The Settlers Page 5

  With a wad of straw he wiped the mess of rotted roots from his hand. Those damned turnips weren’t worth a single dollar but he had wanted to show his senior countryman how well he preserved his food and kept it from spoiling.

  And now, here he stood and received instruction from a master. It was not that he had done something wrong, he had forgotten to do the right thing. It was this that annoyed him.

  They walked back to the cabin. Karl Oskar carried the empty basket, vexed and humiliated. Now what would they give their guest? He had seen in Kristina’s eyes that she was anxious to offer the best they had to their first neighbor, but not even she could prepare a meal from nothing.

  However, at the door a delicious cooking aroma met them. Kristina had put the frying pan over the fire.

  “I won’t bother with mashed turnips, I’ll make pancakes instead, it won’t take so long . . .”

  She had flour, bacon grease, milk, and sugar, as well as some of the cranberries she had preserved last year. Now they would have cranberries and pancakes for dinner.

  “Please sit down, you menfolk! I’ll serve you as I make them.”

  The children might be a nuisance; if they smelled the pancakes she was preparing for their guest they wouldn’t leave her any peace. She had given each of them a lump of sugar and told them to stay outside and play.

  Karl Oskar’s annoyance disappeared as he inhaled the smell of the frying pancakes.

  “I believe you are a wizard, Kristina!”

  She piled the pancakes in a bowl and even the Helsinge farmer looked pleased and appreciative.

  “This is party fare, Mrs. Nilsson! Swedish food and Swedish cooking!”

  Karl Oskar was pulling up his chair, ready to sit down at table, when Petrus Olausson, behind his chair, bent his head, folded his hands, and said grace in a loud voice:

  We do sit down in Jesu name,

  We eat and drink upon God’s word,

  God to honor, us to aid,

  We eat our food in Jesu name.

  Kristina, busy with her pancakes, repeated the prayer with him. She was deeply conscious of the fact that nowadays they almost always forgot to say grace. And, as parents, Karl Oskar and she ought to set a good and godly example for their children. But the settlers had begun to forget their old Swedish table prayers. Only Danjel Andreasson, her uncle, never missed saying grace. And she had told Karl Oskar that they acted like hogs rushing up to the trough to still their hunger. To forget, in this manner, the giver of all good things was un-Christian, beastly. The difference between animals and people was only this: the dumb beasts couldn’t read.

  But their new neighbor prayed over the food with a voice like a minister. He must be a religious man.

  When she had finished at the stove, Kristina sat down at the table where the men were doing great honor to her pancakes. The guest told her that he intended to settle down in the neighborhood with his wife and three children.

  “I never thought anyone would want to live this far away,” she said.

  “Well, this is rich earth, and the lake has plenty of fish.”

  Karl Oskar was eager to confirm that the earth was indeed rewarding. Last year he had planted four bushels of potatoes and had received forty-eight-and-a-half bushels in yield—almost thirteen to one. And rye and barley gave good returns: the seeds were barely out of his hand before they began to swell and grow and shoot up blades in great abundance. One could spread sawdust on this earth and it would almost grow.

  Kristina thought however fine the earth was, it could never take the place of people. However great its yield, it did not help against the loneliness out here.

  “We are not only seeking our living in America,” Petrus Olausson went on. “We are seeking freedom in spiritual things.”

  He explained that he and his wife had turned their backs on the false and dangerous Swedish Church and had followed the Bible’s clear words and truths. After this they had been so persecuted and plagued by the clergy and the authorities of the home village that they had been forced to emigrate. They had followed Erik Janson of Biskopskulla and his group to Bishop Hill, Illinois, where they were to build the New Jerusalem on the prairie. But once in America, Janson had set himself even above God and had earned the contempt of all sensible men. After enduring Janson’s tyranny for three years, Olausson had left the prophet of Bishop Hill, the year before this despot was murdered. He had gone to Andover and joined a free Lutheran church.

  Petrus Olausson helped himself to a few more pancakes.

  “Have you broken out of the Swedish State Church, Nilsson?”

  Karl Oskar explained that he and his family had emigrated of their own free will; they had not been banished, nor had they fled as criminals. But an uncle of Kristina’s and an unmarried woman in their group had been exiled by the court for heresy.

  The rugged Helsinge farmer raised his bearded chin. In Sweden he had been fined two hundred daler silver because he had read a chapter from the Bible in his own house. In Helsingland and Dalecarlia many persons had been imprisoned for reading the Bible in groups. Holy Writ, the key to eternal salvation, was that dangerous for the wretched Swedish people. But here in America he could read the Bible from cover to cover, whenever and wherever he wanted, without punishment.

  “Every evening in my prayer I thank the Lord God for my new homeland,” he said emphatically. “Sweden has been ruined by her iniquitous authorities.”

  A scratching sound was heard at the window behind the guest’s chair; Johan hung outside on the window sill and stared through the glass at the people eating inside. He had barely managed to climb that high and his eyes grew large at the sight of the pancakes; his mouth moved as if he too were chewing. Lill-Marta’s flaxen curls could be glimpsed below the window—she was not tall enough to look through.

  “Our young’uns smell the pancakes,” said Karl Oskar.

  “Only curious,” said Kristina. “I just fed them . . .” The mother shook her hand windowward: how could they be so rude, looking at guests eating! The boy’s face and the girl’s curls disappeared immediately. Kristina looked uncomfortably at her guest; would he think her children didn’t have enough to eat? But he must see by their bodies that they weren’t starved. She herself never ate her fill until she knew they had sufficient. Well, perhaps a few pancakes would be left which she could give them afterward.

  Petrus Olausson had returned to worldly matters and asked his host how they had managed to make a living and feed themselves on their claim for three years.

  Karl Oskar replied that the first winter had been the hardest, as they had not harvested any crops that year. Then it had happened that they went hungry on occasion. But as soon as spring and warmth came, and the lake broke up and they could fish, it had become better. And during the summer they had picked wild berries and other fruit in the forest and then there was no need to starve. That fall they had harvested their first crops and got so much from the field they had had all the potatoes and bread they needed for the second winter. As they gradually broke more land their worries about food diminished. During the second and third winter they had been bothered mostly by the cold; this cabin did not give sufficient protection. For the children’s sake they had kept a fire going night and day through the coldest periods. The last winter had been so bad that the blizzards had almost turned the cabin over.

  He had not figured on living in this log hut more than two or three winters; he had already laid out the framework for a more solid house. But he doubted the new house would be finished this summer. They would have to live in the cabin a fourth winter.

  Kristina added that the weather was never moderate in this country, too hard one way or another. The summers were too warm, the winters too cold. It should have been spring or fall all year round, for springs and autumns were mild and good seasons. But all American weather was immoderate; the heat was hotter, the cold colder, the rain wetter, and the wind blew worse than in Sweden. And it was the same with the animals, big and
little ones. Snakes were more poisonous, the rats more ferocious, the grasshoppers did more damage, the mosquitoes were bigger, and the ants angrier than at home. The wild animals in America seemed to have been created to plague humans.

  “The Indians are more dangerous than the animals,” said Olausson.

  Kristina thought the brown people hereabouts had behaved very peacefully. During the winters Indians had come to warm themselves at their fire and she had given them food and treated them as friends. She tried to pretend she wasn’t afraid of the wild ones, and they had never hurt her, but she was scared to death of them. They could have killed her a hundred times but she relied on God’s protection. A few times they had heard rumors of Indian attacks, but nothing had happened here so far.

  “The Chippewas are friendly,” said their guest. “Some of the other tribes will steal and murder and rape the wives of the settlers.”

  Kristina had finished eating; she was looking thoughtfully in front of her.

  “We have forgotten to mention the worst we have gone through,” she said.

  They had talked of weather and wild animals and Indians, but there remained something else: the loneliness at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga.

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to get neighbors at last!”

  The words had escaped from her full heart. Occasionally a hunter or someone from the lumbering company would come to their cabin. But what pleasure was there in guests she couldn’t speak to? Months and months would pass before an outsider sat at this table and spoke her mother tongue. Now she must tell her countryman how it felt to live alone for three long years.

  With no people living around, a person often felt empty and depressed, completely lost. And that hurt was worse than any physical pain; it plagued worse each lonely day that passed. And living here so long without seeing people might at last affect the mind. She knew how it was after these years; she was not telling a lie when she said that human beings could not live without other human beings.

  While talking she had avoided Karl Oskar’s eyes. Now he looked at her in surprise.

  “I thought you had got used to living alone, Kristina.”

  “I don’t think one ever gets used to it . . .”

  She felt the tears in her eyes and turned her face away quickly.

  Petrus Olausson had listened with great attention; now he turned to Karl Oskar.

  “I’m sorry that Mrs. Nilsson feels so alone in America.”

  She asked him not to call her Mrs. Nilsson—she was no American lady, only a simple Swedish farm wife. “Please call me Kristina; and can’t I call you Uncle Petrus?” Sitting here, talking Swedish with a Swede, she felt he was almost a relative.

  “All right, call me Uncle! And now cheer up, Kristina! I’ll be living next door!”

  She rose suddenly. “I sit here and forget myself. I must put on the coffee!”

  The Helsinge farmer too rose from the table and again said a prayer:

  “All praise to you, O Lord, for food and drink!”

  Kristina, standing at the fireplace, her hands folded around the coffee mill, repeated the prayer after him. To her, today seemed like a Sunday in the cabin.

  —3—

  Karl Oskar was anxious to show Olausson around his claim, but Kristina wanted to keep him inside and talk to him. It was a long time since she had been so talkative, she was stimulated by the neighbor’s call. Eagerly she refilled his cup before he had emptied it.

  The Helsinge farmer said that very soon more Swedes would be coming to settle here. Two families would be arriving this spring, one from Helsingland and one from Östergötland, and he knew them both. In letters to his friends in Sweden, he had described this valley and urged them to move to this land of plenty. He was sure many people would be coming over from Sweden; soon it wouldn’t be lonely here any more.

  This was wonderful news to Kristina, who had felt they would have to live alone forever beside the Indian lake. But she wasn’t quite convinced; why would groups of people move from Sweden to this very region where only heathens worshiped their wooden images? She suspected their new neighbor was talking of arriving countrymen only to comfort her.

  “How many Swedes might there be in this valley?” queried Petrus Olausson.

  Karl Oskar counted silently. Their nearest neighbor toward Taylors Falls, he told Petrus, was Kristina’s uncle, Danjel Andreasson, whose place was called New Kärragärde; he was a widower with three children. His neighbor was Jonas Petter Albrektsson, also a farmer from Ljuder, who had arrived with their group. Jonas Petter had a woman from Dalecarlia, called Swedish Anna, keeping house for him. In Taylors Falls an Öländer, Anders Månsson, lived with his old mother; also a trapper named Samuel Nöjd. At Hay Lake, near Stillwater, west of Marine, three young Swedes, who batched in their cabin, had moved in last spring; he had never met them and did not know their names. And they themselves were two grown people and four small children. If he had counted aright, there were eighteen Swedish people in the St. Croix Valley.

  “And now we three families will settle here,” said the Helsinge farmer. “That makes more than thirty Swedes. We must start a congregation.”

  “What kind of congregation?” wondered Karl Oskar.

  “To build a God’s house! In Andover we started a parish with only twenty-two members.”

  “A church parish . . . ?”

  “Yes, we’ll build a church!”

  “A church!” exclaimed Kristina, breathlessly.

  “Only a little log temple, a God’s house of plain wood.”

  A silence fell in the cabin. Karl Oskar looked in surprise at his guest; the settlers out here had as yet not had time to build decent houses for themselves and their livestock. He had built himself a barn, but his stable wasn’t ready yet, and this summer he intended to build a threshing barn. All the settlers still had houses to build for themselves and shelters for their cattle and their crops. How could they manage to build a church and pay for a minister?

  “We mustn’t strive so much for worldly things that we forget eternity! Need for stables is no excuse to delay building a house for God!” Petrus Olausson spoke in a severe preaching voice.

  “Build a church . . . ?” murmured Kristina, as if talking in her sleep. “It sounds impossible . . .”

  But Olausson went on: “America is full of false prophets swarming all over and snaring the settlers in dangerous heresies. I have seen, to my sorrow, some of my countrymen living in a pure heathenish and animal life, never listening to the Word. And some good, Christian men from my home village in Sweden got together a group and went off to the goldfields in California. They sought riches instead of the gospel truth, they looked for lumps of gold instead of the eternal life of the Holy Ghost. But they also perished within a short time because of their blindness; of twenty-eight gold seekers only four came back, and of these only one found enough gold for his future. Shouldn’t this example dampen people from worshiping Mammon?”

  “I had a younger brother with me when we came here,” said Karl Oskar. “Two years ago he and a friend took off for California.”

  “Have you heard from these foolish youngsters?”

  “Only twice so far.”

  From a box in the Swedish chest back in the corner Karl Oskar picked up a sheet of paper which he handed to Olausson: “The last letter from my brother. It came a few days ago; it was written early this year.”

  Petrus Olausson read the letter aloud:

  “On the California Trail January 1853

  “Dear Brother Karl Oskar Nilsson,

  “How are you and Kristina and the children? I am well. Arvid and I are still on the California Trail. That road is long, you know, almost as long as the road back to Sweden. We have met many adventures. When I get back I will relate to you and Kristina everything I am now leaving out of my letter.

  “We are getting along well but have had our troubles. We shall make out well in the gold land, be sure of that, Karl Oskar.

  “I guess you a
re still poking in your fields. You like it. But I will play a lone hand, as you know. I am hunting for gold and will find it. Don’t worry about me and feel no worry inside yourself. I will be back when I am a rich man. Before I will not come. Then I shall buy oxen for you and cows for Kristina.

  “Arvid sends greetings to his old master and all Swedes in that part. I greet Kristina and the children.

  “Your brother

  Robert Nilsson.”

  Kristina pointed out, “Robert has not put down his address.”

  “He would have no permanent post office because he was on the trail,” explained Olausson. “He says he is on his way. The gold diggers have to climb high mountains and cross wide deserts to reach California, and they need plenty of time for that road.”

  Karl Oskar looked toward the corner of the room where his brother’s old bed still stood. With great concern he said, “My brother has been gone more than two years now.”

  “He said he wouldn’t be back without gold,” Kristina reminded him. “And he writes the same way.”

  “Who knows if he is alive at this moment,” said Karl Oskar, thinking that of twenty-eight gold seekers only four had survived. And again he reproached himself. Couldn’t he have prevented his brother from going on this dangerous journey?

  “He says he’ll give you a pair of oxen when he gets back,” said Olausson, handing back the letter to Karl Oskar.

  The latter expressed no opinion about that promise. But he asked the older settler:

  “He writes something I don’t understand—‘play a lone hand’? What does he mean?”

  “Your brother wants to go his own way.”

  “Well, he certainly did when he left for California . . .”

  Karl Oskar put the letter back in the Swedish chest, and turned to Olausson. “Let’s look at the livestock,” he suggested.

  While Kristina cleaned up after the meal, the men went out to look over the frontier farm. Karl Oskar wanted to show his neighbor what he had done during three years as squatter.