The Last Letter Home Read online

  The commander at Fort Snelling had sent couriers in all directions to warn the settlers about the Indian danger.

  “I’ve run from house to house . . . !”

  Petrus Olausson’s shiny, hairless head glittered as wet and red as his face. His eyes were wild, his mouth trembled, his voice was now low and thick, now loud and piping.

  Karl Oskar understood that this time it was no false alarm. When the Fort Snelling commandant himself had sent riding messengers to the settlers the information must be correct.

  He mumbled: “Indian trouble on top of everything . . . ?”

  The red murderers had used the right moment, said Petrus Olausson. These treacherous savages waited till the whites were busy with their own war. Five thousand Minnesotans were gone, and the redskins must have figured that with all ablebodied men away there were now only children and old men left behind on the farms.

  “We are not entirely without manpower,” observed Karl Oskar.

  “But the redskins don’t fight like humans! They’re pure beasts!”

  Karl Oskar stood weighing the iron bar in his hand, looking at his neighbor who had brought him the message. Olausson’s feet tramped about in the stubble, his frightened eyes flew in all directions, and he could not say a single word calmly or clearly.

  Karl Oskar saw before him a man who feared for his life.

  Petrus Olausson had been proven right and now he wanted to remind you of it. He had always said they should drive the heathen pack away from Minnesota, for the Indians had always been and remained beasts whom no one could convert. The Lutherans had sent many missionaries among them, and they had collected money for catechisms to distribute among them so that they might at least learn God’s commandments. He himself had collected money for the books, sent whole wagon loads of Luther’s catechism in strong leather bindings to them. To what use? How had it helped? Now people could see for themselves; the red bandits thanked their givers by murdering them! The whites had offered the redskins Christ’s gospel; the redskins had answered their benefactors with tomahawks! They replied by crushing the skulls of the noble Christians who wanted to save them from heathen darkness!

  When the whites had moved into the Indian country they had only followed the one path indicated by God! It was his wish that different people should succeed each other on the face of the earth. The Indians—like once the Canaanites—were under God’s doom. It was the Almighty’s will that these heathens should be obliterated from the earth, and a Christian no longer need feel sorry for them. President Lincoln was entirely too kind and compassionate with this beastly pack in allowing them to remain within the borders of the United States. There was only one way in which to treat the savages—get them out of Minnesota! This had always been Olausson’s opinion, and now everyone could see that he had been right!

  Leaning on his iron bar, Karl Oskar Nilsson listened to his neighbor’s rancorous outburst against the Indians. He had indeed heard before that the redskins did not conduct their wars in a Christian or Lutheran manner but stuck to their Indian and heathen ways. In war they did not follow any rules, they only killed. And the savages acted as savages always had, he thought.

  He wanted to know how close the Sioux were: “They haven’t got to St. Peter and Mankato yet, did you say?”

  “They might be here any moment! We don’t have any soldiers left to stop those bandits!”

  “What about the settlers? Can’t we do anything?”

  “We live too far apart. No time to get together.”

  “What’s your idea—to run away?”

  “Of course! Flee as fast as you can, Nilsson!”

  “Take off to the wilds, you mean . . . ?”

  “Yes! And let your cattle loose in the forest!”

  Karl Oskar turned his head slowly and looked out over his fields with the still uncut, ripe wheat: “You mean leave . . . ?” Then he looked toward the house: “Leave . . . everything . . . ?”

  “It’s the only thing we can do!” And Petrus Olausson held both his hands over his red, bald head, as if defending himself against the sharp scalping knives: “We must leave at once and hide from the Sioux murderers!”

  Karl Oskar was a little surprised at this great fear that had come over their pious parish warden: “Don’t you have any trust in God’s help, Olausson . . . ?”

  “The Lord helps only those who help themselves!”

  “No one else . . . ?”

  “No! Not a one! Remember that!”

  “Well, that’s what I’ve always thought. It depends on oneself . . .”

  “We must warn all the settlers hereabouts . . . I’ll see to it that we ring the church bell!”

  “So we must leave our homes and run . . . ?”

  Karl Oskar looked again toward the house up there in the shade under the tall sugar maples. At the east gable he could see the Astrakhan tree, its limbs bent by the heavy fruit. The apples glittered in the sun. This year the Sweden-tree bore for the first time.

  “It isn’t so easy for me to leave . . .” Karl Oskar took a deep breath and added: “Kristina is in bed.”

  In the last words he had explained his plight to his neighbor. What he had said ought to be sufficient.

  But it seemed Olausson hadn’t heard. His ears were closed to everything except the Indian scare: “I’m in a hurry! I must be off and tell the other neighbors! And get the church bell going.”

  And he was gone on the moment. He vanished along the path that led to Algot Svensson’s.

  Karl Oskar remained standing beside a shock he had not yet completed—the hat-sheaves were still lacking. He leaned against the iron bar and tramped on the wheatheads without noticing. Desert his home? Run away and leave all they owned?

  For twelve years they had lived here. They were citizens, they had paid for their land and had the papers to prove it. They had tilled fields that gave good crops, they had built houses—a home. After twelve years of hard work they were getting along well and had enough for all their needs. Everything was in order. Here on the shores of Chisago Lake the immigrants had founded their own little community where they lived in peace and comfort. It had been a long time since he carried his gun with him while working in field or forest. They had never been bothered by the redskins.

  Karl Oskar Nilsson had never believed anything other than that he would remain undisturbed on his farm for the rest of his life.

  Here he had only used the tools of peaceful work. He had carried his ax for cutting and clearing; he had timbered up a home for himself and his own. Back there stood the house, serene and farmer-secure, with its new-painted walls and splendid shake roof. How many days’ labor hadn’t he put into it? How many trees hadn’t he felled for the walls? How many rafters and scantlings hadn’t he dressed? In great concern he had chinked his house, put on the roof, hewed the floorboards, built the fireplaces, finished the rooms. Twelve years of labor all this had cost him.

  It was his home in this world. He had built it with his own hands and paid for it with his sweat. This farm was his by the tiller’s right.

  And would all he had built up suddenly be destroyed, all he had done be undone? His home no longer his, not theirs who lived here? Their home in ruins, surrendered to savages and fire? They themselves fleeing to the wilderness, without a roof or a place to live?

  To flee from their home: From one day to the next they would change from secure property owners to paupers, from settled homesteaders to vagabonds. After twelve years they would be thrust back to their situation on arrival. After twelve years they would change into impoverished immigrants, walking on foot through the wilderness from Stillwater to Taylors Falls, each night making their beds on leaves and twigs under the bare sky. Again they would be poor people who carried all they owned with them, all their possessions in their arms. From one day to the next they would lose fields and cattle, house and home.

  So insecure and unsure was the pioneer’s right to the soil, so little rooted was he in his new state of Mi
nnesota, so loose his settling in North America—so hazardous was the settler’s life.

  —2—

  Karl Oskar slowly opened the door to the big room and walked on tiptoe across the floor; perhaps she was asleep? Marta had said that Mother dozed for moments but was awake most of the time. She often asked for water, and had also asked what time of day it was.

  Kristina lay motionless on her back, her eyes open. The color of her face had changed; now her cheeks were light red and her eyes had the warm glitter of fever.

  “Johan should be here with the doctor soon . . .”

  “Don’t worry, Karl Oskar. I’ll get well.”

  Her voice was clear. She asked for water, her fever-thirst could not be quenched. He picked up the pitcher on the table beside her bed and filled it from the pail in the kitchen. He held his wife’s head in one hand as he lifted the water glass to her mouth. The sick one drank in long swallows.

  She had not taken any food today as yet, and he asked if she would like anything to eat. No, she felt as full as if she had come from a feast. And her lips formed a smile as she said it.

  His face was rigid with suppressed anxiety.

  “I’ve had a new lost journey. Too bad. I was sure I would be allowed to keep it this time.”

  Kristina had for a second time borne death.

  “Don’t think about that. As long as you get well again . . .”

  “I’ll get well again. I know.”

  She wanted to say something more between two short breaths but she was interrupted by a sound from outside. A bell was chiming. The gable window stood open; today the wind was favorable and carried the sound of the little church bell strong and clear.

  Kristina lifted her head from the pillow and listened. “Is that the church bell? In the middle of the week?”

  “It sounds like it.”

  “Why?”

  “I wonder.”

  Olausson had said they would ring the bell, to warn the settlers.

  Karl Oskar said, “Perhaps they’re ringing for someone . . . someone who is . . .” One word was missing in that sentence, but he could not let it across his lips.

  The ringing of the bell from the settlers’ wood church went on. It was a holiday sound and it was disturbing because it was heard on a weekday.

  “Don’t worry,” said Kristina. “Remember what I told you.”

  “I remember. I know.”

  But what did he know? What could he be sure of?

  God ruled their lives and everything on earth. But Karl Oskar was not sure a person could trust God. He could not believe as his wife did. Kristina had given herself into the Lord’s hands. Was she right in doing so?

  They would now be finding out. Soon they would know: Was God to be trusted?

  —3—

  Just as twilight began to fall Johan returned from Stillwater. And Karl Oskar choked as he looked at the wagon; the boy was alone. He must have driven at bolting speed. The team was in a cloud of perspiration. The driver had not spared the animals. Johan jumped off the wagon and explained that Dr. Farnley had not been at home. A sign on the door announced that he had gone to Wisconsin for an indefinite stay. An old man next door had said that Farnley had taken off because there was an alarm about the Indians. Many frightened people in Stillwater had today crossed the St. Croix into Wisconsin. Miss Skalrud too was not at home. Johan had gone to Pastor Jackson’s house to ask about her, but no one there knew where she was. Perhaps she had run away with the others. He had talked to a servant girl who said that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson were in Chicago for a Baptist congress.

  Then Johan had gone to the other doctor, Cristoffer Caldwell, the one who called himself Physician and Housebuilder, Carpenter & Blacksmith, according to the sign on his door. But Caldwell was as plump as a fatted pig and could hardly walk. He had said he wasn’t well himself and was not able to go on long journeys to sick people in the wilderness. But if Johan would tell him what ailed the sick one he would send medicine. And Johan had explained about his mother as best he could. Dr. Caldwell had mixed a bottle of medicine which cost four dollars. He said himself it was rather expensive but it always healed the sick. With this medicine he had got many settler wives on their feet after miscarriages and childbed fever. He assured Johan it would help Mrs. Nilsson. And the doctor was drinking from a whiskey bottle all the time he mixed the medicine! Perhaps he used whiskey for his own ailment?

  All Johan had brought with him from Stillwater was a fat-bellied flask which contained a brown-yellow syrupy fluid. That flask was now the only help they had but Johan explained that the doctor had said it was a sure remedy against childbed fever.

  Karl Oskar poured a tablespoon of Dr. Caldwell’s medicine for his wife. It was strong; one could smell it a long way off. It looked like syrup as it flowed into the spoon. He coaxed the sick one to swallow all of it.

  “What a nasty taste,” she said with a grimace. For a moment it seemed as if she would throw up the medicine.

  “It chokes me!”

  “Try to keep it down, dear!”

  He gave her a lump of sugar to take away the nasty taste.

  He had a lot of trouble because of her, she said. But she didn’t feel any pain any more; she was only tired and wanted to sleep. She would like so to get her fill of sleep for once.

  —4—

  Marta had done the milking and prepared the supper, and Karl Oskar sat down to table with his six children, four sons and two daughters. Each one had his given place at the table. The father had the oldest son on his right and the oldest daughter on his left. The two smallest, Frank and Ulrika, still ate standing up.

  Johan and Marta, the two oldest, understood and knew what had happened to Mother. They also remembered it had happened once before. Johan was tensely serious and silent, while Marta had cried several times today. But none of the children could understand what was the matter with Father. Since early in the morning he had hardly spoken to any one of them and did not reply when spoken to. At table he ate only a couple of slices of bread and drank a little milk. When he rose from supper he told the children to be quiet when they moved around the house so they wouldn’t waken Mother in case she slept.

  Frank and Ulrika had recently begun the fall term in the Center City school and after supper they read their lessons, competing with each other in their reading. Frank had a piece containing one- and two-syllable words to memorize and Ulrika a piece with several longer words.

  Frank read his piece carelessly and with great speed.

  “Lords without virtue are like lanterns without light. A wound never heals well enough to hide the scar. Poor and rich are alike to death. If you want the kernel you must crush the nut. Better bow than hit your head on the door lintel. Mistakes of others make no law. Trust in God makes the nation safe. Better a good death than an evil life.”

  The boy babbled on so loudly that the father had to admonish him; he went outside and sat on the stoop to read.

  But Ulrika obeyed her father and read slowly and in a low voice. She was two years older than her brother and had been given a little more difficult lesson.

  “For all the good my parents have given me I have not been able to give them any good in return. Nor have they done this to reap payment for their concern. They ask nothing from me except that I be a good child. This is their greatest joy and reward. I will love them with all my heart; I will constantly show them my gratitude. May I never sadden them with recalcitrance and disobedience. When they grow old I will take care of them in their old age.”

  The monotonous voices of the children reading their lessons was the only sound heard in the house.

  The children went to bed, but Karl Oskar did not undress this evening; he would stay up. He sat down beside Kristina’s bed where she lay in a deep fever-doze. As soon as she woke up she asked for water, and he also gave her the brown-yellow medicine, forcing the spoon between her lips. She swallowed only reluctantly. Later in the night she grew delirious and talked of high billows she
was afraid of, as if she were on a ship sailing across the ocean.

  The bell-ringing in the church tower continued intermittently until late at night. Kristina no longer heard it and had stopped asking what it meant. And Karl Oskar himself listened to the sound without realizing that it was an alarm bell. For long periods he forgot what the ringing meant. Everything he had heard today about approaching, bloodthirsty Indian hordes was suppressed in his mind by what was happening in his own house. What was going on in this room occupied him and ruled him.

  Here he watched over Kristina.

  —5—

  It was Wednesday, August 20.

  On the evening of this day Chief Shakopee and his warriors danced a war dance around their campfires on the shore of Lake Kandiyohi. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—for four days the Sioux war had gone on, for four days the redskins had had uninterrupted success, and they were celebrating the victories of these four days. The shouts of jubilation from Shakopee’s warriors echoed over the water, and the flames from the victory fires lit up the August night.

  But neither the tall flames nor the loud shouts nor the great commotion could frighten any white person in the vicinity where the Indians had ravaged the settlers’ homes; no sound, no noise is strong enough to frighten the dead.

  During the victory celebration at Lake Kandiyohi, Chief Shakopee made a statement that was widely spread, a Sioux warrior’s proud assertion: Shakopee was asked why he moved his right arm so clumsily and stiffly while dancing.

  He replied that today his tomahawk had crushed so many white skulls that his right arm felt lame.

  While Karl Oskar Nilsson shocked wheat on his field this Wednesday, four hundred other tillers in Minnesota had paid for their land with their lives. That was the price for the land the previous owners meted out to each white man.

  XIV

  WHILE KARL OSKAR KEPT NIGHT WATCH

  —1—

  Twelve sheaves to a shock—eight around the post and four for the hat—eight and four, shock after shock. His hands obeyed and picked up the sheaves and put them in place and bent them for the hat. But the wheat field was broad and the sheaves lay close and the heat sucked the strength from his limbs. It was the hottest August they had experienced out here.