Streams of Mercy

© 2015 by Lauraine Snelling

Published by Bethany House Publishers

11400 Hampshire Avenue South

Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of

Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Ebook edition created 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4412-2907-6

Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Jennifer Parker and Paul Higdon

Author is represented by Books & Such Literary Agency

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Bjorklund Family Tree

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Epilogue

About the Author

Books by Lauraine Snelling

Back Ads

Back Cover

C
HAPTER 1

APRIL 1907

T
ears again.

Ingeborg awoke. A dream. It had been a dream. She could almost vow Haakan had been right there with her. She wasn’t sure if the tears were sorrow or joy, but her eyes felt as though a dust storm had just blown through. Dreams and weeping attacks came less often now that more time had passed since Haakan went home to heaven. The rattle of the grate at the kitchen stove made her smile. Who got there first this morning? Freda or Manny? The two seemed to have an undeclared contest going as to who would start the kitchen stove. Now that he could walk without a cane, even though he limped, Manny had a new zest for living.

Ingeborg stared up at the dimness that was the ceiling. She should get up, but today she’d rather huddle back down under the covers, where she could not see her breath on the air, not that she could in the predawn darkness anyway. The light under her
door beckoned. She reached for her robe at the same moment as she threw back the covers and slid her feet into the moccasins she kept right by her bed. Every morning she thanked her Lord for Metiz, who had made the moccasins those years ago and, like the moccasins, had helped her friends in myriad ways to adapt to life on the prairie.

That thought led to Metiz’ grandson, Baptiste LeCrue, who had married Manda and moved to Montana, where her adopted father, Zeb MacCallister, had gone after his wife, Katy Bjorklund, died in childbirth. Later Baptiste and Manda had moved south to Wyoming. She hadn’t heard from any of them in a long time. Perhaps today would be a good day to write to them, as well as to her family in Norway and perhaps even to Augusta, Roald’s sister, who had settled with her husband, Kane Moyer, on a ranch in South Dakota. Winter, even with spring almost here, was always a good time for writing letters.

When she opened the door to the kitchen, she could feel the warmth flowing out from the stove. “You are down already. Good morning, Freda. Has Manny gone to the barn?”

“Ja. That young whippersnapper came down to the kitchen before I did and got the stove going. He sure takes his responsibilities seriously. Not that anyone said he had to start the stove.”

“He is growing up so fast.”

“Sure is. His pant legs are too short already. Good thing you put a deep hem in them.” Freda glanced up at the clock just as Emmy came down the stairs. “Morning, Miss Sunshine.”

That was some change since when Emmy first came to live with Ingeborg. Freda’s attitude toward the little Indian girl had changed over time, from only accepting her at first to liking and now loving her.

Emmy was indeed family now, and Manny was too. To Ingeborg they’d been her family since the day they’d arrived, whether
they knew it or not. God had strange ways of giving her more children, but she never questioned the gifts. How Haakan would delight in watching Manny grow up into the farmer Haakan dreamed he might become. He had taught Manny how to use a knife for carving, and now Manny kept the box for kindling stocked as he carved both useful spoons and ladles and something he wasn’t showing her.

“Grandma, can Inga come home with me from school and spend the night?”

“As long as her mother and father agree, I see no problem.”

“Good. May I call her and tell her?”

Ingeborg hid a smile. Emmy asking to use the telephone? Would wonders never cease? “Of course.” She watched as Emmy pulled the little stool Haakan had made for the grandchildren under the oak box attached to the wall and wired into the restored telephone service.

Slowly but surely the town was recovering from the explosion of the grain elevator a year and a half ago now. The bank had been rebuilt, the post office and telephone building as well. All the people who used to live in Tent Town now had homes of some kind, either in the apartment house or sharing one of the other houses. The boardinghouse remained full of mostly single men, including Dr. Jason W. Commons, who was their newest intern from the hospital in Chicago, and also the two student nurses, Abigail and Sandra, who had arrived in August.

She half listened to Emmy’s conversation while she stirred the oatmeal bubbling on the stove. Freda had laid pieces of salt pork in the heavy black skillet to fry and then would pour beaten eggs into it. She checked the oven, where sourdough biscuits were rising nicely. Freda had made the dough the night before, left it to rise overnight, and rolled out biscuits first thing. Manny loved biscuits of all kinds, from the ones with
added cheese to the cinnamon-sugar-topped ones and everything in between.

Speaking of Manny, that was Manny outside the back door, stomping snow off his boots. Ingeborg could easily tell; one stomp was louder than the other. Manny’s one leg, which had been not only broken but also shortened, was weaker than his other one. He burst in on a wave of cold.

Emmy pushed the stool back where it belonged and went to the cupboard to start setting the table. She glanced down at Ingeborg’s feet as she passed. “You have Metiz’ moccasins on.”

“They are my winter slippers. Can you still wear the ones I gave you?”

“My feet are too big.”

“We’ll go look in the box when you get home from school.” Ingeborg kept a box full of children’s clothing that had been outgrown by other children but was good enough to use again. Emmy and Inga loved to search the box and try clothes on. Now they passed Emmy’s outgrown things that weren’t complete rags to Inga or to the boxes the ladies of the church kept available for the immigrant children, or anyone else in need.

“Are you going to quilting today?” Freda asked as they waited for Manny to finish washing his hands and sit down.

“I am and I am hoping you will too.”

“I have some things I am working on here, and that is the only time I have alone it seems.” She looked to Manny. “We have another order for cheese and we are nearly out of crates. Could you work on that when you get home?”

“Sure. Last time I checked you still had plenty.” Manny had taken over the job of nailing crates together for shipping the cheese. That was something he’d started doing while his broken leg was healing, and now he took it as a point of pride that he kept ahead of Freda.

Patches barked, making the two young ones leap to their feet, bundle up in coats from the coat tree, grab books and lunch pails, and head for the door. Samuel Knutson drove a wagon with a big box on it to protect the children from the weather. When the snow fell last fall, they replaced the wheels with sledge runners. Ingeborg hoped they would be able to put the wheels back on in the next week or two. Samuel first loaded students from the deaf school taught by Grace Knutson Gould, one of Samuel’s older twin sisters. The children in the deaf school attended the regular school as soon as they learned sign language, a fine arrangement. Manny waved and Emmy blew Ingeborg a kiss, as she so often did.

“Whew,” Freda commented, making a joke out of wiping her brow. “How John Solberg corrals all that energy at the school and still loves his job, I’ll never understand.”

“It is easier on him now that Father Devlin teaches at the high school. Or rather,
Mr.
Devlin.” Ingeborg picked up her dishes and, like the others had, placed them in the steaming dishpan on the stove.

Freda waved a hand. “You go on and get ready. I’ll take care of things here. Are you taking the sewing machine?”

“Planning on it. Why? Did you want to use it?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. There’s plenty of other sewing to do at church without this machine along. I hope Miriam can come today.”

“Will you try to talk with Hildegunn?”

Ingeborg shook her head. “She just freezes me out. I don’t know if she talks to anyone anymore.” Ever since her husband, Anner, left Blessing several months ago, she had withdrawn more and more. Since she was the postmistress, no one else knew if she heard from her husband unless she volunteered the information. As far as Ingeborg knew, Hildegunn had received very few
letters. She nearly asked Gerald one day but hated gossip almost as much as Reverend Solberg did, and that would be borderline.