A Promise for Ellie (5 page)

“I better be on my way.” Elizabeth stood and set her dishes in the enameled dishpan sitting near the reservoir. “
Mange takk
for the refreshment.”

Ingeborg wrapped a loaf of bread in a clean towel. “Here.” She added a wedge of cheese cut from a larger wedge sitting under a glass dome. “Try this sharp cheddar and tell me what you think. Now with the cows on grass again, we’ll be making plenty more cheese.”

They tried to sell out their supply of cheese each year before the possibility of spring flooding so that none would go to waste. Orders came for Bjorklund cheese from as far away as St. Louis and Seattle. They’d even had orders from New York after she sent their benefactor, David Jonathan Gould, a small well-waxed wheel one Christmas. Since Onkel Olaf now made cheese presses of various sizes, they produced more variety. She’d thought of adding Swiss cheese this year and ordered the culture to begin experimenting with. Her gammelost was a permanent success with all the Norwegians, including the new wave of immigrants.

She hugged Elizabeth and walked with her out to the buggy, where her horse dozed in the sun. “I’ll see you for supper on Saturday, then, if not before.”

“Yes.” Elizabeth gave a discreet
oof
as she settled onto the seat. “If Mrs. Geddick has that baby anytime soon, shall I send them over here?”

“Gladly.” She smiled up at the doctor. “You need to sleep through the night, and babies seem to want to come in the early morning hours. I think it’s so their entrance can cause a stir.”

“That they do.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Will you please untie that lead rope for me? How I manage to forget that little chore so often is beyond me.”

“We were talking. That’s why.”

“Hey, Doc, what’s your hurry?” Haakan called from where they were unharnessing the horses in front of the barn.

“Got people waiting for me.” She waved and turned the rig around to jog down the lane.

Ingeborg watched her go. If she knew anything about babies, this one for sure wasn’t going to wait a whole month, no matter what the good doctor thought. Perhaps she’d be delivering more than the Geddick baby.

The men had just finished eating when Barney announced a stranger arriving. Haakan set down his cup. “I wonder who that can be?”

Wiping her hands on her apron, Ingeborg went to the screen door. “Can I help you?”

The man dismounted from his horse, flipped the reins over the hitching rail, and pushed open the gate of the picket fence. “Mrs. Bjorklund?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Sheriff Becker from Grafton. I’m here to see your husband if possible.”

“Of course. Come on in. Have you had dinner yet? We’re just finishing.” She held the door open for him.

He removed his fedora as he came through the doorway. “I think we’ve met before at some of the county meetings.” He nodded to the men at the table. “Haakan, Lars, I was hoping to find you where we could talk a bit.”

“Sit down. Astrid, bring the man a plate.”

“I hate to put you out this way.”

“Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“Then take that chair.”

While the men spoke, Ingeborg dished up some soup from the kettle on the stove, and Astrid filled a coffee cup and set it and the silverware in place.

“So, Charles, what brings you clear over here?”

“That body you found after the Olsons’ shed burned. You know anything more about that?”

“No. Since we’ve not heard of anyone missing, I think it was some bum off the train who holed up in there, and maybe it was him smoking that started the fire. We buried him over to the church plot. Didn’t know what else to do.”

“Was there any kind of identification on him?” Charles took a spoonful of the soup. “This is mighty good, Mrs. Bjorklund. Thank you.”

“Nothing remained from the fire. He was burnt near to a cinder.” Lars dunked his cookie in his coffee.

“No one had seen a stranger around these parts?”

“Nobody said they had. You know, the people here would come right out and say so if they knew something. We all just responded to the church bell tolling. Olson’s place is right near the church.”

“So you don’t think there was any foul play?”

“In Blessing?”

“Well, ya never know, and it’s my job to look into things like that.” He sopped the soup up with the last of his bread.

“I have plenty more,” Ingeborg offered.

“Thanks, but that was enough. I’m going on over to the Olsons’ next. Anyone hears anything, you’ll let me know?” The sheriff nodded to Ingeborg. “Mighty fine, ma’am. Thank you.” He shoved his chair back.

“Thorliff was planning to put something about it in the paper. Perhaps that might bring out some information.” Haakan stood up. “Come again some time when you can stay longer.”

Ingeborg watched the men file out the door. Someone, somewhere was missing a family member. How tragic.

By the time they blew out the kitchen lamp, the sheriff ’s visit had been discussed soundly. Later, when Ingeborg and Haakan retired to their room, he lay against propped-up pillows, his hands locked behind his head, watching his wife brush her hair.

“I’ve been thinking.”

She turned to look at him. Even after all these years of marriage, the sight of his muscled chest and shoulders made her heart trip over its own beat. The silver in his hair caught the lamplight, silver that was getting more pronounced, as were the lines in his face. More scalp showed, giving his already broad forehead more skin, and a distinct line divided his tan face and the white of his hat-hidden head.

“Thinking what?”

“You know Andrew’s house is not coming on time?”

“Ja.” She kept up her strokes, no longer needing to count but doing so anyway, content with the rhythm.

“Perhaps they should put off the wedding. Wait until we get the house and barn both up and the harvest in.”

“They are so young, but I sure don’t want to be the one to suggest this to Andrew.” Ingeborg shook her head slowly. “Guess we should pray about it first. If you believe this is what’s best, we need God to give you the right words and Andrew to have willing ears to hear it. He thinks he’s a man now, you know.”

“It isn’t like we are saying to wait forever—only two, three months or so. They have their whole lives ahead of them.”

Ingeborg set her brush on the washstand and brought her hair over one shoulder to braid it loosely for the night.

“Leave it down.”

His request tickled the hairs on the back of her neck. She knew what he was asking, and yet the thought made her sigh. She should be glad he still cared for her in that way. When had she first yearned to put off her husband’s advances? Most likely at the same time she stepped into being contrary. She wished she’d trapped that loud sigh before she blew out the lamp and crawled into bed. Sometimes loving him more than herself took extra effort.

Later, when he’d turned over and his breathing deepened into sleep, she lay there watching the moonlight paint designs on the floor.
You should be grateful,
a small voice nagged.

Should be
grateful and
were
grateful were two different things and never more obvious than right now. What would Andrew say when his far asked him to put off the wedding? “Uff da,” she muttered to herself. She had meant to bring up the subject of leaving more fields for pasture and hay, but she’d forgotten. Or did she just not want to get into another argument? It seemed they’d been gnawing at this bone of contention for years instead of only months.

“Y
OU WANT ME TO WHAT?
” Andrew stood with his mouth agape.

Haakan raised a hand. “Now take it easy. Let’s talk about this.”

“Whatever gave you any idea I’d even consider such a thing?” Andrew fought to keep his voice at a low pitch. Long ago he’d learned that shouting never did anyone much good. So having to work to lower his voice caught him by surprise—nearly as much as his father’s words had. He looked deep into Haakan’s eyes, searching for he knew not what. “Pa, you know I’ve been planning to marry Ellie as soon as we were out of school ever since I was in short pants. Seems I’ve waited long enough.”

“I know, Andrew, I know. But perhaps your house not coming on schedule is God’s way of telling you to wait.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know why, and I’ve never doubted a day in my life that you and Ellie were meant for each other. But . . .” Haakan, his Bjorklund eyes clouded like the sky above, stared into the distance, as if he too were seeking answers.

“Pa, I’ve done what you said all my life. I’ve tried to be a son you can be proud of.”

“And I am, Andrew. I am so proud of you I sing your praises to the sky. I thank our God for giving me sons like you and Thorliff. Especially you, Andrew. You love this farm and this land the same way I do—I couldn’t ask for anyone better.”

Andrew stared out over the land as he scuffed a chunk of black soil with the toe of his boot. Haakan was never one to throw words away. If he said something was so, it was so. But everything within Andrew screamed at the injustice of this request. For he understood it was a request or a suggestion, not an order. “I have waited so long.”

“Look at it this way. We’ll have the summer to get your house up, and then between haying and harvest, we can have a barn raising. A month or two, three at the most. Ellie could stay here in Blessing, work for Penny at the store. Astrid wants to help Elizabeth, so she won’t have time to help Penny. Andrew, your mor and I, we just ask you to think about this, to pray about it.”

“And if I say no?” A quick kick shattered the clod.

“I’d hope you’d talk this over with Ellie first. Make this decision together.”

“And if we decide to go ahead?”

“Then we’ll have the wedding near the end of June just like you planned.”

“You won’t be mad?”

“Sad, perhaps, and maybe disappointed. But mad? No, son, I won’t be mad.”

“And Mor?” Andrew glanced out of the side of his eye.

“You’ll have to ask her. This was a surprise to her too. Like it was for me.”

Andrew clamped his teeth together. His jaw ached from the fight against saying more. “I better get the cows up.” He whistled for the dog and headed for the barn. While some of the twenty-five head of milk cows would be lined up at the door, there were still those stubborn ones that had to be rounded up. That’s what a good cow dog was for. It saved a man a lot of tramping through the grass.

Although right now, stomping through the grass might have done him some good. How could they ask this of him? It wasn’t as if this wedding was a recent thought. All the chaste kisses when his body screamed to hold her close, when he hated to say good-night, when he thought if he had to write one more letter rather than getting on the train and going to fetch her home . . . His heart had nearly shattered when Onkel Olaf, Ellie’s adoptive father, decided to move his woodworking shop farther away from the flooding river. Soaking in dirty river water was pretty detrimental to the hardwoods he used for building good furniture. Not that the floods weren’t hard on everyone, but Onkel wasn’t locked onto the land like the rest of them and so could wisely move.

Mor had reminded him to be grateful that Ellie wasn’t days away, like on the East Coast or the Pacific, where his cousin Hamre now lived. The train made the distance to Grafton in little more than an hour, but it felt like more. Through her tears, Ellie had said that they would get to know each other on a deeper level through letters, because when she was with him, her mind seemed to go off and flit with the clouds or some such. Then they’d laughed together.

Ah, it was so easy to laugh with his Ellie.

One by one he dropped the short boards in the stanchions to close the board against the cow’s neck, keeping her from backing up and leaving the barn before she was milked. When the final three came in, thanks to the dog, he poured a scoop of feed in front of each cow, talking to them as he moved down the line.

“Hey, Andrew,” Trygve, Kaaren’s oldest son, called as he strolled into the barn swinging a metal milking pail in each hand. “You want me to bring over the milk cans?”

“Please, and don’t forget the buckets of soapy water.”