RR05 - Tender Mercies Read Online Free PDF

that jaw.” Bridget scooped up the two-and-a-half-year-old in her arms and kissed her rosy cheek. “Astrid can help Bestemor bake cookies.”
    “Cookies?” She clapped her pudgy hands to her grandmother’s cheeks, then looked over her shoulder at Andrew. “Andew no cookies.” The tip of her straight little nose rose in the air just a mite. Astrid knew how to act like a queen bee when she wanted to.
    “You be good now. We don’t want any bad reports.” Bridget smiled at Andrew, who looked at her as if she’d grown two new sets of ears.
    “I am always good.”
    Bridget and Astrid headed for the well house, giggles floating over their shoulders.
    “Mor?”
    “What?”
    “I am good all the time, ain’t I?” He looked up at her with eyes of Bjorklund blue, slightly darkened with the seriousness of his question.
    Ingeborg whisked away the dish towel she had tied around his neck and kissed his cheek. “Most of the time, and I know you will do all you are asked at school.”
    “Mor. Hurry him up.” Nearly twelve years old, Thorliff carried in an armload of wood and dumped it in the woodbox by the cast-iron cookstove. “We’re going to be late, and we can’t be late on the first day of school.” The horrified look on his face made his mother smile. He brushed the bark and chips off his arms and the front of his sweater, one that Bridget had just finished knitting for him the night before.
    “No, you won’t. Lars is taking you. He has to go to town anyway.”
    “Good.” He studied his brother. “You got your slate?”
    Andrew nodded.
    “Your lunch pail?”
    Another nod.
    “A handkerchief?” At the third nod, Thorliff pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, studying his younger brother.
    Andrew sat like a small creature in the grass when the shadow of a hawk flies overhead. At Thorliff ’s nod, the little boy let out a long held breath. He’d passed inspection. He leaped off the stool and ran around the table once, then again, singing out happily, “School today. School today.”
    Thorliff and Ingeborg exchanged looks of both pride and laughter. Andrew had always been the one to make the two who had a tendency to seriousness smile and laugh.
    I’m going to miss him . Ingeborg hid the thought carefully from her sensitive older son. Thank God for Astrid. But she will soon be on the way too and then what? Why, oh why, don’t you trust me with another baby, Lord? Have I been so evil in your sight? Do you not believe me when I plead for another child? What can I do to change your mind?
    All the while she kept a smile on her face and forced the clouds away from her eyes. Knowing in her head that God knew of His plans for her and convincing her heart were two different things.
    The jingle of horse harnesses and a sharp bark from Thorliff ’s dog, Paws, announced the arrival of the wagon.
    Andrew headed for the door, skidded to a stop on the braided oval rug, and spun around. He grabbed his lunch pail and slate off the table and headed back outside.
    “Andrew.”
    Another screeching halt. This time he ran back to his mother, gave her a peck on the cheek, suffered through a hug, and danced out to the wagon.
    Thorliff, who had grown so over the summer that the two of them stood nearly eye to eye, looked to his mother and shook his head. “Andrew, he gets kinda excited.” With that he took his own things, tipped his head for a quick kiss on the cheek and a pat on the shoulder, and joined Andrew in the wagon box behind their uncle Lars. Hamre, their twelve-year-old distant cousin who had come from Norway the year before with Bridget, sat on the seat beside the driver. The family resemblance was so strong that a stranger would have thought the three were brothers. While he nodded at their greeting, he, as usual, said nothing.
    Bridget and Astrid came out of the springhouse to wave them off, and Ingeborg did the same from the top of the steps. A running figure caught the wagon before they passed the barns.