Unto A Good Land

XI. “WILL NO ONE HELP ME?”

— 1—

The place smelled of the forest products and forest debris — green, lately milled lumber, pitch, sawdust, boards at seasoning. Along the river ran a fairly broad street covered with pine needles, bark, sawdust, sand — truly a lumber-town street. The riverbank was piled high with boards and logs for blocks, and on the river floated logs in such numbers that the surface seemed one vast, cobbled floor. Both earth and water smelled of pitch and pine. The travelers had arrived in a forest region.

Karl Oskar and Robert wandered up the street, to where the newly built houses clustered; they walked leisurely, trying to read the shop signs and other inscriptions: Oxen for Sale Cheap for Cash; William Simpson, Druggist; Shoemaker and Watch Repairing; The House That Jack Built. They passed a number of stores where tools and implements of many kinds were displayed in the windows. The largest inscription was painted on the side of a house: Stillwater Lumber Company. They had seen the same sign near the pier as they landed.

It had been late afternoon when they disembarked from the Red Wing; they must find lodging before nightfall. For two weeks Robert had practiced this one important sentence from his language book: Please show me to a lodging house. He was now completely familiar with every part of this sentence, even though he had not as yet used it. But now two more important and urgent questions confronted the immigrants: How were they to manage with all their belongings? How would they find their way to their place of destination?

Captain Berger had informed them a few days earlier that the Red Wing would be unable to carry them all the way up river to Taylors Falls. The Mississippi steamers turned back at Stillwater as the St. Croix was not navigable beyond this point for larger craft; the current was too strong and there were several rapids. Consequently, he was forced to land them some distance short of their destination. At the same time Captain Berger had warned them not to remain in this region, which was ravaged by cholera; he had pointed out many places along the river where houses and huts stood empty. Immigrants from his homeland had built them but had already been forced to move — not away from the district, but six feet down into it, to final decay. The survivors in these Norwegian settlements were impoverished, almost starved to death, existing in utmost misery. It was so bad, Captain Berger wasn’t sure which immigrants were better off, those in the ground or those above it.

Such information was not encouraging to the newcomers, and they had felt downhearted and filled with concern as they left the steamer. Captain Berger had promised to ask someone to help them find their way after landing, but he had fallen ill that morning, and when they landed, he lay in high fever in his cabin; they had not seen him again. And as the Red Wing departed they were left alone on the pier, completely dependent upon themselves in this unknown place. There they sat down among their chests, sacks, bundles, and baskets, without knowing in which direction to go, or how to transport their possessions.

While the rest of the group remained at the pier to watch over their belongings, Karl Oskar and Robert went to seek information. Besides the question concerning lodgings, Robert had learned two sentences from the chapter entitled “The Journey”: Respected Sir, how can we reach Taylors Falls? Who will take care of our baggage? The name Taylors Falls he had added himself, but he did not know how to pronounce it. He meant to put these questions to someone in the street who looked kind and helpful and seemed to have plenty of time; he was particularly on the lookout for older persons.

But they met only young people on the street of this new lumber town. And all were in a great hurry, passing them by quickly. Robert hoped to address someone who was walking slowly. But they met no limping old men or women. Few women were in sight on the street. Three times, Robert spoke to older men; each one stopped, shook his head at the questions, and muttered some incomprehensible answer. He spoke to a couple of middle-aged women sitting on the steps in front of a house, but they, too, shook their heads.

Karl Oskar was growing impatient: “I don’t think they understand you!”

Robert had asserted that by now his English was so good he could lend his mouth for the use of all, and Karl Oskar was reminded again that he could not always rely on his brother.

Robert had followed the instructions in his book: Practice the Speech Exercises! Become familiar with the words and phrases most frequently used! He replied to Karl Oskar: The Americans undoubtedly understood what he said. But they spoke their own language so rapidly that he couldn’t understand their answers.

He tried his questions on a few more passers-by but without success, and then Karl Oskar said they had better go back to the pier.

Their fellow travelers were still sitting among their possessions, all together, but helpless and at a loss as to what to do next.

Jonas Petter said it looked as though the inhabitants might be afraid of them; they had been left entirely alone on the pier; did people think a gang of robbers had arrived on the steamer?

Fina-Kajsa sat with her skirt tucked up, her broken iron pot on her knees. She sighed: “Oh me, oh my! We’ll never get there! Oh me, oh my!”

All were hungry, and someone suggested opening the food baskets. But Karl Oskar said it would soon be dark, they must find quarters before they did anything else; they couldn’t remain on the pier all night.

Ulrika spoke up: “That was supposed to be your job, as I recall.”

“You go and try!” Karl Oskar retorted tartly.

He was in low spirits and this affected the others. Even the Glad One, who usually encountered trouble with indifference, was now upset and irritable, and as it suddenly began to rain, she poured forth bad language on this new misfortune.

It was a cloudburst — apparently, all rains in America were cloudbursts. It splashed and thundered over the river, the heavy rain soaked the immigrants’ clothing, it struck like knives, penetrating to their very marrow. After a few minutes they were all as wet as if they had been dipped in the river. The children yelled and refused to be comforted.

Everyone in the group was hungry, tired, and wet through and through; night was upon them, and they did not know where to find shelter. One after the other they felt despair overtake them. The company from Ljuder had never before during their whole journey felt so helpless, lost, and forsaken.

Robert went over and over his recent attempt to find his way with the new language — his hopelessly miscarried attempt! It was easy enough to remember and repeat the sentences to himself. But when he wanted to say them to strangers he grew nervous and confused, then he began to stutter, he hemmed and hawed. He couldn’t understand it: not one of the three sentences he had learned had been of any use today. And he began to practice a fourth, which he would repeat until he was successful: Will no one help me?

— 2—

Henry O. Jackson, Baptist minister in Stillwater, was busy sawing firewood outside his cabin near the river. Only a few steps separated the sawhorse from the water, and he kept his foothold precariously on the sloping ground. Pastor Jackson was a short, rather fat man of about forty, dressed in well-worn brown cotton trousers and a not-too-clean flannel shirt. He worked bareheaded, and tufts of thin hair fluttered in rhythm with the movement of the saw as it dug its way through the dry pine bough on the sawhorse. The handle of his saw, cut from a crooked limb, chafed his hands after a while; the pine log was tough and resistant, the saw teeth, dull from lack of sharpening, rasped slowly through the wood. The work was hard, and after cutting each piece, the minister rested a moment, drying the sweat from his forehead with a great linen handkerchief that hung on a peg of the sawhorse and flapped in the wind like a flag.

The St. Croix River, separating the new state of Wisconsin from the Minnesota Territory, made a large bend as it flowed by Stillwater. Right here near the town the current was slow, almost imperceptible, and the river expanded into a small lake, on which all the timber floated down from above had been gathered; here on the west bank it would be hauled up and milled. A little farther to the west the ground rose in high hills, and the town of Stillwater had been built between these hills and the river. The community had an advantageous position, protected from winds by the forested hills at its back, and with the river flowing at its feet. Within a short space its population had grown to more than five hundred inhabitants; next to St. Paul, it was at this time the largest settlement in the territory. A year before, Stillwater had been made the county seat of the newly formed Washington County.

On the east shore of the St. Croix, directly across from Pastor Jackson’s cabin, steep cliffs of red-brown sandstone obstructed the view of the countryside: there lay Wisconsin, which two years ago had become a state of the Union.

Jackson had been pastor in Stillwater ever since the Lord had founded his parish in the town. Up till now he had lived in a log cabin belonging to a fur trapper who spent most of his time in the forests, but a more comfortable abode was being built by his parishioners near his church and would be ready this fall. Most of the members of his congregation were generous, helpful people. Practically all gained their living from the lumber activities in the region or from farming. Many of the timbermen in the logging camps and the laborers at the mills in Stillwater were worldly and unregenerate, but the farmers moving into the district were nearly all good Christians. Some fifty homesteaders had moved into Washington County in recent years and these new settlers often had errands in Stillwater: Sundays they came to hear Pastor Jackson preach; weekdays they came to sell their grain, potatoes, pork, or mutton.

The minister’s cabin stood only a few hundred yards from the pier where the Red Wing of St. Louis — well known in Stillwater — was unloading her cargo of beef, pork, and flour barrels. Soon the sound of her steam whistle drowned the saw’s screeching and announced to Pastor Jackson that the side-wheeler had returned down the river toward the Mississippi. But before he had time to lay a new log on his sawhorse, a dark cloud suddenly came up from the Wisconsin side. During the heavy downpour he sought shelter in his cabin. The street outside quickly became empty of people, everyone running inside. But through his window he now noticed on the steamship pier a small group of people who had not sought shelter from the violent shower. They must be newcomers, passengers from the Red Wing. The minister guessed they were immigrants. And no one had been there to help them — all were afraid of the cholera which new arrivals might bring with them.

Last spring German immigrants had brought the cholera to Minnesota, and during the whole summer the pestilence had raged in the setttlements farther south. Along the St. Croix, enormous graves had been dug and filled with the bodies of immigrants. In Stillwater a score of deaths had taken place, and the inhabitants were stricken by fear of this pestilence. Careful watch was kept over newcomers, and the city council had removed a great number of them and placed them on an island in a forest lake some ten miles to the west. Here they had been left to live, separated from other people, until free from contagion.

But Pastor Jackson never avoided strangers, he felt no fear of the dreadful disease: Whither in this world may man flee, that death shall not o’ertake him?

As soon as he saw the group on the pier, he made his way toward them. The violent rain was barely over. Huddled among the bundles and chests sat grownups and children. Shawls and coats had been tucked around the children to protect them from the rain; babies cried in the women’s arms.

He saw at once he had come to people who needed him. He recognized that they had come from far away, they were immigrants from Europe. Both men and women were light complexioned, tall and sturdy, and he guessed they were from Germany, like so many other recent immigrants. He spoke German passably and made an attempt to address the strangers in that language: He was a Baptist minister. Wouldn’t they come with him to his cabin?

He repeated his question but received no answer; all stared at him without comprehension. Then German was not their mother tongue.

As Pastor Jackson looked at the group more carefully he saw that nearly all were pale and starved-looking. Immigrant Germans, both men and women, usually arrived well fed, their cheeks blooming. He concluded these immigrants might be Irish — though why did they not know English?

A tall, gangly youth with a light down on his upper lip spoke a few sentences in a language Pastor Jackson recognized: immigrant English. Pastor Jackson was familiar with newcomers’ first attempts to use the language of their new land, and he smiled encouragingly at the speaker, listened carefully, and did not interrupt him. And at last he understood. The youth wanted to tell him that he was a stranger in America and wondered if anyone here would help him.

The American asked where the immigrants came from, and in the answer he seemed to recognize the name Sweden.

Pastor Jackson had gathered much information about the various countries of the immigrants, and he knew that Sweden was a county of Norway. A Norwegian family in Marine belonged to his congregation. The newcomers on the pier must be countrymen of the Norwegian people in Marine, who were good, religious people. A Norwegian also lived here in Stillwater — Mr. Thomassen, a shoemaker who had resoled his shoes and made a good job of it. Thomassen lived some distance away, on the other side of the church. He would send a message to him to come and meet a group of his newly arrived countrymen.

And the minister turned again to the youth and spoke to him in English; he spoke as slowly and clearly as he could and tried to extend his message to the whole group. The people here were friendly and good people, but afraid of strangers who might bring the cholera. The newcomers need have no fears, he was a minister here in town; now they must come with him to his cabin and he would take care of their belongings and have them brought inside for the night.

The pale, gangly youth did not try to explain to the rest of them what Pastor Jackson had said. But he pulled from his pocket a small book, the leaves of which he turned eagerly as if searching for something. The minister turned to a young woman with a whimpering child on either knee and took the smallest child in his arms. It was a baby boy, and he held him as carefully as though baptizing him. The child was wrapped in a soaking-wet shawl, and water dripped from the shawl and wet the minister’s clothing quite through.

Then Pastor Henry Jackson walked away with the child in his arms, and the whole group followed him. Last in the row came the youth he had spoken to, still searching in his book. He continued to turn the pages all the way until they reached the cabin, unable to find what he was looking for: Conversation with a Minister.

— 3—

Before Karl Oskar stepped across the threshold of Pastor Jackson’s cabin, he turned to Jonas Petter to seek his counsel: Was it advisable to believe this peculiar, bareheaded man? How could they know what he intended to do with them? Perhaps he was leading them to a lair of robbers and thieves? How could they know what kind of den they were stepping into?

“But he looks kind and helpful,” Jonas Petter said.

“That’s just it,” Karl Oskar insisted. Didn’t he know! The kinder and more helpful a stranger seemed in America, the more dangerous it was to go with him. He still carried on his body marks he could feel and see: a great scar on his chest and his left leg still aching. He did not believe in any stranger in North America.

“We need not be afraid. He is the minister in this town,” Robert said, with respect in his voice.

“Minister? He? No! He lies!”

Karl Oskar’s suspicions increased: this helper of theirs, going bareheaded outside, poorly dressed in worn trousers and a shirt that wasn’t too clean — this man a minister? If this man was a minister then he, Karl Oskar, could stand in a pulpit!

Robert insisted that the man had said he was a minister, and that meant a preacher. They could see for themselves in his book. But Karl Oskar thought Robert must have heard wrong. He had no confidence in his brother’s knowledge of the English language. And he suspected that the stranger was luring them away from the pier so that he might steal their belongings.

But as the bareheaded man wasn’t taking them so far away that they couldn’t keep an eye on their movables, his suspicions were somewhat allayed, and he went inside the cabin. He whispered, however, to Kristina: They must not forget, the most seemingly helpful persons might be the most deceitful.

Pastor Jackson busied himself making a great fire in the stove so that his guests might dry their wet clothing. The women undressed to their petticoats and hung their skirts to dry in front of the fire; the children’s wet garments were removed. The men weren’t much concerned over their wet clothing as long as they felt warmth; they elbowed each other around the stove. Their host attended to all their needs: he acted as though they were his nearest relatives come to visit him. They weren’t allowed to do a single chore — neither fetch water nor wood — he did everything himself, attended to them as if he were their servant.

He put a kettle on the stove and placed a sizable chunk of venison in it; fortunately, one of his church members had brought the gift to him this very day. He split some of his newly sawed logs and carried in dry pine wood and fed the stove until it was red hot. He put on a white apron and set his broad table with bread, milk, butter, sausage, cheese; he set out knives, forks, plates, and spoons as capably as a woman. He fussed over the children, warmed milk for them, found playthings for them. And during this whole time his guests sat wide-eyed and stared at him, struck dumb by all the work an unknown man in an unknown place was doing for them, and all the things offered them. He made his house their home.

And when they sat down to table, they discovered he was a cook worthy of a noble family; the venison was tender and juicy, melting in the mouth like butter. None among them had ever eaten such fare. Even Fina-Kajsa, with her single tooth, was able to chew this meat. And when they had eaten to their satisfaction, there was still a great deal of food left. As they sat there, sated and comfortable, they entirely forgot their miserable situation of a few hours earlier.

The women were still in their petticoats, but after the meal Ulrika took down her skirt, which had dried in front of the fire: “When I get my rump wet, I lose my good temper.” So saying, she gave Pastor Jackson her broadest smile of honest appreciation.

He smiled back, full of understanding, not of her words, but of her need for dry clothing. And he behaved toward her and all of them as if concerned with only one thought: Did they have all the food they wanted and were they comfortable?

As they were dry again, they had indeed all they could wish for. And all were satisfied; since landing in America they had never eaten so well and enjoyed food so much as this evening, and yet all of it was a gift.

Now they knew the bareheaded man who had met them on the pier; now all realized who he was. They didn’t understand what he said, but they understood what he did, and this was sufficient for them. Robert had asked if no one would help them, and this man was the answer: he helped them all.

After enjoying the food, the immigrants were also to enjoy rest. Pastor Jackson made up beds for his visitors. For his fifteen guests, big and little, he made beds over the entire floor of his cabin. He brought out sacks and filled them with hay for mattresses, he produced animal skins for covers; he made such roomy and comfortable beds that he himself could find no place to sleep in his own house — he said good night to his guests and went to sleep with a neighbor.

And they were barely awake the following morning when he was back, busying himself at the stove, preparing the morning meal for them. He boiled a pot of potatoes and beans, he warmed yesterday’s leftover venison.

Their benefactor told Robert he had sent for one of their countrymen as interpreter. And while they were still at their breakfast a small, tousle-haired man with a broad nose entered the cabin; he had on a black cobbler’s apron of skin which smelled of leather and wax. He greeted them all as if knowing them in advance: “I am Sigurd Thomassen. I am a Nordman.”

He spoke to the Swedes as if expecting them to know who he was: shoemaker in Stillwater, the only Norwegian in town.

The man was not exactly a countryman of theirs; Robert had been mistaken. But the Swedish immigrants understood his language as well as they had understood Captain Berger on the Red Wing, and they learned from him that Robert had been right in saying their host was a minister.

Karl Oskar felt ashamed of his suspicions yesterday; and all beheld in deep wonder the man whose guests they were, this kind American, now busying himself with women’s chores. A man of the clergy, called and ordained for the holy office of preaching the Gospel — yet here he was making beds, washing dishes, tidying up the house, sweeping, performing the chores of an ordinary maid. They could not comprehend it. They could not imagine this man in the white kitchen apron, standing in the pulpit in frock and collar, they couldn’t understand this man who scoured pots and pans on weekdays and would stand at the altar Sundays, administering the Holy sacraments. Why should a minister, able to preach, stoop so low as to perform menial kitchen chores?

“I have never seen a man so handy in the kitchen,” Kristina said to Ulrika.

“He is the kindest man with the biggest heart I’ve ever met,” replied the Glad One. “Who could ever have guessed he was a priest?”

“Is he married?” Kristina asked.

“He is a bachelor.” Thomassen used the English word.

“I mean — does he have a wife?”

“No. He lives single.” He used the English word single, which Kristina didn’t understand. She thought, however, the minister in Stillwater must not yet have married.

The Norwegian told them that women were scarce in the Territory. Here in Stillwater there was hardly one woman to ten men, and in the countryside maybe one to twenty men. So the men went about as eager as Adam in Paradise before God created Eve.

“You are most welcome! The settlers have been waiting for you!” he told Kristina.

And he looked from one to the other of the three Swedish women. Kristina did not like his eyes; there was lust in them. When he looked at her, she felt as though he were in some way touching her intimately. This she was sure of — she needn’t ask if shoemaker Thomassen was unmarried.

Karl Oskar questioned him concerning the road to Taylors Falls, and he showed the Norwegian the piece of paper he had carefully saved, the address of Fina-Kajsa’s son:

Mister Anders Månsson

Taylors Falls Påst Offis

Minnesota Territory

North-America.

From Thomassen he now learned that Taylors Falls was a small settlement deep in the wilderness to the north. There were only a few settlers there and they would find Månsson without difficulty. Taylors Falls was on the banks of the St. Croix, but no passenger boats went there. The lumber company in Stillwater had cut a road for timber hauling with their ox teams some distance along the river — after that there were trails. They would have to go by foot to reach their destination. He was sure the lumber company could be persuaded to freight their belongings up the river in one of their barges. It was almost thirty miles to Taylors Falls, and if they were good walkers, they might manage it in two days, but the paths were overgrown, and as they had children with them they ought to figure on three days. But they would have no trouble finding their way: if they stayed close to the river, they couldn’t miss it, for Taylors Falls lay right on the bank.

The weather now was pleasantly cool, and as they had already been much delayed it was decided that they should continue on their way immediately. Thirty miles sounded a formidable distance to walk on foot, but counting in Swedish miles it was only five. Often on a Sunday they had walked the distance to Ljuder church and back, which made two Swedish miles. Having sat inactive so long on ships and steamboats, they felt they ought to have rested themselves sufficiently to walk the distance.

They asked the Norwegian if there might be any danger of wild Indians during the walk, but he did not think that the Redskins they might encounter on the road to Taylors Falls would be dangerous, if left alone. There were only Chippewa Indians living in the wilds to the north, and they were a docile and peace-loving tribe. The Sioux, who had their hunting ground to the south and who roamed in great packs through the forest this time of year, were much more fierce and warlike, and the settlers were afraid of them. But he was sure they would not meet any members of that tribe in the region they were to pass through.

The Swedes wondered if shoemaker Thomassen didn’t minimize the dangers. Perhaps he only wanted to allay their fears.

“You may meet Chippewas, but they are friendly to the settlers,” he insisted.

The youngest and the oldest in their group would cause most concern during a long walk — Fina-Kajsa and the babies. Karl Oskar asked Fina-Kajsa if she would be able to go with them; perhaps she had better stay here with the kind minister for the time being.

The old woman flared up in anger: “Who says I’m not able to walk? Who will recognize my son Anders if I don’t come along?”

And she assured them with many oaths that they would never get there if she didn’t go with them to find her son for them; they would never arrive without her aid. They would lose their way in the wilderness, and no one would help them, unless she was with them and brought them to Anders.

So they prepared to get under way. They brought along as much food as they thought would be needed, and clothing and bedding for sleeping in the open; they took their knapsacks and their bundles, as much as they thought they could carry. Pastor Jackson had taken charge of their heavy goods, and he was to send it on the lumber company’s flat barges to Mister Anders Månsson at Taylors Falls.

As the immigrants parted from the goodhearted man who had made his cabin their home for a night and half a day, they were all very sad at not being able to say a single word of thanks in his tongue. None of their honest words of gratitude were comprehensible to him. But all shook him by the hand in such a way that they felt he must understand. And Robert tried to express in English how grateful they were: Pastor Jackson could rely on them to do him a favor in return as soon as they could. This sentence he had not taken from the language book and he was not sure the pastor understood him. Robert was particularly grateful to the Stillwater minister: he was the first American able to understand his English. Pastor Jackson had understood more of his sentences from the language book than anyone else, and of the English words Pastor Jackson spoke, Robert had understood many more than any other American’s. Robert had used a sentence which he had long practiced: Please speak a little more slowly, sir! and after this the minister had spoken more slowly and clearly. Their conversation had progressed almost to his full satisfaction, even though he had been unable to find a chapter, Conversation with a Minister. This American had understood him from the very beginning, ever since his question: Will no one help me?

And they were still all fifteen together as, toward noon, they started northward from the logging camp where the Stillwater Lumber Company dominated everything with its great signs. Thomassen, anxious to talk to the women, accompanied them part of the way, admonishing them to keep close to the river on their right hand; then they could not miss Taylors Falls: “You couldn’t miss it even if you tried to.”

During their long journey, the group from Ljuder had traveled on wheels and keels, they had ridden on flat-wagons and steam wagons, on sailing ships and steamships, on side-wheelers and stern-wheelers. They thought they had used all the vehicles in existence to transport a person from one place to another in this world. But for the last stretch of their long journey they must resort to the means of the old Apostles — the last part of their thousand-mile road they had to walk.

XII. AT HOME IN A FOREIGN FOREST

— 1—

The immigrants had now seen a part of the new continent in its immense expanse; its size was inconceivable to them. Yet during their journey through this vast land they had lacked space in which to move about; in crowded railway wagons and ships’ holds they had been penned up in coops or shut in stalls. The country was large, but the space it had offered for their use had until now been very small. At last they were liberated from the shackles of conveyances: here they had great space around them and nothing but God’s high heaven above them.

They had felt lost in the towns through which they had passed, fumbling, awkward, irresolute. Mingling with great crowds of unknown people, unable to communicate with them, they had felt downhearted, worried, completely bewildered. But here they had at last come back to the earth and its trees, bushes, and grass. The immigrants now walked into a great and foreign forest, into untilled wilderness. But something marvelous happened to them here: For the first time in North America they felt at home in their surroundings.

They walked through a wilderness, and here they had elbowroom, a feeling of space in which to move freely. The path they followed resembled the cattle paths at home, but this path was not made by domestic animals, it was trodden by wild animals and wild people. They followed the paths of Indians and deer, of hunters and beasts. They were on the hunting trails which had been followed for thousands and thousands of years. But they were homeless wanderers without weapons, not looking for game or following animals’ footprints. They only followed a trail that would, they hoped, lead them to new homes.

Their path was along a winding ridge of sandstone, and this ridge followed the river. On their left extended a valley, on their right flowed the river that was to guide them. At the beginning of their walk, the forest near the river had been cut down in great sections and these seemed to them like graveyards, with their high, carelessly cut stumps resembling tombstones. But after a few hours they reached sandy plains with tall, straight, branchless trees, topped with lush dark-green crowns. Here each tree was a mast tree, capable of carrying sails across the world’s greatest oceans. On the foothills to their left were groves of leaf-trees, like a woof through which broke the darker warp of the pine forest. Here they discovered all the trees which each spring budded anew in Sweden: oaks and birches side by side, trembling aspens, elms, and lindens intertwined their branches with maples and ash trees; here and there they also espied the hazel bush. Of smaller trees, crouching under the tall ones, they recognized willow branches stretching above bushes of sloeberries, blackberries, and wild roses. Here lay fertile ground overgrown with underbrush of innumerable varieties whose branches, leaves, and clinging vines were intertwined, making one heavy impenetrable thicket, a living wall of greenery.

In these extensive thickets they discovered many thorny bushes that were new to them. They stopped now and then to inspect more closely some tree or bush which they didn’t recognize. They would scratch the bark, or break off a small branch, or gather a handful of leaves, and try to guess the kind of tree or bush to which these might be related.

As far as they could judge, here grew everything in God’s creation: trees for all their needs: for house timbers, floor planks and roof, for benches and tables, for implements of all kinds, and for firewood. The dead trees rotted in the places where they had fallen, never had a stump been removed, never had a dead tree been cut. All old bare trees remained standing, an unattractive sight with their naked, bark-shedding limbs in this healthy, living forest. Indeed, there were enough dead pines here for firewood for a thousand fireplaces for a thousand winters through. The forest was uncared-for, neglected, but it had cared for itself while living and covering the ground: it had died and lived again, completing its cycle: undisturbed and unmarked by man’s edged tools, it had fallen with its loosened roots decaying on the ground and disintegating among grass and moss, returning again to the earth from which it had sprung.

The farther into the wilderness the immigrants pushed their way the denser grew the oaks. In one day they had seen more oaks on root than in their whole lives before. At home the oak was the royal tree — King and Crown had from old claimed the first right to it, while the peasants had to be satisfied with poorer and less sturdy trees. At home the noble oak tree was nursed like a thoroughbred colt. Here they walked through an oak forest that stretched for miles. And when their trail brought them atop a knoll, they saw across the western valley a whole sea of oak crowns, wreathed together until they appeared like one many-miles-wide crown of rich foliage. Here was a whole region — wide as a county at home — entirely filled with royal trees. In their fertile valley the oaks had for countless centuries grown straight and proud through their youth and maturity and quietly rotted in their old age. No Crown-sheriffs had disturbed them with marking axes, no despotic king had exacted timber for his fortifications and men-of-war. In this heathen land the royal tree had remained untouched and unviolated, here it displayed its mane of thick foliage, the lion among trees.

The landscape changed often and quickly, with hills and dales on both sides. They came to an open glade with still more fertile ground: here herbs and grass prevailed rather than trees and bushes. Here grew crab apple and wild plum, the heavy fruit bending the overladen boughs. Between thickets of berry bushes the ground was covered with wild roses, honeysuckle, sweet fern and many flowers. Here throve in abundance a lower growth of fruit and berry plants: blueberries, raspberries, currant bushes, black as well as red. And the berry vine did not crawl retarded along the ground in thread-thin runners as in the forests at home; here it rose on thick stems covered with healthy leaves, thriving as though planted in a well-fertilized cabbage bed. The blueberry bushes were flourishing with berries as large as the end of one’s thumb, as easy to pick as gooseberries.

They would cross a meadow with fodder-rich grass reaching to their waists. Here the ground lay as smooth and even as a floor in a royal palace. No stone was visible, no scythe had ever cut this grass; since the time of creation this hay meadow had been waiting for the harvesters.

They climbed over brooks and streams where fallen trunks lay like bridges, they saw a tarn into which branches and other debris had fallen in such great quantity that it filled the lake completely, rising above the surface, a picture of death-haunted desolation. They walked by small lakes with tall grass all around the edges, the water bubbling and boiling with wriggling fins. They stopped and looked at the fish playing. The water was so clear they could see to the bottom where the sand glittered in the sun like gold. And they mused over this clear blue lake water, seemingly taking its color from the skies above.

In one opening they came upon a herd of grazing deer, sleek-antlered animals with light-red fur and short white tails. Fleet-footed, the deer fled softly, their tails tipping up and down. The immigrants had already tasted their meat, they knew how tender and delicious it was. Now and again a long-eared rabbit disappeared into the grass directly at their feet. Known and unknown forest birds took flight along their path, on the lakes swam flocks of ducks, undisturbed by their passing, and several times they heard the potent, whizzing sound of many wings in flight: flocks of bluish doves flew over their heads.

In this wilderness there was plenty of game; in the water, on the ground, and in the air there was meat, fowl, and fish. Many a meal had run past them into the forest, swum away into the depths of the lakes, flown away into the air.

The immigrants had reached a lush country, fertile and rich earth, a land well suited for settling. Here people could find their sustenance if anywhere on earth. Yet nowhere did they see tilled fields, nowhere a furrow turned, nowhere a prepared building site. No trees had been blazed to mark a settler’s claim. This was a country for people to settle in, but as yet few settlers had come.

The group from Sweden walked along an unknown path in an unknown region, with no guide except the river; but they felt less insecure and put down their feet with more confidence than at any time before in the new country. They were walking in accustomed ways through old-country landscapes. They walked through a forest, they tramped on tree roots, moss, and grass, they moved among pungent foliage, soft leaves, herbs, among growing things on earth, its running and flying game, and they began to feel at home.

The travelers from Ljuder were in a foreign forest, yet they had arrived home: No longer were they the lost ones of this world.

— 2—

At first the group of immigrants walked with good speed along the path on the ridge, but as the day wore on their burdens grew heavier and their steps slowed. All grownups had something to carry: of the children, only Danjel’s two sons were able to walk the whole distance; he had to carry his four-year-old daughter Fina. Karl Oskar held Lill-Märta on one arm, extra clothing over his shoulder, and the knapsack in one hand. Kristina carried Harald, and this was considered sufficient, as she also carried another child within her. The food basket was entrusted to Robert. Johan could walk short distances, but his little legs soon tired and he too wanted to be carried. Karl Oskar stooped down and let the boy climb onto his back with his arms around the father’s neck. Karl Oskar was no longer a fast walker.

Jonas Petter walked ahead of the others to locate the trail, which sometimes seemed to disappear in dense thickets filled with mosquitoes. It was his duty to see that they never lost sight of the river. As they progressed the thickets became more prevalent, and those with heavy burdens had to walk with care through the thorny bushes.

They had feared Fina-Kajsa would delay their progress but the old woman had a surprisingly tough body, and in spite of her emaciated condition, she kept well ahead of the younger walkers. She trotted along quite briskly, holding onto her iron pot, which she dared not leave behind with the minister in Stillwater, fearing it might be lost, as the grindstone was in New York. She had walked many miles during her lifetime, going to church at home on Öland every Sunday for fifty years, a distance of fifteen miles back and forth. Altogether, this would make enough miles to cover the distance from Sweden to Minnesota many times; indeed, she would easily manage the short distance left to reach her son’s home, if it were true that they were now so close to him. And she described again the fine house he had built himself in the wilderness. He had written many letters to his parents about it — there was no place on Öland that compared with his home, his extensive fields, and possessions. He had asked his parents to come and see it, then they would be well pleased with their son. And Fina-Kajsa was convinced her son had changed into an industrious, capable man here in America, or he wouldn’t have been able to acquire such a home. It had been well for him to get out in the world.

A west wind was blowing, cooling their perspiring brows; the air no longer felt oppressive.

By midafternoon they sat down to rest under a great oak that stood all by itself in an open, pleasing meadow. Now their communal food basket was brought out; during the last weeks of their journey they had become one big household; it seemed unnecessary to divide themselves into two families at meals, leaving Jonas Petter to sit alone. It was easier to keep all the food together; what one missed someone else had, one had bread but no meat, someone else meat but no bread.

After the meal, the immigrants stretched out on the ground under the giant oak; it was comfortable in the shade, and they all felt well and rested contentedly. But the children played in the tall grass of the meadow; they had already eaten their fill of raspberries, blueberries, currants, and wild plums. Many unfamiliar berries also grew hereabouts but parents forbade the children to taste these, fearing they might be poisonous. On little trees almost like bushes grew clusters of berries resembling over-large blueberries, and Robert insisted these were wild grapes. From them wine could be pressed, the drink of noble people at home, which ordinary people got a taste of once a month at communion. They tasted the grapes cautiously, they seemed sweet and good, but they dared not eat more than a handful lest they get drunk from these sweet berries that made wine: it was written in the Bible that one could get drunk from sweet wine.

Elin filled her little basket with great, juicy dark-red raspberries, which she showed proudly to her mother. The girl’s fingers were stained blood red from the overripe berries.

“Here in America we can have beautiful rosy cheeks,” Ulrika said. “We can wash our faces in raspberry juice.”

Kristina’s eyes never left her children. They mustn’t go too far away, no one knew where snakes might lie hidden in the thick grass which was indeed a good hiding place for all kinds of dangerous creeping things. Jonas Petter had already killed two green-striped snakes, but they were no larger than the snakes at home. Danger was by now such a persistent companion that Kristina considered it omnipresent: its shape might alter but it was always at hand in some guise. She had once and for all accepted danger, and consequently she met it with less worry than before.

Here in the forest only the venomous mosquitoes annoyed her and all of them; they swarmed about constantly and bit every exposed part of the body. The delicate skin of the children was attacked most fiercely, and their faces showed welts from the bites. They had never encountered such disgusting gnats before. Everything was different in America, day and night, weather and animals: the warmth was warmer, the darkness darker, the rain wetter than at home — and the mosquitoes were a thousand times worse.

Kristina’s eyes had come to rest on the men sprawling in the grass, and suddenly she burst out laughing: “Ulrika — look at those shaggy-bearded, long-haired men! Don’t they look worse than scarecrows?”

Unmarried Ulrika of Västergöhl joined in the laughter. None of the men had had scissors or razors near their heads since leaving Sweden, and now their hair hung down on their shoulders. Danjel had always worn a beard, but Karl Oskar and Jonas Petter, accustomed to shave at home, had left their beards unattended — it had been difficult to use razors on the journey. Arvid had a thin growth of beard and seldom needed a shave, and Robert had not yet begun to shave, but their hair had grown long. Gathered together in a group, all the men seemed equally shaggy and rough. On the journey, Kristina had not paid much attention to their appearance, but alone here in the forest she was suddenly conscious of their uncombed hair and beards: they seemed like a group of wild highway robbers. And she said, if this had been the first time she had laid eyes on Karl Oskar, meeting him like this in the forest, she would have been scared to death of the man and would have run away to hide as fast as her legs would carry her.

“Hmm,” said Jonas Petter. “The worst part is, my beard itches like a louse nest.”

“Our poor men are pale and skinny,” Ulrika said. “That’s what makes them look so frightful.”

Yes, Jonas Petter thought he had lost about fifty pounds from heat and diarrhea, his trousers hung loose around his waist as though fastened to a fence post. Their bodies were only skeletons covered by sun-parched skin. But all American men were thin; they were Americans now — and by and by they would also be rich.

Ulrika admitted that the men in America were skinny. But she insisted they were courteous and well behaved and kind and considerate toward women. She had never before seen a man like that priest they lodged with last night — he had even grabbed the pail out of her hand when she wanted to fetch water and had gone to the well himself. A minister in America fetching water for Ulrika of Västergöhl — what would people in Ljuder say if they had seen that!

Ulrika kept an eye on her daughter, who was now busy picking flowers.

Elin called to Robert: “Come and see! Such beautiful cowslips!”

Robert hurried to her side; he looked on the ground between the lush bushes but could see neither cowslips nor any other flowers. “Where are they?”

“They flew away!” the girl exclaimed in surprise.

“The flowers flew away?”

“Yes! Look, they are flying up there!” Elin was staring wide-eyed at a great many butterflies, beautiful yellow ones, sailing about above their heads. “I thought at first they were flowers.”

She had mistaken butterflies for flowers. And Robert thought perhaps she hadn’t been so much mistaken. After all the strange animals and plants they had seen in this country, he would not have been in the least surprised had he suddenly found flying flowers. Hadn’t they seen a flying squirrel today — a squirrel that flew between two trees and used his tail for a rudder! If squirrels in North America could fly, why not flowers also? “Anything might take flight!” Robert said.

They sat down near a raspberry bush and ate the juicy red berries.

Robert and Elin had made peace again, they had agreed they had nothing to quarrel about. She ought not to have been so talkative in New York, she ought to have kept to herself what he had confided about the captain’s slave trade. She had not asked Robert to forgive her for this treachery, but he had forgiven her in his heart. Besides, she had admitted to him that he had spoken the truth when, before leaving the ship, he had insisted that the Åkians would be unable to speak English when they stepped ashore, even though they were convinced they had been given the tongues of apostles. The only English words Elin knew, she had learned from Robert and not from the Holy Ghost.

And after she had promised not to divulge to a living soul what he was about to tell her, he related what had happened to Arvid and himself on Broadway Street in New York: He had saved Arvid’s life. An enormous, sinister-looking man had rushed toward them with a long knife in his hand, ready to stick it into Arvid and steal his nickel watch. He had been one of the fifty thousand murderers who lived in New York and who every day except Sunday commit at least one murder. The murderer had managed to get the watch away from Arvid and was aiming the knife at his heart, already piercing the cloth of his vest, when Robert had rushed up and given the man such a hard blow with his fist, right on the man’s temple, that he had immediately fallen backward and fainted. Then Robert had pulled the knife from the murderer’s hand and recovered Arvid’s watch. Police had arrived and had jailed the fallen bandit, and Robert had understood enough of their English to realize that they had lauded him profoundly: Thanks to his coolheaded interference, one crime less than usual had been committed that day. If he had wanted to, he could easily have stayed in New York and joined the police force.

But Elin must promise not to whisper a word to anyone about his saving Arvid’s life: he was not one to brag about his deeds; if he were able to do a favor for a friend, he liked to keep it to himself. Nor must she mention it to Arvid, who might feel embarrassed about the incident.

Elin listened to Robert in great admiration and gave him her promise of silence. In turn, she wanted to confide something to him: She was not going to remain with Danjel when they arrived in Taylors Falls, she intended to find employment with some upper-class American family. And he promised to help her with this, now that he could speak English with ministers and other learned Americans. As a matter of fact, he himself had no intention of working for Karl Oskar. He had other prospects of getting rich.

“What are you going to do?” the girl asked.

“I’m not going to work as a farm servant all my life. I remember Angelica.”

“What does that mean?” she asked curiously.

“It is the name of a woman, but it means much more than a woman ever could mean.”

And he was about to tell her of the clipper ship with the gold diggers and the red pennant which he had seen in the New York Harbor, when he suddenly lowered his voice and then stopped speaking: someone was approaching them from the other side of the bush. It was Arvid, picking raspberries. He did not notice them, although they could see him through the bush. Elin whispered: Arvid still had the hole in his vest, right over his heart. Yes, Robert said, that was the tear slashed by a murderer’s knife, on the most beautiful street in the world. Now she could see for herself that Robert always spoke the truth.

The others were ready to resume their walk, and the youth and the girl, their hunger lessened by forest raspberries, rose to join them. Arvid caught up with them and complained to Robert that he had just torn his vest on these darned big thorns on the bushes here; he must have it mended at once or he might lose his watch. Robert glanced around rather nervously to make sure Elin had not heard.

The travelers now felt rested and well pleased. Evil and good fortune shifted quickly for them: yesterday they had been lost, hungry, and wet; today the weather was pleasant and they rested in fresh grass under a shady oak and ate fresh fruit. They were pleased with the land they saw about them; it gave good promise: this was the land where they would settle. They felt almost repaid for the arduous journey and its great inconveniences.

“Fair is the country hereabouts,” Danjel Andreasson said. “The Lord has led us to a blessed land.”

All agreed with these sentiments. Danjel had just finished his table prayer and now he took out his Bible: before he rose from his first meal-rest on the ground of the new land he would like to bend his knees and thank the Lord God who so far had led and aided them.

He knelt near the great oak and read from the Bible the Lord’s words to his servant Joshua, who, with the tribes of Israel, was ready to ford the river Jordan to dwell in the promised land after the many years of wandering in the wilderness: “Be strong and of good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which I sware unto their fathers to give them.”

The playing children were silenced and all the grownups rose and stood in a circle around Danjel; the men removed their hats, and men as well as women folded their hands and bent their heads. The little group of wanderers stood immobile and silent under the great tree. Danjel Andreasson knelt and bowed his head toward the sturdy trunk of the oak, now his altar, folded his hands over his breast, and uttered his prayer of thanks:

“A strange land has kindly opened its portals to us, and we have come to live here peacefully and seek our sustenance. But we would have been like newborn lambs, let out to perish among the heathens in this wilderness, hadst not Thou, Lord, sustained us. Hunger would have ravaged us, pestilence stricken us, wild animals devoured us, if Thy fingers of mercy were not upon us. We have journeyed thousands of miles, over land and water, and Thou hast saved our lives and all our limbs. Be strong and of good courage! So Thou spakest to Thy good servant and to his folk. Thou hast promised to give us this land and we want to be Thy servants. Aid us in this foreign and wild land, as Thou hast helped us until now. We have here eaten our meager fare in Thy forest, and we call on Thee from this ground which Thou created on the First Day. We are gathered in this church which Thou Thyself builded and whose roof is raised taller than any other church — Thy heaven is its roof. O Lord, here in Thy creation, in Thy tall temple, we wish to praise Thee and sing to Thy glory as well as we may with our singing tongues! Turn Thine ear to us and listen, O Lord!”

Then slowly and haltingly Danjel Andreasson, still kneeling under the oak, began to sing a psalm. He sang in a weak and trembling voice. The group around him joined in, one after another, as they recognized the hymn:

Eternal Father in Whose hand,

From age to age, from land to land,

All mortals comfort seek,

Ere mountains were, or man, or field,

Ere pastures gave their season’s yield,

You were, and are, forever. .

The wind had died down and the voices echoed through the forest — weak voices and strong, rough voices and sweet, husky and clear, trembling and steady, men’s and women’s voices. And the chorus rose for each verse higher and higher under the lush ceiling of branches and leaves of the wide tree; a hymn in a foreign language, by a little group from far away, a song never before heard in this wilderness:

The lilies bloom with morning’s breath,

Yet eventide beholds their death

So Man must also meet his doom,

A flower, a mere withering bloom. .

When the song to the Creator’s glory had rung out to an end, the immigrants again loaded their burdens on their backs and resumed their walk with increased confidence. And over their resting place with its downtrodden grass stillness and silence again reigned, disturbed only by a faint whispering in the thick foliage of the oak.

— 3—

They knew how quickly dusk could fall in this country, and a good while before sunset they began to look for a place to camp. They chose a pine grove where the ground was covered with thick moss. They collected fallen branches in a great pile, and so dry was this excellent fuel that the very first match ignited it. Karl Oskar, Danjel, and Jonas Petter each had a box of matches brought from Sweden, which they used sparingly, each box being used in turn for fairness. The women cooked their evening meal in Fina-Kajsa’s limping iron pot; they fetched water from a running brook and to the water they added various leftovers to make a stew: Kristina donated a piece of pork, a few bread heels, and a pinch of salt, Ulrika scraped together a few spoonfuls of flour from the bottom of Danjel’s food basket, and Jonas Petter contributed a dozen large potatoes, which he had got from one of the cooks on the Red Wing in exchange for some snuff.

This stew was eaten by all in the company with such great appetite that none noticed how it tasted. Then Kristina offered as dessert one of the last things she had left in her Swedish food basket: a small jar of honey, which they spread on their bread. Each of the grownups got a small slice, each child a large slice.

After supper they gathered more faggots for the fire, which they had to keep burning, less for the sake of warmth than to keep off the swarms of mosquitoes. Nothing except smoke seemed to drive them away. Jonas Petter expressed the opinion that the North American mosquitoes were far more dangerous than the Indians, whom they hadn’t seen a sign of today; no heathens or cannibals could be so thirsty for Christian blood as were these bloodsucking insects, flying about everywhere with stingers sharp as needles. All complained about this new plague, and Fina-Kajsa most of all: she had been able to escape the scurvy and the tempests at sea, the fire in the steam wagon, the cholera on the steamboat — was she now to be eaten by these hellish gnats before she reached her son and had a chance to see his beautiful home? No, God wouldn’t allow this to come to pass. He ought to give her credit for the thousands of miles she had walked in her life to hear His word every Sunday. If God had any sense of justice He undoubtedly had written down in His book the many miles she had walked to church.

They gathered moss to sleep on and covered themselves with warm clothing and a few blankets. The children went to sleep the minute they lay down. All were tired from the day’s walk and their heavy burdens; they would sleep soundly in this camp during the night. But they didn’t forget that evil people and dangerous beasts might be in their neighborhood. The four men each in turn kept a two-hour watch; they must tend the fire, guard the sleepers, and rouse them in case of danger.

Robert was too young to keep watch, but he couldn’t go to sleep. He lay under a pine tree with his head toward the trunk. He had gathered enough moss to make a soft bed, but he felt as though his body were broken to pieces. Every muscle ached. And the forest had so many sounds to keep him awake. The leaves rustled, bushes and grass stirred, he wondered what kind of reptiles might lurk in the thickets. Buzzing insects swarmed in the air, the mosquitoes hovered over him with their eternal plaintive humming. There were sounds everywhere — hissing, whizzing, chirping. But the most persistent sound of all came from some small animal in the grass, it screeched and squeaked like an ungreased wagon wheel. It reminded him of a cricket, but it was louder and more intense, and it hurt his ears. He looked for the animal but could not find it; how was it possible that an animal could be so small and yet make such an infernal noise?

From his Description of the United States of North America Robert remembered all the wild beasts of the American forests; all of them might now lurk quite close to him in the dark, waiting their moment: the bear and the wolf to bite his throat, the rattlesnake to wreathe its body around him, the crocodile. . But Captain Berger had said there were no crocodiles in the northern part of the country. Wild Indians, however, were here in the forest, even though they hadn’t yet encountered them, and Indians could move without the slightest sound: before he knew it, without the least warning, he might lie here with his scalp cut off, wounded and bleeding to death. An Indian could cut off a scalp as easily as a white, Christian person could cut a slice of bread.

As herdboy at home Robert had never been afraid, but here he lay an his bed of moss and scared himself until he felt clammy with perspiration. Arvid slept only a few feet away from him, snoring loudly; he did not hear any sounds, not even the ones he made himself. And Robert could see Karl Oskar, who had taken the first watch — he moved like a big shadow near the campfire, now and then poking the embers with a branch, making the sparks fly into the air until they died high up among the treetops. His brother was not afraid: Karl Oskar and the others didn’t know enough to be afraid, they didn’t realize how dangerous it was to lie here and sleep. Had they possessed all the knowledge Robert had concerning lurking dangers during the night in Minnesota Territorial forests — if they only knew what he knew about the unbelievably sharp knives the Indians carried, and with what complete silence they could sneak up — then they wouldn’t enjoy a moment’s sleep.

Each time Robert was about ready to go to sleep he was disturbed by the screeching noise like an ungreased wheel from the small animal in the grass. And his injured ear began to hum and throb as it often did when he lay still. What kind of a sound could it be in his ear, never ceasing? Sometimes he wondered if some buzzing insect hadn’t managed to get in there. And as this noise had continued he had grown to hear less and less with his left ear. For two years now the sound had pursued him; it had followed him from the Old World to the new one. Perhaps it would stay with him and annoy him for the rest of his life, perhaps he would suffer from it until he died, and by then there would be small joy in losing it. And all because of that hard box on the ear which his master, Aron of Nybacken, had given him when he served as hired hand in Sweden; all this a hired hand suffered undeservedly because of the master. He had secretly shed many tears at the memory: How had God allowed this injustice to befall him?

Now he lay listening to his ear until the noise sounded like a warning: Don’t go to sleep! You may never awaken again! Or you may wake up with a knife cutting through your scalp! You will cry out and feel with your fingers and find warm, dripping blood. . Better not go to sleep! Listen to what your ear says!

But Robert slept at last, and slept soundly, awakening only when Karl Oskar shook him by the shoulders: It was full daylight, they must resume their walk while it still was cool — they would rest again later in the day when the sun was high.

The pot was on the fire again, the food baskets open. Blinking, still with sleep in their eyes, the immigrants sat down to their morning meal and scratched their mosquito bites. The men keeping watch had not once had to warn the sleepers. Several times during the night Karl Oskar had heard a howl in the distance — it might have been wolves but it could also have come from human throats, for it had sounded almost like singing, and he didn’t think wolves could sing. During Jonas Petter’s watch a sly, hairy animal had sneaked to the food basket and attempted to scratch it open. It looked like a young fox, it had a sharp nose, a long bushy tail, and was yellow-gray in color. He had shooed away the creature with a stake and hung the basket in a tree, to be on the safe side. But the beast had scared the devil out of Jonas Petter later — it had come back and climbed the tree to get to the food basket! He had had to throw a fire brand at the animal before he could get rid of it. He hoped he had burned the beast good and well — in fact, he was sure he had — he had smelled the singed hair for quite a while afterward.

It couldn’t have been a fox or a wolf since those beasts didn’t climb trees. Jonas Petter thought perhaps their night visitor had been an ape or large wildcat: the animal was long but short legged, and moved as quickly as a monkey.

Fina-Kajsa had her own opinion: “You say he was hairy? Then it must have been Satan himself. He must have tried to fetch you when you were awake alone!”

“If that was the devil, then I’m not afraid of him any longer,” retorted Jonas Petter. “If he is so badly off that he must snoop about nights and try to steal our poor fare, he must be near his end.”

But Fina-Kajsa knew that the devil was afraid of fire only, and if the brand hadn’t been thrown after him, Jonas Petter would have been missing for sure when they awoke.

“Did you hear the screech hoppers?” Ulrika asked. “I thought at first it must be ghosts or goblins. I couldn’t see a sign of them.”

All had heard the continuous screeching noise, but no one had seen the animal producing it. Kristina said that crickets and grasshoppers were, of course, also different in North America — perhaps they were invisible here.

Their walk was continued, but today the immigrants moved at a slower pace than yesterday, their legs weren’t so limber. Karl Oskar was footsore from his heavy boots, and his left leg gave him trouble intermittently. Johan, riding on his shoulders, grew heavier and heavier and he tried to persuade the boy to walk on his own legs. But after a few steps he wanted to ride on his father’s back again: “You carried me before, Father.”

“But don’t you understand, dear child, your father is worn out,” said Kristina.

“He wasn’t worn out before. . ”

Arvid had a strong back and could carry more than his allotted burden — he relieved Karl Oskar and carried the boy now and again. Karl Oskar was more heavily laden than the others, and Kristina felt sorry for him; she could hear him puff and pant as their trail led uphill, and she knew that his left leg wasn’t quite well yet. He didn’t complain, not one single word, but she wondered where his thoughts might be: Hadn’t their troubles and inconveniences been greater than he had anticipated when deciding to emigrate? Here he lumbered along like a beast of burden — had he ever expected to haul his children on his back miles and miles through wilderness in America? She was sure he hadn’t. Yet he would never admit this, he would never admit anything was more difficult than he had thought it would be.

“It’s too much for you to carry two children,” she said.

“You also carry two,” he reminded her.

They kept up their walk during the morning hours when the weather was cool, rested for a while during the noon heat, and continued in the afternoon as the sun grew lower. During the second day they did not meet a single person, either red or white. This did not surprise them. The forests were vast, yet sparsely settled. But as long as they were able to manage by themselves, they were just as pleased to find the forest empty of people — strangers weren’t always trustworthy.

The ridge with the trail wound its way through ravines and clefts in the rocks. The terrain was hilly, the soil poor, and for long distances the ground was bare, with no signs of the trail. Then they walked where the going was easiest and kept close to the river that was to show them the way to Taylors Falls.

The second night they made camp in a cleavage of the ridge. This night no furry animals came to sniff their food boxes, and they were disturbed by no living creature except the mosquitoes.

They had been told they would arrive about evening of the third day. During the afternoon they began to look for the village in the forest where Anders Månsson, Fina-Kajsa’s son, had his home. As yet they had seen no sign of human habitation, no sign of people.

According to her son’s letters, insisted Fina-Kajsa, his home was situated near a river with great cliffs along its shores and many falls and rapids. One place was called The Devil’s Kettle because it was the entrance to Hell. Now they could see how steep the cliffs were along the shore of the St. Croix River. All stopped to look at the rapid current as it came rushing along down the cliffs with a terrific roar. This could well be the region Anders Månsson had described in his letters. But there wasn’t the slightest sign of people living near by.

They walked on a little farther, and Fina-Kajsa was now sure they had lost their way. A farm like the one he had described could not possibly be located in this region — her son couldn’t live near here. She suspected that the little Norwegian who directed their way from Stillwater had been false and unreliable: he had undoubtedly led them astray on purpose. By now the old woman was completely exhausted, dragging her feet, stumbling and falling into holes in the trail, she had to be helped up several times.

“Oh my, oh me! We’ll never get there! Oh my, oh me!” said Fina-Kajsa.

They had only a few hours until darkness would fall and their third day would come to an end. They must again prepare to sleep in the open. And their food was running low, they would hardly have enough for the evening meal. They had eaten a lot of berries during their walk, but berries did not satisfy hunger.

The men were talking about what to do, and all walked with slower, wearier steps as the sun sank lower. Should they make camp or go a little farther? Then they came into an opening in the forest and suddenly discovered a clearing where every pine had been cut down. They stopped short in surprise.

“These trees were only recently cut down!” Karl Oskar exclaimed.

The stumps were new, and branches and logs were strewn about. The stumps were three feet high — yes, those lazy bastards had stood straight backed while felling the trees.

“And there they have left the ax,” said Arvid, and pointed to a tall stump. Karl Oskar quickly stepped up to the ax and loosened it, not only because he wanted to inspect an American tool but for a much more important reason: If a pregnant woman let her eyes fall on an ax stuck in a stump or chopping block, then her child would be born with a harelip, and this was an incurable defect. Karl Oskar hoped that Kristina had not noticed the broad-bladed ax.

Jonas Petter, who was a bit ahead of them, now called out in great happiness: “Folks live back there!”

A few gunshots to the left of their trail, the clearing ended in a green meadow where a cabin could be seen against a stand of leaf trees.

It took only a few minutes to reach the newly built shake-roofed log cabin. A small field near by had growing crops, and two cows grazed in the meadow, fine, fat animals with full udders.

This was a settler’s farm, here they could buy milk; cows with such splendid udders must give many gallons at each milking. They all sat down in the grass outside the cabin, and Karl Oskar brought out his stoup from the knapsack; then he went up to the door and knocked.

A middle-aged, scrawny woman with heavy men’s boots on her feet opened the door. She looked curiously at the group outside. There was fear in her eyes as she turned them on Karl Oskar. Seeing her look of fright, he remembered what Kristina had said about his unkempt beard and hair. Not wishing to be mistaken for a robber he tried to look as friendly as possible and greeted her pleasantly in Swedish. The few English words he had learned he could never remember at such a time, but he talked with his hands and held out his stoup, then he moved it to his lips as if drinking. He tried in this way to tell her that he wanted to buy milk. The woman in the doorway said something incomprehensible and then she just stared at him. He opened his mouth still wider and acted as if gulping gallons from his vessel, at the same time pointing to the cows — the woman must understand what he wanted.

But she looked still more frightened and stared at him as if he might be insane. Perhaps she thought he was making fun of her. He was unable to make himself understood and he had little confidence in Robert after their experience on the street in Stillwater.

However, just as the woman prepared to shut the door, Robert stepped up and said clearly in English: “We want to buy milk.”

She looked searchingly at the English-speaking youth who was beardless, but long haired, and they realized she understood him. He repeated his request a second and a third time, and each time she nodded in comprehension. Then she left them and disappeared into the house, returning in a few moments with a large wooden pail filled almost to the brim with milk.

Both Kristina and Ulrika spoke heartfelt Swedish words of thanks to the woman, and all gathered with their mugs around the milk pail.

Kristina turned to Robert and said: “We have you to thank for this milk!”

At last Robert had shown that he could lend his mouth as a help to all, explain in the foreign language what they wished, and obtain what they needed. This time he had prepared himself well: he had repeated the words to himself many times before he used them: We want to buy milk. This was the way he must do it — chew the words many times, as he chewed his food.

Robert grew courageous from his success, and as the kind woman was returning to the cabin he followed her and said: “Respected Sir, how can we reach Taylors Falls?”

He asked Karl Oskar to show her the piece of paper with Anders Månsson’s address. But she did not look at it or answer him — instead she hurried inside and closed the door. When Robert tried to open it he found it bolted. The woman had given them a pail of milk and then she had locked herself in the cabin, without even waiting to be paid! That was peculiar.

The immigrants eagerly emptied the milk pail; the children were given as much milk as they could drink, and there was still plenty for the grownups. The milk was cream-thick, the cows hereabouts must get good grass; all felt refreshed by this unexpected refreshment.

But the American woman had not waited to be paid. She had locked herself in the cabin. She was afraid to let them come inside, this much they understood.

They put the empty pail at the door and waited for her to reappear. Robert was still determined to find out where Anders Månsson lived. And he began to practice a new sentence: I want to expose you this paper with an address. . when suddenly a dog’s bark was heard quite near them, and two men with guns in their hands approached across the clearing.

The men who headed toward them were apparently hunters. They wore broad-brimmed hats and skin jackets on which the fur still clung at the seams. They were unkempt, fully bearded, and were accompanied by two fierce curs whose hair stood on end. As they neared the Swedish immigrants they lifted their guns threateningly. The dogs barked furiously, and the frightened children began to yell.

A commotion of indescribable fear broke out among the travelers at the strangers’ unexpected behavior. The women pressed their children to them and huddled together, the men looked irresolutely from one to the other, feeling for their knives. The strangers acted and spoke roughly, and although the immigrants couldn’t understand their words, they understood their guns: the men ordered them not to move and seemed ready to lay hands on them. Karl Oskar and Jonas Petter fingered their knives — their guns were still in their chests in Stillwater — and wondered what kind of ruffians they had encountered. What did the men want? If they were hunters, they ought to pursue their game and let peaceful folk alone. This Karl Oskar and Jonas Petter told them in Swedish.

A third man was now approaching across the clearing. He was shorter than the other two, but he too had a gun and was dressed like them. His trousers had great patches over the knees. He carried two rabbits by their hind legs, blood dripping from their headless bodies. He looked more threatening than either of the other two hunters.

The unarmed group of men, women, and children was now surrounded by three men with guns, apparently hunters of peaceful human beings. Now they were indeed in danger and they huddled close together like a herd of game, stalked and encircled by hounds. What could they do?

The dogs rushed to the third hunter and licked the blood dripping from his rabbits. Then, suddenly, one of the immigrant women rushed after the dogs, calling in fury at the top of her old voice: “You bastard! Don’t you know how to behave?”

It was Fina-Kajsa, the oldest and most decrepit of the women. She rushed forward in an insane rage as if threatening the ruffian. But suddenly she stopped and stared at the man, and the hunter with the rabbits pushed back his broad-brimmed hat; he too stopped and stared; his chin fell, leaving his mouth open.

Fina-Kajsa took a few steps forward: “Shoot your paltry rabbits, but leave peaceful folk alone! Have you no shame at all, boy? To meet your old mother with a gun!”

The hunter’s chin fell another inch. He dropped his rabbits on the ground.

“Throw down your shooting iron too,” Fina-Kajsa ordered him.

“Mother!”

“I had expected you to greet me like a decent man. And here you and your pack of friends aim guns. . ”

“Mother — I didn’t expect you!”

“I thought I would never get here. But here you see me as I am, Anders my son.”

“Mother — you’re here!”

“I thought America had no end!”

“Where’s Father?”

“He lies on the bottom of the sea.”

“Is Father dead?”

“As dead as the rest on the bottom of the sea! And the grindstone he had brought for you lies there too.”

“Did Father bring me a grindstone?”

“The stones are cheap on Öland. Here is our old iron pot! Here, right in my hand! They broke one leg. . Anders. . if you don’t recognize your mother you at least remember our old pot!”

“Yes, yes! You bring our old gryta! Yes, yes. . Welcome, Mother!”

Mother and son had found each other, and the group around them listened in silence.

— 4—

They had reached Taylors Falls; they were only a short distance from Anders Månsson’s home.

He told them he had been out with his two neighbors to shoot some rabbits for supper. And now they also heard the explanation for the strange behavior of the woman and the other two hunters: The settlers here were afraid of cholera, and all newcomers were met and questioned before they were allowed to enter the settlement. If anyone arrived from a contaminated region he was put into a shed near the falls where he was fumigated with sulphur and tar for a few days before he was let out. Weak people could not stand the ordeal of being smoked like hams, some only lasted a day before fainting. But it was a fact that in this manner they had so far avoided the sickness in Taylors Falls.

Fina-Kajsa pointed out to the group what might have happened to them if she hadn’t been along to recognize Anders. And turning to her son she asked: “But what kind of sickness ails you? Your face blooms like a red rose!”

“It’s the heat, Mother.”

Anders Månsson greatly resembled his father, whom they all remembered from the beginning of their journey, and whom they had helped bury in the North Sea. Anders was a thickset man with broad, somewhat stooping shoulders. He was almost bald, his complexion was red, his nut-brown eyes restless, avoiding a direct look at them. At first he had looked threatening, but now they discovered he was shy to a fault.

Twilight was upon them, they had arrived none too soon. They walked down a slope, through a grove of green trees, and arrived at a level, low-lying piece of ground. They could see water, a lagoon or small tarn, bordered by tall grass. Near the water was tilled ground, they saw a yellowed stubble field with some rye shocks. These were Anders Månsson’s fields which he himself had cleared. By now it was too dark to see how far the fields extended. A cabin stood in the flat meadow, with a few lindens and elms around it. There were other cabins across the rye field.

Anders Månsson approached the small cabin of roughly hewn logs; it was situated like a hay barn in the meadow.

“So this is your hay shed,” said Fina-Kajsa.

“Hay shed?” the son repeated, as if not remembering what the Swedish word meant.

Anders opened the door, and Fina-Kajsa stuck in her head to inspect the hay crop in her son’s shed.

“Did you get much hay this summer?” she asked. She couldn’t see any hay at all, but in the dim light she espied pieces of furniture; clothing and tools hung on pegs around the walls: “You keep your hay shed empty!”

“Yes — no — You see, Mother, I have no hay in this house—”

“Do you have people living in the barn?”

“I live here myself.”

“Isn’t this your hay barn?”

“No, Mother. It is my house.”

“But why do you live in the barn? Where’s your main house?”

“I have built this cabin for my own use. Welcome to my home, Mother! We must boil these rabbits for supper.”

And Anders Månsson took out his hunting knife and began to skin and clean his game.

Fina-Kajsa turned to her Swedish traveling companions: “My son is the same! Here he stands lying to my face. He won’t show us his home. He’s telling stories. All of you can see this is nothing but a barn. A small barn.”

The rest of the immigrants had at first, like the old woman, taken this cabin for a hay barn, since it sat in the middle of a field. Also it was rather small, not more than fifteen or sixteen feet square. And the door, cut through the logs without a jamb, was as low as a barn door. Kristina whispered to Karl Oskar: This house was exactly like their meadow barn which had burned down when lightning struck it.

But by and by they all understood that Anders Månsson had led them to his main house; this barn was his home. All understood this, but none mentioned it — none except his mother.

“Anders! Don’t fool me any longer! Show me your house!” she commanded.

“This is my house, Mother! Come into my house, all you Svenskar! I’ll fix you a good supper tonight.”

And the immigrants obeyed him and entered his humble abode; fatigue had overcome them to the very marrow of their bones, and they climbed with great contentment over the log serving as threshold, happy and pleased to be in a house, under a roof, having reached a shelter where they could rest.

But old Fina-Kajsa sat down on her pot outside the cabin, she remained there, repeating more and more severely, “Take me to your house!”

While all the others gathered in the cabin, and darkness fell, she remained there, sitting on her iron pot. At length Anders went outside and half carried, half dragged his mother over the threshold.

The group from Ljuder had now reached the end of their long journey. All but the widow Fina-Kajsa Andersdotter from Öland. She had not yet arrived: she had not yet seen the home her son had described in his letters. It had come to pass as she had predicted so often during the journey: she would never arrive.

XIII. DISTANT FIELDS LOOK GREENEST

— 1—

The arrival of the Swedish immigrants in Taylors Falls was a momentous occurrence. The whole population of the village consisted of only thirty-odd people, and with the fifteen new arrivals it was increased in one day by half. Until now there had been only four women in the settlement; with the arrival of Fina-Kajsa, Kristina, Ulrika, and Elin their number had doubled. Previously there had been only three families, the rest were single men.

Taylors Falls had been named for an American, Jesse Taylor, who was the first white man to settle here, twelve years earlier; he had built a sawmill at the falls. He had since died, but the mill was operated by an old Irishman named Stephen Bolles who had also started a flour mill. A German couple, the Fischers, had recently opened a combined inn and store, consisting of two log cabins connected by a roofed passage. Mr. and Mrs. Fischer also kept a bull to serve the settlers’ cows. A general store was owned and operated by a Scot, Mr. Abbott, who was the postmaster as well, with the post office located in the store. The largest building in the settlement was occupied by the Stillwater Lumber Company.

Besides Fina-Kajsa’s son, two other Swedes lived in Taylors Falls, one man and one woman — Samuel Nöjd and Anna Johansdotter, the latter known as Svenska Anna, or Swedish Anna. Samuel Nöjd was a fur hunter by trade, and Swedish Anna was cook in a logging camp a few miles north of the village. With fifteen newcomers the Swedish population in this part of the St. Croix River Valley increased six-fold at once.

Anders Månsson offered the use of his cabin to his homeless countrymen until they could build living quarters for themselves or for as long as they wished to stay. Helping them thus he was only repaying a debt: “You have cared for my mother,” he said.

And should they feel too cramped in his cabin, they might sleep at German Fischer’s inn; lodging there would cost only ten cents a night for each person; they would, of course, have to sleep with other people, but never more than four in the same bed; and the host was quite strict and let no one wear his boots in bed. The Fischers were particular and cleanly people and maintained good order at their inn.

There were now sixteen persons living in Anders Månsson’s small cabin; but they had become accustomed to close quarters during their voyages; indeed, they had been more cramped in the holds. Here they could let their children run outside in the daytime and could themselves go out whenever they wished, so they need not jostle each other in the house all the time. Since Anders Månsson was kind enough to let them use his house, they accepted gratefully. In this way they saved a dollar and fifty cents a day, the amount it would have cost them if all had been forced to sleep at the inn. And Fina-Kajsa’s son felt proud that they considered his cabin good enough; he was well pleased with it himself. During his first winter in Taylors Falls he had lived with thirteen other people in a cabin half as large as this one. He said it was only nine feet square, and only six feet from the ground to the roof, and it had no flooring.

The travelers could now rest for a few days until their belongings arrived. The men helped Anders Månsson harvest his crop. His fields were smaller than they had realized; he had broken barely eight acres. He owned a team of oxen and two cows as well. But he would only keep one cow for the winter; he intended to butcher the other one, for she was too old to breed. Each time he milked his cows all four women came to watch him: they had never before seen a man do the milking.

As soon as the news spread of the arrival of guests at Anders Månsson’s, the two other Swedes in the settlement came to visit the immigrants from their homeland. Samuel Nöjd, the fur hunter, was a friendly, talkative man of about fifty, but he mixed so many English words with the Swedish that they understood only half of what he said. He had been in North America more than ten years, he had moved from place to place, and soon he would move away from this river valley: desirable fur-bearing animals were getting scarce hereabouts. He advised his countrymen to take land on the prairies instead of here.

Swedish Anna was in her forties, a buxom woman with big arms and a voluminous bosom. She was the picture of health, capable and unafraid, as a woman cooking for men in a logging camp should be. She showed also a tender, motherly side: she was much concerned over the small Swedish children and was surprised that the babies could have survived the long journey in such good health. Swedish Anna was a widow who had emigrated alone from Östergötland; Samuel Nöjd came from Dalecarlia.

Counting the new arrivals, there were now immigrants from four Swedish provinces in this valley; and the Smålanders, of course, were in the majority.

The newcomers were eager for information and at every opportunity questioned those who had arrived earlier: How was life for settlers in this St. Croix Valley, and how should they go about the business of getting settled? Anders Månsson, himself a homesteader, could best advise them; but he was a man of few words; much probing was required to learn anything from him. This much they discovered: The Territory was almost as large as all of Sweden, yet hardly more than two hundred settlers had taken up land and begun tilling it. Most of these lived to the south in Washington County. The Territory was as yet surveyed only along the rivers. To the west and southwest the whole country was still unsurveyed and unclaimed — it lay there free and open to the first claimant.

There was indeed space for all, land in abundance. But many of the inhabitants of the river valley took land only for the timber, said Anders Månsson. They did not clear fields, they cut down the forest and sold the lumber for a high profit. They left the soil untouched and grew rich from the forest. Most of the newcomers had only one desire: to get rich quickly.

The farmers from Ljuder said they had not come for that purpose. They were merely seeking to earn a living, they intended to break land, build houses, settle down: they had come to live on their land as settlers of this country, where they hoped in time to better their condition.

But they must begin from the very beginning and find everything a farmer needed, ground and house, chattel and cattle. And they were filled with concern at learning how much livestock cost: a cow, thirty dollars, a yoke of oxen, one hundred dollars. Hogs and poultry also fetched sky-high prices; Anders Månsson had only recently bought a laying hen in St. Paul for five dollars, but she had died of loneliness, and so he was unable to treat them to eggs. The exorbitant prices were explained in this way: domestic animals were also immigrants into the Territory, and as rare as the settlers themselves.

One evening, as all were gathered together in Anders Månsson’s cabin, Karl Oskar asked his advice: What should a man in his predicament do? He had sold his farm in Sweden, but most of the money had been spent on the journey, and he was now practically a pauper. He had only ninety dollars left in cash. A farmer needed first of all a team of oxen, and he didn’t even have enough money for that! And how could he buy land with the small sum he had left?

“You don’t pay for the land before it’s put on the market,” Anders Månsson explained. “To begin with, you must sit down on the claim as a squatter.”

And he explained what the word squatter meant — a settler who built his house on land that had not yet been surveyed or sold. That was why he needn’t pay anything for the claim to begin with. Later, when the land had been surveyed, the government would put it up at auction and he would have priority because he had been there first. Anyone wanting to take a claim as squatter need only locate and mark the place he wanted and report it to the land office in Stillwater. Then he could remain in security on the land until it was offered for public sale. It might be several years before he need begin paying for the land.

This arrangement sounded generous to Swedish peasant ears — no one could ask for better conditions.

“I came here as a squatter myself,” said Fina-Kajsa’s son. “To squat means to sit on one’s haunches.”

“Skvatter. . skvatter. .” Karl Oskar attempted to pronounce the word, but its sound had something degrading in it, it sounded like a reproach to his poverty. “Yes, I guess I too must be such a one. An impoverished farmer, arriving in America. .”

The other two farmers were better off than he; Danjel had four hundred dollars left from the sale of his farm Kärragärde, and Jonas Petter had about two hundred and fifty dollars left of his traveling money. Karl Oskar had the least for a new start. But Anders Månsson advised all three to take squatters’ claims on unsurveyed land, then they could use their cash for livestock and implements. Each settler could claim a hundred and sixty acres, the American acre being a little less than the Swedish acre.

Karl Oskar thought: The manor at Kråkesjö at home had only seventy-five acres of tilled fields. If all the land he could take here were tillable, he would have fields for two manors!

Anders Månsson also told them the price they would have to pay when the land went on sale: one dollar and twenty-five cents for each acre. This sounded like a most reasonable price for such rich and fertile land as they had seen on their walk from Stillwater. A farmer would undoubtedly be able to manage and prosper here as soon as he got started.

Anders Månsson continued: All products from the fields commanded high prices: bread, butter, pork, milk, eggs, cheese. Consequently, broken ground was highly valuable. If they were able to clear and plant the fields, and hold on to them, they would soon be well off. He himself had experienced great adversity during the four years after his arrival; the first summer his crop had suffered from drought, the second year a forest fire had spread to his fields and part of his rye had burned while in the shocks; last year it was the grasshoppers, which appeared in such swarms that they darkened the sun and left nothing but bare ground behind them. Each fifth year was a hopper year, when every green blade was eaten, and last summer they had even devoured his jacket and the scythe handle which he happened to leave in the field; he could only be grateful they hadn’t eaten him too.

Karl Oskar had closely inspected Månsson’s fields and he did not think the Ölander was an industrious farmer; he had suffered adversity, yes — but why hadn’t he broken more land in four years? All he had to do was to plow this stone-free ground. Nor had he built a threshing barn as yet, in spite of all the lumber around him. Månsson threshed his crops in wintertime on the ice of the small lake. But that was a poor way to handle grain. Karl Oskar thought something must be wrong with Fina-Kajsa’s son, he seemed to lack energy and an enterprising spirit.

“The first years are hard ones for settlers,” Anders Månsson assured them. He continued: There were no roads anywhere out here in the wilderness, and it was not until last year that he had been able to buy a yoke of oxen in St. Paul. Before he got the team his chores had been endless; he himself had carried or pulled everything that had to be moved. A settler without a team had to use his own back, be his own beast of burden.

Fina-Kajsa looked searchingly at her son: “You’ve grown hunchbacked here in America, Anders. Have you carried something that was too heavy?”

“No longer, Mother. I carry nothing more now.”

He straightened his bent shoulders. Then he sat silent a while and replied only in monosyllables as they tried to glean more information about his four settler years. He seemed to avoid their questions and said at last, in an effort to clarify everything to them: He had had his difficulties at times, but he had managed, one way or another.

Jonas Petter questioned him to the very point: “Do you regret your emigration?”

“Oh no, nej! Never! I don’t mean that!” he assured them eagerly. “I have no such thoughts any longer.”

“I think you have been ailing, you look so old,” Fina-Kajsa said.

“The weather here is hard on one’s health,” the son exclaimed quickly. “If you intend to stay long in Minnesota Territory, it is well to take care of your health from the very beginning. I was sick the two first summers because I hadn’t taken care of myself.”

The first year he had felt lonely in America, and his thoughts had returned to Sweden at times. But the second year he had begun to like the country, and the third year he actually felt at home, and ever since, he had liked it more and more; in every respect the new country was better than the old.

And now he would soon get his American papers and become a “sitter.” “Sitter” was Anders Månsson’s word for citizen.

“I have already got my first najonal-paper.”

From his Swedish chest Anders Månsson produced a large paper, which he proudly showed his guests, but as it was printed in English, only Robert was able to glean some of its contents. They would all in due time get such papers, and then they too would become “sitters” in North America.

Anders Månsson’s house guests understood plainly that he was unwilling to tell all of what had happened to him out here. He was a taciturn man and seemed to have a secret, something that weighed on his mind.

The newcomers hoped to profit by the experience of those who had come before them. Already they were aware that their own problems would be greater because they had arrived at this inopportune season; it would be a whole year before they could harvest anything from the earth. Somehow they must sustain life during this long year of waiting; above all, they must manage to live through the winter.

— 2—

In time their belongings arrived at Taylors Falls, having been freighted by the lumber company’s barge; but they were dismayed at the great cost: thirty dollars! Karl Oskar, Danjel, and Jonas Petter must pay ten dollars each.

“Those dirty dogs!” exclaimed Karl Oskar, but aside from voicing his disgust he could do nothing about the price.

Anders Månsson was of the opinion that the lumber company took advantage of settlers as often as possible. A barrel of flour cost ten dollars in Stillwater, and fifteen in Taylors Falls, because the company charged five dollars for freight.

But the settlers had waited impatiently for their goods; now they had their own tools and needn’t wait another day to go out and find land; without delay they must seek out their places for settling.

The clothes chests from Sweden were opened. Karl Oskar first of all dug up his axes from the bottom of his chest.

“You have two axes!” Anders Månsson exclaimed in surprise. “Then you are not poor.”

Karl Oskar had only brought along one heavy ax and one hand ax. He still had no felling ax.

“If you have an ax all your own you are ahead of the rest of us.”

The settlers often owned an ax together, using it in turn, every second day, or every second week, according to agreement. Sometimes three might own one ax together. Anders Månsson knew a settler who had owned no tools except a knife and one-half of an ax when he arrived. Seeing all the tools Karl Oskar had brought from Sweden, he said with respect in his voice: A well-off man has arrived here.

Fina-Kajsa’s son had promised to go with them and point out places suitable to settle on. It was decided that Arvid and Robert should remain at home with the women and children while the men were away looking for land. Following their guide’s advice, they now made themselves ready for the expedition: they took food for three days, and each carried a copper container of water, as it was said they might get chills and fever from the stagnant water in the forest. Besides axes, they took their guns. In these regions no one went far from home without a weapon of some kind, and a settler was as much dependent on his loaded gun as a limping man is on his staff.

They were to walk through regions where Indians had their favorite hunting grounds; as yet their fall hunt hadn’t begun, but they moved their wigwams constantly and had no permanent camp. Anders Månsson had never been annoyed by the Chippewas, the tribe roaming in the forests near Taylors Falls; during the winter, Indians often came into his cabin to warm themselves, and they sat hours on end by the fire without saying a single word. Many times they had brought him venison. But the savages were never to be relied on; no one knew what they might do, or when they had murder on their minds. A trader, James Godfrey by name, living alone in his cabin not far from Taylors Falls, had been scalped by the Indians one night last winter as he lay in bed. It was thought that the trader had taken advantage of the Indians in some deal and that they had murdered him in revenge. The Chippewas never disturbed anyone unless they themselves had been disturbed or cheated.

So one morning at dawn the Swedish farmers set out to find new homes.

Småländers had always looked down on Ölanders, yet here walked three Småländers guided by an Ölander. They headed southwest down the broad valley. Their guide told them that if they continued in this direction they would find the most fertile soil in the whole river valley. A road had been begun from Taylors Falls, and they followed this clearing as far as it ran, then they had to find their own way, using their axes to cut through the worst thickets. The farther away from the river they walked, the fewer pine trees and more leafy wood they found. The birches here were mostly river birch, growing near water. The newcomers asked their guide the names of the trees that were unknown to them. He pointed out cedars and walnut trees, and they tried to remember the color of the bark and the shape of leaves and trunks. In a bog they discovered larches which they at first assumed to be some kind of pine tree. But the needles were softer, and they were told that these trees lost their needles in winter and made fine lumber. The deeper they penetrated into the lush valley, the larger and more numerous grew the sugar maples, from which sap was tapped in spring. From the rich, sweet maple sap sugar and sirup were made.

The three Småland farmers missed only one leaf-tree in this new forest — the alder tree, which supplied them with material for wooden shoes at home. And when they were told that no alders grew here, they wondered which one of the other trees might supply them with wood suitable for shoes. Their leather shoes would soon be worn out, and they would be forced to use the same kind of footgear they had worn in Sweden.

The land-seekers walked leisurely through the fertile valley, they did not walk straight ahead, they turned off to left or right, they made side trips, they observed everything they saw, particularly evaluating the soil. They walked as their forefathers once had walked through their homeland, countless thousands of years ago; they sought what their forebears had sought before a single turf had been turned in that parish where later generations had cultivated their fields. And they compared the American forest with the one at home and felt proud when they discovered that this enormously rich growth lacked one tree which was found in the forest of the land they had left.

They saw game frequently: rabbit ears stuck up in the grass, big fat squirrels scampered about and jabbered like magpies, near streams and lakelets they saw flocks of wild geese. Gnawed saplings indicated the presence of elk. Once a furred animal ran up a tree, and Jonas Petter recognized the hairy thief who had tried to steal their food the night they camped in the forest. He was told it was a raccoon, a harmless little animal that abounded in that country.

The forest shone luminously green, the grass stood tall in open places, an abundance of wild fruit and berries weighed down the branches of trees and bushes this beautiful August day.

“The Lord’s sun has never shone on a more pleasing countryside,” said Danjel Andreasson.

And where the land-seekers wandered now they had only to choose: they could stop wherever they wished and each stake out one hundred and sixty acres of land.

From time to time, Karl Oskar measured the depth of the topsoil with a small shovel he had brought along. Black mold lay on clay bottom; red clay on hard ground, blue clay on low-lying ground. In a few places he found sand mixed with the clay. But in practically every place he dug, he found topsoil to a depth of two feet, sometimes nearly three feet.

“More likely earth can’t be found in the whole of creation,” Jonas Petter said.

But they were also looking for clean drinking water; they had been warned that some of the stagnant pools and tarns were full of insects and small animals which caused dangerous sicknesses. If they were unable to locate a spring or running stream near their place of settling, they would have to dig wells for drinking water, and Anders Månsson maintained that this would be a heavy, long-drawn-out undertaking: once he had had to dig a well twenty-five feet deep.

He showed them all the lakes he was familiar with. The greatest lake in this region lay farther to the southwest and was called Ki-Chi-Saga; it was an Indian name, said to mean “Great and Beautiful Lake.” Anders Månsson himself had never roamed the forest as far as Ki-Chi-Saga, but he knew a Swede, Johannes Nordberg, who had reached the big lake last autumn. Nordberg was a farmer from Helsingland who had embraced Erik Janson’s new religion and had accompanied him to Illinois. Later he had fallen away from that sect and had left the colony on the prairie to look for a new place in which to settle in the north. He was said to be the first white man ever to see Lake Ki-Chi-Saga, and he had told Månsson that the finest land and the richest soil he had ever seen in this valley lay around it. He had gone back to Illinois but had promised to return last spring with many of Janson’s deserters to settle near the lake with the Indian name. As yet nothing had been heard of him.

However, added the guide, fine soil was obtainable much nearer. They needn’t go so far to find good places for settling.

The immigrants made no haste in choosing a site, but inspected the land carefully as they walked along. The heat also forced them to move slowly; they breathed heavily in the muggy atmosphere. They sought to refresh themselves with the water they had brought with them, but it was already tepid in the copper containers and did not quench their thirst.

In the depth of the forest they suddenly came upon a strange mound, and their guide told them this was an old Indian grave. They stopped and looked in wonder: earth had been thrown up in a great pile, and grass had grown over it. The mound had oval sides, narrowing at the top, and resembled a giant beast whose legs had sunk into the ground, an animal stuck in the forest and unable to move for so long that grass had grown on its back. And inside this huge body rested the dead savages, in the midst of their forest hunting grounds; they had never known Christ or the Gospel, throughout life they had been heathens, and so after death were lost souls. But peaceful seemed their camp, lying here in the thickest part of the wild forest, green and thriving was the grass covering their grave.

The peasants from Sweden stood a long time gazing at this mound built by human hands, rising like a round, green-furred animal-body, and they sensed that they beheld something immeasurably ancient, something from the long-past time of witches, trolls, and sagas. In this barrow where the country’s native hunters returned to dust, the immigrants sensed vaguely that inexplicable something which makes women and children shudder in the dark. Before encountering these savage people in life, they had come upon them in death, they had met the dead before the living.

The strangers from faraway Sweden knew nothing of the answer the Chippewa chief had given the whites when they had asked the price of the tribal hunting grounds: “Fill this valley with gold until it lies even with the hills! Yet we will not take your gold for the graves of our fathers. Wait still a little longer, until all my people are dead. Then you may take our whole valley, and all our graves, and keep your gold as well.”

The men who had traveled thousands of miles to take over the Chippewas’ land, and who measured the topsoil of the Indians’ hunting grounds, gazed in wonder at the grave in the forest; they stood there timidly, glancing about suspiciously, as though listening to the oldest saga of all sagas in the world.

— 3—

The land-seekers rested in the shade of some maples and ate from their knapsacks: bread and cold rabbit. They took off their shirts, wet and clammy with perspiration, and spread them to dry on the bushes. But as they sat with their upper bodies bare, the mosquitoes attacked them in great swarms and bit them furiously. They made a fire to drive away the plague, but Anders Månsson said the best way to protect oneself was to cover the whole body with mud; while sleeping in the forest one could in this way rest peacefully.

Anders Månsson had been a homesteader for some time, he seemed to have much useful information. Jonas Petter asked him how it went with men in these womanless regions. He remembered the little shoemaker in Stillwater who had looked with such longing at the women in their company. There was only one woman to each twenty men in the American wilderness; what did the men here do?

Jonas Petter put this question to Anders Månsson, but he looked away and answered only with an embarrassed grin. He was shy with people, especially with women; he had probably never touched a woman, Jonas Petter guessed. Fina-Kajsa had once asked her son, in the presence of all, why he hadn’t married yet. Anders Månsson had said nothing and had only grown redder in the face than he usually was.

Jonas Petter went on. He almost wished he had been turned into a woman here in America, as they were the only ones who needn’t sleep alone. Even Ulrika seemed to think she might get married out here; she had said she need only choose among the men ready for marriage.

“Well, why wouldn’t a man marry Ulrika?” Anders Månsson asked. “She is healthy and well shaped. How long since her last husband died?”

Jonas Petter and Karl Oskar exchanged glances: unmarried Ulrika of Västergöhl was taken for a widow here, as she had arrived without a husband but with a daughter. And here people might think whatever they wished, let them think her husband was dead. Ulrika herself had said, when questioned by Swedish Anna if her menfolk had died: Yes, of course her menfolk had died, all her menfolk had passed away from her forever, none would return, she had none left. And people in Taylors Falls now believed that Ulrika had been married and widowed many times, and none of her group would tell the truth about her carryings-on at home; all had agreed that everything discreditable that had happened in the land of Sweden, no matter whom it concerned, must be forgotten, buried, and lost in this new country.

Jonas Petter had almost let the cat out of the bag, but he saw Karl Oskar’s warning glance, and hastened to explain: Concerning Ulrika’s widowhood, he knew only what she herself had said — all her menfolk had left her forever, they were dead to her. And how long it was since the last one passed away, that Jonas Petter couldn’t say. But this much he knew: Ulrika was free and open to marriage.

Thus Jonas Petter avoided the truth without telling a lie.

Anders Månsson nodded and seemed satisfied with this information. Such an elegant and handsome woman as Ulrika, he said, would soon be married here in Minnesota Territory.

— 4—

Later in the afternoon the four Swedes reached a small, longish lake with low shores overgrown with reeds and grass. Oaks, maples, lindens, and ash trees were scattered in this region, but the ground nearest the lake was even and ready to till, sloping gently toward the water.

“Here it’s easy to break land,” said their guide. “This is a fine place for homesteading.”

They walked around the lake, a distance of only a few miles, and inspected the ground everywhere. Yes, the earth was easy to break; one need only turn it with the plow. The topsoil was two and a half feet deep in some places. Material for building grew everywhere close by.

Danjel and Jonas Petter were at once satisfied with the location and inclined to stake claims here. Karl Oskar admitted that the topsoil was excellent, but the ground nearest the lake was low and swampy, full of muddy pools and quagmires.

“It’s a mosquito hole,” he said.

Jonas Petter replied that the mosquitoes swarmed about every place and that they shouldn’t let this factor influence their decision. And when they discovered a spring with clear, translucent water under a fallen tree near by, he and Danjel were in enthusiastic accord: At this little lake they had found all they wanted, here they wished to settle.

Anders Månsson advised neither one way nor another. The lake was about seven or eight miles as the crow flies from Taylors Falls, and he didn’t think they would want to be farther away from people.

“It is far enough,” Danjel said. “Let us all three take claims here. This is a good place for us to live.”

They laid down their burdens at the edge of the forest and rested in the shade to talk it over. Danjel continued: As they had come from the same place at home, they oughtn’t to separate now, they ought to stick together. If they settled here, close to each other, they could help each other and enjoy each other’s company. To begin with, they could even use each other’s tools and teams.

Jonas Petter also wanted them to build close together, like a village at home; to live like villagers would be more enjoyable here in the wilderness than to live alone.

Then it was Karl Oskar’s turn to voice his thoughts: Just because there was so much space out here, they must not settle on top of each other, elbow each other and build their homes corner to corner as farmers did in Sweden. He thought they should live a little apart. They could do as they pleased, but he wanted to settle in a place some distance from the others. He didn’t, of course, mean to be so far away that they couldn’t see each other and help each other when needed.

Danjel wanted them to remain one family, as they were at present; the first Christians, whom he tried to imitate, had owned all things in common. But Karl Oskar wanted to think this over, and he would obey no head except his own. Even though Danjel well knew that his sister’s daughter’s husband never followed any advice, he now seriously tried to persuade him: “Don’t seek any farther! Be satisfied with this fair land.”

“I might find some more likely a little farther on.”

“We should be satisfied when the Lord has shown us this.”

Jonas Petter said: “Don’t be a fuss-pot, Karl Oskar! This place is good enough!”

But Karl Oskar turned to Anders Månsson and asked him for more information about the region near the lake with the Indian name. That farmer from Helsingland who inspected the soil, hadn’t he said that the richest farm land in this whole valley was beside that lake? Karl Oskar would like to see for himself if this were actually the truth before he chose his own land. How far from here would it be to the lake?

Anders Månsson didn’t think it was more than two miles from where they now were to Lake Ki-Chi-Saga, but he couldn’t say for sure. The country to the west and southwest had not yet been explored, no one except Indians and an occasional pelt trader had been farther. But streams ran in that direction, and if he followed one of these, he would undoubtedly reach Lake Ki-Chi-Saga.

Karl Oskar looked thoughtfully at the fields in front of him: he did not wish to appear displeased with what he saw, but he had once and for all made up his mind that he would have the best soil in North America, wherever it was to be found. And now it was said that the soil was even better at the other lake. Why be satisfied with the next best if the very best was within reach? Suppose he took a claim here — and then for the rest of his life had to regret not having gone a few miles farther. He couldn’t know until he had seen the other place. He was to settle down for the rest of his life, he wanted to choose carefully, find a place that he liked so well he would never want to leave it. He had traveled many thousands of miles, all the way from Sweden. He had strength left to go a few miles farther.

The farmer from Korpamoen was so stubborn that nothing could change his mind once he got an idea in his head, and Danjel and Jonas Petter could only wish him good luck when he said he would go on farther by himself. They had firmly decided to settle down here as squatters.

“Cut marks in the trees,” said Anders Månsson. “That means you have taken a claim.”

Danjel and Jonas Petter each blazed a maple; then Anders Månsson carved in each blazed tree a ten-inch-high letter, C: this indicated that the land at the lake had been claimed, anyone coming later would see it.

But Karl Oskar picked up his pack again — there were still some hours before sunset, and if it were only a few miles to the lake with the peculiar name, he thought he might get there before dark. He would be back by tomorrow noon, if they cared to wait for him, but if he were delayed they had better return to Taylors Falls without him; he was sure he could find his way back alone.

As he disappeared among the thick tree trunks, Jonas Petter looked after him and said: The old proverb was right — distant fields look greenest. .

— 5—

Karl Oskar Nilsson walked alone through the wilderness. He continued directly southwest, and when the trees did not shade him, the sun shone right in his face, burning him like a flame. Progress became more difficult, he had to use his ax often to get through. He reached a swamp where he sank down to his boot tops, he circled giant trees, seemingly yards around the base, he climbed over fallen trees whose upturned roots towered house tall, he walked around deep black water holes like wells, he tore his way through tangles of ferns and bushes, he fought thorny thickets which clawed his hands and face until they bled. At times he walked on the bottom of the forest ocean with the sky barely visible, at other times — while craning his neck to look up at the tall trees — he was reminded of the church steeple at home, which, as a little boy, he had thought reached into the very heavens.

Karl Oskar mused to himself that probably he was the first white man ever to go through the forest at this place.

The ground had been tramped by hunters and game, by soft moccasins and light cloven hoofs, by the pursued and the pursuer. But now came a man, lumbering along in heavy boots, who was neither Indian nor deer, neither hunter nor hunted. Cautiously he took one step at a time, treading firmly on the unknown ground. He had entered this forest on a new mission, a mission that had brought no one here before: Karl Oskar Nilsson was the first one to enter here with a farmer’s purpose of planting and harvesting.

In spite of the many obstacles hindering his progress, he felt in high spirits. During the whole journey from Sweden he had lived closed in with other people, forced to be part of a group. Here he had miles of space in every direction, he didn’t hit his head on a ceiling, his elbows against walls, he didn’t jostle anyone if he moved. Here he walked along as if the whole wide wilderness were his own, to do with as he pleased; wherever he wished, he could choose his land, blaze a trunk: “This earth is mine!” he thought.

He was in high spirits because he was the first one here, because he knew a freedom which none of those would have who came after him. He walked through the forest as if he had a claim to everything around him, as if he now were taking possession and would rule a whole kingdom. Here he would soon feel at home and know his way.

Now he was searching for Ki-Chi-Saga; the name was like a magic formula, like a word from an old tale about an ancient, primeval, moss-grown, troll-inhabited forest. He spelled the word and tried to pronounce the three syllables he had heard Anders Månsson utter; the foreign name had a magic lure; he would not return until he had seen this water.

He reached a rushing stream, which he followed; the creek, with all its turns, indicated the direction he must go. To make doubly sure of his way back, he blazed occasional trees with his ax as he had done all day.

Karl Oskar followed the brook until dusk began to fall. But he had not reached a lake, large or small. Fatigue from the long walk during the hot day overtook him, and he decided to find a place to camp for the night. In the morning he would continue his search for Ki-Chi-Saga. Perhaps the distance was greater than Månsson had guessed, perhaps the brook had led him astray — who knew for sure that it emptied into the lake? But he didn’t think he had gone far since leaving his countrymen, he had walked slowly and been delayed by having to cut his way through thickets.

He sat down to rest on a fallen tree; he ate a slice of bread and some meat and drank water from his container, water he had taken from the spring where the other men were. The landscape was different here, it was now more undulating and open. Should he lie down and sleep under this tree trunk, or should he try to go on? His feet had gone to sleep in his boots, his injured leg ached. Another day would come tomorrow — the land around him would not run away if he rested here for the night.

A flock of birds, large and unfamiliar to him, flew overhead, their wings whizzing in the air. They were quite low, barely above the tree-tops — they slanted their wings and descended and he lost sight of them. He guessed they were water birds — the lake must be near by!

This action of the birds made him decide to go on. After a few hundred paces he reached a knoll with large hardwood trees amid much greenery, behind which daylight shone through. He hurried down a slope and was in an open meadow. Now he could see: the meadow with its tall, rich grass sloped gently toward glittering water; the lake lay in front of him.

At first glimpse he was disappointed: this was only a small lake, it was not the right one. But as he approached he discovered that it was only an arm of a lake. Through a narrow channel it connected with other arms and bays and farther on the water expanded into a vast lake with islands and promontories and channels as far as his eyes could see. He had arrived.

All that he saw agreed with what he had heard — this lake must be Ki-Chi-Saga. Staggering with fatigue, he walked down to inspect it. He must complete his mission before night fell.

The shores had solid banks without any swamps, and he could see sandy beaches. Here and there, the topsoil had clay in it. The stream, his guide, emptied into the west end of the arm, near a stand of tall, slender pines. To the east a tongue of land protruded, overgrown with heavy oaks. A vast field opened to the north between the lake and the forest’s edge, open, fertile ground covered with grass. He went over to inspect the tongue of land with leaf-trees: besides the oaks there were sugar maples, lindens, elms, ash trees, aspens, walnut and hazel trees, and many other trees and bushes he did not recognize. The lake shores were low and easily accessible everywhere. Birds played on the surface of the water splashing, swimming in lines, wriggling about like immense feathered water snakes, and there were ripples and rings from whirling, swirling fins.

Karl Oskar measured the sloping meadow with his eyes. It must be about fifty acres. He supposed a great deal of this ground once had been under water, the lake had at one time been larger. The soil was the fattest mold on clay bottom, the finest earth in existence. He stuck his shovel into the ground — everywhere the topsoil was deep, and in one place he did not find the red clay bottom until he had dug almost three feet down.

Earlier in the day he had seen the next best; he had gone on a little farther, and now he had found the best. He had arrived.

He felt as though this soil had been lying here waiting just for him. It had been waiting for him while he, in another land, had broken stone and more stone, laid it in piles and built fences with it, broken his equipment on it; all the while this earth had waited for him, while he had wasted his strength on roots and stones; his father had labored to pile the stone heaps higher and higher, to build the fences longer and broader, had broken himself on the stones so that now he must hobble along crippled, on a pair of crutches for the rest of his life — while all this earth had been lying here waiting. While his father sacrificed his good healthy legs for the spindly blades that grew among the stones at home, this deep, fertile soil had nurtured wild grass, harvested by no one. It had been lying here useless, sustaining not a soul. This rich soil without a stone in it had lain here since the day it was created, waiting for its tiller.

Now he had arrived.

In the gathering dusk Karl Oskar Nilsson from Korpamoen appraised the location of the land: Northward lay the endless wilderness, a protection against winter winds; to the south the great lake; to the west the fine pine forest; to the east the protruding tongue of land with the heavy oaks. And he himself stood in the open, even meadow, the grass reaching to his waist, hundreds of loads of hay growing about him, covering the finest and most fertile topsoil; he stood there gazing at the fairest piece of land he had seen in all of North America.

Now he needn’t go a step farther. Here lay his fields, there grew the timber for his house, in front of him lay the water with game birds and fish. Here he had fields, forest, and lake in one place. Here things grew and throve and lived and moved in whatever direction he looked — on the ground, in trees and bushes, on land and water.

At last he had found the right spot: this was the place for a farmer’s home. Here he must live. And he would be the first one to raise his house on the shores of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga.

He turned left to the stand of oaks and selected the biggest tree he saw. He cut wide marks with his ax; then he took out his red pencil, his timberman’s pencil from home, and wrote on the wood: K. O. Nilsson, Svensk.

This would have to do; if it wasn’t sufficient, he must do it over some other time.The red letters on the white blaze in the oak could be seen a long way and would tell anyone passing by that this place was claimed. Besides, he wasn’t able to do more, not today. After the few cuts with the ax he suddenly felt tired, more tired than he had ever felt in his life. He sank down under the tree, heavily, and laid his pack beside him — his gun, ax, water keg, knapsack, all; he had forced himself to walk a long way, and now he had no more strength, he fell at last under the tree on which he had just printed his name.

He felt he couldn’t move, couldn’t do another thing this evening; he was too tired to make a fire, to gather moss for a bed, to take off his boots, open the knapsack, eat. He was too tired to do anything at all, even to chase away the mosquitoes — he no longer felt their smarting bites. He didn’t care about anything now, he was insensible to everything except the need to rest his body: he stretched out full length on his back, on the ground under the big oak, with his coat as a pillow.

He was satisfied with his day; he had persevered and reached his destination before the end of the day. He had found what he so long had striven to find. And this evening he rested, unmindful of all the dangers of the wilderness — he rested with the assurance of having arrived home, protected by his own tree, on his own land: The farmer from the Stone Kingdom had arrived in the Earth Kingdom which he would possess.

He went to sleep at once, his weary body fell into the well of oblivion, peace, and renewal. Karl Oskar Nilsson slept heavily and well during his first night on the shore of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga, where he was to build a farmer’s life from its very beginning.

XIV. A SMÅLAND SQUATTER

— 1—

The next morning Karl Oskar returned to the small lake where the other three settlers awaited him, and before nightfall the four of them were back at Anders Månsson’s cabin in Taylors Falls.

The following day the men began to stake out and cut a road through to their claims, so as to be able to move their belongings and whatever they might need for the settling. Their clearing work began where the logging road ended; they continued past the small lake where Danjel and Jonas Petter had decided to settle, all the way to Lake Ki-Chi-Saga. They were five menfolk. Five axes cut all day long, through thickets and groves, felling and chopping and clearing. They built a road, digging here, filling there, until wagon wheels could roll along over the ground. The distance from Taylors Falls to Lake Ki-Chi-Saga was estimated to be ten miles, and it look the five men ten days to make a passable clearing.

Then it took three days to haul boards from the Taylors Falls mill to their places of settling. With these boards they intended to raise huts in which to live while building their log houses. For the hauling they hired Anders Månsson’s oxen, which moved so slowly on the newly cleared road that a whole day was required for each load.

Their almanac indicated to the Swedish settlers that the year had reached the last week of August. Only two months remained before winter would come to the St. Croix Valley; they were told that snow and cold weather would begin early in November. But the autumns were mild in the river valley — during all of September and most of October pleasant weather was said to prevail. For another two months people could live in huts and sheds without discomfort or danger from cold. And during this time they must build more permanent houses, able to withstand all weathers. They had not one day to lose if they were to have comfortable log houses before winter set in with its severe cold and blizzards.

First they must build a shanty on each claim. “Shanty” was Anders Månsson’s name for a shed. Jonas Petter was an experienced carpenter and timberman, and in three days he had built his small hut on the shores of the little lake; then he helped Danjel and Arvid build a larger one for Danjel’s family to move into. As soon as this was done they began felling timbers for their log houses.

Karl Oskar chose as the site for his first home the oak grove where he had slept during his first night at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga. With Robert as helper he soon raised a hut of rough boards, about nine square feet in size; he made the roof of young lindens, on top of which he laid bark and sod. This work took him and Robert four days. There were not sufficient boards left for flooring, and the two brothers stamped down the ground and covered it with a thick layer of hay, which they gathered from the meadow. They had left an opening to the south, facing the meadow, and now Karl Oskar hammered together a door, which he hung on hinges he had made of willow wattles; then he cut open a few holes to let in light. He did not bother with a fireplace, as it would be difficult to get rid of the smoke. Instead, he built a makeshift cooking place of clay, sand, and a few stones outside near the door. This could be used as long as the warm season lasted. But he had to search widely along the shores before he found enough stones. To search for stones was a new and unusual occupation for the farmer from Korpamoen!

The family’s first home in North America was now ready, and they could move in under their own roof. Kristina and the children had remained with Anders Månsson and had not yet seen their new home. Karl Oskar prepared his wife cautiously: “It’s only a simple weather break: soon I'll raise a sturdy log house.”

She looked forward to being in her own home where she could have her own say; this had long been her fervent desire.

Karl Oskar borrowed the oxen from Anders Månsson for the moving, and their belongings made a big load. Besides their things from Sweden, they must bring a supply of foodstuffs, which Karl Oskar had bought from Mr. Abbott, the Scot, in Taylors Falls: one barrel of rye flour for bread, one sack of salt, a few pounds of sugar, and other necessities for the household; he had also bought various articles needed for the building of the main house. He had dug deep into his cash, spending almost twenty-five dollars. The barrel of flour would last a long time for bread baking, but he had bought no meat or pork: for more substantial food they must depend on game from the forest and fish from the lake.

It was a pleasant morning in early fall when the family from Korpamoen set out for Lake Ki-Chi-Saga. The weather was now cooler, with mild sunshine over the green forest wilderness; perfect weather for moving. Kristina and the children rode on the wagon, Karl Oskar and Robert walked on either side of the load, holding on to it now and then to prevent the wagon from turning over. Karl Oskar drove, holding the thongs in one hand and steadying the load with the other. The new road was rough and the wagon was no soft-rolling spring carriage: it was entirely made of wood.

The wheels of Anders Månsson’s ox wagon consisted of four trundles sawed from a thick oak log. The axles fitted into holes in these rough blocks and had pins of wood on their ends, like the pins in a single-horse pull shaft. The front wheels were a little smaller than the back pair; the wagon tree connecting the two pairs had holes in it to lengthen or shorten the wagon, if required. The dry wooden axles groaned as the trundles turned, they squeaked loudly at the friction of wood against wood. And the clumsy wheels jolted and rolled heavily over hollows and stumps.

The children yelled in delight; they had not been on a wagon pulled by a team since leaving the horse wagons in Karlshamn last spring. But Kristina was not so well pleased to sit on this jouncing, shaking wooden vehicle. And was this clearing through the forest called a road? Even a person walking would find it difficult to get through between stumps and thickets. She wondered that the wheels were able to roll at all, she sympathized with the whining, whimpering wagon; if she had been a wagon she too would have complained about being forced through this wild woodland.

Karl Oskar explained that the wagon was not greased; Anders Månsson did not keep his implements in good order. Nor had he himself been able to find any fat — animal tallow, or such — to use this morning for greasing the axles. The wagon reminded him that iron was as scarce here as wood was abundant.

Kristina called the vehicle “The Whimpering Wagon,” but the day they hauled the boards to the claim, Robert had already named it “The Screech Cart.”

The riders on the big load were soundly shaken; the wagon jolted and bumped, almost worse than a ship on a stormy sea — it rolled and pitched more than the Charlotta. After a few miles Kristina felt sick: “No! I want no more swinging! Neither on water nor land!”

She stepped down from the load and walked. She was afraid of being badly shaken; it might injure the child she carried in her. Only ten or eleven weeks remained before she would be in childbed, and she might have a miscarriage if she weren’t careful. She would rather walk than sit on a load that shook like a threshing floor, even though she had begun to be heavy of foot.

The ox wagon crept along the wretched road, squeaking and screeching. The load nearly turned over many times — only through the efforts of the two men was it kept upright. The oxen moved at a snail’s pace, and Kristina walked on one side and kept an eye on her children.

The trail skirted a glen in the depths of the forest, and here stood a strange pole which the Indians had erected. The settlers stopped to let the oxen rest while they inspected it. Karl Oskar and Robert had seen this image before — now they wanted to show it to Kristina. The pole was made from a cedar tree and stood taller than a man. But it did not represent a man — it ended in a snarling wolf’s head.

The wooden image in the midst of the forest seemed to Kristina a phantom, and she was afraid to go near it. Robert guessed it was some kind of god whom the Indians worshiped when they gathered here — remnants of huts were to be seen close by. Kristina knew that heathens lacked knowledge of even the first of God’s Ten Commandments, she knew they worshiped images, but she couldn’t understand how they could worship so horrible an image as this one — a wolf with ravenous jaws. She urged the group to continue their journey: the savages must revere their image; should they happen to arrive and find people gaping at the pole, they might do harm. And since she had seen what horrible idols heathens made unto themselves, she thanked her Creator from the bottom of her heart for letting her be born in a Christian land.

The plodding ox team pushed on sluggishly, step after step, and the wooden wheels rolled along, turning slowly while the axles cried out. Robert said the noise hurt his ears, particularly the injured one. To Kristina, the four wooden wheels sang a song about impoverished wanderers: their long-drawn-out wail was to her a song of their own tribulations, of their eternal struggle, of loneliness in the wilderness. Long had their journey taken, long would it be before they had a home. As slowly as these wheels turned on their axles, keeping up their constant groans of complaint — so slowly would they manage to establish a home.

But Karl Oskar, walking beside the wagon and urging on the team, said many times: “If these were only my oxen and my wagon!”

The complaint of the ungreased wheels did not dishearten him. He was stimulated, in high spirits at being able again to drive a wagon, however much it groaned — but he drove someone else’s team, someone else’s wagon. A settler who owned a team had improved his situation. If this had been his own team and his own wagon, then the squeaking wheels would have been a beautiful tune. If he had been the owner of this team and this wagon, he would be walking along listening to a happy song — a song of persistence, tenacity, and reward — a song of comfort to the ears of a settler.

— 2—

Their newly built road made a circuitous turn to Jonas Petter’s and Danjel’s settlement, lengthening the distance to Lake Ki-Chi-Saga. Karl Oskar had cleared a short cut to his own land which he now followed, thus lessening the distance by one mile. From Taylors Falls to Ki-Chi-Saga the road was now only nine miles.

Therefore, they did not drive by the smaller lake where their companions from Sweden had settled. Kristina knew full well that Karl Oskar had taken his claim farthest away — she had known this a very long time, long before he knew it himself. She had known it before they left Sweden — she had guessed he would search for a settling place as far away as he could within America’s borders.

How far away from people must they now settle down? She thought the road to their new home was long and tedious. But Karl Oskar explained to her, they hadn’t actually driven very far; it was the oxen, they were so slow and lazy that it took a long time to reach the claim. That was all. They could have traveled this road faster by foot.

Kristina asked: Wouldn’t they be there soon?

Karl Oskar answered: Only a little stretch farther.

Some time elapsed, and then she asked again: How much farther?

. . Oh, not very much; they would be there presently. . But when they had driven on some distance, her patience ran out: now she insisted that he must tell her exactly how much of the road was left.

He said he couldn’t tell her exactly, he hadn’t measured the road in yards, feet, and inches. Moreover, they were now supposed to count in American measurements, so he couldn’t compute the distance.

Kristina flared up: “Don’t try to make a fool of me! You’d better figure out that distance!”

He had jested with her about the road length only because she had asked so many times. He said, “Don’t be angry, Kristina. I didn’t mean anything.”

“You might at least have talked it over with me before you went so far away for land!”

“But I had to make the decision alone. You couldn’t have gone with us out here in the woodlands.”

“How far do you intend to drag us? Speak up now!”

“I’ve told you before — I’ve selected the best earth there is hereabouts.”

“But the road to it — it’s eternal.”

Karl Oskar assured her that when she arrived she would forget the tiresome journey to the wonderful land he had chosen. She must have confidence in his choice, she must rely on him here in America as she had done in Sweden.

But she was still vexed: he mustn’t think she would always endure his whims. He never asked anyone’s advice, he always thought he knew best. It was time for him to realize that he was nothing but a poor, wretched, fallible human, he too could make mistakes and wrong decisions.

“But I often ask your advice, Kristina. . ”

“Maybe sometimes. But then you do as you please!”

His wife was touchy in her advanced pregnancy, she was easily upset, but he mustn’t let this affect his temper, he must handle her carefully. She angered him at times, but when he controlled himself, she soon calmed down.

Suddenly he heard a cry from Kristina. He reined in the team with all his might. Little Harald had fallen off the wagon.

Robert picked up the boy before his mother reached him. Luckily the child had fallen into a mass of ferns, so soft that no damage was done. He cried only a few tears, caused more by fright than hurt. But now Kristina climbed onto the load in order to hold Harald in her arms the rest of the way. She was regretting her earlier outbreak: it was as if God had wished to give her a warning by letting her child fall off the wagon.

They now came onto more open, even ground, and Kristina no longer had to “ride a swing.” She looked over the landscape and saw many flowers; the countryside was fair and pleasingly green; she caught herself comparing it with the prettiest parts of her home village, Duvemåla in Algutsboda Parish.

In a moment the wagon rolled slightly down a wide meadow toward a lake. The ground sloped gently, and in no time they had reached the shore. The team came to a stop on an outjutting tongue of land.

Karl Oskar threw the thong across the back of the left ox: they had arrived. According to his watch, it had taken more than five hours to move their load from Taylors Falls. But that was because of the sluggish oxen; a good walker could cover the distance in three hours; their home here was not at the end of the world!

Kristina climbed down from the oxcart and looked about in all directions: this then was the lake with the strange name, Ki-Chi-Saga. The sky-blue water with the sun’s golden glitter on its waves, the overflowing abundance of green growth around the shores, all the blossoms and various grasses in the wild meadow, the many lush leaf-trees, the oaks and the sugar maples, the many birds on the lake and in the air — this was a sight to cheer her. This was a good land.

“The ground is easy to break,” Karl Oskar said. “There isn’t any finer!”

He hoped she would forget the long road and feel better as she saw the place where they would build their new home.

“You’ve found a nice place, Karl Oskar. It looks almost as nice as home in Duvemåla.”

Kristina had compared the shores of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga with the village where she was born and had grown up; it was the highest praise she could give. Looking at Karl Oskar she knew he had expected more, probably he had expected her, on seeing the land, to break out in loud praise and grateful joy as if they had arrived in the Garden of Eden. But all the while the thought would not leave her that here they must live like hermits in the midst of savages and wild beasts.

Karl Oskar pushed the whip handle into the ground and said the topsoil was as deep as the whip handle was long. He had measured all over — it was the same everywhere.

“Such pretty flowers in the meadow,” she said.

She saw things above ground, while Karl Oskar was anxious to impress her with what was under the surface; the growth came from below, down in the black mold which they couldn’t see, down there would grow the bread.

“There are only flowers and weeds now,” he said. “Bread will grow here from now on. You can rely on that, Kristina!”

This was Karl Oskar’s promise for the future, an earnest and binding promise to wife and children: here the earth would give life’s sustenance to them all, and his was the responsibility of breaking the land whence it would come.

The ox wagon with their possessions had come to a stop in front of the newly built board shed, and Karl Oskar and Robert began to unload; soon they were struggling with the heavy America chest. Kristina stood at the open door which hung there on its willow hinges; the children hovered around her.

She knew now how people lived out here when they began with the earth from the very beginning. Like Anders Månsson’s old mother, she too had taken his house for a meadow barn at first sight; it was so exactly like those rickety sheds on moors and meadows at home in which the summer hay was harvested. At first, she had been unable to accept that it was a farmer’s house and home. But at least it had been a solid house, built of logs. Here she stood in front of a still smaller hut, roughly thrown together of unfinished boards; this could not even be called a barn, it looked more like a tool house or a woodshed.

But then — what had she expected? Kristina looked at the shanty Karl Oskar had built for them; she realized her husband had done the best he could with a few boards, as yet she couldn’t expect anything better. Seeing how people lived out here, it would have been impossible to ask for anything better, to insist on a more comfortable house. No one could conjure forth a real home in a few days; she must be satisfied with a hut.

Karl Oskar looked at his wife, anxiously wondering what she might say about his cabin. Deep down he was a little ashamed not to be offering her a better home in the new country. They had traveled such a long way to come here — and at last they stood in front of a small board shed, hurriedly nailed together in a few days. She might not think it much of an achievement; even though he had prepared her in advance, he was afraid she might be disappointed:

“It’s only a shanty, as they call it here,” he said.

The very sound of the English word emphasized to Karl Oskar better than anything he could say in Swedish that this was a makeshift. He added, “The shanty will give us protection until the house is ready.”

“It’ll do as long as the weather is decent,” said Kristina, and felt the walls. “You put it up fast,” she added.

Karl Oskar had done carpentry work as a youth, helping his father, but he did not consider himself proficient. He could have built himself a hut of twigs and branches and saved the cost of the boards, but it would have been too wretched, he thought; and then the mosquitoes, they would have come in everywhere through the brush; boards were more of a protection in every way.

Now he was pleased Kristina had found no fault with his cabin; it was the first house he had made all by himself, however it had turned out. He himself knew how poor it was. But she had said not one belittling word about the shanty, however clumsy or crooked or warped it was. She had only praised him for his handiness and speed.

He said that in the beginning they must live like crofters, without flooring in their house, it couldn’t be helped. But see all the land they had! They might live like cotters but they had better and larger fields than the biggest farmer in Ljuder; they had reason to be well satisfied.

“And next time, Kristina, just wait and see! Next time we shall timber a real house! A real home! Just wait and see. . ”

And he waved his hands in the direction of the pine stand across the meadow where the lumber still stood — couldn’t she just see their sturdy, well-timbered house! Back there grew the walls for it, it was rooted, it wouldn’t run away from them, it was well anchored in their own ground — no one could take their future home away from them!

Karl Oskar had moved in as a squatter, a man possessing the land without having to pay for it as yet. A squatter was a man staying close to the ground, and he too would need to stay close to the ground in the beginning; but not for long! No longer than he absolutely had to! He guessed Anders Månsson had squatted so long on his land that it had made him stoop-shouldered. Karl Oskar would be careful to avoid this; he had decided, if health and strength remained his, that only a short time would elapse before he would begin to rise, rise up to his full stature; on his own land he could rise to a man’s stature, to the proud independence of a free farmer.

So far, he had always kept his resolutions; as far as it depended on him, this one would be kept also.

For a time they would have to live in a board shed, without windows, without fireplace, the black earth for their floor. As Kristina now entered her new home she had to stoop to get through the door. Here they were now moving in with all their possessions, her children were already playing about in the hay inside, the hay for beds which all of them would sleep on; the children had great fun digging holes in the hay, tumbling about, screaming and laughing. They were already at home, acting as if they had lived here all their lives.

Johan called out to his mother, in jubilation: “Now we live in a house, Mother! Our house in America!”

Yes, she answered the boy, they were now living in a house, at last in their own house; no longer need they crowd in among others, they could at last be their own masters, do as they pleased in their own home. From today on they had a home of their own to live in. And for this they must be grateful to God.

But deep inside her Kristina was also grateful for something else: that no one at home, neither her parents, nor her sisters, nor any other person from the old country need ever see this shanty, her first home in North America.

XV. . . TO SURVIVE WITH THE HELP OF HIS HANDS

— 1—

In the wilderness at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga in Minnesota Territory Karl Oskar and Kristina were to begin again as tillers of the soil; they must begin their lives anew.

During the journey their hands had rested. Often they had wished to have something to do. Now all at once the settler’s innumerable chores crowded upon them; all were important, but all were not equally important; all could not be performed at one time, some must be put off. To find shelter, warmth, and food for the winter at hand — these were the most urgent tasks and took precedence over all others.

For the time being they settled in their shanty, much smaller than Anders Månsson’s cabin, but now they were only six people instead of sixteen, and this hut was their own. In the center of the earth floor sat the large clothes chest, half as long as the shanty itself and occupying much of the space. At home it had been called the America chest, here it was called the Swedish chest. It was their one piece of furniture in their first American home. The chest bore the scars of its emigration adventure; it had been used roughly on the journey, in New York one corner had been smashed in, it was marred and scratched all over. But within its oaken planks, held together with heavy iron bands, it had protected its owner’s indispensable belongings. Men who had had to handle the chest, lifting it by its clumsy iron handles, had been surprised by its weight, and cursed and complained about what it might contain.

The clothes chest contained exactly the articles which the owners could not be without if they were to survive in the wilderness — so thought Kristina as she now unpacked them all. How could they withstand the winter’s cold without the woolen garments she now lifted from the chest? Camphor and lavender had protected them against moths and mildew; she found to her satisfaction that all the pieces of clothing were unharmed, though they had been packed this long time, from spring to autumn. Carefully Kristina handled woolen jackets, wadmal coats, linen sheets. She could have caressed the well-known pieces of clothing from home, in gratefulness that they had followed her out here, that they were ready for her now that she would need them. And it seemed almost incredible that they could be here with her in these foreign surroundings, so far away from home; they were like strangers here, they belonged to another home, in another country.

It was so long since she had packed the chest, she could not remember what was in it, and now she found objects she had not expected; she made discoveries, many times she was pleasantly surprised: Did she pack that? Had she brought along this also? What luck!

She found her carding combs, her wool shears, her sewing basket with balls of yarn, knitting needles, tallow candles which she herself had dipped last Christmas, her tablecloth of whole linen, woven by herself as part of her dowry, the small bottle of Hoffman’s Heart-Aiding Drops, children’s playthings. All these came now as unexpected gifts, at a moment when she needed them. She was most pleased when she found the swingletree which Karl Oskar had decorated with red tulips — his betrothal gift to her: through this her youth was brought back to her, such a long time ago, she thought — her betrothal time.

In the Swedish chest were also Karl Oskar’s carpenter tools; without them he could not have attempted to build a house for his family. Had he known how expensive tools were out here, he would have brought along much more edge iron: planes, augers, chisels, more axes. He also regretted not having more powder and shot, for it was costly to load a gun here. For once Robert had shown foresight — his hooks, fish traps, nets, and other fishing gear would come in handy for them, living as they did on the shores of a lake.

The odor of the camphor and lavender that had kept the packed clothing in good condition filled the shanty as the lid of the chest was thrown open. It was pleasing to Kristina — it smelled like home.

It had been in late March that she packed the America chest — it was in early September that she unpacked the Swedish chest. During all the months in between she had been moving; she had traveled from spring to autumn, and she had experienced so much during this time that it seemed more like years than months since she had left home. Was it only last spring that she had packed her possessions? To Kristina it seemed the packing had taken place in another life, in another world. And it was indeed true — they were living a new life, in a new world.

Many were the memories awakened in her as she unpacked the chest; every object was linked with some happening at home, some experience with people close to her, friends or relatives. The wool cards had been given her by her mother when she moved into her own home, the sewing basket she had bought at the fair the first spring she was married, the knitting needles had occupied her hands during winter evenings in company of friends around the fire. So many intimate things were here thrust upon her; from the old clothes chest she now unpacked Sweden.

And with these objects came many thoughts of little value to her — rather, they annoyed her. She knew that nothing could be more futile than to let her thoughts wander back and dwell on what once had been and never could be again. Her family must begin anew, they could not bury themselves in memories of the past. She had taken it as a warning when Karl Oskar had said: If their thoughts were too much on their old homeland, on things they had once and for all given up, this would hinder their success in the new country.

From that point of view, it had been disturbing to open the lid of the America chest — now the Swedish chest: their old home and their life there had thrust itself upon her; yet, it was as distant as ever.

But the chest was the only piece of furniture in the hut. And now she used it as a table; she spread food on the lid, and it became the family’s gathering place at every meal. And the old homeland odor remained; the chest occupied the center of the shanty and smelled of camphor and lavender — a lingering reminder of Sweden.

— 2—

Karl Oskar arranged his work according to the sun; he began early, before it was too warm, rested during the noon heat, and continued his work in the afternoon and into the cool evening as late as daylight would permit him. He was felling pines near the stream for house timbers. He felled the straightest and most suitable trees, stripping them of bark so the logs would dry while there was still warmth in the air. He cut young lindens, which he roughhewed for a roof and floor boards; he dug sod for the roof, he gathered and dried the birch and pine bark that was to hold the sod, he collected the stringy linden bark for ropes, he burned debris and cleared roads, he built a simple baking oven near the shanty, he dug a hole in the ground where they could keep food in a cool place and where it was protected from wild animals and insects, and he daily performed innumerable small chores. But even though he used the last reflected rays of the sun, the day was not long enough for him, he wished to do still more. And he complained because he had only two hands.

“Be satisfied with your two hands!” Kristina said. “You might have had only one.”

So much of the work was new to him, he was constantly learning new ways, he was ever improving the knowledge of his hands. All that specially skilled workmen had done for him at home, he himself must do here as best he could. Necessity was the best teacher, his father had said, and necessity forced a settler to try his skill at all kinds of work.

Karl Oskar had always learned easily and quickly imitated others. Now everything depended on his hands’ knowledge — unable to help himself with his hands, a settler would soon perish in this wilderness.

Kristina too must learn new ways: how to make beds without bedsteads, wash without proper soap, keep food without a cellar. And she was much concerned about their clothing, badly worn during the journey; some garments were completely worn out, all were soiled, all must be darned and patched, mended and washed. Her bridal quilt had fared ill in the hold of the Charlotta, it was spotted and torn and would never be the same; Kristina took this very hard. The working clothes for every member of the family needed attention, they must last a long time; she must be careful of every single garment, as she thought it might be a long time before new things could be obtained to cover their bodies.

Their soft-soap jar from Sweden was empty, and Kristina could wash nothing clean. Karl Oskar tried to help her: he boiled a mixture of rabbit fat and ashes, he thought this might be strong enough to eat away the dirt. And most of the dirt did wash away in the soap he had invented.

Kristina’s greatest concern was to keep dirt and vermin away, to keep grownups and children clean. During their journey cleanliness had been neglected, and this had troubled her. One evening as she sat outside the shanty and watched Karl Oskar and Robert, who busied themselves stacking firewood, the thought came to her that she should cut the hair of her unkempt menfolk; they looked uncivilized, bringing shame to all Sweden, should anyone happen to see them.

She went inside and fetched her wool shears: “Come here! Your heads need attention!”

“You — a woman — you can’t cut men’s hair!” exclaimed Robert scornfully.

“I used to shear the sheep at home.”

“Hmm,” grunted Karl Oskar. He took off his cap and sat down on the chopping block. “Better begin with the old ram, then.”

“When I shear frisky rams I usually tie their legs. Shall I do the same with you?”

Kristina’s wool shears mowed mercilessly through Karl Oskar’s thick locks, which fell from his head and gathered in piles on the ground. She guessed he gave at least a pound of wool.

Karl Oskar hardly recognized his own head as he looked in a piece of mirror-glass; his hair was cut in steps, marking each shear bite, just the way sheep looked after the shearing. But he was well pleased to be rid of the thick mat of hair which had been uncomfortable in the heat.

Robert sorely felt the degradation of having his hair cut by a woman. But he insisted that Kristina cut his hair as short as she possibly could; this would save his scalp from the knives of the Indians. Samuel Nöjd, the pelt man, in Taylors Falls, had related how some of his companions a few years earlier had been scalped by the savages; only one man in the group had escaped, and this because he was completely bald; the Indians thought he had already been scalped.

Robert’s hair was cut according to his instructions, and his head looked something like a scraped and scalded hog; this would undoubtedly make the Indians believe he had no scalp. But he would not be secure for long, his hair soon would grow out again.

Kristina also cut Johan’s and Harald’s hair quite short, but this was less from fear of Indians than of head lice, which were thus discouraged from building their nests.

The children had improved so much since the journey’s end, she was happy to see. Their little bodies and limbs were now quite firm, their eyes clear, and their pale cheeks had bloomed since arriving here. They spent most of their time in the open. Food at the moment was fresh and plentiful; wild fruit and berries grew in abundance near the shanty. The family fare had lately changed fundamentally: they had fresh meat at every meal, fish or game which they seldom had enjoyed in Sweden, except on rare occasions. The countryside abounded with rabbits, which supplied most of the meat, as well as fat for many uses. Robert learned to catch them by hand; he ran after the fat animals until they tired and crouched, when he grabbed them. In this way he saved powder and shot for larger game. Ducks and wild geese kept to the lake and could only be obtained through shooting; but it was child’s play to catch fish in Lake Ki-Chi-Saga, where life bubbled below the surface. They would put a pot over the fire, go down to the lake, and return with the fish before the water was boiling. They caught pike and perch, but these were the only fish they recognized. The pike had black backs with yellow stripes, and a narrower body than those at home. The perch had enormous jaws and were less tasty than the Swedish variety. Among the unfamiliar fish suitable for food was one called whitefish, delicious either boiled or fried. Whitefish resembled roach in color, but had longish bodies like pike. The catfish was ugly, with long whiskers, and purred like a cat when pulled out of water. A short, fat fish, the color of perch but with blood-red eyes, was called bass, Anders Månsson told them.

One morning at daybreak as Karl Oskar stepped out of the shanty, his eyes fell on an unusually large stag with immense antlers drinking from the lake less than fifty yards from him. He picked up his gun — always near by and loaded with a bullet — and fired at the buck. The animal fell where it stood, shot through the heart. The fallen stag with the multipronged antlers was heavy, as much as Karl Oskar could handle by himself, but he managed to hang his prey by the hind legs to a pole between two trees. He skinned and drew the animal before Kristina was up; when she came out to prepare the morning meal, Karl Oskar surprised her by pointing to his morning kill — she had not even heard the shot! He cut a few slices from the carcass, which she fried for their breakfast.

The weather was still warm, and meat would not keep long; if only they had had vessels to salt it in, they could have had meat for the whole winter.

At Lake Ki-Chi-Saga there was little concern about meat at this time of year. But bread they must use sparingly. They had paid dearly for the flour in Taylors Falls. Kristina herself cut the loaf and divided the slices at each meal: the menfolk doing the heavy work rated two slices each, while she and the children had to be satisfied with one slice apiece. This made eight slices to a meal and left little of a loaf. The flour in the barrel shrank with alarming speed; here it was easier to find meat for the bread than bread for the meat.

Anders Månsson had given them a bushel of potatoes, and they had bespoken a barrel for their winter supply. Butter, cheese, and eggs they must do without, since they had no cows or chickens. And milk! As yet they had no milk. Always, it seemed, they missed the milk. The children often pleaded for it, for sweet milk, as they had during the long journey.

Kristina looked out over the vast, grassy meadow: there grew fodder for thirty cows! But they owned not one. If she had only one — one lone cow to milk mornings and evenings! In Sweden they had owned cows but were often short of fodder — here they had fodder but no cows. Why must this be so? And how could her children survive the winter in good health without milk?

Why hadn’t Karl Oskar thought about this? He was the one who managed and decided for all of them. She spoke to him: “You must get a cow, to give us milk for the winter.”

To her surprise, he didn’t answer at once; he turned away, embarrassed.

“Why haven’t you bought one already?”

“Kristina — I should have told you before. I am sorry. . ”

He looked pained, as though pressed to admit something shameful. He looked away from her and spoke with obvious effort: “We have nothing to buy a cow with.”

It wasn’t easy for him, but now he had managed to say it; he should have told her before, since she would have to know sooner or later.

“Nothing to buy it with! Are things as bad for us as that?”

“Most of our money is already gone.”

And he explained to her: When they arrived in Taylors Falls he had had ninety silver dollars in his belt. Ten dollars he had had to give the greedy wolves who freighted their goods from Stillwater; besides the barrel of flour and other foodstuff, he had bought a load of boards, some nails, a felling ax, and a few essentials for the building; these supplies had cost more than fifty dollars; now he had only thirty-eight dollars and a few cents left in his purse. Yes, they had had great expenses, everything they had bought was unchristian dear; and yet, Anders Månsson had not requested any payment for either their lodging with him or the loan of the oxen. He must repay him by doing favors in return, by and by. Yes, the money had gone awfully fast. But he had bought only essentials, things they couldn’t do without.

It had originally been his intention to buy both oxen and cows as soon as they arrived. But he hadn’t known the price of cattle; a good cow cost thirty dollars, almost as much as they had left. And he still had to buy a few essentials for the house-building if they expected to have shelter for the winter. And next spring he would have to buy seed grain. He must lay aside money for the seed. If they had nothing to plant next spring, all their troubles in emigrating would have been in vain.

That was how things were with them. They had already spent so much that a cow was out of the question; and yet, he had been as careful as he could with his outlays.

“Have I bought anything unimportant, Kristina?”

“No — I can’t say that you have. But a cow that gives milk is as important as anything else.”

“Not as important as the house!”

“But a whole, long, milkless winter, Karl Oskar! How can the children live through the winter without a drop of milk?”

And she added: The children had lately gained in weight and strength, but without milk, there might be nothing left of their little bodies by spring. She had heard him say many times that above all they must keep healthy through the winter. To do this, they needed a cow. They had been poor at home, but they had always had a drop of milk for the children, all year round.

Karl Oskar repeated: First of all they must build a house; they could get along without a cow, but not without a house. If the children were given other food they would survive the winter without milk, but if they were forced to live in the shanty, they would freeze to death. And she mustn’t forget that they awaited yet another tender life — that one, too, would need a warm shelter, that new life must be saved through the winter. They couldn’t live in a shed with a newborn baby through the winter; they couldn’t live in this hovel where daylight shone through the cracks, where it would be as cold inside as outside.

He was right; but she insisted that she too was right. They must save their lives, and the question was how best to do this. Timbered walls gave protection against cold, milk against hunger and illness. They needed the cow as well as the house, she was not going to give in on this point — they must have the indispensable cow. Couldn’t he at least look about for one? Now that they had land, mightn’t they be allowed some delay in payment, wouldn’t people trust them?

He answered, as yet they had no paper on their claim; an impoverished squatter was not trusted for anything out here. The Scot in Taylors Falls wouldn’t give him credit for a penny’s worth. Moreover, how could they expect to be trusted, strangers as they were? No one knew what sort of people they were. Here in America a newcomer must show that he could help himself, before he could expect help from others.

Kristina thought this sounded uncharitable; a person unable to help himself needed help above all others.

“Isn’t there any way we could get a cow?”

“It looks bad. I can’t buy without money.”

But she had made up her mind to have her own way, that he understood. She said, as a rule he made the decisions alone, but there were times when he must listen to her. He had persuaded her to emigrate. — She had never before reminded him of that, but he often reminded himself of it and felt the responsibility he had assumed. If she had wanted to, she could have said: You never told me we would be without milk out here! You never mentioned in advance that we must be without a cow. Had you mentioned that fact the time you persuaded me, then perhaps I mightn’t be here now.

Karl Oskar thought long over her words about the children and the milkless winter. It could be a question of life or death. He handled their money, he was the one who had to choose — and the choice stood between two indispensables; there was no choice. How could he decide — when life or death might depend on his decision?

— 3—

Robert was not very deft with his hands, he had never learned anything about carpentry, he had no feeling for working with wood. Karl Oskar could rely on him for only the simplest chores. Together they had felled the timbers and prepared the logs, and after this was finished Karl Oskar told his brother to grub hoe the meadow. His feeling was that the two of them, as brothers, ought to stick together, that Robert should remain and help him until he was of age and could take a claim for himself; he would pay his brother for this as soon as he could. Robert was now eighteen, in a few years he could choose his own farm from the thousands of acres that lay here waiting on the shores of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga.

“I’ll never take land!” exclaimed Robert with conviction.

“What do you mean? Wouldn’t you like to be on your own?”

“Yes! That is exactly what I want! Here in America everyone decides for himself. That’s why I wanted to come here.”

Karl Oskar stared at his brother in surprise: Didn’t Robert want to be the owner of one hundred and sixty acres of this good earth? Was he so shiftless that he wouldn’t claim all the land he could on such favorable conditions?

“If you don’t take land before it’s claimed, you’ll regret it,” Karl Oskar insisted.

“Maybe. But I don’t think so.”

And Robert thought to himself as he said this: Karl Oskar was not his guardian, he had never promised to serve as farm hand for his brother here in America; he had paid for his emigration with his own inheritance, which Karl Oskar had kept; he didn’t owe his brother anything, he was not bound to him in any way.

Yet here his brother put a hoe in his hand and asked him to break land! He felt almost as though he were back home again, in his old farm-hand service; he had cleared land many long days, back in Sweden — now it was the same here. The tools he had thrown away in Sweden he had had to pick up again. And the American grub hoe Karl Oskar had bought was much heavier than the one at home. What advantage had there been in his emigration if everything was to be the same as before? To stoop all day long until his back ached in the evenings — this he had done enough of in Sweden. He had not emigrated to America in order to hoe.

Robert could not understand his brother’s joy in squatting on a piece of land that required so much labor — a patch to plow, seed, and harvest, year after year, as long as he was able, all his life. A patch of soil he could never get rid of. Robert only wanted to do the kind of work that would liberate him from work. Only the rich man had no master, only the rich were free to do as they pleased; and no one would grow rich from hoeing the earth, even if he hoed to the end of eternity.

Never, never would Robert become a squatter. While he hoed for his brother he kept listening to his left ear: through that ear the Atlantic Ocean had called to him, and he had listened to the call and crossed the ocean. He had come here to get away from cruel masters, from the servant law, from drudgery with hoe and spade — and now he turned the clods and lived the same life he had fled from. Again he heard the humming call in his ear: Come! Don’t stay here!

In New York Harbor he had seen a ship with a red banner, its soft-sounding girl-name beckoning him: Angelica. In his ear he could now hear that name again, the name of the speedy, copper-plated ship with her singing and dancing passengers. Why hadn’t he stepped on board and joined them? Why hadn’t he gone with the Angelica?

In the New World there were other fields than farmers’ fields. And Robert listened so intently to his own ear that he didn’t hear when Karl Oskar spoke to him; his brother had to repeat his words.

“Have you lost your hearing?”

“No. But I only hear in English.”

The fact was that Robert would not admit his hearing was bad. He now explained to Karl Oskar that he tried to close his ears to the Swedish language, he wished he could listen to English only; in that way he would learn the language sooner.

Robert also wished to consult a doctor about his deafness, but he must wait until he could speak English fluently in order to explain the nature of his ear illness. In the language book there was not a single word about bad hearing under the heading: Conversation with a Physician. There was instruction about what to say when seeking a doctor for malaria: I shiver and my head aches. I have vomited the whole night. Another sentence concerned immigrants with sprained ankles; there was also one for those with irregular voiding, and lastly one for people who didn’t know what was the matter with them, since they were sick in every way. For immigrants with other ailments there was no help to be found in the book; it was of no use to one who must say: I don’t hear well with my left ear.

And a youth of barely eighteen would feel ashamed to go to a doctor and say: “My hearing is getting bad.” At the height of his youth to admit that he was hard of hearing, like an old man of eighty!

He still hoped that the climate of North America would heal his ear. This he knew, however: the weather in Minnesota Territory was so far of little help. His ear alone told him so; in fact, it told him to leave! He must travel farther, farther west.

There were other fields in this new land where he now labored with his grub hoe — there were gold fields in the New World.

Why must he hoe turf here, when in another place he could hoe gold? What pleasure could he get from crops that might grow here? Why hadn’t he sought the fields where a crop of gold could be harvested? A gold harvester need not work in the earth year after year. He would get rich from one single crop — he would become free.

And again and again Robert heard a song that had remained in his ear, a song he had heard sung in a foreign language by the deck hands on the Mississippi steamer while darkness fell over the broad river — a song about the winds of the earth and the waves of the sea. It was the song of promised freedom his ear had sung to him, long ago in Sweden; then the ocean’s roar in his ear had called him to cross the sea: Come!

This time too he must obey that call.

— 4—

Now in late September the weather was cooler. The air no longer felt oppressive, it was easier to breathe. It was fine working weather.

But climatic changes were violent and sudden; without any warning a thunderstorm would blow up, booming and shaking the earth. The bolts blinded one’s eyes, the rain fell, lashing the face like a whip, pouring from the heavens in barrelfuls; in no time at all, every hole and hollow would be filled with water, while the stream rose over its banks in its rush toward the lake. And when the wind blew, it swept across the ground as mercilessly as a giant broom with its handle in the heavens. No weather in America was just right; all was immoderate.

As autumn progressed the leaves of the trees changed color, making the forest seem more beautiful than ever. There stood the red mountain ash, surrounded by brown walnut trees, the green aspens among the golden-yellow lindens. The oak — the master tree of the forest — still kept its leaves green, as did the aspen and the poplar. Here grew white oak, black oak, red oak, and now they could recognize the different types. The white oak grew in Sweden also, its leaves turned brown in fall. The leaves of the other oaks now took on a dark-red sheen resembling blossoms; the settlers said that it looked as though these oaks bloomed in autumn.

The meadow grass remained as fresh and green as before. It bothered Karl Oskar that this splendid fodder would wither away to no use. He said to Kristina, if only they could send home a few loads to the poor cow his parents kept in Korpamoen!

It had been impressed upon him ever since childhood that the growth of the earth must be tended and gathered. Once, as a small boy, he had stepped on the head of a rye sheaf; his father had then unbuttoned his pants and switched him with a handful of birch twigs: he must learn to respect the earth’s growth.

Now he made a handle for the scythe blade he had brought from Sweden and cut the grass on the plot he intended to hoe. Here he could mow as wide a sweep as his arms could reach, here he need not rake the straws together in swaths, the hay fell in one long thick swath behind him. In a few side swings, he had enough for one feeding of a full-grown cow; in a day, he could gather enough fodder to feed a cow through the winter. In Korpamoen, he had struggled with the hay harvest a whole month, picking the short thin blades from between the stones with the point of his scythe. He had labored from sunup to sundown, mowed and sharpened and cut against stones — yet he had gathered such a small amount of hay that he had been forced to half-starve his cattle.

As yet he had no cattle to feed, but he couldn’t help saving some of this good fodder. It might be of some use. And he made a row of haystacks along the shore. It was good hay weather; what he cut one day, he turned the next, and stacked the third day. Stacked hay was not as good as barn hay, and he decided to build a shed later in the fall after the house was ready.

His work with the scythe over this even ground was a joy, and every day he felt more and more remorseful over the six years he had wasted on his stone acres in Korpamoen. He had left that farm poorer than when he took over; it had gone backward instead of ahead for him; he had put in thousands of days of futile labor on the paternal home: these were lost years. He had wasted his youthful strength in the land where he was born, and he realized that had he instead spent those six years of labor in this country, he would by now have been a well-to-do farmer.

However, at twenty-seven he still had his manhood years ahead of him, and his manhood strength he would give to the new country. Here he would earn something in return; here he worked with a greater zest than at home, because the reward was greater. He felt his ability to work had increased since settling here, his physical strength had grown. The very sight of the fertile land stimulated him and egged him on to work. Also, he enjoyed a sense of freedom that increased his endeavor to such a degree that he was surprised at himself when evening came and he saw all he had done during the course of one single day: that much he had never managed in one day in Sweden!

However great the inconveniences out here, he felt vastly happier than he had in the old place. Here no one ruled him, no officials insisted that he bow to them, no one demanded that he obediently and humbly follow a given path, no one interfered with his doings, no one advised him, no one rebuked him for refusing advice. He had seen no one in authority, nobody had come to tell him what he must do; here he had met not a single person to whom he must defer; he was his own minister and sheriff and master.

At home, people struggled to get ahead of each other until they were full of evil wounds that never would heal; their minds grew morbid, festering boils corroded their souls; they went about bloated by grudges and jealousy. Most of them were afraid, bowing in cowardice to the great lords who sat on high and ruled as they saw fit. No one dared decide for himself, no one dared walk upright; it was too much of an effort, their backs were too weak. They dared not be free, were incapable of freedom. That required courage, entailed responsibility and worry as well; anyone trying to decide for himself in the old country was derided, mocked, slandered, pushed out. For the Swedish people could not endure someone who attempted what the rest of them dared not do, or were incapable of.

Here no one cared what he did, nor need he care what others did. Here he could move as he pleased, with his body and with his soul. Nowhere could he be freer than here. Here a farmer ruled himself — though in return, a demand was put on him that might scare many away: he must take care of himself — he must survive with only the help of his hands.

But a man unable to improve his situation, with such generous freedom, such fertile soil — such a man was good for nothing in the world.

XVI. AT HOME ON LAKE KI–CHI-SAGA

— 1—

The homesteader’s ax cut its way through the land — through trunk and timber, through beam and board, through shingle and shake, through branch and bramble. Clearing, splitting, shaping, it cut its way. There was the felling ax with the long handle and the thin blade, eating its way through the heart of the tree, leaving the stump heads even and smooth. There was the dressing ax with the short handle and the broad blade, shaving trunks and timbers while the chips flew in all directions; there was the splitting ax with the heavy hammer and the thick blade, forcing its blunt nose into the wood, splitting logs into planks and scantlings. Then there was the short, light, hand ax, clearing the thickets, brambles, and bushes. Narrow axes and broad, thin and thick, light and heavy. From early morning to late evening the echo of the axes sounded over the shores of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga — a new sound, the sound of peaceful builders in the wilderness.

With the ax as foremost tool — with the ax first, with the ax last — the new home was raised.

Karl Oskar and Kristina had chosen the site for their log house among some large sugar maples at the edge of the forest on the upper meadow, the distance of a long gunshot from the lake shore. Here their home would be protected by the forest on three sides, while the fourth overlooked the bay of the lake. Their house was to be twenty feet long and twelve feet wide, and placed the same way as farmhouses in Sweden: the gables to east and west, the long sides to north and south. The back of the house would then be toward the forest and the cold north winds, while the front opened on the lake and the warm south sun.

Karl Oskar had promised to help Danjel and Jonas Petter, and they in turn would help him raise his house the second week in October. The green, peeled logs were too heavy for two men to handle; three or four would be needed. But Karl Oskar alone prepared all the timbers and laid a footing for his house. For the foundation, he selected the thickest pines he had cut, and with the aid of Anders Månsson’s oxen, dragged the clumsy logs to the building site. For floor boards he used young linden trees which he split in two, to be laid with the flat side upward. He hewed and smoothed the edges of these to make them fit as tight as possible, in order to avoid big cracks in the floor. For roof boards he cut straight elms — there were enough trees to choose from in the forest, and he selected what he thought most suitable for each need. Oak logs would have lasted longer for house timbers, but they were hard to work with, and pine would last long enough. He had no intention of living in this house of peeled logs for all eternity.

He cut sod for the roofing — sod was used for roofing at home in Småland, and it took less time than to split shakes. Kristina said she was afraid the sod might not withstand the violent rains here — the earth might blow away in the merciless winds. Karl Oskar replied that he would put on shakes next summer if the roof did not withstand the weather. She must not worry, he would see to it that they did not sleep under a leaking roof.

He had to buy odds and ends for the building and carry them on his back from Taylors Falls. He bought everything in Mr. Abbott’s store, except sash, which he ordered from Stillwater. Everything of iron was absurdly expensive; he paid a full dollar for a pair of hinges for the door. And the price of nails was equally high. But wood could substitute for iron in many instances, and he made pegs of ash — in Sweden used for rake teeth and handle wedges — to take the place of nails. Without cash, he was forced to be inventive. Each time he had to buy something he searched his mind: Couldn’t he make it with his own hands?

October — the almanac’s slaughter month — had arrived, but the only slaughter which took place at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga was the occasional killing of rabbits and deer. The days sped by, the weeks flew, only one month remained of the autumnal season of grace, with its mild weather, permitting them to live in the shanty. Winter was fast approaching, and Karl Oskar had promised his wife their new log house would be ready to move into in good time before her childbed.

The third week in November, Kristina’s forty weeks would be up, if she had counted aright. It seemed to her as though this pregnancy had lasted longer than any of the previous ones; she had been through so much during this tedious year, her twenty-fifth. She had gone through the usual period of expectancy during a hard journey, carrying the child within her from Sweden to the new land. Perhaps this was why she felt the period had been longer this time than any of the others. And now she was as big as the time she had carried the twins; she wondered if she would again give birth to two lives. As things were with them at the moment, twins would be inconvenient; she had not even had time to prepare swaddling clothes for one baby.

Her movements became more cumbersome every day, every day she felt heavier. She could walk only short distances; her chores were confined to the shanty and its immediate vicinity. But she never let her children entirely out of sight. At home she had let them run free, but here she never knew what kind of snakes might hide in the thick, tall grass; what kind of biting, stinging, flying creatures infested the air. All around the cabin she saw hordes of creeping, crawling little animals she had never found at home, and as yet she could not distinguish between the dangerous ones and the harmless. In the meadow, the men had killed snakes with yellow and silver-gray stripes; these vipers lifted their egg-shaped heads from the ground, open mouthed, their blood-red stingers protruding exactly like those of the poisonous snakes at home. She tried to keep the children where the grass had been mowed and where they could watch where they stepped. A few times the children had been frightened by a gray, furry animal the size of a dog, with thick legs and a short tail, which they thought was a lynx or small wolf. Large, fat, gray-brown squirrels called gophers played around the shanty in great numbers, their heads sticking up everywhere in the grass; one could hardly avoid stepping on them, and they looked as if they might bite; they frightened the children, but they were harmless. There were flying squirrels, too, with skin stretched between their legs. They flew about in the trees, waving their long tails like sails. They came and ate out of one’s hand, like tame animals; the children liked them.

The little creature who made the persistent screeching sound had at last been discovered, and they had been told its name — cricket. It was gray-brown, smaller than a grasshopper, and difficult to see on the ground; its wings were so small it couldn’t fly but jumped about like a grasshopper. This small thing screeched loudly all night through, and because of its noise they called it “the screechhopper.” If a cricket happened to get into the shanty at night, Kristina had to find it and kill it before she could get a wink’s sleep.

However small an animal might be in America, it always caused trouble. But the rodents, devouring Kristina’s food, were the greatest nuisance of all. Rats and ratlike vermin were everywhere, running in and out of their holes, hiding underground. Kristina found it did little good to hide food in a hole in the ground, she still found rat dirt in it, and her heart ached when she had to throw away rat-eaten pieces of food. If only they could get hold of a cat to catch the rats. But Karl Oskar had no idea where they might find one. In Taylors Falls, he had seen only one cat; probably cats were as expensive as other animals; perhaps a cat would cost five dollars, like a hen. It would be a long time before they would have all the domestic animals they needed.

One day Johan came rushing into the shanty holding tight in his arms a small, black-furred animal: “Look Mother! I’ve found a cat!”

The boy held out the animal toward Kristina. The long-haired creature had a white streak along its back, and it was the size of a common cat.

“Is it a wildcat?” Kristina asked.

The little furry beast fretted and sputtered, Johan had great difficulty holding it. He said he had found it in a hole outside the cottage.

“You wanted a cat, Mother! But we have no milk for it.”

His prey stared at him, its eyes glittering with fury.

“Be careful! He might scratch you!” Then Kristina sniffed the air: a horrible smell overwhelmed her.

“Have you done something in your pants, boy?”

“No!”

“Then you must have stepped in something.”

She inspected the clothing and shoes of the boy but could see nothing to explain the smell.

“Is it the cat?”

“No, he isn’t dirty either.”

And she could see that its coat was clean. Johan looked at the paws, but these too were clean.

“No, he hasn’t stepped in anything either.”

Kristina put her nose to the little animal. Such a disgusting smell overcame her that she jumped backward, almost suffocating. The cat was alive, yet it smelled as if it had been dead a long time. She held her nostrils with her thumb and forefinger, crying: “Throw the beast out!”

“But it’s a cat!” Johan wailed.

“Throw it out this minute!”

“But he will catch the rats. . ”

She grabbed the boy by the arms and pushed him and his pet out through the door. Johan loosened his hold, and the animal jumped to the ground and disappeared around the corner of the shanty.

Johan looked at his empty hands and began to cry; the beautiful cat with a white stripe on its back and tail, he had caught it for his mother and now it was gone and he couldn’t catch it again.

Kristina was rid of the nasty-smelling animal, but the evil stench remained in the hut. And little Johan smelled as bad as the cat! She told him to stay outside until the smell was gone.

When Karl Oskar came home he stopped in the door, sniffing: “What smells so bad in here?”

“Johan dragged in some creature.”

She described the animal, and guessed it must be a wildcat.

“Disgusting the way cats smell in America!” she said. “You can’t have them in the house here.”

“It must have been a baby skunk,” Karl Oskar said. “Their piss stinks, I have heard. I guess it pissed on him.”

And he pinched the boy on the ear: hadn’t he told him not to touch any animals or try to catch them? He must leave them alone, big or little, however tame they seemed.

He turned to Kristina: “Now we have to wash the child’s clothes or we’ll never get rid of the stink.”

Kristina undressed the boy to his bare skin. Then she wrapped him in one of his father’s coats, which hung all the way to the ground and made him stumble when he walked. His own clothes were boiled in ash lye. They had to boil them a long time before the smell of skunk disappeared. But in the shanty the odor remained. The baby skunk had left behind him such a strong smell that for weeks it lingered; it drove the settlers outside, and for many days they ate in the open, near the fire where the food was prepared.

All this trouble had been caused by a little cat that was no cat at all. If the animals hereabouts didn’t bite with their teeth or scratch with their claws, Kristina said, they smelled so bad that they drove people from their homes. They must all be doubly careful in the future.

Indeed, they must be on their guard about everything in North America.

— 2—

It was about one hour’s walk from Lake Ki-Chi-Saga to the settlement of Danjel and Jonas Petter. When settling down, Danjel Andreasson had said he did not wish to live in a nameless place, nor in a place with a heathenish name. He had therefore named his home New Kärragärde, after the old family farm in Sweden, and it was his belief that through the revival of this name his old family homestead would blossom to new life in the New World. The little lake near his home he called Lake Gennesaret, a reminder of the Holy Land; the shores of Lake Gennesaret in the Biblical land had once carried the imprint of Jesus’ footsteps; the Lord had wandered about there, preaching the Gospel, and His disciples had enjoyed good fishing in its water. The lake near Danjel’s house resembled the Biblical Gennesaret in that it was blessed with many fish. A brook emptying into the lake he called Chidron.

The men had many errands back and forth, and often walked the road between the two settlements, but the women seldom met after they had settled on different claims. It was dangerous for a woman to walk alone through the wilderness; besides, Kristina was unable to walk any distance at this time. Week after week passed and no one came. No callers arrived at the hut on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga. The young wife missed people, she looked for callers and awaited guests, without exactly knowing whom she looked for or might expect.

One day Swedish Anna came to visit them; she accompanied Karl Oskar, who had been in Taylors Falls, and she stayed overnight. Kristina had met her only once — the woman from Östergötland was practically unknown to her, and yet she felt she had known her for years: someone had come to whom she could talk. Swedish Anna brought a coat she had made for little Harald; she was fond of children, she had had two of her own in Sweden, but they were both dead, she said. Kristina was touched to the bottom of her heart by the gift, and she wished her guest could have remained several days, even though she could offer her only a poor sleeping place in a shed. When Anna had left, Kristina thought how kind God had been in creating some people in such a way that they could speak the same language.

She missed her countrymen who now lived at a distance — and most of all, she found, she missed Ulrika. She wondered about this: she actually felt lonesome for the Glad One! How could this be? Now she realized she had enjoyed Ulrika's company. There was something stimulating about her, she was never downhearted; many times during the journey Kristina had felt Ulrika’s presence as a help: she realized it now. And during the final weeks they had grown quite intimate, Ulrika had confided to her all she had had to go through in life, ever since that day when, as a four-year-old orphan, she had been sold at auction to the rich peasant of Alarum, called the King of Alarum. He had been known in the village as her kind, good foster father. When she was fourteen years old, he had raped her, and for years afterward, as often as he felt inclined. Each time she had received two pennies from the “King,” but when she had saved enough for a daler, her foster mother had taken the money away from her, saying she had stolen it and ought to be put in prison.

And she had been put in prison: the honored and worthy farmer had taught her how to sell her body, she had become the parish whore, banished from church and Sacrament, and at last imprisoned for unlawful communion. But the King of Alarum — who had raped a child and used her for his aging body’s lust — when he died, he had been given the grandest funeral ever seen in Ljuder Parish.

Kristina could remember how as a little girl she had been to the church when this funeral took place. The church had been filled to the last pew, people standing in the aisles, the organ had played long and feelingly, the coffin had been decked with the finest wreaths, and the dean himself had stood at the altar, lauding the dead one and extolling his good deeds in life. The memory of the “King” still was held in respect at home, and his tombstone was the tallest one in the whole churchyard.

Then the truth about him had been revealed to Kristina. And Ulrika said that she was only one of his victims, he had seduced and ruined many girls before they were of age. But the mighty ones could do whatever they wanted to in that hellhole, Sweden. Two of the jurors at her trial ought to have been in prison themselves, they had stolen money entrusted to them as guardians of orphans; and one owed her four daler for having committed what was known as whoring, not punishable in men. This she had told the judge and had pointed out that the law ought to be the same for all. But he gave her fourteen days extra on bread and water for having insulted the jury. And she had never received the four daler.

Ulrika was straightforward and said whatever came to her mind to whomsoever she met, even mighty lords. She could not help it, she was made that way. But in Sweden such honesty brought only misery; if you told the truth there, you were put in prison.

Having believed that justice ruled in her homeland, Kristina was deeply disturbed by Ulrika’s confidence. How rash and unjust her condemnation of Ulrika had been! She had listened to what other women said about the Glad One. No woman had a right to judge Ulrika and hold her in contempt unless she herself had been sold at auction as a four-year-old, and raped at fourteen. Kristina felt she could no longer rebuke Ulrika for her adultery before coming to live with Danjel. Vanity and self-righteousness were as sinful as whoring, and she had committed these sins many times. But that day in the steam wagon, when she had shared her food with the onetime parish harlot and her daughter, then her eyes had been opened: she had approached Ulrika, and Ulrika had approached her. When at last she had accepted Ulrika — something she felt now she should have done from the very beginning — she had discovered that this so-called bad woman was honest and could be a good friend.

Ulrika had changed, too, since people had changed their behavior toward her. Here she was no longer the parish whore. Here she was honored and treated like other women. Kristina was still bothered by the ugly words Ulrika liked to use, but now she knew they belonged to her old way of talking. The ugliest names invented for parts of men’s and women’s bodies, and for their conjugal acts, were part of the life she had led. The King of Alarum had taught them to her. But from Ulrika, Kristina learned that a person’s way of speaking had nothing to do with that person’s heart.

Now at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga, she discovered that she longed for Ulrika to come and visit her in her loneliness.

To the north lived the people who spoke her language, but in the other three directions there were no people of her own color. Their nearest neighbors were copper colored. The Indians had recently gathered in great numbers to make camp on one of the islands in Lake Ki-Chi-Saga, and every evening after dark she could see their fires. On that island now lived her nearest neighbors.

These Indians were said to be docile and peaceful, they would never commit atrocities against white people — but they were also said to be treacherous and unreliable, always watching their chance to scalp and kill the whites! Thus, the varying reports: They were kind, gave the settlers food, and helped them in need; they were bloodthirsty and cruel and blinded the eyes of their prisoners with spears before burning them in their campfires. They were as innocent as children, yet they murdered the settlers’ wives and babies. How could a newcomer know which was the truth?

From time to time they could hear piercing, long-drawn-out yells from the Indian camp. Only wild beasts yelled like that. But these were not wolf howls, these were human sounds, and as such they were terrifying. These yells through the night would frighten the most courageous, and lying there in the shanty listening to them, the settlers were inclined to believe the evil things they had heard of the brown skins.

The immigrants on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga had met and escaped so many dangers on their journey that they could scarcely imagine any worse in store for them. Yet now it seemed that their settling here might be as calamitous as their journey. The wild, heathenish people in the neighborhood filled them with insecurity.

Almost every day Karl Oskar met Indians in the forest, but they had not spoken to him or annoyed him; they only seemed curious, stopping and staring at him. He guessed the Indians were inquisitive. One day, some of their women came to look at the shanty. They carried children in pouches on their backs. One old woman looked hideous, with a face like gray-brown, cracked clay; the mosquitoes hung in droves on her wrinkled face. All the women were thin and looked wretched. Kristina felt sorry for them and wondered if the Indian men tortured them. Comparing her situation with theirs, she felt fortunate in her poverty. These poor creatures lived in the lowliest hovels, under matting hung on a few raised poles; next to their pitiable shelters, her own hut was like a castle. She did not understand how they could survive the winters in such dwellings.

Karl Oskar felt it unwise to mingle with the Indians in this vast wilderness, and he did not intend to get too close to them. Probably they considered him an intruder. But he had not come here as a thief, he intended to obtain his land honestly from the government of the country, who in turn had bought it from the brown skins. The Indians were too lazy to cultivate the ground. The whites here called them lazy men. And since they did not wish to till the land themselves, they could hardly object if others came and did so. The tiller of the soil had a right to it above all others; it would be a cruel injustice to hungry people if this fertile land — capable of feeding so many — should be allowed to lie fallow, producing only wild grass.

In the end, the family decided, all they heard of the heathens indicated that they could not be trusted. Though now they left the settlers in peace, there was no assurance of future safety. Karl Oskar always carried his gun when he went into the forest, and he kept it at hand when working near the shanty.

The building of Danjel’s house had begun, and now Karl Oskar went there to help, as Danjel would help him in return. One day while he was away, and Kristina was alone in the shanty, she suddenly was frightened into immobility: a face had appeared in the opening at the back of the shanty! At first she didn’t realize it was a human face: it looked like a furry animal skin. She saw a black, thick, stringy mat of hair, a dark oily skin splotched with red streaks. But when she discovered something moving under the mat of hair — a pair of coal-black eyes peering at her — then she realized it was a human face looking in through the opening. Human eyes were looking at her. She fled outside with such a loud outcry that she frightened herself.

Robert heard her, in spite of his deafness, and came running from the clearing. As they looked through the shanty door, the face in the opening disappeared. Turning around, they saw an Indian running into the woods.

That evening, when Kristina told Karl Oskar about the Indian, he said he would send Robert to work on Danjel’s house tomorrow. Now that he knew the savages were sneaking about their house, he wanted to stay close by; he dared not leave his family alone with the Indian camp so near.

It could be that the savages had no evil intentions, that they were only curious about the strangers who had moved in on their land — though no one could know for sure what they had in mind. But as Kristina listened to the outlandish yells from the camp on the island, she was filled with a deep sense of compassion. The Indians frightened her, but they were, after all, unchristian, they did not know their Creator, they did not know the difference between good and evil, they lived in darkness, according to their own limited knowledge — who could blame the poor creatures for anything? She herself could not condemn them. She was only grateful she had not been born one of them.

Here among the savages she could only trust to God’s protection.

— 3—

Unexpectedly they had a change in the weather. One morning they awakened in their hut shivering — frozen through and through by a cold wind. An icy northwester was sweeping through their shanty, they felt as though the walls had fallen down during the night, as if they were lying in the open. The merciless wind seemed to strip them naked, it penetrated their thick woolen clothing, pinched their skin until it hurt, clawed with sharp talons, and blew right into their bodies.

When they looked out through the door at this weather, it seemed as if the crust of the earth might blow away. The grass lay flat to the ground like water-combed hair on a head. At the edge of the forest great trees were blown over, the exposed roots stretching heavenward like so many arms. All the haystacks in the meadow had blown over. They wondered that their little shanty still stood.

Now they could not use their fireplace, which lay to windward of the storm; but they managed to make a fire on the lee side of an enormous oak trunk. When they walked against the wind, they had to stoop in order to move. The unrelenting northwester swept away anything not tied to the earth.

Kristina said that none among them had ever known what a wind was, until they came to North America.

The children were blue-red from the cold; Lill-Märta and Harald coughed, and the noses of all three were running. Kristina put an extra pair of woolen stockings on each of them and wrapped them in woolen garments; she herself bundled up as much as she could, until she felt wide as a barrel; she was now in her last month. But clothes did not help against this ferocious wind, big and little shivered and shook; nothing helped. In the daytime they could get some warmth from the fire behind the oak, but how were they to keep warm inside the shanty during the nights if this weather continued?

“Has the winter come so soon?” Kristina wondered.

“It couldn’t come so suddenly,” Karl Oskar said anxiously. “It would be too bad for us — the house not yet ready. . ”

They had heard of the unexpected changes in temperature hereabouts, and that the thermometer could fall forty degrees in one minute (but American degrees were said to be shorter than Swedish ones). Now the sudden cold and wind had come upon them while the timbers for the house still lay and waited. The men would come as soon as they had put the roof on Danjel’s house. It was expected to be ready in a week or so. Now Karl Oskar tightened the shanty as best he could; he nailed extra pieces of boards to the windward side and closed all cracks and holes with moss and wet clay. Inside, he laid a ring of stones for a fireplace and cut a hole in the roof for the smoke; now they could heat their hut. During the second night they were able to keep a fire alive, and they covered themselves with every piece of clothing they had, but the cold still penetrated — they froze miserably. The children whined and whimpered in their sleep like kittens. Many times during the night Kristina rose and put a kettle on the fire and boiled a meat soup, which they drank to warm their insides — though nothing could help their outsides.

In the morning the hurricane died down a little, but toward evening it increased again, with heavy showers of hail. Inch-long pieces of ice, hard as stones, fell and remained in drifts on the ground. But on the third morning the wind abated, and by evening the storm had spent itself.

After the three days’ frightful weather the sun warmed them again. The hail drifts melted away, the air was so still that not the smallest leaf moved, and the grass that had been combed flat rose again. Mild, late-fall weather reigned once more.

But the new settlers in the shanty on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga had experienced the touch of the blizzard on their bodies, they felt as if they had been saved from death. The winter had discharged a warning shot to show what miserable shelter they had against the cold north winds; to survive, they would need a tighter, better house, and soon.

And early one Monday morning their helpers arrived and began to raise the house. They were three carpenters — Karl Oskar, Danjel, and Jonas Petter — with two helpers, Robert and Arvid. Now there were rushed days for Kristina, who must prepare food for all of them over a fire in the open, while she kept an eye on the children. But the break in their loneliness was welcome, now there was life on their place with the menfolk building, and new strength came into her as she saw their house rise on the foundation timbers. Back there, under the great sugar maples, the walls of their new home grew, higher for each meal she prepared for the builders. Often she walked back to watch them and felt as if she herself were participating in the building.

The house was to be eight feet high at the eaves. The timbers were roughhewn, and now the men smoothed the upper and under sides of the logs to make them lie close together. Karl Oskar would later fill the cracks with moss, which he intended to cover with a mixture of clay and sand. The timberman’s most complicated task was the fitting of the logs together at each corner. “When a corner you can lay, you get a timberman’s pay” was an old saying at home, often quoted to a carpenter’s helper. Karl Oskar had learned building from his father, but he did not feel he was a master; working now as a timberman, he was glad his house had only four corners.

The long, heavy logs were hoisted into place on the wall by the combined strength of all five men; each log was fastened to the underlying timber by means of thick pegs driven into the lower log and fitted into auger holes in the next one above. There was a racket all day long from three ax hammers; three axes were busy, three timbermen timbered. And the sound of axes against wood was no languid, depressing sound, it was bold, fresh, stimulating — it was a promise, an assurance of security. Here something took place of lasting import — not for a day, or a year, but for future times; here a human abode was raised. And the echo from the timbermen’s axes rang out over the forest in the clear autumn air, it was thrown from tree to tree — the axes cut and hammered, and the echo returned from the other side of the lake.

Jonas Petter was the master among the three timbermen; his ax corrected and finished where the others had begun. And in rhythm with his ax blows against the timbers, he sang “The Timberman’s Song,” which his father and grandfather before him had sung at house-building in the homeland, a song that had been sung through centuries when walls were raised for Swedish peasant houses, a song always sung to the music of ax and hammer — a song stimulating to the timberman, suitable for singing at his work, and now for the first time sung in Minnesota Territory:

What’s your daughter doing tonight?

What’s your daughter doing tonight?

What’s your timberman’s daughter doing tonight?

Timberrim, timberram, timberammaram—

What’s your daughter doing tonight?

Your daughter is making a bed,

Your daughter is making a bed,

Your daughter is making a timberman’s bed—

Timberrim, timberram, timberammaram—

Your daughter is making a bed.

Who shall sleep in your daughter’s bed?

Who shall sleep in your daughter’s bed?

Who shall sleep in your daughter’s timberman’s bed?

Timberrim, timberram, timberammaram—

Who shall sleep in your daughter’s bed?

I and your daughter, that’s who

I and your daughter, that’s who

I and your timberman’s daughter that’s who. .

“The Timberman’s Song” was fully ten verses long; Jonas Petter knew only three verses and part of the fourth; his father had sung the song to him when they worked as timbermen together, and he had managed to sing it from beginning to end while he set one log in place. The verses Jonas Petter had forgotten described the occupation in the timberman’s bed; but he couldn’t for the life of him remember how it went, except that in the timberman’s bed was made a timberman’s tyke, by a timberman’s “stud.” But, asked Jonas Petter, could there be anything easier than to be a stud, when you had the bed and the woman? He thought it might be more difficult not to.

The three men timbered up the house walls in five days, and on the sixth they put on the rafters and laid the roofing. Robert and Arvid handed up the turf, each piece fastened to a long pole, and the three men laid the sod over a layer of bark. So the house was ready with four walls and a roof.

The timbermen’s work was done, a house had been built in the same number of days as God had required in the beginning for the Creation. The seventh day arrived, and the almanac indicated it was a Sunday; and the timbermen kept the Sabbath and rested on the seventh day, while they inspected their handiwork; they found it good, strong, suitable for human habitation. A new home had been built, a solid, sturdy log house on secure footing, not to be felled by wrestling winds. It had been built to stand, by men who had built houses for farmers in Sweden, who had timbered the way their forebears had timbered through the centuries. A new house, of ancient construction, was built in a new land, on the shore of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga. His helpers had done their part, but the long, tedious work of completion remained for Karl Oskar before they could move in. First he laid the flooring; he placed the split linden trunks with the flat side up and fastened them to the joist logs with a wooden peg in each end. The planks were smooth hewn, and the floor turned out as even as it could be from hand-hewn boards. Through the front wall he cut a hole for a door, three feet wide and six feet and a half high; he wanted to be able to step over his threshold into his new home in America without having to bend his neck. He made the door of oak, heavy and clumsy as a church door; it would be a chore for the smaller children to open. He hung it by the strong, expensive hinges — the ones that had cost a whole dollar. Then he made a simple wooden latch for the outside, but on the inside he fitted heavy timbers for bolts, so that they could lock themselves in securely against their brown neighborfolk, if need be. He cut three holes for windows — one larger one, to the right of the door at the front, and a small one in each gable; the glazed sash, sent for from Stillwater, was fitted into these. He would have liked to let more of God’s clear daylight into his house, but he could not afford any more of the expensive glass.

Next in turn was the fireplace where the food was to be prepared; it would also be the source of heat and of light at night. He had lately worked as carpenter, timberman, and roofer, now he must also do a mason’s work, and this worried him. He asked Jonas Petter to help him, and with his skillful neighbor’s aid, he built a fireplace and chimney of stone, clay, and sand. Later, with less urgency, he would build a bake oven beside the fireplace.

The fireplace took up one corner of the house; in each one of the three remaining corners, Karl Oskar built a bedstead: one for Kristina and himself, one for the children, and one for Robert. Six feet from each gable and five feet from the side walls, he fastened posts to the floor on which he placed timbers long enough to be secured to the gable wall; this made the bed frames. Crossing these timbers and fitting between the wall logs he laid thinner scantlings for the bed bottom. He had seen beds built this way in an American settler’s house in Taylors Falls and he liked them; they were easy to make, yet ingenious and practical. During the coming winter he would make such furniture as they absolutely needed when he was forced to sit inside by the fire.

Karl Oskar brought Kristina over to their new house for a tour of inspection, to show her all he had done. He explained that everything was on the rough side — walls, windows, floor, door, and ceiling. There were no perfectly smooth surfaces — but he had done the best he could. And nothing was intended for looks, anyway, all was done to keep out rain, wind, cold. It could not be helped if the walls were a little rough, if the floor wasn’t quite even, if the door hung askew. Yes, the door did hang somewhat crooked, but she must remember the old saying: “Out of plumb is dumb, but a little lean cannot be seen.” Many planks might be poorly fitted, for he had used mostly pegs, he hadn’t driven a hundred nails into the whole house; the price of nails had worried him so much that he had thought a long while before using one.

Their new house was built roughly, but he was sure it would provide them with comfort and shelter.

Kristina said that this house was like a castle, it was heaven compared to the shanty! And she was well pleased with all she saw, especially their new beds; these were the most comfortable sleeping places they had since leaving home.

Karl Oskar assured her he would make the house still more comfortable for her. On the long back wall, between the beds, he intended to place an oak log, which would make an excellent sofa; next to the fireplace he intended to build shelves, he would drive pegs into the logs to hang clothes on, and as soon as he had time he would make her a table, surely before Christmas. By and by they would be quite comfortable in this house.

Kristina was aware of the rough timbers in the cabin, the unfinished walls; she saw better than her husband all that was crooked and out of line, but she had been deeply worried that the house would not be finished before winter came. How glad she was now that she could move into it! They had wandered about so long and had to change shelter and sleeping places so often — how wonderful it would be to settle down under a real roof, be within four solid walls, live in a house where they could stay!

Yes, Kristina was satisfied with their house of roughhewn logs, even though Karl Oskar said: “Wait till next time! Next time I’ll build a real. .”

Even before they had moved into their new house he was planning the next one: This forest had timber enough for real mansions; as soon as he had improved his condition, he would build something larger and finer than any farmhouse in all Ljuder Parish! It would be at least two stories high, of the finest timber, elegantly finished.

Yes, he assured his wife, she could rely on him; their next house would be well finished, both inside and outside.

— 4—

Karl Oskar made a cross in the almanac on the twenty-eighth of October — that was the day they moved into the new log house.

They invited their countrymen at the other settlement for a house-warming, and Anders Månsson and his mother were also asked. All the guests came in Anders Månsson’s ox wagon — the ungreased wooden wheels, ever moaning and squeaking, announced their arrival half an hour before the wagon emerged from the forest. Now the new house was filled with people jostling for seats. Karl Oskar had made a few chairs from sawed-off oak blocks, leaving a back rest sticking up, somewhat rounded to fit the back of a full-grown person. These made solid seats, but for the party he had to roll in ordinary blocks as well, and still some of the guests had to sit on the beds.

So they were again together, sixteen of them, all born in the same land, all speaking the same language. They had settled in different places, made up separate households, and had no possessions in common except their language, and this united them and held them together in their new country. They felt almost like close relatives. However kind and friendly people may be, if they are unable to speak a common language, they remain strangers. Today, no strangers had come to visit Karl Oskar and Kristina; their visitors seemed like blood relations.

Kristina had prepared a venison dinner; she had peeled the potatoes before boiling them, as was the custom at parties at home. She had boiled a whole kettle of cranberries; these berries were now ripening in great quantities in the bogs hereabouts, and they had a pleasing sour-fresh taste. To a housewarming the guests were supposed to bring gifts of food, and Ulrika had cooked the moving-in porridge, made of rice; she came with a large earthen bowl full of it. Jonas Petter had brought a keg of American brännvin. There were not as many dishes or as much of everything as was customary at housewarmings in Sweden, but all felt that they were sitting down to a great feast.

Karl Oskar and Kristina had invited their guests before they had a table; the food was served on top of their Swedish chest, around which they all sat down. Their guests said they too were still using their chest lids for food boards.

Ulrika had not been stingy when she cooked the housewarming porridge, it was sugar-sweet and won praise from all; before they knew it they had reached the bottom of the earthen bowl. As a young girl, Ulrika had occasionally worked as cook’s helper at Kråkesjö manor; she had learned cooking well and was handy at both stove and oven, when she had anything to cook with.

Today, for once, the settlers felt entitled to many dishes at the same meal, and they ate steadily and solemnly. At last the coffeepot was taken down from its hook over the fire, and a delicious odor of coffee spread through the cabin. Robert proudly showed the coffee grinder he had made for Kristina: he had hollowed out a stone to make a mortar with another stone for pestle, to crush the coffee beans. He had seen the Indians use such mills — their coffee now was ground Indian-wise.

All ate to their full satisfaction, and when Ulrika wanted to rise, the chair clung to her behind. She had eaten so much that she couldn’t get out of the chair, she blamed Karl Oskar who had made the seat too narrow for a grown woman; he ought to be old enough to know that women were broader across the behind than men; God had created them that way in order to make them lie steady on their backs those times when they obeyed His commandment to increase and replenish the earth.

Jonas Petter poured the American brännvin, and all drank — even the children were given a few drops each. Anders Månsson said the whisky was stronger than Swedish brännvin; at first it burned the tongue a little, but later it felt good in the stomach. Some people had a hard time getting accustomed to the taste of whisky, some had to keep at it persistently, it might take years; he himself had already become accustomed to it. The whisky was made from Indian corn, “Lazyman’s Grain” as it was called. He had planted this corn for the first time last spring.

“At home the brännvin is white, why is it brown here?” Kristina asked.

“They haven’t strained it carefully,” said Ulrika. “There’s mash in it.”

Jonas Petter had his own opinion: “It’s the color of cow piss but it tastes mighty good!”

Kristina and Ulrika both thought Swedish brännvin was sweeter and milder; this tasted pungent. But old Fina-Kajsa liked American brännvin better then Swedish: “Brännvin should be felt in the throat! It mustn’t slip down like communion wine!”

Anders Månsson’s mother had changed much since she had found her son; at times she sat silently by herself, staring straight ahead for hours, hardly hearing if she were spoken to. At other times she seemed to have lost her memory. Believing herself still on the journey, she kept mumbling, downhearted and confused: “Oh me, oh my! We’ll never get there! Oh me, oh my!”

She could forget everything around her to such an extent that she wasn’t aware she had reached her son three months ago. The long journey seemed to have been too much for her head. But at other times she pulled herself together and worked all day long like a young woman, running her son’s house and cooking for him the delicious Öland dumplings which he had been without so long in America. Since he now could get the dumplings here, Anders Månsson said, there was nothing left in Sweden to go back to.

After their feast, the settlers grouped themselves around the hearth where a great fire of dry pine boughs was burning. And sitting there, to let the “food die in the stomach,” they began to talk of Sweden and of people in their home community: It was now the servants’ “Free Week” at home, all crops were in, the potatoes picked, the fields plowed. The bread for the winter was in the bins, the cattle in the byre. Those at home lived in an old and settled land, they had their food for the winter. And they could not help but compare their own situation: they were farmers without crops, without grain bins, without pork barrels, without livestock. And ahead of them lay the earth’s long resting season, when the ground gave nothing.

But Sweden had already begun to fade into the vague distance; it seemed far away in time and space. Heaven seemed closer than Sweden. Their old homes had taken on an aspect of unreality, as does everything at a great distance.

They began speaking of the loneliness of the great wilderness, and Jonas Petter said: “Is there one among us who regrets the emigration?”

The question caught them unaware, and a spell of silence fell over the group. A puzzling question had been asked — a poser — which required a great deal of thought before they could answer it; it was like a riddle to be solved. Do I regret my emigration? It was an intrusive question, forcing itself upon them, knocking at each one’s closed door: a demand to open and show what was hidden inside.

Ulrika was the first to answer. She stared at Jonas Petter, almost in fury: “Regret it! Are you making fun of me? Should I regret having moved to a country where I’m accepted as a human being? I’d rather be chopped to sausage filling than go back to Sweden!”

“It was to be,” Danjel Andreasson said. “We were chosen to move here. We shall harbor neither regret nor fear.”

“I regret one thing!” spoke up Karl Oskar. “I regret I didn’t emigrate six years ago, when I first came of age.”

“You are not yet of age — your Guardian still lives in Heaven,” Danjel said. “His will has been done.”

“But the Lord’s servant — the dean — advised against my emigration.”

“Then it was an evil spirit that spake through him,” Danjel retorted calmly.

“Well — I’m here! And no one can get me away from here! As surely as I sit on this chopping block!” Karl Oskar spoke with great emphasis.

He was settled now, he and his family had moved into their house, furnished with sturdy beds and seats he had made. Beginning this very day, he felt settled and at home in North America.

Jonas Petter said: Life in the wilderness had its drawbacks, but things would improve by and by, as they improved themselves. It had been well for them to travel about and see how great the earth was, how vast its seas and countries. At home, people thought Sweden made up the whole world; that was why folk there were so conceited.

“They should read geography books,” interrupted Robert.

“That they should, instead of poking their noses into everyone else’s business,” agreed Jonas Petter. If anyone hiccoughed in Sweden, folk picked it up and ran with it until it was heard throughout the whole county. His father knew an old morning hymn which all should follow:

Peaceful walk and do thy bit,

Obey thy Lord, on others spit!

This psalm Jonas Petter’s father used to sing every morning before he began his day, and if they obeyed it, they would be happy through all their days, and at last pass to the beyond in contentment.

Judging from the replies to Jonas Petter’s question, no one regretted his emigration. And the settlers began to talk of work to be finished before winter set in. Karl Oskar intended to dig a well before the frost got into the earth; he had not been able to find a spring in the vicinity, they had been using brook water, which didn’t seem to hurt them; it was running water, but it wasn’t quite clear in color or taste.

The talk around the fire was suddenly interrupted by Kristina, who was seized by a fit of weeping. This happened unexpectedly and without forewarning. No one had said a word to hurt or upset her. She herself had been silent a long time. She had not joined in their talk about Sweden, but she had listened. Karl Oskar now asked in consternation if she was in pain. But she only shook her head — he mustn’t pay any attention to her. And she continued to cry and sob, she put both her hands to her face and wept without saying why. No one could comfort her, as no one knew what ailed her. They asked many times if she were ill: No, she was not ill. .

Karl Oskar felt embarrassed and didn’t know what to say to the guests; but they would understand she was sensitive now. .

“You’re worn out, I guess?” he said kindly.

Danjel patted his niece on the shoulder: “Lie down and rest, Kristina. We too must seek the comfort of our homes.”

“I am acting like a fool. Forgive me, all of you. . ”

Fearing that the guests were departing because of her behavior, Kristina pleaded with them to remain, trying to swallow her sobs: “To blubber like this. . I don’t understand it. Pay no heed to it; it will soon be over.”

But their guests must start on their homeward road to be back before dark. Anders Månsson did not wish to drive the new road after nightfall; he went out and yoked the team to the wagon, while Ulrika washed the dishes and picked up her empty earthen bowl; Jonas Petter left his keg with at least half a quart still splashing in it.

Karl Oskar accompanied his guests a bit of the way, walking up the slope. The housewarming had ended on an unhappy note, too suddenly. And he was worried over Kristina’s peculiar behavior; if she wasn’t sick, she must be crying for some other reason, and this reason she had kept secret from him. He must know what it was, she must tell him what ailed her.

When he returned to the house, Kristina had dried her tears. She began to speak of her own will: “I couldn’t help it, Karl Oskar.”

“I guess not.”

“I assure you, it was nothing. . ”

“One can be sad and weep. But why did you have to weep just this day?”

“It irks me terribly — with all the guests. .”

Karl Oskar wondered if after all she wasn’t a little disappointed with the log house. Had she expected their new home to be different — better and roomier? He tried to comfort her by telling her about the house he intended to build next time: “You wait and see our next house, Kristina! Next housewarming you won’t cry!”

“Karl Oskar — I didn’t cry because of. .”

No, he mustn’t think she shed tears because their house wasn’t fine enough! He mustn’t think she was so ungrateful! That would have been sinful of her. No, the house was good, she had told him she was pleased with their new home. And she hadn’t complained before, when there might have been reason — she hadn’t said a word when they shivered and froze in the shed. Why should she be dissatisfied now when they had moved into a warm, timbered house? No, she had everything she could want, this last year she had learned to be without; before they managed to get under this roof, she had learned to value a home; she had thanked God Who had let them move in here, well and healthy and all of them alive, after the dangers they had gone through.

But she couldn’t help it — something had come over her today, making her cry. Before she knew it the tears had come to her eyes, as if forced out. She didn’t know what it was — she only felt it was overpowering. And she couldn’t tell him how much it disturbed her that this had happened at their housewarming, on that longed-for day when they moved in. .

Karl Oskar was satisfied with her explanation: no wonder she was a little sensitive, unable to keep her tears, the condition she was in. She needed comforting words and he went on talking of their next housewarming: “Just wait and see our next house! Then we’ll be really at home here on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga!”

— 5—

When Kristina went to bed the first evening in the log house, the first time in the new, comfortable bed, with her husband beside her, she remained awake a long while: Had she lied to him today? Didn’t she know what had come over her and made her cry? It had come over her many times before, although never so overpoweringly as today. It used to come when she had nothing to busy herself with, nothing to occupy her mind. Usually it soon passed, but it came back, it always came back. And of course it would come back today, with all the others sitting there talking about it! Indeed, they forced it to come. They sat and reminisced about the old country and the people at home, they made everything come to life so vividly, everything she had given up with a bleeding heart to follow her husband.

Now they were at last settled, now they would stay here forever, at home on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga, as Karl Oskar put it. So strange it sounded, to have her home linked to that name. She was to be at home here for the rest of her life — but she wasn’t at home. This house was her home, but it was so far away. .

Here was away for Kristina — Sweden was home. It ought to be just the opposite: the two places should change position. She had moved, but she could not make the two countries move, the countries lay where they had lain before — one had always to her been away, the other would always remain home.

And she knew for sure now, she had to admit it to herself: in her heart she felt she was still on a journey; she had gone away but hoped one day to return.

Home—to Kristina, this encompassed all that she was never to see again.

XVII. GUESTS IN THE LOG HOUSE

— 1—

The settlers at Lake Gennesaret had moved into their log house a few weeks before their countrymen on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga. Jonas Petter would build his house next summer, and in the meantime he lived with Danjel. He had begun to fell timbers to let them season for his building, and Robert helped him with the felling; he was doing exchange work for his brother. To avoid the hour-long walk from Ki-Chi-Saga and back, he stayed in Danjel’s house during the week and went home only Saturdays.

One Saturday afternoon Robert arrived at his brother’s settlement leading a cow behind him with one of Karl Oskar’s linden-fiber ropes. He tied the cow to the sugar maple at the door and called Kristina.

She came out, looked at the cow, and rubbed her eyes. “What kind of creature is that? Did you run across a stray cow in the forest?”

“No. I’ve led her from Taylors Falls.”

Kristina inspected the animal more closely: It was one of Anders Månsson’s cows, the one that wouldn’t get with calf, which he intended to butcher.

Karl Oskar also came out and stood there by Kristina laughing to himself: Was she surprised? She could thank Fina-Kajsa for this, the old woman had suggested lending her son’s cow for the winter; the cow had once more been taken to German Fischer’s bull in Taylors Falls, and as it now appeared she was with calf, it would be a shame to butcher her. Anders Månsson and his mother had enough milk from the other cow, and as Karl Oskar had gathered plenty of hay to feed her, he could keep her through the winter; he was to bring her back to the owner at calving time next spring. The cow still gave a couple of quarts of milk a day and would not go dry for several months.

“The animal is old, of course,” he concluded.

The cow was badly saddle-backed and had an enormous stomach; she must have borne fifteen calves at least in her day. But Kristina threw her arms around the neck of the animal: she had a milch cow, even though it was only borrowed, and they would have milk for the children during most of the winter. And she patted the cow, caressed her, felt above the udder for the milk arteries, and said they were good, for an old cow: she could easily increase her milk if she were fed and cared for.

Karl Oskar was as pleased as Kristina with the cow. He thought that this time his wife had enforced her will in spite of him.

Here in Minnesota people had miserable shelters for their cattle; the Swedish settlers thought it a wonder they didn’t freeze to death during the winters. Karl Oskar led his borrowed cow to the lately vacated shanty. The cow moved into the house they themselves had occupied until a few days before. Their old home was turned into a byre! They would let the cow graze in the meadow until the snow began to fly, but they would be careful to put her in the shanty every night.

Anders Månsson was the owner of one young and one old cow. Both had American names — the young one was called Girl and this one was called Lady, which was supposed to be a title like Mrs. in America. Large-bellied Lady was a calm, easygoing, friendly animal, grazing peacefully and contentedly, never trying to run off to the woods. She became a pleasant companion to Kristina and the children in their isolation; it seemed almost that they had acquired a new member of the family, and this member contributed to the family sustenance. Lady was always called by name, like a human being, a respected woman of noble lineage. And Robert pointed out that women were scarce out here and a noble name for a cow showed how highly men valued women in North America.

— 2—

The night frosts had begun. The grass stood silvery in the mornings; winter was lurking outside their timbered house.

One late afternoon, at twilight, Kristina was alone inside their log house with Lill-Märta and Harald. Karl Oskar had gone to the lake to examine some willow snares he had placed in the shore reeds near a point where the pike often played, and Johan had run after him; the boy was always at the heels of his father. Kristina poured water into a pot and hung it over the fire, as Karl Oskar would soon be back with the fish for their evening meal. She hoped he would find pike in the snares, pike tasted better than any other fish in the lake; whitefish and perch were good too, but the catfish with its round head and long beard was so ugly that the sight of it did not whet the appetite.

Lill-Märta was playing on the floor and Harald was still taking his nap in the children’s bed. Kristina was busy at the hearth with her back to the door when the girl suddenly began to scream.

“What’s the matter with you, Lill-Märta?”

The child answered with another yell, still louder.

“Did you hurt yourself, child dear?”

The girl was sitting on the floor, staring wide-eyed toward the door.

Kristina turned quickly. The door was open and two figures stood inside the threshold. She could barely see them in the dim light, and at first she couldn’t determine whether they were men or women; she saw only two skin-covered bodies which had somehow got inside. But how had they opened the door? She hadn’t heard it open, nor had there been any other noise, or sound of steps.

The startling sight near the door made her back up so quickly that she almost stepped into the fire. Then she rushed to pick up the child on the floor — her heart stopped beating and felt cramped in her breast, and fear spread over her whole trembling body, as if it had been drenched with ice water.

The two figures at the door peered at her with black-currant eyes, set deep under low foreheads. And now she recognized who the guests were: their nearest neighbors had come to pay a call.

But what did they want here? Why had they come to her?

She called to them: “Go outside!”

The two Indians remained immobile inside the threshold. In her fear, she had forgotten they couldn’t understand a word she said.

Harald awoke and sat up in his bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. With the girl in her arms Kristina cautiously stole back to the children’s bed in the corner, she walked slowly backward, she dared not turn her back to the Indians. With one child in her arms she stood protectingly in front of the other.

“What do you want? Please go outside!”

Uncomprehending, the Indians remained, and again she remembered that she spoke to deaf ears: What use was there in talking to savages who didn’t understand her?

“Karl Oskar! Karl Oskar! Come quick!”

She kept on calling, she yelled as loud as she could, she must yell loud enough for him to hear her down at the lake. Karl Oskar wasn’t far away, perhaps he was already on his way back, he ought to hear her calls. .

Then she stopped calling; she might anger them by yelling, it might be better to keep quiet and pretend she wasn’t afraid of them. If she only knew their errand. What could they want of her?

The unwelcome guests did not leave, they moved from the door toward the hearth, and in the light of the fire Kristina had a good look at them.

The Indians were dressed in soft brown-red skins, and their feet were shod in the same kind of hides. Their faces were deceptively alike, except that one had a flat nose. Their cheeks were beardless. On their cheekbones were painted red, bloodlike streaks, and black hair hung in tufts from their heads, gleaming as if greased with fat. Both Indians had red animal tails dangling from the backs of their necks, they looked as if they had live squirrels sitting behind their ears. From their squirrel tails to their moccasins, they looked furry and ragged; they hardly resembled human beings. And they had sneaked into the house on soft paws like wild beasts.

The Indians looked around the cabin, they inspected the pot over the fire, the chest, the clothes hanging on the wall. Meanwhile they spoke in low voices to each other; their words sounded like short, guttural grunts.

She could not take her eyes off their red-streaked faces. Their eyes burned like black coals under their brows, they looked cruel and treacherous. Long knives hung at their sides; they might stick their knives into her and the children, any moment. The Indian with the pushed-in nose seemed to her the more dangerous of the two.

Kristina kept silent now, she no longer called for help, no use frightening her children. She stood at the corner of the bed, as far from the intruders as possible, with her two little ones pressed close to her. The children too kept silent, their round eyes staring at the strange, uncouth creatures.

They had left the door open; could she pick up Harald and the girl and escape through the door? Would she dare run past the two savages?

The flat-nosed Indian pointed to Karl Oskar’s gun which hung on the gable wall above the clothes chest; now both Indians stood looking at the gun with their backs toward Kristina. Now she must run by them out of the house! She gathered her strength, took a firm hold of her children, measured the distance with her eyes. . it was only a few steps. .

But suddenly the Indians turned toward her again. They had managed to lift Karl Oskar’s muzzle-loader off the pegs; both held the gun, one had the butt, the other the barrel.

What did they want with the gun? It was loaded. What were they about to do, did they want to steal it? Why didn’t Karl Oskar come? What was he doing all this time?

Now the flat-nosed Indian alone held the shooting piece; he lifted the weapon to firing position, level with his shoulder; he stood with his back to the gable end of the house and aimed toward Kristina!

He intended to fire — he was going to shoot her and the children! She was looking right into the gun barrel, and there was no place to flee now; she pushed against the logs but she couldn’t creep through the wall. She stood petrified, a target.

“No! No!” she screamed.

She wanted to tell them they could have the gun, if only they wouldn’t shoot her and the children. The children! Quickly she pushed them behind her; now she protected them with her own body, now the bullet must first go through her. If she only could have called to them: Don’t shoot! Let us live! Don’t kill us here now!

But they wouldn’t understand her.

The flat-nosed Indian again held the butt, while the other one held up the barrel, helping his friend to aim the heavy weapon. It was clear they wanted to try the gun by firing a shot; the flat-nosed Indian was fingering the hammer, trying to cock it.

Pressed against the wall, Kristina crouched over her children, she couldn’t move any farther, she was trembling and weak with fright. The poor children — she couldn’t ask the savages to spare them, they wouldn’t understand. But Someone else understood and would listen to her; she stammered forth a prayer: “Dear God! If I die now, what will become of my children? My little, innocent children? Dear God, help me!”

Lill-Märta and Harald, squeezed between her body and the wall, began to whimper. But the visitors paid no attention to Kristina and the children, they were busy with the gun. Now both of them were fingering the hammer. The gun had a hard action. Kristina followed their motions with wide-open, frozen eyes. And she saw they had managed to cock the gun. Then she didn’t see anything more.

Black and red clouds covered her eyes. She closed them, her whole body numb with terror. Karl Oskar! What are you doing out there? Why don’t you come?

Karl Oskar! Perhaps he had encountered the Indians before they came in! Could they have done him any harm? Was that why he didn’t come? Suppose he were lying out there. .

“Dear sweet God! Help him! Help us!”

Kristina closed her eyes and waited. She waited for the shot, she waited for the lead bullet. . She must die. This was the end for her on earth. And she prayed incoherently and silently that her merciful Father would receive her, wretched, sinful creature that she was, and let her children live unharmed in this world: the poor children. . dear God, let them live, my poor children. .

Her trembling lips moved, but she kept her eyes closed and waited, waited through an eternity. It was silent in the house. She heard, nothing. As yet no shot had been fired from the gun. It remained silent.

Kristina kept her eyes closed and waited. . Until a child’s voice said: “Open your eyes, Mother! Why do you keep your eyes shut?”

Then she opened her eyes and looked about her, all around the cabin, as if awakening from a long, bad dream. Lill-Märta sat on the floor with her playthings as before, and little Harald stood in the open door and looked out. No one else was in sight. She was alone in the house with her children. The callers had gone: the two Indians had gone their way with the gun. They had come into the house soundlessly, they had left in equal silence — stolen away on their soft moccasins like animals slinking back into the forest. They had not fired a shot. .

But when she tried to walk, she felt the floor sway under her: the planks sank steeply under her feet, she took one step into a depth — she fell full length to the floor and knew nothing more.

— 3—

Karl Oskar came in, Johan at his heels; he carried a few pike strung through the gills on a branch; he threw the fish on the floor in front of the hearth. It was cold inside the cabin and he wondered why the door had been left open. Then he discovered Kristina, stretched out on the floor at the other end of the room.

He hurriedly soaked a towel in the water pail and laid it on his wife’s forehead. In a few minutes she opened her eyes and sat up, confused and questioning: What was it? Why was she on the floor?

“You fainted,” Karl Oskar said.

She still felt dizzy, she put her hand to her forehead and began to remember: Karl Oskar had returned — at last!

“What were you doing? Why did you stay away so long?”

“So long? I was only gone a short while.”

He looked at his watch: he had examined the snares and moved them a bit, but he hadn’t been gone a half hour.

“A half hour?” Kristina was surprised. In that time she had suffered death, spent time in eternity. “I called you.” Her dulled senses were clearing: “The Indians came. Two awful ones! They took your gun.”

Karl Oskar looked at the wall — the gun was still there where he had hung it. As Kristina noticed this, she said: “I was so confused — I thought they stole the gun. But they cocked it.”

Karl Oskar took down his muzzle-loader and examined it; he couldn’t see that anyone had touched it.

“Did they handle it?”

“They aimed it.”

“At you? Oh Lord in Heaven!”

“I thought they would shoot me and the children.”

“God, they must have frightened you! No wonder you fainted!”

She related what had taken place in the cabin the few minutes he was gone. And as Karl Oskar listened, a cold perspiration broke out on his forehead. While he had been gone less than half an hour, the greatest disaster he could imagine had nearly befallen him: he might have returned to find wife and children dead on the cabin floor.

“Oh Lord my God! What an escape!”

Kristina said: First she had called him. Then she had prayed God to help her, and He had listened to her prayer and sent the savages away from their house without harming her or the children. Never before in her life had she realized so fully as today how all of them were under the protection of their Creator.

“They left the gun. I don’t understand it. What did they want in here?”

Karl Oskar suggested that the Indians were curious: they hadn’t come to murder anyone, they only wanted to see how the new settlers lived. But they handled shooting irons like children — the gun might easily have gone off and killed her!

“This must never happen again,” he said.

They had had a serious warning today. She must bolt the door carefully whenever he was out, even if only for a short time. And they must rig up a loud bell so she could call him when there was danger.

“I hope you didn’t hurt yourself?”

“No. I feel perfectly well again.”

She had looked very pale when he saw her lying on the floor, but now her color had come back. She busied herself with her chores, they must have their evening meal at last. She stirred up the fire under the pot and Karl Oskar went outside for more wood.

She sat down to clean the fish. But as she stuck the knife into the first pike belly, she felt a jerking convulsion grip her: an intense pain began in the small of her back and spread through her whole lower body. It felt as if she had stuck the knife into her own belly instead of into the fish.

When Karl Oskar came back with the wood, he saw she had grown pale again, her very lips were bluish. And her hand with the knife trembled as she cut the entrails from the pike.

“Is something wrong?”

“Nothing much. It’ll soon be over.”

“But you’ve pain?”

“It will soon pass.”

She went on cleaning the fish, she cleaned all the pike, and the pain abated. She had told Karl Oskar the truth — the pain had passed.

But what she hadn’t said was that it would soon be upon her again; she had recognized the pain.

And it did come back — an hour later, when they sat around the chest lid eating their supper. The same pain returned, radiating from the small of her back, shooting and cutting through her lower body. This time it lasted longer than before. Her appetite was gone, but she forced herself to swallow a few bites of the boiled fish.

Karl Oskar looked uneasily at his wife: “How do you feel, Kristina?”

“I don’t feel so well, after the fainting spell.”

“Eat! That will bring back your strength.”

She tried for a moment to persuade herself that it was only the aftereffect of fainting. And the pain eased, but in a little while it came again for a third time, and now it seized her so violently that she had to let a few moans escape her lips. She panted and drew in her breath with difficulty.

“Take some drops!” Karl Oskar urged.

He found the bottle of Hoffman’s Heart-Aiding Drops, which Kristina had hidden with great care; he poured a tablespoonful and gave it to her. She swallowed the drops without a word. But by now she knew: no drops would help her, this would not pass, this would come back many times, and more intense each time it came — until it was over. She remembered it well; after all, she had experienced it four times before. And she regretted immediately having taken the heart-aiding drops, they couldn’t help her in any way; those drops had been wasted on her; they might better have been used for the children, when they ailed. Foolish of her. . Why had she believed something would help? The first time might have been a mistake — but now. . Why didn’t she tell Karl Oskar the truth?

“It’s my time, Karl Oskar.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes. It couldn’t be anything else.”

He looked at her in foolish surprise. “But — isn’t it too soon?”

“Fourteen days too soon.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought. . Then we must get someone right away!”

He had just finished pulling off his boots, now he pulled them on again quickly. Where could he find a woman to help? Who out here could act as midwife? At home she had had both her mother and mother-in-law at her childbeds. But here — a married woman, a settler woman who spoke their language — there was hardly a one. An unmarried woman who had never borne children would not be good for much. He had had it in mind to suggest to Kristina — as long as she herself hadn’t mentioned it — that they ought to bespeak a woman to help her in childbed, before it was too late. Fina-Kajsa was too old, her hands trembled, and her head wasn’t always clear. He had thought of Swedish Anna, who was a widow and had reached ripe age — she should be able to help a life into the world.

But it was a long way to fetch her from Taylors Falls — a three-hour walk by daylight. And would she come with him through the wilderness tonight? This had happened so suddenly, night was falling, and this too was bad luck.

“I had better get Swedish Anna. But it will take a few hours.”

“You needn’t go so far,” Kristina said. “Get Ulrika.”

“What? Ulrika of Västergöhl?”

“Yes. I asked her at the housewarming.”

“You want the Glad One to be with you?”

“She promised me.”

Karl Oskar was stamping on his right boot, and he stopped, perplexed: The Glad One was considered as good as anyone here, no one spoke ill of her now. Both he and Kristina had made friends with her, had accepted her in their company. But he had not imagined that his wife would call for Ulrika of Västergöhl to be with her at childbed, he had not thought she would want her so close. Yet she had already bespoken her — the woman she had wanted to exclude as a companion on their journey. She would never have done this at home; there a decent wife would never have allowed the public whore to attend her at childbirth.

Kristina rose and began preparing the bed: “Don’t you think Ulrika can manage?”

“Yes! Yes, of course! I only thought. .”

But he never said what his thought was. It was this: he had accepted Ulrika, but hardly more. He could not forget that, after all, she had been the parish whore in Ljuder, and he was surprised that Kristina seemed to have forgotten. Perhaps it was as well, perhaps it was fortunate that she was within call when a midwife was needed. She should know the requirements at such a function, she had borne four children of her own, she should know what took place at childbirth. Ulrika had health and strength, she was cleanly. She would probably make a good midwife. She could help a wedded woman, even though all her own children had been born out of wedlock. What wouldn’t do at home would have to do here; here each one did as best he could, and they must rely on someone capable, regardless of her previous life.

Karl Oskar now was surprised at himself for not having thought of Ulrika. “I shall fetch her as fast as I can run.”

“It’s already dark. It won’t be easy for you.”

He said he could find the road to their neighbors’ settlement, he had walked it often enough. But it was too bad that Robert was staying with Danjel, or he could have sent him instead. Now he must leave Kristina and the children alone — and just after they had been frightened by the Indians. She must bolt herself in, to be safe. Would she be able to push in the bolts after he left? It would be almost two hours before he could get back.

“Can you hold out till I get back?”

“I think I can. But be sure to bring Ulrika with you.”

Karl Oskar cut a large slice of bread for each of the children, to give them something to gnaw on while he was gone. He stopped a moment outside the door while Kristina bolted it, and then he took off.

Outside it was pitch-dark. Karl Oskar had made himself a small hand lantern out of pieces of glass he had found in Taylors Falls: he had fitted these into a framework of wood. But the tiny tallow candle inside burned with so weak a flame that the lantern helped him but little. Later there might be a moon, but at the moment the heavens were cloaked in dark clouds, not letting through a ray. He must hurry, he hadn’t time to look for obstacles, he strode along fast, stumbled on roots, slipped into hollows; thorns stung him and branches hit him in the face; he was drenched with perspiration before he was halfway to Danjel’s. A few times he had to stop to get his breath. It was difficult to hurry in his heavy boots.

Karl Oskar was panting and puffing like a dog in midsummer when at last he espied the light from Danjel’s cabin; he had never before covered the distance between the two settlements in so short a time.

He arrived as the Lake Gennesaret people were preparing for bed. Dan-jel, shirt-clad only, opened the door for him. Looking at Karl Oskar’s face he guessed the caller’s errand: “It’s Kristina? She must be ready.”

“Yes.”

Ulrika of Västergöhl was sitting on the hearth corner darning socks in the light from the fire. She stood up: “How far has it gone?”

“I don’t know. The pains came right after dusk.”

“Had the birth-water come?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s probably just begun.”

“It came on somewhat suddenly. Two Indians came in and frightened her. That might have brought it on.”

“It’s always sudden,” Ulrika told him.

She gathered up the worn socks and put them away; then she threw a woolen shawl over her shoulders and was ready. Danjel handed her a bottle of camphor drops and a large linen towel.

Robert asked if he should go with them, but Ulrika said: “There’s no need for any more menfolk.” She glanced at Karl Oskar, who stood there anxious and pale: “No — no more chickenhearted males!”

And out into the darkness went Karl Oskar in Ulrika’s company; he went ahead through the forest and tried to light their way with his lantern. Now he couldn’t walk fast, partly because he was tired, partly because of Ulrika.

Soon the moon broke through the clouds, and the moonlight was of more help than the lantern.

Ulrika talked almost incessantly: Yes, menfolk were soft at a woman’s childbirth; they used as excuse that they couldn’t bear to see a poor woman suffer. . Hmm. . The truth was, probably, they suffered from bad conscience — those who had a conscience; they themselves had put the woman in childbirth pain.

Karl Oskar answered her in monosyllables, mostly he listened. Whatever was said of Ulrika in Västergöhl she was a fearless and plucky woman. This was well — such a one was needed at a childbed.

Ulrika continued: She herself had been delivered four times, but at her childbeds no man had needed to see her suffer; least of all the fathers of the children, for they had kept themselves far, far away. They had kept away at the birth and after; indeed, she had never heard from them again. It was best for them, of course; they were wise; they wanted to partake of the sweet tickling, but not of the sour suffering. Men were always quick to be on their way; and she had been too proud to ask their whereabouts. No one could ever accuse her of having run after men. It was the menfolk who had never left her in peace, they had tempted and promised and lured her in every way; and that poor excuse for a man who didn’t do the right thing of his own will was not worth running after.

Yes, Ulrika knew the menfolk; the only one who might know them better was God the Father Himself, Who had made them. She had been with many; she knew what cowards they were toward women, how they tried to shirk their responsibility for what they had done, how they lied and accused others, how they wriggled and squirmed — those men. She knew how they shammed concern and acted the hypocrite, their tongues sweet and soft until they got a woman on her back, and how afterward — having been let in to enjoy the feast — they grew cheap and penurious and unkind: turned back into the useless cowards they actually were.

There might be a few real men; the best that could happen to a woman in this world was to be married to a real man, one she could rely on when she needed him.

“You are a man with a will, Karl Oskar. And you take care of your brats as well as your woman,” said Ulrika.

The man who received this praise felt somewhat embarrassed.

The Glad One went on: Kristina was a fine, honest woman, she did not begrudge her a good man. She, Ulrika, had accommodated many married men who were in need of her, but she would never go to bed with Kristina’s husband, no, not even for a whole barrel of gold.

This annoyed Karl Oskar and he rebuffed her tartly: “I’ve never asked you, have I?”

“You were pretty hot on me at sea. You can’t deny that. No one fools me about such things.”

Karl Oskar felt his cheeks burn; even his ears smarted: once on the ship he had used Ulrika — in his dreams. But no one could help what he dreamed. And even if there had been times when he felt himself tempted by the Glad One’s attractive body, he was too proud to go where other men had been before. Better not pay any attention to what she was saying, it wasn’t a penny’s worth. It was just like Ulrika to talk of bed play when they were on their way to a woman in childbirth. His own wife to boot! He would not be dragged into a quarrel with the woman he had fetched to help. .

Ulrika went on heedlessly. She nudged Karl Oskar in the side and told him it was nothing to be ashamed of that he was hot on women, particularly as he had been forced to go without for such a long time — his wife had been ill, and pregnant, these were long-drawn-out obstacles, trying his patience. But any man of Kristina’s she, Ulrika, would never help, however badly in need he might be.

What she said was true; it struck him to the quick. But he did not answer. He had a sense of relief as the surface of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga glittered in the moonlight ahead of them.

A hundred yards from the cabin they stopped short at the sound of a scream. Both listened intently; it wasn’t a bird on the lake, it was a human voice, a voice Karl Oskar recognized: “It’s Kristina!”

He ran ahead as fast as his legs could carry him. He hammered with his fists on the door, which was bolted from the inside; he could hear his wife’s shrieks, she was in her bed, unable to open the door. How would he get in?

“Kristina! Can you hear me?”

Ulrika came up to his side, panting: “Have you locked her in?”

“Yes. And I don’t think she is able to open. .”

“Break a window.”

Karl Oskar picked up a piece of firewood and was ready to break the nearest window when he heard Johan inside: the boy was trying to open the heavy bolts. The father directed the boy, told him how to lean against the door while he pulled the bolts, and he and Ulrika tried to pull the door toward them. After a few eternity-long minutes, the door swung open on its hinges.

Kristina was lying on her side in the bed, her body twisting as she shrieked and moaned.

“Kristina! How is it?”

“It’s bad. Where is Ulrika? I’ve been waiting so. .”

“We hurried as much as we could.” Karl Oskar took hold of his wife’s hand: it was clammy with perspiration; her eyes were wide open, she turned them slowly to her husband: “Isn’t Ulrika with you?”

Ulrika had thrown off her shawl and now stepped up to the bed, pushing Karl Oskar aside: “Here I am. Good evening, Kristina. Now we’ll help each other.”

“Ulrika! God bless you for coming.”

“How far along are you? Any pushing pains yet?”

“Only the warning pains, I think. But — oh, my dear, sweet Ulrika! Why did you take so long?”

The fire in the corner had died down, Lill-Märta and Harald were huddled on their bed with their clothes on, asleep, but Johan was up and about, his eyes wide open, full of terror: “Why does Mother cry so?”

“She has pain.”

“Is her nose going to bleed again, as on the ship?”

“You can see for yourself — her nose doesn’t bleed.”

There had been one night on the Charlotta which Johan never would forget. “Will Mother die?”

“No — she won’t die. Go to bed and be a good boy.”

“Father — is it true? Mother won’t die tonight?”

“She is just a little sick. She’ll be well again tomorrow morning when you wake up.”

Ulrika pulled down the blanket and felt Kristina’s body with her hands, lightly touching her lower abdomen; then she asked: Had the birth-water come, and how long between the last pains? While Karl Oskar undressed the children and tucked them in, and rekindled the fire, the two women spoke together: they understood each other with few words, they had gone through the same number of childbeds, four each; they were united and close through their like experience.

“It feels large,” said Ulrika after the examination.

“I have thought — perhaps it’s twins.”

“Haven’t you had twins before?”

“Lill-Märta’s twin brother was taken from us when he was fourteen days old.”

“It runs in the family. Karl Oskar. Get me some light. Heat water over the fire. Be of some use!”

Ulrika assumed command in the cabin, and Karl Oskar speedily performed as he was told to do. It was not his custom to take orders, but tonight at his wife’s childbed he was glad someone told him what to do.

From dry pine wood he made such a roaring fire that it lighted the bed where Kristina lay, comforted by her helping-woman in between the pains. She had not had time to sew anything for the child, not the slightest little garment; she had had so many other things to do this fall. And she had thought it would be another two weeks yet; it came too early according to her figuring; no, not a single diaper — and suppose she had twins!

“No devil can figure out the time,” said Ulrika. “A brat will creep out whenever God wants him to.”

Kristina had hoped it would happen in warm daylight; then she could have sent her children out to play. Now they had to stay inside and listen to her moans; but she couldn’t help that.

The next pain came and she let out piercing screams, filling the small cabin with her cries. Johan began to sob; the father took him on his knee and tried to comfort him. Karl Oskar had never before been present at childbirth; at home the women had taken care of everything and never let him inside until all was over. He didn’t feel too much for other people — sometimes his insensibility made him feel guilty — but his wife’s cries of agony cut right through him, he could scarcely stand it.

“You look pale as a curd, Karl Oskar,” said Ulrika. “Go outside for a while. You’re of no use here. I’ll put the boy to bed.”

He obeyed her and went out. It was now about midnight. He went down to the shanty near the lake and gave Lady her night fodder. Then he remained in the shanty with the cow, who stood there so calm and undisturbed, enjoying her own pleasant cow-warmth. The closeness of the animal in some way comforted him. And he didn’t feel cold here — Lady warmed him too. The cow chewed her good hay peacefully and rhythmically, and he scratched her head and spoke to her as if she were a human. He confided his thoughts to Lady, it eased him somehow to talk: Yes, little cow, things are strange in this world. The Glad One is inside helping Kristina. . and I stand here. . I can’t help her. How many times I’ve wished to be rid of Ulrika! And Kristina herself thought she would bring disaster. Instead, she is our great comfort. Yes, little cow, we never know our blessings. It happens, this way or that, strange things, one never could have dreamed of at home. One can’t explain it.

Karl Oskar Nilsson spent most of the night in the byre, lost and baffled, talking to his borrowed cow; he felt he had been sent to “stand in the corner,” he didn’t know what to do with himself. He had been told to go out — he was driven out of his own house and home. The Ljuder Parish whore was master in his house tonight.

— 4—

After a few hours he went to inquire how the birth was progressing. Kristina lay silent, her eyes closed. Ulrika sat by the bed, she whispered to him: He must walk quietly, she had just gone through another killing pain. Things went slowly, the brat did not seem to move at all. The real birth-water hadn’t come yet, and the pushing pains had not yet set in. This birth didn’t go according to rule, not as it should; something was wrong. Perhaps she had been frightened too much by the Indians, perhaps the fright had dislodged something inside her. The birth had come on too suddenly — the body was not yet ready for delivery, it did not help itself the way it should when all was in order. This appeared to be a “fright-birth,” and in that case it would take a long time. But there was no use explaining to him; he wouldn’t understand anyway.

“I wonder how long. .”

No one could say how long it would take; maybe very long; Kristina might not be delivered tonight. And Ulrika told him to go to bed. There was no need for his roaming about outside, like a spook.

Johan had at last fallen asleep. Karl Oskar stretched out in Robert’s bed; he didn’t lie down to sleep, he lay down because he had nothing else to do. He had been sitting up late for several evenings, writing a letter to Sweden, but he couldn’t work on that tonight.

Kristina had dozed off between the pains; she moaned at intervals: “Ulrika. . Are you here?”

“Yes. I’m here. You want something to drink?”

Ulrika gave her a mug of warm milk into which she had mixed a spoonful of sugar.

Kristina dozed again when the pains abated. She had always had easy births — what she went through this night surpassed all the pain she had ever experienced in her young life. But she felt succor and comfort close by now: a little while ago she had been lying here alone in the dark, alone in the whole world, alone with her pains, no one to talk to — no one except her whimpering children. Now she had Ulrika, a compassionate woman, a sister, a blessed helper.

There was so much she wanted to tell Ulrika, but she didn’t have the strength now, not tonight. She had lived with Ulrika in bitter enmity — she remembered that time when Ulrika had called her a “proud piece.” Ulrika had been right. She had been proud. Many times, at home, she’d met unmarried Ulrika of Västergöhl on the roads without greeting her. She was the younger of the two, she should have greeted her first with a curtsy. Instead she had stared straight ahead as if not seeing a soul. She had behaved like all the other women, she had learned from them to detest and avoid the Glad One. She had acted the way all honorable, decent women acted toward Ulrika. But when she had met the King of Alarum, she had greeted him and curtsied deeply, for so did all honorable women. One must discriminate between good and evil people.

Yes, all this she must tell Ulrika — some other time — when she was able to, when this agony was over. Oh, why didn’t it pass? Wouldn’t she soon be delivered? Wouldn’t God spare her? It went on so long. . so long. . “Oh, help! Ulrika, help!”

The pains were upon her; she felt as if she were bursting into pieces, splitting in halves lengthwise. A wild beast was tearing her with its claws, tearing her insides, digging into her, digging and twisting. .

Ulrika was near, bending over her. The young wife threw herself from side to side in the bed, her hands fumbling for holds. “Oh! Dear God! Dear God!”

“The pushing pains are beginning,” Ulrika said encouragingly. “Then it’ll soon be over.”

“Dear sweet, hold me! Give me something to hold on to!”

Kristina let out piercing cries, without being aware of it. The billowing pains rose within her — and would rise still higher, before they began to subside. In immeasurable pain she grasped the older woman. She held Ulrika around the waist with both arms and pressed her head into the full bosom. And she was received with kind, gentle arms.

Kristina and Ulrika embraced like two devoted sisters. They were back at humanity’s beginning here tonight, at the childbed in the North American forest. They were only two women, one to give life and one to help her; one to suffer and one to comfort; one seeking help in her pain, one in compassion sharing the pain which, ever since the beginning of time, has been woman’s fate.

— 5—

“It will be over soon now. Come and hold her.”

Ulrika was shaking Karl Oskar by the shoulder; he had dozed off for a while. The night was far gone, daylight was creeping in through the windows.

The midwife was calling the father — now she would see what use he could make of his hands.

Kristina’s body was now helping in the labor, Ulrika said. Her pushing muscles were working, she was about to be delivered. But this last part was no play-work for her; Karl Oskar might imagine how it would hurt her when the child kicked itself out of her, tearing her flesh to pieces, breaking her in two. While this took place it would lessen her struggle if she could hold on to him, as she, Ulrika, had to receive the baby and couldn’t very well be in two places at the same time.

Karl Oskar went up to the head of the bed and took a firm hold around his wife’s shoulders.

“Karl Oskar—” Kristina’s mouth was wide open, her eyes glazed. She tossed her head back and forth on the pillow. She stretched her arms toward her husband and got hold of his body, pressing herself ever closer to him, seeking a solid stronghold.

“Hold on to me. . ” The words died in a long, moaning sigh.

“The head is coming! Hold her firmly. Ill take the brat.” Ulrika’s hands were busy. “A great big devil! If it isn’t two!”

Karl Oskar noticed something moving, something furry, with black, shining, drenched hair. And he saw a streak of dark-red blood.

The birth-giving wife clung convulsively to her husband, seeking his embrace in her deepest agony. Severe, slow tremblings shook her body, not unlike those moments when her body was joined with his — and from moments of lust had grown moments of agony.

While the mates this time embraced, their child came into the world.

A hair-covered crown appeared, a brow, a nose, a chin — the face of a human being: Ulrika held in her hands a living, kicking, red-skinned little creature.

But the newcomer was still tied to his mother.

“The navel cord!” Ulrika called out. “Where did I put the wool shears?”

For safety’s sake she had rinsed Kristina’s wool shears in warm water in advance; they had seemed a little dirty and rusty, and one was supposed to wash everything that touched the mother’s body during childbirth. Oh, yes, now she remembered — she had laid the shears to dry near the fire.

“On the hearth! Hand me the wool shears, Karl Oskar!”

With the old, rusty wool shears Ulrika cut the blood-red cord which still united mother and child.

Then she made that most important inspection of the newborn: “He is shaped like his father. It’s a boy!”

Kristina had given life to a son, a sturdy boy. His skin was bright red, he fluttered his arms and legs, and let out his first complaining sounds. From the warm mother-womb the child had helterskelter arrived in a cold, alien world. The mother’s cries had died down, the child’s began.

Ulrika wrapped the newborn in the towel Danjel had sent with her: “A hell of a big chunk! Hold him and feel, Karl Oskar!”

She handed the child to the father; they had no steelyard here, but she guessed he weighed at least twelve pounds. Ulrika herself had borne one that weighed thirteen and a half. She knew; the poor woman who had to squeeze out such a lump did not have an easy time. Ulrika had prayed to God to save her — an unmarried woman — from bearing such big brats; the Lord ought to reserve that honor for married women, it was easier for them to increase mankind with sturdy plants. And the Lord had gracefully heard her prayer — He had taken the child to Him before he was three months old.

Thus for the first time Karl Oskar had been present at childbed — at the birth of his third son — his fourth, counting the twin who had died.

Yes, Ulrika was right, his son weighed enough. But he lacked everything else in this world: they hadn’t a piece of cloth to swaddle him in; his little son was wrapped at birth in a borrowed towel.

Ulrika warmed some bath water for the newborn, then she held him in the pot and splashed water over his body while he yelled. And her eyes took in the child with satisfaction all the while — she felt as if he had been her own handiwork.

She said: “The boy was made in Sweden, but we must pray God this will have no ill effect on him.”

Kristina had lain quiet after her delivery. Now she asked Karl Oskar to put on the coffeepot.

She had put aside a few handfuls of coffee beans for her childbed; Ulrika had neither drunk nor eaten since her arrival last evening, they must now treat her to coffee.

“Haven’t you got anything stronger, Karl Oskar?” Ulrika asked. “Kristina must have her delivery schnapps. She has earned it this evil night.”

The delivery schnapps was part of the ritual, Karl Oskar remembered; he had given it to Kristina at her previous childbeds. And this time she needed it more than ever. There were a few swallows left in the keg of American brännvin Jonas Petter had brought to the housewarming.

“I think you could stand a drink yourself,” Ulrika said to Karl Oskar.

She finished washing the baby and handed him to the impatient mother. Meanwhile Karl Oskar prepared the coffee and served it on top of an oak-stump chair at Kristina’s bedside. He offered a mug to Ulrika, and the three of them enjoyed the warming drink. The whisky in the keg was also divided three ways — to the mother, the midwife, and the child’s father. And the father drank as much as the two women together, and he could not remember that brännvin had ever tasted so good as this morning.

While the birth had taken place inside the log house, a new day had dawned outside. It was a frosty November morning with a clear sun shining from a cloudless sky over the white, silver-strewn grass on the shore of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga.

The newly arrived Swedes in the St. Croix Valley had increased their number by one — the first one to be a citizen in their new country.

XVIII. MOTHER AND CHILD

The child is handed to the mother — it had left her and it has come back.

All is over, all is quiet, all is well.

Kristina lies with her newborn son at her breast. She lies calm and silent, she is delivered, she has changed worlds, she is in the newly delivered woman’s blissful world. It is the Glad One — the public whore of the home parish — her intimate friend, who has delivered her. But it is the child — in leaving her womb — who has delivered her from the agony; the child is her joy, and her joy is back with her, is here at her breast.

Mother and child are with each other.

The mother tries to help the child’s groping lips find a hold on her breast. The child feels with its mouth aimlessly, rubs its nose like a kitten; how wonderfully soft is its nose against the mother’s breast; as yet it seeks blindly. But when the nipple presses in between its lips, its mouth closes around it; the child sucks awkwardly and slowly. Gradually the movements of the tiny lips grow stronger — it answers her with its lips: it answers the mother’s tenderness and at the same time satisfies its own desires.

The mother lies joyful and content. The newborn has relieved her of all her old concerns, as he himself now has become all her concern. Now it is he who causes her anxiety: she hasn’t a single garment ready to swaddle his naked body, not even a piece of cloth, not the smallest rag. What can she use for swaddling clothes?

A child could not arrive in a poorer home than this, where nothing is ready for it, it could not be given to a poorer mother. Wretched creature! Arriving stark naked, to such impoverished parents, in a log house in the wilderness, in a foreign land! Wretched little creature. .

But a child could never come to a happier mother than Kristina, and therefore its security is the greatest in the world.

At her breast lies a little human seedling, entrusted to her in its helplessness and defenselessness. It depends on her if it shall grow up or wither down, if it shall live or die. And at this thought a tenderness grows inside her heart, so strong that tears come to her eyes. But they are not tears of sorrow, they are only the proof of a mother’s strong, sure feeling for her newborn child.

When God gave her this child in her poverty, He showed that He could trust her. And if the Creator trusted her, then she could wholeheartedly trust Him in return. From this conviction springs the sense of security and comfort which the child instills in the mother.

Poor little one — happy little one! Why does she worry? Why is she concerned about him? She has something fine to swaddle him in! Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She should have remembered at once: her white petticoat, the one she never uses, because it is a piece of finery. Her petticoat of thick, fine linen, woven by herself, her bridal petticoat! As yet she has used it only once — at her wedding. And for what can she use it here in the forest? Here she’ll never go to weddings, here she’ll never be so much dressed up as to need such a petticoat. She can cut it to pieces and sew diapers from it; it is large, voluminous, it will make many diapers. And she must use it because she has nothing else. But isn’t it the best thing she could ever find for protection of her child, that delicate little body, with its soft, tender skin? Her own bridal petticoat!

How happy the woman who can cut up her best petticoat for her child.

So much for the clothing. Food for the child the mother has herself. Milk for the child runs slowly as yet, only a few white drops trickling. And Kristina aids the newborn’s blindly seeking mouth, pushes her nipple into blindly seeking lips which do not yet quite know how to hold and close and suck, to receive the mother’s first gift.

All is well, all is over, all is quiet. Now mother and child rest in mutual security.

XIX. THE LETTER TO SWEDEN

North America at Taylors Falls Postofice in

Minnesota Teritory, November 15, Anno 1850

Dearly Beloved Parents,

May all be well with you is my Daily wish.

I will now let you know how Our Journey progressed, we were freighted on Steam wagon to Buffalo and by Steam ship further over large Lakes and Rivers, we had an honest interpreter. On the river boat Danjel Andreasson lost his youngest daughter in that terrible pest the Cholera. The girl could not live through it. But the rest of us are in good health and well fed. Nothing happened on the journey and in August we arrived at our place of settling.

We live here in a Great Broad valley, I have claimed and marked 160 American acres, that is about 130 Swedish acres and I will have delasjon with the payment until the Land is offered for Sale. It is all fertile Soil. We shall clear the Land and can harvest as much Hay as we want. We live at a fair Lake, full of fish and my whole farm is overgrown with Oak, Pine, Sugar Maples, Lindens, Walnuts, Elms and other kinds whose names I do not know.

I have timbered up a good house for us. Danjel and his Family settled near us in the valley, also Jonas Petter. Danjel no longer preaches Åke Svensson’s teaching, nor is he making noise about his religion, he is pious and quiet and is left in peace by Ministers and Sheriffs. Danjel calls his place New Kärragärde.

Our beloved children are in good health and live well, I will also inform you that we have a new little son who made his first entry into this world the seventh of this November, at very daybreak. He is already a sitter as are all who are born here. We shall in time carry him to Baptism but here are ministers of many Religions and we dare not take the Lord’s Supper for fear it is the wrong faith. Here is no Religious Law but all have their free will.

Scarcely any people live in this Valley, rich soil is empty on all sides of us for many miles which is a great shame and Sin. We have no trouble with the indians, the savages are curious about new people but harm no one. They have brown skin and live like cattle without houses or anything. They eat snakes and grasshoppers but the whites drive away the indians as they come.

There is a great difference between Sweden and America in food and clothing. Here people eat substantial fare and wheat bread to every meal. Newcomers get hard bowels from their food but the Americans are honest and helpful to their acquaintances and snub no one if ever so poor. Wooden shoes are not used, it is too simple for the Americans. They honor all work, menfolk milk cows and wash the floor. Both farmers and Ministers perform woman-work without shame. In a town called Stillwater we were given quarters with a priest who did his own chores.

I have nothing of importance to write about. Nothing unusual has happened to us since my last letter. Things go well for us and if health remains with us we shall surely improve our situation even though the country is unknown to us. I don’t complain of anything, Kristina was a little sad in the beginning but she has now forgotten it.

We hope soon to get a letter from you but letters are much delayed on the long way. Winter has begun in the Valley and the mail can not get through because of the ice on the river. I greet you dear parents, also from my wife and children, and Sister Lydia is heartily greeted by her Brother. My Brother Robert will write himself, he fools with writing easier than I. Kristina sends her greetings to her kind parents in Duvemåla. Nothing is lacking her here in our new settlement.

The year is soon over and we are one year nearer Eternity, I hope these lines will find you in good health.

Written down hastily by your devoted son

Karl Oskar Nilsson