The Emigrants

XIII. THE CHARLOTTA OF KARLSHAMN

The Ship

The brig Charlotta, Captain Lorentz, sailed from Karlshamn April 14, 1850, with New York as her destination. The ship’s capacity was 160 lasts, her length 124 feet, and her width 20 feet. She had a crew of fifteen: 2 mates, 1 bosun, 1 carpenter, 1 sailmaker, 1 cook, 4 able-bodied seaman, 2 ordinary seamen, and 3 deckhands. She was loaded with pig iron and sundries.

She carried 78 passengers, all emigrants to North America, making the total number of people on board 94.

It was the brig Charlotta’s seventh voyage as an emigrant ship.

The Passengers

Through its very nature the globe offers two kinds of life to human beings: life on land and life at sea; life on one-quarter of the earth’s surface — the solid ground — and life on three-quarters, the water; life on the firm land, life on the ever-moving sea.

The emigrants were people of the soil; their whole lives had been lived on solid ground. On the day when they boarded the brig Charlotta they first encountered the sea. For an indefinite period they were to be settled on a ship, exchanging their accustomed existence for one new and alien to them.

Their feet stepped for the first time on a ship’s deck, having hitherto always tramped solid ground. With awkward, fumbling movements and clumsy, unsure steps they walked the deck. They found themselves on a plank floor, yet it was not the safe, solid floor of the peasant cottage; these planks were laid lower at the rail, higher toward the center of the deck. And the water under them moved constantly — a wave fell, a wave rose. No longer could they control their movements independently, they must obey the sea.

The emigrants had the earth’s heaviness in their bodies, clay from the field clung to their feet. And their heavy footgear — their shoes of rough leather, their impressive high boots — were only a hindrance to them on the surface of a slippery deck. They had stood broad-legged and sure on firm land; there they ordered their own motions. But here on the vessel they stood on insecure and treacherous footing.

They were accustomed to walk freely in the fields, unhampered. Now they were on a small crowded ship, fenced in like prisoners behind the rail. For months to come earth’s people must live at sea.

The emigrants came from a kingdom of stones and junipers, their muscles and sinews hardened and strengthened from breaking stones and twisting the juniper branches to wattles. But their strong arms and powerful backs were of little use on the sea. Here all of them stood equally helpless, the most capable farmers and the handiest farm wives. The earth was known to them, intimate, reliable, but they mistrusted the sea; it was unknown and dangerous, and their mistrust was ingrown and inherited through generations.

The passengers embarking on the brig Charlotta in Karlshamn this April day wandered about her deck uncertain, insecure, lost, bewildered. They felt they had surrendered unconditionally to the unknown, were irrevocably in the hands of a power whose presence left them impotent, a lord whom they could not entreat — the Sea. This unfathomable antagonist had taken them on its world-encircling back to carry them to another continent.

It was a day of calm weather, haze and mist, when the Charlotta sailed from Karlshamn. A light rain began to drive in from the Baltic Sea. The ship’s movement was only a weak, slow roll.

A small group of emigrants had gathered in the stern. A few peasants in their gray wadmal jackets and robust high boots stood there on the ship’s rocking deck and watched the cliffs of Kastellholmen — that little isle in the harbor entrance — gradually disappear into the April fog.

What they saw was the last outpost of the land they had rejected.

The travelers spoke in low voices while they cast their farewell looks on their homeland. Some spoke as if to themselves, others stood silent, eyes peering landwards. Talking emigrants and silent ones stood side by side; there were open words and hidden thoughts at this, their last glimpse of Sweden.

“I had a farm, foreclosed last fall; a homey place. It hurt me to see it go. But a farmer once fallen here at home can never rise again. I could never have got out of debt, not in a thousand years. Let the sheriff keep the place. Taxes were too heavy; when taxes are collected, that’s the time we are good enough, we in wooden shoes and patched pants: then they come to see us. Other times we’re peasant rabble. But I’ll miss the old place. I’ll miss relatives and friends, too; but never the country — no, never, never the country!”

Or—“I had nothing to lose. What could there have been? I slaved on the manor until I spit blood: Is that something to lose? I tired of the drudgery. I’ve stuffed the gullets of sluggards too long; I am through. The masters can be their own servants; that would only be fair. Perhaps one day they must be. The gentry’s arrogance is the bitterest thing. They despise honest work, they despise us in our poverty. Let them do the dirty work themselves; it would serve them right. No one can stand it in the long run, to do the dirtiest and heaviest work, and be treated like a dog, looked down on. All poor people should emigrate to America; that’s what they should do. So help me, all devils. That would serve the gentry right! Then they could do their own dirty chores! If only this ocean weren’t so broad and big. . ”

Or—“I couldn’t stand the minister. We became enemies. I couldn’t stay at home. Might as well go far away when you have to move anyway. Now the minister can sit and watch his sheep running off; he won’t be able to shear them any more; he’ll get less income, and a good thing, too. There are too many giving orders and commands — everyone must have some devil to torture. There are too many lords and masters to inspect and guard us; too many of the gentry for us to feed; too many useless lords. In the end it’s unendurable. The gentry have smothered me long enough! It’s over! I’m away from that country at last! But there’s an ache somewhere. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll miss them, a little, the rest of them — only never the priest! I hated that priest. . ”

Or—“I’ll never regret it. I couldn’t advance. It was hopeless: however I slaved, I stood in the same place. Labor brought nothing — I had to get out. But now land disappears, I remember. Perhaps — perhaps. . in the long run I’ll miss — I don’t know. One is born there: father and mother remain; I couldn’t bring them, but I’ll remember. It wasn’t always sorrow. There was happiness too. I’ve been young in that country, been with girls on summer evenings, when it was warm and pleasant. I’ve danced at road crossings and dance halls. No, it wasn’t always sad. I’ll remember. And I’ll never forget the old ones, toiling still. Much comes to my mind as I stand here, looking backward — things I haven’t thought of before. But regret? Never!”

So thought those emigrants in the stern, as the rock islet melted into the April haze.

The Captain:

Back aft on the poop deck next the helmsman Captain Lorentz stood, near the wheel, where he would watch the easing of his ship out of the harbor. The wind was southeast and light, giving the vessel little speed, barely sufficient for steering.

“Starboard a bit. Steady. Steady as she goes.”

His voice, trained in long service as ship’s master, was far-reaching and powerful. The Charlotta’s captain was about sixty, and of stocky build. He had an ugly face with thick, blunt nose, protruding eyes, and weather-beaten red skin. His broad, sunken mouth with the outjutting lower jaw was strikingly like the snout of a large pike. He looked capable of biting as sharply as those beastly fish, too. From the pike-snout hung a pipe. Captain Lorentz had spent almost fifty years of his life at sea, and for the last ten years he had commanded this old sailing vessel that was his home.

At last, anchor had been weighed, and his ship liberated from her shackle to the bottom. The time in harbor always gave Captain Lorentz a feeling of discomfort and disgust. At sea was the decent place for a grown man; to the Charlotta’s captain, riding at anchor was almost degrading, to step on land a disgrace. The only occupation worthy of a human being in this world was to sail a ship. To this occupation, unfortunately, one repulsive duty belonged, one painful necessity he could not shirk: at certain intervals he must steer his ship into harbor.

But now this humiliating time was over again. Captain Lorentz had lain eight days in Karlshamn, and it had been a week of annoying tasks, trying the patience of the Charlotta’s master. More cargo had had to be taken on, provisions stored, new crew members signed on. But the biggest nuisance were these damned peasants. In her old age the Charlotta had been turned into an emigrant ship instead of a merchantman, and her most important cargoes nowadays were these people emigrating to North America: peasants — peasants from Blekinge, Småland and Öland. Each time he had shipped such passengers across the ocean they had filled and overrun Captain Lorentz’s ship. This time they had even chased the rats from their holes before they all found room. This time they had come dragging still larger chests, still heavier boxes, still bulkier sacks, more baskets, bags, and belongings. Not even God the Almighty knew what junk they contained. This voyage they also had brought along more women and children than ever before. Never were so many brats aboard the Charlotta before — whole families, from old white-bearded grandfathers to suckling cradle-infants; cradles, yes, the number that were dragged on board this time! Devil take the captain if his ship wasn’t a nursery this trip!

And all these people his old ship must transport to the other side of the globe. The Charlotta was getting somewhat squeaky and ancient and sour in her hull, but was still seaworthy. Captain Lorentz loved watching her ride the sea, taking rough weather, curtsying to the waves like a court lady to a queen. She had only one fault, the old ship: she sweated. Perhaps she hadn’t been quite dry when launched — and such ships remained moist in their hulls as long as they lasted; only usually they didn’t last long.

Skipper Lorentz thought back in regret to the years when the Charlotta had been a simon-pure merchantman. The captain on an emigrant ship had many heavy new duties, and much greater responsibility. Nor did Lorentz like the idea of taking so many people out of the country. With each voyage he asked himself: Why did these peasants with their wives and children cross the sea? What did they expect to find in North America? In the captain’s mind all countries were equally good or bad. Dry land was dry land the whole world over, in North America as in Sweden. The sea was the part of the globe where sane people lived. He could never understand these peasants who undertook a long and costly voyage to the other side of the earth just in order to find another patch of soil to till! They might as well keep turning their patches in Sweden as in America; to poke and dig in the earth was the same degrading prison-chore everywhere. These peasants traveled from one field to another, from one dunghill to another — for what?

A seaman ought to spend his time at sea, a farmer on the farm. But strangely enough, it was actually the farmers, the homestead people in Sweden, who crossed the seas to change their country. Why? They were of course crowded in their bunk-beds over the fireplaces. There were too many around the potato pot. But it was their own fault: they begot too many children. If these peasants had been as busy in their fields as in their beds they would never need to emigrate. Apparently they used their wives every night of the year — except Christmas night; that night they abstained for fear of getting thistles and weeds in their fields next summer, for these peasants were as superstitious as they had been a thousand years ago.

Oh, well, some of them came from good stock in Sweden, and they might find a better lot in North America, where they would at least have elbowroom. He himself had never been farther inland than the harbor town of New York. And no decent soul could enjoy that dirty hole. When for the first time, some ten years ago, he had touched at that port, he had seen pigs poking in the stinking filth of the town streets. Some quarters were veritable pigpens. Cholera raged then, with hundreds dying daily, and most of the inhabitants had moved inland to uncontaminated regions. The town of New York had looked dead, stinking of corpses. Now it was lively again, and noisy, and beautiful women in white silk dresses drove in stately carriages through the streets. But it wasn’t a town where a seaman felt at home, not even for a few days. On Broadway there were some taverns, but none could offer a traveler the comforts he was accustomed to in the harbor towns of Europe. New York, after all, was a town for peasants.

The brig Charlotta had at last cleared the harbor and was in the open sea. The captain sniffed the wind — it seemed even calmer than before; all sails were set but hung limp and dead; they were depressed and wrinkled, waiting for the wind.

The second mate, a Finn, approached the captain. He was responsible for the passengers in the hold, and in his Finnish-accented Swedish he reported that they all had found their allotted bunks and turned in; all was well. There had of course been the usual complaints that it was too crowded and too uncomfortable down below. It was always so at first. They kept on jostling each other in the hold, until they realized that they couldn’t make the ship roomier or gain more space by pushing with their hands and elbows. As soon as they understood this they tired of their noise and settled down. And it looked as if they had fairly decent folk on this voyage; only one of the peasants appeared refractory, a man with the biggest nose he had ever seen. He and one other married man had been unable to find sleeping room within the partition set aside for families. Perhaps new bunks could be built for them near the family bunks, but for the time being they had been put up with the unmarried men, and this made the big-nosed man furious and hard to handle; he insisted on staying with his wife and children. He — the mate — had told him to pull in his big nose if he wished to remain on board with his huge elephant feet. My God, the boots these peasants wore! That man had such big underpinnings he no doubt could sail dry-shod across the Atlantic in his boots.

Captain Lorentz chewed his pipe while he listened to his mate. The peasants crawled over his ship this time like grasshoppers in the fields of North America. Hell and damnation! Perhaps he had allowed too many of them aboard. He hoped they would be manageable, as his mate predicted. The first few days of the voyage, while they were still on inland seas and had calm waters, the emigrants usually kept quiet enough and busied themselves in their curious way inspecting the ship. But when they reached open waters and began to feel the sea, even the most tractable of men sometimes went berserk. A peasant who on land was the most docile of creatures could, in a storm at sea, become the most ferocious beast, impossible to handle.

The Charlotta’s captain felt sorry for the pathetic earth rats who had been lured from their safe holes to spend weeks at sea. Perhaps these poor devils had never been in even a flat-bottomed skiff, or seen a larger body of water than a wash pan; and now suddenly they were off on an ocean voyage. The poor creatures could never take to the sea, and were as much afraid for their lives as old maids. But after all, what business of his was that? It was not his fault. He hadn’t advised these farmers to leave their peaceful cottages in their home parishes, he hadn’t persuaded them to exchange the sturdy fold-bed of the farm for the rolling bunk of a ship under sail. They could blame only themselves.

The drizzling rain thickened, the southeast wind died down. This time of year the winds shifted suddenly in the Baltic Sea, and even an old skipper would not predict the weather; but it seemed at the moment that the night would be calm. Captain Lorentz might as well turn in and rest for the remainder of the evening watch.

On the way to his cabin the captain almost fell over one of the passengers, who was down on his knees near the rail. Lorentz grabbed the man by the shoulder and raised him up. He was a rather short peasant, his face covered by a bushy, brown beard; his long, round-cut hair fell on his jacket collar.

“Keep your eyes open,” warned the captain. “Don’t fall overboard!”

The little peasant kept his hands folded across his chest, as if he were protecting something under them.

“I did not fall. I was kneeling and praying to God.”

“Why do you pray your prayers up here?”

“It’s noisy down in the ship. I wish to thank the Lord in peace.”

“Oh — so that’s it, my good man.” Lorentz looked at him and added: “You’d better wait awhile to thank God for a safe voyage.”

The farmer looked up and met the captain’s gaze with two mild, frank eyes. He wished to thank the Lord already — he had been permitted to board a good ship, sailing under an honest, conscientious captain, manned by a capable, orderly crew. Now he could leave all to God. He knew the Almighty would do what He could to help them cross the dangerous sea.

“Hm — hm,” mumbled the captain. “Be careful you don’t fall. The deck is awash and slippery.”

Lorentz continued toward his cabin, musing over his discovery. So he had religious cranks aboard. He knew that sort, and didn’t like them. A few years ago he had sailed to North America with fifty of the creatures. They had embarked at Gävle; some of them had been so sorely taken by the religious bug that they had tramped on foot from their homes to the harbor town, walking many miles, day and night, to board ship and escape the country. Their feet were bleeding when they arrived, and they had compared this to the blood in Christ’s wounds.

Immediately he had recognized them as fanatics, and these sectarians had, indeed, been the most difficult passengers he ever had had on board. They did not consider him master of the ship, but insisted that the Lord God was in command. What is more, as soon as they reached the open sea they insisted that God ordered them to steer; the crew were hired by the devil, they said, and steered the ship to destruction. Many of the peasants, from Helsingland and Dalecarlia, had never seen the sea before, much less been near a helm. If God had meant passengers to steer, He no doubt would have chosen someone accustomed to the sea — even Captain Lorentz relied on the Lord to that extent. But when the sectarians had interfered to the extent of wanting to change the ship’s course, he had at last been forced to read the law of the sea to them. To be on the safe side, he also had had to tell them he had guns on board. They were full of crazy notions. It had been a hellish trip with them aboard.

But he had done his fatherland a great service that time, when he shipped out fifty crazy Swedes and deposited them in North America. There were so many madmen there before them that this new load would be lost in the mob.

This brown-bearded fellow he had just encountered praying on deck seemed, however, a decent soul. He had thanked God for the capable captain; and as long as his religious nonsense took such expression, he might be considered harmless.

In his small cabin below the poop deck Captain Lorentz now brought out a jug of Bavarian ale which he kept wedged beside his table. He poured the foaming drink into a tremendous earthen stoup which held almost half a gallon. The handle of the stoup was in the shape of a female figure, the naked body of a young girl. She hung over the edge of the mug and dipped her hands and arms into the ale, bending her head as though she were drinking. Her back, a slender young girl-body, formed the handle.

This drinking stoup had been the gift of a ship’s chandler in Barcelona to his good friend, the Charlotta’s captain. Many times the friend had helped Lorentz find girls with softer bodies than burnt clay; but that was long ago, that was when this old bachelor was younger and livelier. Now the siesta in a woman’s arms — if one called it siesta — belonged to needs which Captain Lorentz had gradually left behind him. He led a quiet life, these days, where woman played no part. But the big earthen mug with the girl’s body he used daily in his cabin. Many a time he had satisfied his thirst with ale from this vessel, his hand holding the young, well-shaped woman. At regular intervals during the day he would caress her waist with his old, rough, seaman’s hands. Nowadays she was his only girl, and she remained his constant and devoted mistress whether the brig Charlotta sailed inland seas or the open oceans.

The captain took a firm hold of the girl’s body and raised the ale stoup to his mouth. When he had drunk he stretched his legs out under the cabin table and sighed deeply with pleasure: good thirst and good ale, two exceedingly fine things when one had both at the same time!

The captain was mellow this evening — he had the keel in clear water. Long days of open sea lay ahead; the entire spring would be spent at sea. He would not give the slimy Hudson — the entrance to New York Harbor — a single thought until the day he was actually there. He had set his ale stoup on a piece of paper, and the foam had wet it. He now picked it up, holding it close to his eyes. He recognized a comic prescription, written in a neat hand and given to him last night by the Karlshamn apothecary, at their farewell drinking party in the Hope Tavern.

“For Cholera

“(To my friend Captain Lorentz of the Charlotta)

“Temperately you must live.

Not be afraid, nor worries give.

Cheerful be, and every day

Throw all your medicines away.

Downhearted you must never be

Nor let your tempers disagree.

Eat a little, drink the more,

Forget the girls and let them snore,

Sleep every night and work each day.

This is the rule that keeps you gay.”

The apothecary had wanted to cheer him with these verses, which he had copied from some paper. But Lorentz was not cheered by them tonight — quite the contrary. And this because twice during his long voyages across the ocean he had been visited by the disease for which the verses suggested advice. Now, sitting in his cabin with his evening ale in front of him, these lines reminded him of all the troubles and difficulties he had encountered as captain of this ship during earlier voyages with emigrants to North America.

In front of him on the table lay the ship’s Medical Adviser for Seafarers, printed in Danish; as yet there was no good Swedish handbook for captains sailing without a doctor. This Medical Adviser was a most useful book. On one of the very first pages he had underlined in red pencil a few sentences: “If so many passengers are aboard that they must be treated as cargo, this is of course the most unhealthy cargo possible. A great deal of attention is then required of the captain. . ”

Attention—in that one word was included all the responsibility resting on the captain of an emigrant ship like the brig Charlotta.

Captain Lorentz sighed again, this time not from the satisfaction which came from good ale. What did a captain’s attention avail? Lorentz was sure he could sail his ship to her destination in North America. This time, as always before, he would sail her undamaged into port. But he was equally sure that not all of the passengers who had embarked today would still be aboard when he tied up at the pier in New York. Before the voyage was over he would have to read funeral prayers for one or more of the emigrants; one or more would have to be lowered into the sea.

What was printed in the book was true: he was ship’s master to the unhealthiest cargo imaginable — human beings.

He had reason to regret that the Charlotta no longer sailed as freighter only. He preferred dead cargo in the hull to this unpleasant, living cargo; there was never need to read funeral prayers for ordinary freight. Of all his duties as captain, the one of minister was most repulsive — burying those who died. A freighter captain need seldom perform this duty, which the master of an emigrant ship on an unfortunate voyage might find almost a daily task. How many days had he been on deck and acted the priest that time when they had the cholera aboard! How often during that voyage had he thrown the three shovelfuls of earth over the canvas-shrouded bodies — only he had had no earth in the hold, not a handful, even. At first he had been at a loss what to use for the funerals, but finally had taken ashes from the galley — there was, after all, little difference between ashes and earth.

That was the time the idea had come to him to take along Swedish earth to be used at funerals: a bushel of Swedish earth. It was little enough.

The Charlotta’s captain had thought: I will take along earth for these emigrating peasants. They are covetous of earth, they are bound to the earth, they love the earth above all in this world. And when they die they will want their mouths full of earth. Let them have it. Their mouths are filled with earth when they rot in the churchyard. To die on the ocean is different — then they are lowered into water — so why begrudge the poor devils three shovels of earth over their bodies when they have to be buried at sea, far from home — just three shovelfuls of their own earth?

After that voyage Captain Lorentz did not use ashes from the galley for his sea burials. He had a bushel of Swedish earth ready on his ship. One provision for the passengers of which they had no knowledge — a bushel of earth to be used when needed at sea.

And he knew that bushel would be used on the brig Charlotta’s seventh voyage to North America.

XIV. FORTY PACES LONG AND EIGHT PACES WIDE

— 1—

In the hold enormous pieces of canvas had been hung to separate the space into three compartments: one for married couples and children, one for unmarried men, and one for unmarried women. The family bunks were toward the stern, partitioned off by bulkheads of rough boards nailed together. The small cells looked like cattle pens or horses’ stalls. Beds were made on the deck of the hold with mattresses and loose straw. Unmarried passengers slept in bunks, strung longships between the stanchions. There were one-man and two-man bunks, “upper and lower berths.”

Dust rose from unaired mattresses, blankets, and skins as the emigrants spread their bedding and made up their bunks in the hold of the Charlotta—berths for seventy-eight people. Each passenger kept his belongings at the foot of his bunk. The overhead was low, and the air thick and choking. The three small compartments with canvas bulkheads seemed even smaller than they were, with this cargo of knapsacks, food baskets, bedding, and bundles. Here and there stood crude little tables or food boards, where people could sit and eat. These also were crowded with baskets and tubs, which must be put somewhere. At last there was hardly a spot left for the people to step on.

Only through the main hatch did light filter into the hold. After dark a few weak, smoking, kerosene lanterns were lit and hung along the sides of the ship.

As there was no room for Karl Oskar in the family pen, he must share a two-man bunk with his brother Robert, in the unmarried men’s compartment. Above the two brothers slept Jonas Petter, and Arvid had his bunk next, on the same side. The men here had about as much space as pieces of kindling stacked in a woodpile: there was hardly a foot’s width per person.

“They must have meant us to sleep on our sides,” said Karl Oskar. “There isn’t room for a man to sleep on his back.”

Jonas Petter held his nose: “It smells of piss!”

Robert too thought the hold smelled of night-old urine. “The air is so foul,” he said to Arvid, “let’s go above.”

The hold was dark as a cellar. He felt as if he were in a sack.

By using their elbows the two boys were able to force a way between fellow passengers and their mattresses and sacks and bundles, through the narrow passageway along the ship’s side, to where they could struggle out through the hatch. Robert looked more closely at the hatch covering, which was pierced through by a number of small holes, like a milk strainer. The only entry for fresh air was through these pitifully small openings. No wonder the atmosphere below was thick and stifling.

“Why don’t they make bigger air holes in this ship?” wondered Arvid.

On deck they breathed clear, fresh, spring-cool Baltic air. It was calm at sea, and the ship rocked with a slow roll which they hardly noticed. The water purled softly against the hull, like water from a slow-running spring.

Robert wanted to walk about and inspect this ship which was to be his home for a long time. At the embarkation yesterday there had been such hurry and disorder he had been unable to see anything of it. Their sleeping places had had to be found, chests and knapsacks, boxes and kegs, tubs and baskets carried into the hold. Wherever he had turned he had been in the way of someone. Today he was more at home.

Only he was a little afraid to get too close to the captain. In Suneson’s chandlery in Karlshamn one of the clerks had shown him the newspaper Karlshamns Allehanda; there was a notice about their ship under “Arrived Ship Masters.” At first he had thought it must be a misprint in the paper; it actually said “Ship Masters,” not “Ships.” It was the ship masters who arrived in harbor, not the ships themselves. Then the little man whom he saw yesterday, back aft among the crew, was more important than the whole ship. It would not do to get in his way.

The boys looked cautiously around. Arvid inspected the ropes, thick as a man’s arms, coiled here and there on deck like giant snakes. He had seen the same kind of ropes at the ship chandler’s in Karlshamn. When he had asked if these ropes were meant for huge ferocious bulls, the clerk had laughed and said they were to hold something much wilder and much more diffcult to handle than all the bulls in the world. Robert had then nudged Arvid in the side and explained that the ropes were used on ships to tie something with.

Robert had tried to learn all he could about ships and sea life, and already he was instructing his fellow traveler: Their ship was called a brig; a brig could easily be distinguished from other ships because she had a gaff sail on the aftermast.

“A gaff sail? What in the world is that?” asked Arvid.

Robert couldn’t answer this as yet; but he thought it must be a sail put up with gaff (whatever that was). The aftermast, anyway, was the one farthest back on the ship.

“Someone talked about a yard sail today,” said Arvid. “What might that be?”

This Robert thought he could answer accurately: a yard sail, no doubt, was one made right in the shipyard.

The boys looked up toward the ceiling of sails; they counted eleven of them, breeze-tightened: three on the bowsprit, four on the foremast, three on the after- or mainmast, and one small square sail on the stern. The masts were many rods high: they seemed taller than a church steeple. The mainmast was a few feet higher than the foremast — hence its name.

Robert noticed the masts were of pine; he thought again, as he had on first seeing the ship, that perhaps he had helped cut down the very trees which made them.

“Is it all one tree?” asked Arvid. “They are equally thick all the way to the top.”

Robert thought several trees had been joined to make up a mast; one pine could never be that tall.

Thus the two farmhands contemplated the riddles of sea life, staring at the mast-tops until their necks ached. Those pines from the deep forests had traveled far across the ocean. Trees which had been next neighbors to them were still rooted in the woods. They might never get out to sea. Fate dealt unequally, even among the trees of a forest.

Up in the masts hung strange nets of heavy rope; they must be intended for huge fishes, such large meshes they had. A few of the sea folk were climbing up there, shouting to each other. The farm boys went dizzy watching them suspended above. The seamen had nothing to hold on to, as far as the boys could see, and they feared that any moment the men would lose their foothold so Robert and Arvid would have to witness the bodies of these daredevils fallen to the deck, crushed into bloody pulp.

The boys continued their inspection of the brig Charlotta, and were astonished at the small space the passengers had in which to move about. They paced off the length of the ship and her width, and even though they shortened their steps somewhat, they found her length to be no more than forty paces, and her width eight. The floor in some farmhouses was as large as this deck. Their ship was small — not only at a distance. Forty paces long and eight wide — for almost a hundred people, for them to live, to sleep and eat and perform all the necessary functions of life. If everyone came on deck at once it would be so crowded they would almost push each other overboard. Overboard — and suppose something should happen to their small ship, out on the great ocean: what would they do? There were a few rowboat-like rafts, here on deck, but by no means enough for the passengers. Well, perhaps such gear was not considered a necessity by sailors.

As far as immediate necessities were concerned, Robert had asked a seaman today where the outhouse was located. He was told it was the roundhouse forward, just aft of the port bow. Robert didn’t know where the port bow was, but he had found the house anyway — though it wasn’t round, but square. He didn’t understand why it was called the roundhouse. It was true, the hole one used was round, of course, but so were all such holes. Who could solve the riddles of the sea?

The America-bound boys looked at the anchor winch and felt the heavy chain. What gear! But naturally heavy chains were required to tether a ship to the bottom of the sea.

“Look at the man in the fore end!” said Arvid, and pointed to the bow. The “man” was a wooden figurehead. They went closer and saw it represented the head and neck of a huge bird: an eagle stretching out over the ship’s bow. The long beak of the bird was open, and pointed over the water like a spearhead, as though he would guide the helmsman across the seas with his beak. The eagle looked ravenous and ferocious, his black, immobile wooden eyes scanning the waters of the Baltic Sea.

A bent old man with a long beard sat leaning against the foremast, busy with pieces of rope and such. He grinned in a friendly way at Robert, who asked him what he was doing.

“Can’t you see, boy? I’m splicing.”

Robert had picked up a new word—“splicing.” The bearded old man was the ship’s sailmaker. In his younger days he had been a bosun. Robert asked him about the Charlotta’s figurehead, and the old man explained it served no purpose except decoration.

At the railing the boys looked down into the water rolling softly a few feet below them. Robert thought it might be a couple of miles to the bottom. Arvid shuddered — he had thought it would be a hundred rods at most.

The sea lay perilously near, and he was seized with terror. “If the sea should rise only half a yard, it would drown us!”

The possibility loomed before Robert for a fleeting moment, then he said there would be no danger: should the sea rise, it would only lift the ship higher. Arvid shook his head, unable to follow this.

A fellow passenger came up to the boys. He wore a broad-brimmed hat, a light brown, loud-checked coat, and trousers that fitted his legs as tightly as skin. From his hip pocket dangled a white handkerchief, swishing his thighs like a horse’s tail; his shoes were of the finest patent leather. Robert had noticed this man earlier, on account of his colorful clothing. He seemed a gentleman among all these farmers.

The stranger looked down the side of the Charlotta’s worn hull and waterlogged planking, which had begun to soften and splinter. He grinned contemptuously and spat on the old hulk.

“God-damn her! Damn this sour old washtub!”

He spat a second time for emphasis.

“This is a rotten, stinking ship! Do you understand, peasants?”

In some resentment, Robert answered that he had felt the same when he boarded the ship. She was damp and unhealthy.

“Her bilge water stinks like the devil,” said the man in the checked jacket. “I’ve sailed on many ships, and I must say this old hulk is unwholesome.”

“Are you a seaman, sir?” asked Robert with new respect.

“I should say so! Was for ten years.”

Arvid was bending over the rail, and now he made a discovery. He pointed and said: “Look! There’s a hole! Our ship is leaking!”

He pointed to a hole at the water’s edge through which a stream ran in and out continuously. The man in the checked coat laughed.

“That’s the scupper hole, my boy! But the ship is leaky, anyway.”

Robert caught the word “scupper.” Of course, it was the hole through which the passengers scupped, or vomited; Arvid ought to have known this. He noticed now the hole was lined with iron, no doubt to prevent waste from clinging to the wood and smelling. The presence of the iron convinced him that the hole had been made with a purpose, was not caused by rot.

“Yes,” resumed the stranger, “now I sail to the North American Republic again, if this old tub keeps afloat that far.”

“Have you visited America before?” asked Robert.

“Many times, my friend, many times. I have lived in America for years.”

Robert viewed his fellow passenger with new interest. For the first time in his life he was face to face with a person who had been to the New World. What he beheld was a red, flushed face, swollen as if the owner had the mumps; a flat nose; and bloodshot, thick-lidded eyes. It was difficult to discover any redeeming features in this countenance, but the owner had been to America, and spoke of this without bragging, as if he merely mentioned that he’d been to the outhouse.

“What did you do in America, sir?”

“Various things.”

The stranger’s eyes scanned the water as if his memories of America were floating on the wave crests.

“This last year I helped a Mormon priest with odd jobs.”

The man in the loud coat and the snakeskin-tight pants spat again, this time straight out to sea. Robert need not urge him further, he continued now of his own volition.

The Mormons were the Latter-Day Saints in the United States, and he had been allowed to assist one of their greatest and most saintly prophets — or so he had thought when he accepted the job. Later, he might as well admit it now, it turned out that the priest was no Mormon at all! Things were not always what they seemed. But he would tell the story as it happened to him.

The Mormon priest (it was easier to refer to him so) had journeyed on the railroad from town to town, and he had gone with him to help with various things. It had not been a heavy or arduous task. When the supposed priest held a meeting in a town, then he, the assistant, had mixed in the crowd as one of the listeners. When the priest’s sermon was over, then it was his duty to step forward and ask leave to say a few words: that this evening, in this room, the spirit of revelation had filled him. It had been granted him to see with his own eyes the returned Lord’s prophet. And deep in his heart suddenly he had realized that he himself belonged to the lost tribe of Israel. His memory of long-gone-by times had returned to him so that it spanned even the days of Father Abraham. He wanted now to be a member of the Holy Sons of Zion.

He would be received immediately, the bogus priest would open his arms to him, hold him to his heart, and in the presence of the whole congregation call him his long-lost brother. And then many of those sitting in the audience, till now somewhat doubting and undecided, would come up to the priest and testify to the same thing: they too belonged to the lost tribes of Israel, and they too had this evening seen the prophet. All would be received into the church, and a collection would be taken up.

Evening after evening this was his sole occupation; he acted again and again the son of Zion, a brother of the Lord’s prophet, and for his services he received a dollar a day in cash, two free meals, free journeys on the railroad, and beautiful clothes lent him by his boss.

Almost every evening some woman in the audience would remember that she had been a daughter of Zion. The priest would take the most tender care of the prodigal sister, and marry her immediately, as, he said, the Lord commanded him to do. This was the one and only salvation of a woman’s soul: she must be taken to wife. There was no other road along which a woman might reach the glories of heaven. She must be sealed by a man who fulfilled his duties as bridegroom.

Sometimes it happened that more than one of Zion’s lost daughters were granted their memory, and returned to the church. Then the boss was not able to marry all of them. Neither his time nor strength was sufficient for such a task; moreover, he was a little ailing at times — especially on Saturday evenings — and then he wished to have a little time off. On those days he seldom married more than once or twice. Sometimes he actually needed a little peace, particularly as his health was not rugged. Then he would order the speaker, his paid assistant, to help: he too, at the priest’s order, would marry one or two of the lost daughters of Israel. He was not one to bar the road to heavenly glory for good sisters in Zion. Furthermore, he had been engaged to help in all matters.

The boss himself chose his brides from among the youngest sisters. Tender, helpless women were, of course, most in need of a skilled helper who could guide them to the Lord, who could lead them with experienced hands. It was the assistant’s duty to marry older, riper women, many of whom had never before known a man. But the more advanced in years the bride, the more shy she appeared — sometimes dressed in innumerable undergarments for the marriage consummation. Then the bridegroom’s first occupation might be likened to the patient, reverent turning of the leaves in the old family Bible — one of those really old ones, with big pages. So there was, after all, an air of religion in the wedding night.

But this job had lasted only half a year. The boss had had a most unpleasant accident one dark evening in the fall. The two of them had come traveling on the steam wagon to an out-of-the-way little town far in the West, in which place little was known about God and His Ten Commandments. The people in the town were heathenish and wild, sometimes attacking strangers — before they had said a single evil word, or even had time to fire a shot at the inhabitants. And as the fake priest and his assistant stepped off the railroad car in this town they were attacked without warning by a group of godforsaken hoodlums. They were infuriated by the very idea of Mormons, it seemed, because in the past so many of the town’s women had become daughters of Zion. There were scarcely any women left for wives and cooks among the settlers of the district. Now of course he, as a hired assistant, had little to do with this, he had only done what he was told to do. And luck was with him, too: he was able to get away from his boss as the mob surrounded him. As it happened, he had just that day received his weekly pay, so there was no reason to speak further to the priest. He had left the town as fast as his legs could carry him, and reached another village where people were more humane and refined.

Meanwhile the infuriated mob took charge of his boss, and the following day the assistant read in a paper, with great sorrow, that the poor man had been found dead, dangling from a tree. He had really had bad luck, encountering such uncivil people. He had been a just employer, too, and deserved more friends — or someone, at least, to help him in his hour of need.

It had also said in the paper that many were anxious to locate the supposed priest’s assistant. This he couldn’t understand, as he himself had nothing to do with the Mormon religion, real or pretended: he was a Lutheran engaged merely as servant to the priest — simply employed to help him with various things. And if the priest was not a priest anyway, and not a Mormon — well, it was not in any sense reasonable.

The passenger in the loud-checked suit finished his tale. He spat once more over the rail, pulled out the large handkerchief from his hip pocket, and dried his eyes. Robert and Arvid silently stared at him, thinking he was shedding tears over the fate of his employer. But it appeared he was only drying spray from his face. Then he nodded to the boys, left them, and resumed his leisurely walk, his big handkerchief dangling behind like the tail of a skulking dog.

Arvid was unable to solve the stranger’s mystifying occupation in North America.

“Was he an assistant pastor, do you think?”

“Something of the sort, I suppose,” said Robert.

“Are they allowed to hang ministers from trees in America?”

“Perhaps — if it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise I don’t think it’s permitted.”

The two America-bound farmhands continued inspecting the ship from stem to stern — forty paces long and eight paces wide. They would prefer to stay on deck both night and day. They did not look forward to going back into the huddle below, to the dark space under the deck, the moist, smelly hold filled with dust from mattresses and straw, stinking of urine and vomit.

When on land Robert had always imagined a sailing ship as something immaculate and shining. He had thought of sails as being like white angels’ wings. But the Charlotta of Karlshamn had dark gray sails, dirty from wind and weather, gray as potato sacks in a muddy field in autumn. The brig Charlotta had no angels’ wings. She was no yacht with white sails, flying lightly over the sea. She was a lumbering cargo ship, deep in the water, her lower holds loaded with pig iron, plowing her way heavily along. She wasn’t Robert’s dream ship, she wasn’t the ship he had seen for days and nights in his expectant longing. Yet he felt pleased, nevertheless, as he walked about on deck, looking up at the rigging where seagulls swarmed with their wings white and clean against the gray sails.

He was participating in a great adventure. If only he didn’t have to go below. .

— 2—

The passengers had been called on deck and gathered around the un-battened main hatch, where the second mate announced in his singsong Finnish-Swedish: “The first week’s provisions!”

Two of the seamen were busy rolling barrels and tubs from the storage hold. Lids were removed from the provision vessels, and the smell of food, combined with the sea air, made the emigrants hungry.

During the passage they were to receive their food and water at the ship’s expense. Curiosity about the fare was great, and all passengers — men and women, children and adults — assembled to watch as the provisions were handed out. But the mate told them it would not be necessary for every passenger to come up and crowd around him; one person from each family should fetch the food, the head of each family only.

He further said that definite portions of unprepared provisions would be allotted to each and every one weekly. They must manage so that their provisions lasted the intended time. They could not return after a few days, said the mate, to tell him they were hungry, and demand larger allotments. He wanted them to understand, once and for all, that this was a whole week’s supply. Each in turn could prepare his food in the galley on deck, and use the ship’s utensils if he didn’t have his own. The passengers must agree among themselves on time, and take turns at the galley so that everyone’s right was respected. Refuse, bones, dishwater, and sweepings must be thrown overboard — leeward, not windward. It was strictly forbidden to throw anything windward.

They could obtain fresh water from the ship’s supply once a day, half a gallon each for drinking and washing; they must economize on water. They themselves must keep the hold clean, and every morning remove vomit and other dirt. Water would not be issued before the hold was cleaned; that would help them to remember this chore. Sick people could obtain medicine: drops, pills, balsam, and such from the ship’s medicine chest. And if they needed to buy something during the voyage, goods were sold from the slop chest which the captain had charge of. Among supplies available at a fair price were soft soap, combs, brushes, Bibles, hymnbooks, snuff, chewing tobacco, knives, games, playing cards.

The passengers were admonished to handle fire with the strictest care. Below deck it was forbidden to smoke, or to carry or use unprotected lights. In general, it was the duty of everyone to obey the rules and orders of the ship’s command. All must realize the necessity for order on shipboard during a long voyage, for their own protection and safety. The law of the sea was in effect, and the captain would punish those who did not obey instructions.

The emigrants listened in silence and awe to the second mate. Some wondered what sort of punishment was to be meted out according to the sea law — was there an altogether different law at sea?

Near the foremast stood Inga-Lena and Danjel Andreasson. The wife held her husband’s hand and looked inquiringly around the deck. “Danjel — where might it be, that which he spoke of — windward?”

“I don’t know, beloved wife.”

“The place — where one is not allowed to throw anything? One must know where it is. I don’t wish to do anything that is forbidden.”

The old sailmaker standing near by explained to the peasants: “The mate meant that nothing must be thrown into the sea against the wind. Then it would blow right back onto the deck again.”

“Goodness gracious!” exclaimed Inga-Lena. “That much sense anyone must have, without orders. I thought windward was a special place on the ship.”

The second mate took out his wooden betsman and weighed the provisions, dividing them among the emigrants waiting around him.

Danjel Andreasson folded his hands. “God is feeding us for the first time on board ship.”

There were many kinds of provisions which the Lord God now offered through the mate: ship’s bread and ship’s biscuits, salt pork, salt beef, butter, rice, barley grains, peas, salt herring, flour, sugar, syrup, mustard, salt and pepper. The emigrants crowded around the mate, they brought crocks and pans and vessels of all kinds in which to store their portions. Some couldn’t find containers, and tied their herrings, or peas, or salt pork, in towels or aprons. Others received their allotment with their bare hands.

The mate repeated: “Remember, now — economize, good people!”

His was a chore which required patience and skill. The smaller portions caused him endless figuring. Only pork and bread were allotted in sufficient quantity to enable him to figure in whole pounds; for the rest he had to count in ounces on his betsman: six ounces of butter, six ounces of sugar, thirteen of flour, four of salt, four of coffee, half an ounce of mustard, and a tenth of an ounce of pepper. And the vinegar too was measured, two ounces for each passenger. It was degrading work for a mate, to stand here and weigh and count and divide; and the second mate on the ocean-sailer Charlotta thought, as he stood arguing and weighing and measuring and counting ounces: This is a job for a shop clerk, not for a deep-sea sailor.

It took several hours before the provisions were distributed and the second mate could throw aside his betsman and measuring vessels. He sighed in relief: now it was done for a week. All had received their week’s rations; but of course, as always with these peasants, they didn’t have enough containers. A couple of women had received their flour in shawls, and the barley grains and peas in turned-up petticoats. However, they were never finicky, these passengers to North America.

Soon the smell of frying pork and boiling peas in the galley permeated the whole ship, but it would be long before each had his turn at the galley stove, and while waiting for the prepared meal the herrings and bread and such were taken out and eaten.

Arvid and Robert stood in the stern, each chewing on a ship’s biscuit, hard as a stone chip. Arvid broke one of his front teeth on the very first bite; after that he was more careful, crushing the biscuit with his hands and eating the small pieces. He had often eaten month-old bread in Nybacken, but never had he broken a tooth on it. He thought if it was to continue this way, he would be toothless before reaching America.

It was growing dusk. The water around them darkened, rigging and sails were shrouded in mist as if the clouds had descended upon the ship. Their world seemed to shrink, no other ships were in sight, and their little sailing vessel seemed alone and lost on the darkening sea, with land no longer visible.

Robert shivered. It was a horrible depth there under the ship’s bottom — and here he stood on a pile of old, half-rotten planks. He was inside a sour old wooden bucket which was intended to carry him across these depths; he felt infinitely helpless. Into the youth from firm land crept fear that bit and tortured him like a multitude of ants: the seafarers’ life was precarious, it was not like life on land.

Perhaps it would be best after all to crawl down below and hide himself tonight in the dark bowels of the ship.

— 3—

Kristina stood by the place where she and the children were to sleep, this bunk or bed-pen nailed together of roughly hewn odds and ends of boards. She had placed her mattress on the floor of the hold and spread her quilt, her bridal cover, over it. On top of the bunk stood the big willow basket, their food box — they had found no other place for it. And in this bunk tumbled and tussled the children; there was no other place for them, either. The bunk was their only room, and in it was gathered everything.

Kristina had slept the first night in the family bunk. The compartment was too small for her and the children — even without Karl Oskar. Almost every time she had been about to go to sleep, a child’s knee or foot had poked her in the stomach or face and awakened her anew. She had lain there like a setting hen, unable to find space under her wings for her brood. In between she was kept awake by noise from the other passengers, and by the many sounds of the ship. So she had dozed uneasily and started awake through the whole night, and when she arose in the morning she was more tired than she had been the night before.

In the family compartment more than thirty people lived, men, women, and children, jammed together in one room that was no larger than Kristina’s own room in Korpamoen. As soon as she stepped out of her bed she bumped into someone. And Kristina was shy in the presence of all these strangers crowding around her. All she did must be done in full view of these people. How was she to suckle little Harald? She felt uncomfortable opening her blouse to expose her breasts in the presence of strangers; she did not like to suckle her baby while other wives’ husbands looked on. She was shy even in the presence of Karl Oskar, her own husband. It was dreadful that she had to dress and undress among all these unknown folk.

Lill-Märta had caught a cold in the windy harbor town, and was now in bed with a fever, perspiring, an alarming flush in her cheeks. Kristina wished she could obtain a mug of hot milk for her. But there was no milk on the ship. She must now mix honey in water and warm it for the child. And what was she to do with Johan? He was well enough, but he wet his bed nearly every night; that dripper ought to have had his own mattress. And the amount of clothing which the children already had dirtied — how was she ever to wash and dry it here on the ship?

She was now enclosed in a small pen, among all these strangers, with three children, one of them sick — never in her life had she felt so lost and helpless.

The children had no place down here to play and entertain themselves, and they hung on their mother. Johan kept pulling at her skirts.

“I want to go out, Mother!”

“We cannot go out here, little one.”

“But I want to go out and go home.”

“We are on the sea now.”

“I don’t want to be on the sea. I’ll go home. I want milk and cookies.”

“But we cannot get off. I’ve told you.”

“Mother — I don’t like it here!”

“Keep quiet now! Be a good boy!”

Thank God, she had some sugar. She opened the knapsack at the foot of the bunk, found her bag of sugar, and gave the boy a lump. He kept quiet awhile — this was her only way to silence him. Lill-Märta ought to have had a piece, too, but she slept in her fever. Kristina felt the child’s forehead tenderly; she was still burning hot.

Karl Oskar came down from deck with a jar of water in his hand. Now they had obtained their weekly rations, but had not received potatoes; he missed potatoes, he was used to potatoes every day. Instead he had been given sour cabbage — but this he liked. Kristina thought that perhaps potatoes wouldn’t keep on the ship, they would sprout and spoil, though she was not sure if this was the reason for their absence. Karl Oskar said they would eat just so many more when they planted their own in the rich soil of North America.

Soon it was their turn to use the ship’s galley. But Karl Oskar said there was little room up there — it was as crowded in the galley as it was in church pews on a Christmas morning; the women stood and sat on top of each other. This did not cheer Kristina: was she now to elbow her way among strange women while she prepared their food, also?

Each time Karl Oskar came down from the fresh sea air on deck he would grin and sniff the air in the hold. “One needs a nose clip down here! The air stinks!”

Kristina had almost collapsed the first time she came into the hold. All evil smells that used to make her sick streamed toward her: rancid pork, old herring brine, dirty socks, sweaty feet, dried vomiting. In one corner she had espied some wooden buckets, and she could guess their use. She had felt as if she had been pushed into the bottom of a smelly old herring barrel. She had felt nausea, had wanted to turn and run up on deck — had wanted to get off the ship at once.

Little by little she was accustoming herself to the evil odors. But she still went about taking short breaths, trying not to inhale the bad air.

Karl Oskar explained that the bad air was caused by poor ventilation. The people took the air from each other’s mouths down here. But as long as calm weather lasted they might go on deck and breathe fresh air during the daytime.

He was dissatisfied with their ship; he felt he had been cheated in his contract for the passage. And yesterday — when he had been denied sleeping place with his wife, and been put with unmarried men — he had spoken plainly to the mate: he did not ask to sleep like a king on silken sheets under eiderdown in a gold-plated chamber; but neither had he imagined they were to live crowded and jammed together like wretched sheep in a pen. At least twenty people too many had been packed in down here. The shipowner had only been interested in getting their money. Each grown person paid one hundred and fifty riksdaler for his passage — forty-three and a half dollars, he was told it was, in currency of the new country they were bound for. Yet they had to lie here and suffer in a dark unhealthy hole so the owner might grow fat on their money. That was what Karl Oskar had said to the mate, and the most outspoken among the emigrants had agreed with him. The mate had threatened to call the captain, Kristina had become frightened and prayed him to keep quiet — but Karl Oskar was like that; he could not keep his mouth shut when he felt an injustice.

Moreover, they had had to lie and wait in Karlshamn a whole week, and their quarters in the harbor town had cost many daler which he had had to pay unnecessarily; they should have been notified in advance about the exact date of the ship’s sailing.

One of the seamen, who looked decent and wasn’t quite so haughty, had admitted that the ship was overloaded with people. But he had added that it usually thinned out in the hold as they got out to sea.

If that hint was meant as a comfort, then it was indeed a cruel comfort; as a joke, Karl Oskar liked it even less.

This much he knew by now: that their life on board ship would be neither comfortable nor healthy.

There were already sick fellow passengers. In one family compartment, on the other side, lay a young girl who had been ailing when she embarked. She had fallen ill with a throat abscess while they were staying in Karlshamn. Her parents boiled porridge in the galley and tied this as a warm compress around her infected throat. But it had been of no help as yet. The girl lay there breathing heavily, with an unpleasant rattle. Karl Oskar had suggested to the father that the abscess in the throat be opened. He himself had once in his youth had such trouble in his throat, and porridge compresses had been useless — only the knife had helped.

The enclosure next to Kristina was occupied by an old peasant couple from Öland. The husband’s name was Måns Jakob, and the wife was called Fina-Kajsa. They had told Karl Oskar that they were emigrating to their son, who had been living in North America for many years. Karl Oskar had noticed the old Öland peasant when they embarked: he had brought a huge grindstone with him, and the mate had objected, wondering if it were necessary to drag that thing with him. Couldn’t they just as well heave it overboard? He would no doubt get along without the grindstone in America. But Måns Jakob thought a great deal of his stone: he would take it with him on the ship, or demand the return of his money. He was so insistent that the mate finally gave in; and the grindstone was now in the hold. Måns Jakob had heard from his son that good grindstones were expensive in America. They were cheap on Öland, and he wished to bring this one as a present to his boy.

Karl Oskar recalled that he had practically given away a new, even grindstone at his auction, because he had considered it too cumbersome for the voyage. Perhaps it would be difficult to find an equally good stone — he would surely need one to sharpen the scythes that were to cut the fat, rich, tall grasses in America; a sharp scythe did half the haymaker’s work.

There were also other implements they should have taken along.

“Did you see, there are those who drag along spinning and spooling wheels and such?”

“Yes,” admitted Kristina. “I regret leaving my spinning wheel.”

Seeing what others had taken with them, she regretted having left behind so many necessary household articles.

But they must reconcile themselves to the thought of what they should have taken and what they would miss in America. Kristina was much more upset by the fact that they must travel in the company of one person who ought not to have been taken along.

She pointed to the canvas bulkhead at the foot of her bunk: in there slept one who ought not to have been in their company on this voyage.

She whispered: “She sleeps right there — the whore!”

That disgusting woman was as close to her as that; Ulrika of Västergöhl had her bunk right next to Kristina’s — only a thin piece of sailcloth separated the beds. Kristina could hear every move of the Glad One, every word she uttered — and those were words she would rather close her ears to.

Kristina pointed, and Karl Oskar looked. There was a small hole in the hanging, through which he caught a glimpse of Ulrika of Västergöhl; she was busy undressing, and he noticed something white: her bare, full breasts. He turned quickly away, embarrassed and a little irritated, and he became even more irritated as he saw Kristina’s vexed look: did she think he was in the habit of staring at undressed women? She herself had pointed out Ulrika’s place. But Ulrika ought to hang a cover over that hole before undressing. Still, among all these people on the crowded ship one must apparently grow accustomed to incidents never before experienced.

“Why do they call her the Glad One?” asked Kristina.

“I suppose because she is never sad.”

“If ever a woman needed to be sad, she is the one. She should weep tears of blood, that woman.”

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” said Karl Oskar.

“Attention! Certainly not! I have other things to do.”

Kristina wondered if he could find her a bucket of water. She must wash their dirty clothes. She intended to keep herself and her children as clean as if they were on land, both underclothes and outer garments.

But Karl Oskar thought they could not obtain more water today — not before tomorrow morning, after the hold was cleaned.

“Too bad you can’t ask the mate for an extra portion; he is angry at you.”

Karl Oskar did not answer. He was a little hesitant and lost here on the ship. He always knew what to do when on land, and if he needed anything usually managed to get it. But here at sea he didn’t know where to obtain anything, he was not allowed to go where he wanted, he could not do as he wished. And if he complained, he was threatened and talked down to by the ship’s command. He felt that these seafaring people looked down on peasants as some order of lower beings. They treated them almost like cattle. Here he went about like an animal tethered to its stake; he could go as far as the chain permitted him, around and around, but not an inch farther. It was the sea that tied him. The sea outside the ship’s rail closed him in. The sea was not for anyone who wanted space in which to move freely.

He was disappointed mostly for Kristina’s sake that their ship was so crowded and their quarters so dark and moist and unhealthy. It was he who had persuaded her to emigrate, he was responsible for their being here. And from her countenance he knew what she thought — he had avoided looking her directly in the face since they came on board, but he knew what her expression was. Still, she was not one to complain and blame him, even when she had cause; that was one reason he had wanted her as his wife.

He would try to cheer and comfort her: “We have fine weather at sea! We can be happy for that!”

He had hardly finished speaking when the ship lurched heavily, the result of tacking. The movement came so unexpectedly that Kristina lost her footing and fell on her side, luckily on the made-up bunk.

“Our ship is leaping ahead!”

Karl Oskar gave Kristina a broad smile. “You should feel at home here at sea — you have always liked swinging!”

The ship had lurched and knocked over Kristina from Korpamoen. She did not smile. The young wife looked about her in the dark, dusty, smelly hold of the Charlotta, overfilled with people: these were to be their quarters during the long voyage to North America; here she was to live for weeks, maybe months, with her children. Here they must eat and drink and sleep, here they must live and breathe and be awake. Here they must remain in their bed-stall, like imprisoned animals in a byre during the long, dark winter.

And as she looked at her home at sea, the thought returned to her — a thought she had had the first moment she had put foot in the hold: I will never get away from here alive. This looks exactly like a grave.

XV. A CARGO OF DREAMS

Sometimes during the nights the emigrants lay awake and turned in their bunks, listening to each other’s movements and to all the sounds of the ship.

Karl Oskar:

We are on the voyage and very little is actually the way I had thought it would be. But whether it goes well or ill, I’ll never regret my step. The stupidest thing a man can do is regret something that’s already done, something that cannot be changed. Perhaps I have brought unhappiness upon us — we may have to suffer a great deal; and all is on my shoulders. I insisted on the emigration — if it turns out badly, I can blame only myself.

If only we can get across this ocean, and land with our health.

Everything I own is in this venture. With bad luck all can be lost. At home they ridiculed me. They thought I had a crazy notion. This irritates me, but I won’t let it get under my skin. Why should other people necessarily like what I do? Only cowardly dogs hang about lapping up praise, waiting to have their backs scratched. I’ll have to scratch my own back. And I’ll never return with my wife and children to become a burden to my parish — whether our venture turns out happily or not. That pleasure I won’t give anyone. No; however it goes, no one at home shall suffer because of us. There are many back there who wish me bad luck, so I must watch my step. The home folk are envious and begrudge each other success, wish hardship on each other; they would be pleased if things went wrong for me.

I don’t think things will begin easily for us in America. It’s hard to start anew. But my health is good, and if it stays with me I can work enough to feed us. Hardship is not going to bend me; with adversity I shall work even harder, from pure anger. I’ll work, all right, as soon as I have my land. And no one is going to cheat me — I won’t put trust in the first soft-spoken stranger I meet.

As I lie here with my money belt around my waist I like to touch it now and then. It gives me a sense of security to touch it when I want to. It holds all I have left of worldly possessions, changed into silver coin. It’s all we have to lay our new foundation; I carry that belt night and day — no one can steal it without first killing me. Of course, all the folk here in the hold are simple farmers, and perhaps as honest and decent as I; but I never did trust strangers. I suppose the other farmers are also lying here with their money belts around their bellies. But who can know for sure that there isn’t a thief on board? He wouldn’t go around saying: I’m the one who steals! And in the jostle down here we are so close to each other we can look under each other’s shirts. The way we lie packed together one couldn’t hide even a needle from the other fellow.

I have never relied on any person, except myself — and on her, of course. God be praised I have such a fine woman, industrious, thrifty, and careful of our young ones. A farmer with a wasteful, lazy, slovenly wife never can get ahead. And she came along with me, she did as I wished. But I’m afraid she will regret it, although she will say nothing. Perhaps she would rather see the whole thing undone; at times I think so. If she should begin to look back, and wish to return, what might I do then?

No. She has agreed, once and for all. She is a woman of her word, she’ll stick to her promise.

It’s bad luck she got with child at this time — it looks as though it had been planned — the very moment we left. Now she is sensitive — and I’m afraid the sea will aggravate her further. But I shall take care of her, and help her with the children where I can. Luckily, she too is in good health.

We can’t expect much joy on this ship. Not in any way. It may be long before things go well for us again — for her and me. I don’t even know how soon I can move over to her bunk. Lying here this way, separated at night, I can never touch her. Here I lie with the unmarried men — like a castrated steer. Here I lie in “the ox pen.” I can’t get what I need, what I long for. This can’t go on too long. Why should one suffer just because one travels on a ship? They say one gets horny at sea; but of course, one gets that way on land too. Perhaps it’s worse here because I see so many women. There are those who are young and shapely too. Oh, well, I don’t care for any others as long as I have her. Nor have I ever had another one. But Ulrika of Västergöhl strolls about and shows what she has — to the men. That woman couldn’t think that I — Oh, no. Not even if I were single. Not any more. Too many men have used her. But she is tempting; that I cannot deny. She is nicely shaped, and I believe there are men here who wouldn’t hesitate. And she herself would no doubt be agreeable. Even though she is said to be “reformed,” and Danjel thinks she won’t sin any more.

Life at sea is dreary and monotonous. I must cheer her, my wife. I must tell her what we are going to do, once we are settled over there — a few years from now. When the earth in America has given us abundant crops. When I have built a big house. When the children are grown and can help us. When Johan can go with me out into the fields. When Lill-Märta can help her in the house. When we have a farm without a mortgage. When we won’t have to worry about the mortgage interest when we go to sleep and when we awaken. When we are independent in our own home. When we have begun our new life. When we live cleanly and comfortably in a house where it doesn’t smell so damn bad as it does in this stinking hole. Yes, I’ll tell her everything, as I have imagined it.

If only I could get near her; only once, at least. There ought to be a change soon.

One has such foolish thoughts. No one knows what we may have to go through. The old ones think that all is arranged before one is born. Then it doesn’t matter what one does — what use would there be in labor and struggle? But I don’t agree with the old ones. I think one must put one’s strength into everything, and use one’s head as well as one can. Always I have done it at home — I’ll do the same over there. And I intend never to regret it.

But our welfare and maybe our lives depend on this emigration. If only we were safely across the sea. .

Kristina:

I should never have given in; I should have talked him out of it; I feel it can never go well. Something has warned me all the time: this venture will turn out badly.

And yet — if there were a bridge back to land, and I could take my children and walk back, I would not do it. Even if I knew for sure that it would turn out ill for us, I could never return. I have told him: I want to follow you! And this cannot be revoked. He is my husband and the father of my children; what else can I do but follow him?

I wonder if he is thinking it over, perhaps regretting it, now that we are on the sea. He is much more serious. He seemed concerned as long ago as when we lay at Karlshamn and waited. I wonder if it has dawned on him what we face. This notion came to him, he had to carry it through, he is so stubborn. But how far had he thought it through in advance?

We must stick together, even so. I’ve promised to stick to him as long as I live.

What a pity we can’t sleep together here on board, and be more cozy. I must always be so careful when I’m not pregnant, I never dare give in — as I want to. I don’t wish to be with child every year if I can help it. We must skip a year now and then. But now there would be no danger — I can’t become pregnant when I am already with child. That’s one reason why it’s so disappointing and annoying, this sleeping arrangement.

I can see he wants me all the time. He has a strong nature and he can’t help it. Sometimes I’ve blamed him when I myself was equally weak; it’s not easy to admit your own weakness. When he wants me it’s almost impossible to resist — he can always have me. Because deep within me I want just what he does — even though I’ve never actually admitted it to him. I’m ashamed to appear weak; my mother said a woman must not let her husband know how weak she is. She must be master of her desires — she mustn’t be like the menfolk. That’s why I never admit the truth. He must believe that I’m willing only for his sake, for his satisfaction. It may not be quite honest of me, but it is right.

Perhaps sometimes — inadvertently — I may have shown him how much I like it. Perhaps once or twice, when it was at its best, I’ve let out sounds. But nearly always I’ve been filled with anxiety and the thought: Now — in this moment — now it’s happening, now I am becoming pregnant again. Then it has never been the same.

He pats me sometimes. I think he pats me more often since we left home. That last evening at home — how foolish of me. I regret it. I feel ashamed to remember the way I acted. But I’ve never misbehaved since then — nor has he used an ugly word since then.

I wish he could come to me tonight, now, when we don’t need to worry. Now I could give in completely; then everything would be so much better. It’s not right, and I feel ashamed of it, but my desire is much greater when I am with child than otherwise. A pregnant woman ought not to feel that way. I wonder if it is that way for sinful human beings only, not for animals. It must be the original sin within me.

But when you are a married woman, then it is permitted by God. And when you have your husband so near you—

It couldn’t be done, of course. People are lying so close all around, listening in the night. It would be difficult here on the ship, probably impossible. No eyes can see in the darkness, but all ears can hear. Some people seem to lie awake all night long. And if one did try, one would have to forget all shame. There are those who do it — that young couple in the corner last night. They could be heard, I must say. They did not even try to keep quiet. I wanted to keep my fingers in my ears, but I didn’t.

It is much worse when one has to lie here and listen to all sounds on the ship. One is aroused. And I dream so much. Last night I dreamed he was here with me. I’ll go to sleep and dream that again. I’ve lost all shame here.

It will be a long, long voyage. And we don’t know where we are headed. I’m afraid we may drown in the sea. And I’m afraid of the new country. All the little ones crawling about me. Those three creatures know nothing. Every time I feel fear, I take all three of them into my arms. But then I still miss him.

Karl Oskar — what a pity we didn’t — that we didn’t — I wanted — I should not have let you — I should have been against this venture—

Robert:

I wonder if the captain has any drops for earache in his medicine chest.

My left ear aches again tonight. At times I’m almost deaf in it. Inside, it feels like a weight. My hearing is much worse. I’ve become hard of hearing because I didn’t listen to my master, and obey him. But when I get to North America the ache will disappear. There is another air there, healthy for sick ears. Those hard of hearing in the Old World will get their hearing back in the New World.

The roar in my ear is stronger at sea. Perhaps it is the wind that causes this. It feels like a sea closed up inside my head — boiling, hissing, booming. The sea is bursting, pressing, trying to get out. This causes me pain, great pain. I awaken from the ache and find my ear is wet — my pillow too: a few drops of the sea have escaped.

I am afraid of the sea — outside there — but I try not to show my fear. I am particularly afraid in the evenings, while I lie here in my bunk. Outside the wall — on the other side of the hull — I can hear the sea with my good ear. It is not very far away. The side of the ship is only five or six inches thick, perhaps a little more, perhaps a little less. There is no great distance between me and eternity. The ship might sink tonight — the sea has only five or six inches to travel. The sea can break in and reach me, fill my ears, nose, mouth — penetrate my throat and fill up my stomach. It can fill me and pull me down to the bottom. I would hardly have time to cry out — I would sink like a stone. I can’t swim — hardly anyone here can swim. I’m afraid of the sea late at night.

Once I wanted to drown an old cat in the brook; I put her into a sack, not realizing that I should have put a stone in, too, before I threw it into the water. It didn’t sink, the cat was alive inside and swam about with the sack. It floated there like a horrible hairy water-animal. The sack kicked and moved but would not sink. I threw stones at it to make it go down, I must have thrown ten before it sank. It was gruesome, I was afraid, and I remember I cried. I was about ten, I had no better sense then. I have many times regretted it. I have never drowned a cat since.

Why is it that I always think of that cat, every evening after going to bed? It frightens me. My brother is not afraid or worried. I have never seen him afraid of anything, on land or sea.

I wonder if Elin is afraid when she lies like this, and listens to the sea outside. I was often alone with her in Karlshamn, but here on the ship I have hardly a chance to speak to her. Yesterday when we sat together on deck her mother called to her: Come here, girl; hurry up! She sounded angry. She couldn’t be angry at me.

I said to Elin once, I feel sorry for your mother. Then she seemed hurt — I can’t understand why. Feel sorry for yourself, you, living in the flesh, she said. What did she mean? I did not say a word against her mother, I only said I felt sorry for her. But Elin got angry, and I was embarrassed. I must have said something foolish, though I don’t know what it was.

I wonder if Elin sleeps with her mother behind the sailcloth. If she sleeps alone, I might crawl across to her. No, I would never dare to. One only thinks about those things — I would never dare. But it is not forbidden to wish, no one can stop you from wishing. I can wish to crawl into bed with a princess. No dean or sheriff can do a thing about it. In the catechism it is forbidden even to wish for things, to covet — to covet a woman to whom you are not married is the same as to commit adultery with her in your heart.

But one has to desire a woman before one can get her, before one can marry her.

I don’t wish to touch Elin in that forbidden way. I don’t wish to commit adultery with her. If I crawled into her bunk, here on the ship, I would just lie quietly and hold her, hold her in my two arms — as I did when we sat and slept together on Jonas Petter’s wagon. What a wonderful ride! If I were near her now I could comfort her when she is afraid, when the storms come and our ship might sink.

Today she told me she is afraid of wild Indians in America. I have told her before that the Indians might at times be a little treacherous and evil and unreliable — they are known to have attacked white people who have tried to kill them. But otherwise they are docile and peace-loving.

My ear aches as though it would burst tonight. It will soon be two years since I got that box on the ear from Aron in Nybacken, and I still feel it. The ache tonight is from that box. It must have been a “big” box — I have nearly lost my hearing in that ear. This is not so good. One cannot know what people are saying if one doesn’t hear. But I know my ear will mend as soon as we arrive in America.

For every wave I hear break against the ship, I am coming nearer to the United States. I am participating in an adventure. I will learn how big the sea is. There are few boys from our neighborhood who can sail the sea and find out how big it is. And when I arrive and step on shore I will be free for all time. On America’s shore no old farmers will be waiting, calling me their “little hand.” Never more will I be a servant to anybody. I shall be my own master.

It hurts awfully in my ear tonight. If only we could move a little faster, if only the ship could sail with higher speed, then we would soon arrive in the land where my earache will disappear.

Arvid:

A hell of a good thing that I could come along. I must thank the pious farmer for that. I think there never was such a kind couple as Danjel and his wife.

I am a passenger now. I’ve chewed that word over and over. Robert thinks I can read, and he tries to make me spell it. He says it has a che-sound in it. What the devil is a che-sound? I went to school a while but I never heard of a che-sound. No other sounds either, as I recall. I never let on to Robert, of course — he thinks I can spell and read. It is the same sound as in a chunk of dirt, he said. But I didn’t understand it. You must mean shit, I said. I think they call that a piece of dirt in school.

Robert is a very learned man who has read much. I would like to have his eyes to read with and his head to think with. He is a clever devil in thinking, finished before I even get started.

Anyhow, now the Bull of Nybacken is a passenger and walks the ship and lives a lazy life. Sundays and weekdays the same. I don’t earn my food, but I get it anyway — three meals a day. I can hardly believe it. Never in all my born life have I had it so easy and comfortable. Ever since I was a small child I have slaved every day — Sundays too. Even when I had my free-week, and came home, I had to help with chores. If I sat down and rested my mother used to say: “Go get some wood! Get a bucket of water!” Or my father said: “Come and crank the grindstone! Help me make this broom!” Never in hell did I have a free-week. No, never. But here on ship no one says: “What are you doing, lazy dog? Give me a hand!” I haven’t done a damned thing since we left home. I have been fed just the same, eaten three meals every day — and how good I feel!

I haven’t been seasick either. A couple of times I have felt like spewing a little, but it went away. I think I have too much food in my stomach. I haven’t missed a single meal yet, and I’ll eat all I can get.

Christ, yes, what a good life! No damn farmer gets me up in the middle of the night to feed the horses. No devil gives me hell because I work too little. No one says a word because I take it easy. It’s a hell of a fine thing. I am a passenger with a che-sound like in shit!

Our boat holds together — not a drop of water has come in through ceiling or walls. That hole on the side — that was made, it’s good with water running through it. But the boat does wobble at times, and I feel it might turn over. It looks warped, up on one side and down at the other. Happily, it gets back in position. But if it did fall over, and sink in the sea, one would never get up again.

When I think that the boat actually can drown, I feel a kind of sickness in my breast. Mother gave me the prayerbook and she knows I can’t read. “You must take God’s word with you to America, in any case,” she said. “You can read those prayers by heart which I taught you when you were a little tyke.” Oh, yes, I do know prayers by heart. The book has one prayer for each morning and each night, the whole week. I try to read as best I can remember — I am out at sea and the ship is rickety and totters at times, and I don’t know how to swim. I know neither cat-swim nor dog-swim, and it may be useful with God’s word: “. . help me sweetly to go to sleep this night. . help me this night that my soul does not go to sleep in sin, and no calamity befalls my body. . if I live on land or sea. . receive me at last in the safe harbor, my dear Father. . ”

Perhaps I mix the evening prayers. But God wouldn’t care if I said a few words from the Tuesday prayer on Monday evening. He couldn’t be that persnickety, not with me who only read by heart. But it feels safer and easier in my chest when I have said my prayer and put myself in the hands of God. What luck that I can leave myself to the Lord on this wild, un-Christian sea.

We must have been traveling very long on this boat. Today I asked one of the seamen how much was left to sail. He said it was nearly as far from here to North America as it is from North America to here, perhaps only fifty miles’ difference. I thought a lot about that, it seemed so far. Then he laughed, the devil, and the others around him too, and I got so mad I wanted to give him one in the snout so his shit would run out. I told him it was the same to me how far it was. If a seaman who had traveled that way before couldn’t give information, then he needn’t poke fun at honest people. “You must not think, you sheep-coint,” I said, “that we who come from the farm country are any dumber than you who fare around on the sea. We understand when anyone tries to make a spectacle of us.”

However far it is, I think we’ll get there, for the boat sails every day, Sundays and weekdays, and Danjel says that God’s breath blows on the sails. And when I get to America I shall ask all those old, tight peasant shits at home to kiss my ass. No one has ever had such luck as I on my America journey — a free-week in April, a free-week in May, free-weeks throughout the whole damn spring! And three meals on every one of God’s days!

I am damn lucky to be here.

Danjel Andreasson:

The Almighty has so far given us fine weather at sea, and He helps us all He can.

Our ship sails with the Lord’s chosen ones to a land which He has designated. She is a little, fragile ship, the work of faulty human hands, but she is the Lord’s vessel. One night I saw two of God’s angels standing at the helm. They helped the seamen steer the ship on the right course.

I was dubious at first, I worried about the great undertaking: to leave my land and all my kinfolk and voyage with my wife and children over the sea — when I am no longer in the days of my youth. But I drove fear away from my heart, and followed the call of God: His word is the lantern of my feet and a light on my path.

But I observe that doubt and fear assail my little flock: Inga-Lena, my beloved wife, our four dear children, and Ulrika of Västergöhl, and her tender daughter. The Evil One whispers tempting words in their ears to test their faith. My beloved wife fears the language of North America. She is afraid she will have to go about like a deaf-mute among the people of the foreign land. But I assure you, Inga-Lena, as I have done so many times, as soon as we arrive in the land the Holy Ghost will fill us so that we may speak the unknown tongue at once, as if we were born children of the American hamlets. We have the Lord’s promise and the Bible’s words about the miracle on the first Whitsuntide. I have read it many times for you, Inga-Lena: “And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

You must remember what I have so often told you, my dear wife: the Galileans, too, were simple unlearned men and women; yet they were able at once to speak Greek and Arabic, and the languages of the Medes and Elamites, Egyptians and Parthians and Libyans. They arose and spoke these tongues and praised the wonderful works of God. And according to God’s promise, the same miracle will happen to all who are reborn in Christ. As soon as we land on the North American shore, the words of the Holy Ghost will shine over us and our tongues will leap as if we were drunk and the American language will be as accustomed to our lips as if we were children of that land. Sinners and nonrepenters may suffer hardship with the strange language. But we shall be able to stand up at once and praise our new land in our new tongue. And however far we may travel among other races — black, red, or mixed — the Spirit shall have power over our tongues so that we can use their languages.

Yes, no one in my flock need doubt that over us — the Lord’s chosen — the prophecy will be fulfilled about the Spirit filling all flesh: “. . and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your youth shall see visions and your elders shall dream dreams. . ” And mockers and deriders will say of us that we are drunk from sweet wine.

The Lord has taken us away from evil spiritual powers at home. The church, that wicked harlot, snatched at us, wanted to swallow us in her sour, stinking mouth. But now we sail on the Lord’s ship, and the ministers in their black capes cannot reach us with their talons here at sea. Evil has passed, my heart is joyous, and my tongue is glad.

All lands in North America will open up to me and be given to me and my seed. There we shall build our new church, which will be like the one of the first Christians. We shall gather together and break bread and drink wine, as the apostles used to do. And we shall have everything in common, as it is written: “They sold their chattels and divided, each what he needed.” And no sheriff will bother us — we shall live in peace.

In the land of North America I shall build an altar of thanks for you, my Lord! And I will sing and play and praise Thee with my tongue and my strings, as once King David did. I am a simple man, I have no gilded harp, but I know You will listen to me when I string my old psalmodikon.

You give us good weather, Lord, and us old ones, all your chosen ones, you have protected from the evils of seasickness — for the sake of our faith. The unbelievers and the lost ones you have punished with this plague.

Last night I beheld one of your angels at the mainmast, and two at the helm. The angel at the mast greeted me before he vanished — I do not fear. You are carrying us in this night over the dark depths! The Lord is our captain, no want shall we know.

Blow, Lord’s wind, fill the sails of the Lord’s ship! — “And your elders shall dream dreams. . ”

Inga-Lena:

Tomorrow I must darn his socks. He wears out so many socks; he always has — during our whole marriage. I don’t know why. He doesn’t walk heavily on earth. Perhaps it is because he has foot-sweat. Yes, that has always been a nuisance to him — and he doesn’t bother to wash his feet. I always have to tell him to. He had three pairs of newly mended whole socks when we left home — besides the pair he had on. All his socks now have holes in them, and I haven’t had time to mend them; and today I noticed he had a hole in the ones he wears with his high boots. Children must be chastised and holes must be darned while they are small; a hole should never be larger than the width of the little finger.

I must see to it that he has socks on his feet in North America — they say there is a scarcity of woolen things there.

They say that the Saviour always went about barefooted when He preached here on earth. But I suppose the ground is warm in the Holy Land. Figs and vines and sweet fruits grow there, they say. I can understand that the Saviour and His apostles didn’t need socks. But my dear husband always gets an ache in his throat when his feet are cold. And he doesn’t attend to his bowels the way he ought to. He says he doesn’t have openings every day. “Empty your guts, keep your feet warm!” That’s a wise saying.

Today when I was sitting on deck with my darning needle and my woolen yarns, trying to mend my black jacket, he came to me and said: “Come with me downstairs — we must pray together.” “I’ll only fasten the lining,” I said, “there are but a few stitches left.” Then he looked at me the longest while, without saying a word, and his eyes were so sad I suspected I had done something wrong. I had preferred worldly duties to the Lord’s service, I was thinking of darning and mending. I could feel his sadness, and I did not want him to speak to me while in that mood, so I went down with him at once.

I am a poor creature when it comes to faith. I only understand a little. When I think and muse on spiritual things I must quickly stop. I get so astray and involved, and I mix the spiritual and the worldly.

I am afraid we will be poverty-stricken if this continues. He gives away what we have, to feed and clothe and take care of so many. I am afraid in the end he may give away everything we own, and we will be left there, with our four children, in dire need, without food or clothing. When I think of this — that’s when the doubt assails me. Yet I know that doubt is the bloodiest of sins.

Once I made him very happy. It was when he told me he would go to a new land which God had shown him — after the court had exiled him. He said nothing about his wife and children, but when he looked at me his eyes were as sweet as those of Christ in the altar picture. He asked me with his eyes, and I answered him. I answered and said, with Ruth in the Bible: “Whither thou goest, I will go; where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried.” Then his face lit up and he said: “My beloved wife, we will stand together in Christ’s presence on the day of judgment!” And then I cried, and the children cried, because they thought their father was unkind to me and made me sad. But it was the opposite, and I told the children that Father had promised to keep Mother company on the day of resurrection and lead her to God the Father’s right side. And I told them they must never think ill of their father.

And I try to believe that however he acts and whatever he does, he is carrying out the Lord’s errands.

I get so depressed at times, worldly worries take hold of me, I cannot help it. As I count and count I discover we have hardly anything left to begin life with in America. If only I could rely on the Almighty helping us, then I wouldn’t worry. But I do worry, I can’t help it. There are so many things I must look after — I and no one else. If I don’t attend to them, no one else will.

I asked him today how we were to get a house and home in America. “Before I put nail in wall,” he said, “I shall build an altar for the Lord. Before I lay a plank for our floor, God must have His altar.” And then he looked at me as if to reproach me for being so worldly; and I left him for a while. I won’t talk to him when he is in that mood.

I am such a wretched, forgetful creature — I know that. I forget that my beloved husband is the Lord’s new apostle on earth.

Now he has worn out the last pair of socks — I saw it when he pulled off his boots this evening. I must get up before him in the morning, and darn them. The holes must not get too big. Oh, oh, oh, he wears out so many socks!

In the old days, when the apostles went barefooted, there was much less to worry about and attend to.

Ulrika of Västergöhl:

I felt at once that this is a devil’s ship. I could smell the stink of the Evil One in my nose. The devil is on board. Round about my bed are females who do not have the Spirit. Round about me crawl the brood of Satan. And among the menfolk — it stinks billy goat! I know that odor. But no one shall bite my rump, for I am under the Lord’s protection. The mockery of sinners can’t harm Christ’s body. But I shall pray the Lord to remove the smell of billy goat from my nose — I cannot stand it.

Christ is in me and I am in Him. I’ve eaten His flesh and drunk His blood. That’s why I was punished with bread and water in jail. A priest came and wished to preach to me in prison, but I spat on his black cape — I know those who come in black garments. I ate my bread and drank my water, and I wanted to be left in peace. The priest didn’t come back, either. The last day the jailer brought me a bowl of barley porridge, but I pissed in the bowl while he looked on, and then he had to take it away. I said I was sentenced to water and bread. I did not want to receive favors from the children of the world; I accept no porridge from the devil’s viper-brood, I said. They have no grace to give us, that’s what our apostle says.

Now I have got away from Sweden, that hellhole, where anyone who receives Christ’s body and blood is put in jail on bread and water.

With my old body, my sin-body, I practiced much whoring in my days of error. But I was taught to do it as a child, by my foster father, the peasant in Alarum. I never forget anything. I remember everything, and have since I was four years old, when I was sold at auction. After my parents died, the brat had to be farmed out to someone who was willing to clothe and feed her. A peasant couple in Alarum got me — they offered to take me for the lowest charge, eight daler a year. The farmer regretted afterwards that he had bid so low: I ate too much, and wore out clothes worth more than eight daler a year. So my foster father made me pay for his mistake. When I was fourteen years old he told me I should pay for myself. My body had developed so I could, he said. And what had a fourteen-year-old girl, sold at auction, to pay with? I should spread my legs and lie still, he said. I didn’t want to, I cried and begged him to let me go, but I was only a slight child and he was a big strong man. He knew how to make me mete out pay. The first time — I can never forget it. He caught me in the calf pen in the byre one morning when I was there milking. The farm wife was in childbed, and the farmer himself had been lying in “the ox pen” for so long — Then he reckoned up the pay: I owed him for food and clothes, therefore I must spread myself to him, and lie still. It was like being cut with a slaughter knife, and I cried and prayed to him to let me go. But he said that was out of the question. Afterward, the peasant of Alarum stood there on the stable floor and buttoned his pants, as if he had only been pissing, and mumbled and said: “That’s that, well, now that’s over.” Then he picked up his bucket with the slops for the pigs and went on with his chores.

In this way he requested payment many times, and I grew accustomed to it. But as soon as I could I ran away from my foster home, and soon I met menfolk and found company. I received food to eat, and other things I needed, and when I had to pay I gave the only thing I had — I understood no better. I had been trained by the farmer in Alarum. Since he had insisted on payment so many times, there was little left to save. At last I became Ulrika of Västergöhl; I whored, as they called it. I was excluded from the Lord’s table, and those who had taught me, and used me, passed judgment on me and thought it right that I was under the ban of the church.

But the rich farmer of Alarum, my foster father, was a great friend of the dean, and went to parties with him. And when the devil at last fetched him home, the dean gave a pretty oration at his funeral and praised his good deeds on earth. You may be sure nothing was mentioned about the time in the calf pen when he had raped a fourteen-year-old orphan girl whom he had bought at auction. Perhaps that deed was considered a part of all the others he had performed to get into heaven. But there is one who knows where he landed! And when his coffin had been lowered into the grave, and all the people left the churchyard, there was one who stepped up to the graveside and spat on his coffin. It felt good; damned good.

So I kept up my whoring, and in time I bore four bastards. Three were taken home while they were little — the Lord was good to them. And my Elin is no longer a bastard, she is received among those reborn, she has been confirmed by the Lord’s apostle.

A leprous person can be hated no more than I was in that old peasant village. The women shoveled most of the dirt on me; women never have been able to tolerate me. They cannot forgive me, that I have had more men than they themselves, that I have felt the rod of more men than any other woman in the parish. Go to Ulrika of Västergöhl! they would say; she will grind your seed! And it was true — in my mill everyone could grind. It was true that many women had to share their husbands with me. But why should I turn away those who came? They needed to come to me, it was good for them. It is dry and bare-bitten in the meadow for married men, when their wives get on in years. Some women grow fat as filled grain sacks, so no man can reach them; others grow skinny and bony and sharp as a swingletree, so the men cut themselves on them; and all become as large and bottomless as a peat mine. So one can easily understand why the men are not satisfied in their wedded beds.

I have heard men talk of their wives’ shortcomings. That’s one reason why the women hated me. But I have only pitied the menfolk, and let them in — as one opens a gate for hungry, thirsty cattle, and lets them into the clover field. God has given me a shapely body, and no male has complained. Many men who were forced to chew dry old hay at home have been given juicy clover with me. And I enjoyed it myself, many times. Excuse me, dear Jesus, but I did! My dear little Saviour, forgive me the joys I had while living in the flesh. Because one sins mostly when one has most joy from sin.

But if the sins of Ulrika of Västergöhl were blood-red before, they are snow-white now. I live now in Christ’s body, and He lives in mine. And this body of mine is still white and soft as a snowdrift on Christmas night. I am not afraid to show it to anyone who wants to come and stare at it — it is a wondrous work of the Lord.

Tonight as I lie here in my bunk I smell billy goat worse than ever. My old body is nudging me, it wants to crawl back into me again. There are so many men around — I can’t endure men so close; then my old body wants to come back. There are men who walk around here so hot their pants nearly burst. They can’t get their seed ground here on the ship, they walk about and squeeze and suffer. I recognize them, I know how they act when that itch gets them. Who should know better than Ulrika of Västergöhl?

I can’t stand Kristina of Korpamoen, that proud piece. She goes around staring at me as if I were an old whore, when in fact she is the one living in the flesh. She has no respect for Christ’s body — the bitch! She thinks she is pure because she was married by the dean. But the Lord’s apostle says that whoring goes on inside a marriage as well as out. Her husband is young and husky, and no doubt he can use his rod. But now he can’t get what he wants because he has to sleep with the unmarried men. I can still please any man, if I wish. If I lived in my old body, I would try to help him.

I have no use for his brother, the young fool. He hangs about and sniffs at my girl the minute I turn my back. If he thinks he can pluck that little chicken, he has another think coming. What has such a whelp to offer? All he owns he carries in his servant bundle. And what little he has in his pants had better be left growing. Yet here he snoops around and fishes for my Elin. He wants to taste the brew, taste it and leave it, like all men. Oh, no — I know you wolves! Oh, no — you little snot-Joe! You walk about here like a wolf, stalking God’s pure lamb. But you won’t get to her! You shall never enter that door, you wretched farmhand. It is saved for someone more important than you.

My child is my only joy in this world. Elin was allowed to remain with me when the others went home to God, so I know she is meant to have a beautiful life here on earth. North America is teeming with rich men greatly in need of wives. Capable, beautiful girls have proposals before they can step on shore in America. Over there my girl shall marry a man of high station, prominent, and kind to boot. It will be her portion to eat eggs in a silver bowl, and sleep every night in a silken nightgown. She will not forget her old mother then, who once upon a time, among the peasants at home, had to whore in order to feed her.

Yes, but I can’t get the smell out of my nose tonight — billy goat. Young and old bucks jostling. My old body is hard on God’s chosen one. Dear Jesus, give me strength to withstand it! Because at times I don’t know what I might do. But You must know of this Yourself — You Who live in my body. You must not let me be tempted too strongly. I am a wretched creature at times, You must have noticed that. And it is not always easy to be reborn. Yes — my dear little Jesus, You are so very good and kind to me.

But this is a devil’s ship — I knew that at once.

Elin:

One has to think of something when one cannot sleep.

He shouldn’t have said what he did about my mother. I haven’t forgiven him for that yet. He didn’t know how much he hurt me. He can pity himself. He knows nothing about this world. But he should learn. He need not have said anything. I know I am Ulrika of Västergöhl’s bastard; I have been reminded of it every day since I was very little. I have known everything since I was very little.

Only men came to visit my mother at home, never women. And when visitors came I was sent outside, and my mother locked the door. In wintertime I had to sit in the woodshed and wait till she let me in again. She always tied me up in a warm sheepskin, so I wouldn’t get cold out there — she has always been a good mother. Most of the time we had little to eat, sometimes nothing. When we were short of food, and a man came to visit, then I was very glad, for I knew it wouldn’t be long before we had food again. And I liked many of the men. They were never unkind to me. Some were unkind to my mother. One of them hit her with an ox-whip once. I threw the pressing iron at his head — then I helped Mother push him outside. He fainted and lay outside for a long time.

I wondered at times why no women came to visit us — only once in a great while some very old hag. But as I grew older Mother let me know why only men visitors came — I was told their errand. I never thought Mother had done anything wrong.

One time I wakened in the middle of the night when Mother had a visitor. I had a kitten which one of the men had given to me, and I thought it was the kitten who cried and made sounds. But it wasn’t. I think that was the only time I had bad thoughts about my mother. I spoke to her about it, and she forgave me. Then she cried, the only time I ever saw her cry. I’ll tell you, she said, what people have done to me. And she told me everything. Since then I have never thought ill of my mother.

That poor, childish boy — he thinks I don’t know anything. He speaks to me as if I were a little child, needing milk and swaddling clothes.

Mother thinks my father was a tramp who once stayed overnight in our cottage, and never came back. He was a happy soul, she says, and he could play the violin. I’d like him to be my father, as long as some man must be my father. Mother says it could also be the churchwarden, Per Persson of Åkerby. She doesn’t want him to be my father — nor do I. He is an evil man, and has called mother a whore — even though both she and I are reborn in Christ and washed pure in His blood.

Last night I dreamt that Mother made a little hole with her fingers in the flower bed in our garden outside the cottage. Then she put a plant in the hole. She pressed down the earth around it to make it stand up straight. Then she patted the earth around the roots as she pats me. The plant began to grow, and before I knew it it had grown taller than I. I stood there and stared at the flower as it grew and became taller and taller. It grew all the way up into the sky. At last it reached heaven, and then the crown opened up. The flower was white, and I noticed it was a China lily. And when it was in full blossom, a window in heaven was let open, and God peeked out. He was old and had a large head, white flowing beard, and a serious and wrinkled forehead. He looked thoughtful. God broke off the flower and took it — then He closed the window again.

The stalk began to wither, it turned black, like potato stalks in fall after a few nights’ frost — they get black and slimy and stick to the fingers when one picks the potatoes. The stalk withered and I could see it lying in the flower bed where my mother had planted the flower shortly before. As I stood there and looked at the hole Mother had made I could see the black stalk lie there, rotten, smelly, and coiled like a horrible, slimy worm. I became terribly frightened, because the hole in the flower bed became deeper and deeper and more frightening. It looked like a grave in the churchyard. I began to cry aloud, for suddenly I knew where I was: in the churchyard when my little brother died. And a voice said: “She lies down there, her body is in the grave.”

And as I awakened I understood that I myself was dead, and that it was I who lay there in the churchyard.

Mother had awakened when I cried, and I was so frightened that I told her my dream. She explained it to me: I was the flower she had planted. But the stalk that blackened and withered and rotted and was eaten by worms — that was my sin-body. The grave where my body rested was our home parish in Sweden, that hellhole, said Mother. But the crown of the flower that God picked and saved, that was my soul.

When Mother comforted me I lost my fright.

And now she and I are traveling to the promised land. There we shall live forever. And the way Mother explained my dream, I shall now grow up and blossom and open like a flower in that land.

Mother has told me that. .

Jonas Petter:

Sometimes I don’t rightly know why I am lying here on this ship. I must be traveling somewhere, I think; I am after something, I believe.

Anyway — I have freed myself of her. She never thought I would do it, but there are already many miles between us. There will still be many more — so many that I can never travel them again.

I woke up one morning and made my decision. We had quarreled the night before. It began with the grain shovel. I wanted to get some oats from the attic bin for the mare, but I couldn’t find the shovel. I asked her if she had seen it. Must I keep track of your shovel? she said; am I your maid? That’s not what I said, I answered; but I need the shovel to get at the oats for the mare. For that gluttonous creature! she said. Your mare stands there with her fat belly like a barrel, and eats all our oats. My mare? I said. Yes, she said, you have most use of her, for you drive around the roads on your own errands. Then I began to get angry. I said, I want the shovel! Have you used it? Have you shoveled oatmeal for the cows? Never, she said. My wretched cows never get oatmeal. Your cows? I said. They are mine as much as yours. Have you forgotten that I brought two cows in my dowry when I moved to this farm? she said. No, I said — and now I was really angry — that I have never forgotten. How could I forget something you have reminded me of every day for twenty years?

It had started with the shovel. The quarrel lasted the night through, and the next morning I had made up my mind.

We have been married for twenty years, and during those years we have had about two small quarrels every week and a big fight every month. All together there must have been several thousand quarrels, over the years. But the shovel one was the last. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I prepared to leave. And in order to have peace and quiet while I got ready, I sharpened the knife and let her crank the stone. That was the only way.

I found the shovel next day. It had slid so deep in the bin I couldn’t see it. And I was grateful to the shovel that it had hidden itself — it helped me get started on my way to North America. I pressed the handle, as though I shook hands with the shovel: Thanks for the help!

I have quarreled away one whole year of my life. Now I am so old that I cannot afford to give up any more years in quarrels. I will be careful with the days I have left. I wish to live in peace with all. And I have lived in peace with everyone but her. Why should I live with the only person with whom I can’t get along? Why should I dwell under the same roof with someone who only criticizes and irritates me? Why should I live in a house where I never can have peace?

We should never have married. But our parents thought we were suited for each other — we were equals as far as possessions were concerned. And God tells us in His Fourth Commandment that we must obey and honor our parents so that things may go well and we may live long on earth. I obeyed my parents, and she hers, and we were married. Her outward appearance was shapely enough, she was young and healthy, but otherwise I knew nothing about her. Not what she was like inside, not her disposition. That I got to know by and by.

The first years I had some pleasure in bed with her. But it became less and less, I couldn’t understand why. I became indifferent and lost my desire for her — I couldn’t help it. Now when it was too late I realized that I had never really liked her and would never do so in the future, either. Nor did she care for me or for what I thought. She was more married to the farm than to me. But as my desire for bed play lessened, then hers increased, and she mocked me and wondered if already I was impotent, young man as I was. Then of course I had to show her. I preferred not to touch her, it became merely a sort of habit; I could take it or leave it, without enjoyment. I never dared tell her this, of course. It was the only thing I couldn’t tell her. I was a coward, I know, but I suppose she guessed my thoughts: I take part in this because I dare not refuse. Yes, I think she knew I had lost my desire for her, so she began to hate me. And she acted in such a way that I began to hate her, too. Perhaps I hated most that which could not be changed: the fact that I was married and tied to her.

It should never be between married couples as it was between us.

Our quarrels came more often and lasted longer. There was no peace in the house. And as the children grew up they took her side. They turned against me, because she spoke to them and said: Such is your father! Such has he always been to me, your mother! And then she told the children all I had said and done when I was angry and upset. At such times a person often does things he later regrets, he should not be condemned for what he does or says in those moments.

She turned my children against me, and I had to quarrel with them also. They lost respect for me, they obeyed their mother and believed her but they never obeyed their father or believed in him.

These last years we were seldom together in bed. Once in a while I pleased her when I realized I couldn’t get out of it. I dared not refuse, I was too cowardly. I have been a coward many times in my life, and I would agree to do it for the sake of peace — when I satisfied her in bed she was milder in her mouth for a few days and it was more bearable at home. Sometimes I thought I would tell her: This is the last time! But I was afraid of her, afraid that she would take revenge in some way if I said no to her. Then she would have plagued me worse. Many times I had to swallow a few drinks before I could make myself go near her. Yes, the brännvin helped many a time, without the brännvin I would not always have been able to. But afterward I felt sick with myself; I felt more wretched than any creature in the whole world, worse than the animals. They don’t drink brännvin in order to be able to — they do it only when they have desire. I lay with the one I hated, the one who hated me. Animals don’t do that.

We were a married couple, joined together in Christian and holy bond — matrimony — wedded together as God has ordained. But it should not be so between married mates, not as it was with us.

One time during a big fight I said I would go and cut my throat. It would take more of a man to do that, she said. She mocked me, she didn’t believe me, but that time I did mean it. I went after the sticking knife, I wanted to kill myself. I stood there and felt the edge of the knife, to see if it was sharp enough. I felt the bite with my thumb. And I set the knife against my throat. But then I couldn’t do more. When I felt the cold edge against my skin, I couldn’t. The knife cooled me so that I felt chilled through my whole body; I had no more strength left in my hands, I couldn’t press, I couldn’t cut. I have stuck and killed many hundreds of animals in my day, I have seen the blood gush from their throats, and I knew where to put the knife to myself, I know where the big blood artery is. But I could not make my hand perform the thrust, I couldn’t force it to cut my own flesh, make my own blood gush.

I had a wish to do it, but my hand did not obey — I was too cowardly.

Then I discovered something — she had lied, because she did believe me, she thought I was going to kill myself. I noticed that she hid away cutting tools from me. She was afraid, after all. And for a long time she was quite bearable and kind to me, and we had no quarrels.

I had thus discovered one way to get peace, and I used it a couple of times — I sharpened my knife and let her crank the grindstone.

But it shouldn’t be that way between mates in a union which God has ordained — one shouldn’t need to sharpen knives to get peace.

Perhaps she did see through the knife trick in the end; because when the day came that I told her I intended to emigrate to North America, she didn’t believe me. You are too much of a coward, she said. You are afraid of getting out on the sea. You dare not, you poor coward! You have never dared anything. You dare not sail on the sea!

But that time she was mistaken.

When at last she realized that I wasn’t the coward she had thought — when she saw my America chest packed on the wagon — then she began to cry. She cried very often from anger, but this time she cried in another way: she almost moaned, slowly and softly, as some animals do when they are in great pain. Perhaps one should feel sorry for her; she is as God created her, she can’t help it. She can’t change herself. Yes, one should feel sorry for her; but I know it has given her pleasure to torture me, and that I haven’t as yet forgiven her.

Now I lie here out at sea, and I am free of her. I lie here and muse over what I have missed in life. It is bitter to think of this. There are men who are good to their wives, and wives who are good to their husbands. How would it be to have a wife who was kind and thoughtful and wanted only to do good, who could understand that one can mean well even when one does wrong, a wife who may criticize and scold, yet interprets all for the best — not for the worst, as my wife did? Well, how would it be? I turn here in my misery when I realize what I have missed in this world.

I feel ashamed of myself. But old as I am, there is still something left inside resembling hope, a very small hope. There is something that whispers: Perhaps good luck awaits you somewhere in the world. Perhaps you need not die before you have tasted some of that which you so sorely missed. You have lived like a dog on your farm, a dog without a master, a wretched creature who doesn’t belong to the house — so have you lived, Jonas Petter. You have sneaked about, searching, silent, hungry in your own home. It is true — who can be more hungry than you for that which a woman can give to a man?

Yes, I am ashamed, a little — but mustn’t a wretched human being have at least this left — a little poor and puny hope?

One can seldom sleep well here on the ship; I lie and fret too much. I am on a voyage to another continent. I am going somewhere, I don’t know where, but one thing I do know: I search for peace.

XVI. HAPPENINGS ON BOARD THE SHIP

— 1—

The brig Charlotta sails through night and day in the mist and drizzle of the April spring.

The sails in her two full-rigged masts hang limp and lifeless — the wind is still light. The ship’s heavy body lies deep in the sea. The sea’s beast of burden, a camel in the water desert, she plows her way slowly through the soft, blue-green billows. The figurehead on her prow — the eagle — incessantly scans the sea with his piercing eyes. At times foam sprays his neck and washes his open mouth; it drips from his beak, ever ready to taste the salt water; it runs from his eyes, ever washed clean by the sea. The neck of the bird rises proudly: the eagle’s eye searches the width of the ocean as though trying to find the path of those who sailed this way before. Here ships have sailed for thousands of years, but on this path wanderers leave no footprints.

The last time the emigrants saw land it was the outermost point of Denmark, appearing at a great distance. But sometimes they saw other ships, larger and smaller than their own; they saw faster sails, and slower ones. Either way, the Charlotta soon was alone again on the sea.

For several days the weather had been so cloudy that Captain Lorentz had been unable to take their position by the sun. He measured distances and figured his course by dead reckoning. The speed was slow, the ship moved at a snail’s pace across Kattegat.

The little peasant with the wild brown beard came up to the skipper near the helm and smiled in his quiet way: God was giving them fine, calm weather on their voyage. Lorentz replied that if God wished them well. He ought to give them stronger wind.

If this damned peasant only knew how long he would have to stay on board if this weather lasted the whole crossing! Then he would no doubt throw himself down on his knees and pray for wind.

But these poor farmers had no idea about anything at sea. They acted as if their ears and eyes were full of earth. They had only traveled on manure wagons, never before been carried by the waves. And they had one reason to be satisfied with the calm weather — up to now they had practically escaped seasickness. Nor was there any hurry, apparently, for these earth rats to reach North America. They were only traveling from one piece of land to another, from one field to another. They would reach their destination soon enough, and begin to poke in the turf on the other side.

Day after day, for days on end, the first mate wrote in the Charlotta’s log: Wind light southeast. Cloudy. At times rain and fog.

— 2—

In the daytime the emigrants were on deck. It was bitter cold and they wore all their garments — coats, shawls, blankets, sheepskins. It was more comfortable on deck for those who stood the sea poorly and were afraid of nights in the hold. Here there was fresh air — in the hold the air was fetid. In their bunks at night seasickness stole over them, as though the illness kept itself hidden somewhere down there and crawled out at night. Then it might happen that there were too few wooden buckets, or that someone couldn’t find a bucket in time in the darkness; lights were not allowed after ten in the evening. Then, when daylight began to creep in, it revealed the long night’s happenings.

The emigrants began their day with a cleaning of their quarters. Men carried water in big buckets, and women scrubbed and scoured and washed and hung wet clothing to dry on deck. This chore must be completed before the thirsty were allowed to drink, before the dirty could wash themselves. Now they understood why the day’s portion of drinking water was withheld until they had cleaned up after the night.

There were complaints among the passengers that half a gallon of sweet water a day per person was too little. This half gallon must last for preparation of food, for drinking water, for washing themselves and their babies. And they were accustomed to draw water from full wells. The second mate tried to explain to them that this amount had been decided, once and for all, that the ship’s total supply of fresh water did not allow greater rations: they were on a long voyage, it might take three months if they were unlucky with weather. There might even come a day when they would have to manage with less. They must learn now to save the drops.

The women tried washing their woolen things in sea water, but the soap gave no suds. One morning a heavy rain fell. Then the seamen stretched a sail on deck to gather rain water. The sailors washed themselves and their clothes in this, and the passengers stood by looking on, some following their example. Danjel Andreasson said that the Lord had remembered them with good washing water from His heaven.

The emigrants talked among themselves about sending someone to the captain to ask for more water. But who? No one volunteered. There was respect for the captain among them. Whenever it was mentioned that someone should go to him, invariably the reply was: The captain is asleep now, or, The captain is taking his siesta, he cannot be disturbed. It seemed as if the commander of the ship slept in his cabin the clock around. Yet they all knew he took his siesta only in the afternoons.

As early as on the first day, Karl Oskar had told the second mate the truth about the crowded situation on the ship, and since that time he had been considered a particularly fearless person by his fellow passengers. Several of them now urged him to see the captain about the water. But Karl Oskar flatly refused; he was not going to be used as a shield for others.

Neither Karl Oskar nor Kristina made friends easily. Of all the people in their quarters they were most friendly with Måns Jakob and Fina-Kajsa, the old peasant couple from Öland. Those two were kind and helpful people. Only, thought Kristina, they seemed somewhat dirty — perhaps because she herself was trying so hard to keep clean. She had never seen Måns Jakob wash himself, he always had some water left from his half gallon, and she asked to use this. Yet she thought that more than anyone else, he needed it. His clothes and everything around him he dirtied with snuff spittle and dribble which ran in two horrible rills from the sides of his mouth. And Fina-Kajsa had black cakes of dirt in her ears, and the furrows on her neck were like black ribbons. She must be afraid of losing them, as she didn’t wash them away! Måns Jakob and his wife each carried more Swedish dirt to America than any other passengers on the Charlotta.

Soiled and worn, too, were all the things they carried in their homemade knapsack, made from old, gray sailcloth, fastened at both ends to pieces of one-inch boards. Narrow wooden laths kept the end-pieces apart. The Småland farmers sewed their knapsacks; the Öland farmers apparently hammered theirs together. But all were on the same long journey and in time would become equally experienced travelers.

Måns Jakob kept worrying about the grindstone he was bringing to his son. He was afraid that it might be damaged in the hold, that it might be broken on this long voyage. And how was he to transport it to his son when they landed? Perhaps it might cost too much money in freight to send it on in America. The grindstone weighed heavy on the old Öland peasant as he lay in his bunk and suffered from the sea. He didn’t seem to care so much whether or not he himself arrived in America, if only the grindstone reached its destination whole and sound. The grindstones over there were expensive and poor; his son had written he was unable to sharpen his axes well enough on the American stones.

Since their embarkation Karl Oskar had more often mused over the question: Where would they go once they landed in the town of New York? No one in their company had any idea, not one of those from Ljuder Parish. And he must plan for himself and his family, think about it in advance, arrive ahead of the ship, so to speak. Now he heard the Öland farmer talk about his son, who had taken a homestead in a place called Minnesota.

He asked Måns Jakob: “Is there good farming land in that place?”

“First-class, according to my son. The topsoil is much deeper than at home. My boy has taken one hundred acres.”

“Our boy is able, that’s what he is!” said Fina-Kajsa, with a questioning look at Karl Oskar, as much as to say: Would he be able to clear land?

And while the two narrow rills continued their peaceful course down the chin of the old peasant, he went on: His son had written him that there were such extensive, fertile plains that all the farmers in Småland and on Öland could have their own farms there if they wished to emigrate. The ground only needed to be turned. And the place was healthy: in the summers the air was somewhat humid, but at other seasons it was neither too cold nor too warm — about the same as at home. A likable place for simple folk. In other places in America the emigrants died like flies, they couldn’t stand the foul climate — yes, the climate was evil in some places, wrote his son. He himself was a little afraid of this, he was ailing somewhat in his old age, he had a wicked pain in his heart — that was why he used so much snuff; snuff was supposed to comfort his ailment. The heart — inside him — wanted to stop at times, but it always started again as soon as he took a couple of pinches of snuff. It might stop for long times when he had no snuff at hand. This was very inconvenient. Because of his advanced age he had hesitated about the emigration. He had never moved before in all his days, he was born on his farm at home. But his son had paid for his voyage, and he was anxious to see the broad fields his son owned in North America.

Karl Oskar wondered if that place, Minnesota, might not be the right one for his family to settle in. He asked Robert about the type of soil there, but his brother could not find the name in his description book. There was no such state in the Union, of that he was sure, but he thought maybe the great wilderness around the upper end of the river Mississippi was named thus. This was the biggest and most useful river in the whole world. It had more water than any other river. Its shores were fertile and healthy, covered with forests and meadows, abounding in fish and game and Indians and all that people could need for their existence. On the fair shores of the Mississippi it had happened that a settler in five years had earned a bushel of gold.

“I’m not interested in bushels of gold,” said Karl Oskar. “I asked about the soil.”

But the information sounded favorable. And Karl Oskar kept the name, Minnesota, in the back of his mind. It was easier to remember than any other word because the first half was Minne itself, memory.

— 3—

Kristina was in the galley and had just finished preparing dinner for her family. The women stood in a long row near the door, awaiting their turns to use the stove. As soon as one pot was taken off the fire another was put on. Kristina was looking forward to the day when she could cook and fry over her own fire again, when she could leave a pot standing as long as she pleased. No one could prepare food aright in the rocking cookhouse on the ship, which had to be used by so many. When her peas didn’t get soft fast enough, there was always some woman at her elbow impatiently wondering if she weren’t soon going to remove her kettle. As if she could help it that the old ship’s peas became harder the longer they boiled! And oftentimes the water splashed over and killed the fire. She hadn’t known how well things went for her in those days when she prepared food on a stove where the kettles didn’t dance.

After the meal Kristina picked up her knitting and went on deck, as was her habit in calm weather. Little Harald was asleep in the bunk-pen, and Johan and Lill-Märta were playing up here with other children. Karl Oskar watched to see that they didn’t climb the rail. Lill-Märta had — God be praised — thrown off her cold, and the other two children were hale and hearty.

It was a blessing she had taken along her knitting needles and some balls of woolen yarn — now she had something with which to while away the time on the ship; her hands were not happy when still.

Now, as Kristina sat there knitting, she discovered a small speck on the sock, a grayish yellow something on the white wool. She picked it up between her thumb and forefinger, and placed it in the flat of her hand and looked at it. She sat there and stared at it. She could not be mistaken — the speck moved, the speck moved about in the palm of her hand.

There was no doubt about it: she had in her hand a big, fat, proud, body louse.

While her eyes followed the little animal that moved so valiantly across her hand her anger rose within her. Lice! Big, fat, body lice! And now she recalled that she had felt a peculiar itch the last few days.

With the thumb of her other hand she quickly killed the creeping creature. Then she rushed down into the hold, to her bunk, where she stripped to the skin.

All her garments were filled with lice. They were in her vest and in her petticoat, she discovered them in every seam and hiding place of her woolen clothing — the living, gray-yellow little specks were crawling all over the warm, soft, woolly cloth. And the pleats and creases were filled with nits. In the armholes of her vest there were veritable nests of them. And as she stood there naked she could see in the poor light that her body was covered with small red spots — her shoulders, stomach, and chest were dotted with louse-bites. She had felt some pricking and itching, but in the dim light when she dressed and undressed mornings and evenings she had not seen the disgusting marks.

Kristina sank down on her mattress and broke out crying.

Karl Oskar wondered why his wife had left the deck so suddenly. He went after her and found her lying there naked. Was she sick?

She turned away her face and sobbed: “I’m full of lice! Body lice! Oh, Lord my God in heaven!”

He stood there, awkwardly, and stared at her.

“Don’t look at me! It’s horrible!” She pulled the bedcover over her. “Such a disgrace!”

“But, Kristina dear, we have never had vermin.”

“No — I’ve always kept us clean. The children and all of us — you know that. And then I come here — to sea, to get filled with lice!”

“But, dear sweet, don’t cry!”

He had not seen her cry since the night before they left their home, she had been in good and even temper until now.

She cried out between her sobs: she had never in her life had a louse on her body. Once only, when very little and going to school, she had picked up a head louse from one of the children, but her mother had immediately cleaned her with a fine-tooth comb. And her own children had always been kept clean, she had taken pride in it — even though head lice in children weren’t actually considered vermin.

“It’s an eternal disgrace!”

In her parents’ home it had been instilled in her that it was disgraceful for people to have vermin. Only bad people — tramps and whores — bred vermin on their bodies. Vermin on the body were the outward sign of a person’s soul and disposition: lice made their nests on lazy, indolent, and dishonest people. Vermin did not feel at home with industrious, honest, decent people, and the absence of them was their mark of honor. Kristina felt dishonored and debased.

Karl Oskar tried to comfort her: she mustn’t take it so hard, she herself had not bred lice on her body, she had received them from somebody on board. The vermin were not her disgrace, they were the disgrace of some fellow passenger. There must be someone here in the family compartment who had brought the lice along with him. And the unpleasant creatures spawned and multiplied very fast. A night-old louse was already a grandmother.

Karl Oskar looked at the bed-pen next to them, where the old couple from Öland slept, Måns Jakob and Fina-Kajsa — perhaps Kristina’s next neighbors were the guilty ones. He had definitely heard that the people on Öland had more lice than those living on the mainland.

As he was about to confide his suspicions to Kristina, Inga-Lena and Ulrika of Västergöhl came down from the galley with their noon meal in their baskets and crocks. Inga-Lena noticed that Kristina had bloodshot eyes, and she approached helpfully to ask how things were.

But Kristina’s eyes fell on Ulrika: there — on the other side of the hanging, at the foot of her own bunk — there that woman and her daughter had their sleeping place. It was not a foot’s distance between Ulrika’s mattress and her own, and the opening between the hanging and the wall was an inch wide — that was the easiest way for the vermin to get through, there they could march through unhindered and carry each other on their backs.

Without hesitation, Kristina shouted to Ulrika: “It’s you! No one but you, you old whore! You have infested us all with lice!”

“Kristina!” Karl Oskar cried out in warning. But it was too late.

His young wife went on: “It’s you, you slut! You always had your louse-nest in Västergöhl. All men running after you spread your vermin over the parish. Now you have infested the ship with lice! And you are on your way to infest all of America, too.”

Kristina’s eyes were flaming. But the accusation she threw at Ulrika was only part of what she felt. She had long endured biting words from that woman, now she shook with suppressed hatred — the decent woman’s hatred for the harlot.

Ulrika winced and narrowed her eyes till they seemed like small, white, gleaming slits. Those who knew her would have understood: she would not be easy to deal with now.

But she did not answer Kristina directly, she turned first to Karl Oskar: “So that’s it — your wife brought along her lice from her home? I guess they didn’t want to part from so fine a woman!”

“Be quiet now, Ulrika!” he said harshly.

“You would do better to admonish your wife!” And Ulrika’s eyes narrowed still further, and her mouth twisted in a grimace as was its habit when it spat fury.

“She must take back her accusation! This moment! I’ll go up and get Danjel!”

She ran up on deck.

“Now you have started something,” said Karl Oskar with concern.

Kristina had stopped crying. A sudden fearlessness came over her, as if she had made a decision. “I called her whore and slut. Those are her right names. I take back nothing!”

“But here we must let bygones be bygones. We must be friends as long as we share our journey to America.”

“I have not asked to be in the company of that woman!”

Ulrika returned with Danjel Andreasson at her side.

“Now we will hold our reckoning, Kristina of Korpamoen!”

And as she went on her voice rose to a shout: “Kristina accuses me of having infested the ship with lice! She accuses me of having vermin! She has derided Christ’s body and His pure, innocent lamb!”

Most of the passengers were on deck, but those in their bunks came near to listen to the commotion. Karl Oskar looked at Danjel, appealing for his intercession.

“Let there be peace among you, women!” said Danjel beseechingly.

“She accuses me when she herself is full of lice!” cried Ulrika. “I want her to ask my pardon on her bare knees!”

“Bend my knees to you?” exclaimed Kristina in uttermost contempt.

“You must ask Christ’s body for forgiveness!”

“I would rather kneel to the devil himself!”

“Do you hear, Danjel? She blasphemes!”

“Be calm, dear sweet ones! Keep quiet, both of you,” entreated Danjel persuasively. “We all wander together on the same road and the Holy Writ says: ‘Quarrel not on the road.’ “

The peasant from Kärragärde looked on the two enraged women with compassion, his eyes wandered from his sister’s daughter to his sister in Christ, and his eyes were even more entreating than his words.

“She must take it back!” shouted Ulrika furiously.

And she turned to Danjel and went on. She, Ulrika, was innocent. As sure as the Lord lived on high, she had never seen a louse on her body since she could remember. In the old days while she still lived in her old, sinful body, she might at times have found something crawling that had lost its way in her underwear, for lice did feel at home in woolen underwear. But since she had been reborn through her faith in Christ she had been clean and free of lice. And he, Danjel, must know this better than anyone else, he must know that no vermin would cling to Christ’s body. He must know that neither Christ nor any of His disciples had lice while they walked here on earth — possibly with the exception of Judas, the betrayer, she could not answer for him, he was no doubt a vermin-infested shit-heel. But lice could live and thrive only on an old, sinful, rotten body — not on God’s pure, innocent lamb.

And Ulrika began to unbutton her blouse. “I shall strip to the skin! No one will find a single louse on me!”

“Have you no decency?” Kristina’s face flushed red. “You disgrace all womanhood!”

“You have accused me! Anyone who wants to can look for himself!”

Her bare, full breasts were uncovered as she unbuttoned her bodice. Karl Oskar turned away, a little irritated that the sight of the white breasts somewhat disturbed him.

Ulrika would have undressed and bared her whole body if Danjel had not taken her by the arm and dissuaded her. He now spoke to her about a Christian’s true behavior in the presence of worldly people. He warned her of the dangerous temptation of vanity which might entice her to show her body, a wonder of God’s handiwork, which she must not use for the purpose of arousing sinful desires in menfolk.

“But I must clear myself!” insisted Ulrika. “Inga-Lena must examine my clothes — she must be an unbiased witness for me. Come and look, Inga-Lena!”

Ulrika and Inga-Lena withdrew behind the hanging to the unmarried women’s compartment. In there, on the other side of the sailcloth, Ulrika completed her undressing.

After a short moment the two women returned. In Ulrika’s gleaming face one could immediately read the result of the inspection.

“Speak up, Inga-Lena! Did you find any lice on me?”

“No-o.”

“Did you find as much as one single nit?”

“No-o.”

“There, you can hear, all of you! I am innocent! Kristina must get down on her knees to me! She must ask my forgiveness!”

“Never while I am alive!” exclaimed Kristina in disgust. “I would rather jump into the sea!”

“You and your man can undress each other! You two can pick the lice off each other! But now you hear that I am free of vermin, and you must ask my pardon! You have blasphemed God’s pure, innocent lamb!”

“Shall I ask your pardon, you old, inveterate sinner?”

“Down on your knees with you!” Ulrika’s eyes spat fire. “If you don’t, I’ll tear your eyes out!”

She was ready to spring at Kristina, as Danjel and Karl Oskar grabbed hold of her arms and held her back.

Kristina did not ask her forgiveness. But another woman stood by, ready to bend her knees: Inga-Lena was sad and ashamed and almost ready to cry. All turned to her. She held something between her thumb and forefinger, she held it up to her husband’s eyes. It was something that moved, something gray-yellow — a big, fat, body louse.

“Danjel — dear — look, I too — I have—”

Ulrika was innocent, but Inga-Lena had found a louse in her own undergarments. And now she stood there and fumbled for her husband’s hand, as if she wished to ask his forgiveness.

Danjel Andreasson examined the louse which his wife held up to his eyes. He said softly: This animal, too, was the created work of the Lord. They must therefore not hate and detest the creature, but accept it in quiet submission. It must remind them that they should wash themselves and keep clean here on the ship. The vermin were sent as a trial for them — for everyone’s betterment.

Karl Oskar could now feel a crawling along his spine. He went to his bunk, among the unmarried men, and began to undress; he soon found what he was looking for.

It turned out, by and by, that all the passengers in the hold were infested with lice, all except one. The only one to escape the vermin was Ulrika of Västergöhl, the old harlot.

— 4—

Kristina at once began the extermination of the small crawling creatures. She saw other women sit around and pick lice from their clothes and kill them one at a time with their thumbnail against a wooden plate. But this required too much time and was, besides, not a reliable extermination. The soft soap she had taken along now came in good stead. In the galley she boiled all their underwear in a strong, seething soap-lye which no louse could survive. Then she took a quicksilver salve and rubbed it over the whole bodies of herself, her husband, and her children. With her splendid fine-tooth comb she went after the children’s hair so thoroughly that their scalps bled from the brass teeth.

It irritated her deeply that Ulrika of Västergöhl could walk around in malicious joy and feel superior to everyone on the ship. But Kristina did not believe that Ulrika had escaped the vermin because Christ lived in her. Uncle Danjel, no doubt, was more pious and Christian-spirited than Ulrika — yet the lice had not spared him.

She had accused Ulrika wrongfully, and she regretted it, but she could never force herself to ask forgiveness of that woman; that would be to admit that she was lower than the Glad One, the infamous whore. The one to ask forgiveness was Ulrika — she ought to ask forgiveness of all those women at home whom she had insulted when she gave herself to their husbands.

And Kristina half admitted to herself what had driven her to the accusation: she had watched Ulrika strut about in front of Karl Oskar; one could easily imagine how she would act if she were alone with him in a dark corner. Of course, he would never let himself be tempted, but Ulrika had a strange power over men. Karl Oskar had a strong nature, and he had slept alone here on the ship for many nights. So one could not be sure, not absolutely sure. . The look which crept into Ulrika’s eyes when she turned them on the men, on both Karl Oskar and others, those disgusting eyes, radiating seething lust — in those eyes whoring gleamed.

And Kristina sought comfort in the thought that as soon as they landed in America, they would be rid of Ulrika of Västergöhl.

It turned out that the number of “free passengers” on the brig Charlotta was infinite — the greatest number of which probably were created on board. There was a great demand for quicksilver salve for their extinction, from the captain’s medicine chest — so much so that after a few days the second mate reported the ship’s supply was dangerously low, so many jars had been distributed.

It was never determined who had brought the disgusting vermin on board, but Captain Lorentz said to his second mate that he wondered how things actually were in old Sweden when even the lice emigrated to North America.

— 5—

Robert went everywhere on the ship, and was a keen observer. He listened to the orders of the ship’s officers, and he watched the seamen execute them. He learned what it meant to “sheet home” and “hoist sail”; he learned to distinguish between tackle, boom, and stay; he knew what a block was, and he could point out to Arvid the spar, the hawse, the bollard, the shrouds, the bolt, and the winch. He knew that luff meant the ship went more against the wind, and fall away was to have the wind more to the side. He had made friends with the old sail-maker, who gave him all the information he might want. He was told that the ship’s earth-gray sails were never washed — except when God the Father Himself cleansed them with His rain and dried them in His sun and wind. He was informed that the strongest sails in the world were made in Jonsered in Sweden, and were known on all seas as “Jonsered sails”; he was told that the Charlotta carried her cargo of pig iron in her bottom, to make her lie deep in the sea; he was advised to eat all the peas and sauerkraut he could get — then he would not become sick of scurvy; scurvy was the most dangerous disease for emigrants — many succumbed to it during ocean voyages. But he must be careful and eat meat in small quantities — though salt pork was probably least dangerous.

Robert also kept close to the man in the broad-checked jacket and narrow pants — the one who was referred to on the ship as “the American.” Robert questioned him endlessly about things in the United States. To some inquiries he received an answer; others were ignored. The man said that the American President had forbidden him to tell all he knew about the country. He had held such posts over there that he was in possession of important secrets concerning the country’s government, and if he divulged them to outsiders he would never be allowed to enter the republic again. Robert wondered about this statement.

So far he knew only that the American’s name was Fredrik Mattsson. And now he thought of another man with the same first name — Fredrik of Kvarntorpet, who had made the famous America journey to Gothenburg and had afterwards disappeared. Robert thought that the stranger on board might be Fredrik Thron — it was rumored that he had gone to sea. Robert confided his suspicions to Jonas Petter, who had known the Kvarntorpet boy while he was growing up. Jonas Petter looked carefully over his fellow passenger when unobserved, and finally said that this man could be Fredrik Thron, the escaped farmhand. He was about the same height, and his face was similar. But he hadn’t seen the rascal in twenty years, and a person can change much from youth to manhood. He could not say for sure. Now, the American had said that his home parish was in Blekinge, and that might prove that he came from Småland, for Fredrik Thron lied at all times, except when he told the truth in momentary forgetfulness. But at such moments he always used to blush, he was so ashamed of it, said Jonas Petter.

Robert recalled that he had read somewhere about a President of North America — George Washington — who always told the truth and even confessed that he had cut down an apple tree; they now celebrated that day in the United States.

He decided to try to find out the truth about Fredrik Mattsson, the American.

After one week at sea, Robert was convinced that his place was on land. Nearly every chore of a seaman was dangerous. The farm service on land was hard, but it was never dangerous. How could the ship’s officers make the seamen climb up there in the mast-tops? The seamen worked their regular watches and were free in between, but real peace they never had; neither day nor night could they rest completely. One who served as seaman on board a ship was no more free than a farmhand. The farmhand must look after the horses night and day, Sundays and weekdays, without letup. And the seamen must lie there in their bunks in the forecastle, as closely packed as salted herrings. He and Arvid had had better quarters in the stable room in Nybacken, even though there was an abundance of bedbugs there.

A farmhand must eat salt herring all the time, but a seaman must eat rancid pork at every meal. And the seamen must live here year in and year out, imprisoned inside the rail; they couldn’t take a step outside — only forty steps lengthwise, and eight sidewise.

A farmhand on land had more freedom than a seaman at sea.

There were also moments when the farmhand Robert Nilsson from Korpamoen was filled by other thoughts than those of the dangerous, chained life on three-fourths of the earth’s surface, the sea: “. . but he who learns to understand why the water takes so much space shall therein see a proof of the Creator’s omnipotence and kindness.” For hours on end he would stand and gaze toward the mast-tops. Up there — in dizzy heights above the deck — the forest pines stretched their heads: those widely traveled trees, those debarked stems of the large, prolific family of evergreens. These pines had lost their branches and crowns, and instead had been decked in clothes of sail. Dressed in these, they rose here at sea higher and more proudly than ever in the forest. From their fenced-in wood lot they had been let out on the world ocean, there to sail for life. But for each fir cut for a mast, one hundred remained rooted, sentenced for all time to the drab and dreary life at home. There they stood — fifty, sixty years — then they were cut down for rafters or used as timbers in a house, byre, or barn. Then there they lay, in their deep disgrace for a hundred years or more, growing hairy with moss and green with mold, brown-spotted from cow dung, hollow and filled with cockroach nests. Slowly, very slowly, they would rot down in the unromantic stable wall, and when the old building at last had served its time and was torn down, they would be thrown away with odds and ends on the woodpile, to end their lives in the fire — to succumb at last under a peasant pot in which potatoes for the pigs were boiling.

Such is the fate of pine trees which remain at home.

But the chosen mast trees fly the sails which carry ships across the oceans. They help people emigrate from continent to continent, in search of new homes. Their graceful heads carry the winged sails, they are the wingbones of the sailing ships. They may be broken in their youth by storm and shipwreck, or they may sink with their ships in old age, but they will never end in smoke and ashes under a pot filled with potatoes for swine. And when the ship goes down, the masts follow her to the bottom of the sea and proudly lay themselves to rest in the roomiest, deepest grave in the world.

Such is the fate of seagoing pines.

One hundred remain rooted while one is let free to sail on the sea that covers three-quarters of the earth.

And for each farmhand who emigrates across the sea to the New World, hundreds remain at home. There they sit, in their dark stable rooms in the Old World, and gaze through the small fly-specked windows during dreary Sunday afternoons, rooted in their home communities, in their service, until one day they die an ignominious death in bed in a corner of some moss-grown cottage, or as a pauper in the home of some charitable soul.

Such is the lot of home-staying farmhands.

XVII. “. . THE SHIP WAS COVERED WITH WAVES. .”

On the North Sea the emigrants encountered their first rough weather.

It began to blow in the evening — at midnight the captain judged the wind to be the ninth grade, according to Beaufort’s Scale. The Charlotta’s topsails were now bottom-reeved, and in the log the first mate wrote: “Storm.”

Robert:

He awakened. Something heavy had rolled on him — his brother’s body.

He had gone to sleep as usual in his bunk next to Karl Oskar. He had already had time to dream. His dream had been about a word, “dead sea.”

He had stood on the afterdeck at dusk when one of the seamen had said, they were almost in a dead sea. It had sounded horrible — as if they were sailing over a sea where they were to die. The sailmaker had told him what it meant: waves that were remnants of an old storm — after-waves, so to speak. They were the ghosts of the sea, threatening billows that came from some place where a ship shortly before had gone down. They came with a message from the drowned ones — the dead ones told about their shipwreck.

Someone had said: Dead sea is a foreboding of storm; the wind has shifted to northwest.

Round the ship rose steep, high knolls — white-topped — swelling like rising bread in the oven. Suddenly a wave had broken over the deck where Robert stood, soaking his trousers to above the knees. He had become frightened, and had wanted to run away, when he heard one of the seamen — a young boy of his own age — laughing at him and his wet pants. Then Robert had pretended that it didn’t matter, and had remained there.

Until now he had known the sea as a pleasant splash against the hull at night. But the kind, friendly sea was changing: a beast with thousands of high, seething humps coiled around the ship. He heard the first mate’s command: Batten down the main hatch!

He had been about to wring the water from his wet trouser legs when suddenly the whole deck became a steep, slippery downhill. The brig Charlotta listed to one side. He grabbed the rail with both hands so as not to slide away, and there he hung, waiting anxiously for the Charlotta to get back on an even keel — which she did, only to roll over on the other side: downhill became uphill.

Robert wanted to remain on deck, he didn’t want to appear cowardly. But a feeling of dizziness took hold of him, and he had a sensation as though his stomach were rolling about loose inside him. What was this? What was the matter with him? Hadn’t he read in his History of Nature about that which overcame him: “This rolling movement of ships at sea causes inexperienced people who voyage on them. .”? And now he noticed that only a couple of passengers were left on deck; he was not the most cowardly. Then he had gone below and lain down in his bunk.

A great hue and cry was heard from the other side of the sailcloth, where the women were. One of them had been badly burned by scalding water while she was preparing her evening meal in the galley. A pot with boiling water had fallen over her foot as the rolling began. The woman had cried out loudly: “I shall complain to the captain! The captain shall hear about this!” But from the men’s side was heard a rough voice: “Damned hens, those women! Must the captain hold their pots? Why in hell can’t they be more careful?”

The young girl who was ill with an abscess in her throat often moaned softly — tonight Robert could not hear her.

Then he had gone to sleep, but the word had penetrated his brain like an auger, working away inside: dead sea—dead sea—DEAD SEA!

It was night, and the darkness impenetrable. He lay on the inside of the bunk, and his brother’s heavy body had rolled over him so he could not move. Karl Oskar slept. Robert could hear men turn in their bunks — snore, groan, puff, vomit, fart, talk in their sleep, pray, swear and curse.

Karl Oskar rolled back to his place, their mattress seemed to sink. Robert grabbed hold of his brother’s shoulder — their bunk was sinking! Nothing stopped it — now he was lying on top of his brother and they sank together, toward the bottom of the sea!

He clung to his brother’s shoulders and was able to whisper: “Karl Oskar—”

Then their bunk stopped sinking — it rose. And again his brother’s body rolled over onto his. Now it was his turn to sink, with his brother on top of him. No bottom hindered — they sank and sank. Now they must be deep under the water—they must be going down!

He heard himself cry out: “We are sinking!”

Karl Oskar seemed to waken — he mumbled, half asleep: “It’s only storming. Keep quiet!”

It stormed. An uninterrupted roar was heard from the sea on the other side of the hull, like thunder after a bolt of lightning. The mass of water outside, which until this evening had carried their ship on its back calmly and patiently as a docile beast of burden, had now become a wild beast with frothing, foamy jaws, and it heaved with all its pliant humps as if to throw off its burden. Already it had snapped at Robert — his wet trousers hung near the bunk: the sea had licked him with its wet tongue.

And now he lay there and sank: the sea had swallowed him. It had licked his legs in the evening, tonight it had swallowed him.

He wanted to throw up. There seemed to be no air around him, he could not breathe.

“Karl Oskar! Have we sunk? Has the ship gone down?”

The water had not yet come in to them. But as soon as the hull broke, when the planks splintered, when there were holes in the bulkhead — then the sea would rush in and drown them.

“Karl Oskar! Can’t you feel we are sinking?”

“It’s only seasickness.”

The two brothers kept rolling over each other. Their bunk went up and down. The older one explained: in a storm a ship rocked like a cradle.

“But it is stifling in here tonight,” panted Karl Oskar, and turned over on his other side.

One could hear that he, too, suffered. He had not yet been seasick, every morning regularly he drank his wormwood-seed brännvin on an empty stomach; he was sure this kept his body in good order.

Now the crew had battened down the hatch, as the waves were constantly washing over the deck. In so doing they had also closed all the small holes which let air in to the hold. That’s why it’s so stiflingly thick in here tonight, Robert thought. The air he inhaled had already been used. His fellow passengers had used it, men and women had sucked it in through their throats, old men and hags had held it in their filthy mouths. It was not air any more, there was no air. Robert inhaled — this is the last, there is no more air — it does not suffice for all, there isn’t air for one more breath, this is my last one in life. Perhaps one more — if I use very little only. This is my last breath — next time I cannot. .

The air dried in his throat, and he became faint from fear: he was dying.

He gasped for breath in short, weak jerks: “Karl Oskar — I’m choking to death—”

“You have as much air as I. Keep quiet!”

A light fluttered above them; Jonas Petter had lit a tallow candle.

An angry voice was heard through the darkness: “Don’t start a fire, you bastards!”

“I can’t see to puke,” panted Jonas Petter. “It runs beside the bucket.”

But he blew out the light before he was through vomiting.

Robert kept on breathing; the air seemed to give out at each breath he took, but there was always enough for one more. People around him puffed, groaned, swore, vomited, prayed, moaned, and cried.

The brig Charlotta sailed on with them all, through the night, over a sea with hissing, wet tongues licking the vessel on all her sides. The night was dark and starless with low sweeping clouds. Two lanterns were burning on deck: the green on starboard and the red on port. But they gave out poor light, these kerosene burners, hemmed in by darkness and the storm. Two fragile little lanterns on a black, raging sea, two lights in a little world that moved above the depths of a great tempestuous water.

Yet in this little world lived nearly a hundred people, cramped and crowded.

Robert listened to the sounds of the breaking waves: they roared, splashed, and flowed as they broke over the deck above him. Mighty masses of water came rushing, crashing tumultuously, and falling. When a wave broke against the deck the sound increased to a thunder-roar, deafening as a big box on his ear. Surging and splashing, the water ran in small runnels over the deck planks, flowing like a swollen spring back to its home. A wave rose, broke itself against the ship, and fell back into the sea. The next one followed — a hard thud, the water threw itself over the deck, then followed the roar, the soughing, the purl of running water. He lay there and listened to wave after wave, and each time he could hear how the ship freed herself from the lashing tongue of the sea, and escaped the yawn of the wild beast. The brig Charlotta was still afloat.

A baby cried incessantly on the other side of the hanging. It sounded like the mewing of a tortured cat. A cat — it wasn’t a child he heard cry, it was a cat! It was the old cat which he once had drowned in the mill brook, the cat in the sack that wouldn’t sink. The cat was in here and she was being choked slowly, she mewed pitifully, the sack would not sink before he had thrown many stones at it. And the cat mewed, she mewed incessantly, she had mewed for many years, ever since she was drowned. And now she mewed here, behind the hanging, while he himself lay here and was being choked, tied in a sack, sinking—

His punishment was inescapable: he must die in the same manner as the cat.

Perspiration clung to his whole body, like a cold, wet cloth against the skin. He folded his hands, he had not said his evening prayers last night. When he had finished he took hold of his brother’s shoulder again. “Karl Oskar — please. I’m afraid.”

“Keep quiet! It’ll blow over.”

“But I’m afraid I’m going to die—”

“No one can do anything for you — you understand that much.”

No. No one could do anything. All the hundred people inside the hulk of the ship were forced to lie and wait, they could do nothing else. The ship might sink with them all, and no trace would be left on the water’s surface, no one in the whole world would know how they had died, no one would be able to find their grave. In the space of a few minutes they would all disappear from the world, remain lost for eternity; and soon it would be as if they had never existed. And not a soul could do a thing about it. No one could bend a finger to help them. Here they would lie, inside the sack when the sea broke in, filling their mouths with water, filling their eyes, their ears and throats, choking them as the cat was choked in the mill-brook sack.

There was no one but God to turn to.

“Karl Oskar—”

“What do you want?”

“I drowned a cat in the brook when I was little. She suffered terribly before she died. Do you think I can — can be forgiven?”

“What nonsense is that?”

“I can hear the cat mewing — in here.”

“You are out of your head!”

But Robert prayed God’s forgiveness for what he had done to the cat in the mill brook. After that he felt as if his fear had eased.

His breathing came in short gasps. But suddenly his nose and mouth felt clogged: a slimy, sticky fluid was covering his face; something from the bunk above him dripped onto him. In the dark he could not see what it was, nor need he see it — the smell told him all.

The stench of the vomit overwhelmed him. He rose, and tumbling over his brother’s body he got out of his bunk. Out. . Out! He would die, this very minute, if he didn’t get out at once. He felt his way through the darkness, between the close bunks of his fellow passengers. The floor beneath him fell away — the floor rose, and he crawled uphill. He reached the narrow passage longships as if walking on stilts. He skidded in the vomit, it splashed in his face, he spat, he dried himself with his hands, he groaned. Out — out in the open! Here he would die. The filthy stench forced itself into him, it went deeper into his throat, it filled and choked him. Up — up on deck!

He reached the ladder in the hatchway, he tried to crawl up on hands and feet. But the hatch was fastened solidly, he pulled and pushed, he could not move it, he could get no farther. The sack was well sewn together, he could not get out, he must choke to death down here. He could hear the seamen on deck shout to each other: A hell of a gale! Batten down and secure! What a bastard!

We are in a dead sea—dead sea—DEAD SEA.

Robert remained clinging to the ladder, vomiting. He clung there until he felt a pair of strong arms around his body, a pair of arms that dragged him back to his bunk.

“It’s only seasickness,” said Karl Oskar.

But during the horrors of this first stormy night Robert felt, for the first time in his life, that he was participating in death.

Kristina:

The swing here in the barn was ready. Both ends of the ox-thong were fastened high up in the roof beams. The swing was so high she felt dizzy when she looked up. They used to sit, two of them — two girls together — and hold on to each other. It felt safer that way; but they cried out each time the swing went high. If you were afraid, you jumped off. Now she would ride the swing alone, and that was dangerous.

She crawled up and sat down in the swing, grabbed hold of the ox-thong with both hands, and held on. Then she kicked against the barn floor and started.

You have always liked to ride on a swing, said Karl Oskar.

But once she fell off the swing and broke her knee, and gangrene had set in and she was sent to Berta in Idemo. Karl Oskar came into the kitchen; he was a tall man with a big nose. She remained in her chair the whole time he was there, because she limped when she walked — and for some reason she didn’t want him to see her limp. But now we shall get married, he said, and then she sewed her blue bridal quilt.

If she hadn’t fallen from the swing she wouldn’t have been sent to Berta in Idemo, where she met Karl Oskar, nor would she have been with him in the ship on their way to North America. The happenings of her whole life were decided that day when she made a swing of the old ox-thong in the barn.

Nothing must spot our bridal cover here; our quilt must be kept clean — we must use it in America, when we build anew.

She was riding her swing — at last she could ride as much as she wished, and no one said a word about it. But she must hold on with both hands, she rode higher and higher, she rode backwards up against the roof, and the ground was so far under her that she felt dizzy — she rode forward again, down to the floor. If she fell out she would surely kill herself. She held on harder to the ropes, they cut into her hands, it hurt.

It was dangerous to swing as fast as this — it hummed at her ears, she must slow down. But that was impossible. What should she do? She could not get hold with her feet; she might easily fall out. It was much safer to sit two in the swing, then they could hold on to each other. Why didn’t Karl Oskar come? She wanted to hold on to Karl Oskar.

Here she sat in the clouds — and there, deep below her, was the barn floor.

She cried out; she must stop the swing.

She was awakened by her cry. Lill-Märta lay on her arm and moaned in her sleep, like a little whelp. Her small hands and cheeks felt warm and soft. Children were always warm, they warmed their mother’s hands. Her babies were healthy, God be praised. And they were all on their way to America, where they would settle and build a new home.

She must be careful not to let anything drip on her quilt. But she had nothing more to vomit — the last time it had been green, like the cows’ cuds, pure gall. Now it was finished, some time it must come to an end — though as long as she still had something to throw up, she felt better. Now she would not feel better.

Children were crying, but they were not her children. It’s probably Eva, Inga-Lena’s little one. Poor Inga-Lena, her little one is so sick. She is not six months yet, it is difficult at sea with such a little one. Poor Inga-Lena — she has much to look after, and no help from Danjel. She is killing herself for his sake.

Now Kristina was riding the swing again. She flies up through the air, she falls down, back and forth she rides. She is thrown through space, back and forth. She holds on with both hands, in panic. She wants to jump off, she wants to get back on the floor again.

How far was it to the floor? She looked down. The floor was gone!

Horror seized her, her hands grabbed hold of the rough boards of the bunk-pen, desperately — while the ship rolled and she sank, sank. There was no longer any floor to receive her feet — she fell, and nothing stopped her.

For there was no bottom.

Oh — she must get down, she must rest, she must lie down and rest against something, something onto which she could jump, something soft and warm — arms that would embrace her. She must get to the floor.

How thirsty she was! Her throat burned, in her mouth she chewed embers and ashes. But she was unable to reach out her hand for the water jar which stood near the bunk. She had no power to move her hands, to move her feet or her head. She would never be able to move again.

“Seasickness is harder on married women. . and when a pregnant woman goes to sea, inexperienced with sea and sailing. .”

But it didn’t matter, nothing mattered any more, nothing could happen to her any more. And whatever happened, she would never attempt to raise her head, or her hand even. She had only one wish: to lie here, still, still, still. Never to move any more, never move in all her life, just lie here, until it was all over at last.

Wives who were with child suffered doubly because they were with child. He shall travel free of charge, the little tyke, Karl Oskar had said; he will cheat the skipper. But she paid the fare in her suffering. Three children around her, one inside her — that unborn one — what sort might he be?

But it didn’t matter. Now she only wanted to reach the bottom. She must stop the swing, she wanted to sit on solid ground, she wanted to rest on something soft. But there was no bottom.

Except the bottom of the sea.

The sea was deep, the water was soft, the bottom of the sea was soft. Oh, how she would rest there!

The one who was afraid when the swing went too high could jump off. Other girls jumped off. But she had always liked to ride high. She never used to be afraid.

Kristina of Korpamoen rode on a swing. She was thrown into the clouds, she traveled through space without end or beginning, she sank into depths without bottom.

And from this swing she could not jump off.

Inga-Lena:

It had happened when she stood in the galley and fried pork. She had cut up a side piece, and laid the slices in the frying pan. Then the devil came to her and whispered: You mustn’t rely on that, don’t think for a moment it is true. You mustn’t think that you more than anyone else. . And suddenly she had become dizzy and exhausted and weak. She had rushed to the corner where the buckets were, and thrown up.

Perhaps it was the smell of the pork, sizzling there in the pan. The fat was yellow and had a rancid odor when it was placed over the fire.

She had been forced to go below and rest her head for a moment. All around her people were sick. Men and women vomited like cats. But they were children of the world — the believers were saved from seasickness. Yet now she had been seized by the same illness as the unbelievers. She prayed God for help in her bodily weakness, then she put some more camphor in the pouch she carried against her stomach — a remedy for seasickness — and took a spoonful of medicine — The Four Kinds of Drops.

At supper she was unable to eat a single bite. The rancid fried pork grew and became larger in her mouth. The ship’s pork had never tasted good, today it was inedible. But she dared not tell her husband how things stood with her, he must not notice her bodily ailments, she must keep her seasickness a secret.

Danjel asked why she put her food aside. She answered that she had eaten some in the afternoon when she prepared a bite for the children.

She thought that it must soon pass. She must be well for the sake of her husband and children. And her littlest one so ill — no one knew how it might go with her.

But when she wanted to rise from her bunk, to take the utensils back to the galley, her legs refused to carry her. She lay down on her bunk again.

Ulrika of Västergöhl came up to her and looked at her questioningly.

“You are green in the face! Are you ailing, Inga-Lena?”

The wife from Kärragärde kept her silence. How could she tell the truth?

Ulrika felt perfectly well; she enjoyed the sea as much as solid land. Now she was practically the only woman in the hold feeling completely well. There lay Kristina of Korpamoen and suffered sorely, there she lay and grunted in her bunk like a farrowing sow. All who lived in the flesh became sick, the Lord had no mercy on sinners. But she, Ulrika, went free. One who lived in the true faith could stand the sea in any weather. One with Christ’s body in him could never feel sick.

Only how was it with Inga-Lena? Was not she one of the Lord’s chosen?

“Have you fallen seasick?”

“I’m afraid so,” whispered Inga-Lena.

“Can this be true?”

“Yes — and what will Danjel say if I cannot get up? What shall I do?”

Ulrika was well and full of health and happiness. She could comfort an unhappy one, and now she told Inga-Lena to keep up her spirits. Perhaps there were some remnants of the old body left within her, and these she must give up. They were sinful parts anyway, good to get rid of; it would be well for her to vomit a little. She would feel cleaner and lighter and happier afterwards. When not the slightest piece of the old body was left in her, then Christ would feel much more at home inside her.

Ulrika left Inga-Lena to view the devastation of the seasickness among the children of the world. Inga-Lena remained in her bunk and cried — cried from sorrow that she had been unable to withstand the seasickness and thereby please her husband.

Soon Danjel could see with his own eyes what had happened to her. As he approached their bunk a few moments later, the illness overpowered her and she had to make quick use of the bucket.

“My dear wife!” he exclaimed in consternation.

“Yes, dear Danjel—”

“Was that why you put your food aside?”

“Yes, that’s why, dear Danjel.”

“You have gone to bed? Is your faith weak?”

“Dear, sweet husband, forgive me.”

“Have you listened to the Enemy? Have you doubted. .?”

But the reproach in Danjel Andreasson’s voice was only a mild, kind reproach.

Inga-Lena lay on her bunk and groped for her husband’s hand, crying in despair. She sobbed out: yes, it was true, she had doubted.

Danjel bent his head as after a hard blow: in every unguarded moment the devil was near, trying to entice and tempt and cheat a poor sinner, making him doubt that God could help in trouble and tribulation.

His wife now admitted the whole truth: in her simple mind she had sometimes wondered if it were really true that those who adhered to Åke Svensson’s teachings would escape seasickness on the America voyage. She had thought it sounded a little strange, and she had not believed it a sin to wonder. And today when she stood in the ship’s cookhouse, and saw the tremendous waves, and heard the storm carry on so that their vessel jumped like a cork on the water, then she had become afraid. She had felt sick at her stomach. She was standing at the stove, turning the slices of pork, when doubt at its worst assailed her. Again she had wondered if it could be true — that about the seasickness. She didn’t know what to believe any longer, she couldn’t rely on not getting sick, for she felt in her body that she was about to vomit. That was why she had started to doubt.

Now Danjel understood that it was the devil who had come to her when she was frying pork. But she had not at first recognized him.

“He is always difficult to recognize,” said Danjel. “But don’t you rely on our God, Inga-Lena? Don’t you think He has power to save you from the seasickness, if He wishes?”

Yes, that she believed fully. She had only wondered a little, in her simple mind, only a very little. She had not thought that this could make any difference — if she wondered and questioned, just a little. .

“But you must know that man should not wonder and question! Why didn’t you close your ears to the soul-fiend?”

Danjel’s voice grew more severe; but his sorrow was still deeper, and he gave his wife devout admonitions: she must never never let go of her hold to faith, she must always cling to it. A little carelessness, and she might fall and be lost; and she had been careless while she prepared the meal in the storm. But he could understand this.

Inga-Lena needed to vomit again, and her husband held the bucket for her.

When she was through she said, as if to excuse herself: “The sickness may have started because my bowels are so hard. I have not had an opening for several days.”

“Isn’t that a sinner’s defense, Inga-Lena?”

“No, dear Danjel, I know I would feel better if I could cleanse my bowels.”

“If it were God’s will, you would have openings,” answered her husband.

“Yes, that I believe, of course.”

“But you do not rely on the Lord your God!”

She wanted to. But she wished, so much, that she had a quart of buttermilk to drink here on the ship. Buttermilk had always helped her when she had hard bowels on land. By drinking half a quart a day she could always keep her bowels in good order.

“Do not worry and think of worldly things now, my dear wife,” admonished Danjel, and softly patted the hand of his seasick wife. “Now you must reconcile yourself with Jesus. Do as Ulrika does. She feels hale and well. She believes that the Lord helps His devoted ones on the sea. She holds on to her faith.”

And Inga-Lena felt a deep repentance, and prayed her husband to forgive her for having wondered and questioned and doubted: she hadn’t known any better. But when she got well again, and free of the seasickness, then she would never doubt again. She knew very well that Christ had calmed the storm and walked on the sea and turned water to wine when He lived here on earth. She knew He could save her from any ailment He chose.

Danjel Andreasson kneeled at his seasick wife’s bunk and prayed to God that He might give her more strength to adhere to faith in her Saviour.

Meanwhile Inga-Lena’s head was filled with anxiety: she must improve, she must be able to get up on her feet again. Who, otherwise, would prepare the food for her husband, who could neither boil nor fry? Who would look after his clothes, and keep them clean? He was so sloppy, and dirtied himself so, he wouldn’t care if he finally went about in rags. If she were to lie here — who would feed her children? And the baby who was ill, with something in her chest: who would take care of her? The milk in Inga-Lena’s breasts had gone dry here at sea and she had been forced to stop suckling little Eva; someone had to feed her now by chewing her food. Who would chew for the toothless child, if her mother lay here abed? And who would see to it that the other children were washed and combed and dressed in the mornings? Her husband couldn’t handle children, he was too clumsy with them. And who would watch the children when they played on deck? They might run too close to the rail and fall into the depths of the sea. There was no one to look after the poor little ones. Her dear family required her health and strength; if she were sick day after day, her poor husband and their poor children would be helpless and lost.

And while Danjel prayed for stronger faith for his wife, she herself prayed for strength so that she could do her daily chores and help her loved ones — she prayed for strength to get up the following morning.

Danjel Andreasson:

His feet sought a hold on a fragile little ship — a few brittle planks tossed about like shavings by the storm on these terrifyingly high waves. But each plank he stepped toward seemed to escape his foot and sink away. Darkness reigned over the great water, and darkness ruled the depths. And he could hear the cries and complaints of his fellow men, when the claws of pain tore their stomachs and bowels and emptied from their insides all they had consumed for their bodily sustenance. And they were all afraid they might drown on this ship, in this storm at sea. The sinner’s fear of death penetrated to his ears, the unconverted’s anguish at the thought of the resurrection and the Day of Judgment, when the King should sit on His throne of glory and separate them, one from the other, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, saying unto those He did not recognize: Depart from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his wicked angels! Danjel looked for the Lord’s angels, but saw no sign of them. No white wingfeather gleamed through the darkness; and he feared there was no angel at the rudder guiding the hand of the helmsman.

Fright was about to overtake him, the weakness which shortly before had seized his wife. He knew the danger of doubt was lurking for him too. Where are you, my God? Are you near by? But the fright came closer. Why need he ask? Why must he question? There was no need for him to ask; he must know, he, who believed. It was not allowed for man to question and doubt. He must not let himself be overtaken by questions and doubts; they must be suppressed. God was surely here on the ship. Danjel could seek Him out, he could go to Him and throw himself on His bosom.

And Danjel now fled in this late moment to his God — he opened his Bible, the Almighty led his hand to the ninety-third Psalm: “The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.”

From the words of the Bible, confidence was restored to his heart: “. . the Lord on high is mightier. .”

What harm will you do to me, you high, horrible billows out there? The Lord is greater than you. And you noisy, roaring wind, blowing at us tonight — I fear you not! The Lord is stronger than you! And what evil can you bring, you great, wide, dark sea, embracing our ship? The Lord is mightier than you!

God had shown His presence to Danjel Andreasson in the words of the Psalmist: they were not alone on the brig Charlotta in this terrible storm. God sailed with them. God was as close to Danjel here on the ocean as He was on dry land at home in Kärragärde. They could walk as safely on this little rocking ship as they did in solid, timbered houses set on rock and earth-fast stones.

And while this knowledge filled his breast he hurried to tell suffering, frightened people in the bunks around him that God was here among them on the ship — they had brought God with them, He was sailing with them to North America. And the storm He had let loose was a storm of trial — He wanted to try their faith and their belief in Him.

As a comfort and help for his fellow passengers he read for them from the Gospel of St. Matthew: “And when He was entered into a ship, His disciples followed Him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but He was asleep. And His disciples came to Him, and awoke Him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And He saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marveled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him!”

The Bible reader’s voice rose so as to be heard above the roar of the waves that broke against the ship. But the Gospel word could not penetrate the indifference of the seasick ones: they were too deeply involved in their own pain and discomfort. They heard the story of a tempest at sea once upon a time, a storm in the time of Christ, blown out and dead many hundreds of years ago. What had that storm to do with them? They were seafarers on another sea, in another time, on another ship. Another storm had arisen, but Christ had not boarded their ship to still this storm. He let them lie there in their suffering. Ye of little faith, He reproached them. But He lived no longer on earth, He did not now come to help them — how could He accuse them of little faith? And their sickness in itself protected them against fear: those very sick had neither great nor little faith, they were neither afraid nor brave: they lay there in their vomit, unable to believe or to doubt. They were in a sort of beyond — coiled up in their indifference, completely insensible.

Danjel Andreasson, who, for the sake of his belief, had been exiled from his home, could now hold his Bible explanations wherever he wanted — in houses or in the open, on land or at sea. No sheriff would close his mouth, no minister would accuse him of being possessed by the devil. So he explained the Bible story to his fellow passengers: Keep quiet and be calm, Christ had said to the sea. And the waves subsided and the sea became calm, as an obedient dog crouches on the floor at his master’s command. All these horrible waves on the sea, all roaring waters and noisy winds, all could be compared to God’s creatures, who were allowed to bark and low and roar and bellow, but would instantly keep silence at their Master’s command. How then could a person who believed in the Saviour be frightened by a storm? Even in this little fragile, rocking ship, he could rest safely and sweetly in his Creator’s hand. The whole world rested in that hand, like a bird in its nest.

In a bunk near Danjel lay Måns Jakob and his wife Fina-Kajsa, the old peasant couple from Öland, and they were suffering much from seasickness. They lay on a worn old mattress with the straws pricking them like spears. The husband was the sicker, he shook as in fever and did not answer when spoken to, but only moaned. In his delirium he talked of the grindstone he was taking to his son in America. He thought it had been broken and was now useless. The grindstone worried him even now, in his delirious seasick dreams. The old man’s face was drenched with perspiration and lined with black runnels from the escaping snuff in his mouth, which Fina-Kajsa tried to dry off now and again with a piece of cloth. She was still clear in her mind, and waited on her husband, although she was weak and suffered much from seasickness.

Fina-Kajsa listened to Danjel’s explanations about Jesus on the ship in the tempest, and now she wished to talk to him. They should never have attempted the voyage, she and her husband, old and ailing as they were. When people had walked safely on land for more than sixty years, they ought to remain there for the rest of their days. She herself had wanted to remain on their farm, but something had got into the old man — he wanted to go; and their son in North America had written them persuasively. Now no one could tell if there would be enough left of their lives to last them to America. Måns Jakob’s condition was bad, hers was not much better. Hers was a worn-out rickety old body, she could feel she would soon lie there dead with her nose in the air and smell cadaver. What was the meaning of her going off to sea, old woman that she was, now to lie here and suffer? Was this God’s will?

If she were to face God the next moment, she would not be afraid: she could look God in the eyes, she had long ago confessed her sins to Him.

She listened for a while to the uneven breathing of her husband. A few words escaped him: “I wonder if the — grindstone — will hold together — all the way—”

In the old woman’s unwashed face dirt had gathered like seed corn in her wrinkles — from her sour eyes a yellow fluid ran. She lifted her head from her pillow, and turned to Danjel, who was sitting near the bunk with his Bible on his knees.

She wondered about that sea in Palestine, the one he had read of, the Galilean Sea on which the Saviour had sailed — it couldn’t be nearly as big as this sea, could it? Was it possible that the billows on Gennesaret were as high as these? Perhaps it was easy for Christ to perform a miracle on that sea, it would be nothing to still the storm on such a little sea. She wanted to know what Danjel thought: perhaps the waves on this North Sea were too strong, too overpowering for Christ, so that He would be unable to handle them. Otherwise she couldn’t understand why He hadn’t stopped the storm — so many had prayed to Him, it had been raging for hours. .

“God have mercy on you!” exclaimed Danjel in terror. “Are you prepared to die? If you don’t think God is almighty—”

“I am only wondering why He doesn’t help us — when we lie here and suffer so.”

“He has let loose the tempest for the sake of the unbelievers, because of the doubting ones.”

From Måns Jakob came a groan of anguish: “Fina-Kajsa.”

“Yes, my little man?”

“Some water—”

Fina-Kajsa picked up the water jug and held it to her husband’s mouth. She straightened the pillow under his tousled head, removed her kerchief and dried off the perspiration and snuff from his face — she had nothing but her headcloth handy. The snuff had mixed with the sweat into a slimy mass, her kerchief became wet and soiled, but she used it to dry her own face as well, as she turned to the Bible explainer. “Those who doubt?”

Danjel Andreasson was sitting close to the old people’s bunk, his Bible lay open on his knees, and he wanted to admonish the sick old woman who lay here suffering because of her disbelief. But before he could get another word across his lips the Bible fell from his knees onto the floor of the hold — he let go of Holy Writ in order to grab the bunk-boards with both hands, and a swaying sensation of dizziness cut through his whole body, from the top of his head to the heel of his foot. Danjel was suddenly lifted into the sky, and the whole hold rose with him.

What is happening to me, O Lord? The ship is losing her grip on the water, and with all her sails like wings is taking flight toward heaven! Dear Lord — is my hour near? Has it already arrived? Shall I, like Elijah, travel to Thee fully alive as I sit here at this bunkside and explain Thy word to this old woman? Dear Lord, is this ship the chariot Thou offerest me for my ascension? Yes, Thou art lifting me on high, I feel it — I am blessed — but I dropped Thy Word — Thy Bible. Forgive me, O Lord. I flee to Thee — I come!

But the ship quickly sank down again, and with her Danjel, and his soul and body. His heavenly flight led him back down to earth, he was not to follow Elijah. And on the journey downward he was suddenly seized with a cruel pain; at first it seemed as if his intestines were being strangulated, then as if they were all swelling up inside, as if they did not have sufficient space in their allotted place in his body. They were all crying to get out, to force themselves out. They craved new space, were relentlessly finding their way out.

He was at once overpowered: he fell, face down, on the floor, vomiting violently.

The ship was again sailing on water — the earth journey was resumed.

And next morning Danjel Andreasson lay in his bunk writhing in the unrelenting embrace of seasickness. When his agony left him for a moment, and his thoughts became clear, doubt and prostration assailed him. Then he stammered again and again, the same prayer. He prayed with trembling lips, prayed God for forgiveness for the greatest of all transgressions, the greatest of sins. With the remnants of the night’s vomit still in his beard — like many-colored roses and red blossoms — he prayed his prayer of mercy: O Lord, Thou didst push me down again, from Thy Heaven — O Lord, who can endure Thy presence?

A seasick man prayed, and the prayer came from one stricken by God.

The brig Charlotta sails through the great tempest which the Lord has let loose over the North Sea, in the path of the emigrants, this April of the year 1850. In the ship’s hold, in her narrow stomach, lies her living cargo, closely packed human beings strangled by the sickness that is caused by a ship’s swaying motions at sea — emitting all the sounds that witness the disease. The ship has only one stomach, but inside this one are many stomachs — healthy and sick, old and young, children’s and old people’s; stomachs belonging to converted and unconverted, sinners and repenters, good and evil. In all of them the pain digs deeply with her multitudinous talons — in all these wretched bodies are nausea and loathing.

The brig Charlotta sails through the storm with Indisposition as guest and passenger, with Wretchedness in her bowels.

XVIII. A BUSHEL OF EARTH FROM SWEDEN

— 1—

Karl Oskar Nilsson was one of the passengers in the ship’s hold who could best stand the sea. He felt as well here on the ocean as he did on firm land. As yet he had not missed a single meal. The food was supplied by the ship, and he liked to get his due; many of the seasick peasants lay and fretted because they couldn’t swallow a bite, although they had paid for the fare, and no money was refunded.

During the storm most of the emigrants remained in their bunks, day and night, without consuming anything except the half gallon of water which was their portion. Of all the grownups from Ljuder Parish, only Karl Oskar and Ulrika of Västergöhl were able to be up and about. While Kristina remained in bed, the father alone looked after the children. They were well and lively and did not suffer from the sea. Karl Oskar prepared food for himself and the children up in the galley, as best he could over a fire that rocked like a cradle with the ship’s rolling and pitching. He had to stand and hold the handles of pots and pans to be on the safe side; once when he left them unguarded for a moment he had to get down on his knees and gather the food from the galley deck.

He had long ago given up trying to make Kristina eat; she had asked him not even to speak of food, as this made her still more uncomfortable. Butter and pork he was particularly forbidden to mention: one was as rancid as the other, and if she heard either referred to she was immediately seized by convulsions.

The storm was still raging on the morning of the third day, when Karl Oskar stood at Kristina’s bunk and asked the usual question.

She tried to move her head enough to meet his eyes. How did she feel?

Did he have to ask? She didn’t have enough strength to answer.

He held the tin cup to her mouth, water he had saved from his own portion. The ship’s water had become old, it was murky, as if it had been taken from some swamp or peat bog — slimy, and full of sediment. It stank, and had the taste of old laundry tubs; all edibles on board now had an old taste — of chests, cupboards, and barrels. But the water could be somewhat refreshed by a few drops of vinegar, which the emigrants were accustomed to add before they used it.

Kristina drank, and some water ran down her chin and neck. Karl Oskar dried her with his handkerchief.

“The storm will soon be over.”

But Kristina did not care about the storm — it could do what it pleased, die down or rage on. She had only one wish: to lie here, still, still.

When her indifference left her for a moment, her first concern was for her children. Harald crawled about in her bunk-pen and could not get outside its fence — she need not worry about him. But when she didn’t see Johan and Lill-Märta, she wondered where they were. Sometimes they stood at the edge of her bunk and prayed and entreated her, pulled at her arms and clothing, persistently, stubbornly: “Mother, get up! Why don’t you get up, Mother? You can’t stay in bed any longer!”

And now she asked her husband, as she had asked him twenty times a day: “Are you able to find some food for the little ones?”

“They get enough to manage.”

“I’m glad they are well — glad you are well.”

Suddenly she broke off: “Karl Oskar — the bucket!”

The water she had just drunk came up, mixed with greenish slime.

“Do you want a spoon of The Prince’s Drops?”

“No. I want nothing — nothing.”

Neither Hoffman’s nor The Prince’s nor The Four Kinds of Drops seemed to relieve her. She had tried all the kinds that were obtainable from the medicine chest. And why should she take medicines, only to be tortured in throwing them up again?

Karl Oskar bent anxiously over Kristina: her face was green-white, pale and wan in the meager daylight down here. She could keep down neither food nor water, and these vomitings night and day were weakening her. Her pregnancy added to her discomfort. He had become seriously concerned about his wife — she could not stand this for very much longer.

The voyage across the sea to North America was more unhealthy and perilous than he himself had imagined. But no one could know in advance what a crossing would be like. Of one thing he was sure, however: since people so often became sick on the sea, they were meant to live on land. Only because God had created water between the continents were they forced to go on the sea at times. It would feel good with solid ground underfoot again.

“Is there nothing you wish, Kristina?”

“Ye-es, Karl Oskar — I would like to — I wish—”

She broke off again, and was silent. He never knew what she wished him to do. The fact was, she had suddenly felt dizzy when her swing almost touched the stable roof, and she had wanted to ask Karl Oskar to help her down from the swing.

— 2—

The second mate unexpectedly came down to the family compartment in the hold. The bedridden emigrants gazed at him; some were even able to gather enough energy from this visit to emerge from their apathy and ask themselves: What errand could the mate have down here? Something must be out of order.

The mate carried a piece of canvas in his hands. What was the canvas to be used for? The emigrants wondered, yet they were fairly indifferent in their wonder. So much they understood, that something was out of order here in their quarters; but they had not the strength to guess what it might be. Something had happened, however, and they were soon to know. It could not be kept a secret.

The first death had occurred on board the ship.

A corpse was to be shrouded in the canvas. The young girl with the throat abscess had died. All the warm porridge which her parents had boiled and applied had been prepared in vain, all the salves from the medicine chest had been of no avail. The captain had been down to look at the girl’s throat, and he had said the abscess ought to be lanced. But neither he nor anyone else had dared use the knife. In the end the boil broke, and a few minutes later the girl breathed her last.

It was said that the dead girl was seventeen years old, but she was small of growth, hardly bigger than a twelve-year-old. Now it turned out that the mate had brought a piece of canvas far too large; there was enough to wrap it twice around her body before she was carried away through the main hatch.

A dead person had been lying among the living down here. But now she was gone, and everything was in order again in the hold.

That day the northwest storm spent its force and began to die down. The waves sank and the surface of the sea became smoother; toward evening the weather was almost calm. The lull that came after the great upheaval on the little brig at first seemed strange to the passengers.

Karl Oskar had not mentioned the death in the compartment to Kristina; it had passed her by unnoticed. Now he said: “You’ll soon get well when the weather is calm.”

“I wonder.”

But at the same moment she raised her head from the pillow, and her eyes opened wide. She listened. She could hear something going on on deck; the main hatch was open and she could hear singing from above. “Am I delirious, Karl Oskar, or—”

Did she dream or was she awake? Were they no longer on board the ship? Had they landed? Was she in church, or in the churchyard? People were singing! If she still was alive, she could hear them singing a hymn.

“Yes — they are singing a psalm up there.”

Kristina was listening to a funeral hymn. A funeral was taking place on the afterdeck.

Karl Oskar now told her: the girl with the abscess had died this morning. But it was not from seasickness; she had been ill when they sailed from Karlshamn, she had lain abed ever since she came on board.

Kristina lay silent and listened to the hymn from on deck. It could be heard only faintly down here. Presently she said: “I wonder—”

“What?”

“The dead. Are the dead ones sunk into the sea?”

“Yes. They can’t have corpses lying about on the ship.”

“I suppose not.”

“They lower them. They have to.”

“I suppose so. Then the dead sink to the bottom of the sea.”

Kristina was lying and staring at the ship’s timbers above her, but she saw nothing.

“On the bottom of the sea — one can rest in comfort. Don’t you think so, Karl Oskar?”

“Don’t think of that! You must only think about getting well.”

Karl Oskar wet a rag and tried to remove a few spots from the bedcover. Kristina had always been cleanly and particular, and she must be far gone when she didn’t mind her bridal quilt’s being soiled with vomit. But she had hardly been interested in anything these last days.

In the bunks around them lay the sick ones, listening to the singing which came down to them through the open hatch. It seemed clearer now, they could distinguish the words — the hymn went slowly and somberly:

“You wicked world, farewell!

To heaven fares my soul,

To reach her harbor goal. . ”

There was one word Karl Oskar particularly noticed, and it seemed as if his wife had marked it too. She turned her face toward him. “I must tell you something: I’ll never reach the harbor.”

“Kristina!”

“No, Karl Oskar. I’ll never put foot on American soil.”

“Don’t talk such nonsense! Seasickness is not fatal!”

“I have known it the whole time.”

“Crazy notions!”

“Ever since I stepped on board the ship I’ve felt it: I’ll never get away from here alive.”

“You only imagine it!”

“No. My forebodings never fail.”

“Forget it! Get it out of your mind! Kristina, dear—”

He took hold of her hand and patted it. Her hand lay limp and unresponsive in his.

She must know that the seasick always become depressed and downhearted and afraid they won’t survive; but as soon as they near land they are perfectly well and full of life again.

“Do you remember, Karl Oskar? I was afraid before we—”

Yes, he remembered. He was sorry to say he did remember: she had been afraid and dubious — he had persuaded her to come. He remembered that he was responsible.

No more singing was heard from on deck. The funeral hymn had been sung to its end. The funeral up there was over, the Charlotta’s captain had once more fulfilled his duty as clergyman. There was one human body less on board. And from the bushel of earth which the ship brought from her homeland there were now three shovels less.

“Oh, yes, Kristina,” Karl Oskar broke the silence. “We will reach land, you and I — we will reach the harbor in America.”

She did not answer. She lay there as before, and looked upward with still eyes; every fiber of her body was still.

And Karl Oskar thought, perhaps he had been too persuasive; perhaps he shouldn’t have tried so forcibly to convince her — perhaps he had assumed too great a responsibility.

— 3—

A few days later, in the morning, the second death occurred in the family compartment: Måns Jakob, the old Öland peasant, was found dead in his bunk-pen.

The discovery was made by his wife, who would not believe that he was dead. When she awakened in the morning she shook her husband by the shoulder, as she always used to do. She shook him harder when he didn’t respond — the old one wouldn’t open his eyes. Finally Fina-Kajsa called Danjel Andreasson, who came to her help. He said that her husband was lying there dead, but Fina-Kajsa refused to believe it. She said he had lain like that many times before in the mornings, and she had had to shake him thoroughly before he awakened; it was caused by his heart, which stopped at times and didn’t start as quickly as it ought. Moreover, Måns Jakob had during his whole life been a heavy sleeper — she knew, she had been married to him for more than forty years. Now she was convinced he would awaken if, together, they shook him sufficiently.

But all who looked at Måns Jakob agreed with Danjel: no one could shake life into that body again. Måns Jakob was not to be awakened until Doomsday.

No one could tell what had caused his death, but his fellow passengers guessed it must have been his heart which had missed some of its regular beats and stopped so long that it couldn’t get started again. Karl Oskar thought he might have choked to death from his vomit; he had been found lying on his stomach with his face downward, and in this position it must have been difficult for him to get rid of his slime. Perhaps he hadn’t got the attention he needed during the night, even though his wife was lying close to him. No one had heard him call for help, but a dying man might be too weak.

The second mate came down again. When the Finn appeared in the hold at unexpected times they now knew his errand. Something was wrong again. The piece of canvas he brought now was not too large; this time it must cover the body of a grown man.

The mate began to remove the dead man from his bunk, but Måns Jakob’s wife attempted to stop him: “Wait a little! My man might still awaken!”

The Finn lifted the eyelids of Måns Jakob, and looked carefully into his eyes. “Your man is as dead as he can be. I know what dead people look like.”

“Wait a little, be kind! Only an hour.”

“You want him to lie here till he begins to stink?”

“Only a little while!”

But he did not heed the entreating old woman; he pulled the corpse from the bunk. Then she let out loud cries, at the same time grabbing hold of one leg of her dead husband, trying to keep the body by her in the bunk. Only after much trouble could the mate break her hold.

Danjel and Inga-Lena attended to Måns Jakob’s widow while Karl Oskar helped the Finn with the corpse. After death the old peasant seemed even more black and dirty than he had been in life. The snuff runnels over his cheeks and chin seemed wider than ever. This was not attractive on a living person — it was still more disgusting on a dead one. Karl Oskar felt they should wash the corpse’s face before placing the body in the canvas.

“He’ll get clean in the sea,” said the Finn.

“But that won’t be till after the funeral,” said Karl Oskar.

He had heard from old people that one ought not to read the funeral service over an unwashed corpse. And Danjel was talking about people’s responsibilities when they awoke on the Day of Resurrection; he agreed with Karl Oskar: as Christians, they owed the dead one this last service. His dirty old body had, after all, been the shell for a human soul, created by God. So, as there were no women to give them a hand, the two men helped each other, soaking old scrub rags in sea water, with which they washed the face of Måns Jakob. It was not a thorough cleaning, but at least they were able to remove the black streaks from the face before the corpse was enclosed in its shroud.

Then the mate laid a weight in the canvas, as was his custom. Karl Oskar thought they should have used Måns Jakob’s grindstone, which was in the storeroom. This fine grindstone, which he had talked about constantly, which he was so much worried about, which he must get to America — what would happen to it now? Who in America would take care of this grindstone without an owner? Perhaps Måns Jakob would have liked to have the stone with him at the bottom of the sea; there he need not worry over its fate, there it could lie at his side, in safekeeping until the Day of Doom.

The new death in the hold caused some changes in the accommodations for a few passengers. Fina-Kajsa, who one morning had awakened as a widow, must now move to the other side of the sailcloth hanging, among the unmarried women. Two married men, Karl Oskar and another farmer, who until now had slept with the unmarried men, were allowed to move in with their families and occupy the bunk vacated by the old peasant couple.

From the bushel of earth from Sweden three shovelfuls were taken again. And the deathbed of one became the sleeping place of another. Karl Oskar slept from now on in the bunk vacated by Måns Jakob, who himself rested on the bottom of the sea, his face washed, cleaner than he had been in many a day. And the young farmer remembered what he had heard the very first day on board the brig Charlotta: “There’s more room in the hold the farther out we get.”

XIX. AT HOME AND AWAY

— 1—

“. . To the storm he said: Be calm!

To the billow: Lay thee down!

And the billow down she lay

And the roaring storm he died away.

The sun so glorious and dear

Looks down upon the water clear.

Our sails we hoist!

Our Lord we praise,

He heard our prayers’ qualm!”

(Morning hymn sung on the brig

Charlotta

’s deck, chosen

by homeowner Danjel Andreasson from Ljuder Parish,

and sung when the great storm had abated.)

The weather improved, the air was warmer. They had clear days when the sun remained long on deck. And for several days the brig Charlotta of Karlshamn enjoyed an even stern wind which gave her good speed.

When the sea had come to rest the disquiet and upheaval in the passengers’ intestines disappeared. When the weather grew calm, calmness also entered into the people. The seasick ones improved little by little; one after another, they returned to the deck. And in the galley, which had been practically deserted during the storm, the women thronged again with their cooking utensils, and the smell of boiling peas and rancid pork again spread over the deck and was diffused by the wind over the sea.

The course of the emigrant vessel was now southwest: the Charlotta was sailing into the English Channel.

The land people somewhat wonderingly beheld this water, which was not as they had thought it would be. The English Channel — a channel to them was a broad ditch, dug in order to drain low-lying ground — bogs and swamps. They had hoped they were to sail through a narrow trough; they had harbored a wish to sail a small water, where they had solid ground near on both sides, so they would feel safer than on the open sea. And now they discovered that the English Channel was no ditch. Its water was not moss-brown, its waves came and went as they did on the sea. They discovered that this channel was also a sea.

And they soon learned that this water was an important crossroad of the sea, used by many vessels. Every day they saw other ships — they met them, they were in their company, they passed them, they were overtaken by them; they saw vessels both smaller and bigger than their own, with people from foreign lands on board, vessels flying flags in all colors.

Then one morning they discovered land on the starboard side — a glittering white shore rose before them, like a high, steep bank. It was the coast of England, said the seamen. There were knolls and cliffs of chalk, shining white in the sun. Beyond the shore — farther inland — high towers and steeples rose up; those were forts, castles, and churches. And the emigrants stood there and looked over the bank into the foreign land; they beheld England, a land they sailed by, the soil of which they were never to tread on. This was the first foreign country they had seen so close — when they passed Denmark, land had been a long way off — and the vision was strange to them. But strangest of all was this white wall, this beautiful, high-chested shore which rose up in front of them. It looked like a tremendous whitewashed fireplace, a giant stove wall which the sea’s surging waves had been unable to demolish. They thought, this must be a strong kingdom, with such fortifications.

The white wall was to be their abiding memory of England.

In the Channel the ships thickened, masts from many lands were gathered here; here was the meeting place of the seafaring pines. Here rose masts much taller and thicker than the two from Swedish ground which had been transplanted to the Charlotta; but perhaps these foreign masts came from other trees than the family of evergreens.

After one day the white cliffs of England disappeared from their view and sank slowly into the choppy sea astern. And with this the emigrants said another farewell: this stretch of shore was the last they were to see of the Old World. Many days would pass before they saw land again. Now the big sea opened its expanse to them, now there remained only the ocean.

And when next they espied a shore, it would rise at the prow, it would be the New World.

— 2—

The emigrant ship met new storms and bad weather, but her passengers were growing accustomed to them as something inescapably belonging to their new existence.

In their early days on board they had willingly talked about Sweden, and bitter, angry words passed, for the most part, as they compared each other’s lot at home. But as the days after their departure increased, they spoke ill less often of the land they had left. They had left it, once and for all, and that seemed sufficient. Their homeland lay behind them and it was already far away — already a foreign place. And it seemed wrong to them to speak ill of someone or something that was so far away, and couldn’t hear them. Now they did not wish to revile their homeland. They had their relatives there — indeed, the whole country seemed to them a relative. They had left this relative — that was enough; they might never again see what they had left; they had closed their accounts with the kingdom that had borne them — there was no reproach.

But one day they met a ship flying a flag which they recognized: from the stern flew the flag of their homeland. The emigrants stared in amazement, and watched. The time they had been at sea could be measured in weeks only, as yet, but they had already experienced storm and suffered seasickness and endured all the inconveniences of seafarers, and it seemed to them that they had sailed for months. They felt they were immeasurably far out in the world: they had sailed over the unfathomable expanse of sea, their homes seemed to lie in a faraway land behind them. And now, suddenly, that land was close to them — they had encountered it out here on the ocean. Over there, only a few hundred yards away from them, must be people from the same sort of hamlets as their own, people who spoke the same language they did. There might even be someone on that ship whom they knew.

The eyes of the Charlotta’s passengers followed the vessel with the known flag waving to them so near. Her course was exactly opposite to their own; she sailed their own route back. Those people sailed home; their own ship sailed away.

Home—they surprised themselves by still thinking of Sweden as their home. Yet none of them had a home left in the land that they had turned their backs on. They had all deserted their old homes — to seek new ones. And yet — Sweden was home. It was inexplicable, and they mused over it.

The brig Charlotta was loaded with seekers of new homes. Her passengers were people who had left their old homes but as yet had no new ones. The emigrants were a flock of homeless people, roaming the sea. This ship — forty paces long and eight wide — was their refuge on earth.

They were the tramps of the ocean — the ocean was their path, and this little brig was their lodging. And in the evenings before they crept into their bunks they looked out over the sea which expanded round their shelter. The sea darkened at night, and in the darkness rose the roaring, belligerent wave crests, which became downhill and uphill, which became the depths of the valleys and the heights of the mountains around their ship. Then they felt the great depths under them open up, and over them stole the shiver of insecurity: only this fragile little ship, floating like a feather on the water, was their home and protection. Now they must go to sleep in this restless, tossed-about home — down in this ship they must close their eyes. How dared they? How dared they go to sleep down there, and entrust their lives and their belongings to the brittle planks which surrounded them?

The emigrants no longer felt a bond with the earth, they had been thrown out to sea, pulled away from all footholds; they were lost in the world.

A home to these people of the earth meant a peaceful, stable place on the ground, an unmoving room, a house with sturdy walls and closed doors, with secure bolts and locks — a peaceful cottage on land where in the evening they could seek their beds in security and comfort.

Such a home they had left behind. And now they met a ship which sailed in the direction of this home. They stood and looked long after this home-going vessel. It shrank and grew smaller. Soon it was only a gray speck on the horizon. A home-going Swedish ship disappeared in the direction from which they had come.

The emigrants had met a ship sailing home. After this they understood and felt still more strongly that they were sailing away.

XX. STORIES ON THE AFTERDECK

— 1—

Robert and Elin sat on the leeward side of the afterdeck, close together, their backs against a coil of rope. They were reading a textbook in English which Robert had bought in Karlshamn.

It was a pleasant afternoon on the Charlotta; she was sailing in a leisurely way with a moderate quartering wind. The emigrants sat in small groups on deck and whiled away the time; the May sun shone over the Atlantic Ocean, and a continuous penetrating odor of fried rancid pork exuded from the galley, as was its wont this time of day. And two young emigrants sat by themselves and read. About tongue- and lip-position in the use of the English language.

Robert’s narrow textbook was hardly larger than the Little Catechism. It was designed for the average reader among the peasantry: Guidance for Immigrants Who Wish to Gather Necessary Knowledge in the English Language in Order to Get Along. It was exactly what Robert wanted. He did not wish to become a linguist — at least not at once. And the bookseller in Karlshamn had said that it was written for simple folk. Simplicity and easy comprehension were emphasized, rather than a scholarly approach. But to Robert this Guidance was very difficult to understand: after several weeks at sea he had read only three of the simple and easy pages.

Today he began on the fourth page. Today he and Elin read together for the first time. Fortunately, Elin had no need of learning English, as the Holy Ghost was to visit her and all the Åkians as soon as they landed in America; they would be able to speak the new language without difficulty at the moment of stepping ashore. But she was curious as she heard Robert use words from the foreign language. Even now she did not wish to seem less learned than he; she must participate. He also was of the opinion that it could hardly hurt her if she learned a little in advance about the difficult pronunciation. When she landed she would then have cleared away a little work for the Holy Ghost, and this could not be a sin.

English was a complicated and tricky language for unlearned people. The most difficult thing of all was that the words were spelled in two entirely different ways: first they were printed as words usually are, then the same words appeared in brackets, spelled entirely differently: “Yes, I am a stranger here, (aj am a strehndjer hihr.) What are you looking for? (hoat ahr joh loking far?) What do you wish? (hoat doh joh oisch?)”—Robert could not understand this arrangement; what use was there in writing and spelling the same word in two ways? It caused only unnecessary time and trouble. It was strange that the Americans, who were considered so clever, couldn’t agree on one way of spelling their language. It could hardly have anything to do with the different classes, as all people were equally good in America and no one was above anyone else.

The youth and the girl started with “Conversational Exercises.” They sat with their heads very close together, which they must do as they were reading the same book. And they read aloud about the position of the tongue and the lips in the correct use of English: “When English and American people speak, their tongues are usually pulled back in their mouths a great deal farther than is the case when we Swedes speak our mother tongue. The lips are moved less than in Swedish. They are neither rounded nor pursed as much as with us, nor are they opened as much. It is very important that no protruding of the lips takes place, especially in making the difficult ch-sound.”

“Do you understand?” he asked.

“Yes, I do. Every word of it,” she lied.

“Otherwise I’ll show you.”

And then he pursed his lips: this she must not do when she spoke English.

“I don’t make such an ugly mouth when I speak Swedish!” she said.

“Say the ch-sound!” continued Robert. “Say ‘church’!”

“Church,” repeated the girl slowly and seriously.

But he thought she pouted her lips too much.

“Pull in your lips! Say it again!”

She repeated the word “church” a few times while his face was close to hers so he might see the movements of her lips. She wanted to protrude them too far, he thought. She said the word half a score times, but he was still not quite satisfied. At last she succeeded: exactly so must the word be pronounced! He gave her other words with the ch-sound, he continued his instructions with the aid of his fingers, and he thought this was a good way to teach English.

While busy with his lesson he suddenly discovered that Elin had a small and sensitive mouth, and that her lips were downy and a little moist from the spray of the ocean.

And then he must teach the girl to keep her tongue far back in her mouth while using the English language. The Holy Ghost might not remember to tell her all the details. Especially when she used the letters d, e, l, and n, she must keep her tongue as far back as she could; those were the most important letters, used perhaps every day in America.

In order to administer his instruction more efficiently, he now wanted to see how her tongue was shaped. He asked her to stick it out.

The girl obeyed, and the young man carefully scrutinized her extended tongue, which had the light red color of early wild strawberries, and was narrow and pointed like a cat’s. He thought she would be able to speak English with it if she had the necessary practice. He let her sit there with her tongue extended toward him so long that she finally became tired and pulled it in. Wasn’t he through with his inspection? He told her that the learning of English required great patience; she must not tire from holding her tongue out such a short while; she might have to endure greater hardships before she knew the new language.

Elin had hardly pulled her little tongue into her mouth again before Ulrika of Västergöhl called: Elin must help her mother with the evening meal. The girl obeyed and left Robert at once. And he sat on alone, annoyed and hurt; no sooner was he with Elin than her mother found something urgent for her to do. Ulrika could easily have prepared the food alone and given her daughter an opportunity to learn English, now that she had such a good teacher.

Fredrik Mattsson, the so-called American, strolled by in his loud-checked jacket. Robert showed him the textbook and asked him to read a piece aloud in English. But the American waved him away: Not today! Some other time. He had read in English books for many years, while in America; he was tired of the English language. He was now taking his afternoon stroll to rest himself. Some other day he would read in the book.

Robert had asked him about North America many times — its government, soil conditions, and climate. But the American only answered that he was not allowed to divulge anything; he had promised the President of the United States not to say a word. The President had become one of his close friends while he was over there, they had caroused together, drunk and played cards through many nights, they were the best of friends. And the President had told him in confidence many of the republic’s great secrets — with Fredrik’s assurance of secrecy, of course. That was why he couldn’t say anything, at least not before the President of America released him from this promise of secrecy. For he, Fredrik Mattsson, was an honest man who stood by his word.

But there were some things in the American’s tales which made Robert suspicious.

Now Fredrik went over and sat down among some youths who were sunning themselves on deck, and Robert joined their company. The American told about his various occupations in the United States. For one emigrating there, it was most instructive.

The far-traveled gentleman crossed his legs, pulled out his pipe and filled it; then he looked to the prow, toward the west, as if he wanted to recall his memories of America from that direction, and began.

The second year he spent in America he had taken a position on a ship which sailed the great Mississippi River with a cargo of whores. This river was as broad as all of Sweden, and the whore ship followed the shores; he had charge of the cargo — the women on board. There were more than a hundred of them, and a great sense of method and orderliness was required of the supervisor. Night and day he walked the ship with two loaded pistols in his belt. It was his duty to prevent and shorten all fights on board — between the women themselves as well as between the women and their men customers. If he was unable to stop the participants in any other way he was to shoot them in the legs. He began at the ankles, and if this didn’t help he continued higher and higher. But the women he was not allowed to shoot higher than a little below the groin: their calling must not be impaired. The men he could shoot all the way up to the head to subdue them. It was a very responsible position he had held on that river vessel.

The ship sailed from town to town, and they remained a few days in each place while the men came on board and business was conducted. These were the most peaceful days, for the women were not belligerent when they plied their trade.

His work was well paid; his salary included food, clothes, and two women a day — if he wished to use them. Some of the girls were young and beautiful, but others had been at their trade so long that he lost all interest in women when he looked at them. And he never felt really at home in this job on the whore ship on the Mississippi. For if you have to supervise and keep order among one hundred whores, you have little time for rest and serious thinking. There was commotion and noise all through the days and nights. At that time he hadn’t enjoyed good health, either, because of a most annoying diarrhea from the hot climate. And he was a serious-minded person, who had need of rest and time to gather his thoughts. The only rest he had the whole week was on Sunday mornings between ten and twelve, when the ship’s minister held services and preached to the employees; so as not to disturb their devotion, no one was allowed to fire a pistol then except in extreme necessity.

Otherwise he had had to use his guns almost constantly. He could do nothing else when the whores bit, scratched, and kicked. They were even inclined to attack him — the job had some undesirable points.

When they had sailed up and down the river a few times he decided to leave his post and go ashore. The captain had given him a fine letter of recommendation — he had this in his sea chest still, if it hadn’t been lost during his long voyages over the world. The captain had written of him that he was reliable, and had a sense of order, and a good hand with the whores both during their working hours and in between. He did, indeed, have the best kind of recommendation if he wished to continue in that line of work. But in the long run such occupation would never satisfy a person of his caliber.

The story came to an end. The younger men among those who sat on deck around the American ogled each other. They had not been near a woman since leaving home. In the close quarters in the hold even the married men could hardly get their satisfaction. They might play with their wives, some nights, so quietly that no one heard them. But all those without wives, without anyone to crawl near to, they must pine and suffer. And this description of a whole ship filled with willing women, always ready, tickled the young men’s fancy and stimulated secret desires.

Several other men passengers now joined the crowd around the American; a ring of listeners formed, and all sat there, around the man in the checked coat, in inspired silence. The silence could only be interpreted as a wish that the storyteller continue. He looked questioningly at his listeners, as if wishing to know what they thought of his experiences in America. Then he continued.

The Americans had many almost unbelievable institutions. In the United States there were luxurious places where women could seek pleasure with men. There was such a one in the great city of Chicago — a male whorehouse where men attended to women, where the whoring was practiced upside-down, so to speak. It was the same business as on the Mississippi ship — only just the opposite.

One spring in the month of April he and a friend had arrived in Chicago in search of work. In a saloon they had met the manager of this male whorehouse, who was out looking for men. And as both the American and his friend were hard up, they had, after thinking it over, accepted positions; the pay was high, and — of course — they were a little curious about their duties: they had never before heard of a place where one was paid for that which one usually did because one felt like it. They had worked as lumberjacks the whole winter and they needed some change. In the logging cabins they had lived for many months among men only, and some of their fellow workers had completely lost their minds because they were denied women — for this could, in the end, affect the brain; when the seed never is sown it forces its way to the head, where it may cause ugly growths on the skull; a doctor has to open these growths to save a man from insanity. So they were willing to take on any women who came along, after this winter.

Disappointingly enough, they never knew what kind of women they had to take care of, for all who came to this male whorehouse wore masks over their faces. It was mostly women with strong desires, unable to find men in the customary way. There came fine, prominent wives whose wedded husbands were on long journeys and who might not have had any amusement in bed for years; others might have some defect which made them unattractive to men and left them without a chance. But most of them were women who had been widowed while their youthful blood still was warm; they had accustomed themselves so strongly to men that they couldn’t get along singly. In this house men were always ready for them, and what the women sought there they always obtained; no one could gainsay this.

In the beginning it had felt strange to lie with masked women. It seemed always to be the same woman, it felt like being married and sticking to one’s wife. Of course, there was a great deal of difference in other parts of the body, but he had soon forgotten that. He hadn’t looked at the differences; there had been other things to do. At first it had been like a fresh clover field, but this did not last long. Soon it was only a chore which he was employed to perform; soon he didn’t care how the women were shaped. At times it happened that a bold woman showed her face, but only a good-looking one would do that. Perhaps they had thought that a beautiful face would make it easier for him, help him in his work, as it were. And this line of reasoning was correct, he thought.

This much he understood, after taking care of a few hundred women: not all of them were beautiful princesses. But he couldn’t choose, all must be attended to equally well. The whorehouse manager had issued strong rules about that, and no one was allowed to dodge. Some never got satisfied; they were angry and complained afterwards that they hadn’t received their money’s worth, not by a long shot. Well, fretful and troublesome women did exist in this world; one couldn’t satisfy all.

But soon he and his friend had had enough of their job in the male whorehouse; they tired of it, both of them. They were fed rich and sustaining food in the place, they ate eggs and juicy lamb chops and fat ham and soup at every meal — this was only what the body required in such a job. But even sustaining food was not sufficient in the long run; they grew wan and lost weight and fell off. After a few months their faces were unrecognizable when they looked at themselves in the mirror. Their strength waned; the weakness first attacked their knees, which felt like straws — their legs bent under them when they tried to walk. They were wasting away completely. Their fellow workers who had been longer in the house than they were bare skeletons. They hobbled about the rooms, their bones rattling. No man could remain in the place over three months. Those who stayed longer had never recovered, they had lost their strength of youth for all time, they were ruined for life.

But he and his friend had quit in time — after six weeks’ employment they had returned to the forest. In the last analysis he liked it better among the men in the logging cabin than among the women in the house of luxury. But there was a certain satisfaction in this work among the women: he had done good deeds, he had sacrificed himself in an unselfish way. However, neither he nor his friend had been willing to waste their health and strength utterly, not even for a good cause, a sacrifice on the altar of charity, as it were.

For a man has responsibilities toward himself too, concluded Fredrik.

Complete silence ensued in the gathering of menfolk after he had finished his story. The circle of listeners sat and gazed at him. Not one among them could find fitting words to utter, after the story of the male whorehouse in Chicago.

Suddenly a young man let out a roar of laughter. The others looked at him. The laugher stopped short, reddening from embarrassment. The American, too, looked at him with disapproval, with deep scorn, as much as to say: Have you no manners? The man who had laughed met this look of the American, and said not a word, but it could be seen that he felt deeply ashamed. And the teller of the tale wanted him to feel ashamed.

Fredrik rose quickly, nodded, and strutted away.

— 2—

That same day Robert discovered the secret about the American. He happened to mention him to the sailmaker. The old man said that Fredrik Mattsson and he had been born in the same parish — Asarum — in Blekinge. He had known Fredrik since the time he lay in his swaddling clothes. The man had always been a rascal and liar and a ravenous preyer on women. He had managed badly for himself at home: at one and the same time three women were pregnant by him, he owed money to God and everybody, and he had a beating coming from more than one. That was why he was sneaking away to America on the Charlotta. But he had never been at sea before he set foot on this ship; he had been a seaman on land only. He had never been to America, he had not even been outside his home parish, Asarum, until now.

Soon Robert discovered that he was practically the last one on board to find out the truth about Fredrik Mattsson: the passengers had called him the American just because he had never been to America.

For a few days Robert felt disappointed in his friend with the loud-checked coat, who had not wished to divulge his secrets about the United States of America. From now on he could not believe what Fredrik told him; one must admit that he did not stick to the truth.

But Robert knew this about himself, also: when he wanted to relate something he had read or experienced, truth alone did not always suffice. He might come to a place in the story, unable to go further, and then he must invent something to be able to continue. Later on he might return to the truth again. And the strange thing with a lie was that it was always there, inside one’s head, ready to be used when need be. It was easy and convenient to mix in a lie. Then, afterwards, when he had finished his tale, truth and lie were so intermixed that it was impossible to differentiate — all was truth.

Perhaps this was the case with the American when he described all the various positions he had held in America. That he had never been to that country mattered little, after all. He believed he had been there, and therefore, in reality, he did not lie.

If God had meant people to use truth only, He need not have allowed untruth in the world. Perhaps He had created the lie because He knew people couldn’t get along without it.

XXI. IT WAS CALLED SHIP-SICKNESS

— 1—

As the weeks went by most of the emigrants accustomed themselves to the rolling of the ship.

Kristina recuperated from her seasickness; she was up and about and able to eat almost regularly. But she did not feel as well as she used to on land. A certain weakness remained in her limbs, and a weight, as it were, pressed down her whole body — she moved about sluggishly and unwillingly. Something pressed on her chest too, so that her breath became short. Other passengers — men and women — complained about the same feeling; perhaps it was some ailment caused by their long stay on board.

Kristina had also started worrying about her children: they grew pale and their eyes looked yellow. They were no longer lively in their play, and they had lost their appetites; they refused to eat the ship’s fare because it was too salty — they complained and wanted fresh milk. And Kristina, too, missed more than anything the sweet milk they used to drink every day. But she understood — they could not bring milch cows with them on the sea. If only she had had a quart a day for her children! They had not tasted one drop of milk for a whole month. The sugar pouch was long ago emptied, her cakes were gone, the honey was eaten, the dried pieces of apple finished. When the children fell and hurt themselves and came to her, crying, or when they wanted to “step off” the ship, then it had been a blessing to have a lump of sugar or a cookie to comfort them with. Now she had nothing to give them when they came and begged.

The weaning of Harald had taken care of itself because her milk dried up after a short time at sea. She had hoped it would remain in her breasts, as she had no other milk for the child. He was otherwise fine for his sixteen months; he had entirely quit creeping about, and had begun to walk upright between the bunks in their crowded quarters. But a ship rolling on the waves, seldom still, was hardly a place for a child to learn to walk. Little Harald had to sit down on his rump many more times than had his brother and sisters at home on the firm floor of their house.

Johan and Lill-Märta were still babbling about “stepping off” the ship and going home. They had not forgotten what they used to eat and drink on land — they wanted to go back and eat cakes and drink milk.

Kristina promised them sweet milk and wheat cookies, as much as they could manage, as soon as they arrived in America. But she soon regretted this promise; now she was beset constantly by the children: When would they arrive in America? Tonight? Or tomorrow morning? They would arrive soon. How far away was soon? It wasn’t far, if they were good and kept quiet, said the mother. If they kept quiet the whole day and didn’t say one word, would they then reach America by tomorrow?

Lill-Märta was satisfied at times, and kept silent, but never Johan: “Shall we always live on the ship, Mother?”

“No, not after we get there.”

“Shall we never live in a house any more?”

“We shall live in a house in America.”

“Is it true, Mother?”

“It is true.”

“I want to live in a house soon.”

“So you shall, if you keep quiet.”

“In a house like the one we slept in at home?”

“In such a one.”

“Where is that house, Mother?”

“We shall see, when we arrive.”

“Is it sure we are to live there?”

“It is sure. Father will build one. Now, keep quiet, boy, otherwise you’ll always have to stay on this ship.”

At times Kristina thought that maybe it wasn’t right to silence the children with promises. What did she know about their new home in North America? Exactly as much as the children! What she knew for sure was that they owned not the smallest patch of ground over there, had not the smallest corner of their own, not the poorest earth hut they could call home. Not the most humble shed awaited them, not the most wretched shelter could they move into. When Karl Oskar and she had set up housekeeping last time they had been able to begin in a well-established home where furniture and household gear awaited them. The second time they were to set up housekeeping they must do so in a foreign country, and they must begin from the very ground, with nothing. She dared not think of the settling that awaited them: they had not a single nail for their walls, not a board for flooring, not a shingle for their roof. When they landed in North America, nothing would be ready for them — no table set, no bed made. They had no bench to sit on, nothing on which to rest their heads. This was the only thing she knew. And as she understood it, they were to travel far away into the wilderness to seek their new home. There, she assumed, they must sit on one stone in the woods and eat from another (if they had any food), and they must sleep on a bolster of moss with spruce bows for a covering.

She did not wish to speak with Karl Oskar about this their second setting up of housekeeping; he would only be annoyed by it. He had promised her nothing. What could he promise? But she could think herself, she could imagine how it would be.

They were to begin from the very beginning — as people at home had begun thousands of years ago; they must live with the earth the way the very first tiller and his wife had done.

— 2—

There had been nineteen children on board the brig Charlotta when she left Karlshamn. But two small canvas bundles had been lowered into the ocean from her deck: one one-year-old boy had died with the whooping cough, one five-year-old girl in ship’s fever. The seventeen children surviving now were considered in good health.

Danjel’s and Inga-Lena’s last-born, little Eva, had been so ill that everyone thought she was going to die. But God let the parents keep their child, she had now gained strength and was completely well. Danjel thought a miracle had taken place, as their daughter had been suffering a much more severe illness than the two who had died.

But the girl was hardly well before the mother sickened. When the seasickness had left Inga-Lena she was often seized by a great dizziness and headache. While she was cooking or attending to heavy chores she would have spells of fainting; then she must go and lie down for a time. Early in the voyage she had suffered from hard bowels — now things had changed and she must run to the roundhouse on the fore-deck at all hours of the day and night. This went on week after week, and no one could have loose bowels such a long time without becoming exceedingly weak and worn out. Now there was blood in her stool, too, and this worried her a great deal.

Inga-Lena did not like to complain, but now she confided in Kristina: maybe she wasn’t quite well. She had prayed God particularly for help against the bloody stool, which frightened her, but she had as yet received no answer to her prayers. Perhaps she had caught the ship-sickness, or what did Kristina think?

During the whole voyage Kristina had felt sorry for her Uncle Danjel’s wife: Inga-Lena never gave herself any rest, but always waited on her husband and children, seeing to it that they had their food regularly and that their clothes were in order. Always she busied herself with something. Inga-Lena was like a ship at sail on the sea, she was in motion every moment. This must not go on, she had become gaunt, worn to the bone. Sometimes she could scarcely walk, she staggered as if every step were her last.

Kristina said that she should go to bed; Danjel must take over her chores.

Inga-Lena looked confounded. “Danjel mustn’t know! He mustn’t know that I am ailing.”

“Why not?”

“He has enough troubles of his own, poor man!”

“But he is well.”

“No-o.” Inga-Lena lowered her voice: “He has sufferings of his own. He must make peace with God.”

“Oh. But he could be useful all the same,” said Kristina. “He doesn’t need to pray every minute.”

“He won’t suffer worldly things. And now he must make all right for himself with the Lord.”

And Inga-Lena spoke almost in a whisper: Kristina must not repeat it to anyone, but her husband had confessed to her that he had committed a great sin, the greatest one of all: he had fallen into the temptation of spiritual vanity by thinking himself free of sin, that he had once and for all been forgiven by Christ, that he could sin no more because he believed in the Saviour. He had held himself righteous, and felt above the law. But then one day God had undressed him, unto his naked soul, and shown him what it looked like; he had been dragged down in seasickness among sinners and the unredeemed. Since then he was much changed.

Danjel had said that he had received a severe box on the ear from the Lord because of his vanity and self-righteousness; now he walked about dazed from that box. He had reproached others because they were doubters; now he asked forgiveness from all of them. He had asked Inga-Lena’s forgiveness although he had done nothing but good to her.

Her dear husband had previously held himself better than other sinners, now he considered himself lower. He had told Inga-Lena that there was only one righteous person on the whole ship, and that was Ulrika of Västergöhl. She had gone free of the vermin, and she had escaped seasickness. She was chosen. A hundred times was she guilty of whoredom — yet she was chosen by the Lord.

And for the sake of this one righteous person, for Ulrika’s sake, said Danjel, the Lord had buoyed up their ship in the horrible tempest and saved them all from drowning; all of them had the Glad One to thank for their lives.

“That’s a lie!” exclaimed Kristina excitedly. “I’ll never believe it! That woman isn’t a bit holier than the rest of us!”

“Don’t repeat what I have said,” begged Inga-Lena. “Say nothing to Danjel. And don’t tell him I’m ailing. Please, promise me!”

Kristina found she must give this promise. But how much she would have liked to tell the truth to her uncle. Don’t you realize your wife is killing herself here at sea? God can never have meant her to give up her health in order for you to escape worldly cares. Doesn’t God, on the contrary, require a wedded husband to be kind to his wife, and assist her when she is sick? And if you have your senses and your eyesight, you must understand that your wife is very ill!

But the strange thing was that she would have been unable to speak reproachfully to her Uncle Danjel. In the presence of this man with the kind eyes one could not use hard words. There was something in his look that calmed one’s mind and created reverence. When he bent his knees and prayed, an illumination came over his face — even if he kneeled in vomit on the floor. He sometimes acted foolish, but all hesitated to make fun of him. Kristina could not understand why it was so difficult to reproach him. Perhaps he was nearer to God than other mortals — perhaps it was this she was aware of.

The fact remained, however, that his wife was killing herself, without his noticing it. Inga-Lena was like a domesticated animal that follows its master. According to the catechism a wife must be subject to her husband — but did God mean that she was absolutely obliged and forced to follow him when he dragged her out to sea?

Kristina was not sure of this.

— 3—

Karl Oskar remained sound and healthy in his body, while at sea, but the prolonged stay in their narrow quarters was depressing to his mind. When he began life anew on another continent he would need an undaunted spirit, and now he was not as he used to be on land. He went about worrying over the future, and this he had never done before. Then, there was a certain something lacking physically: not once during their whole voyage had he been able to satisfy himself with his wife. This was due to bad luck. While Kristina still was well, he had had to sleep with the unmarried men; and when later he had moved to the other side of the sailcloth, she had been ill. As she still remained weak, he could not ask for her.

Ever since his marriage, his satisfaction with his wife had been a habit with him. When he could no longer follow this habit a restlessness and irritation crept into his body, his temper became uneven and his sleep was not restful. There was something missing, and his thoughts were drawn to it — to that missing something. When he could satisfy himself with Kristina he seldom thought of other women — they did not concern him. Now, during his continence, they aroused him so often that he felt annoyed and ashamed. But why must he feel ashamed over this? It was only as it should be: he missed what he couldn’t get. It was only natural that a healthy man should enjoy a woman; the situation here on the ship was unnatural.

Nor did Karl Oskar have enough to do at sea. He had time to brood and to wonder. He went about and thought of that which he must be without. The times he and his wife had enjoyed themselves together came back easily to his mind, and this tortured him. It didn’t happen to him by intention, he tried to shake off such thoughts; he had other things to think about, now, in the midst of the greatest move in his life. But there he went again, thinking of their bed-pleasure, and again he felt ashamed: what was the matter with him? He should be able to get along without it for a while. This must be something that happened often to many men. Why was it so painful to him? Was his lust stronger than other men’s? Here he fought it now, it was his own particular ship-sickness. And he knew for sure — in the long run, he could not survive without a woman.

One night Karl Oskar dreamed that he went in to the unmarried women — to Ulrika of Västergöhl, and used her.

He awakened and felt ashamed of his dream; his thoughts had carried him as far as to the Glad One, the infamous whore, where more than a hundred men had been before! He had been asleep during the act, of course, but it still surprised and shocked him. Though a deed in his sleep, it was nevertheless a shameful one.

He wondered if, while awake, he ever would go in to Ulrika. If he must deny himself and go without long enough, perhaps he might. He wasn’t quite sure. He had looked at her sometimes, and felt that something about her tempted him. Her body was unusually well preserved, and men were often aroused in her presence. But enough sense surely must remain in his head to keep him away from such a woman. And he began to agree with Kristina: as soon as they landed in America they must separate themselves from the Glad One. Kristina could never make friends with the old whore. If they remained in her company, sooner or later some misfortune was likely to happen.

There was no way of telling how soon he and his wife could live together again as a healthy, happy couple. Kristina complained of new ailments: her limbs and joints ached, she had pains in the small of her back. It was very strange that she, still so young, had joint- and limb-ache, like an old woman. At times she was seized by chills, she said they felt like ice-cold runnels of water over her whole body. This ailment could not be caused by the sea, because she had it both in stormy weather and when it was perfectly calm. She always felt cold — even when she sat on deck in the sun, chills would overtake her. She felt as if all the blood within her had cooled off and could warm her no more. And then there was the pressure in her chest, which interfered with her breathing, and the weakness and fatigue that never left her.

In all her life Kristina had never been sick in bed, except in childbed; but now she was sick.

Her illness was accompanied by “the great laziness,” as the old people called it — one of the worst of vices. She did not wish to move, she did not wish to use her arms or legs, to walk or to stand; she didn’t want to perform her duties and chores. It was a great effort for her to prepare a meal, it was an effort to undress herself and her children, every morning she had to force herself to arise and wash and dress. More and more of the chores she left for Karl Oskar. She began to feel wretched and useless on this voyage. So lazy she had never been before, so little she had never done in a day. It must be the sea that sucked strength from body and mind of land people.

Kristina had emptied two bottles of medicine which her husband had obtained for her from the captain’s medicine chest. But she only felt weaker afterward.

“You bring a wretched wife with you to America, Karl Oskar,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll only be a burden to you.”

“You’ll get well as soon as you are on land,” he assured her. “It’s just the rotten ship’s fare you can’t stand.”

They received only old salted foods, tainted by the smells of kegs and wooden boxes, tasting of sour barrel bottoms and ancient tubs. They never obtained a drop of milk, never a fresh slice of bread, never a taste of newly churned butter, never a bite of unsalted meat; only food which had been stored away for a long time. Never were they able even to boil a pot of potatoes — potatoes, which more than any other food kept the body in order and gave it its daily and necessary opening. No, Karl Oskar wouldn’t be surprised if every person on the ship were to get sick in the end from the fare they received. He, too, felt somewhat loose and limp in his limbs. And nearly everyone he spoke to complained of the same ailment as Kristina, only she was a little worse than the others. But none seemed to improve, they wouldn’t until they landed and lived and ate as folk ought to live and eat. Life at sea was destructive and unsound for a human being; this, indeed, he had learned.

Within himself Karl Oskar added: This sea voyage he would never repeat; for the rest of his life he would live on land.

Kristina was convinced that a creeping, treacherous, dangerous disease had taken hold of her — though she kept her knowledge a secret from her husband. This time life itself within her was assailed — and the anxiety she had experienced the first day on the Charlotta came over her again: this is not seasickness, this illness attacks life itself. This time you cannot get well; but you were warned, you received a warning from God those last days at home: Do not go out to sea! Stay at home! You do not belong at sea! But you didn’t obey, you left. And now you know. That’s why you had the premonition, felt it the moment you came into the hold. It’s like a grave down here, a musty, horrible grave. Something within you told you it would be your grave. One day they will come down with a piece of canvas for you; never, never will you get away from here with life — they will carry you out in a piece of canvas. .

Kristina might have heard the name of the sickness which she and several others suffered from down here: the scurvy. It was a repulsive name, it seemed like a name for something rotten, fallen apart, contaminated — something already dead.

The evil was also called ship-sickness.

XXII. STORY TOLD AT THE MAIN HATCH

— 1—

The passengers on the Charlotta were active people. Their lives had been passed in work; Sundays and weekdays they were accustomed to being occupied. Peasants and their wives always have something to do with their hands. On the ship which now carried them they encountered something new: idleness.

They cleaned their quarters in the hold daily, they prepared food three times a day in the galley, they mended their clothes, mattresses, bolsters, everything that broke, and the mothers attended to their children. But these chores were not sufficient to fill out their time at sea. Almost three-quarters of the day, most of them were inactive — left to themselves without a thing to do. And these toiling people had never learned what to do with spare time.

During their hours of inactivity the emigrants sat listlessly gazing out over the sea. What will we do now? And the endless water, the endless waves that carried their ship, gave them no answer to that question. There was nothing to do but sit and look across the sea. So the days passed, and the days became weeks and months during this long voyage.

The days seemed long and empty. Their lives on the brig Charlotta were monotonous. It had never occurred to them that time itself — life, which they had been given to live — would turn into something unpleasant to get rid of, something they must hasten when it passed too slowly. They were driven inward upon themselves, they were dissatisfied with their idleness; they could be alone but never idle. They began to seek each other’s company.

When the weather at sea was pleasant they gathered around the main hatch. There they formed a thick cluster of bodies, standing, sitting, lying or half lying, occupying every inch of deck space. Wives might sit on their husbands’ knees, children nestled in mothers’ or fathers’ arms. Then they brought forth whatever might be left in their food baskets from home, and offered each other tidbits: one had a whole loaf or bread left, someone else had saved a smoked, dried quarter of lamb, a third had butter left in his tub, and a fourth proudly displayed a whole, uncut cheese. The bread, lamb, and cheese went the rounds; each one took his knife and carved himself a slice of each part of this trinity, then spread butter over the bread and ate. Sometimes it might happen that a gallon of brännvin was brought out, made in the still at home on the farm, from last year’s crop in the barley field.

These were happy moments for the passengers on the Charlotta. They regained something of their old home in these gatherings.

Thus while the sea was smooth and the ship rolled moderately, the emigrants sat gathered around the main hatch and helped each other while away the time, so stubbornly slow in passing. Hymns were played on the psalmodikon, and dance tunes on the violin; someone sang a song — well known at home — and someone told a true strange story.

The ocean was broad, the Charlotta had contrary winds, and so it was that many stories were told while the emigrants sat around on the deck. One day homeowner Jonas Petter Albrektsson related a strange and unusual happening which had taken place in his home parish in Sweden.

— 2—

It had happened about a hundred years earlier, said Jonas Petter.

Dean Drysell, who for many years had been the pastor in Ljuder Parish, had a stroke in the sacristy one Sunday morning before the service, and died before they had time to carry him out of the church. He was nearly seventy years old, and had had two strokes before the last one. Drysell had been a conscientious, fearless pastor, good to the poor and suffering. He was particularly liked by the women in the parish. He had lived his whole life as a bachelor, but it was known far and wide that he had not led a chaste life. It was said that in his days of strength he had used his favor with women in a way which is forbidden in God’s Sixth Commandment. Once in his younger days he had been reprimanded by the bishop, who had heard rumors that the young priest had visited a married woman in her bed. Later, when the bishop came to Ljuder and saw how beautiful the woman was, the minister had received absolution from his whoring-sin.

But now the Ljuder dean had left this earth, on a Sunday, in the midst of fulfilling his duties. The whole week passed — and the dead man was not yet buried! This caused great wonder in the parish, particularly as the death had happened during the dog days of the summer when maggots quickly get into meat, and a corpse soon exudes an evil stench. Eight days was a long time for a corpse to remain above ground at that time of year.

Eight days more passed, and Dean Drysell was still not buried! Through the whole parish people began to wonder, and ask what the trouble might be. Why wasn’t their departed pastor buried within the usual reasonable time? Some complication must have arisen which was being kept secret. But what could hinder a servant of the Lord from going into the earth and receiving Christian burial?

Pastor Stenbeck from Långasjö, who temporarily held the dean’s office, could have answered the question — but no one wished to ask him. On the other hand, many asked Magda, Drysell’s maid, who had served her master faithfully for many years, ever since her youth, and who had been closer to him than anyone else. But when the funeral of her master was hinted at, her mouth closed so firmly that a chisel would have been needed to open it. All felt she must know the secret of the delay in the funeral.

Now there was one other person who knew the reason, and he was the carpenter in the church village who had made the coffin for the dead pastor. He had promised Pastor Stenbeck not to say anything, but in a moment of confidence had shared the secret with his wife, who promised to keep it to herself. The wife in her turn confided in two neighbor wives, with the same promise, and in this way the truth was spread over the whole parish within a few days.

For weeks and months nothing else was spoken of in Ljuder Parish than what had taken place with the corpse of Dean Drysell — that inexplicable sign which after death had appeared on his body.

Magda, the old and faithful maid, had made the discovery in the mangle shed of the parsonage which was used as corpse-house for the dean. She had gone out to wash her master’s body, and had been filled with consternation at her discovery. She had washed the corpses of many men before, but such a sight she had never seen. Her master lay there dead and cold, but his body was ready for a man’s action with a woman! Even with men in their best years, the power of that limb disappeared with the arrival of death; and Drysell had been an old man. At the sight of the sign the old woman became weak in her whole body. She was near fainting, and, unable to continue with the washing of the corpse, she left the mangle shed.

She went back the following day, but nothing had changed in the corpse. This time, however, she finished the washing, not mentioning to anyone what she had seen. She had served the dean faithfully while he lived, she wanted to remain equally faithful to him after his death. Nothing must be said that could tarnish his memory.

Magda returned to the corpse-house on the third day, but the amazing sign still remained in her master. That same day the carpenter came with the coffin, and now her discovery could not be kept secret any longer. The carpenter saw the same as she had seen, and he was as disturbed as she. And he agreed with the old maid that their parish pastor could not be buried in this horrible condition. The maid asked his advice: What should she do? The carpenter himself could do nothing; this was not a job for a man of his trade. Against the evil powers that were active here nothing could be done by carpenters’ tools — neither hammer nor plane could be used. For he realized at once that the Evil One himself had taken up his abode in the dead corpse’s limb — in the very limb with which most of men’s sins are committed. By seizing this tool of sin the devil had taken possession of Dean Drysell’s remains. Some spiritual man who had his power from God must step in here and save the dead one. The carpenter advised Magda to see the new pastor.

The maid went to Pastor Stenbeck and tried haltingly to explain the situation of her dead master. The minister followed her to the corpse-house. The body was now shrouded, but the faithful servant uncovered it sufficiently so that the pastor could see with his own eyes. He paled at what he saw. He told Magda to cover the corpse, and said: My colleague cannot be buried in this abominable condition. He said nothing more. He did not call by name the power which had seized Drysell, but Magda understood that the carpenter was right.

Dean Drysell’s funeral was to take place on Friday — today was Tuesday.

Pastor Stenbeck was a clergyman with powers to exorcise Satan. He had once liberated a farmer in Långasjö, and another time the old wife of the captain in Grimsgöl, who had been possessed by the devil for many years. Now he went back to the parsonage and put on his vestments. Armed with the Holy Writ and many pious church books, he returned to the corpse-house and locked the door behind him. He was always alone with Satan when he exorcised him.

The good parson remained in the mangle shed several hours. The following day he returned again: no change had taken place in the body of the dead dean. Pastor Stenbeck locked himself in the shed an hour on each of the two following days, and continued his efforts. But the sign of the devil’s presence remained. Stenbeck had failed in his exorcism this time. The funeral must therefore be delayed — a funeral could not be performed with Satan holding on to the mortal remains of his brother in the ministry.

It was the month of sultry dog days, and the deceased dean had now stood above ground for a whole week. Strangely enough, no odor came from the corpse. It seemed as if the power which had taken up its abode in the dead one’s limb preserved the body from decay.

Pastor Stenbeck was unable to defeat the old Enemy, he needed help. He saddled his horse and rode to his colleagues in Linneryd and Elmeboda. The ministers of these two parishes were both noted for extraordinary spiritual powers. Stenbeck described to them the calamity which had overtaken their old friend Drysell after his death. Wouldn’t they return with him, and assist in forcing Satan to let go his prey?

The ministers in Linneryd and Elmeboda knew of their colleague’s weakness for women — those creatures who are so often the ruination of a good man. And they understood that it was because of the dean’s sins with women in his youth that the devil had taken possession of him now. They promised to help Pastor Stenbeck.

The following day three ministers in vestments and regalia met in the Ljuder parsonage at the bier of their deceased colleague. They prayed, they sang hymns, they made the sign of the cross, they performed the mass which is used in exorcising the devil. Three living priests prayed for a dead brother. They went on with their mass through half of the night.

The neighboring clergymen remained in Ljuder until the following day, when they went out to the corpse-house to view the results of the exorcism of yesterday. But nothing had changed. Satan still remained in the limb of the dead one, he still retained hold on his prey. By now Dean Drysell had remained above ground for eleven days.

The three ministers took counsel together in great consternation. What was to be done? Spiritual powers did not suffice here. They could not bury their brother and colleague — not commit him to the earth with the Enemy still in his body. Nor could the corpse remain unburied many more days. The secret of the delay had in some way leaked out, all people spoke about it, and this was not an edifying occurrence in a Christian community.

The clergymen spoke of traveling to the bishop in Växiö, to ask his advice. The bishop was an experienced servant of God, thoroughly familiar with the devices of Satan.

Then old Magda approached Pastor Stenbeck, and asked leave to speak with him alone. She had a confession to make, a terrible secret to divulge. She told the following. When first she came to the employ of Pastor Drysell she had been seventeen. She had come to him a virgin, but after only a few weeks in service her master had enticed her into carnal connection. For a long time she had lived in sin with him. But at last she began to worry about it — she feared for her salvation. And she grew more and more averse to the master who had tempted her and led her astray. She began to hate her seducer. By this hate she had once been led into a cruel deed: she had prayed to God for revenge. She had prayed that her master might receive punishment — that after death he might be delivered to Satan.

Drysell had soon finished his satisfaction in her, and had then turned to another woman. But Magda had remained in his service. She had had nothing more to complain about, he was good to her. She remained year after year; at length she became his faithful old servant; and now, when she no longer lived in sin with him, her peace of mind had returned to her.

After many years she had even forgiven her master his stealing of her maidenhead, and leading her to whoring-sin. Not only had all hate been deleted from her mind, she had become entirely devoted to the man who had led her astray. She served him well, and looked after him in all ways. She had come to depend on him, and he had depended on her. They had both passed the age when men and women seek each other for the sake of bodily lust, but they were in other ways a help and comfort to each other. Magda had learned to know her one-time seducer as a good man, generous, kind, and helpful to the poor and destitute. And she had suffered deeply from the memory that once in her youth she had wanted to condemn this man to eternal suffering and deliverance to Satan. It had been a bloody sin.

And then one Sunday morning the Lord touched the forehead of his servant: Drysell had a stroke in the sacristy and died. And the moment had arrived when Magda made her horrible discovery: the devil had indeed taken up abode in her master’s body. With her own eyes she had seen that the Lord had answered the prayer she had uttered in her youth.

Many nights had already passed since her prayer was answered, yet not one wink of sleep had she enjoyed during a single night. She had lain wakeful in agony; the master whom she loved had through her instigation become the possession of Satan.

This was old Magda’s confession. And now she wished to make her own attempt to liberate Dean Drysell. She intended to remain through a whole night in the corpse-house, alone with the dead one and the one who had taken possession of him. How she was to save her master, she did not know, but she wished to confess at his bier what she had done.

The pastor advised the maid eagerly: Go and do as you say!

She went to the corpse-house that same evening, and people could see a light burning there throughout the night. What she did to the seducer of her youth no one knew, but they all guessed, and probably guessed aright: she protested to God that she forgave Drysell the evil he had once done her; she assured Him that she no longer hated her master but instead loved him and blessed his memory — she retracted her prayer of hate and substituted for it a prayer of love — she prayed for his soul.

And when Pastor Stenbeck came into the corpse-house the following morning, the body of his deceased colleague was the same as all dead men’s bodies. Satan had at last let go his hold of Dean Drysell. What the three learned and experienced ministers, God’s servants, had been incapable of doing, this simple, unlearned woman had performed. What three worthy parish pastors had been unable to effect, the poor maid had managed alone; her sincere love had conquered the sinister power in the corpse-house.

Two days later Dean Drysell was at last given Christian burial. All the people in the parish followed him to his resting place, and the joy was great that Satan finally had been driven from his limb. For he had been a good pastor; so said, in particular, the women of the parish, who now thronged about his grave in great numbers.

And this amazing happening, which had taken place a hundred years ago, was now told by an emigrant to emigrants, when, one day in fine weather, they gathered around the main hatch of the brig Charlotta as she sailed with her storytellers and her listeners to North America.

XXIII. PEASANTS AT SEA

— 1—

The emigrants — the strayed ones in this world — brought with them a small book, Almanac for the Year after the Saviour Christ’s Birth the 1850th, which they consulted daily. In the empty space between the date and the sign of Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, they marked each passing day with a small cross. They wanted at least to know where they were in the calendar year, even though unable to fathom their whereabouts at sea. On the ship all days were the same, weekdays and holidays. The seamen performed their duties on Sundays and weekdays alike. The emigrants would have become lost in time, as they were in space, without the Almanac. The cross marks on the days that had passed gave their lives consistency and meaning. At home on land they had made these crosses only when they took a cow to the bull, so as to know when to expect the calf.

The Almanac also predicted the weather: Clear, Cloudy, Occasional Clouds, Rain, Clear and Beautiful Days. Sometimes it was cloudy, or rained, on Clear and Beautiful Days, and many times the sun shone from morning to night on Rainy Days. It also sometimes happened that the weather and the Almanac agreed.

The wind was mostly westerly; it was against them. And the wind that hindered them, and delayed their landing, this wind came from the land they were trying to reach. They did not know how to interpret this.

— 2—

The emigrants had now been at sea for five weeks. The year had passed far into May — the month of flowers.

But now the people of the land lived on the sea, which showed no signs of the seasons: from its depths no plants shot forth to tell of spring or autumn, sowing or harvesting. The sea had no verdure, did not blossom. When the cold north wind swept down upon them, and the water turned as gray as the skies themselves, then the sea was like old fields with rotting stubble, and then they might guess at winter. When the sun shone and the sea lay there shimmering as blue and as calm as the small tarns at home, then they could guess it was summer. But the water did not divulge the seasons of the year to the people of the land — not so they could be certain.

During the month of flowers, however, there were days when a balmy air flowed over the deck; then they knew that spring had come on land, and they eagerly inhaled this new wind — perhaps (if it were not westerly) it had blown over their fields and meadows at home. These peasants at sea, sailing from tilled fields in the one continent to an unbroken wilderness in the other, drew the air in through their nostrils, wondering: How far advanced was the spring work at home? Were the oats sown? Had the potato field been prepared as yet? Had the sheep pens been cleaned? Did the fields reek of dung after the showers? Were the cattle still in their stalls, bellowing and longing, or had they been let loose in the pastures?

The emigrants came from land, and they were traveling to land. To them, the sea was only a passage which they used, a water which they must cross in order to reach land on the other side — they could not understand the sea folk on board who were traveling nowhere, who lived permanently on this ship, who only voyaged back and forth across this sea. The peasants traveled with a definite purpose in mind, the seamen only traveled.

To the peasants the sea was the same everywhere: there was no difference between the water in this ocean and the water in the inland Baltic Sea. The expanse of sea which their eyes beheld was no greater in one place than in another. And what they saw today was the same as they saw yesterday. Had they actually moved?

The wheels of a wagon never roll over the same stone more than once on a journey. But here it seemed as if the same wave lifted the ship on its shoulders day after day. When they traveled on land they passed through varying landscapes — meadows and forests, hills and valleys, brooks and lakes. But on the sea they were constantly surrounded by the same water. They sat and gazed across a desert water-field where nothing interfered with their vision: everything was alike, everything the same. The sea was great and endless as infinity, yet it was also small — it consisted of only one landscape, it was one region only. It was always the same landscape, it was the SEA.

And this monotonous view aroused a longing within them: they wanted to see a patch of green ground soon, if only a tree or a bush — they would be satisfied with a juniper bush, that weed of the forest; anything that grew green would gladden their hearts.

When, now, during “Clear and Beautiful Days,” a balmy wind blew into their nostrils, they recognized the spring. But their eyes looked in vain for signs of the season. They sat on the worn and splintery deck of a ship and the month of May failed to bring them armfuls of blossoms. Round and about rose the blue-green crests of the waves — the hills at home would now be covered by the cuckoo’s breeches, the buttercups, the rabbit-foot, the dog-ears, and the bumblebee-blossoms. But the fragrance from these blossoms of spring was not carried to them by the wind.

They were to lose this spring, for they were seekers of new homes. They traveled away, and it was still difficult for them to imagine that away, some time in the future, might mean home. Yet they felt this must be so.

The passengers on the brig Charlotta looked out over an empty, barren water-desert, as formidable and tiresome as the one the children of Israel had passed through when they were seeking the Promised Land. The emigrants were a sailing caravan: their ship was the rolling camel, carrying them across this unyielding and empty desert known as the Atlantic Ocean.

— 3—

During some “Clear and Beautiful Days” the ship was enveloped in a thick fog which still further diminished the world of the passengers.

The fog enwrapped the brig Charlotta like a thick gray woolen shawl, so that the passengers’ range of vision narrowed down to a few yards. Now they could see nothing outside the ship’s world; no other world existed. The whole living earth consisted of this old, worn deck. The outside world was only something gray, penetrating, raw, fleeting, impenetrable — it was fog. A sticky, soft wall had been built close to them. They could not see the masts and the sails above them, the wall moved in on deck, it crept into the ship. It increased their irritation to the same degree as it narrowed their space. The downy fog was soft and light, yet it weighed heavily on their minds and caused them to become depressed and short of temper. The world seemed ever more gray and more sad. The emigrants were easily angered now, and quarreled about inconsequentials. As the men talked among themselves all gladness and friendly jesting disappeared, and in the galley the women fought during the preparation of the meals, and used pots and pans as weapons. The people could ill endure themselves, much less each other.

The gray soft wall enclosed them on all sides, enclosed the whole sea. They sailed through a wall hundreds of miles thick, and it seemed as if they sailed at random. Did their ship move at all? Might not the brig Charlotta lie still as an island on the water, tethered to the bottom with invisible chains? They could not see that she was arriving anywhere, she sailed, but sailed nowhere. Their ship lay here in the fog, swaddled in a woolen shawl which hid and wrapped up the whole earth.

And during these days of fog an anxiety began to spread from one to the other among the emigrants: hadn’t they sailed astray?

They began to count: six weeks, seven weeks — soon their voyage was in the eighth week. The year had passed into the month of June. How great a distance was still left to America? They had oftentimes asked the seamen, and equally often they had received indecisive answers: almost halfway, about halfway, nearly halfway, a little over halfway. Now they were tired of this halfway, and wanted to pass it. They had been told it would require at the most eight weeks for the crossing to North America, and they ought soon to arrive. But week was still added to week, and the anxiety spread. No one could tell them how far they had sailed, or definitely tell them their location. Perhaps they were lost? Perhaps they had already passed the shores of America? Perhaps they would never arrive?

Could they rely on the captain who charted the course? Could they be sure he would find his way over this water without signs, where no marks were left by those who had sailed before? He might steer in one direction but the winds and currents of the sea drive the ship in another. He might sail by the sun in the daytime and the stars at night, but what could he do when neither sun nor stars were shining? Or when it was misty and foggy, as now? They were afraid that by this time not even the ship’s commander knew where they were.

The patience of the passengers was almost at an end from the long sailing, and there were many things they would have liked to ask the captain. But the taciturn little man who was seen on deck only occasionally, spending most of his time in his cabin, encouraged no one to approach him. And there was talk of an answer which he had made to a bold and curious passenger who had asked the question which was in everyone’s mind: When do we land in America? The captain had answered: Which day do we arrive in the harbor of New York? That he would willingly say, he was anxious to tell them. Only, first he must have a little information — a little information about the weather. He would like to know what sort of weather they would have in the few weeks ahead, day by day. Would it be cloudy or clear, calm or stormy, would there be good wind or poor, rain or fog? Also, would they be so kind as to tell him from which direction the wind would blow in the near future, day after day? Would it blow from the east or west, from the north or south? When they could furnish him a little information about these things, then he would immediately tell them on what date the brig Charlotta would tie up at the pier in the harbor of New York.

It was a chagrined and disappointed interrogator who returned from the Charlotta’s captain. After this, none was willing to approach him again with the question. And Captain Lorentz thought that he might perhaps have explained a little about the continuous contrary wind. But why try to instruct these ignorant peasants about the prevailing winds which in these latitudes sweep the North Atlantic? He might as well try to explain the compass to them. Of course, the emigrants suffered, longing for land, but soon enough they would begin their poking in their dunghills again, soon enough they would dig themselves into their holes in the earth. What was their hurry? He could well have forced his speed somewhat, but he was afraid to strain the rigging further. The two full-tackled masts of the Charlotta could develop a large spread of sails that, in favorable wind, would give her great speed. The vessel was somewhat overrigged, however, and a moderate breeze was therefore the wind her skipper liked best.

But had all the days of contrary winds been days of favorable winds, then the Charlotta would already have landed her passengers in America.

The contrary winds had prolonged the emigrants’ voyage so that they had grown suspicious and wondered if they had been misled as to the distance: it must be much farther to North America than they had been told. They did not measure the distance in miles but in the lengthy days which they had spent at sea. And it seemed to them as if they had traversed countless thousands of miles since that second week in April when they had left their place of embarkation. Their homeland was now incalculably remote — and remote, also, was the land where they were to seek their new homes.

The winds and the currents were against them. And the fog. The ocean constantly heaved new hindering waves into the path of the vessel, as if to force them to turn back. They grew bitter in their souls against the sea which delayed their arrival. And many thought: If I could only once more put my foot on firm land, then I would never again entrust myself to the sea.

— 4—

But the sun was still in its place, and one morning it shone again. The west wind — the contrary wind — blew up again and swept over the sea like a giant broom tearing away the thick woolen shawl of the fog, which dissolved and disappeared, leaving behind a blue, clean-swept sea.

The embrace of the fog was loosened, indeed, but now they found themselves in the clutches of the contrary wind. The west wind — the America wind — continued to delay them on their voyage. It was like a greeting from the New World: Don’t hurry! You have plenty of time! You’ll arrive soon enough! Certain it was that the winds of the sea would not hasten their arrival in the New World.

They had now been sailing for two months. They had passed only a single ship — the one with the Swedish flag — since the English shore had disappeared and they had reached the open sea. During this whole time they had seen no human life beyond the rail of their own ship. It seemed to them as if they alone were traversing this ocean. All other people lived on land — they were vagabonds of the sea, the only human creatures on the ocean, forgotten by the world. And a foreboding burrowed into their souls: perhaps someone still missed them in the land they had left, but no one awaited them in the land ahead.

Then one day, on the afterdeck, it was seen that the brig Charlotta had a new passenger. Someone called aloud: Look, a bird! Then many shouted to each other: A bird!

Within a short moment the news had spread throughout the ship: there was a bird on board! And the emigrants thronged around this new fellow passenger and gaped at him.

It was a tiny bird, hardly bigger than a wagtail. Its head and tail were blue-black, its wings and back were green, its throat and breast white. The bird put up a long pointed beak into the wind, and tripped along on a pair of legs as thin as threads. When he ran about on deck his feet moved so quickly that it seemed as if he used a single leg only, and when he flew his wings fluttered like a yarn winder.

No one among the ship’s passengers or crew recognized this bird, no one knew the name of his kind. Some thought he was a wader, because of his pointed beak and quick wingbeats. Others guessed he was some breed of swallow, because his neck and breast were like a swallow’s. Others again maintained that the bird was only a fledgling: when he was grown he might turn out to be a seagull, or a stork, or even a sea eagle. But none among them knew much about birds.

His sudden appearance, however, seemed to the emigrants a Bible miracle. They could scarcely remember when last they had seen a bird. Early in the voyage a swarm of seagulls had moved about the rigging of the ship, and daily perched on her masts, but out here on the ocean even these flying companions had vanished. No wings fluttered now above the vessel, and with the gulls, all living things seemed to have deserted the emigrants’ ship. But now came this small bird and made himself at home on deck. He came to them a messenger from land — it was a miracle.

How could the tiny flying creature find its way to their lonely little ship? Birds lived on land — in trees or on the ground, in the reeds along the shores, or in the mountain crags. No bird could build his nest on the ocean waves. And it was many hundreds of miles to the nearest land. How had those delicate wings been able to carry the bird this great distance, through darkness and tempest, through rain and storm? From where had the bird come? What was his errand?

It struck the emigrants at once that there was something supernatural about the arrival of the bird; he was not one bird among others. The long loneliness at sea was a fertile breeding ground for thoughts of the supernatural and such strange things as one spoke of in low tones around the hearth in the evenings.

The eyes of the bird gleamed black and deep as riddles which no one could solve. He made no sound, he never sang. He was completely mute. And his silent beak was still another riddle. They had heard about birds with cut-off tongues, birds which could not sing; was he perhaps such a one?

The new passenger on board became the most cared for among them. All wanted to feed him. The emigrants generously crumbled their bread and ship’s biscuits. The bird was treated to so much food that it would have sufficed to burst a thousand stomachs like his. He had the privilege of eating his sufficiency from the hands of human beings, and soon he became choosy, he didn’t bother to pick up crumbs from the deck. Unafraid, he wandered about among his feeders. When a wave washed onto deck he fled away on his thread-thin legs — he was so quick that a drop of water never wet his feet. Now and then he went on a flying jaunt beyond the rail, as if he wanted to inspect the sea a moment, but he always returned to deck. The brig Charlotta was his home.

A little bird had entered into the world of the people on the emigrant ship, transforming their thoughts and dreams, their very lives. He came with a message from the sprouting ground, from the flowers, from the trees in the forest and the seed in the fields. His wings were green as the newly opened leaves of the birch, his neck was white as the cotton-grass in the marshy bogs. The colors of his feathers came from the earth and that which grew thereon. He came from that part of the globe which God had destined to be home for men and beasts, and because of this he belonged to them. In their loneliness and forsakenness at sea the emigrants were visited by one of their own.

Many days had passed since they last stood on a firm and steady spot. Now the bird reminded them that firm land still existed.

Some among the emigrants had read fairy tales, and they were convinced that this was an enchanted bird. How could he have arrived here, so far out at sea, where no other flying creatures lived, if it were not through magic? Perhaps it was a princess walking here among them on a pair of bird legs. Perhaps it was a king or a prince they fed with their hard ship’s biscuits. No one could know for sure. Perhaps the enchantment would end one day, so that he could lay off his feather shroud and put on a golden mantle and a glittering golden crown. Such things had been heard of, they happened rather often. And even if the bird were not a royal person, he was at least of great importance, maybe a duke or a count. Because only people of high station were enchanted into birds; ordinary, simple people became wolves and snakes and similar beasts. Thus the little bird was held in superstitious awe among certain of the passengers, and they felt some fear in his presence. He might do them good, but he could also bring them harm. Still, they wished to be friends with their messenger from the earth, because deep within them they could not help but feel that his arrival was meant as a blessing to them.

The crew men, too, pointed out that the wind had been with them ever since the day the bird first appeared on deck — no one was more careful about his well-being than the seamen, no one took more care that harm should not come to the little creature.

During the days the bird spent his time on deck; at night he found protection behind the sail near the mainmast. The sailmaker had prepared a soft nest for him from sewn-together pieces of wadmal. Each one did his bit to make the bird feel at home on the ship, and every one of his movements was followed by someone’s eyes — when he dodged the spray, when he flew along the rail. To the peasants at sea he was a reminder of their mutual home. When they looked at him they were cheered and remembered they were not to remain imprisoned on this ship forever. Another life existed. Tree trunks existed, where birds built their nests, there were fields covered with blossoms, there were forests where the woodcocks flew about in the spring evenings.

Never had a little creature brought so much joy to so many mature human beings as this little bird did on the emigrant ship Charlotta during a few days of her voyage to North America. And everyone hoped and wished that the messenger from land would remain with them for the rest of their crossing. But if he were — as many thought — an enchanted king or prince, then he could not be held by anything. This they understood.

And one morning the bird was indeed gone. There was much excitement on board — the whole ship was searched but no sign was seen of the lost one, not a feather, not a dropping, nothing. The puzzling guest had left the ship as mysteriously as he had arrived. If he had died his body would have been found; no, they knew he had deserted them.

Would he ever reach land? The emigrants did not worry about this. They felt that weather and wind and distance had no power over this bird. They were convinced now that he was no real bird.

He had flown away, and he never returned. For many days sorrow reigned on the ship. The people on board had lost a near relative, and they mourned him as one of their own. And they mused and wondered and asked: Why did he not wish to remain with them? Why did he not stay long enough to see the fulfillment of the miracle? He had been a messenger from land; what had he wished to tell them? This they would never know.

Old seamen who had sailed thirty or forty years were serious and said it was an evil omen that the little bird had left. It seemed they might be right: the day after his disappearance another storm broke.

And with the bird gone there was nothing on board to remind the peasants at sea of the green earth.

— 5—

So the Charlotta of Karlshamn sailed on — a cargo ship loaded with sundries, an emigrant ship loaded with human beings. She sailed over the boundless Atlantic Ocean through all winds and weathers, through storm and fog, rain and sunshine. But for the most part the wind blew against her, bracing the ship’s bow and rigging, hindering her progress. And to the impatient, earth-bound passengers it seemed as if the same billow lifted them up, again and again, the same eternal wave tossing them about.

The emigrants thought of the endless distance they must have traveled since they had left their place of embarkation. Their thoughts went back over the immense water they had sailed for a space of two months, and they were overawed by this sea without end which they were passing over. At home they had never fathomed the immensity of the sea.

And one conviction took still deeper root in their minds: whatever was in store for them on the new continent, whatever awaited them in the new land they were seeking — a return voyage to their homeland was beyond conception. The move they were now undertaking was to the end of time; never could they sail this eternal distance back again, never again would they cross this endless water.

Theirs was a voyage which people took only once.

XXIV. A LONG NIGHT

— 1—

One night Karl Oskar was awakened by Johan. The child stood at his bunk, pulling at his blanket.

“Father! Wake up!”

“What is it? What do you want?”

“Mother is bleeding!”

“What is Mother doing?”

“She is bleeding — I was to tell you.”

Karl Oskar was not far from his wife’s sleeping place, and he was at her side in an instant. On the floor beside her bunk stood a quart bottle with a piece of tallow candle in its neck. He lit this, and in the flickering light could see Kristina’s chin and throat streaked with blood, her white nightshirt smeared with blood. In her nostrils were stuck two cotton wads, soaked through with blood and looking like a couple of dark-red ripe cherries.

“My God, Kristina! What has happened?”

“I sent Johan—”

“Why didn’t you call me before?”

“I thought it would stop.”

Her lips were ash-white, her voice weak. She had been about to go to sleep when the bleeding began. At first she had thought she had caught cold, and had blown her nose. Then she had seen that her kerchief was full of blood. She had been lying like this for a long while, she didn’t know how long, and the blood was still flowing. She had lain still on her back without a pillow, but it didn’t stop. She had put cotton in her nostrils, but the blood ran right through. She didn’t know what else might help.

“I’m so tired. . I can’t last this way.”

The shining blood streaks on her thin neck made it look as if she had been stuck in the throat. Red cotton wads swam about in a pan by her bed like freshly drawn entrails. It seemed as if a slaughter had taken place in the bunk. Karl Oskar always suffered at seeing blood, and now he felt weak in his legs.

Kristina’s eyes were large and glassy. The last few days she had been so weak she had stayed in bed all the time, eating hardly a bite. She did not have the resistance she needed when the hemorrhage began. She lay there stretched out like a dead body, her gray-white complexion the color of a corpse’s. Karl Oskar understood what was taking place here: life was running away from his wife.

The number of passengers had decreased by three during this last week. All three were grown people, and all had died in this ship-sickness. It was actually growing roomy in the hold. Inga-Lena too had been very ill, but would not admit it, not wishing to disturb Danjel. And yesterday it was said that she had begun to mend. Tonight no sound was heard from the pen where the Kärragärde people stayed — they were sleeping peacefully.

“Are you in pain?” asked Karl Oskar of his wife.

“No. No pain. I’m only tired — so tired.”

“It’s because of the blood you’ve lost. We must stop the bleeding.”

Kristina moved her head slowly to look at Johan, who was sitting at the foot of her bunk. The red runnels from her nostrils increased from this little movement.

“Lie quiet — please. Still!”

A weak whisper came like a gentle stir of air from her mouth: “If it doesn’t slow down I suppose I’ll die.”

“It must slow down.”

“But if there is no help?”

“There must be help somewhere.”

Johan listened attentively to his parents and gazed at them with large eyes. He was not old enough to understand everything, but he had a child’s intuition. He began to cry: “I don’t want Mother to bleed any more. I don’t want her to.”

“Keep quiet, boy!” said the father. “Lie down and go to sleep!”

Lill-Märta and Harald were sleeping peacefully on the inside of the bunk against the hull. Outside the sea wailed, the waves broke and crashed against the ship. There had been a storm again during the day, and tonight it blew harder than before. A child cried in its sleep, somewhere in its pen. A woman snored noisily. Between the woman’s snorings the rolling masses of water could be heard breaking against the side of the ship.

The ship rolled heavily. Kristina lay there and rolled on her bunk, they all rolled — the sick and the healthy.

Someone shouted angrily because a light was lit: could one never sleep in peace? But Karl Oskar was oblivious to sounds, he heard neither the sea outside nor the people around him. He stood bent over his bleeding wife: this flow of blood could not go on for very long. If it didn’t stop she would die; if it weren’t stopped very soon, he would be a widower before the night was over.

He stood at the side of his fellow worker, his bedmate, his children’s mother, and life was ebbing away from her — from her who was the most indispensable human being in the world. Was God going to take her from him — as He took Anna? What must he do? Must he stand by, completely at a loss, wretched and helpless? He must do something. One must always do what one could, use one’s senses to the best of one’s ability, never believe matters were hopeless. He had never given up, and he could not give up now when Kristina’s life was at stake.

At home in the parish there had been many blood-stanchers; here on the ship he knew of none. But perhaps there was one human being here who could help.

“I’m going to call the captain.”

“We dare not—” Kristina’s voice was hardly audible. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“The captain must help us. He cannot refuse!”

Their captain had charge of the medicine chest on board, and was supposed to take a doctor’s place. He was austere and brusque and the passengers were afraid of him; the seamen too held him in awe. He had never shown feelings of compassion for the sick or dying in the hold. The sick obtained medicines from his chest until they recuperated or died, and when they died he officiated at their funerals and lowered the corpses into the sea. The emigrants thought he was a hard, unfeeling person. But Karl Oskar decided to seek him out. He could not deny help when one of his passengers was in the throes of death.

“Don’t go, Karl Oskar,” entreated Kristina. “It’s no use.”

Yes, he knew that Kristina thought it preordained that she was to die here on the ship, that she was never to reach America. But he did not agree. His thought was always that nothing was so definite as to be unchangeable. If one tries, perhaps one can change things. One is forced to try.

“I’ll be back at once.”

Karl Oskar rushed away. After some trouble he was able to open the hatch, and reached deck, feeling his way in the darkness. The weather was rough tonight. Heavy waves washed over and broke against the deck. He immediately became drenched to his waist. But he hardly noticed it. He must get to the afterdeck. He skidded and fell on the slippery deck planks, he rose and fell again. Tonight the whole ship was in danger, but he did not care: the ship might go down, anything might happen, but they must stanch Kristina’s blood.

He held on to ropes and lines and found his way to the hatch on the afterdeck through which a ladder led down to the captain’s cabin.

He knocked heavily on the door. Only at his third knocking could he hear a powerful, penetrating voice: “What in hell do you want?”

Karl Oskar opened the door and stepped inside. Captain Lorentz had been asleep, and was now sitting upright in his bunk. He had been sleeping with his trousers on. His gray hair was tousled and stood straight out over his forehead like the horns of a ram. If any man ever looked ready to gore, it was the Charlotta’s captain at this moment.

“My wife is bleeding to death. I wanted to ask you to do something for it, Mr. Captain.”

Captain Lorentz had thought that some one of the crew was calling him for urgent reasons of duty — for other reasons no one on the ship would dare to disturb him — but nevertheless he had given out an angry grunt. When he now discovered that the trespasser in his cabin in the middle of the night was one of the passengers, his astonishment was so great that he could only glare at the intruder.

“She’s bleeding. We can’t stanch it — I’m afraid she’s giving out!”

The captain yawned, opening his ugly pike-mouth. He needed his sleep more than any other person on the ship. This God-damned weather — because of this weather he had been forced to stay awake more than anyone on board these last days. The damned peasants could take a snooze whenever they pleased, they were not responsible for anything on board. He ought to tell this big-nosed farmer to go to hell. He thought he would — but he didn’t.

The man stood there and repeated that his wife was dying. To this the captain couldn’t answer that he himself was sleeping. Lost sleep a person might regain, but once he had lost his life it was not easy to get it back.

Lorentz had recognized Karl Oskar by his big nose: the Finn had spoken of him, he was supposed to be one of the more smart-aleck peasants. Hadn’t the mate been forced to tell him off?

Yet he might need help if his wife were lying at death’s door. She couldn’t be too old, the man himself was rather young.

“Has your wife been bleeding long?”

Karl Oskar gave a description of what had happened, and the captain listened.

“Hm, from the scurvy, no doubt. I recognize it.”

“You see, she is with child also.”

“Hm, that too. Well, it doesn’t sound good.”

The captain stepped down from his bunk. Then he pulled on boots and a slicker. Karl Oskar followed his movements with a grateful look.

“We’ll see if we can’t stanch the blood.”

Lorentz searched for his Medical Adviser for Seafarers. He found it among the papers on his table and opened it:

“Bleeding from mouth or nose can in some cases be so strong and last so long that it becomes dangerous.

“Treatment: If the bleeding becomes strong enough to weaken the sick person, one may attempt to stanch the blood flow by bringing the patient out into fresh and cool air, then make packs from sea water and place over forehead, nose, back of the neck, and if this does not help, also around the sexual organs. In very severe cases one may bind a towel around each of the four limbs, above the elbows and the knees, so as to stop the blood in these parts.

“If there is suspicion of scurvy. .”

It had been a long time since the Charlotta’s captain had last stanched blood — he had had to refreshen his knowledge. From a chest he pulled out some clean rough linen towels which he threw over his arm. Then he lit a small hand lantern and followed the young farmer up the ladder.

While crossing the deck Karl Oskar nearly fell down twice as the Charlotta dove into the waves; both times the captain grabbed hold of his shoulder and steadied him. “Hell of a choppy sea tonight.”

The captain himself followed the movements of the ship as if his feet had been nailed down with seven-inch spikes to the planks of the deck.

Kristina lay with closed eyes as they approached her bunk.

“Here comes the captain—”

Slowly she opened her eyes.

Captain Lorentz took one look at her face, then at the pan with the blood, and he thought to himself: This has gone too far; anyone who has lost such a pool of blood must also lose life. This woman had suffered from scurvy for a long time, that he could see.

And now the end was near. He felt sorry for the bleeding woman; she was still in her youth, no doubt she had been good-looking in her healthy days. Her husband would need her to get along in North America. And a pity about the three brats, too, lying there curled up together in the family pen; the lot of the motherless was doubly hard in life. And this woman was supposed to have another child inside her — they were regular rabbits, these peasants, dropping offspring like that. This whole emigration to North America was caused by crowded conditions, the result of constant spawning and multiplying in their cottages and bed-pens.

How much better it would have been for this poor young couple had they not attempted to cross the ocean. Then the wife’s young life might have been spared, the youthful husband would not have needed to become a widower, the three children motherless.

The captain looked from the wife to the husband: poor devil!

To Karl Oskar the face of the captain was as hard as if carved from a piece of wood. He thought: That man can never have any sympathy for other creatures.

“We will try to stanch.”

Lorentz was, after all, going to do what he could. He sent Karl Oskar after a bucket of fresh sea water, soaked his towels, and laid them as cold packs around the head of the sick woman. He had still a few towels left which he did not soak; he tied these around Kristina’s limbs, near elbows and knees. He tied the knots as hard as he could; she groaned faintly, and he knew it hurt, but they must be tight if what blood was still left in these limbs was to remain.

When a patient bled so profusely a cold pack should be laid around the sexual organs as well. But Lorentz omitted this: the women of the peasantry had a deep-rooted shame for that part of the body, and Kristina might have become frightened and tried to defend herself if he had as much as uncovered her stomach. When he touched her body her eyes opened wide and full of fear, as if he were trying to kill her. He was sure that no man other than her husband had ever laid hands on or come near this young farm woman.

What he could do here was soon done — no doctor in the world could do more. Before he left he gave Karl Oskar his instructions: Kristina must remain absolutely still in this position on her back, and the wet towels about her head must be changed every hour so as to keep them cool.

It sounded brusque and final, it was an order from the commander of the ship. Karl Oskar would have liked to know how to manage in keeping his wife’s body still in the bunk with the heavy rolling of the seas.

Captain Lorentz returned to his cabin. Now there would be no more sleep for him tonight. If this storm kept on increasing they must reef down to the very rigging. A skipper could never take his rest when he needed it, only when he could get it. But first he must sit for a moment and squeeze his girl on the ale-stoup, his most pleasant occupation while resting. Her muscles were hard, hard as stone, and she did not warm the hands of a man, but she was always there, always to be relied on. The girls with the soft flesh, the fickle ones, had belonged to his younger years; the girl on the stoup was a woman for a seaman’s old age.

The young peasant and his dying wife lingered yet for a moment in the mind of the Charlotta’s captain. He wondered if the loss would break the man. But most of these greedy, earth-hungry peasants hardly cared about the human being in their wives: when they mourned them they mourned mostly their loss of labor. And the farmer with the big nose would soon find comfort and another female beast of burden in America. He seemed a capable man, and capable men went without women less than others. It was the men with strong natures who did most of the things in this world. What a pity this fellow was a peasant — had he been born near the coast, instead of inland, he would no doubt have made a very able seaman.

Now they were nearing the end of their voyage — the seventh for the Charlotta as emigrant ship. It had been a pleasant voyage with moderate storms. The mortality on board had also been moderate: seven deaths among seventy-eight passengers; there had been more among fewer on other crossings. Apparently the eighth death was to take place; for the eighth time this voyage he must fulfill the duties of minister.

It was indeed true — people were the most unhealthy cargo a vessel possibly could carry: “. . a great deal of attention was then required from the captain. .” Who knew this better than the captain on the brig Charlotta?

Happy those captains who carried other cargo across the seas! They might sometimes get a wink of sleep, even on a stormy night.

— 2—

Karl Oskar had changed the cold pack once; but the bleeding from Kristina’s nose was continuing as before.

Johan had at last gone to sleep. He lay across the bunk, over his mother’s legs. Lill-Märta was dreaming and talking in her sleep about a cake which someone wanted to take away from her. From the neighboring bunks came groans and puffs. The woman who had already snored for hours snored still louder. And outside, against the side of the ship, the Atlantic Ocean heaved as it had heaved during all tempests since the day of creation. Kristina lay there and rocked on her bunk, as she had rocked many nights and days. The ship rolled, and Karl Oskar grabbed hold of the bunk planks now and then so as not to fall off the stool on which he was sitting.

Now and again he lit his piece of taper and looked at his wife. She lay mostly with her eyes closed, but at times they would open and then he tried to gain her recognition. But she was away from her eyes, he could not find her there. He sat by her but she was not with him. Another woman snored. Some people snored, while others lay at death’s door. And from the pen of the Kärragärde people an even, monotonous mumble was occasionally heard. It was prayer; Danjel was praying. He must, then, be awake now. Inga-Lena lay very sick, but she denied her illness and insisted she was well — who could fathom these Åkians?

Another hour passed. When Karl Oskar again changed the cold pack, he thought he could notice that the flow of blood had stopped a little.

The watch was changing on deck, it was four o’clock, the dogwatch was over, the early-morning watch was going on. Karl Oskar continued his vigil, he was watching over Kristina, he had stood all the watches this night.

A heavy thunder was heard from above — a sound of splintering timbers, as if a wave had broken something on deck. Kristina awakened and opened her eyes. Karl Oskar looked into them and found his wife: she was awake and clear in her mind. From her mouth came a weak breath — he bent down to hear what she was saying: “Karl Oskar—”

“Yes?”

“I only wanted to ask — be kind to the children.”

“Of course I will.”

“You’ll look after the little ones, won’t you?”

“You may be sure of it.”

“That’s good to hear. You’ll have to be father and mother, both.”

“Don’t think of that now, Kristina.”

“No. We shan’t mention it again.”

“Is there anything you wish?”

“No. Not a thing.”

From the pocket of his jacket Karl Oskar took out a few lumps of sugar, wrapped in a piece of old paper — they were from home, he had saved them a long time.

“Will you have a piece of sugar in your mouth?”

“No.”

The sugar lumps had been in his pocket for weeks. They were no longer white; he blew off the dust to clean them. “I’ve saved these for you.”

“You are kind, Karl Oskar — but — I can’t chew.”

“Isn’t there anything I can give you?”

“No.”

He took a firm hold of Kristina’s hand on the quilt; it felt even colder than the sea water which had cooled her head.

Now it came over him, that which he always tried to evade, that which he never wished to feel or admit: he had persuaded her to follow him, he had taken wife and children with him on this voyage across the sea; he it was who had forced their emigration — someone had had to take the responsibility; I shall take it! That was what he had said — and now was the day of reckoning, now he must shoulder the responsibility. If he had known what it would be like — if he had known — if he had known the price. Now it came over him, overpoweringly it rushed forth. Regret.

Karl Oskar regretted what he had done.

“Kristina!”

“Ye-es.”

“I want to ask you — ask your forgiveness.”

“What must I forgive?”

“That I wanted to go—”

“I too wanted it.”

“But I forced my will through.”

“You didn’t mean anything wrong with it.”

“You know what I meant, Kristina.”

“You wanted to improve things for us — for all of us.”

“Yes. One might mean well — yet spoil it all — spoil it for all of us—”

“Don’t regret it, Karl Oskar. You can’t help it.”

“I’m to blame most.”

“You have only struggled for us. You mustn’t be sad.”

“You will forgive me, Kristina?”

“I have nothing to forgive you. Remember I said so.”

“That is good to hear.”

“I like you, Karl Oskar, always have. We are the best of friends.”

“Yes. The best of friends — that’s what we are!”

Thus Karl Oskar and Kristina spoke to each other as those people do who may have no more chance to speak to each other in this world.

Kristina was in her swing again. She closed her weak eyes. “I wish to sleep a little longer.”

“Sleep! You need it.”

“Only a short while.”

“Of course you will sleep — only you must not — not — not—”

His tongue froze in his throat, he could utter no more words, he was unable to finish: only you must not die and leave me!

“I wish to rest now, quietly,” it came from his wife. “I’m so tired.”

“Yes, rest now. I’ll change the packing.”

“Let me down now!” she said. “Let me down from the swing, Karl Oskar! It’s no fun any more.”

Then he understood she was delirious.

— 3—

The taper had burned out. He sat in the dark and listened to Kristina’s breathing. Of course you will sleep! You may sleep as long as you wish — the rest of the night — the whole day tomorrow — many days. Day after day you may sleep — only, you must wake up again, you must promise to awaken — you must not die.

Be father and mother both, she had said. Shall I arrive alone — alone with the three little ones? And the fourth one? The fourth she takes with her — it follows her. The other three follow me — the other three — who no longer have a mother — no! They still have father and mother — I can hear her breathing. She is only asleep. But if she shouldn’t — if it so should happen, then I can blame only myself. I myself have caused all this. I said: Someone must take the responsibility, I take the responsibility. She has been against it the whole time, she was against it from the very beginning. But I persuaded her. She came with me but I think she regretted it the whole time. But she said nothing. I was the one who insisted, I and no one else decided. And now she could blame me, but instead she says: I have nothing to forgive you; we are the best of friends. And I am causing her to lose her life — and she says — I like you—

This is your payment for being so stubborn and insistent. Now you feel what it’s like! You wanted to push your will through — and now, see what has happened! If you had listened to her, if you had listened to your wife, and your parents and other people — those who wished to put a stop to it — then you would not have to sit here tonight, fumbling with a burnt-out taper, wondering if she is dead or alive. Do I look at my wife Kristina? Or at a corpse? Then I would not be sitting here, rocking back and forth, in this rolling ship — in this tempest tonight. Then I would never have set foot on this devil’s ship, never been on this damned ocean — damned for time and eternity! That’s what it is, if it takes her. If that damned Finn comes down with his canvas — comes up to this bunk — right here — and takes her — and says, as he usually does: We must — yes, now we must — If he comes — if HE comes — and I must blame myself. Stubborn and obstinate — the big-nosed are always stubborn. It’s your big nose, Karl Oskar.

You didn’t mean it wrongly — you didn’t want to harm us — you mustn’t feel downhearted — don’t be sad! But if that Finn comes — at early dawn, he usually comes in the mornings — and tries to touch her — to find out — It must not be morning — not yet — not for a long while yet. It’s better the night should last, better than that morning should come — morning, and a Finn, with a piece of canvas in his hand. You have yourself to blame. .

Thus Karl Oskar Nilsson stood watch at the bedside of his sick wife — the longest night watch of his life.

And with daylight and full morning he heard a child’s voice — his little son Johan crawled up on his knee and took hold of his trousers and said: “Father — Mother isn’t bleeding any more.”

— 4—

Night had passed and calm weather had come with morning. The ocean had lowered its rough, roaring storm-voice — no more waves were heard against the side of the ship, and the rolling was negligible. In fact the rolling was all but gone when the emigrants began to crawl out of their bunks and waken to a new day in their old quarters in the hold.

Johan had crept down from his mother’s bunk. “Mother has stopped bleeding!”

Kristina lay quietly on her back as before, her eyes gleamed open and big in the meager daylight which came in through the main hatch. Her lips moved slowly: “Karl Oskar. Are you here?”

“Yes.”

“I believe — I think I’ve slept.”

“Yes. You’ve been sleeping a long time.”

“I don’t feel so tired any more.”

“That’s good.”

“I think — I think—”

But that was all. She was too weak to say anything more. Karl Oskar noticed that the blood no longer ran from her nostrils; the flow of blood had stopped — perhaps many hours ago. He had not been able to see in the dark, and he had been afraid of striking a light, he might have awakened her. But the blood was stanched. There was at least one blood-stancher on board the ship — the captain himself. One must always do what one could, things might change if one tried.

While raptures of joy went through Karl Oskar, a man approached him and touched his shoulder, timidly and clumsily. It was Danjel Andreasson. He was pale and his eyes were red from the night wake — they seemed strangely glazed and distant when he looked at Karl Oskar and then at Kristina. His voice, too, was foreign and distant, as if he were speaking from another world: “She is dead.”

“No! She lives!” said Karl Oskar. “I think she will survive now!”

“She died just now,” said Danjel.

“But can’t you see for yourself—”

“You must believe me, Karl Oskar, she died a moment ago. She had never told me how ill she was.”

“Don’t you see she is alive?”

“She is dead — you can see for yourself, if you doubt me,”

“Am I asleep? What are you talking about?”

Karl Oskar looked in consternation at Danjel.

Beside him stood a man in deep sorrow. Danjel did not speak of Kristina, he spoke of his own wife: Inga-Lena had died without admitting to her husband that she was ill.

Another man than Karl Oskar had become a widower this morning.

XXV. ANOTHER THREE SHOVELFULS OF EARTH FROM SWEDEN

— 1—

Captain Lorentz sat in his cabin and mused over a piece of paper with a few lines written on it: “Wife Inga-Lena Andersdotter from Kärragärde in Ljuder Parish, Konga County, born October 4, 1809; joined in marriage with homeowner Danjel Andreasson, June 23, 1833. . ”

Name, sex, and age — that was all he required, all he needed to know to conduct the funeral. This was now the eighth funeral. But there was something about the information which did not check. Nothing checked, as he thought further about it. He had seen the woman’s bleeding body, he had tied her arms and legs. She had been a young woman, barely thirty, but now it seemed that the dead one was forty years old. And he had been told that she left behind four children, all on board with their parents. Yet he remembered definitely having seen only three small ones in the bunk of the dying woman.

Apparently another death had occurred than the one he had expected.

Once more on this voyage must he stand on deck and from the prayerbook choose suitable prayers and thought-worthy hymns, “as well as some sentence from Holy Writ,” as it was prescribed in “How to Bury a Corpse on Board.”

“Teach us all to remember that we must die and thereby gain understanding. . ”

This potent prayer could have two meanings: either that we gain understanding and use our lives well before we die — or, the meaning which no doubt had been in the mind of the author, that we gain understanding to prepare ourselves for death. But the person who used his intelligence well would not concern himself in life with constant preparation for death. There could be no meaning in thus wasting one’s few allotted days. Man must live in comfort and good cheer as long as life lasted — soon enough death comes with joy to no one.

And the thought of his own death — probable within the next few years — occupied the captain of the Charlotta for some fleeting moments. While still young, his death-day had often been in his mind; but the older he grew, the less often did he think of it. Some wisdom he had gained with the years. At sixty he was still sailing the seas in fairly good health. Nearly all the comrades of his youth had been taken by the sea, and their bodies had become part of the water that had surged about their ships. Some had sailed five years, others ten, still others thirty. He himself had already been allowed forty-six. Why? Nothing could be more foolish than to brood over this question. He might just as well ask why the wind was southerly today and northerly yesterday, and not the opposite. Once one knew there was no answer to the question, one ceased to ask. Only a simpleton would query the inexplicable.

It might be difficult to die, but it was rather common. All people must die, people had done so throughout time, and he too must face up to it when his time came. Since he couldn’t escape it, he might as well pretend that he would live forever. For all eternity he would sail the seas, his ship would rot down but the master remain. By thinking death nonexistent, he could best use his life.

How had the wife Inga-Lena Andersdotter used her life — the forty years that had been given to her? A funeral officiant on a crowded emigrant ship could seldom know anything about those over whom he read his prayers. His passengers had been removed from their parish registers on leaving home, and had not yet been recorded elsewhere. They were registered nowhere — the emigrants on his ship were homeless, they had no plot in a churchyard. Only the sea opened its depths to them. The sea had room for all of them.

These peasants often feared death at sea, because of the final resting place — they wanted to be put in consecrated ground, and the ocean was not consecrated. But they were caught in deep superstition: this water where so many good seamen had found their graves ought to be a good enough resting place for the wretched land-rats.

Perhaps the wife Inga-Lena Andersdotter had died, too, in fear of the unconsecrated burial place of the ocean. Her forty years she had lived on solid ground, bending over the earth in her potato furrows and barley fields, poking in pens and manure piles, tramping between byre and barn. Yet she would find rest in the sea, in the most extended churchyard in the world, where nothing marked the graves. She would not be registered anywhere — she was an emigrant who had failed to reach her destination, a wanderer in the world.

But this peasant woman had still left her mark after her on earth: she had borne four new citizens for the North American republic.

With his stiff fingers, wasted and gray from the salt of the sea, Captain Lorentz picked up his pen to add a few lines on the small paper: “Died June 17, 1850, on board the brig Charlotta of Karlshamn, on voyage to New York. Certified, Christian Lorentz, Master.”

— 2—

It was a calm and beautiful June morning on the Atlantic Ocean. The emigrant vessel sailed with a feeble southerly breeze. The sun mirrored itself in the water, its rays reflected like burning flames. This morning at sea the emigrants had their first feeling of summer.

A group of passengers were gathered on the Charlotta’s afterdeck. The people stood in a semicircle around an improvised bier: a few planks had been laid upon two low sawhorses, and on these was placed an oblong bundle wrapped in canvas. The emigrants had donned their Sunday best — the men, gray or black wadmal jackets; the older women wore silk kerchiefs. Those of the crew who were free mingled with the passengers.

The men stood bareheaded, the women’s covered heads were bowed. All faces reflected the gravity of the moment. They were an immobile, solidified group of people, gathered around the bundle on the improvised bier. A human body was wrapped in the white canvas; the bier leaned toward the water, the feet touching the rail.

The Charlotta’s flag was lowered to half-mast. The captain emerged from his cabin and issued a quick order: the mainsail was braced, reducing the slow speed of the ship to almost nothing, hardly enough for steering. The brig Charlotta’s voyage was delayed for the sake of a human corpse on the afterdeck this beautiful summer morning.

The captain had exchanged his oilskins for a black redingote; on his bare head his thick gray hair now lay smoothly combed. He went to the head of the bier, then looked for a moment into the rigging as if to see how his ship carried her sails. Under his arm he held a prayerbook. As he opened it the emigrants folded their hands and their faces took on — if possible — a still more serious mien.

Captain Lorentz turned a few pages in his prayerbook, turned them back again, made a jerky, impatient movement with his shoulders when he was unable immediately to locate the place: he must remember to turn the page at “How to Bury a Corpse.” And what was the number of the hymn they were to sing?

While he was looking for the prayer he happened to notice the man standing beside him: a small peasant with a bushy brown beard. He remembered that man well. The first day out he had stumbled on him praying on deck. Now the little man held a baby in his arms; beside him stood three other children. Together they were four children and a father.

Lorentz quickly turned his eyes away from this group and looked about him on the deck. There was something he needed — there, at his feet, it stood, the wooden bushel measure half filled with earth. In it was stuck a small shovel, resembling a winnowing scoop.

He found the page in the prayerbook and began to read. His voice was clear and resonant, trained during many years at sea to rise above the roar of the waves and the storms:

“O Lord God! Thou Who for the sake of sin lettest people die and return to earth again, teach us to remember that we must die, and thereby gain understanding. . ”

Now all the people present held their hands folded, in reverence they bent their heads and listened to the words of the prayerbook. The ocean’s water played softly against the side of the ship, a breath of air lifted a few tufts of hair on the captain’s uncovered head. With the last words someone was heard sobbing, but the sound was quickly drowned in the captain’s powerful voice.

The seagulls had returned, and they swarmed this morning in large flocks through the rigging. Life was again visible on the sea.

The funeral officiant took up a hymn. It began haltingly, and he had to sing half of the first stanza alone. But gradually the people joined in — slowly as the rolling of the ship the singing proceeded:

“You wicked world, farewell!

To heaven fares my soul,

To reach her harbor goal. .”

When the last notes of the hymn had rung out over the sea, the captain bent down and from the bushel at his feet picked up the little scoop. Three times he filled it with the earth his ship carried with her from the homeland, three times he emptied it over the dead body in front of him. With a soft thud the soil fell on the canvas. But heavy and terrifying fell the captain’s words over the bent heads of the people: “Dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return. Jesus Christ shall awaken thee on the Day of Judgment! Let us pray.”

Heavy was the truth, but the prayer was a mild comfort. Someone cried out at the words “Day of Judgment.” It was not a cry of hope, it sounded rather like a bird’s eerie and hopeless cry. It might be a sea bird calling, and some of the people turned their eyes toward the rigging — it might be a gull disturbing the solemnity of the funeral. But the cry did not come from a hungry seagull — it came from a child.

On the canvas-covered bundle there still remained the sprinkling of earth, three unshapely little mounds with a few pinches of mold in each, three ugly gray-black spots on the clean white cloth. But before the captain had finished reading the ritual, the lighter particles of earth separated from the mounds and trickled down the side. With the bier leaning toward the rail, toward the water beyond, some earth ran slowly across the rail, into the sea.

This was soil that had traveled a long way. It came from the land where the feet of the dead one had tramped the earth during her forty years, where she had struggled with her potato baskets and her barley sheaves, where she had carried milk pails and water buckets, where she — in concern for the food of her dear ones — had locked the larder every evening, where she had lived out her summers and her winters, all her autumns and springs — all except this single spring, when she had followed her mate out on the sea. It was a little earth from Sweden, a little of the three shovelfuls which accompany the words about creation, destruction, and the resurrection, which now trickled into the sea as if anxious to reach it before the human body which had just been consigned to its watery grave.

But no one noticed the movement on the canvas. As the grains of earth separated and rolled on their way the group now sang the second and last hymn of the ritual:

“Let my body then be hidden

In a humble, nameless tomb;

When at last I shall be bidden

To forsake that narrow room,

Jesus knows where they are sleeping

Who were given in His keeping. . ”

The sun shone down on a peaceful sea which had calmed this morning and now lay quiet before the song about a patient and resigned human soul who sought his sleep with God until the end of time. Still a little more earth trickled down the canvas toward the water.

Captain Lorentz was ready to give his crew men the sign: Lower away.

At that moment someone stirred behind him — the little brown-bearded man with the baby on his arm stepped up to the captain. He looked at the ship’s commander beseechingly, hesitatingly. Lorentz stepped aside, leaving his place at the head of the bier to the surviving husband.

Danjel Andreasson wanted to say something. His voice was not strong, he had never issued orders, he had no commander’s voice. And few were the words he had to say to his mate in the canvas: “The Lord said unto you as He said to Moses: ‘You shall not get into that land.’ You, my dear wife, were not allowed to see the new land — yet you reached the harbor before us.

“When I wanted to move over there, then you spoke to me and said: ‘say not to me that I should separate from you; where you go, there will I go, where you die there will I die and be buried.’”

Only those closest to Danjel Andreasson could hear his voice, his words were uttered in such low tones.

He took a step back from the bier, a long, hesitating step. Then the captain gave the sign — two seamen stepped forward and the oblong bundle glided into the sea. Almost as it disappeared over the rail a vague splash was heard from the side of the ship. It sounded as if some of the sea’s creatures had moved in play on the surface, or perhaps it was a little billow breaking.

The ship’s flag was raised and lowered — three times this was repeated.

Meanwhile the emigrants began to disperse. Soon the bare rough bier stood alone. But two crew men came and took it to pieces, carried away the planks and moved away the sawhorses, while the mainsail was spread to its full capacity, and the brig Charlotta sailed on — with one passenger less.

It was a radiant morning on the Atlantic Ocean. The sun had risen still higher and the beams glittered in the clear water where a moment before the ship had left part of her cargo from the hold. It was almost as if a fire glowed below the surface, a flame burned down there.

XXVI. SAILING TOWARD MIDSUMMER

— 1—

Robert and Elin stood leaning against the rail and watched the porpoises play alongside the ship. The fat round fishes looked like suckling pigs, and they tumbled about in the water as a mill wheel turns in its channel. These were the largest fishes the youth and girl had ever seen. But Robert had no fishing gear handy. His fishpoles, lines, and hooks were in the America chest, put away in the storeroom below the main hold at the embarkation in Karlshamm — Robert had not seen it since.

The eternal westerly wind was blowing; because they had contrary winds the porpoises moved faster than the ship. They swam and jumped and played around the bow as if mocking the tardy vessel: Here we are! Where are you? How far have you come? What kind of old pork barrel are you, splashing about like that?

Elin pointed at the water where the porpoises played: right there the water was green, she had seen similar spots before on their voyage — how did it happen that the sea water was green in some places? Had some ship spilled green paint there? Robert thought a bit before he answered: perhaps God at the Creation had intended to make the sea water green, perhaps He had at first made a few sample lakes of that color and later changed His mind and created all waters blue. Then afterward He might have thrown the green lakes into the sea here and there, just so as to make some use of them.

There was always something to observe at sea. Robert did not agree with the other passengers, he did not think the sea was a desolate landscape, depressing to watch day after day. In storm the sea was a hilly landscape, each knoll mobile and rolling about. In sunshine and calm weather the sea lay there outstretched like a blue and golden cloth of silk or satin which he would have liked to stroke with his hand. The sea in moonlight at night was made up of broad, light paths, for the angels of heaven to walk on. A hill or a knoll on land always remained in the same spot, and looked exactly the same each time one passed by it. But the sea was never the same.

During a few nights early in the voyage Robert had thought he was going to die at sea. While the first storm raged he had lain in his bunk, his forehead moistened by the cold and sticky sweat of death-fear. This experience he had not liked. To be enjoyable, an adventure must not involve fear for life. But he had grown accustomed to the sea, and now he felt ashamed when he thought of his fear during that first storm. Now he could go to bed in the evenings without fear of drowning during the night.

And as they approached the end of the long-drawn-out voyage he had even begun to like the sea. Soon he must part from it. It was said they might expect to see land almost any day now. Every day passengers gathered in the prow and looked for America, as if thinking that that land was such a small speck they might pass it by if they didn’t keep a lookout for it. Those among them who possessed almanacs, and marked the passing days by crosses, said that it would be Midsummer in a few days. Perhaps they would reach the shores of America for the Midsummer holidays.

“Shall we read in the language book?” asked Elin.

“If you wish, let’s.”

She was now as eager as he to learn English words. He suspected she no longer relied on the Holy Ghost to give her power to use the new language immediately on landing. And he had several times reminded her that the descending of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles on the first Whitsuntide had taken place long before the discovery of America, long before the English language was invented. Therefore no one knew for sure if it could be taught in the same manner as the languages of the Greeks, the Elamites, the Syrians, and the Copts, which the apostles learned in one day — and this a holy day to boot.

In the textbook Robert and Elin had now reached the chapter about “Seeking Employment.” It was an important chapter; the very first day when they arrived in America they both must earn their own living, and anyone who must earn his living must also know how to find employment.

Robert had finally decided that they must pronounce the English words as they were spelled in the first sentences and disregard the spelling within the parentheses which only confused and complicated the language for them.

Could you tell me where to get work? — What can you do?

Here the work-seeker must answer that he was a carpenter, a tailor, a cobbler, a harness maker, a tanner, a spinner, a weaver, a mason, a waiter, or whatever occupation he pursued. But Robert had skipped all this, he was not concerned about what a harness maker was called in English as he couldn’t make harnesses anyway. He himself stuck to one single sentence: I am used to farm work.

He was a farmhand. The only work he had done was farm work, the only chores he had performed were those of the farmer. And he had long struggled with this sentence, but he knew it now — he repeated the words slowly and tried to pronounce them carefully as they were spelled.

I am used to farm work. He wished already the very first day to astonish the Americans by being able to tell them what he could do, and he wished to say it correctly in their own language. He wished to inspire respect from the very first day.

At home in Ljuder Elin had only worked as nursemaid, but now that she had passed sixteen she hoped to find a position in America more worthy of a grown woman. She read the chapter in the textbook entitled “Doing Ordinary Household Chores.” It dealt with every hour of a maid’s workday in America, and Robert urged her emphatically to learn this chapter well before she landed: having done so she would inspire respect.

I am the new servant girl. You must get up at six o’clock in the morning. Make fire and put water to boil. Get the broom and sweep the dining room. Clear off the table. Wash your hands before you handle food.

When Elin had gone so far she looked at her hands, which were clean and white, with a fragrance of soap. It was early in the morning and she had just washed them.

“In America they must think all maids have dirty hands,” she said.

“The Americans hate all kinds of dirt,” said Robert. “Everything is cleaner in the New World than in the Old. That’s why you’ll fit in well there.”

“Do you really believe it’s true that a maid need not get up before six in the morning?”

About that, Robert dared not offer anything definite. There was the chance that she might accuse him of having told her something untrue. He answered cautiously: “Perhaps she isn’t allowed to sleep so late in all places. But I’ve heard that farmhands can sleep till five o’clock.”

When Elin had served as nursemaid she had always been awakened by her mistress at four o’clock or half past. She liked to sleep late in the morning, and now she was a little disappointed in Robert’s answer. He had once said that all women in America were waited on, and if this were true, then it was only right that they be allowed to sleep later than the men.

The deck rolled slowly under the youth and the girl, the changing world of the sea surrounded them, the same eternal billows lifted them and carried them to a New World where they must find their way. And they sat there close together and with inexperienced, obstinate tongues tried to learn a new language — seriously and persistently they struggled through the English sentences, reading the words aloud as they were spelled.

I am used to farm work. I am the new servant girl.

In these two sentences the youthful emigrants must let the Americans know what kind of people they were, and they must pronounce them correctly, inspiring respect. This was of great importance for their future.

— 2—

The brig Charlotta of Karlshamn was sailing toward Midsummer.

The eagle on her prow still looked incessantly toward the west, his eyes washed clean and clear by the spray. And the two tall masts — fir trees from the forests of the ship’s homeland — bowed gracefully as the vessel glided down the billowy vales, rose proudly again as she encountered the crests of the waves. So they bowed while they carried the sails across all the sea, always rising to their full height again, proudly, defiantly. They had bent a little in hard gusts of wind, they had been pressed down by the storms, but they had always come back up again. They were slim and slender pine spires, in appearance so delicate at the top that they could be broken with the fingers — but these the ship’s pinions had endured the tempests of all seasons on the sea. They were pines from a little land far away, they came from the same stony meadows and moors as the people on this ship — they were related to these voyagers, they were tough and indomitable as the people they helped carry across the sea.

And soon they will have conquered the ocean once more. The Charlotta now met other vessels daily, sailing ships and iron steamers, she was passing vessels, she was overtaken by vessels, she kept company with vessels. The swarm of sea birds was thickening in her rigging. In the water — up till now uncontaminated in its clear blueness — slime and flotsam began to appear, various discarded objects sailed about on the surface. All signs indicated that land was near. And soon the ship would no longer sail on the sea, she would enter a broad river mouth.

The sun was high in the heavens and bathed the deck in warmth. Sick passengers were carried up from the hold and lay the whole day through in the beneficial sunshine. Slowly mending, they felt they were enjoying a warmer sun than the one that shone on them at home. It was high-summer weather, Midsummer weather.

Kristina had improved slowly after her bleeding during the night of the storm. But as yet she was too weak to stand. Karl Oskar carried her out of the dark and stuffy quarters up on deck every day when the sun was out, and each day her sensation of returning strength increased. It worried her that she was lying here so useless; she could not help them now when they had so much to do: they were getting themselves in order for their landing.

The passengers had begun their great cleaning up and were busy preparing themselves for the landing. There was washing and scouring and scrubbing in the hold, garments were washed and rinsed and hung to dry. Clothing of all kinds, Sunday best and underwear and bed-clothing, must be cleaned, mended, patched and brushed. This was not work for menfolk, but Karl Oskar must do it now, and he found it a tedious task. Many things had been ruined on the long voyage — worn out, torn, rotted, drenched with vomit. Mattresses and bolsters and garments were in shreds — these he could only throw into the sea. And nearly everything smelled musty and evil — like the quarters where they had spent more than two months. He gathered, sorted, and discarded a large pile.

“There should be a rag-and-bone man on the ship. He would have a thriving business!”

Now he, like the other passengers, must throw his rags into the sea. And he mused that little by little a whole mountain of ragged discarded belongings of emigrants must have accumulated near the shores of America, if each new arrival threw overboard as much as this.

Kristina thought that he threw away too much. Some of the things in his pile could have been cleaned and mended, could well have had more use. But Karl Oskar felt it a relief to get rid of the stinking rags, reminders of his anxiety during the storms and the plague of seasickness — he wanted to free himself of these witnesses to the troubles of the crossing. The sight of them would only torment him on land when they were to begin anew.

“I don’t want to feel ashamed among the Americans,” he said. “If they were to see these rags, they would wonder what kind of people we are.”

Karl Oskar admitted no debt to the homeland where all his struggle had repaid him so little, but he did not wish to shame Sweden in the eyes of America: he wished to show that it was a land with a cleanly, upright peasantry, that those who came from there were decent and orderly, even if they brought nothing more than their poverty in their knapsacks. He wanted to be neat in his dress, and appear sensible and experienced as he passed through the portals of the New World.

He discarded the old with the rags that he heaved overboard — now the new was to begin.

Of their bedding, Karl Oskar saved only one piece: their blue bridal cover which Kristina herself had sewn. It too was spotted, and several holes gaped in it. Tears came to Kristina’s eyes as she now beheld it in full daylight, and saw how badly it had fared. But maybe she could wash it, remove the disgusting spots, mend the holes — once they had landed and her health and strength had returned. Her bridal quilt was dearer to her than any other possession they brought with them from home. It had been part of her setting-up-of-home in Sweden, she had made her bridal bed with it, Karl Oskar and she had slept under it for six years — during their whole lives as husband and wife. She could now hope that they might rest together under it once more, and use it for many years. Surely they would never be happy and prosperous unless the bridal cover was part of their new settling in America.

During their preparations for the landing Karl Oskar showed himself so handy and efficient with the chores of womenfolk that Kristina could not help but admire him. It seemed he could do almost anything he wanted — if he only wanted to. His old disposition had now returned, and he was more cheerful with each day. Midsummer was imminent, he said, he must have on his holiday disposition.

The closer they came to land, the more Karl Oskar became himself.

— 3—

One morning at daybreak Robert was awakened by Arvid, who excitedly shook him by the shoulder. “They see America!”

Still half asleep Robert jumped into his trousers, still half asleep he emerged through the main hatch onto deck where he continued to button himself up. Many passengers had already gathered up here, mostly menfolk, but also a few early risers among the women. They all stood there silently in grave expectation: they saw North America.

As yet there was not much for the eyes to behold. They sailed up the mouth of a broad river, a broad bay of the sea. It was not yet full daylight, and a mist hung over the land: America was still sleeping this morning, had not yet shed her blanket of night. Land rose over the stern and on the prow and on either side of the ship, but in the mist of dawn it appeared fragmentary, visible in places, hidden in others. As yet no one could discern if this land was barren or fertile, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly. But they had reached the shores of America, and this knowledge sufficed them.

Their speed up the bay was good — now, during the last stage of this long voyage, the wind was with them, and their sails were full as women’s skirts in a breeze. Innumerable ships filled the passage, sailing ships, sloops, steamers, vessels of all sizes and kinds. The brig Charlotta had long traveled alone on the ocean, now she was in great company.

Little by little the land threw off its morning shroud. Slowly the naked shores arose. And soon a populated stretch of land jutted out in the path of their ship, like a large peninsula. Here the clearing mist gradually uncovered a multitude of clustered roofs, long rows of houses could be seen, and high above the roofs stretched spires and steeples, exactly like the church steeples at home. Before them lay a town, greater than any they had ever seen before. When full daylight broke through, they could see their harbor: New York.

Robert and Arvid stood in the prow, as immobile as people can stand on a moving deck. Next to them stood the second mate, the Finn, who had taken part in every one of the Charlotta’s voyages to North America. He told them that the land they saw was only a large island. It was originally called Manna-Hata, which was an Indian word — the name of a favorable god among the Indians, he had heard. The god had lived on this pretty island of Manna-Hata for thousands of years, until it once was flooded by the river and he had been forced to move. Now it was mostly people who lived here, but the Finn had never been to any church while in port so he was not sure which god — if any — lived on Manna-Hata nowadays.

The Charlotta steered toward a shore which seemed to them made up of fortifications and piers. But above these rose also a large, round, yellow-gray building with a tremendous round tower. Robert wondered what this could be.

“That’s called Castle Garden. It’s a kastell”

Robert did not know what a kastell was, he had never heard the word before, but he didn’t wish to ask. Instead, Arvid asked the mate.

“A kastell is the same as a prison,” said the Finn.

Robert looked at him with wide-open eyes. That yellow-gray house with the large round tower was a prison? There were then imprisoned people in the house called Castle Garden. He had not imagined that the first house he saw in America would be a prison, a house where people were locked up when they lost their freedom. And he said that he had hardly expected to find any prisons in the United States of North America, where all evil and criminal people were exterminated.

The mate then explained that Castle Garden was no longer used as a prison. There were no prisoners there any more — it was instead a hell of a good place, a saloon. He knew, he had been there himself. The fare was good, and the ale of first quality. One could eat there to one’s satisfaction, and get good and drunk too. On Sundays the saloon was crowded, people sitting on each other’s knees while they ate and drank. Castle Garden was indeed a damned good saloon, a place where one was free to do as one pleased, use one’s knife in a brawl and all other kinds of entertainment.

Then it was really as Robert had thought it would be: the prisons in America were actually not prisons with prisoners, as was the case in Sweden, but rather fine inns with guests who there could enjoy and entertain themselves as best they pleased. No doubt about it, America was a land with a kind government.

— 4—

Only a short time elapsed before all of the Charlotta’s passengers were gathered on deck. Those unable to crawl up by themselves were carried: America was visible, and all wanted to see. They saw houses, churches, embankments, piers, streets and roads, people and carriages. But the eyes of the emigrants missed something — they looked in vain for something which the shores of America as yet had not shown. Their eyes had been searching for it during the whole passage up the bay — at last they found it, on the outjutting tongue of land over the prow: behind the big house with the round tower the morning mist was lifting, uncovering a grove of trees — large leaf-trees with thick foliage, and grass on the ground around the trees. The shore they had left at Karlshamn had been a dark shore — here a light shore greeted them. Bushes and trees grew there, leaves and green boughs, herbs and grass: at last they could see the green earth.

The long-drawn-out voyage with all its storms, sufferings, ills and troubles — the confinement on the ship during endless days — all this had gnawed hard on the emigrants’ lives and spirits. Scurvy and ship’s fever had lowered their resistance. From the monotonous life on board they had grown depressed and downhearted, and many had ceased to care what life and fate would bring them. But now this new vision unfolded before them, a bit of living ground near them — and they knew they had safely crossed the sea, and were here with the earth lying before their eyes again.

They stood crowded together on deck like a herd of cattle — shackled in the narrow stalls of the byre during a whole long winter, and at last stretching their necks and turning toward the door when it began to smell of spring and fresh grass and meadows: soon they would be let out, soon their imprisonment would end. And in this moment a new energy and ambition seized the emigrants. They felt cheered, encouraged, born anew, as if a fresh spirit were blown into their breasts.

The scurvy-sick feel now that they will recover. The weakened ones come to life again, a new strength enters them. Fresh power comes to the tired ones, initiative returns to the depressed, boldness to the timid. The spirit of indifference flies away from their minds, as the mist and fog this morning had lifted from the earth.

It was land-frenzy that overtook the passengers on the Charlotta. The life at sea had undermined their bodies and souls. The land-frenzy was bringing them new strength. They had again seen the green earth. As seekers of new homes they had come sailing from the earth — now they were back on the earth, and felt life returning.

— 5—

The little Swedish vessel had anchored at the pier. The gangplank was lowered, and the passengers had begun to disembark. A burning-hot summer day met them in the new land.

The family from Korpamoen had gathered in a group, waiting their turn. On one arm Karl Oskar held his youngest son, with the other he held his wife around the waist. Kristina wanted to walk down the gangplank on her own legs. Many passengers had come on deck for the first time in a long while today, and some were so weak that they must be carried ashore. But Kristina told Karl Oskar she did not wish it said that she had been unable to walk onto land in America on her own legs. It would not be a good omen if she were carried ashore. Her limbs were weak, however, and she leaned heavily on her husband. Robert looked after Johan and Lill-Märta, and stood there holding one child with each hand. The children were not yet quite awake, and were troublesome and complaining, frightened by all the noise and jostle at the landing. Little Harald wanted to get down from his father’s arms. He, too, wanted to walk on his own legs.

The children were pale and gaunt, and the flesh hung loosely on their limbs, but they would soon improve with fresh food on land. A fourth child was still slumbering in its unconsciousness within the protection of the mother. This unborn life would be the first one from among the Charlotta’s passengers to gain citizenship in the North American republic.

Of the sixteen people who had emigrated from Ljuder Parish and gathered at Åkerby Junction a bleak morning in early April, fifteen had arrived at the threshold of a new continent. One was missing. Of the seventy-eight people who had embarked at Karlshamn, seventy had arrived. The Charlotta had given up eight of her passengers to the ocean.

But Karl Oskar Nilsson had his whole family around him, and he himself stood there, healthy and sound and filled with deep satisfaction that they had all traveled safely over the sea.

He did not worry about the journey over land, where all lay firm under his feet. For the landing he had polished his splendid high boots, tried on for the first time the last evening in their old home. With the fat from a large pork rind he had greased the leather until it was shining black. His boots were of the best leather, made from oak-tanned ox-hide. He was well shod — they knew how to make fine boots at home. In this footgear he was well prepared. If the roads of America were poor, he would get through with these boots on his feet.

Otherwise, he, along with his fellow passengers, was poorly equipped. When their ship at long last landed, the emigrants were shabby and worn in faces and clothing. They must now go ashore in the same garments they had worn during the long voyage, and these did not resemble the clothing one wears to festivals. Men and women alike looked like molting hens. And when they had gathered together their possessions — chests, bundles, baskets, and boxes thrown together in a pile on deck — then the ship looked like a large high-loaded gypsy wagon. When they had driven to the harbor town of Karlshamn, Jonas Petter had likened the emigrants from Ljuder to a pack of gypsies. At their disembarkation this comparison was even more appropriate than then.

But however shabby and weak they seemed, however wretched and poor they were — North America admitted them.

It was time to go over the gangplank. The pier was high and their small ship was low — the gangplank became a steep uphill. But Kristina used all her strength, and walked onto land by herself. And little Harald was let down from Karl Oskar’s arms at last, and walked on the plank at his father’s side. Even the youngest in the Korpamoen family walked on his own legs into America.

But at the very first steps on solid ground Karl Oskar stopped still: his head swam — he felt dizzy. The ground under him rolled exactly as the deck had done. Giddiness made him stumble a bit. Never once at sea had he felt this way. Now when he stood on firm land dizziness overtook him and his legs were wobbly. He could not understand it. Perhaps he had forgotten how to walk on solid ground, perhaps he must begin anew, as he must with his whole life. But in this unknown new land, which he now entered, he must stand firmly on his legs. That much he knew.

It was on Midsummer Eve, in the year 1850, that the brig Charlotta of Karlshamn tied up at the pier in New York, after ten weeks’ sailing from her home port. Precarious, insecure, and unstable were the first steps of the immigrants on American soil.

The Emigrants is the first volume in a planned trilogy.

Monterey, California, August 1949

V. M.