A Song of Joy by Lauraine Snelling

Author:Lauraine Snelling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction;FIC042030;FIC014000
ISBN: 9781493418701
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2019-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter

16

Gunlaug sure felt welcome. She was greeted as warmly as if she’d just arrived from Norway.

“I’m so glad to have you back home.” Signe released the hug that had wrapped around her mother-in-law.

Gunlaug nodded. “While we had a wonderful time there, I too am glad to be home.” She shook her head. “They wouldn’t let me do anything there. I couldn’t help in the kitchen or out in the garden, and I didn’t learn about the sewing room until just before we left for the train station.” She looked down at the tugging on her apron. “You missed me too, didn’t you, little one?”

Kirstin answered her, but the only clear word was a new one: g’ma.

“Is she saying what I think she is saying?” Gunlaug asked.

Signe smiled. “She calls Gerd that too. G’ma Gerd is out in the garden.”

Kirstin ran to the door. “Go.” She banged on the screen. “Ef, Ef, Ef.”

“He’s down at the barn already, checking on his animals.” Gunlaug glanced out the kitchen window. “Ah. Here he comes.”

As soon as Kirstin saw Leif, she shrieked and, rattling the whole door, yelled his name at the top of her lungs. Leif pushed in through the screen door. His face said that all his animals were happy.

Signe asked, “Can you take Kirstin with you, Leif? As you can see, she missed you.”

“Sure.” Grinning, Leif scooped up his little sister and trotted her to the sink, where he pumped a glass of water and downed it, which wasn’t easy with Kirstin slapping on his chest and at the glass and doing a fine imitation of a wiggly worm. “You want to go to the barn?” he asked her.

“Go, go, Ef.” She turned and, looking at her mother, waved good-bye.

Signe shook her head. “Thank you.”

Leif asked, “You need anything from the well house?”

“Please bring up the churn and, if you would, empty the milk cans so we can skim the pans, please.” The excess milk went to feed the pigs and chickens, along with the whey from churning butter. Now that the calves were off milk, the other animals got more.

“I’ll set more cheese too.” Gunlaug walked out the door with Leif and his babbling little sister.

When he set the toddler in the wagon, she banged on the slatted sides and told him something.

“Not now, we have to haul milk,” he replied.

“What did she say?”

“She wants to go to the barn and see the pigs.”

They had all learned that Leif could understand more of what Kirstin wanted than anyone else could.

“From what your mor told me, Kirstin will be so much happier now that you are home.”

Leif frowned. “It wasn’t like I was gone a long time.”

“No, but when you’re that small, it probably seems like forever.”

“I still can’t believe Mrs. Schoenleber sent a box of books home with me. She wants me to give the ones I’ve read to Mr. Larsson. So many books, all in one room in one house. I liked just reading all the titles. She said there are libraries with room after room of shelves of books.

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