The Last Letter Home

XX. THE FIRST CHILD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE

— 1—

It was Mr. C. A. Persson who had persuaded Karl Oskar to buy it. The storekeeper ordered all kinds of new inventions and displayed them in his shop, and one after another he palmed them off on the settlers. But this one appeared to be a most useful invention. Klas Albert promised to assemble it himself and show how to use it. He brought it one dark fall evening and everyone gathered around the rectangular wooden box.

Karl Oskar wanted to surprise his children and had not mentioned the purchase to them. He acted as if he didn’t know what was in the box.

Mr. Persson broke open the box and displayed an object, the like of which had never been seen before in this house — a brass stand, a foot and a half high, which the storekeeper placed on the table. It stood there quite firmly on its solid, round base.

Marta had already guessed that Father had bought some useful kitchen utensil but she could not figure out what this brass stand could be used for. She could neither cut nor cook with it. It seemed to have no purpose. But it was beautiful, with its greenish tint, perhaps it was meant as a table decoration.

“What kind of knickknack have you brought, Klas Albert?” she asked.

“Wait till I’m ready — then you’ll see something!”

And from the box the Center City merchant drew out several more strange objects: a porcelain globe, a glass pipe a foot long, and at last a kind of flask filled with a transparent fluid. Each object was exceedingly fragile and Klas Albert was most careful in handling them. His audience, standing in a circle around him, realized that the pieces must in some way be put together.

“Wait till I’m ready! Then you’ll understand!”

Mr. Persson opened a lid over an enlargement at the upper end of the brass stand, and into this hole he poured the white fluid from the flask. Then he slowly turned a screw fastened to the stand. No one could guess the purpose of this screw. But it appeared that something was going to happen. And so it did.

Klas Albert struck a match and held it over the brass stand. A flame leaped up from its upper end — the brass stand was burning!

The circle of spectators broke apart; they all stepped back. What was this? Everyone in this house had been instructed to handle fire most carefully; Father had told them to stamp out any flame or spark outside the fireplace. Yet here he stood and smiled while Klas Albert appeared to be trying to set the house on fire!

A tall flame burned lustily at the upper end of the brass stand, but Mr. Persson remained calm. He picked up the glass pipe and placed it around the flame, enclosing it. He then placed the porcelain globe on a ring and turned the screw again. The tall flame withdrew a little and stopped smoking. He kept turning the screw until the flame burned evenly inside the pipe.

A clear, warm light spread through the whole kitchen. The flame in the pipe spread its light to the farthest corner.

And now Karl Oskar said in a solemn voice, “Tonight we have a new light in our house — I have bought a kerosene lamp.”

He was very much pleased with the surprise he could read in his children’s faces. And Klas Albert was even more pleased; he looked as if he had just performed a very difficult magician’s trick.

“How clever you are!” exclaimed Marta. “What do you do to make it light up?”

Eagerly Klas Albert showed the girl how the trick worked: The brass stand formed the foot of the lamp. This enlargement held the fluid that burned — it was called the oil chamber. Into the oil he had stuck some twisted yarn, called the wick, and the other end of the wick came up into the glass pipe. The yarn kept burning because it was soaked in oil and was being fed from the oil chamber. By turning the screw he could change the flame, make it strong or weak, any way he wanted it. The glass pipe protected the flame and the porcelain globe softened the light.

“As simple as that!” said Klas Albert, acting as if it were the easiest thing in the world to make a flame come out of the end of a brass stand.

The kerosene lamp would give as much light as ten tallow candles, he explained. Yet the strangest part was that it would burn indefinitely. When the flame grew weak one only had to pour more oil into the oil chamber.

And they were long to remember that autumn evening when Klas Albert brought the new light to their house. The kerosene lamp brought them more satisfaction and pleasure than any other new invention. The nights were dark at every season; between sunset and bedtime a black wall stood outside the windows, and they needed light. They had made their own candles from sheep tallow, they had also used pitch splinters which they fastened to the walls; and in winter the fire on the hearth gave them light. But candles had to last, pitch splinters burned only a short moment, and the fire must be fed constantly. Candles, splinters, and the fire burned out, but the lamp lasted. One had only to refill the oil chamber. It was an eternal light.

Now the evenings were bright in their house and they could stay up longer at their chores. Each night they stole a little time from the dark.

But the new invention could cause a fire and must be used with utmost care. The fluid could catch fire, the oil chamber might explode. They had read in the papers how people had started house fires when lighting their lamps. Because of this, Karl Oskar at first would let no one but himself handle the lamp or carry it while it burned. But after a time he allowed his two oldest children to attend to it. Johan and Marta were almost of age now, and neither of them was careless. By and by Harald was given the same permission; he was as trustworthy as his older brother and sister. But Frank and Ulrika, the two youngest, were strongly forbidden to touch, move, or try to light the new lamp.

Klas Albert came from time to time to check on the lamp and see that it was taken care of. But no accident happened, and the new invention started no fire in their house. The flame from the oil-soaked wick succeeded the daylight and shone cheerfully through the evenings.

Lamp evenings were something new in the settler families.

It was the great moment of the day when Father lit the lamp. Before, the hearth had been the heart and gathering point of the family, now the kerosene lamp became the family’s central point around which they gathered. It spread a warm, cozy light, at which the father read the paper, the children their lessons, the boys whittled with their knives, the girls knitted or sewed. In this light they could see to thread the smallest needle, and read the finest print. It saved their eyes and prolonged their evenings.

With the new light — which came to their home in the fall of 1868—the settlers could spend more time at useful occupations.

— 2—

Ditto Anno 1868 harvested 234 Bussels Corn, 196 Bussels Wheat and 162 Bussels Potatos, All Heaped Measure.

These were the largest harvest figures Karl Oskar Nilsson had written down in his old almanac. But while he in America harvested his biggest crops, his old home parish in Sweden suffered the greatest crop failure in over a hundred years.

In Hemlandet—whose printing office now had been moved to Chicago — he read about the ravaging famine in the old country: The summer had been the driest in memory throughout Småland. No rain had fallen from the moment the seeds were planted until the crops were cut, and there had been no comforting night dew. Barley grew to only five inches and could not be mowed with a scythe but had to be pulled up by the roots. Fields and meadows lay burned black, and brooks and springs had gone dry. People stole grain from each other by cutting the heads from the sheaves out in the fields. And after the summer’s severe crop failure, all things edible for man and beast were gathered against the winter: Hazel tops, heather seed, pine needles, white moss were ground together and mixed with the flour for baking. Porridge was cooked from barley chaff, lingon twigs, heather tops, salt, and water; also thistles, dandelion roots, and the leaves from beech and linden trees. Heather was cut for animal fodder and instead of oats, shavings and sawdust were mixed for the cows. The very poorest walked in the fields and picked up the bones that had been spread with the dung the year before; these they crushed and ground and mixed with the flour for bread.

This winter, hunger would be a guest at practically every home in Småland. Each week the bells tolled for people who had starved to death or died from diseases contracted because of hunger.

In issue after issue Hemlandet told of the suffering and misery in Småland. Karl Oskar understood how things were at home without difficulty. How many times hadn’t he himself left the table hungry! Now remembrance came to him of the great famine in the summer and winter of ’48—twenty years ago. Kristina had ground acorns and put them into the bread — his throat had been sore and swollen from the rough food and he had suffered with constipation the whole winter. Begging children had come in droves asking if they could pick up herring heads and other refuse from the scrap pile outside. That was the winter when little Anna had eaten herself to death on barley porridge. After that happened Kristina had changed her mind and promised to go with him to North America.

But this time, it appeared, the homeland had been stricken by a still more severe famine. According to the paper, the suffering grew as the winter progressed. The farmers on the smaller homesteads became paupers. The sheriff in Linneryd had within two months foreclosed three hundred farms in his district. Many children died at birth because the famished mothers had no milk to give.

The parishes were listed in famine groups, from one to four, according to their need. Karl Oskar read that Ljuder was listed in group two.

Hunger was ravishing his home parish while he sat here with his bins filled to the ceiling. He read about the barley on the Småland fields, too short to be cut, while his crops had grown taller than ever. In the old country they ate bread from white moss, while in his house they ate rich wheat bread with plenty of butter, as much as they wanted. In their old country was famine, in their new overabundance.

Karl Oskar thought again and again of this great difference, and an idea ripened in him.

One winter evening as he was reading Hemlandet by the light of the kerosene lamp, a knock was heard on the door. A visitor had come; Klas Albert greeted them heartily, in high spirits. The Center City shopkeeper had been a frequent guest in this house of late although there was no need for him to look after the lamp any more.

Karl Oskar, looking up from the paper, said, “It’s bad at home, Klas Albert. They’re starving to death this winter.”

“I’ve read it too,” said Klas Albert. “Ljuder is now in the second famine group.”

“I can’t help thinking about it. .”

“I didn’t think you cared for the old country?”

“Not a shit for the useless dogs at the top. But I feel sorry for the poor, good people.”

Klas Albert thought they probably had enough food for everyone in the old country, but the Swedes had not yet learned that food supplies could be transported from one end of the country to the other if need be.

“The government won’t be bothered to do anything, of course,” said Karl Oskar.

What were they doing in Sweden to alleviate hunger? He had seen a piece in Hemlandet and he read it to Klas Albert:

“The King, the Queen, and the Princess Lovisa have given the sufferers in Småland 1,000 riksdaler: on King Carl’s name day a ball was given at Växjö to help the suffering in the Province, where masked persons representing diverse characters collected money. This brought in 586 riksdaler. Another 140 daler was collected at the Opera Cafe. .”

Karl Oskar counted in his head: altogether 1,726 riksdaler, almost 500 dollars, really not bad.

Klas Albert laughed. Wasn’t it lucky for the hungry people in Småland that the King’s name day happened to fall in the middle of the winter, when the famine was at its worst? A royal house was indeed of great help to the people in years of hunger; the bigger the royal family, the more royal name days, the more bread for the starving subjects.

This king was rumored to have sense enough to admit that he was human; no Swedish king before had admitted as much. About King Carl XV it had been written that no false pride prevented him from bending his head and entering the humblest cottage.

“I’ve thought about something,” said Karl Oskar. “I would like to send a load of my wheat to the hungry in Ljuder.”

“What a Christian deed!” exclaimed Klas Albert. “Good, white American bread for the hungry!”

“But how can I do it?”

“I’ll take care of everything! And I’ll pay the freight!”

The businessman from Center City thought and planned quickly. He had connections with a freight office in Stillwater and he was certain they would send the wheat to Sweden. It was sure to get there, especially if they addressed it to the officials in Växjö, with instructions that it was for the sufferers in Ljuder parish.

But Karl Oskar was suspicious about officials in Sweden.

“Suppose they eat the wheat themselves?”

“Oh no! They wouldn’t dare! Don’t worry, Karl Oskar! You deliver the wheat to me and I’ll handle the rest!”

Said and done.

Karl Oskar had thought Klas Albert just happened to drop in this evening, without any special errand. Now it came out that he did indeed have a reason. Tonight all of them were told why the storekeeper of Center City had spent so much time on the road to their house this winter. One of the children in the house knew in advance: This evening Mr. C. A. Persson told Karl Oskar that his oldest daughter, Marta, had promised to become Mrs. Persson. They would be married a week from Saturday.

Klas Albert and Marta had got to know each other when he came to look after the lamp, and he had found many excuses to service that lamp. His real errand had been another all the time: It was for Marta’s sake he had come evening after evening.

Klas Albert had come to their house to take away one of the children. The years had fled and Karl Oskar had not realized he had a marriageable daughter in the house.

— 3—

Karl Oskar Nilsson sorted twenty bushels of wheat, of the best he had, to be sent to Sweden. He packed it in strong jute sacks that ought to hold during the long journey to Småland. It made a good load and he drove it with his team to Mr. Persson’s store in Center City. This Minnesota wheat would make fine white bread for the hungry people at home.

Why did he give this grain to Sweden? He was not paying a debt with it, he was under no obligation to his native land. There he had wasted the best years of his youth in labor that had only increased his poverty. In Sweden those who governed had so arranged things that it did not pay to work. And he had no close relatives in need. His parents were dead, and hungry no more. And his sister Lydia had written at Christmas that she and hers had all they needed. Nor did he send the grain because he wanted to feel he was a good and helpful person. He did it because he knew what hunger meant. He had seen one of his children die because of hunger. It was in memory of little Anna that he sent this load of wheat.

Klas Albert had surprised him by offering to pay the freight. Why was the storekeeper suddenly so generous, he had wondered. Five minutes later he had been given the answer: Mr. Persson was going to marry Marta; the son-in-law-to-be wanted to be in with his father-in-law.

Karl Oskar Nilsson of Korpamoen would have been greatly honored if the church warden’s son, one of the best catches in Ljuder, should have proposed to his daughter. But among the Chisago people men were valued with other measures than in Sweden. The settlers did not ask who the parents of the intended were, they asked only what he himself was good for. Here it was Klas Albert who ought to feel honored in obtaining the daughter of the first settler at Chisago Lake.

Marriages took place quickly in America; a man and a woman might decide one day and go to the pastor the next. People got married on the run, as it were, like making a purchase in a shop while the team waited on the road. Only a week before the wedding Karl Oskar learned that Klas Albert and Marta would be married. They had not asked him if he had anything against it. The girl was of age this spring, the father had no say over her any longer. But the father-in-law wasn’t quite satisfied with his son-in-law-to-be. The light-hued storekeeper was capable and industrious, and Marta would be well taken care of as Mrs. Persson. But in her father’s eyes Klas Albert followed an occupation he did not think much of. And during the war he had made clever deals when his duty should have called him to war. To Karl Oskar, such a man was not to be trusted fully.

Moreover, he still needed his oldest daughter at home. Ulrika was not yet fifteen; it would not be easy without Marta. Yet Karl Oskar could say nothing: He himself had left his father at fourteen, although he had been much needed in Korpamoen. Now it was his turn to be deserted by his children. No one could change this: The young ones, in order to live, deserted the old ones, to let them die. Thus one generation succeeds another.

But there was something he wanted from Klas Albert in exchange for his daughter.

In the store in Center City he had several times seen a map of Ljuder parish. The year before Klas Albert emigrated he had been a surveyor’s helper at home, and when he left he was given a map as a parting gift from his boss, as a reminder of his homeland. Every time Karl Oskar had been in the store he had studied the map of Ljuder; it was on good, thick paper that he beheld his home parish in miniature.

And now that his neighbor in Sweden was to be his son-in-law he said to him, “Klas Albert, if you take my girl from me you ought at least to give me your map of Ljuder!”

Klas Albert thought at first it was a joke, but Karl Oskar insisted he meant it. He wanted the old map in payment for Marta. If this was not worth an even deal he was willing to pay for the map, whatever was asked.

This was a peculiar exchange. But as his future father-in-law was so anxious, Klas Albert did not wish to refuse; he gave him the Ljuder map. But he could not understand why Karl Oskar was so anxious to have the old map. What could he use it for? Why did he value the old parish chart so highly?

But Karl Oskar said nothing more on the subject. He folded the map carefully and put it under his arm.

The boy could not understand why he wanted it, and Karl Oskar did not wish to enlighten him: He would never again see the place where he had been born, but it was some small consolation to have it on a paper, where he could look at it. A paper was better than nothing to the farmer from Korpamoen who must die on another continent.

— 4—

And one Saturday in March Karl Oskar’s Marta became Mrs. C. A. Persson. The first child had flown from the nest.

Karl Oskar felt rather disappointed that his oldest daughter married in such a hurry: Klas Albert and Marta ought to have been engaged for some time, as they would have been in Sweden. If they had delayed the marriage till summer he could have given them a real wedding. He could afford a big party for once. Now he confined himself to inviting a few old neighbors and friends — Jonas Petter and Swedish Anna, Algot and Manda Svensson, Mr. Thorn, the Scottish sheriff, and a few friends he had made while serving on the jury in Center City. One uninvited guest came, Samuel Nöjd. He brought a collar and muff of silver fox for the bride: with these he wanted to indemnify the brides father for the sheep his dogs had killed many years ago. The old trapper had broken a leg last fall and had been in bed all winter, and during this time he had grown kinder and more mellow. Karl Oskar accepted the gift as payment for the sheep.

Already early in the evening the newly married couple had left for their home in Center City, and Karl Oskar was left behind in the bridal house with his guests. He had brought home a couple of gallons of whiskey and a keg of beer, and the preparation of the food was in the charge of Swedish Anna, assisted by another Swedish woman from Taylors Falls. The dishes were many and well prepared and there was room for all the guests around the table in the big room.

Karl Oskar Nilsson himself sat at the upper end of the table with Jonas Petter, his oldest friend, to the right of him. Soon the men were perspiring and red-faced from whiskey. The clear, friendly light of the kerosene lamp spread its glow over full glasses and abundant dishes and over the faces of sated and happy guests.

Samuel Nöjd sat blinking against the lamp, fingering its oil chamber in curiosity. Jonas Petter warned him that the lamp might explode, he mustn’t set the house and the wedding guests on fire.

“That whiskey you’re drinking is more liable to catch fire than the oil in the lamp,” said the old trapper.

Everyone laughed at this but Nöjd went on: He knew what he was talking about, for he had once had a horrible experience with a German hunter friend, Andreas Notte. The German had drunk about a gallon of Kentucky straight a day for many years. One evening Notte, with many other hunters, was sitting around the campfire eating elk meat and beans and after supper he wanted to smoke a cigar. He put it in his mouth and struck a match. Then it happened: The German caught fire.

The burning match started a fire inside his mouth and flames shot over his face and ignited his hair. He tried to choke the flames with his hands, but they burned too. Notte let out some horrible roars and his fellow-hunters rushed to a nearby brook for water and poured it over him, bucket after bucket. But his innards were burning by then and they couldn’t put out the fire inside his body. When at last they quenched the flames, Andreas Notte was dead. Of their good friend there remained only a smoking cadaver which spread an obnoxious stink, like burning dung. Nothing was left of his face. His lips were burnt away and his mouth was only a gaping hole with the tongue left like a well-baked piece of rusk.

The German’s body had been saturated with whiskey, his breath was flammable and when he lit the match it caught fire. There had been a long piece about him in the paper under the heading: Drunkard burned to death through internal combustion.

Accidents of this kind often happened in his homeland, said the Scot, Mr. Thorn. And this reminded him of something he himself had been involved in many years ago and which had scared many whiskey drinkers. A friend of his, Charlie Burns, also a Scot, had been bitten by a rattler which struck at him and bit him in the right arm. They were hunting beaver in the fall along the Minnesota River and Charlie was climbing over a log and didn’t see the critter. The arm swelled up until it was as big as his thigh. Now a person bitten by a rattler was supposed to drink as much cognac or whiskey as he could, at least half a gallon at once. But they had no whiskey or cognac, and Charlie swore and hollered in pain. Then Mr. Thorn made a salve of tobacco, gunpowder, and beaver fat which he rubbed into the swollen limb. But nothing sucks out the rattler poison better than the earth itself, and he dug a hole in the ground for his friend and rolled him into it. For three days Charlie lay with his swollen arm in the ditch. The first day he was delirious, the second day he prayed, the third day the swelling went down and he was able to swear again.

By and by Charlie Burns got well, but his face had changed color: It was greenish, exactly like the belly of the rattler. This was not unusual in such cases, said Mr. Thorn.

Wherever Charlie went after that, his green face caused a hell of a fright. People stared at him wherever he was, and all were sure that he was a drunkard and that his color came from drinking whiskey. One day he met a Methodist preacher who wanted to exhibit him to his congregation as a revolting example of what drinking would do. So Charlie hired himself to the Methodists and was displayed at all the meetings as a warning against drinking. Charlie had always been a sober person never touching whiskey, but now he became known far and wide as the worst drunkard in the world. He got half of the collections and earned good money for many years, working diligently in the field of religion, serving the cause of temperance, and saving many drunkards with his green face. Finally he retired and bought a big house in Chicago — he was still living there in great comfort, Mr. Thorn concluded.

Chicago! cut in Jonas Petter. He had been to that town last winter, and some sight it was! The houses were dirty and black as if tarred. Chicago was a den of iniquity, a home of unnatural vices, filled with sinners of all kinds — murderers, thieves, swindlers, sodomites, whores, and pimps. The women he had met in that town were decked out in plumes and feathers, like peacocks. American women were of course lazy and haughty and didn’t want to do anything from morning to night except work on their faces and deck themselves out. And their wicked ideas had spread to some of the Swedish women in America; there were actually Swedish women who now refused to polish the shoes of their men.

He had heard it was predicted that Chicago — world capital of sin — would be destroyed next year. On April 16, 1870, the lakes and rivers round the town would flood it and swallow it up, dirt and all.

“Well, I think they would fish up Chicago again,” said Samuel Nöjd. “The Americans are so clever.”

The whiskey and the beer had loosened the men’s tongues at Karl Oskar Nilsson’s party, and even those of few words wanted to talk. But the host himself did not participate much in the talking, he was busy attending to the guests and their needs of food and liquor. He was never very sociable — weeks would go by without callers in his house — and this wedding day was not a day of joy to him. There was now one less in the house and the child he most needed had moved away from him. She had deserted her father to be with the man she liked best, and according to life’s order it was the father who suffered the loss, and a loss was nothing to celebrate. But a party must be given by the father when his daughter was married.

“When are you starting on your new house, Karl Oskar?” asked Jonas Petter.

“Never. I won’t build any more in my time.”

“Well, you’ve built enough to last. You can rest now.”

Jonas Petter had himself raised a new house last summer and he had just sent for a photographer from St. Paul so he could send a picture of it to his relatives in Sweden. This picture was put on leather and could be sent like a postcard to any part of the world, without damage. Mr. Golding, the picture man, had made much money taking pictures of houses to send to the old country. He even had houses he lent to people who had none of their own, so they could stand in front of them to show their relatives.

Jonas Petter regretted he hadn’t borrowed a house from Mr. Golding and stood in front of it, instead of his own. It wouldn’t have cost a cent more and he could have picked the nicest house in St. Paul and his relatives would never have known the difference.

He was drowned out by Mr. Thorn and Samuel Nöjd, who had gotten into a dispute about the Sioux war. They both seemed to agree the war had been hopeless from the beginning and had only led the Indians to even greater misery than before. But their medicine men had promised easy victory because the whites were fighting the Civil War. Now the savages would have to starve forever while waiting for the money the government owed them. What could the hunter-folk live on with no more hunting grounds, no farms, no animals except dogs, fleas, and lice? When the starved Indians had come to the government supply house in Red Wood and asked for food, the agent had said they could go out and eat grass. The first one they killed on August 18, 1862, was that very agent, Mr. Andrew Myrick, and when his body was found in the debris his mouth was filled with grass.

In this the Sioux showed their understanding of justice; their uprising in 1862, was to get justice, said Samuel Nöjd.

But when he called Governor Ramsey and Colonel Sibley mass murderers Mr. Thorn rose to his feet and grabbed him by the collar. The party was near turning into a brawl; the Scot wanted the trapper to come outside with him so they could shoot at each other like gentlemen.

Karl Oskar told the Scot not to pay any attention to the nonsense Nöjd spewed out, and Jonas Petter stepped between the two quarreling men to calm them: He had a story to tell, well suited for a wedding feast. It was about a farmer and a soldier; he had started to tell this story on many occasions but had always been interrupted. However, he had made up his mind to tell it once before he died, for he was by now the only living person who knew it, and it would be a great loss to science and the culture of the world if it weren’t told. He was always glad to tell it, if only someone wanted to listen. He was getting so old now, even he must die, therefore. .

And the sheriff and the trapper heeded him and sat down again and listened in silence.

— 5—

Jonas Petter tells his forbidden story:

Edvard in Hogahult and his wife Brita had been married ten years without having produced an heir. Hogahult was a fine farm, they were well-to-do. If they remained childless, their property would go to Edvard’s two younger brothers, who lived dissolute lives and already had thrown away their paternal inheritance in drinking. Neither Edvard nor Brita wanted to leave their fine farm to them and have it ruined. The couple would give anything in the world for a child and heir.

The wife was nearing forty and must hurry if she wanted to bear a child. So the couple at last went to town to see a doctor. They asked him: Why wasn’t their marriage blessed with offspring?

The doctor looked over and examined and inspected both Edvard and Brita. Then he gave his verdict: He found no fault with the wife. If it depended on her only they would have had a child each year of the ten they had been married. But the fault lay with her husband: His seed was useless. The seed the farmer sowed in his wife did not sprout.

The farmer of Hogahult was greatly perturbed that he couldn’t beget children. He must then die without an heir of his flesh and blood. The brothers would inherit the farm and throw it away on drinking. And it irked him that they already felt sure of the inheritance and were waiting for it. They had for long considered him unable and knew he would not have any offspring.

And Edvard said to his wife Brita: No one ought to let a field lay in fallow because he himself couldn’t use it. If one farmer can’t sow sprouting seed, the neighbor must do it. If she could have children she must have them. He would hire a man for the work he himself couldn’t perform, if she was willing. Personal pride must not stand in the way with him. He himself wanted an heir so badly he had decided to get a man and pay him well; he would in advance make the understanding that he himself would be considered the father. All depended on her, if she was willing.

At first the wife was unwilling. It was against her nature to give herself in that way to a strange man. Instead, she had thought they might adopt a child, some orphan perhaps.

But when Brita of Hogahult had thought over her husband’s suggestion for some time, she changed her mind: Rather than raise an unknown child she would prefer to bring up a child she herself had given life to. She asked only one condition: that she herself choose the man who was to make her with child.

To this Edvard agreed.

Some little time passed again and both husband and wife kept their eyes open for young men or fathers who might be able and willing. But they didn’t find a one.

Just about that time a new soldier came to the village, and he often came to work in Hogahult. His name was Ferm, he was thirty years of age, well built, and strong as a bull. He had a wife and six children and he had a hard time feeding his large family. They were often without bread in the soldier’s cottage. Often the children had to go out and beg for bread before they went to school.

And Brita said to her husband that the soldier was a strong and healthy man, free of all defects — royal soldiers must be first class in all ways. He had so many children already he must surely be able to make one more. And his family was so poor the father would need a little extra. If they were to hire a man for her she would accept Ferm.

When the soldier had worked on their farm Edvard had valued him greatly. He thought him a fine man. He agreed with his wife.

He went to see him and gave him the offer: They needed an heir in Hogahult, they would prefer a male child, but they would be satisfied with only a girl, in which case they might eventually get a son-in-law to take over the farm. The soldier would be well rewarded: If a son were born he would receive forty bushels of rye, if a daughter, twenty, heaped measure. But their agreement must be kept secret, not a word must leak out.

It was a generous offer, at once tempting to soldier Ferm. On his little plot he harvested barely ten bushels a year, which was far too little to keep his family in bread, and he had to work for others many days of the year. Now he would get many times his yearly yield without work! If the wife in Hogahult was shaped the way a woman should be it would be easy work for him to make her with child. And he had never thought that a man would be paid for so pleasant a labor. He himself had had to pay — in more drudgery and labor and worry for each new child he fathered with his wife. Indeed, he was afraid that his ability to beget children would make him a real pauper in the end. This gift would now help him and his family.

The farmer and the soldier were agreed and sealed their agreement with a handshake.

Edvard said to his wife that he would drive to Karlshamn with some logs and stay away as long as she thought would be needed. Exactly how long they couldn’t be sure, at first they thought a week, but finally they settled for three days. If this wasn’t enough he would have to make another trip to town.

During Edvard’s absence the soldier would come to the farm and do day labor.

The farmer drove away, the soldier came. It was shortly before Christmas and the days were short. Nor did Ferm perform any heavy labor these days. But instead of returning home in the evenings, as he used to, he now remained at the farm overnight. His night work was now his real duty. And the soldier did his duty at the farm during the part of the year when the nights are the longest.

For three long nights the farmer remained away from the house.

When Edvard returned from town he was met by his wife, who was satisfied and full of confidence. She said she felt sure the three days he had been away were not lost days. She did not think he would have to drive any more logs to town.

After a few months the Hogahult mistress began to broaden around the waist. She was satisfied, her husband was satisfied.

But in the soldier’s cottage Ferm was very worried. He was worrying about his reward, the bushels of rye: Suppose he was so unlucky that it was a girl. Then he would get only twenty bushels. And if he were real unlucky she might have a miscarriage and he wouldn’t get a single grain. That would be hell. And all his life he had only had bad luck — couldn’t it change for once for a poor village soldier?

And change it did for the soldier in the end: When her days were accomplished the wife in Hogahult bore triplets, three sons.

A triple birth had not taken place in the parish as far back as anyone could remember. But all three boys were well shaped and full of life. The mother was a little weak in her body after her delivery, but she was happy and satisfied in her soul. Her husband was pleased and more than that. He was overwhelmed. One day he had no heir, and the next day three were crying lustily. He was pleased, but he would have been better pleased if the number had been smaller. And as he looked at the three boys in the three cradles he thought what luck he hadn’t stayed away a week as they first had figured on; three nights was quite sufficient.

The farmhouse was filled with happiness, and in the soldier’s cottage the children’s father jumped to the ceiling: forty bushels for each male child! One hundred twenty bushels of rye for bread!

When the farmer of Hogahult paid off his agreement he had to scrape his bins and borrow forty bushels from a neighbor. His wife said Ferm was well worth his pay. Edvard said, as he measured the rye for the soldier, that he had only been talking about one heir, but he had enough rye for three. And no one could accuse Ferm of poor work; he should have his pay. Best of all — Edvard’s brothers had taken to their beds at the news of the triplets in Hogahult and they were quite sick.

However much they ate in the soldier’s cottage they couldn’t consume more than a couple of bushels a month. With three nights’ work on the farm the soldier had supplied his family with food for five years.

Ferm did not work any more on his plot. He put it in fallow and lay all day in the cottage and did nothing. He felt well off. Why should he work when he already had bread for wife and children? His bins were so full of rye they spilled over. Why get more grain when he already wallowed in it? Why worry about the future when it was already taken care of?

The soldier’s place grew neglected, weeds overran the fields, and the farmers were bitterly jealous of the soldier who pretended and acted like a lord while they had to labor from early to late in the sweat of their brows. And it began to be whispered about in the village: Where had the triplets in Hogahult come from? The couple had been childless for so many years. Where had all the rye in the soldier’s cottage come from? They had always been without bread. People added one and two together and the sum they arrived at was very near the truth. And when Ferm was drunk he liked to brag and couldn’t prevent words of wisdom, like these, from escaping: It didn’t pay to work at day labor if he could find night work, and could sow sprouting seed.

Others completed the half-sung song, and that was how the story about the farmer and the soldier got to be known.

But it didn’t hurt anyone. Edvard in Hogahult had got three sons who thrived and grew up to be helpers to him when he was getting old. The triplets were fine youngsters and much joy to their parents, who were greatly honored by them in their old age. Both sides of the partnership had received what they needed and wished, both the farmer family and the soldier family were as happy as people can be in this world. Providence had arranged everything to the best for the people in the two places.

No seed that had been sowed in the fields of Hogahult for a thousand years was so satisfying and sprouted so well as the rye the farmer measured up to the soldier.

So Jonas Petter ended his story at Karl Oskar Nilsson’s first wedding party.

XXI. THE BRIDAL CROWN WITH PRECIOUS STONES

— 1—

Within the span of a few years the Swedish population at Lake Chisago had doubled. Every spring new immigrants arrived, driven from Sweden by pure hunger, victims of the great famine. They came by the thousands from Starvation-Småland, where they had chewed on bread of lichen, chaff, and acorn. Their intestines were ruined, their throats sore and sensitive from famine bread. The new arrivals in the St. Croix Valley were pale as potato sprouts in a cellar in spring, they were gaunt, their flesh gone to the bone. They said themselves they ought to have traveled across the ocean for half fare.

To this peaceful and lush valley there immigrated during these years people who had known intense hunger in their homeland. The Smålanders said they could still hear the echo of tolling funeral bells. They came to a country where good times prevailed and everything was prosperous. There was building and planning, clearing and farming going on. More and more railroads stretched through Minnesota’s forests. Pastor Stenius preached against the line being staked out from St. Paul to Taylors Falls, for machines and steam engines turned thoughts to worldly matters and inflicted damage on the settlers’ souls. Yet the road was built in its entire length. More and bigger sawmills were built, steam-driven, and machines appeared that could cut the crops twenty times as fast as any scythe, threshing machines were invented that winnowed a bushel a minute. And people were needed to build and transport and work; the immigrants were received with open arms. Here there was still plenty of room.

For ten years now the Homestead Act had been in force, Abraham Lincoln’s great gift to the country’s farmers, the work of a farmer’s son, blessed by all immigrants who came to farm. Anyone who wanted land received 160 acres without paying a cent, the only requirement being that he clear and build on it. Through that law Old Abe had given homesteads to millions of the homeless. Nothing more important had ever happened to immigrants. The year before Lincoln was murdered he had proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a day of Thanksgiving on which to show the Lord God gratitude for the year’s crop. But innumerable immigrants, from all the old countries, turned on this day to Old Abe himself in his grave and thanked him for their fields and their crops. It was, after all, he who had given them the land.

Thus the Starvation-Småland people arrived in the St. Croix Valley at a happy time. Here they immediately found the living they sought. And to their countrymen who had arrived earlier they brought news of the famine and the starvation in the old villages, telling how even the crows had fallen dead from their perches since there was nothing to sustain life in them, how people had died by the hundreds, unable to exist on the chaff porridge spooned out at the church twice a week. But the lords and masters had their usual generous fare during the famine years. The so-called four estates, through constitutional amendment, had been abolished just before the famine — now, so the saying went, there remained only two estates: the well fed and the starving.

When Karl Oskar Nilsson heard of all the misery in Småland he was well pleased that he had sent his home parish a load of wheat.

Hardest to listen to were the stories of children the mothers were unable to feed at their breasts. Many of the babies born in Småland during the famine years left this world immediately. Mothers who had lost their children then became wet nurses in rich homes where they were given food in abundance: Their milk returned to their breasts to feed the upper-class children. Especially sought after were mothers of illegitimate children. The church condemned such women, but the lords liked them.

Ulrika of Västergöhl could remember a similar experience which she had often told to Karl Oskar in great bitterness: At the birth of her second bastard she had been ordered to Kräkesjö to give suck to the lieutenant’s newborn son, since his wife was too weak and nervous. She had been offered one riksdaler a month for her milk, and five meals a day of the best food she could eat. But Ulrika had refused the lieutenant’s offer: She wanted the milk for her own son. A child without a father ought at least to have a mother’s unshared breast. Yet, without sufficient food at home, she had not had milk enough for her baby and after four months it had died.

In Sweden the rich stole even mother’s milk from the poor. It was no wonder such great hordes had escaped across the ocean to the New World.

— 2—

Ulrika Jackson had become a widow last winter. During a preaching journey in severe weather Pastor Jackson had caught a cold which later turned into pneumonia; he died nine days later. The Stillwater Baptist congregation had given their minister a magnificent funeral.

Ulrika had not visited the Nilsson Settlement for several years, nor had Karl Oskar gone to see her in Stillwater. She had been Kristina’s intimate friend but he had never counted her among his. Nor did he do much calling. But he heard through rumor that Ulrika of Västergöhl had become a rich widow. A member of the congregation who had died a year before the pastor had willed all his property to Jackson. It consisted of four houses which Ulrika inherited at her husband’s death, and Mrs. Henry O. Jackson was now considered well-to-do.

One day in early summer Karl Oskar had an errand to the land office in Stillwater and he dropped in to pay a visit to the Baptist pastor’s widow. She had moved from the old home and lived now in one of the inherited houses, a spacious, beautiful building with a lush orchard sloping down to the very edge of the St. Croix River.

Mrs. Henry O. Jackson was delightfully surprised at the visit: “Welcome, Nilsson! It’s been a long time!”

“Thought I would call on you.”

“I’ve thought of calling on you many times, Nilsson!”

“Call me Karl Oskar as in the old days. You still speak Swedish, don’t you?”

“All right, Karl Oskar!”

Ulrika invited her guest into a room much larger than the living room in the old house. The furniture was new and must have cost much, everything was fine and shiny. Karl Oskar guessed it must look like an upper-class room in Sweden, even though he hadn’t seen many of those.

“What can I offer you?”

A young girl in a starched white apron had come into the room and stood waiting at the door for her mistress’s order.

“Would you like some cherry wine?”

“I’ll try anything you offer, Ulrika.”

She gave instructions in English to her maid. The girl went out and returned with a bottle of cherry wine. She poured it into glasses of so elegant a cut they glittered like snow in sunshine.

Karl Oskar drank; the wine had a good although sweet taste.

“So youve hired a maid, I see.”

“I have two girls.”

“Well, I hear you can afford it. Nice that you’re well off.”

“Yes, I have plenty of worldly goods,” Mrs. Jackson sighed softly, “but I have lost my husband. I’ll never get over losing Henry. Now I’ve only the Lord to comfort me.”

Ulrika told him about her husband’s sickness and death and her life as a widow. She wanted to do good with the money the Lord had granted her so undeservedly, and with some of it she had started a home for illegitimate children, where they would receive kind treatment. It had cost her a lot and when people asked why she had done it she would reply that she herself had borne four bastards in her homeland, three of whom had died in tender years from undernourishment. But everyone laughed at this and took it for a joke.

“But your American children are getting along well?”

Yes, indeed, the three daughters she had borne to Pastor Jackson had brought her much happiness. They had all married well. But the boy — well, she didn’t even want to talk about her son.

Suddenly a flash of anger came over her face.

Karl Oskar asked, “Is something wrong with your boy?”

“He doesn’t want to be a priest, the bastard!”

Karl Oskar was well aware of the resolution the unmarried Ulrika of Västergöhl had made at the time of her emigration: She would show the clergy of Ljuder “whom they had stung” when they denied her Communion at the Lord’s table. She herself would bear a clergyman.

“Can you imagine that lout, Karl Oskar! He refuses holy orders!”

Red roses bloomed on Ulrika’s cheeks as she continued. They had put Henry Jr. in the Baptist seminary, but he ran away. He didn’t want to serve as a priest in any church, he didn’t even want to go to church or listen to a minister, not even his own father. What could you do with such an obstreperous, snooty child? The boy was so shameless he wouldn’t even listen to the Lord’s Word. Now he was sixteen, yet he would receive neither baptism nor confirmation, not in any kind of church, be it Baptist, Methodist, or Lutheran. She had borne into this world a hardened heathen.

“Does your son live with you?”

“No, he’s away. He travels about.”

And Ulrika again sighed deeply. Only with effort could she go on. “My son is an animal trainer.”

“What did you say?” Her guest was astonished.

“Yea — Henry Jr. travels with a circus.”

Last spring a circus had come to Stillwater, with Arabs, Bedouins, mules, apes, and other monsters, as well as wild bears, lions, and leopards. Junior took a job with the circus, currying horses and shoveling dung after lions and bears for five dollars a week and his keep. He went with the circus when it departed. Last time he wrote he had been in Chicago. He was now almost a fully qualified animal trainer. In a few weeks he would take his animal trainer examination and would graduate, he wrote.

Her only son — carrying on in a circus arena, instead of preaching the Lord’s Word from a pulpit! Instead of becoming a priest he was a jester, a fool, at fairs — instead of taming sinful people he was taming wild beasts!

No son born of woman had brought his mother a more cruel sorrow than Henry Jr. She had been denied the birth of a priest.

Karl Oskar looked out over the St. Croix River just as a steamer glided by. It had a high funnel with smoke belching out in gray clouds. The lower deck was piled high with wood — fuel for the engine. In the stern the huge wheel paddled like a river monster that had got caught on a hook. The upper deck was loaded with barrels of flour, for the paddleboat carried a cargo of wheat flour. The settlers of Minnesota were already growing more wheat than they consumed; already they supplied other countries with bread.

“Have some more wine!” And Ulrika filled the glasses. “How are things with you, Karl Oskar?”

“You know. Half of me died with Kristina. .”

“I reckoned as much. .”

“In other respects all is well. Except my old leg kicks up at times.”

“Your injury? Have you tried Blood-Renewer for it? You can get it at Turner’s Drug Store.”

She opened a cupboard and took out a bottle: Sweet’s Blood-Renewer heals Scrofula, Aches, Stomach Fever, Chest Fever, Headache, All Female Weakness, and All Sicknesses Caused by Bad Blood.

Ulrika was convinced that Karl Oskar’s pain was caused by impurity in the blood: “The Blood-Renewer helps me when my old legs ache!”

Karl Oskar wondered to himself how old Ulrika of Västergöhl might be by now. She must be over sixty. She had put on a little weight but this did not detract from her appearance; otherwise she looked as always.

And Ulrika wondered if he had reconciled himself with God. But her recollection of his behavior at their last meeting was still in her mind and she didn’t ask. She felt he was a little more mellow this time. Perhaps he couldn’t endure his own hatred for the Creator. And if he didn’t show some humility — God would surely bend him.

— 3—

Ulrika persuaded Karl Oskar to stay for dinner.

They spoke of the old country. Ulrika had never written any letters to Sweden and never received any. She did have relatives at home but they had never wanted to have anything to do with her. Karl Oskar wrote once a year to his sister Lydia and received letters in return, and he gave Ulrika the latest news.

Mrs. Jackson showed him a copy of Hemlandet and pointed to a notice. An emigrant from Ljuder had presented a bridal crown to the village church. Who might the donor be? Could it be someone in the St. Croix Valley?

Karl Oskar picked up the paper and read:

“The parish of Ljuder, Småland, has recently received a valuable gift from North America, given by an emigrant from the parish — a beautifully wrought, highly valuable bridal crown of silver, the finest obtainable. The crown, according to the donor’s instructions, is to be worn at church weddings but only by brides known for chastity and decent living. This valuable church jewel will be used for the first time this Whitsuntide, when Anna Ottilia Davidsson, an upright and modest virgin, the granddaughter of Per Persson in Åkerby, will be married to Karl Alexander Olofsson from Kärragärde.

“The donor of the crown, now living in North America, wishes to remain anonymous. She was a member of Ljuder parish before her emigration some years ago. The silver crown is in expression of gratitude and appreciation of her native village.

“Honor to each emigrant who remembers his old country and shows his gratitude in this way!”

Karl Oskar folded the paper. “I wonder who it might be?”

“I guessed you,” said Ulrika.

Karl Oskar laughed. “No — it must be someone else, someone who is rich.”

“Why? The crown needn’t be so expensive.”

“It’s made of silver.”

“Silver isn’t expensive in America.”

Karl Oskar read the notice again. “The giver doesn’t want his name known — I wonder why? I wonder how much it cost?”

“How much do you guess?”

“I couldn’t try!”

“One guess!”

Now Karl Oskar noticed something sly and mocking in her remarks. A suspicion was born in him and it was confirmed before he had time to say anything more.

“The crown cost nine hundred dollars!”

Karl Oskar started from the chair. “How in all the. .”

“Yes, nine hundred dollars. Cheap for cash!”

“You, Ulrika! You gave it!”

“Yes, of course!”

Mrs. Henry O. Jackson folded her arms over her ample bosom and enjoyed Karl Oskar’s look of surprise. He just sat there and stared at her, utterly astonished. She laughed with great exuberance and it echoed through the house. In this moment, when teasing Karl Oskar, she was again the old Glad One.

“You fooled me, Ulrika.”

“I thought you’d guess at once!”

“It didn’t enter my head you were so rich you could give away silver crowns!”

“I bought the bridal crown in Chicago last winter. It’s covered with precious stones, it glittered so I couldn’t take my eyes off it.”

“Some gift!” said Karl Oskar. “But why the secrecy?”

“If the people in Ljuder had known who gave it they wouldn’t have accepted it.”

She was right in this, he thought. Older people at home were sure to remember the parish whore, Ulrika of Västergöhl. But she might have given it under her present name, for no one would have known who Mrs. Jackson was. No one would have guessed by checking the church records that this was “Unmarried Ulrika of Västergöhl, denied the Lord’s table for lewd living, excluded from the parish, banished.” For the donor was now Mrs. Henry O. Jackson, of Stillwater, Minnesota, North America. And the magnificent bridal crown she had presented to Ljuder church could be worn only by virgins, known for chastity, decency, and unquestionable morals.

“Did you yourself stipulate that only chaste women can wear it?”

“They must have their maidenheads, of course. That very word is on the paper. Sure tough, isn’t it?”

Karl Oskar remembered that it was chaste and honorable women, above all, who had looked down on and insulted the parish whore, Ulrika of Västergöhl. Yet that very kind of woman — fine farm daughters and virgins — would wear her silver crown with the precious stones at their weddings in the village church. Perhaps it was Ulrika’s way of taking revenge.

“Why did you donate the crown?”

“I’ll tell you, Karl Oskar: The paper is wrong — I’m not grateful to Sweden. That wasn’t the reason.”

She thought for a few moments, then she added that she was only grateful to Sweden that she had gotten away from that country in order to live the life of a human being in America. At home she had been sold at auction when she was four, and raped by the farmer who bought her when she was fourteen. She had frozen and been hungry, and had been unable to nourish her children at her breast; three of them had died and for this people had spit after her and hated her. Was that treatment something to be grateful for?

Ulrika looked out through the window; her eyes followed the slow stream of the river, as far as they could. They tried to peer into the invisible distance, as it were, as if she wanted to look all the way back to her native country.

But this she must say as well: She had no desire to lie on her deathbed with hatred in her heart for the country where she was born. As the Lord had forgiven her all her sins, so she wished to forgive the people of Sweden. Henry had taught her that a person washed clean in the new baptism forgave his neighbors all their wrongdoings. Now she had donated the bridal crown to show God that she did not carry a grudge against any person in the old country. It had taken many years to get over her bitterness but at last she was reconciled in her heart to the Kingdom of Sweden, which hitherto she had always called a hellhole.

“And yet you were right,” said her guest. “Only the upper class lives well in that country.”

Mrs. Henry O. Jackson, the well-to-do widow of Stillwater’s Baptist minister, leaned back in her chair, still looking out at the stream below her window; the St. Croix flowed in the direction whence she had arrived that day when she landed in Stillwater. She was in deep thought.

“At Whitsuntide my crown will be used for the first time! At a church wedding in Ljuder!”

Then she grew silent; she closed her eyes. Whitsuntide would be here in a few days, in a few days her gift to Sweden would be consecrated. There would be a great ceremony in the church there at home. With her eyes closed she could see people filling the pews, her ears could hear the organ play, the congregation sing, as devout reverence filled the church to the very organ loft.

The singing and the music poured out through the open church windows. Outside the leafy elms swayed, there grew the spring blossoms, fragrant roses, tender lilies. The ground itself was potent with green grass and herbs, and a young and green summer soughed in the elm crowns above the earth.

And inside the church the wedding; the new bridal crown is worn for the first time, shown to the congregation. It is a gift from an unknown donor in the New World. Reverently the young bridal couple moves up the aisle. On the brides head rises the silver crown with its precious stones glittering like stars and crystals. The couple kneels at the altar, the congregation rises. As the wedding march dies only the soughing in the elms can be heard from outside.

Then the voice of the minister — the ceremony has begun.

All the people in the pews have their eyes on the beautiful crown. But who is the bride?

The former Ulrika of Västergöhl sits with eyes closed, in deep thought. She has closed her eyes in order to see. And she sees. She does not see Karl Oskar who is sitting in front of her, or the furniture and knickknacks in her comfortable home in Stillwater, nothing of her surroundings. Under her closed eyelids she sees a bride at the altar in Ljuder church at Whitsuntide. She has recognized her. She has recognized not only the crown, which she herself has bought and held in her hands, she also knows the young bride — her body, her features: It is none other than she herself. It is Ulrika herself who wears the silver crown with the precious stones.

Everyone in the church can see that the bride at the altar is beautiful, her cheeks blooming pink from modesty, her eyes radiating health, happiness. She stands straight and proud, her bosom high under the bridal blouse. She is without a doubt the most attractive girl in the parish, and more beautiful than ever in her white gown. Who could have been more suitable to consecrate the crown? The whole congregation can see the young girl, the virgin, the church bride, a chaste young woman married in her home parish at Whitsuntide — Ulrika as a young bride!

The former parish whore, excluded from church and altar in her home parish, had been the first Swedish bride in the St. Croix Valley. But her innermost, secret dream had been from early years to be a bride in her home church. It was her great desire, for a life different from the one she had lived, and she could never smother it.

Now her dream has come true, in the guise of another woman; she has exacted payment for the life she had been denied. Every time a young bride wears her crown in Ljuder church, Ulrika is indemnified.

For each virgin bride in the home village church is she. Other women have a wedding only once in life, but she will celebrate it many times. Again and again she will be dressed and decked and see herself in the dream she has always nourished in secret. At each church wedding she will be resurrected from her youthful degradation as her head again and again carries the crown with the precious stones.

Mrs. Henry O. Jackson, sitting here in her home in Stillwater, is not young any more. She who with closed eyes views the June wedding in her homeland will soon be a woman of many years. Soon her cheeks will be flabby, the wrinkles spreading, and the legs under her heavy body unsteady. But she can sit and dream in this joyful knowledge: Even after her death she will stand as bride in Ljuder church, year in, year out.

Ulrika of Västergöhl has finally been vindicated in Sweden. She has been turned into the eternal crown-bride.

XXII. THE FARMER AND THE OAK

— 1—

Strong, well-muscled young men were growing up at Lake Chisago’s oldest settlement. Four sons had grown into men. Two were as tall as the father, two taller. Any one of them could manage a job requiring a full-grown man. All were broad across the shoulders, strong in limbs, keen and handy. Their growth into manhood was the greatest change that had taken place at this settlement.

Karl Oskar retained a father’s authority over his sons; this must remain his as long as they ate his bread and lived in his house. But the older they grew the less he knew about them. He was together with his boys in work, but outside the home they lived their own lives. He was the hermit, seldom away from home, they were lively, often away, associating with other people. And father and sons already used different languages when they spoke with each other. The children more and more discarded their mother tongue for English — when he addressed them in Swedish they would reply in English. This seemed awkward to him and plainly askew. At first he tried to correct them, but by and by he became accustomed to it and after some time it no longer bothered him. There was nothing he could do about it, so perhaps it was better to say nothing. After all, his children were right; he must not hinder them from speaking their country’s language. In the settlements hereabouts Swedish was all right, but outside the Chisago Lake district they had little use for their mother tongue. The surer they became in English, the easier would be their success in this country.

Karl Oskar’s children were to be saved from the language difficulties he had gone through in America. How hadn’t it hindered him! How many humiliations hadn’t he endured because he couldn’t speak the country’s language. At last he managed, but like other Swedes at Chisago Lake he used his own brand of English, strongly mixed with the old language. He would never learn anything else. Lately he more and more forgot the new since he seldom went beyond his farm, and he fell back on Swedish.

He felt that his children, when outsiders were present, were ashamed of their father’s way of speaking. The children didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, how much easier it was for them. All he could do was to pretend he didn’t know they were ashamed of their father’s expressions.

With the growing children, the new language came into the house and expelled the old. It didn’t even spare the name their home had had from the beginning. Karl Oskar’s children no longer called their home New Duvemåla. They had given it another name, a name used by people who spoke of the first settlement at Chisago Lake. New Duvemåla was no more, it was gone and would never be revived. Instead it was now called the Nilsson Settlement.

— 2—

The oak grove to the east of the house still stood, covering about twenty acres of fertile land where crops could grow. For ten years Karl Oskar had had his eye on this piece of ground. Then a mild, suitable autumn arrived which was to be the grove’s last; the days of the mighty oaks were numbered.

It had taken the farmer a long time to plan his attack on the oaks; this fall the plan was completed, now he had thought it over long enough. He had figured out how to go about it, how to turn this ground into a tilled field: The giant trees would be pulled up by the roots.

Now with the boys he had sufficient help, and Karl Oskar Nilsson and his four sons approached the grove with their team one early morning. Five men and two horses — the combined strength of men and beasts would fell the old oaks.

They began with one of the largest; they dug a ditch around the tree, four feet deep, and cut the roots. They took away the foothold of the oak. This was the trick to conquer it: Deprive it of its hold. They began down at the root; when the ditch was ready two of the boys climbed up the tree with a heavy iron chain, as high as they could get. They fastened it to the trunk and the father joined it to the pull lines from the team.

Human labor had done its part, now it was the turn of the beasts; the horses would fell the tree. But the oak itself would help, its weight would facilitate its fall.

The farmer picked up the reins and urged his strong team forward which he had followed for years after harrow and plow, wagon and timber sled. Today it was hitched to the heaviest load it had ever pulled, a giant oak which for hundreds of years had stood secure on its roots. Now the old one’s footing had been undermined.

The horses obeyed their master and started to pull, concentrating all their strength until their backs straightened out and their legs and loins sank. Their hooves took hold of the ground, turf and rocks flew about, the animals tramped, moved their legs, stretched their sinews. The hooves dug into the earth. The pull lines were extended until it seemed as if they would break, the horses crouched as if ready to bolt, their backs straightened out, their hindquarters sank down. But they did not move from the spot; they stood where they were, tramped the same place. They were hitched to a load that remained stationary.

The driver of the team kept urging it on. The horses pulled again, their hooves threw up turf. This was their life’s heaviest load.

Now the oak began to tremble from the force pulling in the chains around its trunk. The enormous crown swayed slowly back and forth. The men could see that the oak was beginning to lean. Once it had started to sway, its motion would soon utilize its weight in making it fall.

The team in its place pulled again, the giant trunk was beginning to give, the lines slackened — they were long enough so the tree would not reach the team in its fall.

The farmer and his sons cried out warnings to one another, the calls echoing back and forth:

“Timber!”

“She’s coming!”

“Get away!”

The tree was leaning. A sound like an approaching storm was heard in the air — the tree had started to fall! The giant took one last heavy breath as it sank to the ground. In falling the tree had pulled up its own stump. When the branches hit the earth there was a report like a gunshot. Then the great oak lay still. It had left an empty place in the air above.

The giant was felled, the first one. Five men and two horses had gone to work on the grove — oak after oak fell, each pulling up its roots with its fall. The warning calls sounded: Keep away! She’s coming! And heavy and big she came, roaring through the air, falling with a thud, her roots in the air, her crown crushed. In the place where the tree had grown, a ditch opened, deep as a grave. Each fallen oak left room for a piece of fallow field.

It was the autumn of the great oak destruction; death ravaged the grove. The owner and his four sons cleared ground — the farmer was using all the human strength that had grown up in his house. This work by the father and his sons would complete the clearing of this farm. In the evenings, tired and pleased, they looked at the row of oaks they had felled, quietly laid down their tools, and went home.

For more than twenty years Karl Oskar had cleared wild land in America, hoed, plowed, cut. Now he had started with the last piece. He was nearing the end. When the oak grove had been cleared and tilled his farm would be completed.

— 3—

The clearing went on through the whole autumn. Karl Oskar hoped to be through before snow fell and the ground froze. And the winter was late this year, as if it wanted to aid him in his work.

It was an evening late in November. Only one oak remained, but one of the largest, a giant, almost six feet thick at arm’s height. At the time when this tree was a sapling the farmer’s parents had not yet come into the world, nor his grandparents. And when he himself saw the shore of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga for the first time, the oak had reached its full years. It had remained in its place while he felled thousands of trees around it. Now its turn had come: the autumnal storms had swayed its crown for the last time.

It was this oak the farmer was to remember.

The first blue approach of twilight appeared in the sky. The farmer’s oldest son said it was late, they were tired, and since this last oak was so big and deeply rooted it would be quite a job getting it down. It would be dark before they were through. Couldn’t they leave it till tomorrow?

The farmer replied that since only one single oak remained they would fell it too before they went home. Since it was the last one they must not leave it because of approaching evening. With the felling of this tree they could say they had completed their task. Then they could go home and rest, well satisfied.

He spoke with a father’s authority over his children and the four sons obeyed him. None of them uttered a word of complaint.

They went to work eagerly, stimulated by the thought that they were to fell the last oak. They dug the ditch around the trunk, two boys climbed up and fastened the chain to the top, the chain was linked to the team. The horses too were eager, as if feeling this must be the last load of growing trees.

The father picked up the reins and laid them around his neck. He urged the team, the horses caught a foothold in the ground and pulled until the harnesses creaked. But he did not keep his eyes on the team, rather, his eyes followed the movements of the oak crown that swayed behind him. He was always watchful, never forgetting to call out: Timber!

But tonight it was the sons who called out to the father:

“She’s coming! Get away!”

The giant oak was not so well rooted as they had thought. As soon as the horses pulled it began to rock and lean.

The thud of its fall could be heard almost in the same second as the warning:

“She’s coming! Get away!”

In a wink the father saw the tree coming. He always jumped aside in good time — when he heard the sound in the air he always had time to get away. Now he tried to throw himself aside at the same moment he heard it.

It happened within seconds: The oak was supposed to fall to the right of him, he attempted to run to the left — he who couldn’t run! He couldn’t get his left leg to move fast enough, he stumbled and fell to his knees. He rose again but never reached an upright position; he took no more steps in his flight from the tree. He had the reins around his neck, the horses were restless and pulled him over.

The farmer fell as if his legs had been cut out from under him; over him fell the oak.

It crashed and thundered as its branches broke and splintered. The team came to a stop, the reins coiling behind as they fell from the master’s neck. They had pulled their load, the last one in the grove, their labor was completed, and now they rested.

The roar from the fall died down and silence fell over team and tree, until the sons rushed up and called out: Father!

The last oak of the grove had been felled but under it lay the farmer himself. This mighty tree, waiting here for him while the years had run by — it had been waiting for this November evening when they would fall together.

None of the sons had seen their father stumble and be pulled over by the reins. Now he had vanished; he must be under the fallen tree, the lush branches must be hiding him. They grabbed their axes and started to cut through the branch-work — boughs as big as trunks were separated and rolled away in horrible urgency. The sons were hewing their way to their father. Four axes were swinging and with each cut they were nearing him. Soon they could see his clothing; they saw his boots, heels up; they found his hat, brushed from his head. They worked in silence as they cut their way through the enormous oak. The last branch was like a tree in itself, and it lay across their father’s back; he was pressed under it. In its fall the giant had seized the farmer with one of its strongest arms and pressed him against the ground. He was a prisoner of the oak.

The four sons cut their father free, liberated him from the mighty tree’s grip. They rolled away the heavy limb that pressed his back and stood around him, axes in hand.

He lay on his stomach, his face against the earth. They bent over him. His legs moved a little, his shoulders rose perceptibly. His boot toes scraped against the ground, but his head lay still. But he moved. He was alive.

The sons had been silent as they worked their way toward the father; now they spoke:

“Father! Are you hurt? Can you talk?”

They received not a word in reply, only a deep breath. But when they took him by the shoulders he stirred again. He tried to turn over; slowly, with its own strength, his body turned on its back. Even his head began to move, and the sons saw a face distorted, barely recognizable. It was not cut, no injury was visible, but great puffs of froth showed in the corners of his mouth; his teeth were bared, in a cramp-like bite; his eyebrows were pulled together at the root of his nose, which was poking up at them, enormous, protuberant, like a knot.

“How did it happen? Are you terribly hurt?”

A hissing sound escaped the mouth of the fallen one. He groaned, his teeth clenched so hard it showed in his cheekbones. It was pain that had changed his face.

He felt his back with his hands and groaned again. Then he began slowly to pull up his knees. He could move both arms and legs.

When the sons had first seen him on his stomach, pressed down under the oak, they had not expected him to move again. And as yet they did not know what had happened to him, as yet he said nothing. He rose slowly to his knees, his facial muscles tightening. Again he felt his back, his hands groping about. But his back seemed to be all right; it could not be broken.

The farmer looked about as if in great confusion. He looked at his sons around him, from one to the other, searching for an answer: Was it really true? Could he still move? Then he must be alive. He was alive, and no one was more surprised than he.

He looked at the fallen oak beside him. One of its heaviest limbs had pressed upon his back, and now when he looked closer he understood why he was alive; he had fallen into a small hollow. Without this slim depression his body would have been crushed.

If he hadn’t fallen into that hollow he would never have risen again. If he had happened to fall a foot to the right or a foot to the left he would have remained fallen. If he had taken one step more before he fell he would have been dead.

The farmer said to his sons who stood there apprehensively that he had had a close call. The bough had almost got him. Only a hairsbreadth and they might have had to carry home a corpse this evening.

They stood silent at the thought. Then they asked about his injuries. Did he want them to carry him home?

The father replied that the oak had given him a sound lash across the back and he did not feel well after it. But he thought he could get home on his own legs. If they took the horses and the tools he would try to walk.

Cautiously he attempted to rise from his kneeling position. He wasn’t successful; the attempt caused him such intense pain that everything turned black before his eyes and he felt dizzy. When he tried to move one foot he reeled. He sank down on his knees again.

There was nothing to do but accept the sons’ offer.

They made a litter for their father from a few branches of the oak they had felled, tying them together with the reins. It was a clumsy, primitive litter, but it would hold for the short distance home. There were four of them and each could carry a corner.

So this evening the farmer was carried home by his sons after his last full working day.

— 4—

For a few months Karl Oskar stayed in bed and put plasters on his injured back. A thick blue-black swelling appeared across the small of his back where the oak had hit him. He rubbed the injured part with different kinds of salves for which he sent to the new drugstore in Center City. Some he also mixed himself and with the aid of neighbors. He tried cotton oil and camphor, sheep-fat, pork, unsalted butter. He had leeches put on the swelling — they sat so close, those nasty sucking critters, that they covered his whole back; they drank his blood and swelled up until they were so fat and thick and round they couldn’t suck any more and fell off and died. Rows of itching wounds were left from their sharp bites.

The first weeks in bed he was kept awake through the nights by the pain. It felt like a firebrand in his back. But after repeated applications of leeches the swelling went down, the soreness eased, and the pain abated. He thought the critters had sucked out the evil that caused the pain.

When on that November evening he had heard the oak come down on him so suddenly he had had only one thought: I’m dying! He had time to think of nothing else before he felt the pain and lost his breath. The pressure had been so severe that he was unable to get air into his lungs. His next clear thought had been: Has my back been able to take it? Pressed down under the tree he had felt sure his back was broken.

He had not been stricken as severely as he had expected but he suffered intense pain afterward. He had to stay in bed for a long time. Fortunately it was winter and there was no urgency on the farm. He need not worry about the daily chores; his four sons attended to those.

In time Karl Oskar was up on his legs again. But it was spring before he could go back to work. He began with easier chores, but his back was not the same as before: He had to walk with it bent. As soon as he tried to straighten up, the old pain and ache gave him orders: You aren’t able! Don’t try to lift!

The following autumn Karl Oskar Nilsson and his sons completed the clearing of the oak grove. They stacked the timber, cleared the ground of stumps and roots, and plowed the field; and the father participated all the time in the work. It was his last clearing, he must see it through. Then his farm would be completed.

His injury was healed but his back was not as strong as before the accident. He walked bent over, he couldn’t straighten it, and he was unable to lift heavy objects.

It was evident to him that from now on he would be only half a workman; he could participate in the work, but he couldn’t do what he had done before, nor would he ever be able to. The last tree he felled had marked him for the rest of his life.

The farmer and the oak had fallen side by side. He rose again, but not fully. One ability had been taken from him: He could never again walk upright on earth.

— 5—

A settler’s evening prayer:

Well, God, I guess you think you’ve got me now! But this is not the way to change me. It was a bad blow I got on my back — now I’m stooping. You’re the Almighty, nothing happens without your will. You wanted to hurt my back, to make me suffer from it for the rest of my life. Why? I don’t think I sinned in cutting down the oaks. I like to clear fields, and people get their daily bread from those fields. Is that why you reward me? What did you do to my father in his days? He fought the stones for twenty-five years and then a stone made a cripple of him. That too you allowed to happen, so you rewarded him. You took Kristina from me, you tricked her to die. How can a person trust a God who acts that way? How can anyone ask me to trust in the Lord after this? You gave me a mind — I’ve used it to the best of my ability. But if my sense isn’t good enough — is this my fault? Why wasn’t I given enough sense? I want to tell you, God: I’ll never praise you for what you did to Kristina, for what you’ve done to me. Never. For I do not accept the injustices you allow to happen. I won’t budge. I won’t submit. I’ll always fight against it. Me you cannot coerce. Never will I ask forgiveness. I know I’m a helpless creature before the Almighty. You can do with me what you wish. But never, never will I say it is just. The oak hit me across the back but it didn’t change my mind. If the tree had fallen a foot to the right or to the left I would have lost my life. But it would have made no difference, it would not have changed me in the moment of death. You cannot do anything to change my mind. You’ve bent my body, God, but not my soul. You can kill me, you can rob me of my breath, but you cannot make me say you’re just. You can never bend my soul. Never in eternity. Amen.

XXIII. THE LETTER TO SWEDEN

Nilsson Settlement at Chisago Lake

Minnesota

July 30 1875

Beloved Sister Lydia Karlsson,

May you be well is my daily wish, I have not Written since long ago. But if these Lines find you They are from your Brother in North America.

Changes have taken place since I Last wrote. I want to tell you that last year I left my farm to my Oldest Son, you must remember Johan. He was 4 years of age when we left Sweden. Now he has taken over, the Son picks up where the Father leaves off, the other children are still at home except Harald who has gone to St. Paul to work for the railroad and Frank who Sits in the Timber company’s offis in Stillwater.

I am not yet old in Years but worn from wear. And I have broken enough land in America. I work a little every day and do what chores I can, if I don’t work my bowels won’t move. I am in good circumstances and need not worry about Daily Bread. Everything has gone up after the closing of the War. Money situation is now orderly. Our Farm gives plenty of Crops and we sell our Wheat at high Prices.

Glad you like the Portrait of the House. I have had taken a portrait of myself which I enclose. Not much to Look at, the Years show their wrinkles. And our bodies go downhill when we near old Age. Have you started to use Glasses for the eyes? Is your hair graying?

I wonder if Brother and Sister would recognize each other after all the years gone by?

My thoughts often wander to the Place where I was born and where my kind Parents helped me grow up. Sometimes I think I would like to go back for a Visit. But I could not see Father and Mother in Life, only their Tombstones.

It would be burdensome for me to go back to Sweden. I am accustomed to Freedom in all things, you know. There is much difference between the Old and the new country. Here all are equals; here a man and citizen has a vote whether poor or Rich. It would be another order in Sweden if all knew their rights and had free speaking. The Swedes are obedient to law and good people and need not so many proud officials and useless masters to rule them. You have to pay for King and Palaces and Lords who live for entertainment and theatres. The workers feed those who won’t work and this is turned-around Order. Sweden needs a new Government which will not bow to the Royal Crown and Mantle. In North America the President is the People’s Crown and we need none other.

You write they say at home times are bad in America, that’s only talk invented by the Lords to keep people in that Country. And Ministers and Preachers like to keep their sheep together, if they all go to America there won’t be many left to shear. I am glad I left home while my blood was youthful, my emigration I have never regretted for a single moment.

We have a heat of 100 degrees here in Minnesota, it is the American counting called Fahrenheit, it nearly burns in bed at night, it is cooler to sleep on the floor.

My memory begins to fail me in many matters but my Childhood is clearer to me as the years fill up, I can see every place in the village and my childhood home. Is the Post with the Rooster that pointed the Compass still standing in the yard? What became of the rosebush to the front of the House? Do you remember when we played hide and seek around that bush?

I send you a draft for ten dollars, you can buy some thing you wish as my gift. Forgive my Poor writing and don’t forget to write to your Brother. Whole years run away between our writings. Only we two are left from our old home, we must not stop letters while we still are in Life.

My wish for Health and all Good.

Written down by

Your Devoted Brother

Karl Oskar Nilsson.