The Reaper's Song by Lauraine Snelling

venison in a while. Baptiste said he saw an entire herd of deer tripping down to the river a day or so ago. The fawns would be weaned soon, but she wouldn’t take a doe anyway, not with the bucks available. Bringing in a deer or an elk close to home wasn’t as easy as it had been in the early years. What with all the settlers around them, game had been getting scarce.
    She could hear the jangling of harnesses and the thudding of approaching hooves. A cow bellered, echoed by another, both greeting the returning horses. One of the horses whinnied back. The men would take different teams out for the afternoon of sod-breaking. Most likely Lars would choose the oxen. In this lull before harvest began, they were trying to finish breaking the last forty acres of the original homesteads. Some land they kept fenced for pasture for the horses and cows, but the rest was either hayfields or under cultivation. Not that they hadn’t already hayed those forty acres in June.
    Ingeborg wiped away the sweat dripping off the end of her nose. They sure could use some rain and cooler weather. While the thunderheads frequently piled dark promises on the horizon, the rain never made it to their property. She grasped the handles on each side of her full willow basket and headed back down the row. She and Thorliff would finish the picking while Goodie and Kaaren snapped the already picked beans. Drying more for leather britches sounded more appealing by the handful.
    She stopped at the carrot row, set down the basket, and sorted through the feathery carrot tops until she found one that lookedlarge enough to eat. She wiggled it loose from the dry dirt that did its best to keep the carrot growing and wiped the dirt away on her apron. Munching the crisp orange root, she closed her eyes to better appreciate the flavor. This was the way carrots should be eaten, not cooked nor dried nor limp from long storage in the root cellar.
    “Forgive me, Lord,” she murmured around the carrot’s crunch. “I am grateful for the supplies that lasted us through the winter, but peas and carrots are best just like this, right from your good soil.” With the sun hot on her shoulders and the beans sharing their own particular perfume, she waited. God felt so near; surely He would answer her. She strained her ears. Was that Him in the chuckle of the cottonwood leaves? In the lilt of the lark? In the laughter of the men unharnessing the horses? She shook her head at her own fancy. God was indeed in everything around and within her.
    Like David of olden times, dancing for joy before the Lord seemed about the right thing to do. So much to be grateful for. Words just didn’t seem enough.
    She sent another thank-you winging skyward as she picked up the basket and carried it to the bench, setting it in the shade next to Goodie’s. Then gathering up the sleeping baby, Ingeborg strode toward the soddy on the other side of the center pasture. “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” Ingeborg declared to the glorious world around her. Astrid whimpered at the skip her mother threw in for good measure.
    “Hey, wife, you look good in that sunbonnet.” Haakan turned from the wash bench and dried his hands and face on the towel hanging from a peg in the wall.
    “Thank you, sir,” Ingeborg said. She knew what he was about with that compliment, but it felt good anyway. Haakan tolerated her donning of men’s hats and pants but much preferred her in skirts and sunbonnets.
    “Thank you again.” She smiled up into eyes that always recalled the blue of Norwegian fjords on a summer day. Bjorklund blue, so many called it now, as if it were a color all its own. A shock of wheaten hair flopped forward, breaking the line of tan and white that bisected his and every other farmer’s forehead. A fedora hat brim didn’t do much to shade a man’s lower face, but it did save his eyes.
    As usual, her heart beat faster at the sight of his broad shoulders, square jaw, and the smile that sent