A Land to Call Home (17 page)

“Then I will work for my board and room.” The words sounded like a pronouncement with no chance for argument.

Kaaren kept her arms under the warm little bodies in the sling and began the rocking motion that soothed them back to sleep after one whimpered. When she noticed his perplexed look, she shared a smile with Metiz. Yes, things were surely different out here on the Bjorklund farms. Babies in a sling around their mother’s neck, boys or women doing man’s work when needed, and a husband who even helped with a birthing. Uncle Olaf would have lots of surprises coming his way in the days to come.

“In case you are wondering, my twin baby girls are sleeping here.” She gestured to the blue sling. “They were born so tiny that this was the best way we could think of to keep them warm enough. Sometimes we keep them in a box on the oven door.”

“How are they now?”

“Getting stronger.” She shrugged her shoulders to shift the weight. “Now, tell me what else you learned of home and where you have been all these years.” Olaf was the next older brother of her mother, and Kaaren remembered the sadness when they no longer heard from the man. “Does my mor know about you now too?” At his nod, she smiled again. “She must be so happy. Strange that you got a letter before I did.”

He only nodded at her many questions. “Mange takk,” he said to Penny when she handed him a full coffee cup, and then again when she set a plate of bread and cheese in front of him. With a few terse words he told of his life aboard a merchant marine ship that took him all over the world before it sank on a reef off Florida, his rescue with a few of the other sailors, and then the various jobs he’d held traveling around the country. “I been a cooper of both barrels and buckets, built barns and stores in Wisconsin. Anything of wood, I can make, you know.”

Kaaren itched to ask him more about his adventures, but the babies were stirring and she knew that meant feeding time. So she bit her tongue for the moment and looked to Penny.

“Would you please take my onkel out to the field to meet Lars and then show him the other bed in Ingeborg’s soddy? The boys will have to sleep on pallets on the floor.”

Penny nodded. “You want he should store his bundle over there too?”

“Ja.”

“Now, I ain’t got to have a bed. Been known to sleep real good in a barn or some such. You know, I ain’t saying I have to stay here. I don’t want to put you out.”

“There’s always room for one more.” The whimpers turned to the creaks that would soon turn into full-fledged wails. Sophie knew how to get one’s attention already. And she always woke up ready to eat—immediately if not before.

Olaf slapped hands whose very scars told of his many kinds of labor, from the missing little finger on his right hand to the bent index finger on his left. Ridges, valleys, gnarly knuckles, a black-and-blue fingernail, all spoke of well-used hands.

“Mange takk for the coffee and bread. I’ll be going with the young miss here.” He crossed to the bed and stood looking down at the babies, smaller than many baby dolls. With one nicked finger, feather-light, he touched Sophie’s cheek. She turned in that direction, lips already circled to suckle. Olaf chuckled. “She be a smart one, that. Takes advantage of anything comes her way.” He smiled directly into Kaaren’s eyes. “They be something, all right.”

She watched him leave the room, feeling as if he’d seen more in her baby than she. She looked up to see Metiz nodding.

“That one wise man.” She lifted the sling from around Kaaren’s shoulders and helped settle the two to nursing. As usual, Sophie sucked greedily while Grace was still searching. Metiz braced Sophie while Kaaren helped the weaker one. With both of them content, the two women exchanged looks of relief.

“How many children did you have?” Kaaren asked, brave enough at last to ask the old woman a personal question.

“Two man childs, one girl—all gone now. Baptiste born, mother die. My girl.”

“Oh, Metiz,” Kaaren answered with a heavy sigh. “So much you have borne.”

“Life hard. Be born, grow, die. All up to Great Spirit.”

Kaaren dropped light kisses on the downy heads of her babies.
Please, God, hold these two in your hand, like you said, in your victorious right hand
. She blinked against the burning at the back of her eyes, sniffing at the same time. Living in the right now meant letting go of both the memories of the past and the fears for the future. Someone had once said there was no room in God’s hand for the past or the future, only the now. She nodded, grateful for that memory.

She watched Metiz put more wood in the firebox. “There’s a smoked venison haunch in the smokehouse that would be good roasted for supper. We could cook the potatoes and rutabagas, carrots, too, in the same kettle.”

“Onions.” Metiz dusted her hands. “I get.”

They spent the evening getting to know one another. Olaf, much to Kaaren’s surprise and delight, was a master storyteller, keeping them entertained until she caught Thorliff bumping his chin on his chest. Andrew had crawled into his warm spot behind the stove hours earlier. After everyone was in bed and the others asleep, Lars whispered in her ear.

“God surely sent us a gift direct from heaven in that man. And to think he came right now when we so needed the extra hands.”

“Ja, God is good.” Kaaren shifted her sling so she could lie on her side, leaving the twins tightly bound in their blankets and lying close like two of the same piece. She laid her arm over Lars’ chest, comforted by his steady heartbeat. God is good, and that said it all.

“Tomorrow Olaf and I will take the two wagons to Grafton to pick up lumber for the barn. The boys will stay home to help you.”

“Will Joseph go too?” She felt him nod. “Good.” As she’d said, God is good.

Ingeborg swallowed once and yet again. Praying for strength, she crossed the room to where the injured woman lay sleeping in the bed nearest the door of the eight-bed ward.
Ah, Solveig, once so fair, how will you learn to live with that scar?

The oval face with a straight nose that looked so much like Kaaren’s now wore a stitched line slanting from temple to nearly the point of her chin. The bones of her face looked to be poking holes through her skin. Hair, once so full and golden, now hung in strings, showing an area above her left ear that had been shaved so the doctor could stitch a cut that looked to be healing well. While a blanket hid her legs, the extra size of splint and wrappings showed which one had broken.

Ingeborg looked up at Haakan, who nodded sadly from across the bed.

She took in a deep breath, disinfectant with a trace of fleshly putrification stinging her nose. “S-Solveig?” When there was no response, she tried again, louder. “Solveig. This is Ingeborg. We have come for you.”

The woman’s transparent eyelids rose slowly. “Ingeborg?” The blue eyes focused. “Ingeborg, is it really you?” A tear slipped from one eye, ran over the shaved area and into her hair at the back. She
reached out a trembling hand. “You got the message then.”

“Ja, I am sorry it took so long.” Ingeborg took the chilled hand in both of her warm ones. “But Haakan and I are here now, and in a couple of days, we will have you at the farm. Soon all will be well again.”

“All?” Solveig blinked. “Never will
all
be well again.”

Ingeborg knew she was referring to the livid scars. Seeing the stubborn set of the woman’s chin, so much like her sister’s, Ingeborg changed the topic. “How is your leg doing?”

“I can walk with crutches but not very well. That is why the doctor sent you the telegram to come get me. I didn’t remember anything for some time, and since my baggage was lost in the wreck . . .” Her voice clogged and she cleared her throat. “They didn’t know who I was.”

“You are most fortunate to have remembered.”

“Am I? I don’t care if I never remember that terrible time. They say twenty people died right then and more later. Oh, Ingeborg.” She closed her eyes at the painful memory. “I could never explain the horror. Having no memory at first was such a blessing, but then at that time I was so afraid.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.

A cough from another patient, and a groan from the person in the bed across the narrow main aisle only magnified the silence around the bed. A metal pan clanged on the floor.

“Terror lurks everywhere if you don’t know who you are.”

“Ja, that must be so.” Ingeborg beat back her pain for the starkness of the words. “But God is good, and . . .”

Solveig shook her head. “Nei.”

“And He is making you well and . . .”

“Is He? I should be
thankful
for the doctors who sewed up my face into a horror mask and fixed my leg so that I will hobble for the rest of my life? Nei, Ingeborg, I don’t see how I will be of much use on your farm. But I have no money to return home.”

“I will go find the doctor and nurse to see what must be done for us to leave. You get her ready” Haakan turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

“He is angry.”

Ingeborg shook her head. “No, but concerned. We hope to catch the evening train bound for St. Paul.”

“I can’t even leave here.”

“Why not?”

“I . . . I have no clothes. Only this hospital gown.” She plucked at the plain cotton garment.

“Oh, if I’d known, I could have brought some from home.” Ingeborg thought to her meager belongings in the carpetbag. Not much help there. “Perhaps the hospital has a store of clothes for a time like this.”

Solveig shrugged.

A woman in a white dress and a hat starched stiff enough to fly in a wind stopped at the end of the bed. Her hat reminded Ingeborg of a sailboat in full rig. “I am the head nurse, Sister Gordon. I see we are ready to leave.” She nodded, setting her sails to flapping. “Mr. Bjorklund is signing the papers now.” She turned to look directly at Ingeborg. “You brought her some clothing?”

Ingeborg shook her head. “I did not know.”

“Ah. You did not receive our letter?”

“No, only the telegram.”

“Ah.” The wings flapped more gently this time.

“We will go buy some things and come right back.”

“No.” Again flapping sails. “I will find you something.” She spun and, born on the wind of her hat, flew out the door.

Haakan and a bearded man in a white coat entered the ward.

“Sister will be back with some garments for you momentarily, Miss Hjelmson. You must be very glad your family has come for you.” The doctor spoke slowly in German so Solveig and the others could translate.

“Ja.”

When Solveig said nothing further, he turned to Haakan with a shake of his head. “She has been like this much of the time.” He had switched to English since he now knew Haakan spoke the language. “There is nothing further I can do for her. The compound fracture in her leg is healing poorly, but she won’t need a cane or crutch to get around on later. She is slow on crutches now, but that is to be expected.”

“What about the bill?” Haakan said to the doctor, but with one eyebrow raised looked over at Ingeborg on the opposite side of the bed.

Ingeborg knew the silent question he asked. Had Solveig been like this the entire time since they’d arrived? The nod she sent back might merely have been a twitch to someone who didn’t know her well. She closed the door of her mind to the questions that bombarded her. They could be dealt with later. Right now they needed
to get Solveig on her feet and all of them on their way home. Perhaps the trip home would help make her feel more hopeful. Ingeborg’s nose wrinkled at an odor that drifted by. She glanced down the row of white-covered beds to where a doctor and nurse were working on a patient behind a cloth screen. The patient bit off a scream that sent chills up and down Ingeborg’s spine.

She brought her attention back to the discussion between Haakan and the doctor, who was speaking. “. . . and they have agreed to pay all the medical bills of those injured in the train crash. Your sister or relative here is one of the fortunate ones.”

Solveig’s shifting on the bed showed that she was listening and probably feeling frustrated that she didn’t know what they were saying. Ingeborg laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled down at her. Solveig just stared back, her face revealing nothing.

Ah, Solveig, this is not the end of the world—or your life. I know it seems that way, but the scar will fade with time, and a limp isn’t such a terrible thing. Ask Lars. He’ll tell you
.

The sister returned with clothes over her arm and carrying a pair of shoes in her hand. She waited until the doctor finished speaking.

When she cleared her throat, he turned. “Ah, there you are. Sister will see to you then.” He extended his hand and Haakan shook it. “Good luck to you all.” He nodded to Solveig. “You will do fine, my dear.” When she tendered no response, he started to say something more, then nodded to them all and left the room.

“Now then, Mr. Bjorklund, if you will leave us, we will get our patient ready to go.” As she spoke, the nurse ushered him out to the aisle and pointed to a screen, two beds down. “If you would be so kind?”

While Haakan brought back the two folding screens and set them around the bed, she laid out the garments. “Now, these might be a bit large, but you will gain some weight again once you are feeling better. If the shoes are too big, we can stuff paper in the toes.”