The Last Letter Home Read online

  “You say I’ve bought stolen property . . . you old . . .”

  He fisted his hands and opened them again, the muscles around his mouth grew taut, his face tense, his eyes contracted and seemed to withdraw into his head. Kristina knew the sign; she rushed between the two inflamed men.

  “You have accused me of dishonest dealings!” stuttered the settler.

  At the sight of Karl Oskar’s changed face the trapper drew back a step and lowered his voice:

  “No! No! Your dealings are honorable, all right—according to the laws of the whites—their own laws—after the theft. There isn’t an acre of land in America that hasn’t been stolen or cheated from the Indians.”

  Kristina whispered to her husband: He mustn’t pay any heed to Samuel Nöjd’s talk. But their guest went on: What was the price promised to the Indians when they were forced to give up their land to Swedes and other whites? How much had the government paid for the whole Mississippi Valley? Ten dollars for twenty thousand acres! One two-hundredth of a cent per acre! Could one two-hundredth of a cent be called payment? For the most fertile land in the whole world? It was a thief’s price, that’s what it was! And that’s why they could sell cheap to him, Nilsson! And even this trifle hadn’t yet been paid to the Indians! The only thing left for them was starvation!

  The trapper picked up his hat and hurried toward the door, spitting angrily: “Keep your sheepskins, Nilsson! Kiss my ass!” He stopped at the door and added that the whites had stolen all of America, yet they kept proclaiming in every church: Thou shalt not steal!

  Their guest disappeared and Kristina said: “His eyes turned awful! He has lived so long among the wild ones we mustn’t pay any attention to him.”

  Karl Oskar took a few deep breaths; his anger was soon over: “You’re right; it was silly of me to get excited.”

  “And I thought of treating him to supper!”

  She removed one plate from the table. But Karl Oskar could not forget what Samuel Nöjd had said: “He accused me of taking part in thievery!”

  “Forget it! You know yourself you haven’t stolen anything in America!”

  “Only weeds grew here when I came! What grows here now? Crops to nourish us as well as others! I didn’t get anything for nothing. I earned my land when I cleared it and broke it!”

  Karl Oskar Nilsson mumbled the last sentence to himself several times as he sat down to supper. Kristina said nothing. After all, there was some truth in Samuel Nöjd’s words, and she realized that that truth remained with Karl Oskar and disturbed him; they were intruders in this country. Other people had been driven away to make room for their home.

  —3—

  On the west shore of Lake Chisago rose the tall, red sand cliff which looked strikingly like an Indians head; forehead, eyes, mouth, chin were those of an Indian. The cliff rose like an immense fortress against the sky and threw a deep, broad shadow over the ground and water near it. The Indian head was brown in summer and white in winter, but at all seasons it remained the same good guidepost for those who were not familiar with the paths of this valley.

  This winter the Indian’s head was covered with a deep layer of snow which glittered and sparkled in the sunlight; it sparkled as if covered with precious stones. But the sand-brown forehead was bared, and the Indian’s deep, black cave-eyes looked down on the white intruders’ houses along the shores.

  When the Chisago people happened to look at the cliff formation they were apt to say: The Indian up there, he is looking at us! He’s watching us! Who knows when . . . ?

  The sight of the Indian head caused them an indefinable apprehension. He had watched here when the lake was still known as Ki-Chi-Saga, he remained when the lake’s name was changed to Chisago. The Indian was made of stone. He could not be chased away. He remained rooted. He would not move—here he would for all time raise his head over the country.

  It was the winter of the great Indian famine. At Chisago Lake no one knew what was happening out west where the numerous Sioux had their camp:

  The tomahawks were taken out, the war axes were being sharpened. No tribe among the brown hunter people had such beautiful tomahawks as the Sioux. They were painted red and had a big black star on either side of the edge of the blade. The black star was an ancient sign, looked upon with reverence by each warrior who carried a tomahawk. It must always be present on a Sioux war ax. Warriors and hunters of the Sioux tribe had once been marked with this sign by the Great Father who had given them the land. They had kept it on their weapons through thousands of years. The sign was their belief in victory. The sign was a promise: The ax with this sign was sure death to the enemy.

  This winter the Sioux axes were being sharpened on a grindstone that gave the sharpest edge to war weapons. Out west, beyond the tall sand cliff, behind the Indian’s powerful back, there it took place:

  The tomahawks were being sharpened.

  VI

  KRISTINA DESERTS HER MILKING STOOL

  —1—

  During the cold season, Kristina’s only chore outside her house was the milking. They now had eight cows, and this winter seven gave milk. She sat out in the stable one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. Karl Oskar tried to help her but his fingers were clumsy and awkward in handling the cow teats. One must learn milking in childhood. Marta was now going on fifteen and had begun with the easy milking cows; the girl was both willing and handy.

  The milking was more trying this winter because of the intense cold. Before Kristina walked out to the stable she bundled on all her woolen and heavy garments. In these she moved with difficulty, and she looked like a walking bundle of clothes. But however many garments she wore, she began to feel the chill after sitting for a while on the milking stool. Her limbs felt cold, her arms and legs grew stiff, the fingers around the udder rigid. She would cup her hands and blow in them to warm them with her own breath. And during the milking her cold body unconsciously sought the warmth in the animals; she pressed against the cow’s furred body, her head leaned against the belly as against a soft pillow. She sought protection against the winter’s bite in the warm closeness of living creatures; she felt safety in touching the animal. And the cow ate her mash in the bucket as she stood there calmly with her hind legs spread; she showed confidence in the milkmaid whose head leaned against her side.

  Kristina had a good hand with animals and was friendly with her cows. As soon as she appeared in the stable door they would turn their heads toward her and low their welcome. They knew they would get corn mash in their buckets; they were accustomed to her closeness twice a day; twice a day they felt her hands as her fingers squeezed milk from their teats. And on her arrival they greeted her with the only sound they were able to utter. To the milker her cows were not soulless creatures; she felt their confidence in her as a helpless child to its mother. And she felt they wished to show her their gratefulness for looking after them. In the cows’ eyes she read a pained, sad consciousness of the muteness which was their lot. They wished to tell her something but they were unable to do so.

  During their first winter in Minnesota a cow had saved the lives of the children with her milk; Kristina showed her gratitude for this to all members of their kind.

  During this cold winter Kristina often felt an ache in her lower abdomen. And one evening, milking her cows in the stable, it came upon her. She had only one cow left to milk. She had been sitting so long on the milking stool that her legs were stiff and her fingers lame and awkward. If she could only have used her woolen mittens, she thought. Now only the Princess was left but the Princess was the most difficult of the seven, for she wouldn’t give her milk willingly. Kristina had to press as hard as she could and pull the teats with all her might before any milk ran into her pail. She always left the hard-milking Princess until the last.

  She was moving her stool to the last cow for this evening. She rose with the stool in her hand. Then she felt such a sudden heavy pain that her body bent forward. Without her knowing how it h
ad happened she was on the stable floor.

  The pain was intense, cutting like a knife through her body. She was sitting on the floor, with the stool in one hand and the pail in the other, and was unable to rise. She remained there, staring in disbelief before her, as if she had done something unreasonable and foolish. The cow she had just finished milking turned its head and looked at her in surprise, as if asking: What’s the matter with you? Haven’t you finished with me? Why do you sit on the floor?

  The sharp pain in her abdomen eased but left a fretting itching sensation. It was her old ailment. Then she suddenly felt moist between her legs. Something warm streamed down the inside of her thighs, toward her knees. The fluid kept coming: From inside her body, something pleasantly lukewarm flowed over her cold skin.

  Kristina knew what it was. She recognized the tepid, sticky substance that flowed down her legs. She had had this same experience once before on a spring day when she was beating wash down at the lake. She need not lift her skirt to look. She was sure: red runnels down the inside of her thighs and legs. The red flow had come over her again at the moment she rose from the milking stool.

  It was Kristina’s own blood that warmed her cold, stiff limbs. But what did it mean? She didn’t know. She only knew that she must get away from here, she must leave the stool and the milk pail.

  She tried to raise herself but her legs shook under her, and only at the third attempt did she manage. She was standing straight now and moved one foot with the utmost effort. She took a few steps toward the door. There she sank down to the floor for the second time.

  She remembered that Karl Oskar was currying the horses and she called to him. She called several times before he heard.

  He rushed up to her: “What’s the matter? Have you hurt yourself? You look pale!”

  “I think I’m bleeding . . .”

  He shot hurried questions at her but she only asked him to help her inside.

  The wife put her arms around the husband’s neck and he carried her inside the house. Before she lay down on her bed she removed her skirts. The children grew frightened at the sight of her bloody legs. Karl Oskar found some towel rags and dried her. The blood stuck to her skin so that she felt horribly gory, as she did when cleaning up a carcass after slaughter. She tied broad strips of rags around her as a bandage, but the blood kept on trickling. The flow stopped only after it had drenched a second bandage.

  Each word from Karl Oskar was blurted out in apprehension. He wanted to send for Manda Svensson, the neighbor’s wife, who knew something about ailments. Perhaps she could staunch blood? But Kristina said that she was not with child, and so she needed no helping woman. This was not a childbed, not a miscarriage. Therefore it could not be very dangerous; the bleeding would soon be over.

  But her assurance did not calm Karl Oskar; rather it increased his anxiety. If the bleeding had been caused by a miscarriage he could have understood it. Then it would have been something natural. But such was not the case and he had to ask: What could this mean?

  Kristina had never mentioned to him the pain in her lower abdomen she had felt for so long.

  —2—

  Next morning Kristina’s bleeding had entirely stopped. She had been lying on her back as still as she could the whole night. But she was very weak and stayed in bed.

  “You’re limp because you’ve lost blood,” said Karl Oskar.

  He sent Johan to summon Manda Svensson and it didn’t take long before their neighbor woman was sitting at Kristina’s bedside. She was eager to help, for it was in her nature to take charge and decide for others. In her own home she ruled her submissive husband. Manda was the farmer’s daughter who had married the hired hand. The couple could never become equal, as she had refused to give up the upper hand she had had over her husband from the beginning. Ever since they had come to America she had remained the boss who decided and her husband remained her hired hand.

  When Manda heard that it was not a miscarriage that had forced Kristina to take to her bed, she said, “I believe you must be bleeding from pure weakness. That’s a common female trouble. It could also be bleeding sickness.”

  Kristina must drink a concoction of healing herbs, insisted the neighbor’s wife. She would have liked to prepare such a concoction but the herbs she needed grew only in Sweden, and she dared not pick and cook from those which grew here in America. She might get hold of poisonous plants. Once she had picked some unfamiliar berries and had vomited them up again; ever after she had been scared of American plants.

  She advised Kristina to lie quite still with heated caldron lids on her stomach, night and day. If she had evil fluids in her body they would thus dry up and disappear.

  Kristina listened to her neighbor with half an ear. She was not worried about herself. If the Creator wished to take her away from this world, what did it concern her what sickness hastened her departure?

  Her weakness forced her to stay in bed. Meanwhile, Karl Oskar was filled with concern for his wife. He prepared nourishing food for the sick one, skimmed the cream off the milk and gave it to her, killed hens that weren’t laying and boiled chicken soup for her, and prepared egg dishes of various kinds. He thought good food would put her on her feet again. But her strength came back very slowly.

  The inside chores she had planned this winter remained undone. She had intended to put up the loom and do some weaving; the wool needed carding and spinning after the sheepshearing of last summer; she had wanted to make clothes for the children on her new sewing machine. Before, it would have bothered her that nothing could be done, but now she no longer was disturbed by neglect of worldly concerns. Why should woolen yarn and looms and clothes disturb the peace in her soul? Why should she be concerned for her daily needs which she soon would discard?

  But there were chores in the house that must be attended to, and Karl Oskar and Marta assumed them in her place. They helped each other as best they could. From her bed she gave her husband and daughter instructions: how the milking must be done, how much skimmed milk to save for the calves, how to preserve the cream for butter. And they came to her and asked about the cooking: how long they must fire the oven before baking, when to put in the cornbread, how much time was required for the yellow peas, how to handle the pans on the Prairie Queen to keep the food from sticking to the bottom.

  From a man never trained for women’s chores there was nothing to expect, and less from a girl not yet fifteen. Kristina praised her successors when they succeeded and scolded them when they failed. However carefully she told them what to do they still made mistakes. There were accidents and failures. Some chores were well performed, others were done in a slovenly way or entirely wrong. And she could see it so clearly; as yet there was no one to take her place—in this house she was still irreplaceable.

  She felt no concern for herself. She had peace. Karl Oskar tried to cure her with cream, chicken soup, and egg dishes, Manda Svensson with heated kettle lids. But she had only one she trusted, one who could give her back her health. Her close and loved ones needed her and she felt that God for their sake would let her remain in this world a little longer.

  —3—

  Toward the end of January Kristina had regained so much of her strength that she could get up for short intervals and resume some of the easier chores. The merciless cold had eased a little and she didn’t feel chilled so quickly.

  Ulrika Jackson came one day to their house with a belated Christmas present for little Ulrika: She had knitted a woolen blouse for her goddaughter. She had planned to come during the holidays but had not dared because of the bitter cold.

  At once she noticed Kristina’s pale, gaunt face—Ulrika had not heard about her illness.

  “You don’t rest long enough between childbeds!” she said.

  No one could believe that Ulrika herself had borne seven children—four in Sweden and three in America. She was twelve years older than Kristina, yet she looked the younger of the two. Soon to be fifty years old, the former Ulrika
of Västergöhl appeared to be in the prime of her life. Time had left her clear, healthy complexion intact, uncorroded. Lately her limbs had somewhat fattened and she had put on weight around the waist, but the change was becoming to her. Her step was as quick as ever, and men still let their eyes rest on her.

  “You’re lucky, Ulrika, you have been given such good health,” sighed Kristina. “When I look in the mirror an old hag looks back at me!”

  Why hadn’t the Lord created the white women like the squaws, wondered Mrs. Jackson. When an Indian woman rode through the forest and felt her hour was near, she jumped off her horse only long enough to bear her child. Then she put it in a bag on her back, jumped back up again on the horse, and rode on as if nothing had happened. A squaw birth took about as much time as a visit to the privy.

  “We get labor pains because of the original sin,” said Kristina. “Perhaps the heathen women don’t have the original sin.”

  But God had chosen woman as the tool for his creation when he trusted her to bear children into the world and she must be worthy of God’s trust. Kristina herself would always gratefully accept the new lives he wished to grant her. She knew now why a pregnant woman was called blessed.

  The Lord had given to women the honor of bearing children because he put women above men, explained Ulrika. The great mistake with men had already occurred at the Creation: God had finished with all the wild beasts and had some stuff left over when he began to make Adam. In fact, he made man from that stuff. That was how some of the qualities of the beasts had got into men. It explained the similarity between men and the bucks in the animal world.

  But fortunately there were also men who understood that a woman was made of nobler material than they themselves and didn’t use her for their carnal lust in bed only. They knew she too needed joy and satisfaction.

  “Are men really so different in that respect?” wondered Kristina.

  “A hell of a lot different in bed, I should say! Didn’t you know that?”