Blessing in Disguise Read Online Free PDF Page A

vile brown stuff.
    Bridget closed her eyes and did as he told her, leaning back in her rocker and trying to ignore the fire ignited in her mouth.
    “Ready?”
    She nodded and opened her mouth wide.
    Olaf applied the pliers with a twist of the wrist and a steady pull. The sound of the tooth cracking made him flinch. “Sorry about that.” One by one he picked the pieces out and dropped them into the empty cup. “Now rinse your mouth out with this.” He handed her a cup of cold water. “And bite down on this. It will help stop the bleeding.”
    Bridget did as he told her. “Mange takk.” She spoke without moving her jaw.
    “Maybe I should give up furniture making and the sack house and become a dentist.”
    Bridget shuddered and shook her head. The world tipped and took her stomach with it. Before she could protest, between Olaf and Goodie, they half carried her into her bedroom off the kitchen and tucked her up in bed with a bit of ice in a wet cloth pressed against her face.
    She didn’t argue.

    “Those clouds look like they might do more than just pass overhead.” Reverend John Solberg took off his hat and wiped his beaded forehead with the handkerchief he’d pulled from his back pocket. He swiped the thinning sandy hair back and resettled his fedora. Today he looked more like a farmer than a pastor, wearing overalls like his neighbors and a sweat-darkened long-sleeved shirt with the arms rolled up. His forehead now had the demarcation line of one who spent hours in the sun, hat securely in place.
    “How do they look different than the ones we’ve had almost every day?” His wife, Mary Martha, tipped her sunbonnet-shaded face up to catch the breeze. Together they watched as their niece, Manda MacCallister, worked with one of the young horses she was breaking in the corral.
    “Maybe just wishful thinking. We need rain so badly, and yet right now would be a terrible time for a thunderstorm, what with the wheat about ready to cut.” He leaned his arms on the top rail of the corral and set one foot on the bottom rail. While he didn’t have any wheat planted and his acres of oats weren’t ready to harvest, his parishioners all depended on the wheat harvest for most of their income. With the drought, the wheat looked to be stunted already. Beaten to the ground, it would be hard to cut.
    Manda snubbed the horse to the solid post in the center of the corral, and after stroking the animal’s shoulder and rubbing its ears, she strode over to the fence, where she had a saddle ready.
    “I brought some lemonade.” Mary Martha picked up the jug at her feet. “Surely you can take a break now.”
    Manda nodded and set the saddle back on the rail. “Where’s Deborah? She was here a minute ago.”
    “Gone to pick the eggs. She’ll be right back.” Mary Martha poured the liquid in the four cups she’d brought along and handed them out. “Let’s sit in the barn shade. Got to be cooler there.”
    Solberg fetched a stool from the barn. “Here, sit on this. It will make getting up easier.”
    “I’m not an invalid, you know.” Mary Martha shook her head, her laugh infectious. “Just because we’re having a baby.”
    Manda sank down against the wall. “Don’t hurt to be careful.” She took off her well-ventilated fedora. While they’d given her a widebrimmed straw hat for her birthday, she insisted on the ancient felt, more faded than true brown. It was the last thing she owned of her father’s.
    “Ma.” Seven-year-old Deborah came around the corner of the barn holding the back of her hand to her mouth. “That durn ol’ hen pecked me again.”
    “Don’t talk like that!” Manda snapped her order before Mary Martha could open her mouth.
    “You said ‘that durn horse.’ If you can, why can’t I?”
    Manda picked at a blade of dried grass. “Just ’cause.”
    Mary Martha exchanged a look with her husband. They both knew it was the “ma” not the “durn” that irritated Manda. She’d just