Unto A Good Land

XX. THE INDIAN IN THE TREETOP

— 1—

Some distance west of the creek which emptied into Lake Ki-Chi-Saga a sandstone cliff rose high above the forest pines. The cliff had the copper-brown color of the Indians, and its shape strongly resembled the head of an Indian. Seen from below, a broad, smooth, stone brow could easily be recognized. Under the forehead lay two black eye holes, well protected by the formidable forehead boulders. Between the eyes a protruding cliff indicated a handsome Indian nose. The upper lip was formed by a ledge, and under it opened a broad indentation; this was the mouth, a dark gap. Below the mouth opening was a chin ledge. Even the neck of the Indian could be discerned below the chin and on top of the head grew maple saplings and elderberry bushes which the Indian in summer carried like a green wreath on his head.

This cliff in the forest was visible from afar and served as a landmark. The Swedish settlers at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga soon referred to it as the Indian-head.

In the caves and holes of the rock, animals found protection and hiding places, and those forest creatures which sought refuge in rain and storm within the Indian’s jaws could rest there in comfort. But on the deer path below could be seen great boulders, which from time to time had fallen from the cliff. And near some of these blocks were whitened, disintegrating bones, remnants of animal skeletons; perhaps, as a forest beast had run by below, the Indian had spit out a stone from his mouth and crushed it.

This Indian was of stone, and as dead as a stone, but the white bones indicated that he could be trusted as little as a living Indian.

When Robert passed the Indian-head he trod lightly and stole quickly by, lest a boulder be loosed by his step and come crashing down on him. No one knew when the Indian might hurl a stone at a passer-by, human or beast.

In the beginning, Robert was as much afraid of the Indians as he was curious about them. But as time went by his curiosity increased and his fear diminished. The Indians seemed so friendly that they might in time become a nuisance. They frightened people sometimes with their terrifying appearance, they liked to deck themselves in all kinds of animal parts, but as yet they had done no harm to the Swedish settlers.

Karl Oskar despised the Indians for their laziness and called them useless creatures. Kristina pitied them because they were so thin and lived in such wretched hovels; and both she and Karl Oskar were grateful not to have been created Indians.

No one knew what the copperskins thought of their white neighbors, for no one understood their language. Robert guessed they considered their pale brethren fools to waste their time in work. He had begun to wonder which one of the two peoples could be considered wiser, the whites or the browns, the Christians or the heathens. The Indians were lazy, they did not till the earth, and what work they did was done without effort. He had watched them fell trees: they did not cut down the tree with an ax, they made a fire around it and burned it off at the root. The Christian hewed and labored and sweated before he got his tree down. But the heathen sat and rested and smoked his pipe until the fire burned through and the tree fell by itself, without a single ax blow.

The Indians did not waste their strength in work; they spared their bodies for better use, they saved their strength for enjoyment. At their feasts they danced for three weeks at a stretch — it was just as well they had rested beforehand. But Karl Oskar and the other peasants in Småland had accustomed themselves to tiresome labor and drudgery every day, they would not have been able to dance for even one week, so worn out were they. The heathens wisely economized their body strength so that they were capable of more endurance than the Christians.

The Indians were vain, they decorated themselves with buffalo horns, they greased their hair with bear fat, they smeared red clay over their faces. At times they painted their whole bodies so red they resembled blood-stained butchers; in such things they were childish. But in other ways they were so clever one might take them for magicians; their bows were simple and useless looking — only a piece of skin stretched between the two ends of a broken-off branch — yet their arrows killed game in its tracks; Robert had once seen an Indian shoot a big buck with his bow and arrow. The brownskins’ flint arrows were short, but they sharpened them against a peculiar stone called Indian-stone until their points grew so sharp they would penetrate hide and flesh and shatter bone.

The Indians were childish in another way — they believed dead people could eat and drink; they carried food and drink to the graves of their relatives.

But in one way they were much wiser than the whites: they did not hoe the earth.

Robert had once seen the picture of an Indian girl in a book; she was so beautiful he would have liked to make her his wife, could he have found her. But the young women he had seen here among the Chippewas were almost all ugly: they had short legs, clumsy bodies, broad, square faces with thick noses. The older women had such rough skin that they were almost repulsive. Yet white menfolk were said to desire Indian women. Samuel Nöjd, the fur trapper, had related that in the old days there were French trappers so burning with lust they couldn’t pass a female in the forest. They had raped every Indian woman they encountered, however ugly or old she might be. And this caused them no more concern than shooting an animal.

However, Nöjd said, the trappers had grown less eager to attack Indian women after the Sioux had taken a gruesome revenge on one white man. They had tied him to a pole, and for a whole night they sharpened their knives in front of him, now and then calling out to him: “You may live until our knives are sharp!” At intervals they tested their knives by cutting off a piece of his skin. At daybreak the knives were sharp — and the trapper insane. Then the Indians stuck their well-honed knives into his breast, cutting loose his heart, as slowly as they could, and the man lived a long while with his heart dangling outside him like a big red blossom. This had taken place near the Indian cliff. Later the savages had buried the trapper in the cave called the mouth of the Indian-head. Every day at dawn the trapper’s agonized cries could still be heard, Samuel Nöjd concluded.

The Sioux, who from time to time roamed through these regions, were much more cruel than the Chippewas. But Robert did not avoid the Indians because of their cruelty or their heathenish ways; rather, he admired and esteemed them for their wisdom and their easy way of living. Had he himself been given brown skin instead of white, he would not have been forced either to cut timber in the forest or grub hoe the earth.

— 2—

The night frost grew sharper; each morning the meadow resembled a field of glittering white lilies. An intense storm had in a single day shaken the leaves from the trees, carrying them into the air like clouds of driven snow; afterward the surface of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga shone golden yellow with all the floating leaves from the naked forest on its shores. After the storm came the cold, and land and water were soon frozen hard. On the lake the mirror-clear ice crust thickened each night, and in the ground the frost dug deeper, not to release its hold until spring.

No one could work frozen ground, and Robert put away his grub hoe for the winter. He must now help his brother cut fence rails; in the spring Karl Oskar would fence the part of his land he intended to cultivate, and thousands of rails were needed.

Robert and Arvid visited each other every Sunday; either Robert would walk over to the settlement at Lake Gennesaret, or Arvid would come to Ki-Chi-Saga. Usually they went down to the lake shore, where they made a fire; here the two friends from Sweden could sit undisturbed in intimate talk.

Robert had told Arvid when he first decided to leave his Swedish service and emigrate to North America. Now he again had a secret of a similar nature, and Arvid was the only one he confided in. One frosty Sunday, as they sat feeding their fire on the lake shore, he began: “Can you keep your mouth shut?”

“I never say anything. You can rely on me.”

“I carry a great secret — no one knows it; I’m going to run away from here as soon as I can.”

Arvid was astonished: “What’s that you say? You want to leave your brother?”

“Karl Oskar is not my master.”

“I thought you two brothers would stay together.”

“I shall travel far away and dig gold.”

“Dig up gold? The hell you will! And you haven’t told anyone?”

“Such a plan must be kept secret.”

Robert explained: It wasn’t that his brother treated him badly, Karl Oskar neither kicked nor hit him; but the work was no different from the drudgery he had endured while a hired hand in Sweden; it was equally depressing and heavy; the days dragged along with the same monotony. He could not stand it much longer, he had never wanted to be a day laborer, he knew a shorter way to riches, and here in America no one could stop him from traveling wherever he wished.

“Do you know where the gold lies?” Arvid asked.

“Yes. In California. Farthest away to the west.”

“Is California a — a broad land?”

“Broader than Minnesota.”

“Do you know the exact place? I mean, where the gold lies?”

“No. I’ll have to look and ask my way, I guess.”

“Is the gold spread all over? Or is it in one place?”

“It’s spread all over.”

Arvid thought about this for a while, then he said: Gold was supposed to glitter, it should be easy to see it, if one looked sharp. But if California was bigger than Minnesota, and if the gold was spread all over that broad country, then Robert might have a troublesome, long-drawn-out journey before he found it; he would have to walk over the whole country and look everywhere.

Robert realized that Arvid did not know anything about the gold land; he had only heard the name. He must explain to his friend about that country, since he wished to share his plans for the future with Arvid.

And so Robert began a simple explanation of California. He told Arvid all he had read and heard, besides much he had neither read nor heard but which he knew must be so, without exactly knowing how he knew it. And perhaps the things he knew in this way were the most important.

In California the valuable metal called gold was almost as common as wood in Minnesota. Gold was used for all kinds of tools, implements, and furniture, because it was cheaper than iron or wood. Rich people used gold chamber pots. The gold grew in that country on fields called gold fields. It grew quite near the surface. Only a light hoe was needed to reach it, not a heavy ten-pound grub hoe such as he labored with here. In some places no hoe at all was required — there were those who had dug up as much as fifty thousand dollars’ worth of gold with a tablespoon. The only tool needed was a wooden bowl in which to wash the gold to remove the dirt. And if you couldn’t afford a bowl, you might wash the gold in your hat; an old, worn-out hat was all one needed to gather a fortune. And when the gold had been washed clean of earth and other dirt, until it shone and glittered according to its nature, one had only to put it in a skin pouch and carry it to the bank, and then return to withdraw the interest each month. All gold pickers with good sense did this; the others squandered their gold in gambling dens, or ruined themselves with whores.

One needn’t pick up a great deal of gold in order to get rich. About a hundred pounds would be right, or as much as one could carry on one’s back; about two bushels would be right.

“How big might the gold clods be?” Arvid asked.

“They are of different weights.”

The gold grew in pieces of all sizes, from about half a pound to twenty-five pounds weight, Robert explained. There were chunks as large as a human head, while others were tiny as dove eggs. There was also a still smaller kind, about the size of hazelnuts, and these lumps were most prevalent and easiest to find. But they were such a nuisance to pick that he did not intend to bother with them; for himself he would choose the larger chunks, then he wouldn’t have to bend his back too often; by picking the twenty-five-pound pieces one could save one’s strength in the gold fields.

Nor would Robert gather such a great fortune that it would be a burden to him. He wanted a medium-sized fortune that would be easy to look after and not bring him eternal damnation; he did not intend to build himself a castle, or buy expensive riding horses, or marry some extravagant woman with a desire for diamonds and pearls. He only wished to gain enough of a fortune to live for the rest of his life without drudgery, or labor, or masters.

Robert wanted to weigh up for himself a hundred pounds of the California gold; then he would return completely satisfied. Perhaps he might even return to Sweden and buy himself a manor house. He had heard of two farm hands from Småland who had dug gold in California and then returned home and bought great estates. They had each brought home a sack of gold, which they had exchanged for Swedish coin. But Robert thought he would be satisfied with a smaller estate, about two hundred acres or so; the larger ones required too much attention and could easily become a burden to their owners. Robert would get himself an overseer; and he would pay his hands well — a thousand daler a year, and they would be let off work at six o’clock, Saturdays at five.

“You are good to them,” said Arvid.

“Having served as farm hand myself I know what they deserve,” said Robert modestly.

“And. . was it your thought to travel alone to California?”

“No. That’s what I wanted to tell you: the two of us should go together.”

There should be two, because the road was so awfully long. And two would find the gold much more easily than one. True enough — gold glittered and shone, but four eyes could see twice as much as two; and two would be safer against robbers and thieves.

“Are you coming with me, Arvid?”

It was the same question Robert had once before asked his friend, one night long ago in a stable room in their homeland. Then it had concerned North America, and so great had been Arvid’s surprise at Robert’s daring and ingenuity that he had been speechless for a long moment. Now the question concerned a journey to the land of gold in North America, and that land also lay so far away that the sun needed extra hours to reach it in the mornings.

Robert repeated his question: “Are you coming with me, Arvid?”

“I want to — that you must know. But I’m in Danjel’s service.”

“He cannot keep you here! Not in America.”

“But I owe my master for the journey here.”

Danjel Andreasson had paid the expense for his servant’s emigration, and Arvid felt it would be dishonest to leave him before he had repaid Danjel through his work. But he too knew full well that no master could keep him longer than he wanted to stay; no servant law was in force here, no sheriff fetched runaway farm hands.

“You can pay Danjel what you owe him when you come back from California!” said Robert. “You can just hand him a chunk of gold.”

Yes, returning from the gold fields Arvid would be so well-to-do that he need never again lift his hand in work, neither with ax, hoe, nor any other tool. He had only to carry his gold to the bank and each month withdraw sufficient interest to pay his expenses; there would be plenty of money to pay Danjel.

Moreover, the two youths had once and for all promised each other to stick together in America.

“I haven’t forgotten that promise,” said Arvid, deeply moved. “I want to follow you, that you must know. But I must talk to Danjel before I shake your hand on it.”

Robert already felt sure he could persuade Arvid to go with him to California.

“You mustn’t whisper a word to anyone! I don’t intend to tell Karl Oskar until the day before I leave!”

He had already figured out the way to take: They would board the Red Wing next time the packet steamer came to Stillwater, then the boat would carry them down the Mississippi to St. Louis, the same way they had traveled last summer. By helping to load wood and wash dishes, they would not have to pay a cent for their transportation on the Red Wing. From St. Louis they could walk dryshod all the way to California, following the great highways that led to the West.

“Isn’t there any — any ocean in between?” Arvid asked with some concern.

Robert assured him there was not; only solid land, mostly dry, sandy stretches where they could walk comfortably to the home of the gold in the New World.

Robert had long been listening to his left ear, its persistent humming and ringing urging him on: Come! Come! A new land far away called him again, and having obtained his friend’s promise of company, he would soon follow the call.

But the winter was to interfere with his plans; the frost grew in intensity, soon the whole St. Croix River was covered with solid ice. The Red Wing’s bell no longer was heard in Stillwater; indeed, no craft would be seen on the river until next spring when the ice had broken up; the inhabitants of the St. Croix Valley were separated from the outside world by the frozen river.

For the rest of the winter Robert was shut up in Minnesota Territory.

— 3—

Early one Sunday morning, Robert picked up his brother’s gun and went into the forest. New-fallen snow, three or four inches deep, covered the ground; it was fine hunting weather. Not far from the cabin he came on the tracks of an elk, and hunting fever seized him. The elk could not be very far away — Karl Oskar had not yet shot an elk — think if he could shoot this big animal and be the first one to bring home all the meat!

The elk tracks led past the Indian-head, and Robert stopped a moment to look up at the cliff. The stone Indian stared back at him with his unchanging, black eye holes. As long as this cliff had existed — for thousands of years — those deep, inscrutable eyes had looked out over the forest; the Indian stood guard for his brown-skinned people, an eternal watchman over the hunting grounds hereabouts. But his green wreath was now withered, the bushes on top of his head had lost their leaves, the wind whipped the naked, dry branches; only above the Indian’s left ear some limbs still carried their leaves — like eagle feathers stuck behind his ear.

Every time Robert looked at the enormous face of this cliff, a strange sensation of uneasiness stole over him; there was something threatening in the stone Indian’s eternal immobility; he felt like a sneaking intruder on the age-old hunting grounds of the savages.

Suddenly he crouched, holding his breath: he had discovered a living Indian close by.

Below the cliff, hardly a gunshot from where he stood, a human figure huddled in the top of a small birch. His face was turned away from Robert, but he could see skinny legs, partly covered by tattered skins which fluttered in the wind. And near his hands Robert could clearly see a bent branch — the Indian’s bow!

For a long minute he grew cold and hot in quick succession. An Indian lurking in the tree, with his bow and sharp arrows! Whom could this sly brownskin be waiting for? White intruders who trespassed on his hunting grounds? Was he waiting for Robert? Was that why he had climbed the birch? The Indians were said to surprise their prey from treetops. .

Robert held on to his gun butt with trembling fingers. Apparently he had discovered the Indian before being seen himself; why not fire first? But if he missed? An Indian could shoot a score of arrows in a minute. And already Robert could feel them penetrate his body — twenty arrows all over his body! Hadn’t he seen one single Indian arrow kill a huge buck? If he should miss — he could see himself dead.

But perhaps the Indian too was after elk. Perhaps he too had seen the fresh tracks? If he were waiting for game, then Robert might be able to sneak away before being seen. As yet there had been no threatening move.

Robert threw himself down in the snow and began hitching himself away on his elbows, his gun above his head. In this way he moved some twenty yards until he reached a thicket, behind which he crouched cautiously; now the man in the tree could not see him. He wasn’t sure if an arrow had pursued him — a bow did not give a report like a gun, and he didn’t hear too well.

He waited a few minutes but nothing happened. Carefully he separated the branches to peek through: the Indian was still sitting in the tree, he didn’t seem to have moved the least bit, he still held his bow in the same position. Indians could sit for hours in a tree, as immobile as stones; he must still be waiting, watching the trail below the cliff.

Robert was now sure the Indian had not yet seen him, and if he could get away a little farther he would be beyond reach of an arrow.

As he began to steal away he heard a rustle in the thicket. He listened. Was it the wind? Or a rabbit? Or was it an arrow? He heard the sound again; some branches moved close by his head where he lay on the ground. It must have been an arrow striking in the thicket, the Indian must have discovered him when he peeked through a moment before.

For a third time there was a rustle in the bush, the branches quivered; now he could clearly hear the whizz of an arrow through the air!

He grew panicky; his heartbeats throbbed in his ears, he felt choked. He aimed the gun in the general direction of the Indian and fired. The report echoed loudly against the cliff, the shot must have been heard for miles. It was so loud that it deafened him and echoed inside his eardrums. What had he done? He had fired the gun in fright, without exactly knowing why. Now all the Indians in the vicinity would be warned, now they would all come after him!

Seized by an overwhelming fear, Robert took to his heels. He ran as if the devil were after him. He ran toward the cabin the shortest way he knew, he slunk between the trunks of a thick stand of timbers; he was conscious of leaving tracks behind for his pursuers to follow, but he was too scared to look back; the Indians could run twice as fast as white men, and they had fresh snow tracks to follow. But Robert dared not look to find out if they followed him; he did not stop to consider that if an Indian had pursued him he would immediately have been overtaken.

He didn’t even slow down as he reached the lake shore and saw the cabin, he rushed panting in through the door and sank down on his bed. It was some time before he recovered his breath sufficiently to speak, and Karl Oskar and Kristina watched him and wondered what had happened.

Robert had brought back no game. But Karl Oskar knew that he often missed with his shots and as he now looked at the gun he could see that it had been fired; a little annoyed at this waste of powder and bullet, he asked: “What have you been shooting at?”

“I shot — an Indian.”

“You lie!”

“No. No. But he shot at me first.”

And by and by Robert breathed easier and could stammer out his story: He had almost been shot to death, near the Indian cliff. A brown-skin had been sitting in wait for him in a tree. Robert had sought protection behind some bushes, but the Indian had shot several arrows at him. He had had to defend himself and he had fired a shot at the Indian. Then he had run home as fast as he could.

“Did no one come after you?”

“Not as far as I could see. That’s why I’m sure I shot him.”

Karl Oskar grew more concerned. But he controlled himself, he didn’t want to say anything that might frighten Kristina. He took Robert outside and questioned him in detail about everything that had taken place below the cliff.

Since the Indian had not pursued him, Robert was sure his bullet had hit him, he had seen him fall down from the tree like a fat woodcock.

“Did you really sec him fall?” asked Karl Oskar.

“Well — I ran as fast as I could. . ”

“But you don’t know for sure if you hit him? I hope to God you didn’t!”

And Karl Oskar told his brother what he had not wanted to say in Kristina’s presence: If he had shot an Indian, he had brought disaster on all of them.

He had many times admonished Robert to avoid the Indians and never in any way to disturb them. All had been well so far, they had lived in peace with the Chippewas. If it was true that Robert had been waylaid and attacked with arrows, and had defended himself, then he was within his rights. But if he had wounded or killed a peaceful Indian, then revenge-hungry tribe members would make them all pay for it; then their copper-colored neighbors would soon come and call on them.

“I only hope you missed him!” Karl Oskar repeated.

The next few days Karl Oskar went in constant fear that the Indians would appear at the cabin for revenge. He tried to figure out how he might summon help in time. He had heard of Fort Snelling, near St. Paul, where the Americans kept a company of soldiers to protect the whites. But it was thirty miles to the fort, and long before a message could reach there the Indians would have had time to murder them and burn down their house. There was this about the savages, they could never be relied on; no one could predict what they would do.

But then one day something happened to allay his fears: The Indians on the island in Lake Ki-Chi-Saga broke up their camp and moved away; brownskins no longer lived in their vicinity. It was the custom of the Chippewas to live in winter quarters some forty or fifty miles to the south.

— 4—

Some weeks went by, and Karl Oskar had almost forgotten about Robert’s encounter with the Indian in the tree. Then one day, having picked up his gun to follow some forest birds, he happened to pass the Indian cliff. Snowdrifts had now piled on the Indian-head, giving him wintry eyebrows, and a crown of glittering snow. In summer this Indian had a green wreath, in winter a white crown. But Karl Oskar’s alert eyes espied something else: A birch tree grew below the cliff, and something was fastened to the top of the birch.

He walked toward it to investigate; someone was hanging in the treetop, a human being, an Indian. This Indian could not move, however, he was frozen stiff. The wind had swept away the snow, but no odor tainted the air — the frost was protecting the corpse from decay.

Robert’s Indian was still hanging in his tree. He had hung there for weeks; he was stone dead. The shot had hit him then, the calamity Karl Oskar feared had taken place. But the rest of the tribe must not have discovered what had happened to one of their members, they must not have found his body. Or why hadn’t they come for revenge?

Then he discovered something else in the treetop, something he couldn’t understand at first. He walked around the tree, looking up; he climbed a stone to see better, and suddenly the mystery was solved; now he knew why they had been spared a visit from revengeful neighbors: The Indian in the tree had been hung there! His neck was pierced through by the top of the birch, which had been sharpened and stuck through the neck like a spear. The top of the young tree was bent like a bow, the Indian was strung up through his neck, like a dead fish on a forked stick.

And now Karl Oskar remembered what he had heard about the Indians, how they preserved the bodies of their dead in wintertime, when the digging of a grave in the frozen ground was too hard work. They strung up the corpses in trees, high enough above ground to be safe from beasts. The dead one had been placed there by his own tribe!

He left the Indian in the tree and walked home; he had no desire to disturb the body, he did not wish to interfere with the doings of the Indians. But now he knew the truth about his brother’s adventure: Robert had been attacked by an Indian who was strung up in a tree, he had run for his life from a dead Indian.

Walking home, Karl Oskar recalled Robert’s story on the Charlotta about the captain’s slave trade. That time he had greatly doubted his brother’s veracity; this time he knew that Robert had invented the story, he had proof that his brother was a liar.

As soon as he reached home he called Robert aside: “Did you say the Indian in the tree shot an arrow at you?”

“Yes! He shot several arrows, right into the bush where I hid!” Robert assured him.

“Did any of the arrows hit you?”

“No. Luckily enough, the bush protected me.”

“Yes, I understand. I guess the Indian had poor aim. And I don’t wonder — you see, he was dead. He’s still hanging dead in the tree. The top is stuck right through his neck!”

Karl Oskar took Robert with him to the tree with the Indian. This was his proof, and he turned to Robert, sterner than ever: “You’re a damned liar! The Indian never shot a single arrow at you!”

“But I could hear them rustle in the bush!”

“I think it was the wind.”

“It was arrows! I’m sure! I could hear them!”

“You don’t hear very well. And you invent lies! You spin yarns! Now I want you to tell me the truth.”

“But it is the truth! I swear it, Karl Oskar.”

To Robert, his story of the Indian in the treetop was irrevocably the truth. The brownskin had shot at least three arrows at him, with his own ears he had heard them whizz through the thicket. And how could Karl Oskar know that the Indian wasn’t alive when he shot at Robert? Moreover, he couldn’t remember if the Indian had been sitting in exactly that tree; perhaps it was another Indian, in another tree. He, Robert, had seen a living Indian, with a bow, he could not alter his story in the least, for he had told the truth.

Robert’s behavior angered and worried Karl Oskar; not only did the boy lie, he was so thoroughly dishonest that he stubbornly insisted his lies were true. He insisted he had been attacked by the Indian and that he had run for his life.

Now Karl Oskar spoke sternly, with fatherly concern: Was Robert so hardened that he believed his own fabrications? Didn’t he know the difference between truth and lies? If he continued to invent and tell tales like this, people would soon believe not a single word he said, no one would have confidence in him. And if no one could rely on him, he would have a hard time getting along in America. He must be careful about what he said, or disaster might follow.

He must realize that Karl Oskar felt responsible for him as an older brother, now that he was in a foreign country without his parents to look after him. Didn’t he think his own brother was concerned for his welfare? Why couldn’t he admit that he had lied, and promise never to do it again? He ought to do it for his own sake, for his own good!

But Robert admitted nothing. His ear had heard the Indian’s whizzing arrows in the bush; at least three times his ear had heard them, and this remained the truth to him.

Karl Oskar could get nowhere. Robert had a weak character, and no persistence in work or effort. He hadn’t a farmer’s feeling for the earth, he did what he was told, but unwillingly, without joy or pleasure. At work he often acted as if he neither saw nor heard, as if walking in his sleep in full daylight. Karl Oskar had long been aware of these shortcomings in his brother, but he had hoped they would disappear as he grew older and his common sense increased. A settler in this new land needed a sturdy character, persistence, clear vision; he couldn’t walk about in his sleep. . To these faults, Robert had lately added this infernal habit of lying, more dangerous than all the rest — it might bring him to utter ruin.

After this happening, Karl Oskar’s concern about Robert increased; he thought it might have been better if his brother had remained in Sweden.

XXI. THE SWEDISH SETTLERS’ ALMANAC

— 1—

November passed with changing weather — cold days followed milder ones. Little snow fell. But in early December the first blizzard broke, beating the cabin walls for four days.

All living creatures sought their lairs for shelter against the fierce north wind. The snow did not fall on the ground, it was driven down violently, flung by the forceful sling of the storm. Man and beast trying to move against this wind must crouch, almost creep along. And the north wind brought in its wake a cold that penetrated bone and marrow, that made the blood stop in its course.

During this blizzard no one ventured outside unless forced by necessity. It was an undertaking even to open the door. Karl Oskar had to go to the shanty morning, noon, and evening, to give Lady water and fodder. It was hardly more than a hundred steps between the cabin and the small stable, yet the first day of the blizzard he almost lost his way. The snow beat into his eyes so that he could not see, everything around him was snow, hurled, whirling snow; he walked in a thick, gyrating snow cloud, fumbling about like a blind person. He could not see one step ahead of him, he lost his sense of direction, and wandered about a long time before he found the cabin.

In the raging blizzards of this country he could lose his way a few steps from his house. And should he get lost on his way between cabin and stable there was the danger of freezing to death in the snow.

Karl Oskar felt the need of something to guide him between his two houses, and from the linden bark he had saved he now twisted a rope, fastening one end to the cabin and the other to the shanty. While walking the short distance he never let go of the rope; each time he opened the door and faced the blizzard he felt like a diver descending to the bottom of the sea and holding to a guide rope — without it he might have been lost.

During the blizzard Karl Oskar milked Lady every day. The cow still gave little at each milking — only one quart — but this was sufficient for the children; the grownups had to do without. He had never before sat on a milking stool, and now he learned a chore which in this country was usually performed by the menfolk. Strong hands were needed to squeeze the milk from the teats, and he wondered why milking had always been considered woman’s work.

Now that the feared winter had come Kristina spent most of her time within the house; she had regained her strength and resumed her household tasks but she dared not go outside. She said the snow, like everything else, was different here: at home the snowflakes fell soft as wool on one’s face, here they were hard and sharp and pricked like awl points.

Karl Oskar had made sure they need not freeze in the house this winter; outside the door he had stacked firewood in high piles, logs from dry pines long dead on root, excellent wood that gave much heat. As long as the fire was kept burning it was warm in the house. He had also split pitch wood in great quantity to be used for lighting the cabin; these splinters were stuck in the wall between the logs and used as candles, but they had to be watched carefully to avoid setting fire to the house.

Their home was now taking on the appearance of a carpenter shop. Karl Oskar spent much time making furniture and tools — chairs, food vessels, snow shovels, hay forks, rakes. He busied himself long after the others had gone to bed. Being handy with wood, he could use it for many purposes; a settler beginning from the very beginning had to use it for almost everything.

He had already worked as lumberman, carpenter, mason, roofer, rope maker — now he attempted a new handicraft: that of shoemaker. Their leather shoes were wearing out and they couldn’t buy new ones; he must make wooden shoes for his family. No alder trees grew in this forest so he decided to use elm; the American elm was softer than the Swedish and easy to work with. But wooden shoes could not be made comfortable and light without years of experience. He had neither experience nor the proper tools; the shoes that came from his hands were clumsy and ill fitting though they could be worn. He made one pair of wooden shoes for each member of his family except the baby, who would not need shoes until he could walk. For his newborn son he made a cradle — a dug-out log which he fastened to rockers.

Then he began to make a table. He had made up his mind to have a fine table, solid and well made, a durable piece of furniture, a table he could ask visitors to sit down to without feeling ashamed. And he worked long and carefully on this piece of furniture. He cut a block from the thickest oak he could find and made a table top; to this he fastened a smaller log for footing. He planed the top until it shone; now they would not get splinters in their fingers when eating. The leg log also caused him great labor, the table must stand evenly on the floor without leaning or limping.

And he took his time with the table, time hung heavily upon him during these winter days and long evenings. And when he rested he got into the habit of fingering the three books they had brought from Sweden: the Bible, the psalmbook, and the almanac. Two thick books and one thin; the thick ones contained spiritual fare, they were the soul’s guide to eternity; the thin book was their guide in this transitory world. Karl Oskar had used the almanac most often, and now in the last month of the year it was badly worn and soiled. Each Sunday he or Kristina read the text in the psalmbook, and each Sunday Karl Oskar also looked in the almanac to determine where they were in the calendar year. He had marked the days of this year which they must remember: April 6, when they left their home; April 14, when they said farewell to their homeland in Karlshamn; June 23, when they arrived in North America; and July 31, when they reached Minnesota Territory. After their arrival here he had put a cross in the almanac on the day they moved into their house, the day when his third son was born, and the day Lady had been taken to the bull at Fischer’s, the German’s.

The year 1850 was nearing its end, and when the old year ended, the almanac too would come to an end. They could not obtain a new Swedish almanac, and they could not read an American one. Karl Oskar wondered how they would manage to keep track of days and weeks and months in the year to come. He must invent some means. To make an almanac that would last a single year was harder than to make a table that would last for generations. But without the almanac he would feel lost in time.

— 2—

Yuletide was near — a strange Yule for Kristina, a Christmas in another world, a Christmas without Yule chores. No pig to butcher, no ale to brew, no great-bake to bake. But they must nevertheless celebrate the holiday and honor the Saviour’s birth like Christian people. She said to Karl Oskar, this year they must not think of the outside — food, drink, and material things. They must celebrate Christmas in their hearts; this year must be a Christmas for their souls.

She scoured the cabin floor until it was shining white, she washed their underclothes in ash lye, so that all could change for the holiday, she hung fresh pine boughs on the walls and decked the cabin inside as best she could. Of a pine top with upright branches Karl Oskar made a five-armed candlestick, an ingenuity which his wife praised greatly. He had promised they would celebrate Christmas at a table, and he kept his promise: on Christmas Eve itself he gave the table the last finishing touches with his plane. He was proud of his handicraft, the first piece of real furniture he had ever made, particularly when, at the final inspection, Kristina said: This sturdy oak table would undoubtedly last so long that not only they themselves but their children and grandchildren as well could eat their meals at it throughout their whole lives.

While they had eaten their meals at the chest lid Karl Oskar had felt like a pauper sitting in a corner of someone else’s house, eating handed-out food. Now, as he put his feet under his own table, his self-confidence increased: Now he had settled down, now he had become his own master in the new land.

They used their new table for the first time at the Christmas Eve dinner. And Kristina too was pleased — to gather for a feast around a table was something quite different from sitting down to a meal at the old chest lid. The five-armed candleholder was put in the center of the table; they had saved only three candles for Christmas, so two arms were left empty, but the three burning candles spread Yule light in their house. They had bought a pound of rice for the Christmas porridge, and with it they used sweet milk. It was their only Christmas dish, but they ate it with a deep sense of holiday spirit. Its smell and taste brought to their minds recollections of this Holy Eve’s celebration at home. Long-ago Christmases now entered their cabin, Christmas Eves with the whole family gathered; and their thoughts lingered on those who at other Yuletides had sat down at table with them. Relatives at home in Sweden tonight seemed more alive than ever, and they spoke of the letter from Sweden which they had been waiting for so long. How much longer before they would hear from parents and relatives? The expected mail from Sweden had not had time to arrive before the river froze and the packets stopped coming for the winter. Now it could not arrive until spring, and that was a long time to wait.

Tonight Karl Oskar remembered his parents as he had seen them that last morning — when he had looked back from the wagon seat for a final glimpse of them as he left the old home: father and mother, looking after the departing ones, standing on the stoop close together, immobile as two statues. To him they would always remain in that position; they could not move or walk away; they stood there, looking after their departing sons; they stood like two dead objects, hewn in stone. His parents could never again resume life in his mind’s eye. Perhaps this was because deep within him he knew he would never again meet them on this earth.

A thought came to him — it remained a thought only, which he would not utter: his father and mother might already be dead and buried, without his knowledge. .

After the meal Kristina opened the Bible and read the second chapter from St. Luke which in her home had always been read by her father on Christmas Eve in commemoration of the Saviour’s birth:

“And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

“And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. . ”

Kristina read the Christmas Gospel for all of them, but after a few verses she felt as though she were reading it for herself only: it concerned her above all, it concerned her more than the listeners. Mary’s delivery in the stable in Bethlehem reminded her of the childbed she had but recently gone through. It seemed that Mary’s time too had come suddenly and unprepared for, even though her days were accomplished: Mary had been on a journey, and perhaps they had been delayed, unable to reach home in time. And Mary had been poor, even more impoverished than she herself. Kristina had borne her child in a human abode, in a well-timbered house — Mary had lain on straw in an animal shelter, in a stall. Kristina had enjoyed the comfort of a kind and helpful midwife, but the Bible said not one word about any help-woman for Mary in the stable. And she wondered whence the Saviour’s mother had obtained the swaddling clothes she wrapped about her child before she placed it in the manger. Had she prepared them in advance and brought them along on the journey to Bethlehem? The Bible was so sparing with details that she often wondered and questioned while reading. She guessed Mary must have had as much concern about the clothing of her first born as she herself had had for her child. Perhaps Mary too had been forced to cut up her petticoat to prepare the swaddling clothes for Jesus.

For the first time in twenty years Kristina slept on Christmas morning; ever since early childhood she had gone with her parents on this morning to the early service, which took place hours before daylight, the church illuminated with many candles. But here also they would revere Christmas Day, and Second Christmas Day: all work in the house ceased. They had carried in enough firewood before the holiday, all they had to do was to tend the fire and prepare food.

On Third Christmas Day they had unexpected guests. Swedish Anna and Samuel Nöjd came driving a team of oxen and a dray which they had borrowed from the lumber company; holidays were the time for visits among their countrymen, and they were eager to see the first child born to Swedish settlers in the St. Croix Valley. The boy was now seven weeks old, he was in splendid health, he nursed heartily and cried for more. The mother had enough milk for him, and he was hungry — both facts made Kristina’s heart glad. What more could she ask? Suppose she had been without milk, or the child without appetite?

Swedish Anna looked at the tender child as if beholding a miracle of God; she wanted to hold the baby in her arms the whole time she was there. And for luck each of the guests gave the child a coin — a whole silver dollar each!

The parents were in great perplexity about having their last born baptized; so far as they knew, there was not a single Swedish minister in the whole Territory. Karl Oskar wished Danjel Andreasson to conduct the baptism: he was experienced in religious matters, he lived as piously as any minister. In Sweden Dean Brusander had once forbidden them to invite Danjel to be godfather to Harald, because Danjel had been excluded from the church; but the dean had no power over them here, and they ought to compensate Danjel for this insult — they ought to ask him to perform the Sacrament of Holy Baptism for their last-born son.

Kristina was much devoted to her uncle and thought as highly of him as Karl Oskar, but she worried about his earlier heresy and wondered if he weren’t still a little confused in religious matters. And she had always felt that the rites of Holy Baptism should be performed by an ordained minister in frock and collar.

Karl Oskar argued: If Danjel read the ritual according to their own Swedish psalmbook, following every word, then it must be valid; they themselves had been baptized in accordance with these instructions.

Kristina asked if a baptism by an American minister wouldn’t have the same effect as a baptism by the Swedish clergy. She had thought of Pastor Jackson in Stillwater, who had been so kind to them last summer when they landed from the steamboat. She turned to Swedish Anna: Was there anything wrong in having a child baptized in English? Wouldn’t Jesus accept it equally well? Weren’t all tongues the same to the Lord?

Swedish Anna looked at her in consternation: “You must be out of your mind! Do you want your child to be a Baptist?”

“Baptist?”

“Pastor Jackson is a Baptist! I thought you knew!”

“No, I didn’t know that. But Anna — are you sure?”

“Ask anyone in Taylors Falls!”

Yes, it was true, insisted Swedish Anna: Pastor Jackson was minister of the Baptist Church in Stillwater. He was a sectarian, an Anabaptist, a heretic, an Antichrist preacher. Of all sectarians, the Baptists were the most dangerous, because they rebaptized grown people and robbed them of their Christian grace, bringing them eternal damnation.

And Swedish Anna paled in terror, hovering over the cradle of the unbaptized baby as if trying to protect him against evil powers. “If you let Pastor Jackson baptize the child, you hand him over to the devil instead of to Jesus!”

By now Kristina’s concern was as great as Swedish Anna’s. But she was also confused: How could the pastor in Stillwater be a false teacher, baptizing people to eternal damnation, eternal fire? Of all the Americans she had met he was the kindest and most helpful; there had been no end to his thoughtfulness for their comfort last summer. And now she related how good he had been to her and the children and all of them. How could he be an evil person, an Anabaptist, sent by Satan?

“That is exactly what he is!” Swedish Anna assured her with inflexible determination. “All Baptists are tools of the devil!”

And this Kristina ought to have realized: That time last summer, he had only tried to snare the newcomers with his false religion, so that he might baptize them and snatch them from Jesus. That was why he had given them food and lodging! That was why he had pretended kindness, while the devil sat in his heart and roared with laughter at the easily lured Swedish souls. That was how the Baptists gained their adherents — through deceit and falsity! And Kristina ought to know that devilish evil powers always decked themselves in sheep’s clothing while stealing souls! Had she looked closer, she might have seen the cloven hoof of Pastor Jackson, hidden in his boot!

Swedish Anna picked up the unbaptized child from its crib and held it firmly and protectingly in her arms: Before this child were turned over to a false priest, she herself would steal it from the parents!

Moreover, the Baptists only baptized grown people.

Still Kristina could not entirely understand; she grew more confused. She felt in her heart that she had not heard the whole truth about the minister in Stillwater, even if it were true he preached a false religion: he too might have been led astray; perhaps in his honest simplicity he believed what he taught.

After this there was no further talk between Karl Oskar and Kristina about taking their son to Stillwater. But they were not concerned only about the child — it was high time they found a minister for themselves as well; their souls needed a nourishing sermon. And Kristina ought to be churched after childbirth; she felt the need of entering a temple to thank God for His grace in giving her a child; she needed His blessing, His comfort, she wished to seek Him in His temple. When a woman was touched by the minister’s hand, she was cleansed and purified after her childbed. And all of them needed the sacrament of communion after the long journey from the home church. She tried to tell herself that the Lord would overlook their delay and not consider it an unforgivable sin, since they were settled in this wilderness and unable to reach His table — but often, nevertheless, she prayed for forgiveness, worrying over their inability to partake of the Sacrament: though God must look kindly on her, she sometimes said to herself, else He wouldn’t have entrusted a new life to her care.

The boy was now so old the parents could no longer keep him unbaptized with a clear conscience. It was their duty to give the child to their Lord and Saviour. They therefore agreed to let Danjel perform the ritual in their home on New Year’s Eve. Kristina wished to invite Ulrika of Västergöhl as godmother, to hold the child at the baptism. After some hesitation, Karl Oskar gave his consent.

The father made a neat little bowl of ash wood for the baptismal water. The christening robe Kristina sewed from leftover pieces of her bridal petticoat, which she washed and starched in potato water until it shone. A child should wear a snow-white robe when the Saviour received him at baptism.

They had never before had a christening performed at home, and now they felt as though they were going to church in their own house. They dressed themselves in their best clothes. The floor was swept and the cabin put in order. They could not afford a feast this time; no guests were invited except the officiant and the godmother. Besides, it was difficult now in the middle of the winter to get from one house to another. This time they would have only a simple christening ale; the important thing was that the child be baptized according to the clear Lutheran confession.

And on New Year’s Eve in late afternoon the christening took place in the log house. Parents, christening officiant, and godmother stood gathered around the new table, on which was spread their only linen cloth, brought from their old home. Before the holy act Kristina had given the breast to the baby; she held him a long while and let him suck out every drop of milk she had so that he would keep silent while receiving the Sacrament. He was now satisfied and content as she handed him to the godmother, and he lay goodnaturedly in Ulrika’s comfortable arms.

Ulrika herself realized fully the importance of her function here; she stood solemn and silent and let Danjel do the talking today.

Kristina had asked her uncle to perform the christening word for word as it was printed in the psalmbook on the page About Baptism. And Danjel did as he had been asked to do — he used only the printed words of the book, not a single one of his own. He read Our Father and the Christian doctrine into which the child was to be baptized, he read every one of the Tenets of the Faith, from beginning to end. And with his hand laid gently on the little one’s head, he asked according to the book: “Child! Do you wish to be baptized in this faith?”

The babe in Ulrika’s arms was so filled with his mother’s milk that part of his last meal began to run out of his mouth in little runnels. Down his chin it dripped — he spluttered all over his godmother’s blouse. And to the officiant’s question he answered only with a satisfied belching.

But Ulrika answered for the baby in the psalmbook’s own words, which she had learned by heart in advance: Yes, he wanted to be baptized in this faith! Then Danjel Andreasson picked up the boy from the godmother, three times he dipped his hand into the water in the wooden bowl and sprinkled it over the downy head: He was baptizing a human soul in the name of the Holy Trinity.

The child suddenly began to yell, annoyed at this wetting, even though Kristina had been careful to warm the water so it would be neither too hot nor too cold for his delicate scalp. But Ulrika, with motherly care, stuck her thumb into the baby’s mouth and the little one sucked and kept his silence.

According to the ritual, Danjel now turned to Ulrika: In case of the parents’ inability or absence, it was the godmother’s duty to watch over the child, to see that it faithfully kept the promise it had today given in baptism. And she answered her “Yes” in a loud voice and promised to obey all God asked of her. And the parents observed all was performed to the very last word as was written in the psalmbook. Everything at this baptism was done right.

Thus the christening was accomplished: the pure Evangelical-Lutheran Church had one more adherent in the St. Croix Valley.

The budding American citizen in the settlement on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga had been given the name Nils Oskar Danjel. He was to be called Danjel. He had one name from his father, one from his grandfather, and one from the man who had baptized him. All three were good Swedish names. Ulrika had wished to add a fourth, an American name, because he was born in America; but the parents thought they would wait to use such a name until they had another child to christen. The boy, after all, had had his beginning in Sweden.

After the Sacrament was over, the godmother prayed a silent prayer to the Lord of Heaven for her foster son: Would the Almighty ever keep His hands over him, so that no disadvantage might come to him and no evil befall him, even though he was begotten in Sweden.

So ended the year of our Lord 1850. It had been the most unusual year yet in the lives of the immigrants.

— 3—

The new year 1851 opened with blizzards, followed by heavy snowfalls over the Territory. The snow piled so high around the cabin that they could not see through the windows; it reached to the eaves. Karl Oskar Nilsson’s log cabin lay there at the edge of the forest like a tall snowdrift, little resembling a human habitation. Inside, the cabin’s owners lived as in a mine, deep in the ground.

They had heard the story of one settler who had hung his cabin door swinging outward; after a heavy snowfall he had been unable to open it; for three weeks he had been locked inside his house and had almost starved to death before the snow melted and he managed to get out. At home all entrance doors swung inward; the locked-in settler could not have been a Swede.

After the heavy snowfall the men had a new chore — to shovel the snow from the door, make paths to the shanty, the lake, the water hole at the brook. They also cleared away the snow from the windows, but the tall drifts against the walls were left undisturbed, as they were a protection against winds and helped to keep the warmth inside.

After the blizzards followed a time of even, strong winter. The air was crystal clear and like hoarfrost to breathe. The cold dug and tore with its sharp frost claws; the hard snow crust, strong enough to carry full-grown men on its glittering back, now made the wilderness easily accessible. During the stillness of the nights, cracking sounds could be heard as the frost sharpened under a starlit sky.

They must ever be on guard against freezing to death. In the cabin the fire was kept alive day and night. If the embers should die down for a few hours toward morning they would feel the cold when awakening. The children were not very anxious to crawl out of their beds until the fire was burning brightly. All of them — big and little — huddled around the hearth with its blessed fire.

Outside, all animals had sought invisible hideouts. The lake birds had long ago disappeared, and so had the rabbits, the squirrels, and the gophers. The crickets no longer drove their ungreased wagon wheels; the screechhopper had been heard in the grass until late in November but now it was silenced. And the settlers at the lake wondered how any of the delicate forest creatures could survive such a winter, such unmerciful cold; here even able-bodied people found it hard to survive.

— 4—

The almanac had come to an end with the old year, and with it Swedish time had ended for the immigrants. They had no guide for days and weeks, nothing to indicate name days and holidays.

Now an idea came to Robert: He could take the old almanac for 1850 and from this figure the days of the new year. He could write a new almanac for the whole year 1851. In Sweden it was forbidden by law to use any almanac except the one printed and sold by the government, but North America had a friendly government; here people could live according to their own almanac, free from persecution or punishment. And once Robert had written one almanac he might make copies of it and sell them to other Swedes who might be equally lost in time.

Karl Oskar gave his brother a few sheets of paper which he had bought when he wrote the last letter to Sweden. Robert folded each sheet twice, cut it up and sewed the pages together into a small book about the size of the old almanac. Then he filled each page with his writing in ink; this work helped him while away the long winter evenings.

Within a week Robert had his almanac ready, an almanac that would last for a whole year. He labored long on the letters of the front page to make them look like those of the old almanac.

All almanacs were prefaced with a chapter on some subject of interest to the reader; for Anno 1850, this chapter was entitled: “Watering of Meadows and Fertilizing Same.” Robert also began his almanac with a chapter of general interest and information; he wrote a description of North America which he had long had in mind and for which he had gathered notes. In his description he had changed and corrected all earlier, false descriptions of the New World.

ALMANAC

FOR THE YEAR

AFTER OUR LORD’S BIRTH

1851

Which Year is Considered to be the Fivethousandeighthundredfiftythird from the Creation.

At Stockholm Horizon

59 degr. 20½ min Lat.

Without

His Royal Maj.’s Permission or Instruction

Written, issued and sewn together

by

Axel Robert Nilsson from Sweden.

In the Year 1850 Emigrated to

N. America

In Accordance with His Majesty’s Pleasure and Decree of August 10, 1819, the small Almanacs are hereafter to be sold, cut and bound, for 4 Skilling Banco apiece, which in American money is 3 cents Silver; whosoever dares increase this price or whosoever at the sale of almanacs offers them uncut or unbound at 4 Sk. apiece, will be fined 33 Riksdaler 16 Skilling Banco for each offence.

A New Description of the United States of North America

Truthfully written down after personal inspection on the spot. Begun during a Steamship Journey on the Mississippi July 27, 1850.

First Part

A skipper named Christoffer Columbus was the first white man to discover the United States of North America. Columbus arrived in the Northamerican Republic almost four hundred years before me, and he showed other Immigrants and Skippers the way here. He was later put into prison and severely punished.

North America is a very large and spacious land. If the whole Kingdom of Sweden were moved over here, it would hardly be noticed. Here the sun sets each evening six hours later than in Sweden, which is caused by all clocks and watches being six hours late. But the country is so large and broad that the sun hasn’t time to set everywhere at the same hour; far to the west in North America it does not set until many hours after dark.

The inhabitants of North America all speak English, due to the fact that they made themselves free of England’s tyranny by melting the lead of the English King’s statue in New York and making bullets of him. The English tongue is also called the language of the stutterers, because a stuttering person can speak it most easily. Most of the words are very short, and if they are too long they are bitten off in speech, and a stutterer will easier remember to bite off a word at the right moment.

Watercourses are in many places full of diseases, and the summers are often warm and unhealthy. It is better to take land in the forest, where the lakes are full of fish, than to settle on the prairies, where the rivers are full of fevers and chills. One can buy a horse and wagon and travel comfortably through North America, but this is expensive and takes a long time, for the country is large. Instead one can without danger to life ride on the Steam Wagon. Then one does not need a guide, for the Steam Wagon follows the road without concern to the rider. Two ruts are in North America called a road. Steamships move on all rivers faster than the current. They are also called Packets because they freight packets of mail. During the winter, ice lies on top of the running water, closing all passage of ships.

The rumors concerning white immigrants being sold as slaves in North America and sent to the Infidel Turk are without foundation. This I have been able to ascertain on the spot. Black people are offered for sale at their full price, but whites are not in demand and without value.

Second Part

The oldest Americans in this country are savages and called Indians. They do not have red skins as so falsely has been written before; they are brown. Because they are of a different color than the white Americans, they do not wish to live orderly or work. When the browns are killed they sometimes make great objections and attack white settlers. The tame Indians go about free everywhere with gray blankets over their heads.

The Indians are heathens but do not eat people as heathens are accustomed to, in their simple-mindedness, but live on wild seed called rice which grows among the reeds of the lakes. The grains are small and consequently it takes a long time to eat one’s sufficiency. For solid fare the Indians use the same food as John the Baptist in the desert: fried grasshoppers and wild honey and other larger and smaller animals. But when they meet a dangerous rattlesnake in the forest they say to him in all friendliness: Go your way and I will go mine! Him they do not kill.

The Indians live from hunting and such tilling as does not require work. On small patches they grow a grain which has no heads but a kind of root-stock, because this grain saves labor and requires no threshing with flail. The Indians paint their axes in all colors. But they do not use the axes for cutting trees or wood, only for smashing skulls of people and animals. When the Indian sees an enemy near by, he immediately cuts off the scalp and hangs it with the hair to dry outside his tent when the weather is fine. The one who hangs out the greatest number of scalps is highest in the tribe. Scalps without hair are without value and are not counted. Bald people are not scalped but allowed to run about.

The Indians are very clever at shooting with arrows. Even when they have climbed a tree and had their neck pierced through with the tree top they are able to shoot many arrows. In such cases, however, they seldom hit their aim. The men are the wisest and most intelligent among the Indians. The women do all the work.

Third Part

All people in North America call each other you, regardless of position, riches, or situation. The word is the same as the Swedish du (thou) and is pronounced like the Swedish jo (yes); this word can be used to anyone without danger. It is not forbidden to remove one’s hat in greeting but it is degrading in the North American Republic and not used.

In this country it is not — as in Sweden — considered distinguished or fine to show one’s great fortune in a round and fat body; in North America a skinny person is considered and honored as much as a fat one.

The livestock of North America enjoy so much good grazing that their horns sometimes are invisible in the tall grass. All cattle are big, beautiful, and very expensive. Even the women of North America are scarce and of high value.

Examinations in the Catechism are not held in the North American Republic. This I have ascertained after investigations on the spot. Authorities in America are not like in Sweden — eternal and mighty. This is so because it is not as in Sweden — put in its place by God. Government exists maybe but is not seen. Those in Power do not use the Catechism to keep the populace in obedience. No one need obey another unless he murders or steals. If anyone obeys anyone else in North America then it is because he is still too much Swedish.

The way from Sweden to North America is one-fourth the circumference of the globe, which prevents most Swedes from moving here.

Not in one word have I departed from the truth in this my Description of North America in the Almanac of Anno 1851.

XXII. “MOTHER, I WANT BREAD!”

— 1—

One of the Swedish homesteads had been given a name — New Kärragärde — and Danjel suggested that Karl Oskar ought to follow his example and call his farm New Korpamoen, after his childhood home in Sweden. But Karl Oskar answered: Korpamoen was the last name he would wish to give his new home; he had no desire to be thus constantly reminded of the six years he had thrown away among the stone piles in Sweden. He did not wish for a new Korpamoen in America, he had had enough of the old one; they would find a more suitable name for their home in due time — the christening of a piece of land was not so urgent as the christening of a baby; it was, after all, only a patch of earth, not a human soul.

Danjel also felt they ought to change the name of Ki-Chi-Saga. How could they live near a lake with such an outlandish heathen name? Couldn’t they think of some pious Swedish word which a Christian could take in his mouth without distaste? Karl Oskar replied that as he lived on a small arm of the lake, he felt it would be presumptuous for him to change the name of the whole lake. As yet he was the only settler here; when he had neighbors on the shores, they would all think of a new name for Lake Ki-Chi-Saga.

The winter had made it easier for the Swedish settlers to visit back and forth. The frozen snow made a firm road, and they gave each other a hand whenever needed. Ulrika came frequently to the log house at Ki-Chi-Saga to see how her godson fared after his christening. Once she was accompanied by Swedish Anna, and the two women had a violent dispute about sectarians and heretics. Swedish Anna began: “I’m ever thankful to the Lord for saving the child from that Anabaptist in Stillwater!”

Ulrika flared up and threatened dire happenings if Swedish Anna dared say ill of Pastor Jackson. No one could have anything but good to say about that man; he was so helpful, kind, merciful, that it was hard to believe he was a minister; he had even taken the pail from her hands and fetched water himself. It was nobody’s business what religion he preached, Lutheran or Baptist, Methodist or Jansonist. When a man like Jackson preached, any religion became the right one. Swedish Anna need not bring up the subject again. Ulrika herself had been a sectarian ever since she came to live with Danjel; she would have been happy to have her godson baptized by Jackson in Stillwater, nay, she wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to have such a minister baptize her too!

Swedish Anna started in horror: Ulrika had been led astray from the true Lutheran religion, had been snared already by the Evil One in his heresies! Didn’t she know that only the Lutherans had the right religion and lived according to the Ten Commandments of the stone tablets?

How did the Lutherans live in Sweden! exclaimed Ulrika. God’s commandments were only for paupers and simple folk! The ministers never dared say one word against the nobles, or correct them in any way. If the high and mighty lords broke every one of God’s commandments a hundred times a day, they would never be rebuked from the pulpit. And if the Bishop from Vaxio on his visits to the parishes raped every parsonage maid until the bottom fell out of the bed, not one priest in the whole chapter would object. Yes, if the Swedish King himself should break God’s commandments, and if besides this he were degenerate and committed vices against nature, all the priests would still bow to him, as low as ever, and praise him, and pray for him every Sunday according to the words of the prayer book — even though they knew the truth, for it was the King who gave them the parishes. Such were the Lutheran clergy in Sweden, Ulrika stated, and such they would remain.

But Swedish Anna was a strict Lutheran; the two women could not be friends.

During the Christmas holidays Jonas Petter had gossiped to Kristina that Anders Månsson intended to marry Ulrika of Västergöhl. Next time Ulrika came to visit, Kristina asked her if this were true.

“It’s true. Månsson wants to marry me.”

“May I congratulate you on your luck, Ulrika?”

“No!” exclaimed the Glad One. “I have no intention of marrying Månsson!”

“But he is a good and kind man,” insisted Kristina.

“He’s good and kind. But he isn’t a man. No, he’s not for me.”

Kristina felt sorry in some way for Fina-Kajsa’s son; he had lived alone for so long in this wilderness; and he was sparing with his words, closemouthed, as if carrying a great sorrow. Perhaps he regretted his emigration even though he wouldn’t admit it. Karl Oskar had many times remarked that something must be wrong with Anders Månsson, he had done so little to improve his homestead. He barely managed — this winter he had borrowed thirty dollars from Danjel; having been here almost five years, Månsson ought to have reached a stage when borrowing no longer was necessary — if he had the right stuff in him. There must be some secret about Anders Månsson, Karl Oskar had said, but he was unable to guess what it was.

Ulrika admitted that Fina-Kajsa’s son had been good to all of them when they arrived last summer without a roof over their heads; he was a kindhearted man; and he had a home to offer her. But each time she shook his hand she felt he wasn’t exactly the way men should be. Something was missing, either in his head, or in his spine, or between his legs; something was missing that a man should have. Ulrika said this was only her feeling, but she usually felt aright: she had learned to know menfolk inside and out. Moreover, here in America there were so many men to choose from she needn’t take the first suitor to approach her. She had not been here long, she wanted time to think it over before she chose her man. God would surely help her find the right one when the time came to stand as bride.

But Ulrika had consoled Anders Månsson to the best of her ability. Thus, she had promised never to divulge his rejected proposal, and she had held to her promise — she was not the sort of low person who would brag about being in demand. But Anders Månsson had made the mistake of asking Jonas Petter to intercede for him, and that loose-mouthed gossip had of course not been able to keep it to himself. Jonas Petter also would undoubtedly have proposed to her, if he hadn’t already had a wife in Sweden; she could feel that he was much in need of a woman. Ulrika knew menfolk, she knew them all right. .

While the snow crust still held, Karl Oskar, Danjel, and Jonas Petter walked through the forest to Stillwater to register their claims of land. The Swedish settlers used the few English words they had picked up when they reported to the land office that they were squatters within the Minnesota Territory; they were also able to tell in a general way where their claims were located. A man in the office told them that next summer a surveyor would be sent to their part of the forest.

While in Stillwater they also bespoke and paid for seed grain for the coming spring. Karl Oskar spent the last of his cash for rye, barley, and potatoes; the last of the money he got from the sale of his farm and livestock in Sweden was now spent for spring seed, from which he hoped to reap a fall harvest to feed them next winter.

From Stillwater, Danjel and Jonas Petter continued south to St. Paul in order to buy in partnership a yoke of oxen, while Karl Oskar, now without funds, returned home. Five days later his neighbors came back with a pair of young oxen, measuring eleven and a half hands, which they had bought for seventy-five dollars. The animals had been part of a herd, driven from Illinois to St. Paul. They were unbroken and could not yet be used for hauling. Karl Oskar was promised the loan of the team for the spring plowing.

During the walk from St. Paul in the intense cold, Jonas Petter’s nose became frostbitten, and he had had to stay over in Stillwater for a few days to seek a doctor.

The winter was far gone, and the food supply was running low for the settlers at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga. They were near the bottom of the flour barrel, and Kristina reduced their bread rations to one thin slice apiece at every meal. They were now on their last bushel of potatoes, and these too had to be rationed. They still had some frozen venison, and this was not yet rationed. Fresh meat was seldom on the table — the game seemed to have disappeared in the dead of winter. Indians used dogs to hunt, but without a dog a hunter usually returned without game. And Lady, their borrowed cow, had almost gone dry; she gave only half a quart a day.

Fishing, too, had become difficult after the snow had piled high on the lake ice. Earlier in the winter they had caught a great many pike without any fishing gear, using only an ax. They would walk over the clear ice until they espied fish, and then hit the ice above them with the ax hammer; the pike were stunned, turning up their white bellies, and it was easy to break the ice and pull them out. After the snow covered the lake several feet deep, Karl Oskar and Robert had to cut holes through the ice for fishing. It was mostly catfish they caught this way, standing at the holes with their fingers stiff from cold. Catfish had an unpleasant, oily taste, and no one liked them as well as the other lake fish. Robert detested them, with their round, catlike heads, actually purring like cats; after an evening meal of catfish he complained about being unable to sleep — the cat kept purring in his stomach the whole night through!

“Better to have a fish purr in you than to have your stomach purr from emptiness,” answered Karl Oskar.

Kristina boiled the catfish, she fried it, salted it, dried it, made soup from it, she tried in all ways to make it taste good. They ate catfish at almost every meal, it was their only fresh winter food, and when the venison was gone, it would be their only animal food. The fish was ugly to look at, its taste was not appetizing, but Kristina said it would be ungrateful to speak ill of this creature, which had the same Creator as they themselves; hungry people ought to eat without complaint whatever they could find. And the catfish was faithful to them; when everything else on land and in the water failed them, they always had the bearded, purring fish. It came as a gift from God and helped them sustain life through the winter.

Robert’s almanac indicated they were now in February. And each day the settlers asked themselves the same question: How long would it be before the ground grew green? When would the ice break up? How long before spring came?

They had put this question to Anders Månsson, he had spent several years here, he ought to know. He had answered: Spring varied from year to year, it might vary by many weeks. He remembered one spring when the frost had gone out of the ground the last week in March, another year he had not started his plowing until the second week of April. The ice on the St. Croix River usually broke up toward the end of March, and spring in the St. Croix Valley was counted from the day when the river flowed free.

So they must fight the winter, perhaps another two months.

The settlers in the log cabin at Ki-Chi-Saga kept their house warm with their constant fire, they were well protected against the winter weather, no longer were they afraid of the cold; but they began to fear hunger.

— 2—

Kristina knew from experience: it was always harder to satisfy a hungry family in winter than in summer. All were hungrier and ate more in winter. During the cold part of the year a human body needed rich, nourishing food to keep the blood active and warm in the body. And as the food grew scarce, her family grew hungrier than any winter before. She too — her stomach ached all day long, she wakened during the nights with the pain. And she was in charge of their food — before she herself ate she must see to it that the others had something on their plates.

At meals she left the table a little before the others or she might be tempted to eat so much that the children would have too little. She was so careful of the flour she hardly dared use a few pinches for gravy; it must be saved for bread. But however she skimped and saved, she could not make the barrel deeper than it was. The time came when she swept the barrel bottom clean to have sufficient flour for a baking. And the moment arrived when the loaves from this baking were eaten. Now she had nothing more to bake with. Now they were breadless.

That day when they sat down at table there was no bread. No one said a word about it, no one asked about the missing bread. How could questions help them? The men had long dreaded the day when bread would be missing — it was no surprise to them. Nevertheless, Karl Oskar and Robert glanced from time to time at the empty place on the board where the bread used to lie. Did they think it would suddenly appear?

At the next meal little Johan began to complain: “Mother! I want bread! Where’s the bread?”

“There is no bread, child,” said the mother.

“Mother, you must bake,” Johan told her. “I want bread.”

None of the others at the table said a word, but the boy kept repeating: “Mother! Why don’t you bake?”

No other food satisfies a human stomach like bread, no food will keep hunger away like bread. Nothing can take the place of bread for grownups or children, but a growing child-body suffers most from the lack of it.

And a mother suffers when she must deny her own child who hangs on to her skirts and cries persistently: “Mother, I want bread!”

It was the same at every meal. No one said anything except the child, but it was almost more than Kristina could endure. She knew only too well how things were with them; they had used all their money. At length she had to speak to Karl Oskar: Their children must have bread to stay healthy until spring; growing children needed bread. Couldn’t he manage to get hold of a small sack of flour — only a very small sack?

This problem had been ever in his mind since the bread had been missing from the table; one sack of flour. . But their last money had been spent for seed grain which Karl Oskar had ordered for spring. The seed grain was more important to them than anything else — it was next year’s crop. If they had spent the seed money for this winter’s food, they would starve to death next winter.

Kristina argued: It did not matter which winter they starved to death — this one or next. What help would their spring seed be to them if they couldn’t survive until spring? How could they put the seeds in the ground if they themselves were already under the ground?

Karl Oskar said he would go to Danjel and ask for a loan. This was the only way out. He would not be trusted by anyone else. Here everyone asked for cash. If he wanted to buy a penny’s worth in a store, the owner would first ask if he had cash. Cash was an American word he now understood quite well, he had learned what it meant. Cash! Cash! Cheap for cash! How many times he had heard it! It began to sound like the rustle of paper bills. He could hear the same rustle in the voice of Mr. Abbott, the Scots storekeeper in Taylors Falls: “Do you have cash, Mr. Nilsson?” A settler’s life — or death — depended on cash.

He was embarrassed to borrow from Danjel again; he still owed his wife’s uncle one hundred daler for the mortgage interest on Korpamoen; his lost years at home still weighed him down. And now Danjel wasn’t much better off than he was himself; Danjel too had a large family to feed, he had bought a half share in the ox team, he had lent thirty dollars to Anders Månsson, he was very generous to Ulrika and her daughter, he helped people without being asked. He had been extravagant with the cash he had on arrival, he too would soon be impoverished.

But Karl Oskar went to Danjel, and came back with five shining coins in his hand: five silver dollars: “Now we can buy a sack of flour!”

Kristina said: As long as there was one single human being who felt for his neighbor, the world was not lost.

The settlers in Taylors Falls had bought their winter supplies in early autumn, and Mr. Abbott had run out of flour long before Christmas; new supplies would not arrive until the river opened. Karl Oskar must therefore go to Stillwater for his sack of flour. This would not be so long a trip as the settlers’ first walk to Taylors Falls. After all, Karl Oskar and his family now lived nine miles nearer Stillwater. Besides, the walk through the forest was shorter than the wandering way by the river; still, it was at least six miles longer than the walk to Taylors Falls. He had already carried home many burdens from Mr. Abbott’s store, both on his back and in his hands. During the last half year he had struggled with more burdens than in his whole previous life. But the road northeast through the forest to Taylors Falls was only nine miles; southeast to Stillwater it was fifteen; and to walk that distance back and forth in one day, and carry a sack of flour on his return walk, would be a hard day’s work. And he must start out early enough to reach home while it was still daylight.

The following morning, one hour before daybreak, Karl Oskar set off with an empty sack under his arm. Johan woke up and called happily to his father in the door: “Buy flour, Father! Then Mother can bake!”

“Be careful of your nose,” admonished Kristina. “Remember what happened to Jonas Petter in this cold winter.”

But the weather was now mild, had been for almost a week; the snow had thinned down, it was hardly more than a foot deep; the cold was not noticeable, the sky was hazy, with a flurry of snow now and then. Karl Oskar had walked through the forest to Stillwater only once before, but he had taken notice of landmarks and was sure he would find his way. He followed the east shore of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga, almost in a southerly direction; he passed by places he recognized — a fallen giant trunk over a brook, a deserted wigwam, an oak hill with an Indian pole, a mound like a bread loaf. Having crossed the brook, he followed an Indian trail until he reached the logging road used by the Stillwater lumber company, and from there on he could not lose his way.

The walk to Stillwater was easy; his whole burden was an empty sack, he walked with good speed and arrived before noon. He went to visit Pastor Jackson, the kind minister, as he had done last time he was in town. Pastor Jackson had now moved into a comfortable new house near the little whitewashed wooden church where he preached. But Jackson’s door was locked, and no one opened for him. The minister must be on one of his many preaching journeys through the Territory.

Karl Oskar walked around and inspected the Baptist church. This was the first non-Lutheran church he had been close to. It was a simple building of wood, made of timbers faced with boards — it was the smallest God’s House he had ever seen. He sat down on a bench outside the church and ate what he had brought with him — a piece of venison and a few boiled potatoes, which he gulped down without feeling satisfied. Then he walked the street at the river’s edge and looked at the signs and tried to read the inscriptions: Pierre’s Tavern; Abraham Smith, Barber and Druggist; James Clark, Hardware — Tools. Outside some houses horses stood hitched — the farmers near Stillwater were already so well off that they used horses.

He studied particularly one large sign in front of a ramshackle shed:

CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL

PHYSICIAN AND HOUSE-BUILDER

CARPENTER AND BLACKSMITH

Caldwell was the name of the doctor who had taken care of Jonas Petter’s frostbitten nose; this must be his house. Jonas Petter had said that the doctor had built his own house. He was a very learned doctor who could heal all kinds of ailments, he was also a carpenter and a capable smith. He had been busy shoeing a horse when Jonas Petter arrived, and after attending to the horse’s hoofs he had cared for Jonas Petter’s frostbitten nose. He administered equally well to the needs of people and livestock. Such learned and capable doctors were not available in Sweden. Karl Oskar thought he must remember the doctor’s name; in case any of his family should be sick he would seek Dr. Caldwell.

But he must attend to his errand in town, he must buy his sack of flour and get on his way homeward.

He entered the finest and largest store he saw: Harrington’s General Store. He knew that store was the American name for a shop, but he could not understand the meaning of the word general. In Swedish, general meant a high military man; perhaps the owner had been a general in the army.

Behind the long, high counter of Harrington’s General Store stood two clerks dressed exactly alike: they wore gray cotton shirts, white aprons, and bowlers; the clerks in America kept their hats on inside; apparently they did not stand on ceremony with the customers.

While the two clerks waited on some fat men in skin jackets, Karl Oskar looked around the store. He espied a small wooden barrel with an inscription: Kentucky Straight Whisky Pure 14 G. Karl Oskar had learned the American measurements for both fluid and solid goods and he understood that the barrel contained fourteen gallons of the strong American brännvin. But in this country he could not afford brännvin; at home in Sweden he had distilled his own spirits.

Many articles of food were displayed in the store; on the counter lay heaps of fat sausages, dried and smoked; large, shining, yellow cheeses were piled on top of each other, breads of many sizes and colors were displayed. Over the counter hung hams and pieces of meat, whole sides of pork, short ribs; a steelyard in its chain hung near the meat, as if calling out: “I’ll weigh up all of this for you!”

On the floor stood boxes full of eggs and fish in wooden buckets; in a corner were sacks full of flour, rice, peas, beans; in smaller boxes were stick candy, nuts, dried berries, and fruit; on the shelves lay bundles of all kinds of fabrics in all colors, rows of earthenware and china vessels. On small shelves in the window were jars and bottles of all shapes and sizes, round, flat, oblong, and square, containing salves, drops, and other medicines. From the ceiling hung pots and pans, pails and baskets, saddles and yokes, wheels, saws, guns, hats, boots, skin jackets; on the floor stood plows, churns, fire pokes, axes, hoes, spades, shovels. Karl Oskar felt that if he looked carefully in all the corners of this store he wouldn’t find lacking a single object a person would need or wish for in this world; his eyes lingered on tobacco pouches and pipes, snuff boxes, powder horns, books as large as Bibles and as small as almanacs, hymn-books, playing cards, dice. The store offered for sale everything a beginner might want in the wilderness for his spiritual and bodily needs.

In this store there was ten times as much as in Mr. Abbott’s store in Taylors Falls, and Karl Oskar sighed as he beheld all the accumulated fortune; a feeling of hunger came over him: his eyes saw and his nose smelled all the tempting food — the fresh bread, the smoked hams and sausages, the fat cheeses. The people in Stillwater had sold their forests and grown rich from all the lumber, they could afford to buy anything they wanted in this store. . It must be an old general or some other very high person who owned this store and all it contained.

But Karl Oskar was only a poor squatter — the multitude of good things was not for him. He had come to buy a sack of flour which he must carry fifteen miles on his back; he was an impoverished settler without bread.

One of the clerks came up to him and Karl Oskar held up his empty sack, pointed toward the rye flour in the corner, and said: “Five dollar!”

He held out the five fingers of his right hand. The clerk kept up a constant flow of talk, the words spilling from his mouth with such speed that Karl Oskar was unable to understand a thing he said. He could explain his needs to Mr. Abbott in Taylors Falls, they understood each other’s language. But each time he met a new American the same thing happened to him: he could neither understand nor be understood. It was as though he had to learn English anew whenever he met a stranger; he felt each time equally foolish and annoyed, standing there tongue-tied. As yet, however, he had not met a single American who poked fun at a newcomer because of his language difficulties. Instead, all were eager to help him, trying to guess what he wanted to say.

The clerk filled a wooden measure twice and emptied the rye flour into Karl Oskar’s sack: “Five dollars’ worth,” he said.

Karl Oskar lifted the sack — it weighed about a hundred pounds, was probably about two bushels. He had hoped to get another twenty-five pounds for his five silver dollars. He tried two English words: “No more?”

The clerk shook his head. “No! This is cheap because of cash.”

Karl Oskar could only comfort himself with the thought that the sack would be easier to carry; he should be able to manage only two bushels. He swung the sack onto his back.

“Too heavy to carry! Have you oxen outside?” asked the clerk.

Karl Oskar heard the word oxen, the clerk must think he had a team outside; he shook his head, “No, no—farväl!” In his confusion, he said good-by to the clerk in Swedish.

Karl Oskar Nilsson started on his way home from Stillwater with a hundred pounds of flour on his back. Now the weather was clear and colder. There was no wind, the snow crunched and squeaked under his booted feet, all indications were for strong frost tonight.

He stopped to pull on his woolen mittens. As always here, the change in weather had come on suddenly; no one could have guessed in the morning that it would freeze before night. He had left his thick wadmal coat at home and wore only his short sheepskin jacket, as it was easier to walk when dressed lightly. Now he regretted not having brought the heavy coat as well.

In the store he had handled the flour sack like a light burden, swinging it onto his back with the greatest of ease. And during the first part of his return walk he was little aware of its weight. But after a few miles the sack began to sag down his back, he felt it against his thighs; time and again he stopped to shove it up onto his shoulder. The sack grew heavier the longer he walked; the flour seemed to increase in weight the farther he got from the store.

He had carried sacks twice as heavy in Sweden, but never such a long distance; the more he thought about it, the more he realized that this was rather a heavy burden for such a long road. Apparently he must pay twice for his flour — first in money, then in bachache.

The crooked sled tracks showed him the way through the forest; here and there on the glittering snow lay fresh ox dung, like dark loaves of bread on a white platter, and here and there were yellow stains from ox urine; axes could be heard at a distance, a logging camp must be close by.

The sack grew heavier, his right boot chafed his heel, the cold increased. But Karl Oskar gave himself no time to sit down and rest, he tramped on; he must not lose time, he hurried his steps to cover the stretch between the end of the logging road and Lake Ki-Chi-Saga before dusk; once at the lake he could follow the shore all the way home, but he had several miles yet to walk through deep wilderness, and he would have trouble finding his way after dark.

The logging road came to an end. From here on he had only his own tracks of the morning to follow. Some snow must have fallen in the forenoon, in places his tracks were filled up.

Mostly he kept his eyes on his own boot prints but he found familiar landmarks — he passed a deserted wigwam; as soon as he reached the brook with the wind-fallen oak trunk over it, he would be close to the lake.

Karl Oskar walked on, his boots crunching in the snow; he struggled with his sack up steep hills, down inclines, he forced his way through thorny thickets, he bent low under trees and branches, with the sack on his back. Dusk fell sooner than he had expected, and he found it more and more difficult to follow the tracks which showed him the way. The frost sharpened, his fingers went numb inside the thick mittens; his boot still chafed his heel, and the sack sagged all the way down to his legs. The sack would not follow him docilely any longer, it crept down below his waist, down the back of his legs, it wanted to get down on the ground. He felt the sack on his shoulders, on his back, against his legs, his knees, in his feet, in his hands.

After a few hours’ walk the flour weighed two hundred pounds — had they given him four bushels instead of two? And he had yet a long way to go — his burden would grow heavier still.

The cloak of darkness spread quickly among the trees, it soon grew so dense that he could not see the marks of his steps from the morning. The snow shone white; otherwise everything in the forest was black, dark as the inside of a barrel with the lid on. No longer did Karl Oskar waste his time in looking for his earlier tracks; he followed his nose, he tried to walk northward; to the north lay the lake, and at the lake lay his home.

But he hadn’t yet come to the brook with the tree trunk over it, and this began to worry him; he had crossed the brook quite a stretch after leaving the lake shore. What had happened to the brook? It was frozen over so he couldn’t hear it.

Now he walked more slowly, plodding along among the trees. In the dark he could not see the low-hanging branches which hindered his path, snatching at the flour sack on his back like so many evil arms. He held on to his burden with stiff, mittened fingers; time and again he tore his face on twigs and thorns, he could not see in front of him. There would be a moon later, the stars already shone brightly, twinkling through the tall treetops. But nothing lighted his way except the snow, and the snow no longer showed him the way by his morning footprints — not even with the stars out.

The wanderer struggled through the dark with the flour on his bent back. But he did not reach a lake, he did not find a brook, and the forest grew thicker around him. He had not brought his watch — he never brought it along on walks in the forest for fear he might lose it — and he did not know how much time he had spent on the homeward trek. But many hours must have elapsed since he had left the logging road; if he had followed the right path he ought to have reached Lake Ki-Chi-Saga long ago.

At each step he hoped to see the forest come to an end, he hoped to see a white field — the snow-covered lake surface. As soon as this happened he would only have to follow a shore line until he reached a newly built log cabin where his wife and children were waiting for him. But instead he seemed to go deeper and deeper into the forest.

He repeated to himself, over and over: If I walk straight ahead, I must come to the lake. I’m walking straight forward, I’m on the right road! But the hours went by and the thick forest around him testified to his mistake.

At last the stiff fingers inside the mittens lost their hold: Karl Oskar let his sack drop onto the snow and sat down on it. The truth had now been forced upon him: he was wandering aimlessly, he did not know in what direction home was — he was lost.

— 3—

He rested a while, sitting on his sack, his legs trembling with fatigue and cold. He was worn out from the many hours’ struggle with the flour: he had weakened sooner than he had expected because his stomach was empty. Hunger smarted his stomach, in his limbs and back was an ache of fatigue, but most terrible was the pain of cold after he had sat a while. The cold embraced his body from head to heel, crept like icy snakes up his legs, penetrated his groin, dug into chest and throat, pinched his ears, nose, and cheeks. But he remained sitting, letting it overtake him; he was forced to rest.

He had told Kristina he would return well before bedtime. She would be sure to sit up and wait for him, darning stockings or patching clothes. She was waiting, not only for him but also for the flour — she would surely wish to set the dough this very evening, so she could bake tomorrow.

And here he sat on their flour and didn’t know in which direction he should carry it.

He had wandered about in a black forest like a child playing blind-man’s buff. Perhaps he had strayed too much to the left, or to the right; when he thought he had been walking northward, he might have walked southward; hoping to get nearer to his home, he had perhaps gone farther and farther away from it.

There was only one thing to do: He must walk on! He couldn’t camp in the forest, the cold was too intense. He couldn’t make a fire, he had brought no matches. If he lay down to sleep it would surely be his eternal sleep.

Walk on! He must warm himself by moving. Sitting on the sack, his whole body shivered and shook with cold. He rose, stamped his feet, rubbed his nose, ears, and cheeks; he was not going to endure the cold that came with immobility any longer — he must move on.

Karl Oskar resumed his walk at random; he must walk in some direction, and one way was as good as another. Damned bad luck! If only he had been able to reach the lake before dark. He had walked as fast as he could, but that damned sack — it had sagged and delayed him. But now what was he doing? Cursing the sack with their bread flour — the bread that was missing from their table, the bread that would satisfy the hunger of their children! He must be out of his mind, he must be crazy from fatigue and hunger.

“Father is buying flour — Mother will bake bread!”

Put the sack under a tree and walk unhindered? But it would not be easier to find his way without his burden. And he might never again find his flour. Better carry it as far as he was able. . But his back felt broken, and his legs wobbled. He had carried it for many hours, an eternal road. He staggered; again and again the burden on his back sagged down, down to his thighs, to his legs, again and again his hold on the sack loosened, his fingers straightened out; his back wanted to throw off the burden, his fingers wanted to let it go.

Karl Oskar no longer walked; he reeled, tottering among the tree trunks. But he dared not sit down to rest in this cold; he dared not remain still because of the frost — yet he could not walk because of exhaustion. Which must he do — sit down, or go on? One he dared not, the other he was barely able to do.

He struggled along at random, stumbling, fumbling, stooping with his burden. He bumped against the trees, he could not see where he was going. He found no landmarks, no lake, no brook; perhaps he had crossed the brook without knowing it? A few times the forest opened up and he walked across a glade — then he was instantly in deep forest again.

Suddenly he hit his head against something hard. He lost hold of the sack and tumbled backward.

Very slowly he struggled to his feet in the snow; above him he vaguely saw an animal, a head appeared a few yards away. A bear, a wolf, or could it be a lynx? The beast was snapping at him with enormous jaws, below fiery red eyes. It was quite close — Karl Oskar crouched backward and pulled out his knife.

He crept a few more steps backward; the beast did not come after him, it did not move. He could discern the upright ears, the sharp nose, the neck — it must be a wolf — the eyes glittered in the dark. He expected a leap, he crouched and held his breath. But the wolf too remained immobile.

He yelled, hoping to frighten the beast: “Go to hell, you devil!”

But the beast did not make the slightest move, it seemed petrified in one position, its ears upright, its eyes peering. And a suspicion rose within Karl Oskar; he approached the animal cautiously. Now he was close enough to touch it — and it wasn’t furry or soft, it was cold and hard: it was a wolf image on a pole.

His body sagged after the tension: an Indian pole, an image with glittering eyes and toothy jaws; it could startle anyone in the dark. Or — was he so far gone from struggling that he could be frightened by wooden poles?

His head ached; he felt a bump on his forehead from the encounter with the post; blood was oozing from his face and hands, torn by branches and thorns. He took off his mittens and licked the blood from his fingers; it felt warm in his mouth. He needed something warm this bitterly cold night.

With great effort he managed to get the sack onto his back again and continued his walk, lurching, stumbling. It had lightened a little in the forest, more stars had come out. High above the snowy forest and the lost settler with his burden glittered a magnificent, starry heaven. The firmament this night seemed like a dark canopy of soft felt spread by God above the frozen earth, and sprinkled with silvery sparks.

The wanderer below walked with bent head, stooped under his sack; he did not look up toward the heavenly lights. He carried the heavy fruit of the earth on his back. His steps were stumbling and tottering, he did not know where they would lead him. Home — in which direction lay the house where wife and children waited for him? Was he carrying their bread home — or away from home?

Suddenly he came upon large boot prints in the snow. They were his own! He felt his heart beat in his throat: then he had walked here in the early morning. He inspected the tracks more closely — and discovered they were quite fresh. He had been here only a short while ago. .

He was walking in a circle, in his own tracks. He wasn’t carrying the bread away from his family, neither was he carrying it home.

But he must keep going, no matter where, to escape freezing. He staggered on. His foot caught in something — a root, a windfall, a stump — and he fell again, forward this time, with the hundred-pound sack on top of him. He lay heavily in the snow, sunk down, slumped, like a bundle of rags. After a few minutes he tried to remove the sack. Slowly, with endless effort, he managed to roll it off his back. In a sweet sensation of deliverance he stretched out full length in the snow, with the flour sack for a pillow.

— 4—

The fruit of the earth is good and sustaining, the fruit of the earth is indispensable, but heavy to carry on one’s back.

How comfortable to lie on it, instead. Better to lie upon flour than kill oneself by carrying it. . when one doesn’t know where to carry it. And it has grown overpoweringly heavy, five hundred pounds. There is lead in the sack, five hundred pounds of lead — too much for one’s back — better lie here and rest on the sack. . better than to carry it. . when one doesn’t even know the way home. .

The cold is dangerous and evil, the cold has sharp teeth, digging like wolf’s fangs into flesh and bone, the cold has tongs that pinch and tear and pierce. The skin burns like fire. But it is good to rest. . better to be cold a little than struggle with the burden. . Don’t be afraid of a little cold! Nothing is worse than to be afraid, Father used to say. Nothing is dangerous to him who is fearless. No, he isn’t afraid. A settler needs courage, good health, good mind. . Father didn’t say that — he has learned that himself — he has learned it now. .

Father has grown a great deal since he last saw him — that time on the stoop, with Mother. He is six feet tall, entirely straight; the way he stands here, he isn’t a cripple any longer, he must have thrown away his crutches — no, he still has one crutch, but he doesn’t lean on it, he shakes it at his oldest son: “. . and you take your children with you! You not only take your children, you take my grandchildren, and my grandchildren’s children! You drag the whole family out of the country! You are as stubborn as your nose is long, it will lead you to destruction!”

The sack — that damned flour sack! Here. . here it is, under. . how soft it is. Rye flour is the best pillow. With a whole sack of rye flour. . sustain life until spring. . not die this winter. Where is the loaf? Why isn’t it on the table?

“Mother! Bake some bread!”

Now Father is speaking sternly, shaking his crutch: What kind of fool are you, Karl Oskar? Why do you wander about here in the forest with such a sack of flour on your back? You have a team of oxen in Korpamoen, why don’t you drive to the mill, like other farmers? Sit up and ride, the way sensible people do, rest on your flour sack the whole way. Wouldn’t that be better than carrying flour miles through the forest? No one can call you a wise farmer, Karl Oskar! Here you struggle like a wretched crofter! You have no sense about providing food for your family. A hell of a fool is what you are! Never satisfied at home, hmm — you must emigrate. . People should see you now, lying in a snowdrift! What would they say? No — don’t show yourself to anyone, Karl Oskar. Crawl into the snow, hide yourself in the drift! Hide well. Let no one in the whole parish see you. .

“Be careful of your nose in this cold,” Kristina says. She is concerned, she is a good wife. She is thinking of his nose because Jonas Petter’s became frostbitten. But she means: Be careful of your life! Watch out against freezing to death. Don’t stop too long. Don’t lie down in the snow, whatever you do — don’t lie down in the snow! I’m going to bake, this evening, as soon as you get home. I need the flour. .

“You’ve come at last!” she says. “Then I’ll set the dough, knead it tonight. We’ll heat the oven tomorrow morning, rake out the coals, put in the bread; you made a good oven for me, even though it doesn’t give quite enough top-heat. . A hundred pounds, two bushels, three bushels? It’ll last till spring. But the sack! Where is the sack? Did you forget the sack? You come home without flour?”

“The sack lies back there in the woods, but I know where I hid it — I buried it in the snow. How could I do anything so silly? I must go back at once and find it.”

“Go at once and get the sack. Hurry, Karl Oskar! Hurry before it’s too late!”

“It’s already too late for you,” says Father, and now he leans on both of his crutches; now he is a helpless cripple again, a wizened, dried-up old man. And he complains: “It’s too late, Karl Oskar. You won’t have time, you won’t find the sack, you’ve lost it! How could you forget the sack in the snow, far out in the woods? Don’t you know your children are in it? Don’t you know they are all bundled up in there? How could you take your children to North America and carry them in a sack on your back? You must have known that such a burden would be too heavy. You must have realized you could never get home. That long road. . I told you you couldn’t manage. And then you dropped them in the snow. Now it’s too late to find them. They must be frozen to death, starved to death by now. . Didn’t I tell you things would go ill with you in North America? But you wouldn’t listen to my warning, you wouldn’t listen to your parents. You were always stubborn and headstrong.”

No! No! He must defend himself, he must tell Father the truth: It was because of the children he had emigrated — above all for their sake. He had brought his wife and three children with him, but he had also brought with him a pair of worn-out little shoes that had belonged to a fourth child. Didn’t Father remember Anna? She died. She was hungry too long. Of her he had only the little shoes left, and he had taken them with him from Korpamoen; they would always remind him of his child, they would make him remember the hunger that snatched her away from him. Father must know, he must remember: the famine year, the famine bread, the poor beggars, all those who starved to death? If not, he would show Father Anna’s shoes. They are here in the sack! I put them into the sack. There isn’t another thing in the sack. .

When he lost his little girl he had been in despair. Father must remember how he had searched for knot-free boards for the coffin. It was lowered into the earth, but her shoes were left. At times he picks them up, holds them in his hands: her small feet have been in them, her little feet have romped about in them, she has taken many steps in them, up and down, a thousand times. Anna’s feet. . Father, it hurts to die. Don’t let God come and take me! I want to stay here with you. . No, it mustn’t happen again, it mustn’t happen to his other children, he must take them away from the tormenting hunger — out here. And now he is here with his sack; and it has grown heavier and heavier, until he has fallen with it. He is crawling on his knees in the snow, with the burden on his back. But it’s burning hot in the snow, it smarts, smarts. .

And his own father is also here in America — he hasn’t written a letter, although he learned to write while sitting inside as a cripple. He has come here himself and speaks severe words to his eldest son: “I warned you, your mother warned you, friends and neighbors warned you. But you had to do it. You were self-willed, stubborn, listened to no one. Therefore things went as they did; now you lie here. . You dragged away my children, my grandchildren. Where are your own children? Where do you keep them? Have you taken care of them? Have you found them yet? Do you remember the place where you buried them in the snow? Be careful of your nose in this cold!”

Father will buy flour, Mother will bake bread. . Where is the bread?. . It’s my son! But you are my son. And things have come to pass as you wanted them to. Karl Oskar, are you looking for bread on your own table? You’re as stubborn as your nose is long. You couldn’t rest until you got to North America. You wanted to get here to fetch that sack of flour, to wander about with the sack. . It wasn’t much to travel so far for — not much for one who wanted to improve things for himself. . But I told you it was a long way to travel, that you never would find your way, wouldn’t be able to carry it all the distance, it’s too heavy. . and what a cold night! Not even a beggar would be out in this weather. .

I’ll succeed! I’ll improve myself! And Karl Oskar swings the sack onto his back again and waves good-by to his father and mother, who stand on the stoop looking after him. He walks lightly with his burden, through the narrow gate, onto the road, and then he looks back: Father and Mother stand there. He calls to them but they do not answer. They remain standing on the stoop, deaf, dumb, lame. Never more in his life will they move. They will remain standing there for ever, looking after him, the son who walked out through the gate, who emigrated. For all time they will stand there; they do not hear when he calls, but he must tell them, he must call louder: “It wasn’t because I was stubborn and wouldn’t listen to you, nor was I dissatisfied. That you must remember! I didn’t emigrate because of this, do you hear me, Father and Mother? I didn’t want to make any more coffins. No coffins for my little ones. Remember that! That was why I emigrated.”

But Father and Mother do not listen, they do not hear. And they cannot move. They are only wooden images, put up by the Indians. The red eyes staring at him aren’t human eyes; the Indians have put animal heads on Father’s and Mother’s bodies! They have cut off the heads of his parents and have replaced them with wolf heads! That’s why they stand immobile without hearing him when he shouts at them: “Can you hear me?”

He shouts and yells, he has to, he can no longer endure the intense smarting from the fire, he shrieks as he lies there among the scorching firebrands of the bitter-cold snow. .

— 5—

Karl Oskar Nilsson sat up and felt his face with his hand: Where was he? Was he at home with his father, defending his emigration? Or had his father come here? Was he in two countries at the same time? Wasn’t he walking homeward with a—the sack!

His befuddled mind cleared: He had gone to sleep on his sack in the snow. But the cold had bitten him badly, and he had shouted himself awake. He jumped to his feet, violently, as if attacked by a swarm of hornets; he was like a madman — he jumped about, kicking, stamping the ground. He flailed his arms, slapped his hands and face, beat his body with his fists. For several minutes he pummeled himself — and his blood pumped faster, his body heat was returning.

He must have dozed off for a little while; he might never have awakened! How could he have lain down this bitterly cold night? How could he have forgotten to guard against the treacherous temptation of rest?

He could not have been asleep long, yet he had had time to dream evil dreams, listen to many voices; they had told him things he probably had thought to himself, when alone; and all the while he had felt the smarting cold, burning his skin like firebrands. Thank God, he had not lost sensation — he was not frostbitten yet. But a few moments more, in that hole in the snow. . The ice-cold shroud of frost-death was down there — it would soon have soothed his pains, would soon have made him slumber forever!

But he was still alive. He loosened his stiff joints, he forced his body to move again. And once more he swung the flour sack onto his back. Fury boiled within him as he made ready to carry it farther; he gained strength from his seething anger, from adversity’s bitterness. Many times before he had enjoyed the gift of strength from vexation, and this time it was more welcome than ever. Who said he wasn’t able? Those spiteful neighbors in Sweden, how they would enjoy his misfortunes if they knew! He could just hear them say: Karl Oskar couldn’t succeed! What did we tell you?

He was enraged. In a wild frenzy he began to kick the big stump that had tripped him. His feet felt like icicles in his boots. But suddenly he stopped and stood still: Who could have felled a great tree here in the wilderness? The stump was fresh and cut by an ax!

He dropped his sack, bent down, brushed away the snow and examined the stump carefully. It was a low stump, not cut by a straight-standing American. This stump was cut by a Swede! He recognized the stump—he had felled this tree himself. It was the great oak he had cut down here, their food table! And that oak had grown on a knoll close behind their house — only a few hundred yards from home. .

Now he would find his way; he was practically there.

But Karl Oskar walked the remaining distance slowly. He was exhausted; and he must have carried the sack much farther than fifteen miles, for he was approaching his house from the wrong direction! He could see the yellow light from a window greeting him between the trunks of the sugar maples. There stood his house, a fire burning on the hearth. With infinite slowness he dragged his feet the last steps. The sack’s weight had increased again, this last stretch.

In a low voice Karl Oskar called Kristina’s name. He heard her pull the bolt on the inside of the door. With great effort he managed to lift his feet over the high threshold and dump the sack onto the floor. He put down his burden for the last time, with a dull thud. And then he slumped down on a stump chair near the fire, limp, jointless, weak; he dropped a full sack on the floor and sank into the chair like a discarded, empty sack.

“You’re late,” said Kristina. “I’ve been worried about you.”

“It was a long way.”

“I guess so. And cold tonight. Did it bother you?”

“A little. The last stretch.”

“You should have taken your other coat.”

“But it was so mild when I left.”

He was thawing out near the fire. He wondered how his feet had fared — perhaps his toes were frostbitten. He must go out and get a shovelful of snow, then he would melt some fat and rub his limbs, first with snow, then with fat.

Kristina had already opened the sack. She dipped into it for some flour which she strained between her fingers: “Good rye flour! You must have almost three bushels.”

“Thereabouts, I guess.”

“You had enough to carry!”

“About right for me.”

“Now we’ll have bread till spring. And we’ve been promised potatoes.”

She related how Danjel had come to visit today and offered to lend them a bushel of potatoes, Jonas Petter too had promised them a bushel; they could pay back in the fall when they harvested their own.

“That’s well,” Karl Oskar said. “They are kind.”

“It’s hardest for us,” Kristina said. “We’re the poorest. Danjel wondered if we would survive the winter.”

“We shall manage!”

Karl Oskar had taken off his boots and socks and sat with his bare feet near the fire: his toes itched and burned, feeling was returning. There was a spell of silence, and he thought: It could have happened that the next letter to reach Ljuder Parish, probably written by Danjel, would have said Karl Oskar Nilsson from Korpamoen had frozen to death in the forest a short distance from his house. One cold night February last. His body was found on a sack of flour which he had carried on his back from the store, many Swedish miles away. The exhausted man hadn’t been able to reach home, he had lain down to rest in the severe cold, on his sack, had fallen asleep, and had never awakened.

But this piece of news would not reach Sweden now. It would not gladden those hearts who had predicted ill for him out here. What had happened to him this winter night in the wilderness would not happen again. Bread was necessary for life, but one mustn’t give life to get it.

Kristina was putting food on the table for her husband; she would set the dough before they went to bed and she would get up early to heat the oven. .

Johan awakened in his bed in the corner; he yelled with delight as he saw his father sitting at the hearth: “Father is back!”

He jumped out of bed and ran to sit on Karl Oskar’s knee: “Father has brought flour! Mother can bake bread!”

Karl Oskar sat silent, stroking his son’s head clumsily with his frost-stiff fingers.

“You must be hungry, Karl Oskar,” Kristina said. “It’s all ready for you.”

He sat down to his supper, and he ate quietly but he was satisfied in his silence; tomorrow the missing loaf of bread would again be in its place on their table.

XXIII. THE LETTER FROM SWEDEN

— 1—

This was the longest of all winters for the settlers; they counted the days and waited for spring.

March had his cap full of snow, shaking it over the earth in a final blizzard. But after the snowstorm came mild weather with a south wind blowing day after day. The snow carpet thinned, the lake ice soon lay blueish bare. The night frost was still with them, but the sun warmed the air in daytime; no longer need they keep the hearth fire alive through the night.

One day Johan came rushing in from the meadow, calling out loudly before he reached the threshold. What had happened? In his hand the boy held a little flower, pulled up by its roots.

“Look Mother! A sippa! I’ve found a spring sippa!”

He had found the flower near the brook. All in the cabin crowded around to see it. It was a spindly little flower, hardly three inches tall, with liver-brown leaves and a blue crown on a thin stem. Below the crown was a circle of heart-shaped green leaves. It must be a sippa, but it was the smallest one any of them had ever seen. Kristina said the Swedish sippa had a wider crown, and this flower had no smell. Karl Oskar and Robert could not remember how it was with the sippas at home in that respect, but she insisted they had a fragrance: all flowers in the homeland were fragrant.

However small the flower was, it must be a sippa. In both Sweden and America the hepatica was the first flower to appear in spring, and this was a singular discovery for the settlers. The flower grew near a brook in Minnesota, just as in Småland. In some way it seemed to link the two countries, to bring home closer.

Kristina filled a cracked coffee cup with water and put the little bloom on the window ledge: the first message of spring had come to them.

Once more March shook his cap, but this time it was a wet snowfall, soon turning into heavy rain. For a few days the earth was washed with melting snow. The calls of water birds were heard from the lake: this was the second spring message.

The ground was bare, but ice still covered the St. Croix River. Robert went about in a dream, waiting. During the nights he lay awake in his bed, listening to the changing sounds in his left ear. He could hear one sound that impatiently called him away from here, he could hear the muffled roar of a mighty water which as yet ran under the winter’s icy roof but soon would burst into open daylight and swell in its spring flow; it would bring a vessel with eagle feathers on the bow, a ship to carry him away. Soon he would travel downstream on that great water which was forever wandering on to the sea: Robert was waiting for the Red Wing of St. Louis.

Karl Oskar and Kristina were waiting for the same boat: they were waiting for a letter from Sweden.

A year would soon have passed since they had left the homeland, and as yet they had not heard one word from their parents and families.

Karl Oskar had written a letter to Sweden last summer, and another last fall, and now in spring they waited for an answer. During the fall Robert had written a letter for Kristina to her parents in Duvemåla, and she was now waiting for an answer. When she had learned to read in school, she ought to have asked to be instructed in writing also, then she could now have written herself to her relatives and friends at home. But her father had been of the opinion that a female could make no use of the art of writing — it was always the menfolk who drew up sales contracts, wrote auction records and other important papers. She now deeply regretted having let her father decide for her. But how could she know when going to school as a little girl what she must go through in life? How could she then have imagined that one day she would emigrate to North America? At that time she didn’t even know this land existed! It was only two years ago that she had first heard the name North America.

Karl Oskar was helping Jonas Petter cut fence rails, in order to earn a few dollars to enable him to buy food supplies from Mr. Abbott’s store in Taylors Falls. He also helped his neighbors to break in their newly bought oxen, and to build a wagon of wood with oak trundles for wheels, a replica of Anders Månsson’s ox wagon. Having no team, Karl Oskar needed no wagon, but by helping his neighbors he gathered knowledge that would be useful when he made his own.

Danjel’s first journey with his new team and wagon was when he drove Ulrika and her daughter to Stillwater, where Elin was to seek work. He drove on a new road which the lumber company had cleared through the forest during the past winter. Ulrika returned to the settlement without her daughter, and a few days later she walked to Ki-Chi-Saga and related to Kristina what had taken place on their journey to Stillwater.

Elin had remained in town as maid to an upper-class American family. Pastor Jackson had found her a position with one of the richest men in his congregation, a high lord who ruled the lumber company. Elin was to receive eight dollars a month besides food and lodging, and all she had to do was wash dishes, scrub floors, and do laundry. She would not be called on to do a single outside chore, not even carry in water and wood. This was quite different from Sweden, where the maids had to do the menfolk’s chores as well, and were paid one daler a month. Here not even half as much work was required — yet her wages were twenty times as high! For eight dollars made about twenty daler.

Ulrika praised God Who had helped her and her daughter to America, and next to the Lord she praised Pastor Jackson who had negotiated the position for Elin.

On this visit Ulrika had been able to speak with Pastor Jackson. She had understood about half of the words he said, and he had understood a little more than half of her words. For the rest they had guessed, and nearly always guessed right. The Glad One was quick-witted and learned easily, she had picked up so many English expressions that Kristina was surprised. She herself had learned hardly a single word yet.

But Ulrika was bold and resourceful, she talked to every American she met. She was often spoken to by American menfolk who — as menfolk will — let their eyes rest on an attractive woman. In this way she had opportunity to practice the foreign tongue. Because of her shapely body she learned English faster than women who were spoken to less often. She told Kristina she was already dreaming in English, and in her dreams men spoke whole long sentences in English to her. But it still happened that she dreamed wrong about some words.

Jonas Petter had gossiped that unmarried Ulrika of Västergöhl had a new suitor, Samuel Nöjd, the fur trader from Dalcarlia. Kristina now asked if the gossip were true.

“Yes. Nöjd has proposed.”

“He too! And you have answered him?”

“He got the same answer as Månsson. And the same comfort!”

Ulrika explained: She was just, she treated all her suitors alike. Here in America all people should be treated alike since there weren’t four classes of people as there were in Sweden, but only one class, a human class. Samuel Nöjd had offered her a home in St. Paul, where he intended to open a store for meat — sausages, hams, steaks, and such. He was going to give up his fur trapping. But she had never liked the Dalcarlian, nothing was ever right for him, he complained wherever he lived, complained of the food and houses and people. That was why she had given a new name to the pelt hunter; in Swedish his name meant Samuel Satisfied, she called him Samuel Mis-Nöjd, Samuel Dissatisfied. If she married him, he would soon be dissatisfied and complain of her too. Nor did she think he was a desirable man for bed play. He acted like a man, but he liked to live in dirt, he didn’t keep himself clean, he stank at a yard’s distance. He stank of old slaughter, he smelled of fat, blood, and entrails. All his work had to do with slaughter, skinning animals, tanning their hides. She wouldn’t mind working in his store in St. Paul — she had heard two thousand people lived in that city — and she would willingly sell his meat and sausage and ham at great profit. But she would not in her marriage bed have a husband who stank like an entrail slinger.

No, she would never become Mrs. Samuel Nöjd, she had thanked him and said no to the offer.

“I wonder who your next suitor will be,” said Kristina.

“I’ve had one since Nöjd,” Ulrika reported. “That Norwegian in Stillwater made a try for me.”

Thomassen, the little Norwegian shoemaker whom they had met last summer, had dropped in at Pastor Jackson’s last time she was there. He had asked if she were married, the man obviously meant business. Ulrika had never seen so lustful a man, he was so hot he had to walk stooped over. But he was such a little man, so spindly, she might have trouble finding him in bed. And before he had time to propose she had made it clear to him that she had no desire to become a shoemaker’s wife in Stillwater. If she were to marry any man outside her own countrymen, then he must be an American. There were not many Swedes to choose from in Minnesota, nearly all the unmarried ones had already proposed to her, so she guessed she would be forced to marry an American.

Jonas Petter had said to Kristina that Ulrika of Västergöhl was now the most sought-after woman in the whole St. Croix Valley. And Kristina answered that this was not surprising: Every unmarried man was looking for a wife, and Ulrika had the fortune to be shaped in such a way that she attracted and tempted menfolk. She was good-looking, still young, and looked younger than she was; she had a healthy, blooming appearance, and since arriving in America she had blossomed out in both soul and body. She was capable in all she did, she cooked good food, she was companionable, always in good temper and high spirits. No one had ever seen the Glad One weep. Those who knew her well could not imagine her shedding tears. Who wouldn’t wish such a wife?

Jonas Petter predicted Ulrika would be married before full summer.

Kristina said to Ulrika: “I wonder who will finally get you?”

“I myself don’t bother to wonder,” replied Ulrika, full of confidence. “I leave everything to the Lord’s decision.”

— 2—

Before Elin went to Stillwater and accepted her position with the high American family, she and Robert had studied a chapter from his language book: “Advice for Swedish servant-folk in America.” She must learn to understand the commands of the mistress, otherwise she would perform her duties wrongly and be driven from service the very first day. Together they read the most important sentences concerning her duties, they read them in English, over and over, until the servant-girl-to-be knew them by heart. The instructions began with the first day and went on for the whole week:

Good morning, Missus! I am the new servant girl. — Welcome, change clothes and feel at home! — What time am I expected down in the morning? — You must get up at six o’clock. Clean out the ashes in the stove. Hand me the pot. I’ll show you how to make oatmeal. Empty the slop bucket and tidy the maid’s room. Eat your own breakfast. Leave no food on the dining-room table while you sweep and dust. Wash dishes and pots. Tomorrow is washday. Everything must be ironed Tuesday morning. After dinner on Sunday you may go to church. You must be back at half past nine. Wednesday you must clean upstairs. Now eat your own dinner. .

They went through the whole week of a maid in an upper-class American family.

By now Elin had learned to move her lips less, and she kept her tongue far back in her mouth while speaking English. She had improved greatly since her mother had been teaching her what she picked up in her conversations with American menfolk.

When Elin had served as nursemaid at home in Ljuder, the master had held morning prayers for all the maids and farm help every day. Each one had been required to repeat by heart the verses in the Catechism from Titus, Second Chapter, before they were allowed to eat breakfast: “Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again; not purloining, but shewing all fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.”

Elin thought as an American maid she would now be required to read these verses and she wanted to learn them in English. But Robert told her: The Americans did not require their servants to obey the Catechism. Moreover, no one out here had to obey the authorities, who weren’t put in their place by God. She herself could see from the book that servants were treated justly in America. The master and mistress bade them welcome! They asked servants to feel at home and gave them time off to go to church! Nay, the mistress was even so noble that she told her maid to eat! Both breakfast and dinner! Had anyone in Sweden ever heard a master or a mistress ask a servant to eat?

When Elin accepted the position in Stillwater, Robert stayed at home and waited. He waited for a secret message Elin had promised to send him. And one Saturday, the third week in March, it came: The ice had broken up on the St. Croix River, and in Stillwater they were looking for the first steamer.

The next day, Sunday, Robert walked to Danjel’s and spoke to Arvid. They were ready, they had long been ready, they had been waiting. And when Robert came home in the evening he announced to Karl Oskar: “Tomorrow morning Arvid and I shall walk to Stillwater. We’re taking the steamboat.”

“The steamboat?”

“We shall journey to the gold fields in California.”

“What are you talking about? What do you want to do there?”

“Dig gold, of course.”

“Dig gold?” Karl Oskar thought that Robert had invented some tale to deceive him.

“We decided last fall. We were only waiting for the ice to melt.”

“Are you serious?”

Robert assured him he was in earnest. Karl Oskar began to wonder if Robert and Arvid might have met an American who wanted to lure them away on some adventure; but as he listened to his brother he realized the gold-digging fancies had originated entirely with Robert. The boy had heard rumors about a land of gold far to the west, and he believed all he heard. He lived entirely in his imagination. And even though Arvid was a full-grown man, he was as credulous and gullible as Robert, and equally childish. And these two intended to undertake a long journey in this vast, dangerous country. Karl Oskar could easily see the outcome of such a venture! He must avert his young brother’s fancy.

“You couldn’t manage alone, Robert! You’re too young and too weak as yet.”

“To dig gold isn’t heavy work. It’s easier than grub hoeing!”

“If you found some gold. If your fancies came through. But California lies far away, in the back end of America. How will you get there?”

“We’ll work on the steamboat to St. Louis. Then we can walk the highway. I have a map and I know English. Don’t worry about me, Karl Oskar.”

Arvid was coming to Ki-Chi-Saga to meet Robert the following morning. Danjel had said he would not keep his servant against his will. Arvid had already worked for him a whole year, that was enough for the transportation from Sweden. Danjel was decent about everything, he let Arvid have his free will.

“This will come to a terrible end!” Karl Oskar almost shouted his words at Robert. If his brother had been strong and handy and tough! But Robert was a weak, inexperienced, timid boy. He ran from dead Indians and could hear the whizz of arrows that had never been shot. And his hearing was bad. He was filled with his own imagination; he was possessed by his own fancies. He was walking with open eyes into his own destruction!

Karl Oskar recalled that Robert had been odd as a boy at home: he was at least twelve years old before he stopped running after rainbows, trying to catch them with his hands. Robert was fascinated by the glittering colors and never realized that however far he ran the rainbow remained equally far away. Karl Oskar had never run to catch a rainbow.

It was pure folly for Robert to start out. And Karl Oskar pleaded with him and warned him. He was trying to talk him out of the gold-digging notion, not because he wanted Robert as a helper on the farm — he could take care of himself — it was for Robert’s own sake. He could not with a clear conscience let his younger brother set out on so reckless, danger-fraught a journey. Here in a foreign country he felt in a father’s place toward his brother. Had Robert thought of all the perils he and Arvid might encounter? They must travel through vast stretches of wilderness, they didn’t know the roads, they could easily become lost; they didn’t know people, they could be swindled and cheated; they might even be killed.

“You can’t manage alone! Believe what I say. You’re only eighteen!”

“You were only fourteen what you left home,” retorted Robert.

“That’s true. But that was at home, that was different.”

“When you were fourteen you said to Father: ‘I’ll go! I’ve decided for myself!’ And you left.”

“Yes — but that was in Sweden.”

“You went off on your own at fourteen. Haven’t I the right to do the same at eighteen?”

Robert had put his older brother in a position where he was unable to answer. Ever since he was fourteen he had decided for himself, done as he pleased, traveled where he wished. He could not deny his brother the same right.

“You can’t stop me, Karl Oskar,” Robert said.

He had already gathered together his belongings. They were not many, they made only a small bundle. Persuasion and warning words were lost on him, no one could tie him down or tether him like an animal. And as Karl Oskar could not stop him by force, he could not stop him in any other way. From now on Robert must decide for himself and take the responsibility for his own life. Karl Oskar sought to ease his conscience — he had done all in his power, there was nothing more to do.

Kristina was as much disturbed as Karl Oskar but she agreed with him: they must let Robert do as he wanted. What else could they do?

Robert had saved five dollars; he had earned four of them as day laborer for Danjel, and one dollar had been his profit from the almanacs he had made at New Year and sold to the Swedish settlers in the St. Croix Valley. Of the eight dollars Karl Oskar had earned from rail splitting for Jonas Petter, he had only five left, and these he gave to Robert. It was the only help he could offer, the only cash he had to give when his brother left home. Kristina began to prepare a good-sized food basket for the boy; that was all she could do. He might be hungry many times and need many meals before he reached the California gold fields.

Robert said: He was going to California because he wanted to become rich while still young and able to enjoy his riches. But he would not forget Karl Oskar and Kristina when he returned from the gold fields. He would share his gold — first of all, he would give Karl Oskar money for a pair of oxen, a real draft team, then he wouldn’t need to carry such heavy burdens long distances through the wilderness. And for Kristina he would buy cows, fine milch cows that would give milk enough for all of them. This family had been kind to him, he would remember them. This they could rely on: he would not keep all his fortune for himself, he was not like that — he would share.

Monday morning before daybreak Arvid arrived at the log house — he was ready to walk with Robert through the forest to Stillwater.

Robert had ten dollars in his pocket, his bundle of worldly possessions on his back, and food for ten days. As he shook hands with his brother in good-by, he said he had been lying awake during the night — his ear had bothered him — and he had made a decision: When he returned from California he would journey back to Sweden for a time and buy Kråkesjå Manor from Lieutenant Rudeborg and give this estate to his father and mother. They had such a little room, and their reserved rights in Korpamoen were very poor. It would be well for them in their old age to live in a manor. They had earned this, he thought; they would have more room in a mansion. Yes, he would not forget father and mother at home, Karl Oskar could rely on that — this was the last thing he wanted to say before they parted.

Karl Oskar and Kristina stood outside the log house door and looked after Arvid and Robert. The two disappeared into the forest. Karl Oskar and Kristina asked the same question of themselves: Would they see the boys ever again?

— 3—

The river was open, its water flowed free — this was the final harbinger of spring in the St. Croix Valley.

In bays and inlets of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga the spawn-bellied pike began their play among belated, melting ice floes. Now the settlers again had fresh fish at every meal, good sustaining fare. And the rabbits emerged from their winter shelters and ate the green grass in the meadow; the rabbits were not so fat as last fall, but their meat tasted better. Food worry diminished each day. The weather was mild with a warming sun, the sap rose under the bark of the tree trunks. Karl Oskar took his auger and drilled holes in the sugar maples near the log house, and the running sap filled the containers he placed below the holes. From it they boiled a sweet sirup which they spread on bread instead of butter; the children were overjoyed with this delicious food. Useful trees grew around their house — with nourishment flowing under their bark.

People and animals came to life again, the shores of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga teemed with fresh, young growth. A new joy burst forth in all growing things — the joy of having kept alive through the winter.

Robert and Arvid had boarded the Red Wing, the spring’s first steamer to Stillwater. The packet also brought the year’s first mail to the Territory — it should include a letter from Sweden.

Kristina talked every day about this letter which they had been waiting for so long, and she begged Karl Oskar to go to the post office in Taylors Falls and ask about it. But the walk would require half a day, and now all his days were busy — the frost would soon be out of the earth, and he had begun to make a plow for the turning of the meadow. At last, however, he gave in to his impatient wife — early one morning he took off on the nine-mile walk to Taylors Falls to inquire in the Scotsman’s store about the letter from Sweden.

There was always a paper nailed to the outside of the door of Mr. Abbott’s store, a list of the names of people who had letters inside: Letters remaining at the Post Office in Taylors Falls, Walter H. Abbott, Postmaster.

How many times Karl Oskar had stopped on the steps of the store and read through that list, searching for his own name! As yet it had never been there. He had read the name of every other inhabitant of Taylors Falls and thereabouts, but not his own, or Danjel’s, or Jonas Petter’s. He had read the names of other settlers until he learned to recognize them, but he had always missed his own name. Many times he had wondered how it would feel to find his own name written down, and be counted among the fortunate people who had letters inside in the custody of storekeeper and postmaster Walter H. Abbott.

And today his name was on the list! Indeed, it was the first one, it stood at the top of the list! He counted all the names, there were seventeen below his. It was as though his letter were the most important of all. For a moment he felt he was better than the others who had letters inside. His name was written in the Scot’s firm hand, with large, round, clear letters, easy to read: Mr. Karl Oskar Nilsson. Here he was called Mr. like the others. That meant the same as Lord in Sweden. He was a lord here, like all Americans. But the Mr. before his name seemed strange to him. In some way it did not belong before a name like his, it belonged before Jackson and Abbott and other American names, but not before Karl Oskar Nilsson.

However, the letter from Sweden had arrived.

Karl Oskar opened the door and went inside. Mr. Abbott stood in his place behind the counter. He was a tall, scrawny man with sharp features and piercing eyes. He always wore the same serious look, his features were in some way incapable of change. And the strangest thing about him was that he could talk without seeming to move his lips. He was held among the settlers to be a good man, very exact in his business. He gave the customers full weight, though not an ounce more. He was an honest trader, but no one was ever granted delay in payment; in his store trading was done for cash only.

Karl Oskar had not come to buy anything, he was penniless since he had given Robert his last five dollars. That was one reason he had delayed going to the store — he could buy nothing to bring home. He could only fetch the letter.

Before he had time to ask for it, the postmaster-storekeeper behind the desk said to him: “I have a letter for you, Mister Nilsson.”

Mr. Abbott pulled out a long drawer under the counter and looked through a stack of letters until he found a small, square, gray-blue envelope: “Here it is! Yes, Mr. Nilsson.”

Karl Oskar’s face lit up, he recognized the letter: it was the kind of envelope they used at home. He stretched out his hand for the letter.

“Fifteen cents.” The tall Scot held the letter between his thumb and forefinger, but he did not give it to the Swede on the other side of the counter: “Fifteen cents, sir.”

“What mean you, Mr. Abbott?” Karl Oskar spoke his halting English. Why didn’t the postmaster hand over his letter? Did he want money because he had held it so long? What was the meaning of this charge?

“You have to pay fifteen cents in postage due, Mr. Nilsson.”

The postmaster of Taylors Falls still held the little gray-blue envelope between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand while he pointed with his left forefinger to some stamps on the letter. And Karl Oskar still stood with his hand outstretched for the letter from Sweden.

Then he thought he understood: the freight for the letter had not been paid. He must redeem it with fifteen cents. But he did not have even one cent.

“Yes, sir?” Mr. Abbott was waiting, expressionless. He held the letter firmly in his hand, as if afraid Karl Oskar might try to snatch it. Mr. Abbott was not a man to be taken by surprise.

“No — No—” The Swedish settler struggled with the language of the new land. “I can — can not today — no — have. . not one cent!” Karl Oskar pulled out his pockets — empty!

A trace of pity was discernible in the postmaster’s voice: “No cash, Mr. Nilsson? Sorry, I have to keep your letter.” And he replaced it in the drawer under the counter.

Karl Oskar, who had stretched out his hand for the letter from Sweden, had to pull it back empty — he thrust it into his empty pocket.

The storekeeper at the other side of the counter scrutinized him sharply: Karl Oskar looked foolishly at the floor. He could not redeem the letter he had come to fetch. . “No cash, Mr. Nilsson?” He had heard those words so many times, he knew what they meant. Cash—the word still sounded to him like the rustle of paper money, the fingering of piles of dollar bills. It was one word in the foreign language which he did not like, he could not get by it, he always bumped against it like a stone wall — cash! It was the word of permanent hindrance, the word for the settler’s greatest obstacle.

Mr. Abbott looked at Karl Oskar’s feet, at his shoes. To save his boots, already quite worn, Karl Oskar now wore his wooden shoes even for walks to the village. People in Taylors Falls stared at his feet in the wooden shoes, they had never seen such footgear. They apparently thought that people who wore wooden shoes were impoverished and wretched, he could see in Mr. Abbott’s eyes. The Scot pitied the wooden-shod settler, the poor Swede who did not have even fifteen cents to pay for his letter from the homeland.

If there was one thing Karl Oskar detested above all else, it was to be pitied. “All right!” he said, as if the letter did not concern him. And he felt he pronounced those words like an American.

“Sorry,” Mr. Abbott repeated. “But I have to keep the letter.”

News from Sweden, the first in a year, again lay hidden in the postmaster’s drawer. All that the settlers had wanted so long to know about their relatives at home — if they were well or ill, if all were alive, or if someone were dead — this long-awaited news was pushed back among the letters in the drawer. There it must remain until the fee was paid. Karl Oskar had nothing to reproach the postmaster with, it was not his fault if the addressee lacked the fifteen cents. The mail company granted no delay in payments. Mr. Abbott worked for the mail company, he did only his duty when he kept the letter.

Karl Oskar nodded a silent good-by and walked toward the door.

“Sorry!” Mr. Abbott said, for the third or fourth time.

His expression was still unchanged, but there was sadness in his voice. The postmaster was sorry for Karl Oskar, because he was unable to redeem his letter. Sorry, he heard that word often when Americans talked, it sounded as if they were constantly grieving for others. But he had sometimes heard the word uttered so lightly and unconcernedly that he wasn’t sure real sorrow was always felt. This time, however, he believed Mr. Abbott was genuinely sorry he had had to leave without the letter.

The day had been almost wasted. A walk to Taylors Falls and back was tiresome, his wooden shoes were heavy and clumsy, his feet always felt sore after a long walk. Must he now walk back nine miles without the letter?

But Anders Månsson lived in the village only half a mile away; he could borrow the fifteen cents from him, go back to Mr. Abbott’s post-office, and lay the money on the counter!

The Månsson fields lay deserted today, all was quiet. Fina-Kajsa sat in the sun outside the cabin, patching one of her son’s skin coats. She sat slumped and her glassy eyes wandered listlessly as if following something far away in the forest. She did not look at the work in her hands, she stared in front of her as if in deep worry; perhaps she was still brooding over the journey of disappointment she had undertaken to her son’s fine mansion in Minnesota; as yet she had not arrived.

Her cream-pitcher lips moved vaguely in answer as Karl Oskar greeted her and asked for Anders.

“He lies flat-back today.”

“Flat-back?”

“Yes. He lies flat on his back inside.”

Fina-Kajsa’s voice sounded hollow. Karl Oskar looked at her in surprise. Did Anders Månsson lie in bed on a weekday for no reason, without working? Or had something happened to him? “Is he ailing? Is that why—”

The mother gave no answer, she only pointed to the door meaningfully: Go inside! And he entered the tiny cabin into which the whole group of Swedish newcomers had packed themselves last year.

A strong, sweet odor struck him as soon as he was over the threshold and in the stuffy air of the cabin. It was a work day, the middle of the day — but Anders Månsson lay in his shirt on his bed, stretched out on his back, sleeping and snoring. The door creaked loudly on its un-greased hinges, and Karl Oskar clumped noisily on his wooden shoes, but the sleeper was not awakened by these sounds. Anders Månsson had not lain down for a light nap, he was sunk in deep slumber.

Karl Oskar went to the bed. As he leaned over the sleeper the rancid-sweet odor grew stronger. He discovered its source: his foot struck a wooden keg that lay overturned on the floor near the bed.

It was a whisky keg, rolling in a dark-brown wet spot on the floor, where some of the contents had run out. But not much had been wasted: Karl Oskar suspected that the keg had been practically empty when it was turned over. And the man who had emptied it now lay on the bed after his drinking bout, with open, gaping mouth, breathing noisily in deep jerky snores. His breath rattled in his throat, and his chest heaved slowly up and down. It seemed as if each new breath might choke him, stick in his throat, and be his last.

Anders Månsson was dead drunk today, a day in the middle of the week; he lay unconscious on his bed in full daylight, he lay flat-back as his mother had said. But his face bloomed red, his cheeks blossomed.

“Why are you so red in the face?” Fina-Kajsa had asked her son when they arrived last summer. And Karl Oskar remembered one time when he met Fina-Kajsa at Danjel’s; he had asked about Anders, and she had answered: “He lies flat-back at home.” He had wondered what she meant.

He looked at Anders Månsson with disgust and pity: he slept a drunkard’s sleep and nothing would wake him now, nothing but time could stop that rattle in his throat. But his face looked healthy and red; “if you have red cheeks you are far from dead,” the saying was. .

Karl Oskar walked slowly out of the cabin. The drunkard’s mother was still sitting outside; he had nothing to say to her.

But she asked: “Was it something you wanted with Anders?”

“Nothing to speak of. Just wanted to look in as I passed by.”

“He wakes up toward evening.”

“Well. . is that so? Does he often—”

“As often as he has money to buy drinks with.” Old Fina-Kajsa spoke to the air in a low, hollow voice — without reproach or sorrow. “He got started on it when he lived alone.”

“I suppose so.”

“He ailed from lonesomeness.”

“I see.”

Karl Oskar felt embarrassed and ashamed, as though he had surprised her son during some natural but private occupation which concerned no one except himself and which usually is not performed in sight of others.

Fina-Kajsa continued: “Anders says he grew lonesome here. He says it can affect one’s head, to emigrate and grow lonely. . ”

Karl Oskar searched for words of comfort for the old one. But strangely, comforting words were far away when needed. He could not find a single one — he had nothing to say to Fina-Kajsa. He greeted her from Kristina, and then went his way. The old woman remained sitting, her vacant eyes staring over the wilderness forest.

Her son who lay flat-back on his bed had grown lonesome. . hmm. .

Now Karl Oskar knew why Anders Månsson had been unable to improve his circumstances during his years in the Territory — now he knew the secret of Fina-Kajsa’s son.

— 4—

Karl Oskar could now go to Lake Gennesaret and borrow the fifteen cents from his neighbors, but then he would not have time for a second walk back to Mr. Abbott’s store. He must let the letter from Sweden remain in the postoffice drawer for the time being; after all, it was not floating in the lake, Postmaster Abbott had it in safekeeping.

Karl Oskar walked straight back home. Kristina met him in the door: “Did you get the letter? What did it say? Are they well?” Three anxious questions, and she found time for a fourth before her husband had said a word: “Hasn’t the letter come?”

“It has come. But it must be redeemed. It costs fifteen cents.”

“You couldn’t redeem it?”

“No.”

“You walked all the way for nothing?”

“Yes.”

Kristina had been waiting eagerly for his return, she was sure he would bring the letter from Sweden. Now she felt like a child who is chased away from the Christmas tree after waiting long at the door.

A silence fell between husband and wife. And Karl Oskar felt another question coming, but this one his wife need not utter. He said he had not wished to borrow from anyone in Taylors Falls, he was too proud to ask for a loan of fifteen cents; he did not wish to advertise his poverty among all the Swedes in the St. Croix Valley. Their letter was in good hands in the store, they need not worry, no one would take it away from them.

“Did you see the writing on the letter?”

“No, I wasn’t that close.”

“You don’t know who wrote it?”

“No. It could be my father, or it might be yours. One or the other, I guess.”

A few days passed. Spring had come to the valley. The ice on the river had broken up, the steamboat had come with the letter from Sweden; it now lay in a drawer in the post office in Taylors Falls and could be redeemed for fifteen cents. Kristina thought, what luck that the sun and the warmth came to people without having to be redeemed; had they been forced to pay fifteen cents for the spring, the winter would still be with them.

Karl Oskar and Kristina said nothing more about the letter, but their thoughts hovered around it. They could not get it off their minds, they wondered and mused: What was in the letter? A whole year had run away since they had climbed on the wagon for the drive to Karlshamn — how much might have happened in that time! And everything that had happened was written in that letter, and the letter had finally almost reached them, it was only a few miles away, yet as far away as ever. It cost fifteen cents!

Kristina thought it would have been better not to know about the letter. It would have been better if Karl Oskar had kept quiet about it. Now she was wrought up and worried about news from home. It was so close, yet not within her reach.

Karl Oskar was resigned to waiting patiently until the time he could redeem it, and he thought Kristina should do the same. He was busy all day long making his new breaking plow. He was making it entirely of wood, and he must have it ready when the frost left the ground. He had been promised he might borrow his neighbors’ oxen and he was anxious to begin the plowing. A plow was far more important to him than a letter. He talked about it every time he came inside for a meal, it was on his mind early and late. It was the first time he had made a plow, the farmer’s most important implement, and it required clever hands. He cut and carved, he chiseled and dug, he tried various kinds of wood, discarded and began anew, improved and finished each part from day to day. The blade must have the right curve, the pull tree the right turn, the shafts and handles the right angles. The plow body must be light, sensitive to the steering hands of the plower, it must cut its way easily through the sod. He would follow this plow in its furrow for a long time, he would follow it every day until the whole meadow was turned into a field. The new plow would give them the field for their bread to grow in.

But Kristina wished to hear no more of the plow he was making, she wanted to talk of the letter they must redeem.

Karl Oskar was too proud to borrow a mere fifteen cents from his neighbors. If a poor man could afford nothing else, at least he could afford his pride. This was a lesson he had learned in Sweden. But it might be that this lesson was neither good nor useful for an impoverished settler here in the wilderness. He could not live by his pride. And whence would he get the fifteen cents if he did not borrow it from Danjel or Jonas Petter?

A few more days went by and Karl Oskar kept busy at his plow. Then Kristina could wait no longer: Did he intend to get the letter soon? He replied that the letter was in good hands, Mr. Abbott would not give it to anyone else, she must not be impatient, the work on the plow was much more urgent.

Kristina made her own decision: She would go to her uncle and borrow fifteen cents.

Without Karl Oskar’s knowledge she would set out early next morning through the forest to Danjel’s settlement. She would show her stubborn husband that she could redeem the message from Sweden. His pride could not keep her letter from her any longer!

Strangers rarely came to the log house at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga. Occasionally a pelt trader might walk by. But the day Kristina had made her decision a stranger dropped in on them.

He was a man from the lumber company in Stillwater; he had walked through the forest staking out new roads and had lost his way. The stranger arrived at the new settlement as the family was sitting down to the noonday meal and he was asked to share their dinner: Would he be satisfied with their simple food?

Karl Oskar and the American could barely make each other understood, but he seemed a kind man. He thanked them for the dinner and before he left he patted Johan on the head and gave him a coin.

The stranger was hardly outside the door before Kristina turned to the boy and looked at the gift. It was a ten-cent piece.

She turned the thin coin in her hand, deeply disappointed. It was not enough, she was still five cents short. She would still have to borrow, and a five-cent loan would reveal their poverty more than a fifteen-cent one.

“That was close!”

“You mean. .?” Karl Oskar gave his wife a quick glance.

“You know what I mean!”

“But you wouldn’t take the coin from the boy?”

Johan was pulling his mother’s arm: “I want my money, Mother!”

“Give it to the boy,” said the father. “It’s the first coin he’s ever had.”

Kristina handed the child his coin: “But we could have borrowed it if it had been a fifteen-cent coin.”

Johan meanwhile held the ten-cent piece tightly in his closed fist: “It’s my money! He gave it to me!”

Karl Oskar said he would never have had the heart to rob the boy of the first money he had owned in his life.

Kristina flared up: “Then go and find fifteen cents! You’re impossible! Wait and wait and wait! How long must we wait? When are you getting the letter? Shall we leave it there till Christmas?”

“I’ll fetch it tomorrow morning.”

“That I must see before I believe it! You’re like a stubborn horse! My patience has come to an end!” Her cheeks flashed red from indignation, her eyes seemed to shoot sparks.

Karl Oskar let her anger spend itself and did nothing to interrupt her. When she had finished, he said calmly as before: Early tomorrow morning he would take the dried stag skin to Mr. Fischer in Taylors Falls. He had thought they would use it for clothing but now they must sell it; they could not get along without cash any longer. He might get two dollars for the skin, he would have enough for both the letter and some groceries.

“Why didn’t you sell the skin long ago? Why have you waited?”

She was interrupted by the door swinging open. The stranger who had given money to Johan was back. He stopped at the threshold and pointed to the lake shore, rolling a lump of tobacco in his hand while he talked.

Karl Oskar listened eagerly and tried to understand. He recognized the word hay. The stranger pointed to the haystacks in their meadow — three stacks were still left, Lady had been unable to eat all the hay before they returned her to Anders Månsson. The stranger had come back because he had discovered their hay — now Karl Oskar understood.

He accompanied the man to the meadow. Shortly, he returned to the house with three large silver coins in his hand: the lumber company in Stillwater was short of hay for their teams, and the man bought the three remaining haystacks for three dollars.

Never was a seller more satisfied with a transaction. “I felt it in my bones last fall when I cut the hay! I knew it would come in handy!” said Karl Oskar.

That very day he went to fetch the letter from Taylors Falls, and this time he carried it with him when he returned. He had recognized his father’s big writing on the envelope but he carried it home with the seal unbroken, he wanted to break it in Kristina’s presence, he wanted her to listen when he read it for the first time.

As soon as he was inside the door they sat down on either side of their table. It was the middle of the week, but both had a feeling of reverence, a Sunday mood. Karl Oskar picked up the bread knife, the sharpest one they had in the house and he cut the seal slowly and carefully so as not to harm the letter.

It was a small sheet, narrow and written full from top to bottom. The letters were stiff, crooked, and broken — they were reminders of the pain-stiffened, crooked fingers that had formed and written them.

The letter from Sweden brought the following message to the reader and the listener:

Dear Son, Daughter-in-Law and Children,

Our dearly loved Ones, May you be well is our constant Wish!

We have received your letter and its message that you have arrived alive and in health, Which is a great Joy to us. Now I will write to let you know how we are — we all have God’s great gift of health and all is well.

Much evil and good has happened since we parted. The churchwarden in Åkerby fell off a wagon and was killed last summer near the hill at Åbro mill, Oldest Son took over home, on my Homestead all work and chores progress in due order, the farmer who supplies our Reserved Rights is penurious, but otherwise kind, this year has had fine weather and good crops.

Mother and I do not go to other places much, we keep busy at home, most the time I keep close to the fire as you know. You have had your free will and have deserted home, we hope you all have success, it must be un-Christian hard for you in the beginning in a new land. Mother wonders if you have any Minister to preach God’s clear Word to you, your God is with you also in a foreign country. Turn to Him when your own strength fails.

Have no concern and do not worry for Us, We greet your little children and your good wife from Our Hearts. Her parents and Sisters in Duvemåla are well and wish the same to Kristina in North America. I have paid the freight for this letter, hope it is sufficient. You can afford it as little as I in a strange country.

You are every hour in our Thoughts, I invoke the Lord’s blessing upon you, our dear ones in this world.

Written Down by your Father

Nils Jakob’s Son

Korpamoen in Ljuder Parish October 9

in the year of Our Lord 1850.

Let no outsider see my scribble.

XXIV. UNMARRIED ULRIKA OF VÄSTERGÖHL WEEPS

— 1—

Karl Oskar reread the letter from Sweden three times before Kristina was satisfied. Only after that did he have an opportunity to tell her the great news he had heard today in Taylors Falls: Ulrika of Västergöhl was going to enter into holy matrimony with Mr. Walter H. Abbott, she was to move to Taylors Falls as wife to the postmaster and storekeeper.

This he had heard and it had come from Swedish Anna, who was not one to spread untrue gossip. She herself would move to New Kärragärde as housekeeper for Danjel and Jonas Petter in Ulrika’s place.

Mr. Abbott had often of late visited the Swedish settlement at Lake Gennesaret, according to Swedish Anna. And Ulrika had treated him to food — the most delicious food she could cook — sweet cheese, pork omelet, cheesecake. She had offered him all her choice dishes. And Mr. Abbott had been so taken by the Swedish fare that he wished for it on his table at every meal. In order to have the good food daily, he must keep the cook in his house, and so he had proposed to Ulrika. Swedish Anna had hinted that the impending marriage was some piece of witchery: Ulrika had bewitched Mr. Abbott with the food she had given him. She had taken advantage of a poor man who never before had known how food should taste. Ulrika could thank her Creator that the preparation of decent food was not as yet known in America.

Swedish Anna had spoken as though Ulrika had committed a heinous crime in offering Mr. Abbott her Swedish dishes.

The Taylors Falls postmaster and storekeeper was a well-to-do man, nothing in the way of worldly goods was missing from his house. There might be other women besides the Glad One who would have liked to be in charge of a store full of good wares. Karl Oskar suspected that Swedish Anna spoke in jealousy when she belittled Ulrika.

Kristina had seen Mr. Abbott behind his counter last summer. His head, on a lanky, loose-limbed body, almost reached the ceiling; she remembered his big hands, covered with black hair, his broad, flat feet. He was always dressed in a motley coat with long tails, his shirt neck open. Everyone said he was honest in his dealings. Kristina thought he had a hardened heart, denying the poor settlers credit for a single cent; but she would not call him stingy — many times he had given her sugar sticks for her children.

Kristina said to Karl Oskar: Next Sunday he must stay home alone and look after their offspring. She would go to Uncle Danjel’s and wish Ulrika of Västergöhl well on her coming marriage.

— 2—

She started out on her walk early in the morning. It was the first time she had walked alone from Ki-Chi-Saga to the settlement at Lake Gennesaret. Karl Oskar had advised against it — but this time she wanted to go by herself through the clearing; sometime she must learn to walk alone, in a place where she would live for the rest of her life. She would feel like a penned-in animal if she could never leave her home without being followed and guarded like a herd beast. She could not lose her way — there only was one road to follow.

The Indians had returned and had been around the lake, but she tried to suppress her fear of the copperskins with this thought: If God protects me, I need not be afraid to walk alone through the forest. If God does not protect me, I would not be safe in the greatest company of people.

The forest had been washed clean by the mild spring rains, the grass was sprouting, the leaf-trees were budding, the air smelled fresh and good, of foliage and bark and buds, of earth and mold. Kristina stepped lightly over the wretched road, she breathed with an easy heart. For long stretches she could imagine she walked through the woodlands at home in Duvemåla. Here grew the same trees, though they were larger, more wild looking than at home. She was more at home with trees and bushes than with people, and did not feel lonely in her walk through the woods.

But she never forgot the dangers that might lurk in the forest. Any moment she might encounter something frightening. Last time Swedish Anna came to visit she had seen a cut-off human foot in the road. It was tied to a post stuck in the ground, a bloody foot with a brown skin — an Indian foot. It was a gruesome sign put there by the savages — Swedish Anna thought it meant war between the Chippewas and the Sioux.

Nor did Kristina forget the snakes which had come out of their holes in the spring sunshine and might lie in wait for her. But neither humans nor animals molested her on her Sunday walk, she saw neither snakes nor maimed human feet.

When she reached Danjel’s house, she found Ulrika alone. Jonas Petter had made a small skiff, and he and Danjel had taken the children onto the lake; they hoped to catch some fish for dinner.

Ulrika had returned the evening before from a visit with her daughter in Stillwater. Elin was satisfied in her service, her duties were light and her American master and mistress were kind to their servants. Ulrika had also visited Pastor Jackson in his new house, and she had been to his church and heard him preach.

Kristina noticed at once that Ulrika was not herself today. She did not seem as lively or hearty as usual, she had a serious look on her face, her motions and bearing were different, there was something inscrutable about her. She had a new expression, a thoughtful, solemn look. Perhaps it was caused by the great change which her imminent marriage would bring her.

She took out her knapsack and began carefully folding garments and placing them in it. So she was already busy with her moving.

“I’m packing up a little,” she said.

“Yes. I’ve already heard about it. You’re moving to Taylors Falls to be the storekeeper’s wife!”

Ulrika looked up quickly, with a strange, serious glance. She did not answer. Kristina wished her well in her marriage, she repeated her words twice. But Ulrika seemed not to appreciate this good wish, rather, it pained her. She did not acknowledge it, she did not say thank you. She seemed embarrassed and annoyed as she picked up a well-washed and newly ironed shift — Kristina guessed this shining white garment might be her bridal shift.

What was the matter with the Glad One today? Kristina scarcely recognized her. She was always jolly and in high spirits, and this was surely the time for rejoicing. Something must be wrong.

A worrying thought came to Kristina: Perhaps the marriage with Mr. Abbott was off? Had something come between them? Had the suitor regretted his proposal and taken it back? Something had happened. But Ulrika was packing her clothes — was she moving away from Danjel in any case? Kristina asked outright.

“Yes, I’m moving away,” Ulrika said, as she spread her clean shift on the table. “But not to Taylors Falls! I am not going to be Storekeeper Abbott’s wife.”

“Then it isn’t true?”

“It was the truth. Or almost the truth.” Ulrika’s voice trembled slightly in a way Kristina had never heard before. “It was as close to the truth as anything can be. I could have married Mr. Abbott. But now I’ve changed my mind.”

“What in the world—”

“Everything has changed for me.”

Kristina held her breath: Ulrika must mean that the suitor had changed his mind. Someone might have slandered Ulrika to Mr. Abbott, someone might have told him about her life in Sweden. It must be some Swede — who could it be? Who would be so cruel? Who had betrayed Ulrika?

“Has something come between you?”

“Yes, something came between.”

Anger rose within Kristina. Never would she shake hands with the dastard who had ruined Ulrika’s marriage plans. “Some wicked, jealous gossip has spoiled it?”

“No,” said Ulrika. “It was not a human being.”

“No human being?”

“It was God Himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“God came between. He did not want me to marry Mr. Abbott.”

Ulrika folded the sleeves of her shift. She turned toward Kristina, her full bosom heaving inside her tight bodice: “The Lord stepped in and averted the marriage.”

Kristina was confused; Ulrika did not seem to feel she had lost a great opportunity; rather, the Glad One spoke as though a great disaster had nearly overtaken her, which at the last moment God had prevented.

Ulrika explained: Mr. Abbott was the American she had exchanged more English words with than anyone else; she understood him better than anyone, what she had learned of the new language she had learned from him. Ever since New Year’s she had known that the postmaster wanted to marry her. Shortly before Christmas, when she went to shop in his store, he had walked part way back with her and helped carry her food basket. He did the same thing again and again, and one evening he had walked all the way to their house and stayed overnight. He had eaten with them, she had offered him the same fare she gave to Danjel and Jonas Petter, but never had she seen a man so grateful for food. He had said she was an expert at cooking, and a few weeks ago he had proposed. He said he needed a housekeeper, and she needed a home — if they married, both would have what they needed.

Abbott was a courteous and fine man, he acted toward her the way all American men acted toward women. How many pounds he had carried for her from Taylors Falls! Even a choosy woman could accept such a man. But she wasn’t quite satisfied with the way he had proposed; he ought to have said: I need a human being in my home during the daytime, and a woman in my bed at night! But he hadn’t said that. He had only said he needed a housekeeper and cook. If he had proposed the other way, then she would have accepted him at once. Instead she asked for some time to think it over — and this she had done in such a way that he undoubtedly took it for half a promise to marry him.

She needed not only a home, she needed also a man, she hadn’t slept with a man for more than three years. She was in her prime, her youthful blood still flowed warm in her body. And when she married, she wanted to marry a man who cared more for what a woman could give in bed than what she could offer at the table. She had long wished for a man who would rather starve at table than fail to appreciate what a woman could give with her soul and body. She wanted, too, a man to help her physically and spiritually, a man she could always rely on. She was afraid a marriage with Mr. Abbott would turn out badly.

That was why she had asked for time to think it over. And yesterday, as she came through Taylors Falls on her way from Stillwater, she had stopped in to see Mr. Abbott in his store and told him: She was honored by his proposal, but she could not accept, because the Lord Jesus would not give His sanction to their wedlock.

Kristina stared at Ulrika, more confused than before: Ulrika had declined to become a storekeeper’s wife, she had refused the splendor of Mr. Abbott’s store, she had rejected the kind man who had helped carry her burdens homeward!

“Are you serious?”

“I’ve never been more serious.”

“But you’re packing! Are you still moving away from Danjel?”

“Yes. I’m moving away. To Stillwater. A miracle has happened to me.” She spoke the last sentence with great emphasis.

Something new lit up Ulrika’s features, a light shone in her eyes, an unusual gravity was in her voice: “Listen to me, Kristina. You’re the first to know: I’m going to be baptized. I’m going to be baptized by a Baptist.”

“Oh. . now I understand. You’ve changed your religion.”

“No! I haven’t changed. I’ve been on the right road. But only now have I come close to God. And for this I can thank Pastor Jackson.”

“Ah. . it’s he who has made you a Baptist?”

“Yes. My husband-to-be will baptize me.”

“What?”

“I’m marrying Pastor Jackson in Stillwater.”

And Ulrika turned again to the table where her new-washed linen shift still lay spread.

Kristina was lost in astonishment. But not for long. Her surprise lessened as she thought the news over. She ought to have guessed from the very beginning, she should have foreseen, after all Ulrika’s talk of Pastor Jackson and her visits with him, after all the praise Ulrika had lavished on the minister.

“Are you surprised?”

“No!” Kristina answered. “This is the best thing that could happen to you! A likelier man couldn’t be found. With Pastor Jackson, I don’t even need to wish you well!”

Yes, that was how things were; God had come between Ulrika and Mr. Abbott. And He had chosen another husband for her.

Ulrika was to be married in the Baptist Church in Stillwater this spring. But before she married Pastor Jackson she would be baptized at the great baptism which the church performed in the St. Croix River every spring.

“It’s a God’s miracle!” said the Glad One. “You don’t even understand it, Kristina.”

Her hand lightly touched the white shift on the table, slowly, tenderly, like a caress. Kristina had guessed right — it was her bridal shift.

Ulrika went on: Three years ago she had been converted by Danjel, but ever since that time she had felt something missing. She had shed her old body, but she had never felt quite at home in the new one. She had known something was missing from her rebirth in Christ. Since meeting Jackson she had spoken many times to Danjel about the Baptists and had asked him if a new baptism might give new comfort to her soul. Danjel no longer believed God had entrusted him with the care of any soul except his own. Since he had gone astray in self-righteousness, he felt he could lead no one else along the right road. And he had told her she had her own free will in religious matters. She knew best what God asked of her, he would not rebuke her if she turned Baptist and enjoyed a new christening.

Now Ulrika felt a rechristening was just what she needed. Only the Baptists were entirely reborn into this world. To rid herself completely of the old flesh-body, she must again go through baptism, which should never be undertaken until a person was full grown in mind and body. Now she felt old enough, her mind wasn’t likely to grow any more, she was as wise as a woman in her position and of her age would ever be; the time had arrived for her rechristening into the Baptist faith. And the crown of the miracle was the fact that her husband-to-be would baptize her with his own hands.

The baptism would take place as soon as the river water grew warmer. Many other persons would be immersed at the same time as she. All would be fully dressed, but baptism for a rebirth required the whole body to be under water. They were to wade into the river until the water stood above their shoulders. Pastor Jackson would hold on to her neck and push down her head, while he read the baptismal prayer. It would take only a few moments with the head under water to make it binding, he had told her. Then the newly baptized must hurry home and put on dry clothes and drink warm milk or steaming coffee so as not to catch cold. But later in the spring the St. Croix River would be warmer, so there would be less risk of getting sick.

“. . but I can’t explain it! I can’t tell you any more! Oh, Kristina, I am chosen. I am.”

And as Ulrika was talking in great exhilaration she suddenly stopped short — she rested her elbows against the table and broke out in loud weeping.

She slumped down onto a chair as if her legs had given way under her, she began to cry so violently that her whole body shook, she put her hands to her face, the tears dripped between her fingers and fell onto the shift on the table.

“Ulrika, my dear!” Kristina had never seen Ulrika of Västergöhl cry, no one had ever seen her shed a tear. No one had imagined she could weep, she was such a strong, fearless woman. Kristina realized that something profound had happened to her. “Ulrika! You never weep!”

Copiously Ulrika’s tears ran while from trembling lips she stammered forth: She was not sad, she was happy. Her tears were tears of joy. She never cried when she was sad, only when she was happy. That was why she had never wept before, she had never been happy, never in all her life until now. What had there been for her to be happy over? Nothing — ever! Until now!

The Glad One wept. She soaked her wedding linen in tears.

Kristina sat silent and looked at her. Ulrika continued to sob. Long had she carried her tears, long had she saved them, now the moment had come when she spent her savings. It was as though all the tears she had kept back through all the years were now gathered in force, breaking through in one great torrent — as though she wished at one single time to weep tears for all the happiness which had been denied her throughout life.

At length she became aware of her tears dripping onto the white garment; then she put her apron to her eyes and wept into her apron. Her blooming cheeks were washed in her flood of tears, she wiped them away with the apron.

Kristina sat silent; one who weeps for joy needs no comfort. She was glad for Ulrika’s sake, she would have liked to weep also, to show that she shared her happiness.

When the Glad One’s tears at last began to give out and her tongue regained its former use, she told Kristina why she began to weep after these many years: It was because of God’s all-forgiving love which she had experienced through her husband-to-be — through Henry. When he had asked her to be his wife — and he had spoken very slowly and clearly so that she would understand the English words — she had at once recognized who he was: he was the mate God had chosen and saved for her, and who had long been waiting for her here in North America. Then she had felt that she too must show him who she was — God demanded this of her, forced her to it. She had told him she was a great sinner, that she had lived in sin and shame in her homeland, that she had felt at home in her sin-body and enjoyed its pleasures. She was a sister of the Bible harlot who had been brought to Jesus for judgment. She had met a Lord’s Apostle who had repeated Christ’s words: Go, and sin no more! And for three years she had done repentance, for three years she had not let a single man near her.

Henry had told her that God had already informed him she had been a great sinner. But one forgiven by God had nothing to fear from mortals. Who was he to judge her? He himself was a great sinner, forgiven by God. They were alike, she and he. The old life was past, blotted out through the rebirth. And if some part of her old sin-body still clung to her, she would be cleansed in the baptism he would give her later in spring when the river water was a little warmer.

It was because of God’s love, all-forgiving love, that Ulrika of Västergöhl now wet her bridal linen with her tears.

But only a person who knew what sin was could rightly understand her joy. Sin was like a wasp, a big, angry, buzzing hornet. Or like a bee. Sin had sweet honey in its mouth, and a sharp, piercing sting in its end. First it lured a mortal with its honey sweetness, then it stung with its stinger. Sin had led her astray with its delightful sweetness, but how bitterly it had then stung her! Nothing in this world could sting such deep wounds as sin!

But people too had hurt her. How much evil she had suffered from them! Ever since she had borne her first child she had been called unmarried Ulrika of Västergöhl. It was even written down in the church book. She had been born unmarried, she couldn’t help it. God had created her unmarried, He had created her in such a way that she bore children easily, she couldn’t help that either. And later she couldn’t get married, later, when she had lost that which men required in a bridal bed. That too she couldn’t help. She had never had a maidenhead to save, since it had been stolen from her as a little girl, before she was fully developed.

But now she had been sleeping alone in her bed so long, now she had spared her body so long that the old marks of sin must be obliterated. She had been with no man for such a long time, she had a feeling something had grown inside her, her maidenhead had at last had a chance to develop, to come back to her. She felt like a virgin, like an expectant and trembling virgin, now that she was to step into a bridal bed. And this too made her happy, this too was something to shed tears of joy over; this too was a miracle. She who was called the Glad One had never until now been glad.

Voices were heard outside the cabin, and Ulrika of Västergöhl rose quickly. “The men are coming with fish for dinner. I can’t sit here and bawl!” She picked up her wedding shift and folded it quickly. “I must put on the potato pot!”

Hurriedly she dried the last tears with the corner of her apron. Now she had wept and enjoyed it, she had wept to her heart’s content. Now she had completed her joy-weeping over the passing of the old, the coming of the new.

— 3—

Kristina started for home in the early afternoon; little Danjel must be waiting for her in his cradle. She had nursed her last born generously before leaving in the morning, but he must be howling with hunger by now, he was such a lusty child.

Her uncle Danjel had bought two cows this spring, and one had recently calved. As they were milkless at Ki-Chi-Saga, he now gave his niece a pail of milk. Kristina was overjoyed at the gift; she must save every drop for her children; she must walk carefully on the rutty road so the precious milk would not splash out.

Ulrika whispered to her that she had more confidences to share, she couldn’t speak freely with Danjel and Jonas Petter listening, so she would accompany her a bit on the way and help her carry the milk pail.

Kristina told her she was much pleased that no one now could go to Pastor Jackson and slander his wife-to-be, no evil person could ruin this marriage. After all the sufferings Ulrika had gone through she had earned her happy lot as wife of the minister in Stillwater, and nothing should interfere.

Ulrika answered: She herself had always maintained that the best that could happen to a woman in this world was to marry a man she could rely on. Henry had a new house, he could offer her all she needed of worldly goods. With Mr. Abbott she would have had more than she needed, if she had been looking for things of this world only and wished to live in the flesh. Pastor Jackson earned his daily bread, but nothing more. Here in the Territory a minister earned no great sums for looking after souls. People spent most of their money on their bodies. Pastor Jackson was paid three pounds of pork for a very long sermon, a pat of butter for a wedding, a dozen eggs for a prayer for the sick. No one could get rich from such puny contributions. And he endured hardships and suffered want when he traveled about in this wilderness. He preached in the open, in log cabins and barns, in woodsheds and hovels, in logging camps and hunters’ huts, in all sorts of dens and nests. He preached from morning to night, every hour of the day, the whole week through — it was only on Sundays he preached at home in his church. But that was the way an honest minister should preach, according to the words in the Acts: “The Lord of heaven and earth dwelleth not in temples made with hands.”

But she would have an easy life as the minister’s wife in Stillwater. Henry washed dishes and kept the house clean, scrubbed the floors, carried in water and wood. All she need do was cook the food and run the house. The rest of the time she could stay inside and keep herself clean. The Americans wanted clean, neat wives, the men did all the chores to save their womenfolk from getting bent backs, crooked limbs, or wrinkled faces while still in their days of youth. Swedish menfolk could not ruin their women quickly enough, with slave labor and the roughest work — this gave them a good excuse when they later went to younger, better-looking women. .

“Are you coming to my wedding, Kristina?” asked Ulrika.

Kristina said she was sorry, but she couldn’t leave the children long enough to journey all the way to Stillwater. Karl Oskar would stay home in her place if she asked him, but he couldn’t give the little one the breast.

“I’ll come to your first christening instead! Then I won’t be nursing the baby any longer.”

“You’ll have to wait a long while. You’ll have to wait till the child is grown. Then his father will baptize him in the river.”

Since Ulrika had carried Kristina’s child to baptism, she ought in turn to carry Ulrika’s. But she had forgotten the parents’ religion — their child would not be christened until full grown.

“Henry intends to ask the Lord for many children,” said Ulrika of Västergöhl.

“You aren’t too old yet.”

“I should say not! I can bring forth brats another ten years!”

“And you give birth easily, you told me.”

“Much more easily than you last time!”

Pastor Jackson did not hope for such a great blessing as Jacob — to father twelve tribes — but he would consider it a particular grace from God if he might be the father of half as many — six.

Ulrika went on: First of all she would pray to God for a son who could walk in his father’s footsteps as minister. She herself could never become a priest, she felt women weren’t good enough. Yet God allowed women to bear males for the holy priesthood. It wasn’t forbidden women to take part in the making of priests, they were permitted to carry them inside their bodies for a whole nine months. And it was Ulrika’s great desire to make use of that opportunity: She had never thought she would marry a priest, but she surely had wished to make one.

And if by the Highest One’s Grace she were permitted to see the day when this took place, she would write a letter to Dean Brusander in Ljuder, who had excluded her from church and sacrament, and she would tell him: Great Lord’s gifts were required in a minister, but now she had done something the Mr. Dean could not do — she had made a priest!

So she would write. And as Ulrika mused on this, walking at Kristina’s side, helping to carry the milk pail through the forest, an expression of deep contentment and happy expectation lighted her face.

“There was something you wanted to tell me,” Kristina reminded her.

“So there is! I’ll tell you.”

And after making Kristina promise to keep it to herself until after the wedding, Ulrika confided in her: She had bought a hat.

The transaction had taken place yesterday in Stillwater; for the time being she had hidden the hat under her bed in the log house. She had wanted to show it to Kristina, but the men had come, and she did not wish Jonas Petter to see it — he would poke fun at her. In Sweden everyone ridiculed a woman of the simple sort if she wore anything but a shawl on her head. The noble women could not bear it if anyone besides themselves wore a hat. But here in North America a woman was not denied a hat, here she could wear whatever she wanted without fear of heckling.

And so for her wedding she had bought a beautiful hat, with long plumes and blooms and ribbon bands. She would show it to Kristina another time. It was so elegant the imagination could not grasp it.

Ulrika would put on her hat the day she was married. And once she had her hat on, unmarried Ulrika of Västergöhl would be no more.

— 4—

Spring found these changes among the new settlers in the St. Croix Valley: Robert’s and Arvid’s whereabouts were unknown, they were on their way to the far-off land of California; Ulrika and her daughter Elin had moved away from Danjel to Stillwater, and Swedish Anna moved to the Lake Gennesaret settlement in Ulrika’s place, to run the household for Danjel and Jonas Petter.

It was a warm, sunny spring day when Ulrika was baptized in the St. Croix River. The following Saturday she was married in the little whitewashed wooden church in Stillwater and became Mrs. Reverend Henry O. Jackson.

She was the first Swedish bride in the St. Croix Valley. She was to be the mother of a flock of children, the founder of a fine new family; a strong, enduring family: One day her great-grandchildren would speak of their descent from the noble family of Västergöhl in Sweden, whence their female ancestor a hundred years earlier had emigrated.

XXV. “AT HOME” HERE IN AMERICA—“BACK THERE” IN SWEDEN

— 1—

The sun’s arc climbed, the days lengthened, but the evenings had not yet begun to lighten. The sun departed, darkness came in its place, but no twilight under a pale heaven lingered over the earth. Kristina waited: Spring was as yet only beginning.

April came and brought sun-warm days to the shores of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga, but the evenings remained almost as dark as in winter. Kristina still waited.

And when at last she realized her waiting was futile, her thoughts wandered to a land where the evenings in spring were light.

After the many chores which each day fell to her with their unchanging sameness, her body was tired as she lay down on her bed in the evening. But her mind and soul would not rest, she lay awake with her thoughts. Outside the small log-house windows the night was dark, but she lay with her eyes wide open and gazed into the darkness where nothing could be seen.

As spring progressed, with darkness still prevailing, her sleepless hours increased. She still gazed through the darkness — toward that land where evenings were light in spring.

Memories reawakened, images stood clear. She and her sisters sat “twilighting” at the window; they used to delay lighting the candles, by the light of the spring evening they would sit talking in hushed voices to each other. They never spoke aloud at “twilighting”—the gathering dusk of an April evening called for whispered talk. Outside by the gable the great rosebush brushed against the window, with its tender green growth and swelling buds. Later in summer the roses would be out, and then the bush would cover the whole window with its fragrant blooms. Against the evening sky the young Astrachan apple tree stood out clearly — she had planted it herself as a companion for the lonely rosebush. Each autumn she had dug around the little tree; it had carried its first apples the last fall they were at home — big juicy apples with transparent skin; how many times she had gone out just to look at the apples; and how delicious they had been.

Would her apple tree bloom this spring? Would it bear apples in the fall? And would there be gooseberries on the bushes she had planted against the cellar wall? Those berries were as big as thumbs, and dark red when ripe; their taste was sweet as sugar.

A year had passed since the April evening she had said good-by to her parents and sisters at the gate of her childhood home. She — the departing one — had stood outside the gate, they — whom she would part from — had stood inside. Her mother had said: “Don’t forget, our dear daughter, we want to meet you with God.” Her father had stood bent against the gatepost, he said nothing, he stood with his face turned away, holding on to the post as if seeking support.

She had left, and they had remained; never more in this world would she see them.

That evening had been light, one whole long twilight that still lit her way home on sleepless nights. . It had rained during the day, but cleared toward evening. There had been a spring fragrance over black fields and green meadows as she walked away from the farm where she was born.

And since that evening a year had completed its cycle, the year’s great wheel had made a complete turn and carried her far away in the world, thousands of miles away. She had emigrated and now she lived so far away that only her thoughts could carry her back. Here she lay in her bed, next to her husband, in her new home, and peered into the darkness, looking for the land where the evenings were light in spring.

She traveled the way back, she traversed the great waters and the immense stretches of land. She retraced the road that separated her from her old home. She could see that road in her mind, bit by bit, mile by mile. And the mile she remembered at home was a long mile, six times as long as the American mile, it took her two or three hours to walk it. And as she gazed into the dark outside the cabin window she felt the distance increase a thousand times. She measured mile after mile, she counted as she traveled, ten, twenty, thirty. . until she tired of her journey, and yet she had retraveled so small a part. Her thoughts would never reach the thousand-mile mark, her journey must end, the immense distance stifled her imagination. And after a while she grew dizzy, her tired eyes vainly penetrating the darkness — she was unable to fathom the road that separated her from her homeland.

That road she would never again travel.

Longing for home gripped Kristina in its vise more forcibly as spring came with no twilight. And the evening hours when she lay awake became the time of day she most feared.

— 2—

What was the matter with Kristina? What did she long for? Didn’t she live here, have her home here — wasn’t she at home? How could she long for home when she was already at home?

Karl Oskar had said, “Here at home on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga I’ll build a large house next time!” Here at home—but she felt as though she were away, as though she were in a foreign place. She always said, “Away here in America — back home in Sweden” So she thought, so she spoke. But this was not right, and her saying it wasn’t right, when her home would be here forever. She should say just the opposite, exchange the countries: This was home, Sweden was away.

And she tried, she tried to think and say the opposite. She said to herself: At home here in America — back there in Sweden. She repeated this, again and again. Her mouth learned to say it, but her heart wouldn’t accept it. Next time, she forgot herself, again she used the words back home — away here. Something inside her refused the change, something she could not force. She still thought and talked as she had when she first arrived. She could not make the countries change place — back home would always remain home to Kristina.

What was the matter with her? Kristina put the question to herself, and Karl Oskar too asked her. Nothing was the matter with her, she answered. Did she lie when she said this? Did she speak the truth? She was satisfied with her lot here, she complained of nothing; she had husband and children with her, they were all in good health, they had their sustenance, everything essential, everything they needed to sustain life. They could forget their temporary inconveniences, finding comfort in the good promises the future held out for them in the new land.

Kristina lacked nothing, yet she missed something. It was hard to understand.

What did she miss? What did she long for? Why did she lie awake so long in the evenings thinking about the rosebush and the Astrachan tree at home in Duvemåla? Did she miss the bushes and trees of the home village? There were enough bushes and trees and plants growing around their new home, they grew more profusely than in Sweden, and they bore quantities of fruit and berries, much richer fruit than the trees and bushes in Sweden. She should be well satisfied with all the good things here.

Why did she long so for home? Perhaps it was weakness, a softness in her. Perhaps some childishness remained in her, had remained in her too long: When she had been a married woman, mother of several children, she had secretly put up a swing in the barn and gone there to play. That had been childish. And now it was childish of her to think of rosebushes and trees she had planted in her parental home — to regret that she never again would taste apples from her tree, never see her rosebush bloom outside the gable.

Now she was a grown woman — and she wanted to be a grown woman, she did not wish Karl Oskar to see how childish and weak she was, she did not want to act like a silly girl. That was why she hadn’t confided in him. Not a single human being knew what stirred within her as she lay awake these spring nights in her bed.

It was only natural that she longed to see her loved ones, that she missed the life she had been born into and bred up in. Everything focussed in those clear pictures of home — the apple tree and the rosebush in the twilight, all that her longing made vivid in the dark: the family gatherings, familiar customs and ways, the Sundays on the church green, spring and autumn fairs, the year’s festivities and holidays, the seasons in the farm-year cycle. Here in the wilderness all was different, here people had other customs, and she lived like a bewildered stranger among people whom she could not reach with her tongue, and who could not reach her with their own speech.

She saw the sunshine, the light of the moon, and the stars in the heavens — it was the same sun, the same moon, and stars she had seen at home. The heavenly lights had accompanied her on her emigration and shone on her here. They were lit at home too and shone over the people she had left behind. Sun, moon, and stars revealed to her that though she was in a foreign land she still shared the firmament with those at home. But she was away, and she would remain away. In this country she would live out the rest of her allotted days, few or many, broken soon or stretching into late old age. Here she would live, here she would die, here she would lie in her grave.

And this was the way it was with Kristina: she could not reconcile herself to the irrevocable. She had emigrated for life, yet it seemed she was still on a journey that would eventually bring her home again.

And night after night she lay awake and measured the road she never again would journey.

— 3—

During daylight her chores occupied her thoughts, in the daytime she could defend herself. But when she lay wide awake at night, waiting for sleep to engulf her, she was open and unprotected; and then longing and sorrow stole over her. Her evening prayer sometimes brought calm to her mind and helped her go to sleep. Karl Oskar always went to sleep immediately, usually as soon as his head hit the pillow, and often she said her prayer after he had gone to sleep; she wanted only God to hear her.

One evening she made an addition to her usual prayer: She prayed God that He might once more let her see her home and her loved ones. For God nothing was impossible: If He wanted to, He could stretch out His omnipotent arm and move her from North America back to Sweden.

Afterward she lay awake; in her thoughts she was with those at home sitting “twilight.” No, her evening prayer did not always help her.

She felt Karl Oskar’s hand on the quilt, slowly seeking hers. “Kristina. .”

“I thought you were asleep, Karl Oskar.”

“Something wakened me. Maybe a screechhopper.”

“There is no hopper in here tonight.” She must have wakened him saying her prayer. “Have you been awake long?”

“No. Just a little while.”

She hoped he hadn’t heard her prayer.

His hand had found hers: “What is the matter with you, Kristina?”

“Nothing. Nothing is the matter with me. Go back to sleep!”

But her voice was thick and disturbed, so sad that it troubled him. Her voice denied the words she uttered. Her voice said: Yes, there is something wrong. Don’t go to sleep, Karl Oskar! Stay awake and help me!

And she was afraid he might hear her voice rather than her words.

“But why do you lie awake this late?” he persisted.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s silly and childish. . ”

She wanted to be strong, as strong and hardy as he.

“Are you — sad? Is something wrong, Kristina?”

“No. . I don’t know how to explain. . ”

He gripped her hand in his own big, hard hand. “Aren’t we friends, the best of friends, as before?”

“Yes, Karl Oskar, of course.”

“But then you must tell me everything. If you fight something, I might help you. Good friends help each other.”

She did not answer.

A silence fell between them.

Then he said — and his words were firm and determined: “If you want God’s arm to move you back, then I’ll hold you here with my arm!”

He meant what he said. So, not only God had heard her this evening.

“Yes. Now you know, Karl Oskar.” She said this with a slow, hesitating sigh. Then she added: “There isn’t much more to say. It was a childish wish that came over me as I said my prayer.”

“I began to wonder that time last fall when you cried at the housewarming party. Since then I have wondered how things stood with you. And lately I’ve felt you don’t like it here. You’re brooding.”

“I like it here. It isn’t that. I don’t know myself what it is. I’ll tell you, and let me hear what you think. . ”

And suddenly she wanted to confide in her husband, she wanted him to know and understand. It was painful for her to keep such a thing as this a secret, it wore on her mind to suffer a sorrow which she had to hide every moment, had to hide even from her own husband. And hadn’t she and Karl Oskar been joined together in order to lighten life’s burdens for each other, to comfort each other in trouble? Shouldn’t he know why she lay awake nights, what she thought of and played with in her imagination — that she traveled the road back home, bit after bit, mile after mile?

Now he must have the whole explanation: She was not dissatisfied with their new home, or their new country. She felt as he did: They would improve themselves and find security here, if health remained and they managed to struggle through a few hard years. But one country could not be like another country. America could never become Sweden to her. She could never bring here what she missed from childhood and youth in the homeland. She was only twenty-six, and when she thought of all the coming years out here, all the years left of her life, this unexplainable pain stole over her and kept her awake. Only lately had she understood what it meant to move for life. It was something for a soul to ponder. And so at last, this evening, she had prayed for help from the Almighty’s arm — wouldn’t He stretch it out. . Yes, that was all.

“Kristina—”

He had not let go her hand, now he held on to it so tightly that it hurt her: he held on as though someone were trying to snatch her out of their bed, to take her away from his side. But he said nothing now.

She asked: “Karl Oskar — don’t you ever feel a longing for your old home?”

“Maybe. At times. Now and then. . ”

Yes, he must admit, a longing came over him too. It seemed to come over all emigrants at times. But he always drove it away at once. He was afraid it might burden his mind. He needed his strength for other matters. He needed all his strength to improve their lives out here. He was careful, he couldn’t spend his strength pondering over what he had left forever. Just the other day, he had seen how dangerous it could be to dig oneself down in thoughts and musings — he had seen a man lying on a bed of wretchedness. .

Yes, she knew it well: What she worried over could never change. All her musing and thoughts were of no avail, served no purpose. .

“But I can’t help it, Karl Oskar!”

“No, I guess not.” He rose. “I’ll fetch something for you.”

He stepped onto the floor, and she could hear him as he walked barefoot toward the fireplace corner. She heard him stir in the Swedish chest. What was he fetching for her? Drops? Did he think the Four Kinds of Drops or Hoffman’s Heart-Aiding Drops would help her? There was hardly a spoonful left in either bottle, although she had used them sparingly.

Karl Oskar came silently back to the bed, he had something in his hand which he gave his wife. It was not drops, it was a pair of tiny, worn-out, broken shoes, a child’s shoes.

She accepted them in bewilderment, she recognized them in bewilderment. “Anna’s old shoes.”

“Yes. They help me to remember. If I sometimes feel downhearted a little. .”

“You mean—?”

“Perhaps the shoes can help you too.”

“Karl Oskar!” Her voice grew thick again.

“Do you remember the winter the child died? You do, don’t you?”

“Yes. It was the winter when I agreed — to the emigration. I have almost regretted it at times. But I still agree. I don’t blame you a bit, Karl Oskar. You remember what I said that night on the ship?”

He remembered well, he remembered nothing better: She had said she had nothing to reproach him for, nothing to forgive him for. They were the best of friends. He could remember nothing more clearly than that. For that was the night when he thought she would die.

That time it had been she who had taken his hand and kept it firmly in hers. And there between them on the quilt had lain the old shoes, made by the village shoemaker in their home parish, made for their child’s feet — made for Anna, who had time to wear out only one pair of shoes while she lived on earth. And now they had the shoes here in America, still aiding them — they reminded the parents of what they had gone through in the homeland: Because of hunger the little girl’s life had been so short she had never needed more than one pair of shoes.

Karl Oskar said: Here in Minnesota was their home, here their home would remain. Here they had their children and all they owned, all that belonged to them in this world. In Sweden they owned not even a wooden spoon any longer, in Sweden they were homeless. This was their home.

And if Kristina still felt that she was away, then he would help her all he could to make away become home to her: “There is something I’ve long had in mind to tell you,” he said. “One day our children will thank us for emigrating to America.”

“You think that? You believe so?”

“I feel it. I know it.”

“Maybe. But who knows?”

“I know it’s true. I’m sure, Kristina. Our children will thank their parents for bringing them to this country when they were little.”

“But no one can know.”

Karl Oskar persisted: Every time he looked at this countryside and realized how much it could give to them, he felt assured of this: The children would be grateful to their parents. She must think ahead, of their children, and their children’s children in time, of all the generations after them. All the ones who came after would feel and think and say that she had done right when she moved from Sweden to North America.

On that thought he himself often lingered, it was a great help to him when his struggles at times seemed heavy and endless. It gave him renewed strength when he slackened. Couldn’t the same thought comfort her when she was depressed, longing for home?

“You may be right, Karl Oskar,” she said. “But we know nothing of the day we haven’t seen.”

There was one more matter Karl Oskar had thought over and which he now wanted to discuss with his wife: It was high time they gave a name to their home.

They had lived here an autumn and a winter and soon spring would be over. They ought to name their homestead now that they were settled and would never move away. That day last fall when they had moved in she had said that the place here with the lake reminded her of Duvemåla, that it was almost as beautiful as her home village. He had thought about this many times. They could name their home after her childhood home in Algutsboda Parish. And since he had heard her talk tonight, he was even more confirmed in that thought: They must name their home in the new land Duvemåla. How did she like that? What did she think of moving the name of her parental home over here?

“I — you must know I like it!”

Kristina was overjoyed. Now she took hold of his hand and held it tightly. It was a good idea, this name for their home. She would never have thought of it herself — the name of her own village!

“Duvemåla. . we don’t live at Ki-Chi-Saga any longer, we live in Duvemåla. How lovely it sounds.” Her voice was clear, no longer thick and uncertain.

“That settles the name, then,” said Karl Oskar, with the intonation of a minister at baptism.

Kristina thought, from now on she would live in Duvemåla. And she would again try to make herself believe she was at home here.

So the first home on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga in Minnesota Territory was named, and the name was given late of an evening in spring as the couple who had built it lay awake in their bed and talked. They talked long to each other; the wife confessed her childish longing and spoke of the light spring nights at home, of the rosebush and the Astrachan tree and the gooseberry bushes and all the things that came to her mind at this time of evening.

It was nearly midnight, and they still lay awake. Karl Oskar said, now they must sleep. If they didn’t go to sleep soon, they would wake up tired next morning. And the morrow would bring heavy work — he himself would begin the most important task of the next years: the wooden plow he had made with his own hands, with great difficulty, was at last finished, and the ox team was waiting for him at his neighbor’s on Lake Gennesaret. Tomorrow he would begin to plow the meadow, the earth that was to become their good and bearing and nourishing field.

“Do you remember, Kristina? Tomorrow is an important day to remember.”

“No. Isn’t it a usual workday?”

“It is the fourteenth of April. The day we went on board ship in Karlshamn.”

Tomorrow, a year would have passed since they had tramped their homeland soil for the last time. Tomorrow they would put the plow into American soil for the first time.

Karl Oskar immediately fell into deep sleep, but Kristina lay awake yet a while. She listened to the sounds from the bed at the opposite corner of the cabin — short, quick breaths, the light rustle of children’s breathing in sleep. It reminded her of Karl Oskar’s words tonight: their children would be grateful to the parents for having emigrated with them while they still were little and had their lives ahead of them.

It might be so, perhaps he was right. But one couldn’t say for sure, no human could know this for sure — it would be better not to predict anything in advance.

What she could predict, what she did know for sure, was that her children would never have to go through the pain of longing which she now went through. They carried no memories from the homeland, her longing would never afflict them, no vivid memories from a past life in another country would plague them. Once they were grown they would never know any other life than the one lived here. And their grandchildren in turn would know even less of another way of life. Her children and her children’s children would never, as she did, remember trees and bushes they had planted in a far-off land, they would not ask, Do they still bud and bloom in spring, do they carry their fruit in fall? They would never, as she did, lie awake nights and gaze into the dark for that land where spring evenings are light.

The ones she had borne into the world, and the ones they in turn would bear, would from the beginning of their lives say what her own tongue was unable to say: At home here in America—back there in Sweden. With this thought, listening to her children’s breathing, Kristina went to sleep.

XXVI. A LETTER TO SWEDEN

Duvemåla at Taylors Falls Postoffce in

Minnesota Teritory Northamerica

June 4 1851.

Dearly Beloved Parents

May all be well with you is my daily Wish

Father’s letter came some time ago, I thank you for it. I have not written to you because of great oversight, it was a joy to learn you are alive and in good health, the same good holds true for your son and Family in Northamerica.

It has been a struggle right along but all things turn out well for us, I plowed a five acres field on my land last spring, I have seeded the earth with three bushels of rye and two bushels of barley. Besides I have planted four bushels of potatoes, the american bushel is half time larger than the Swedish. All crops in the field grow and thrive it is a joy for the eye to behold.

I wonder if you will ask Kristina’s parents to send us seeds from the Astrakan apple in Duvemåla, we wish to plant a new astrakan apple tree here in Minnesota then we can have the same sort of apples, they were so fresh in eating as we well remember, and then we will have moved something from there over here. Sweden has good apple seeds and here is good soil to sprout and grow in, so it might grow to be a large tree in time, with many blooms.

As you see from this letter our abode now carries the name Duvemåla, Kristina holds that name dear I suppose, here it will soon be for her like in her childhood home, we have already full summer and warm weather, I sweat on my hands while I write this the sweat drops upon the paper, I have not much to write about, nothing has happened to us.

Our children are well and healthy, there is long space between my letters but they will not stop, I live far away but no day has come to its end without my thoughts on my dear Home and You my kind parents, your son never forgets his home.

Kindly overlook my poor writing written

down hastely by your devoted Son

Karl Oskar Nilsson

Unto a Good Land is the second volume in a planned trilogy,

of which The Emigrants was the first volume.

Carmel, California, August 1953

V.M.