An Untamed Heart (16 page)

Gunlaug kept her voice low. “He calls you Angel. Did you notice that?”

“Silly. He asked if he’d gone to heaven when he woke up at the creek and I was tending him.”

“You know, Ingeborg, that is very romantic.” Gunlaug clasped her hands at her chest. “I wish someone would call
me Angel.” She opened her eyes again. “Do you think Ivar would ever call me Angel?”

Not if his mor was around, that’s for sure
. But Ingeborg just shrugged. “Don’t make something out of nothing.” Ingeborg had to smile just a tiny bit inside, though. Yes, it was romantic. Perhaps
charming
was the better word.

A charming, intelligent man? Imagine that!

“Ingeborg, the cream is ready to pour into the pans.” Gunlaug’s voice. “Did you set them up in the springhouse?”

Ingeborg sat bolt upright in her chair. She had fallen asleep! In the middle of the day! Like some small child! Honestly! “No, sorry. I forgot.” She scooped up the mending that had collapsed into her lap.

“I washed them.”

“Tusen takk. I’ll do that right now.” Ingeborg stood up, stretched, and plopped her mending down on the chair seat. “Ask Kari to help you carry the pots out there.”

The kitchen was warm and inviting. Ingeborg had become a bit chilled during her nap. Three tall pots of cream were heating near the coals in the fireplace. Each held two and a half gallons. That would make about eight pounds of cheese.

“I can carry one.” Mari’s chin came out and her eyes darkened.

“I am sure you can, but Kari is bigger and stronger.” She didn’t say
and older
, since that should have no bearing on the fact anyway. But Mari always got a bit pugnacious if she felt someone was saying she couldn’t do something because she was so young.

Mari huffed into silence. Ingeborg gave her a one-arm hug
around the shoulders. “Besides, you have done more work than anyone else today. You can sit down for a change.”
You might even take a nap, like your foolish older sister just did.

Ingeborg hastened to the springhouse and laid the setting pans out across the bench. They probably should build another bench. With several more cows, they had a lot more milk this year. Kari came out lugging a pot. Ingeborg helped her steady it as they poured the cream into a pan. Gunlaug brought the next, handed it to Ingeborg, and returned to the kitchen for the third. Kari held the pot as Ingeborg had done, steadying it for her as the silky cream flowed into the pan. Ingeborg was strong enough that she needed no one to help steady the pot, but the gesture delighted her, and she said nothing. Kari was learning well. She would be a fine cheese maker.

Kari and Gunlaug left, but Ingeborg paused, studying the pans, thinking. Daydreaming was more like it.

As soon as the rennet-laced cream curdled and firmed up, they would cut the curds and drain them as much as possible. Then the cheese presses would squeeze the remainder of the whey out. Once the rounds of cheese were solid, they would wax them and set them on the shelves in the cheese cellar to age. From now on, some step in the cheese-making process would go on every day—at least one step, and often more than one.

Ingeborg started back toward the house. With the setting of the first cream, their summer labor took on more meaning. Some of the cheese would be sold and some of it kept for use at all three houses. Since Onkel Frode was not married and had no children to share the work, he had paid for Kari and Tor to live at the seter and purchased most of the food supplies. In July they would all hay together, and in the fall, harvest the grain crops. There was a comfortable
predictability to it all. Ingeborg felt secure with predictability. She liked productivity too, making something of use.

“Come on! Let’s celebrate.” Ingeborg waved them all toward the house.

“How?” Anders thunked his ax into the splitting spool and headed in.

“Mari made a sort of lefse substitute without the potatoes. We’ll have that and pour up some of the buttermilk. We can toast this year as the year of the best cheese ever.”

Hjelmer met them at the door. “You say that every year.”

“Well, sometimes we have cider to drink, but not this year. Anders, did you bring your concertina?”

“You think I would leave it at home?”

“Tor, have you ever played a gut bucket?”

Tor looked at her blankly.

“Hjelmer, show him what we mean.”

Cackling, Hjelmer brought out a washtub with a hole in the bottom, a piece of light cotton cord already knotted at one end, and one of the walking sticks. He threaded the thin rope through the hole in the tub so the knot held on the inside of the tub, turned it over, and tied the other end to one end of the stick. The other end of the stick was notched.

“This is how you do it, Tor.” He put his foot on the bottom rim of the upside-down tub to brace it and set the notched stick in the raised rim on the other side. Holding the stick with one hand, he pulled outward to tighten the cord and plucked it with his free hand. The noise sounded more like a thud than like any kind of music. But when he pulled the stick back even farther, the tone changed. He plunked out a four-beat rhythm.

Anders came down the ladder with a leather bag and pulled out a round, aged concertina, its bellows worn and faded.
He tested it, pushing a few buttons and drawing the sides out and in. He grinned. “No leaks! I was afraid the bellows might have cracked. It was my morfar’s.” For sure he knew which pegs to push on the round wooden sides to make music. “My grandfather was really good on it. He taught me how to play.”

“I wish I had brought my harmonica.” They all looked at Tor.

Mari cried incredulously, “You play the harmonica and you didn’t bring it?”

“Sorry. No one said to. I almost did.”

“We should make him go back home and get it.”

Ingeborg raised her hands. “We can use one of the kettles and a wooden spoon as a drum. We can sing and even dance if we want to.”

With their impromptu band in place, Tor began thunking out the rhythm, happily working his gut bucket. Hamme took over the kettledrum, and the music began. Mari handed Jon another wooden spoon and a kettle lid. Every band needed a cymbal.

“You use the handle like this,” she said and showed him how to add to the clamor—er, music. The rest of them sang along, with Gunlaug’s lovely soprano leading the tunes. Ingeborg sang harmony and was astonished at how good they all sounded together. Why, they had their own choir right there.

She glanced over to see Nils clapping in time. When he smiled at her, she caught her breath. What had just made her heart do a funny flip? What was happening?

Ingeborg smiled at everyone around the breakfast table. “You are all working so hard, once shearing is over and if the trout are biting, we are going to go on a picnic and hopefully eat fresh fish.”

Jon’s smile gave him an angelic look. “We have had a lot of dried fish.”

Mari shook her head. “You’ve not been eating
dried
fish. I’ve been soaking it and making it as good as new.” She smiled at their reactions. “Well, we do our best. At least you don’t have to chew on real dried cod.”

“Or herring either.” Ingeborg drained the remainder of her coffee.

“When do we start shearing?” Hjelmer asked as he reached for another biscuit. “Mari, your biscuits are good as Mor’s.”

Ingeborg thought they were even better but didn’t say so. While Mor was a good cook, she was also a good teacher, so she really hadn’t had much to do in the kitchen for a long time. Her well-trained daughters had taken over. But now with Katrina gone . . . Her mouth dropped open. “The wedding.
We forgot all about the wedding.” She counted back the days. “It was last Saturday.” She stared at Gunlaug. “How could I forget such a thing?”

“What could you have done?”

“Uh . . .” She ducked her chin and huffed a sigh. “Nothing, I guess, but we could at least have prayed for her.” She glanced around the table. “Did none of the rest of you think of it either?” Heads shook all around.

“I don’t even know what day it is when we are up here.” Hamme shook her head again. “I like that.”

“Well, this Sunday we are going to have a church service of our own, and we will start shearing on Monday.”

“Maybe Sunday some of us could go for a hike, maybe up to the lake to see if the trout are biting yet?” Hjelmer suggested, leaning forward hopefully.

“I hope so. And this afternoon I need two or three volunteers to go over the pasture and pick dandelion leaves for supper. There are lots down by the thicket.”

Most hands went up.

“How about Jon, Hamme, and—”

“Me. I want to be out in the sunshine for a change.” Mari gave Ingeborg a pleading smile.

“Of course. So everyone knows what they are doing today?”

“Gunlaug is starting me on the loom.” Kari smiled at Gunlaug.

“Ja. And, Hamme, if you want to help, you can.”

“I have to card wool.” Jon did not look pleased.

“Quit complaining. I am too.” Mari joined in. “After we get back from picking dandelions I will card with you.” Mari made them all laugh at her dramatic flair.

Ingeborg pushed back her chair. How nice it would be
to sit carding out in the sunshine. She glanced over at their patient, who was listening and watching. It was a shame they couldn’t move him outside yet. “We need some kind of crutch for Nils pretty soon or at least a cane.” He was staying awake ever longer between naps and had fed himself last night and that morning.

Still chuckling, she took a cup of coffee to Nils in the other room and held it out. “You sure look a lot better.”

“I feel a lot better. In fact, if you would please hand me my pack, I think I can study for a while.”

“No headache?”

“Not right now.”

“Reading might bring it back.”

“Probably. I’ll try for a while and see. I have an exam coming up in the fall that I need to prepare for, and I am not used to doing nothing.” He smiled at her over the rim of his coffee cup. “Do you have time to visit, perhaps?”

“Later. I’d take time, but right now I need to—”

“Ingeborg!” Came from outside.

She left in a swirl of skirts. Now what?

“Look!” Mari pointed across the meadow to where three deer were grazing, a doe and two fawns.

“Oooh.” Her sigh was drawn out. “They are beautiful. And so young.”

“She knows we’re watching her.” Mari had lowered her voice.

“Why?”

“She raises her head and looks our way. Watch. I wish we could see them better. I almost didn’t see the fawns.” Mari’s smile grew wider.

Ingeborg put her arm around her sister’s shoulder and
squeezed. When Mari’s arm slipped around her waist, she squeezed again. The two and the others stood watching until the doe ambled away with her fawns.

“And you want to shoot a deer?” Hamme shook her head at Hjelmer.

“Only one with horns. You don’t shoot the does, or there soon won’t be any deer.” Hjelmer was standing close on Ingeborg’s other side.

She wasn’t sure when he had moved there, but she wished she dared put her arm around him too, so she patted his shoulder instead. “Thanks for calling me. What a treat. Now that the wild animals are getting used to our intrusion, perhaps we will see more.” She looked up and shaded her eyes with a hand. Sure enough, the eagle they had seen other years was back too. His cry sang wild and free. Why did she feel as though they had just been welcomed home?

“Come look at the sow, Ingeborg.” Hjelmer motioned toward the barn. Ingeborg nodded, glancing up again to see if she could find the eagle against the bright sun.

Once in the barn, she waited for her eyes to adjust after being in the bright sun, then joined Hjelmer at the wooden pen. “That sow looks like she’s about to pop too.” Ingeborg leaned on the hogpen to watch the two sows make pigs of themselves in their trough. Hjelmer, who’d carted the full can of buttermilk from the churning to the barn, leaned beside her, his chin on his hands on the pen wall.

“I know. I was going to tell you. Perhaps we’d better move her over to the other box stall.”

“Get the boys and we’ll close the barn door so she can’t get out. She’ll follow you and a bucket of buttermilk anywhere, though.”

The boys lined up to create a pathway to the open stall, and with Hjelmer and the bucket, she nearly raced him to the new trough and, putting both front feet in, started slurping.

“I do not think she even looked at us.” Jon shook his head, smiling up at Ingeborg. “I tried to catch a little pig once and fell right in the mud.” He clamped two fingers over his nose. “Pee-ew. Mor made me wash outside. Clothes too.”

“Even so, he stunk for a week.” Anders roughed his brother’s hair. “Pee-ew was right. He should have slept in the barn too.”

Ingeborg made her way back to the house. Nils was sound asleep, his book in his lap.
Sorry, but we’ve had a busy morning
, she thought as she went back outside to skim the cream from the milk from the days before.

“What are we having for dinner?” she asked Mari when she returned.

“Corn cakes. The beans with those hocks we brought up should be done in an hour or so.” Mari pointed toward the table and a covered platter. “The corn cakes are already fried.”

“Oh.” Ingeborg grinned at her baby sister. “You are doing a great job, Cook Mari.” How blessed she felt to know she had people around her who knew what they needed to do and went ahead and did it. And other than herself and Gunlaug, they were all children.

When she passed by the pallet, Nils opened his eyes. “I guess I fell asleep.”

“Guess you needed it.” She nodded to the book. “What are you studying?”

“Medieval European history. I took a class in it last semester and found it fascinating. Did you know that the Chinese were way ahead of the Europeans in language, writing, math—all kinds of things?”

“No, really?”

He held up the book, one finger between the pages to mark his spot. “It just mentions that here. You’d think they would include more if it was that important.”

Ingeborg shrugged. “You would think so. Did reading give you a headache?”

“I think I fell asleep before that could happen.” He gazed toward the window. “I would so like to be outside. I came to the mountains so I would not have to spend the summer days in my father’s offices.” He gestured to his leg, shaking his head. “And here I am. Ironic, is it not?”

“Can I get you something? Willow-bark tea for pain?”

He made a face. “That tea could use some sugar.”

“Sorry. I’m so used to it I forgot to put sugar in yours. I will next time.”

“Is there anything about animals and farming and all this that you do not know?”

“I have been coming up here for nine years. You learn a lot doing this. Besides, it all fascinates me. Anything having to do with growing things and animals and the mountains.”
And being a midwife
. But she kept that to herself. She’d already talked too much.

“What do you want to do? Teach?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Nei. What gave you that idea?”

She smiled. “You are still in school. Not many boys from our area go to college, you know.”

“Where do you live?”

“On a farm outside of Valdres. This is our family’s seter, Strandseter.”

“You love it here.” He did not ask a question.

“How do you know that?”

“Your face lights up when you talk about the things around you.”

She could feel a heat rising up her neck. “I doubt it.” He saw too much, even from his sickbed. Raised voices took her to the window.

Outside, Tor and Anders were squared off, fisted and shouting.

“Oh, now what?” Hands planted on her hips, she shook her head.

“You deliberately pushed him!” Anders’s teeth clenched.

“It was an accident!”

“Anders, I am not hurt!” Jon yelled at his brother.

“How can you have so many
accidents
? No one else does.”

“Why do you always think I did everything that goes wrong? Just because I don’t know as much as you . . . you . . . !”

Anders drew back one arm, heaved a sigh, and took a deep breath. “It better not happen again. You will be sorry if it does.”

Ingeborg drew in a breath along with Anders. “Thank you, Lord.”

At that point Tor made a big mistake. “Who is going to make me sorry? You?” When he turned his head slightly, he made a worse mistake. He did not see the punch coming. A solid thud to the jaw and a follow-up one to the diaphragm. He doubled over, gasping for air. When Anders started to step forward, a “No!” rang out.

Ingeborg knew Hjelmer’s voice. She almost called the same but watched as Anders dropped his hands, still keeping a wary eye on Tor.

“Did they settle it?” came from behind her.

“I think so.”

“Good for them.”

Ingeborg had a feeling this wasn’t the last they’d heard of this but wisely kept from going out there. And to think just a few minutes ago she was thinking Tor was changing. Shame. A hand on her shoulder made her turn. Mari stood behind her, nodding.

“Tor needed that.”

“I know. He is a bit of a bully.”

“Only a bit? Ingeborg, you always think the best of everybody, and they let you down.”

“Better that than the worst and live angry all the time.” She glanced over to see Nils reading his book, a wrinkle in his forehead. If they turned his pallet, he would get more light from the window on the page. At the window she called Tor, Anders, and Hjelmer to help her.

“What?” Nils asked as she nudged his pallet.

“We’re going to turn you so you can read more easily.” She gave the instructions, and they each grabbed a corner of the pallet and turned it so the back of his head was toward the window.

“That was much easier than trying to turn you.”

“Tusen takk,” he said to everyone. “Is she always this careful with her patients?”

“Unless they bite her.”

“Or kick her.” The boys left, laughing, and Mari headed for the kitchen.

Hjelmer paused at the door and said over his shoulder, “But that’s usually the four-footed kind.”

Heat coming up her neck and blossoming in her face made Ingeborg want to follow the boys. Explain them? Explain
herself? If Nils thought she had a lot of people patients, she didn’t want him to think differently. Dreams of his far screaming at her for not taking his son to a doctor had haunted her one night. “I’ve helped lots of injured animals.”

“I have been thinking about getting into a chair. I could rest my leg on another. Those two strong boys could help me, I’m sure.”

“Just please do not go trying to move on your own, and something else to keep in mind—”

“I know. The ribs.” He patted his strapped-together chest. “When you can remove this . . . this rather interesting garment I am tied into, perhaps they can help me wash too.”

“I am sure they can. And that interesting garment is a corset. We laced you pretty loosely, you know.”

“And women wear these torture bands all the time?” He shook his head. “It makes no sense to me, but my sisters do the same.”

Quick to change the subject, Ingeborg asked him to tell her about his family. “I’ll get you some water first . . .” She paused and rolled her lips together. With eyebrows raised she added, “Or would you rather have willow-bark tea?” Laughing inside, she fetched two cups of water from the drinking bucket that always had a dish towel covering it to keep the water clean. His laugh behind her set him to coughing.

“I am sorry.” She hurried back.

He raised a hand and coughed again, then reached for the water before he could talk. “Do not be sorry. Laughing to make me cough was probably a good thing, or so a certain person would tell me.”

“Well, if you tell about your family, perhaps that certain person will not force willow-bark tea down your throat.”