began to arrive. Ingeborg slid the bread pans in the oven with one hand and stirred the oatmeal with the other. Those out in the barn milked as fast as the cows would allow, and Andrew had the chickens fed before they came off the roost.

Their breath steamed in the air, and hoarfrost whitened the ground.

“Just about time to start butchering too,” Haakan said, thumping his pail on the kitchen counter. “I wanted to get this building up first. We can use it to hang carcasses that way.”

“I don’t want no blood in my cheese house.” Ingeborg flipped the rack of bread she had toasting over the open fire in the stove.

Haakan shook his head. “You sure get proprietary, don’t you?”

“Plenty of room in the springhouse when the cheese ain’t there.” She set the pitcher of cream in the center of the table. “There now, come and eat, everyone.”

As soon as Haakan said the grace, they passed the food around the table, with Ingeborg dishing up for Astrid on the higher youth chair beside her.

“I can help build, huh, Pa?” Astrid dug into her oatmeal with her spoon.

“No, you stay with the babies.” Thorliff buttered his toast.

“I’m not a baby!” Astrid’s lower lip came out, and her eyes flashed blue fire.

“Oops. Sorry.” Thorliff looked to his mother, who shook her head. “I meant you need to help Ma and Tante Kaaren watch Samuel and Trygve.”

“They are the babies.”

“Don’t tell Trygve that.” Ingeborg smiled down the table at her husband, now the one shaking his head.

“Just make sure there’s plenty of hot coffee. The way that sky looks, we could get rain or sleet by the time the day is over. Thorliff, you get the butts set up for the shake cutters. Lars and I are going to start cutting sod immediately. Won’t have any pasture left, but it’ll be back by spring. Strange to think we might be running out of sod on the Bjorklund acres. Never tried to sod a roof as big as this one.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Ingeborg spread jelly on the toast for Astrid.

“It’ll keep the temperature more even, that’s for sure. Like at the icehouse. Lars thinks we should build the roof at one level, box in the edges, and lay in sawdust six to eight inches deep, then roof with shakes.”

“Which would be lighter?”

“Sawdust, but which is more effective?” He shook his head. “Wish I knew.”

“How about doing half and half?” Thorliff reached for the jam.

“Might look rather strange.”

“So? I saw a picture in a book from Norway where flowers bloomed on the end of the house closest to the hill behind it, and silvery shakes were on the front.”

Haakan thought a minute. “But that was built right into a hill, right?”

“Umm.” Thorliff nodded around his mouthful of oatmeal.

“Not too many hills here.”

“No, but you dug down pretty deep.” Ingeborg grabbed Astrid’s hand as she reached for the jam jar. “I’ll get that for you.”

“Something to think about. And talk about. You can bet there’ll be plenty of opinions among the men here today. We’ll see what other ideas there are. Remember, they laughed when we poured sawdust in the walls at Lars and Kaaren’s house.”

“And then did ours the next spring.” Ingeborg shook her head. “What a mess that was.”

Haakan pushed back his chair. “Come on Thorliff, Hamre, we got work to do.”

By midmorning the sod walls were rising and so was the laughter, all fueled by the coffee kept simmering over the open fire. Tables were already set up in the machine shed in case the lowering clouds dumped their burden on the workers. The west wind shifted to the north every so often, keeping many of the children playing inside the house and barn.

Penny drove her wagon up to the house and brought in pies and cakes from both her kitchen and Bridget’s at the boardinghouse before letting Thorliff take the horse out to tie on a long line to a wagon wheel like all the other horses not being used to cut and haul sod.