Chapter One
Odella Hufstead rubbed her protruding stomach with both hands, trying to soothe away the sharp pains caused by the contractions. She let out the breath she was holding as the pain eased at last. Only when it had subsided did she try to move at all from her bed. Slowly, awkwardly she shifted her legs over to the edge of the bed and swung them over it before she began to maneuver her cumbersome torso into a sitting position. No sooner had she managed to upright herself than she was struck with another contraction.
This one was even more intense and lasted much longer. She waited the contraction out, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out and awakening her young son, Heinrich, who slept in his small bed across the room. She did not want to frighten him unnecessarily. She eased herself off the bed and into a standing position on the hardwood floor. She used the bed as an aide as she moved down the length of it.
Odella paused at the end of it to take her robe off one of the posts and slipped into it. She moved hesitantly, slowly, away from the support of the bed and toward the closed bedroom door. As she reached for the knob, another contraction hit her and her whole body went rigid with pain. She gripped the doorknob with her right hand as she waited for the contraction to subside.
When it had she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway and crossed it to the bedroom that her younger brother Oleson had claimed as his since his arrival on the farm since the previous summer. She knocked hard on the door and called out to him. "Oleson, come quick! I need you!"
No sooner has she gotten the words out of her mouth than the strongest contraction hit her and she felt her legs buckle under her from the intensity of the pain that swept through her torso. She gave a strangled cry as her hands flailed out in front of her to catch herself before her face and torso connected with the floor.
Her breath came out in gasps as the pain continued and she felt a wet, sticky substance escape from within her and pool out onto the floor beneath her. A strangled cry escaped from her pursed lips and she fought hard to keep from following it with another, louder, cry.
Despite the tremendous amount of pain she was in, her thoughts were on her small son and she didn't want to frighten him. She was about to call out again for her brother, when she heard his door open and Oleson practically stumbled over her as he came out into the darkened hallway.
"Dear God, Sister. What be wrong?" Oleson asked exclaimed as he knelt down beside her.
"Baby coming." Odella gasped out as the pain finally began to ease. "Help to your room. No wake Heinrich."
Oleson grasped her carefully around the waist and hauled her up into a standing position, then lifted her gently into his arms and carried her into his room and over to his bed and laid her down upon it. "I'll go get doctor."
He turned to move away from the bed, but Odella caught his arm. "No! Don't go! No time! Baby coming now!"
"There has to be time! Not doctor. Don't know how to help baby be born." Oleson told her.
"No time, brother. Baby coming now!" Odella gasped out as another contraction hit her.
Oleson moved to take Odella's hand in his. "Hold tight, sister."
Odella nodded, biting down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out. She clung to Oleson's hand as her body was wracked with pain and a moan escaped her lips. When the contraction had subsided Odella said, "You start water boiling. Need lots of hot water, scissors, and cloth."
"I'll get them. "Oleson told her, extracting his hand from her and exiting the room to see to the supplies that he would need to help his sister deliver her unborn baby.
It was a long, difficult night for the both of them. The sky was just starting to lighten, when Odella gave an exhausted cry and fell limply back against the pillows, as the hearty wail of her newborn daughter filled the room.
Oleson worked to clean his new niece, before handing her off to his tired sister to holde. Odella weakly took her baby into her arms, her mother's heart filled to overflowing as she gazed down into the identical cerulean blue eyes of the young man who had so easily made her love him the summer before.
"Dear God, sister, you're bleeding," Oleson's startled, panicked cry filled her ears, and hazily she felt him trying to staunch the flow of her life's blood easing out of her in a swiftly moving rivulet.
"Oleson," she said, hearing the tinny quality in her voice and wondering why it sounded that way, "I go soon to join Lars' da."
"No, Odella, no!" Oleson exclaimed hoarsely as his efforts to stop the bleeding grew futile.
"Ssh," she told him gently, beckoning to him to come toward the head of the bed."
Reluctantly, Oleson did so, wiping his bloodied hands on a towel, his face filled with sorrow.
"You keep farm and Lars. Raise your nephew in our ways," Odella slipped easily into their native language, wanting her instructions to her brother to be understood correctly. "Take Katerina to her Da in place called Rock Creek."
"I will. I swear it," Oleson vowed, the tears standing in his eyes overflowing onto his cheeks.
Odella's eyes, identical to his, were flooding with tears as well. She gazed down into the face of her newborn daughter and wept at all the things she would never get to tell her. She kissed Katerina on the forehead and then closed her eyes. Her arms went limp a moment later as life left her, and Oleson reached to take his niece into his arms, his sobs mingling with Katerina's wails, as he wept for the loss of his beloved sister.