A Touch of Grace (19 page)

“Stood there without a twitch. Needs some feeding up, but she gave better than half a bucket. Good-looking heifer.” He looked to his mother. “I think you got a real bargain with the two of them.”

“Glad to hear that. Felt sorry for the man.” Ingeborg smiled across the lamplight to her son. Andrew had little Carl on his shoulder, the baby now sucking on his fist.
He must be ready to eat again by now
.

“You can put her in the pasture with the dry cows and heifers tomorrow. How close is that sow to farrowing?”

“Any day. She started pushing her nest together, so I put her in the farrowing stall.”

Ingeborg helped put away the dishes, letting the easy conversation roll over her. Something bothered her about Mr. Jeffers, but for the life of her, she couldn’t put a finger on it. Perhaps Haakan would have the answer. More changes, and this one didn’t feel good. If only Penny hadn’t left. It was obvious she hadn’t wanted to go. Maybe Hjelmer would find life in the city less than he thought and want to come back. But that didn’t mean Mr. Jeffers would give up the store. She sighed. Wishing things undone never helped.
Only you do, Lord
.

“T
HAT NEW COW IS LIMPING A BIT
,” Haakan told Ingeborg when he came in for breakfast a couple of days later. “I’m going to check her hooves tonight. Maybe she has thrush or something.”

“If you leave her in the stanchion, I can have Jonathan help me check her.”

“We already let them all out. Tonight will be soon enough.”

When they finished eating, he announced, “We start raking today. Jonathan, you ride with Andrew for a while, see how he does it, then you can take over that team and Andrew can ride with you. Then finish cleaning out the haymow. Samuel will help you. Trygve will take out the other rake.”

“That’s good because I need to check on the sow a couple of times,” Andrew said. “She’s restless.”

Jonathan looked over to Andrew. “What does that mean?”

“Well, when a sow is about to farrow, which means have her babies, she starts pushing the straw or grass into a mound for a nest. Then she starts to pacing, quits eating, lies down, gets up—does this over and over until finally she lies down and we start getting piglets. I keep a close eye on them, because it’s really easy for a sow to roll over on her babies. Or step on them. We have a board across one corner of the stall, and after the babies nurse, I herd them under it and into the corner for protection. Cuts down on piglet mortality. When it is cold out, we keep a hot water bottle in the corner and they snuggle up against that.”

“They can see and walk when they are born?”

“Ja. When she starts, I’ll come and get you, and you can watch. Seeing anything being born is a real privilege.”

“Andrew has always been our animal doctor,” Astrid filled in. “He often spends the night in the stall when a cow is calving or a sow is farrowing.”

“Ja, Mor takes care of humans and some animals. Andrew would make a good veterinarian did he not love farming so much.”

“I never wanted to go away to school like some do around here.”

“Thorliff did and I want to, so it’s a good thing someone wants to stay home and farm.” Astrid patted her brother’s shoulder as she refilled the coffee cups. “You’d be lost without your animals, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, he does have a baby boy now, so maybe that will change.” Ingeborg looked to her son to see him shaking his head.

A few minutes later Haakan drained his cup and slapped his hands on the table. “Let’s be at it.”

As the men filed out, Ingeborg silently blessed each one of them, something she’d started doing years before, praying for their safety.

“Since it is our turn to make dinner, I’ll knead the bread down, and you start making pie crust.” Ingeborg began clearing the table. “I figured two rhubarb and two custard.”

“What else are we having?” Astrid carried a stack of dishes to the sink and, after shaving soap into the dishpan and adding hot water, began the age-old task.

“Samuel left three rabbits hanging in the well house. I’ll cut them up, brown the pieces, and set it to cooking. We can let it simmer on the back of the stove while the bread is baking. I think we have some sour cream out there. I’ll put that in when the men are on their way up. Should make noodles too.” Ingeborg nodded. “That’s what we’ll do. Along with leaf lettuce with sugar and vinegar. Sure am looking forward to fresh beans.” She picked up a dish towel and began drying those ready.

“They’ll be another week, at least.”

When the dishes were done and put in their places, Astrid set the lard crock and a large crockery bowl on the table, then went for the flour. Measuring enough for six crusts, she cut the lard into the flour and salt until it was the size of peas, then added water. With the dough in a ball, she cut it in six wedges and, forming one into a flat round in her hands, dusted the board with flour and began rolling the crust. She flipped it over, patched a small tear with extra dough and a bit of water, and started rolling again. When the crust reached the correct size, she lifted it into a pie pan. She’d just finished the first two that were for the single crust custard pies when her mother returned from the garden with the rhubarb.

Together they chopped, beat the custard mixture of eggs, sugar, and cream, and poured most of it into the two pie shells and the rest over the rhubarb. With the top crusts rolled and spread over the rhubarb filling, Astrid crimped the edges, cut slits in the top, and slid the pies into the oven.

The fragrance of rabbit browning in bacon grease permeated the kitchen. Astrid rolled out the remaining bits of pie dough, sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar, and set the tin on the upper rack of the oven. She and her mother would have piecrust cookies in time to take a back-porch break. After she took water and food to the men.

“Where’s Grace?” Ingeborg asked as she shaped the bread dough into loaves.

“She was going to help Sophie today.”

“What are they doing now?” Ingeborg realized she hadn’t had a talk with Kaaren lately to catch up on all the news since the wedding.

“I guess some furniture arrived on the train from Onkel Olaf and Sophie wanted her to see it. And—” Astrid paused for effect—“they are wallpapering the babies’ room so the furniture can go in there. I hope he made a cradle big enough for both of them.”

“I still remember how Sophie and Grace would only sleep well when they were in the same bed. One was always touching the other.”

“Do twins always have more twins?”

“Not necessarily, but some do.”

“Grace is the closest I have to a sister.”

“You have Ellie.”

“But she’s different since she and Andrew got married. We never have time to talk about things anymore. Especially since Carl came.” Astrid paused in her sandwich making to look at her mother. “You and Tante Kaaren make sure you have time to talk.”

“I was just thinking how we’ve not done so lately. Usually one of us crosses the field almost every day in the summer but not this year.”

Silence but for the birdsong from outside floated in the kitchen.

“Mor, do you mind if I go away to school this fall?”

“Of course I mind, but that can’t keep you from going if that is what you really want to do.”

“I don’t want to go clear to Chicago like Dr. Elizabeth wants me to do. I could never come home then.”

“You don’t have to do that. You can go to the nursing school in Grand Forks, or you can get what training you need right here in Blessing. Elizabeth said she can train you, and she already has been. She thinks you could possibly go for only one year, you are so far ahead of other students.”

“I wish I knew what was going to happen.”

“Ja.” Ingeborg nodded. “We all wish that, but God in His mercy opens the door only far enough so we can see the next step. That way we don’t get frightened and run and hide.”

“If I go away for school, home will never be the same again, will it?” Astrid tucked the sandwiches into a basket, added a napkin of cookies, and hoisted the can she’d already filled with water.

“No, home won’t be the same, but it will still be home until you marry and begin your own home.”

“There’s no one here I want to marry. I’d be back soon. I think I will miss everyone more than Sophie did. And how hard will it be for Grace by herself?” Astrid asked, heading out the door.

Ingeborg went to the window and watched her daughter stride out to the fields. So capable and strong and yet still young inside.
Lord, thank you that I don’t know what the years will bring. But please
put a hedge of protection around her, both body and heart. I know you love
her even more than I do, but I can’t figure that much. So thank you
.

She removed the pan of pie-crust cookies from the oven and set it on the counter. One of the rhubarb pies was running over, sizzling on the oven floor. The crusts weren’t brown enough yet, so she closed the oven door and put more wood in the firebox. She wiped away the sweat on forehead and neck with her apron and turned the pieces of rabbit over. The dough for noodles lay rolled flat on the board, so she gave it another couple of passes with the rolling pin, then dusted the surface with flour, and starting at one edge, rolled the dough into a long tube. She washed the scissors and cut the tube into half-inch sections and flipped each roll loose. After hanging as many of the noodles as possible on the rack behind the stove, she fluffed up those left on the table so they could dry too and headed for the garden to pick the lettuce.

With an apron of lettuce she returned to the house, dumped it in the sink to wash, and checked on the pies. The rhubarbs were done. She moved them to the counter and took a table knife to cut into the custard pies to see if they were done. The knife came out clean, so she took them out, removed one of the racks, and slid the four loaf pans of bread inside.

Back in the garden she pulled some of the crowded stalks of corn from each hill, and once she had a handful, she wandered out to the pasture. The new cow lay off by herself under one of the oak trees. Ingeborg opened the gate and, after closing it behind her, strolled toward the cow, taking her time so the animal wouldn’t bolt before she got close enough to look at her.

The dusty brown cow with a few white markings watched her with ears forward, head up. Ingeborg held out the stalks of corn and slowed to a creep. Whenever the cow threatened to move, she stopped and rustled the corn. Several of the other cows stood, and one took a few steps toward her.

“Easy girl, how about some fresh corn? Beats anything in the pasture.” Not that they’d grazed all the pasture down either. She stopped a few feet away from the cow, who had yet to stand, and looked her over. She seemed healthy. Extending the corn, she edged closer.

The cow heaved her rear end in the air and rose slowly to her feet. She stretched her head forward, took the corn, and chewed while watching Ingeborg. The other cows gathered round, and Ingeborg gave out the rest of her bounty before returning to the gate and thence to her kitchen by way of the well house, where she picked up a full butter mold from the shelf to serve at dinner. She should have made the cow walk to see the limp.

Astrid breezed back into the kitchen a bit later and snatched up three of the pie crust pieces. Talking around the one in her mouth, she invited her mother to join her on the back porch. Which she did.

“So how is Jonathan doing?” Ingeborg asked.

“His windrows are looking straighter as he goes along. He said Andrew is a good teacher.”

“We all know that. How’s the mowing going?”

“Lars has his mower up in the machine shed. I don’t know what happened. Pa said thanks, drank, took his sandwich, and kept on going.”

Ingeborg ate her cookie and dusted her fingers on her apron. “Some things never change.”

Later that afternoon she went back out to look at the cow, only to find her in about the same place, lying down again. “Well, girl, we’ll give you a good looking over tonight when you are in the stanchion. Maybe you have an infection in your hoof or something.” She tossed another corn treat in front of the cow and headed back for the house. She would cut up the leftover rabbit into the noodles with a cream sauce and throw in a jar of canned beans.

That night after milking, Haakan and Ingeborg brought out a lantern to look closely at the cow’s feet. Haakan prodded the bottom of the hoof, and the cow tried to pull it away.

“It’s tender, but I can’t see anything. There’s no cut.” He sniffed the foot. “No infection.” He felt her ears and nose, but all seemed normal.

“How about we soak that foot in a bucket of warm soapy water? If there is an infection, that might draw it out.”

“I’ll try that. At least it’s a front hoof. We’d most likely have to throw her to soak a back one.”

“I’ll send Jonathan out with a bucket of water.” Ingeborg headed back to the house. Supper should have already been on the table, and here she was out with a limping cow. But then, which was more important? Healthy livestock or hungry men? She was glad she didn’t have to leave out either.

The next morning the cow didn’t eat her grain, and Andrew reported the heifer was limping too. Haakan held the cow’s head while Andrew pried open her mouth. Ingeborg stood behind Andrew, trying to see over his shoulder.