Read Online A Touch of Grace by Lauraine Snelling - Free Book Online Page B

turned the fish in the pan and went back to dusting more.
    “Here’s the last of them,” Thorliff said as he set another half-full bucket on the table. “Do we have enough?” He scratched at a mosquito bite on the back of his neck. “Pesky things near to ate me alive.”
    “How’s the ice cream doing?”
    “You’ll have to ask Pa. I was in charge of fish. But they have three cranks going. The cranking contest is between Trygve and Jonathan.” He looked around. “Where’s Elizabeth?”
    “Lying down with Carl. Inga is out with the big girls, so she’s happy as a little pig in the mud.”
    “You want me to start taking things out?”
    “Please.” Ingeborg watched him pick up the tray laden with glasses and utensils and leave by the back door, whistling as he went. Was it wrong to be so proud of her elder son she was sure her apron strings would pop? Often she wondered if Roald was watching down from heaven and rejoicing in this son. Thorliff and Andrew were so different but both such fine young men.
    Haakan came in a bit later, announcing, “Ice cream is all packed in ice. When do we eat?”
    “Any time. These are the last pans of fish. Are Penny and Hjelmer here yet?”
    “Nope.” He snatched a fish off the top of the stack, dodged his wife’s playful attack with the pancake turner, and grabbed the handles of the two biggest baskets of food waiting on the table. “Anything in the well house?”
    “Potato salad and rice salad. And please bring in a jug of milk too.”
    As he went out, Astrid came in. “Need anything else done?”
    “The pan of rolls in the oven is done. Butter the tops and turn them out. That basket is for the rolls.” Ingeborg motioned to a clothlined basket on the counter. “Where’s Grace?”
    “Swinging with Inga. Good thing Pa put the swing back up. Inga loves it.” Astrid set the oven-sized pan on the table and, dipping her fingers in the butter, spread the golden butter over the hot rolls and then flipped the pan over onto the waiting dish towel, sticking one finger into her mouth.
    “That’s why we have pot holders.”
    “I know.”
    “Please make sure the tables are set right. And ring the triangle. We’re ready to serve.”
    “You will miss Astrid come fall,” Kaaren said as they took care of the last tasks. “And I know this will be hard on Grace again too. If not for Astrid, Grace would not have managed Sophie’s elopement.”
    “They are good for each other. But Grace knows Astrid will return, and now Sophie is here.”
    “But she’s retreating again even with them both here, and that’s not like her.”
    Hearing footsteps, Ingeborg switched to signing. “Give her time. She has great depth to her. She just needs space to make this adjustment to being grown.”
    Barney’s barking told them the other Bjorklunds had arrived. Ingeborg glanced at Kaaren. “Perfect timing.”
    “Should I wake Elizabeth?”
    “No. Let her sleep. She’s looking mighty peaked. Between her and Thorliff they do enough work for three people.”
    “Look who’s talking.”
    “I’ve been slowing down some. What about you?”
    Kaaren half shrugged. “That’s what we have children for, to help pick up the slack when we get older.” Using two pot holders, she lifted one of the pans of fish and headed for the door. “Let’s eat before this gets cold.”
    After the pause for grace, everyone served themselves at the food table and found a place to sit, the young people using the stairs to the front porch and the railing too while the folks took the chairs at the other tables.
    Ingeborg made sure everyone was taken care of before she filled her own plate and took the chair between Haakan and Penny. “My, that breeze feels good.”
    “Keeps the mosquitoes away too.” Haakan sighed on his first bite of fish. “I don’t know why we don’t have fried fish more often.”
    “There’s no one with the time to go fishing since you put Samuel in charge of feeding all the young