An Untamed Heart (18 page)

“Well, all that is not going to happen, other than getting him on his feet so he can leave and go back to a life I cannot even imagine.” Ingeborg stood. “Let’s start setting out the food. This area is flat. We can spread the picnic cloth here.”

“Or by the fire. I wonder what happened to the dry bushes we had by the fire ring last year.”

“Someone probably burned them. Shepherds. Hunters. We aren’t the only people who come here.”

“Can we go ahead and eat without the two fishermen?” Kari asked when they returned, panting.

“We’ll holler, and if they show up, good. If not, too bad.” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Dinner is ready!”

“Coming.” Hamme answered from wherever she and Jon were playing. A halloo came from around the lake.

“They all heard.”

Jon and Hamme ran in, panting when they stopped. They were about to say grace when Anders called that they were coming.

“No fish?” Ingeborg asked when she saw them.

“No, just swimming around the lake, not biting on anything.” They set down their fishing gear. “I kept Tor from jumping in to snag one. He didn’t realize the water was probably twenty feet deep—and ice cold.”

Tor complained, “You could see them clear as your face. Huge trout just swimming around. It’s not fair.”

“No flies or other bugs yet either. Do you think they know the difference?”

Ingeborg shrugged. “It’s a good thing we brought food, eh? Let’s say grace.” She started and they all joined in.

“Help yourself.” Mari pointed to the laden picnic cloth. “There should be plenty.”

There wasn’t any left when they finished. Mari poured another round of coffee and set the pot away from the fire.

Ingeborg looked about. “Shall we sit around here for worship?”

When they were all seated, Gunlaug started one of the hymns that everyone knew. Ingeborg marveled again at how
lovely their voices blended. They sang for a while, then Ingeborg read from her Bible pages.

Gunlaug announced that it was Bible verse time and began with her own. “Psalm forty-six, verses one through three. ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.’”

The others recited the verse with her, some of them stumbling more than once.

Anders wagged his head. “Imagine these huge mountains shaking and getting tossed into the sea!”

Kari reminded him, “God can do it. He can do anything.”

“I wonder how many mountain references there are in the Bible.” Kari leaned forward to pick up a little rock to throw in the water. They all watched the circles widen and spread.

“There must be hundreds, especially if you include hills.” Gunlaug recited, “Psalm one-twenty-one, verses one and two. ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.’”

They recited the verse until everyone had it. They now had two memorized for the day.

Ingeborg clapped her hands. “We all need applause. Well done.”

Mari giggled. “I knew that one already.”

“Then we should find you a new one.”

“Not fair.”

Ingeborg laughed and started another hymn. When the music trailed off, she bowed her head. “God in heaven, you
who made these mountains and all the beauty that is here, we thank you for sharing it with us. Thank you for this most perfect day. Healthy baby pigs in the morning, climbing the trails, making Nils well again when he so easily could have died, providing all that we need and then some. Thank you for being right here with us, for you said that where two or three are gathered in your name, you would be there. Help us get done all the work still ahead. Protect both us and the sheep as we start shearing. Remind us to always be thankful and live our lives to make you happy. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.”

Ingeborg raised her head and inhaled a deep breath of mountain air, including the peace she could feel seeping through her.

“Let us close with our Lord’s Prayer, saying it all together, Fader vår, du som er i himmelen . . .”

Silence blessed them all. She blew out a breath.

“I like our kind of church best,” Hamme whispered.

Ingeborg didn’t say a thing. She did too. Such freedom they had up here. Going back down into the valley was not something she ever looked forward to. “All right. Let’s pack up. I see you found a few more sticks, Anders.”

“I hope one of them can fit. If I were Nils, I’d be so grumpy by now that no one would want me around.”

Tor reached for a couple of the sticks and the basket, earning him a surprised look but a thank-you from Ingeborg and Mari. By the time they arrived back at the seter, the cows were lined up for milking, and a couple of them complained at the wait.

“No fish?” was the first thing Hjelmer asked. When they all shook their heads, he shrugged. “Maybe next week. I sure am ready for fresh fish.”

They gathered their buckets and headed for the barn.

Ingeborg saw that Nils was asleep so she meandered out to her bench where, as always, the mountains beckoned her, even more so now that she’d had a taste of the serenity she so desired. She felt it settle back inside her.

“Who won?” she asked back inside when Nils woke up, nodding toward the checkerboard.

“Tie. He is a good player.”

“I know. Hjelmer does not like to lose.”

“I don’t think anyone in your family likes to lose.”

“Does anyone at all?”

“Some take it more gracefully than others.” He stretched his arms and flinched when it pulled too much on his ribs. “Tomorrow I have to get up.”

“We’ll help you. Anders will be measuring you for a crutch. He hopes one of the sticks he brought back will be a good fit, or maybe we can cut one of the staves down.”

“That Anders—he is a good boy. He and Hjelmer more than make up for Tor. But I think by the end of the summer you will have been able to work some changes in him.”

“I hope so.”
Lord, please let that be so
. “Is that thunder?” Sure enough, dark clouds were gathering in the west. Could they shear under the sheep fold if it was raining in the morning? They had to start the shearing.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd.

We are the sheep of His pasture.

Why, oh why, could Jesus not have been the Good Cattle Herder? Cows were smart. Cows could handle emergencies, generally. Sheep had no idea how to escape danger. Cows could find good forage. Sheep simply stood there and ate whatever was there, even if the plants were poisonous. Cows were fun to care for. Sheep? Nei. As Far had often reminded her, this was her opinion and not everyone else’s.

On the other hand, Ingeborg could pretty much tell what a sheep was going to do before it knew itself. Sheep were highly predictable. To an extent, so were people.

She watched in dismay Monday morning as Tor made another attempt in vain to grab a sheep. He managed to snatch a fistful of wool from the ewe’s rump, but she twisted away, pulling his glove off. Furious, he threw his other glove to the ground. “I hate sheep!”

Ingeborg stepped into the stone-walled fold while all her cousins looked on. “You must learn to pay attention to a sheep
and predict what she will do. Watch.” She walked toward the ewe Tor had been trying to catch. “She is confused. See how she moves, keeping an eye on both of us? Now she will move off to my right because that’s where she’s looking most often. And I will not chase her. I’ll move to the right also, try to get there ahead of her.”

The sheep bolted right; Ingeborg darted to intercept her. The ewe ducked away too late. Ingeborg grabbed two fistfuls, one on each side, and tipped the ewe up and back. The sheep landed on her tail, all four legs sticking straight out, and the chase was over.

“You see, Tor, once the sheep is sitting on its rear end like this, it will not fight me anymore. It paralyzes her in a way. Now she can be shorn; she’ll not resist.” Ingeborg clamped the ewe between her knees. The poor sheep let its legs droop and stared blankly at nothing.

Kari handed her the shears, and she made the first pass. “You start here. Keep your shears filled. By that I mean to make sure you cut a large glob of wool with each snip. Trim off the chest and belly like this; this fine wool is especially valuable.” She continued on with her narrative as she finished shearing the ewe. Tor did not seem to be paying close attention, but Anders certainly was. But then, he had helped with shearing in the past, and this year he had grown enough to shear sheep on his own.

She released the ewe and tipped it forward toward its legs. It fell on its side, squirmed, gained its feet, and ran off. “This was not the best shearing. You can see a couple places on the ewe where I nicked her skin, a little blood here and there. A fine shearing job does not nick the skin.” She carried her fleece over to the big table by the wall.

Gunlaug pointed with her big pair of scissors. “I’ll cut off the scraggly bits like these here and here. Then I will smooth it out and check for burrs and weeds. This fine wool I will cut off and put aside. The coarser wool from the back and sides will go on this pile.” She trimmed the fleece and draped the main piece over the stone wall of the fold.

Ingeborg smiled at Anders. “Why don’t you try next.”

Anders picked a ewe from the flock. “I learned this part good last year. I don’t chase it; I try to be where it’s going to be.”

“That’s right! See how she’s watching you? She knows you have her singled out.”

“How do I get her to move?”

“Take a step toward her.”

Anders did so. The ewe stood there. Impatiently, Anders ordered, “Come on, sheep. Move!” He took another step. She lunged forward and galloped right past him before he had a chance to reach for her.

“Take note of where she’s looking. She’ll hesitate and then bolt. Watch what she’s telling you with her eyes and ears.”

Anders missed her on his second attempt. “Stupid sheep!”

Ingeborg agreed, but she didn’t say so out loud. Another reason she much preferred cows.

Anders accidentally chased her into the midst of the flock. “Now I don’t know which one!”

“She’ll tell you. Move in closer.”

Anders took two steps toward the group of sheep, and his ewe ran out the back and around the rock wall. She raced past Gunlaug, who made no move to catch her.

Anders huffed, “Why didn’t you grab her?”

“It’s your sheep. I just sort the fleeces.”

It took him several minutes more to catch her as she feinted and he feinted, she bolted and he snatched. Finally he grabbed her on the fly, dragged her to a walk, and heaved mightily. He almost lost her, but he managed to get her up on her tail. “She quit struggling!” he cried triumphantly. “I did it!”

“Huzzah for Anders!” Kari cried.

Ingeborg handed him her shears. He was doing quite well for a first time, but then he lost his grip. The ewe fell to its side, gained its feet, and ran off, a great glob of loose fleece hanging from her belly.

Ingeborg caught the sheep, set it on end, and clamped it between her knees. “I’ll hold it. You shear it.”

With all the cautious and patient care one would use diapering a baby, he snipped away at the fleece as Ingeborg kept urging him, “Fill your shears. It will go faster.”

Fifteen minutes later, he stepped back, triumphant. Not once had he nicked the ewe’s skin. True, his work was rather uneven, and he left inch-long sections of unshorn wool here and there on her, but for a first attempt, the job was not too bad. Should Ingeborg criticize or not? She decided not. Let him have his moment of victory.

He carried the fleece over to Gunlaug, and she threw it out open across the table. “Where do I cut away?” she asked him.

Anders pointed. “Here and here—the fine wool. Right?”

“Right. There.” She laid the snips aside. “Now what?”

“Make sure there’s no weeds in it,” Anders said. “Look, there’s a burr right there.”

Gunlaug cupped her fingertips around it and pulled it out, then turned the fleece over. “Is it good?”

He peered at it. “It’s good.” He stood erect, grinning broadly. “That is my first fleece all by myself.”

“But certainly not the last.” She flopped it over the stone wall on top of the other one. “Now it’s my turn.” Gunlaug tucked Anders’s shears into her apron pocket and strode out into the fold. She was showing off, Ingeborg knew, and it was delightful to see. Their fledgling shearers should see how it was really done.

Gunlaug, as well as Ingeborg, knew which ewes were the most wily and resistant. She caught up one of them so that the apprentices would not have to deal with it, flipped it and sheared it, all in less than three minutes.

Ingeborg applauded appreciatively. “There is more than one pair of shears, you know, and they’re freshly sharpened. Now let’s all get to work here.” Ingeborg stepped back to let the others take over, but she quickly realized that the small ones were never going to hold a sheep that weighed as much as or more than they.

“Mari, you and Kari work together—one hold the sheep while the other shears. Hamme and Anders, can you two work together?” Then deliberately she pointed to Tor and Hjelmer. “And you two.”

Tor was obviously going to object; scowling, he opened his mouth. And closed it again. With a deft hand, Hjelmer seized a sheep and turned it on end. He stood watching Tor, a smug expression on his face, poorly concealed. Tor snatched up a pair of shears and started hacking. Several times he drew blood. Each time, Hjelmer warned, “Be careful!”

What should she do? Ingeborg felt torn. Keep the two feuders together and hope they’d learn to tolerate each other? Put them on separate sides of those mountains behind them?

As if reading her mind, Gunlaug stepped in beside her and
murmured, “Maybe Tor would like mucking out the stalls better than shearing.”

“Good idea.” Ingeborg raised her voice. “Tor, come with me, please. Anders, finish Tor’s shearing job there.”

She walked off toward the barn. Morosely, Tor followed, carefully studying the dirt ahead of him.

Ingeborg wheeled suddenly. “What is the matter? Why are you angry?”

He gave a huge shrug and stared at the ground. She waited. And waited. And waited.

He suddenly blurted, “I’m just angry. That’s all. You let the little kids do all kinds of stuff, the boys and the girls both. I’m bigger. I can do it better. You should be asking me to do it.”

“When we were getting Mr. Aarvidson out of the ravine, I asked you to do something only you could do, and you did it splendidly. You were strong enough to take all the weight on the rope, and when it was all right to let go, you did so and came down to help me without being asked. It was a perfect job. When I need your strength, I don’t hesitate to ask. But the smaller children have to learn how to do all these things too. They won’t learn if they can’t do things.”

He muttered something and started to move away.

“Tor!”

He stopped.

“Bullying and teasing the smaller boys, and that includes Hjelmer, only shows how childish you are. You will not do it anymore. Do you understand?”

He muttered something.

“Clean out the stalls, please. We have another cow due to calve soon, and we’ll need a clean box stall for her.”

“But I’m supposed to be helping with the shearing!”

“I distinctly heard you say you hate sheep. You needn’t work with them if you dislike them so.”

“I like them better than cleaning out stalls.”

“There is plenty of shearing yet to be done. You won’t lose out. And we need the stall.” She paused. “I care about you, Tor. I don’t want you to be angry.” She returned to the fold.

Anders was stalking a ewe. She bolted; he grabbed her and hauled her to sitting.

Kari clapped enthusiastically. “You’re getting better at it, Anders!”

Clearly pleased, Hamme set to work with her shears.

Ingeborg was watching children do adult work, and it delighted her. These children would do a perfect job next year.

A few minutes later, with her ewe punctured only a few times, Hamme dragged the fleece up to her shoulder and carried it to the stone wall. Grinning, Gunlaug spread it out.

“Here and here—the fine wool.” Hamme pointed as Gunlaug snipped. “This is fun!” Her grin dimmed the sun.

“You did a good job too,” Gunlaug told her. “When the underside of the fleece is flat and even like that, it’s easier to card and spin.”

Ingeborg called, “Mari, let’s you and I go make supper.”

Mari pouted. ”Do I have to? This is much more fun.”

Ingeborg was going to say, “Yes, you have to,” but she stopped herself. Work that is fun goes far more quickly. So often, work that has to be done is not fun. Mari would get enough no-fun work in her life. Let her enjoy this. Besides, Mari was learning a valuable skill. The girl was not real good at shearing yet and needed practice. But for sure she already knew how to make supper. “All right. You convinced me. You help with the shearing, and I will go make supper.”

Mari squealed, “Takk!” and turned her attention to the unshorn ewe between Kari’s knees.

Ingeborg gathered half a dozen eggs in the hen coop and continued up to the house. She walked in the door, stopped, and gasped.

Her patient was sitting in the chair beside the fireplace!

“Nils Aarvidson, what do you think you’re doing?”

He gave her an impish little smile. “Well, I think I am sitting in a chair. When I awoke from my nap, I had to, uh, do something that a proper young man would never ever mention to a proper young woman, so I shall never mention it. But there was no one around to help me. I am quite proud that I managed on my own.”

She should have left one of the boys there! Too late now. “Well, uh, you have earned the right to be proud, for sure. Do you want to remain there awhile?”

“I do.”

“Very well, then.” She took the eggs out of her apron and put them in a bowl on the table. She ladled water into the big iron pot, hung it on the fireplace hook, and swung it in over the fire. The fire was down to weak embers among a few charred sticks. She stuffed another three thick sticks of stove wood into the dying coals, for they were too low to boil water in a decent time.

She gathered up a big bowl of potatoes and brought them to the fireplace. Nils was sitting in the chair she usually used, so she brought one over from the corner, settled into it, and began peeling potatoes.

Nils watched her for a few minutes. “Is there nothing you don’t know how to do well?”

She glanced at him. “I’m a farmer’s daughter, and I have
been coming up here to the Strandseter for years. If I were to make a guess, I would say that the only reason you are impressed with my skills, shall we say, is because you are not a farmer’s child, and they seem unusual to you. Believe me, they are very ordinary to me. All of us are good at what we do, even the smaller children.”

“Nei.” He studied her a moment. “Nei, it is more than that. Much, much more than that. You make cheese and show the youngsters how. Weave and—”

“Gunlaug does most of the weaving. I spin the wool.” She stopped. She had interrupted him. How rude.

Nils continued. “You husband the cows and sheep. Farm tasks. But . . .” He pursed his lips in thought. “I was a very, very foolish man who did foolish things. I would have died from my foolishness—indeed I was very close to death—but you saved me. I am getting well because of your wits and good nursing. That is not ordinary. That is most extraordinary. You are a most extraordinary woman, Ingeborg Strand. And I salute you.”