The Last Letter Home Page 8

  To Sunday belonged also organ music and the singing of psalms. For many years the Chisago people had held their services and sung their hymns without an organ, even though the service sounded empty without the musical instrument—God’s house was a poorhouse. Then last year they had gone into debt to put in an organ that cost a hundred and sixty dollars. Karl Oskar had voted against this purchase, for he felt they couldn’t yet afford it. And when the organ was installed he did not like the sound of it: It must not be a first-class instrument with a sound that was harsh and screeched in his ears and thundered like the roaring of an ox. It could also be that he didn’t understand organ music.

  Kristlna had never missed the organ at the services; if the words of the psalms came from a heart in need of God they would reach him without the aid of an organ. She could feel reverence in her heart without the help of steeple, bell, organ, or other worldly instruments.

  —3—

  The Chisago Lake parish had engaged a new pastor who arrived in October. His name, Johannes Stenius, sounded like a good minister’s name and he was a real minister directly from Sweden. There was a dearth of educated preachers, and for several years the Swedes in the St. Croix Valley had borrowed pastors from other parishes. They were now well pleased to have their own shepherd, ordained in their homeland. Rumors had already reached them that Pastor Stenius was a capable preacher of God’s Word, stringently adhering to the pure Lutheran religion.

  At the first wedding the new pastor was to perform in the settlers’ church, the bridegroom was related to Kristina—Danjel’s oldest son Sven, her blood cousin.

  Sven Danjelsson was to marry Ragnhild Säter, a young Norwegian girl who had recently come to the St. Croix Valley. Women invariably married shortly after their arrival, usually within a month. In this woman-empty land they had only to choose among the many men who showed up as suitors. And the men had indeed flocked around Ragnhild, who was an unusually attractive girl, and who had refused many before she decided to exchange her Norwegian name for a Swedish one and become Mrs. Danjelsson. Sven had staked a claim and built himself a cabin at Acton in Meeker County, at its western border where land still was plentiful and easy to clear. After the wedding, Danjel’s son and daughter-in-law would live in their new home in Meeker.

  Karl Oskar and Kristina were invited to the wedding feast, which was given by Danjel Andreasson, as the brides parents were living in her old home in Norway. A heavy rain fell as they started out for the church in the morning. Kristina took the opportunity to use her new umbrella which Karl Oskar recently had bought for her. It was a fine gift, made of dark blue silk. For the first time in her life she was using an umbrella. In Sweden only upper-class wives had this kind of protection against rain; it was an object for show-off and vanity, not suitable for simple farm folk. Therefore Kristina almost felt like a noble lady today as she mounted the spring wagon and put up her umbrella. But here in America all women used many decorations and ornaments which in Sweden were reserved for upper-class wives. Even settler wives wore rosettes and bows and lace and other glitter on their clothes, and flowers and feathers on top of their heads. Moreover, an umbrella was not only an ornament, it was a protection against rain as well.

  And it did rain this day! It literally poured from early morning till late at night on Sven’s and Ragnhild’s wedding day. But rain was a good omen since it promised great riches for the bridal couple.

  To the parishioners this wedding in their church was a denial of the common statement that Swedes and Norwegians could not get along in America.

  After the ritual Pastor Stenius spoke to the young couple of the appalling increase of evil in the world at this time and warned them against religious seducers and wrong preachers who might seek to lead them astray from their mother church. He also warned against the greatest sins of the day: whoring, drinking, and dancing. The pleasure of dancing was invented by the old creeping Snake; in halls of music and dance the virtue of women met its defeat. Finally, the pastor condemned the excesses of female dress which in these latter days stimulated men’s carnal desires and increased the number of whoring men.

  It was not a great company that afterward gathered for the wedding feast at Danjel Andreasson’s farm, and the groom’s father had invited only those countrymen who had come with him from the old parish. He had once paid for the journey of Ulrika of Västergöhl, now the wife of Baptist minister Henry O. Jackson. She had not come to the church—she would not enter Lutheran churches—but she joined the guests at the wedding reception.

  Kristina was shy when she met people who spoke only English, which thus put her outside the company. She had been in America almost twelve years now but could hardly speak a word of the language, although she was a citizen of this country. She had gone through the years as if deaf and dumb, as far as the language was concerned. Often she had met Americans who seemed kind and helpful but because of the language barrier she had been unable to enjoy their company. She was beginning to regret that she hadn’t started to learn English from the very first day out here. But she still shuddered at the sound of this tongue, so unseemly and twisted. In trying to use one single word she felt she would sprain her tongue. She was told to bite off her words and put her tongue against her teeth. But this only made a hissing and gurgling sound.

  Here at the wedding feast in Danjels house, however, Kristina need not feel apart from the company. But she confided to Ulrika: Each kind of animal had been given only one sound—the dogs in America had the same bark as dogs in Sweden—why had the Creator then given people different tongues so they couldn’t understand each other?

  “Punishment for their sins! Because they built the Tower of Babel, you know!” informed Ulrika.

  Mrs. Henry O. Jackson was not of the opinion that an immigrant could learn English in school and then speak it fluently. The language must come to one’s tongue of its own free will, of its own whim and fancy, on the spur of the moment.

  “I myself, I speak English from inspiration!”

  “Well, that’s why you spoke it from the beginning, I guess. So your husband-to-be could understand you?”

  “Yes, of course. Henry and I understood each other that way from the very beginning.”

  Ulrika considered the day when she was married to Pastor Jackson as the greatest happening of her life. Kristina knew she celebrated that day each year; each fourth of May she put on her old bridal gown and the pastor donned his cutaway.

  The two women had withdrawn from the other guests and were sitting in a corner of the room. It was only seldom they had the opportunity to speak to each other in confidence.

  Ulrika had mentioned her husband’s name, then she sighed and became silent. She seemed depressed. It was not the first time Kristina had been surprised at her behavior when her marriage to Jackson was spoken of. He was such a patient and good-hearted man, but there must be something here that wasn’t quite right as it should be. Had something happened between the couple lately? It sounded as if Ulrika was burdened by something unsaid—why did she always sigh like that at her husband’s name?

  “Henry is very good to me, very good,” she said. “But a woman can be happy in one way and unhappy in another.”

  “Unhappy in another? What do you mean?” Kristina’s eyes were wide open.

  Ulrika looked about and continued in a low voice: “We’re at a wedding today, that’s why my thoughts go in that other way. I’ll tell you, but it must stay between us of course.”

  She pulled out her handkerchief, blew her nose thoroughly, and leaned intimately toward Kristina. Henry and she didn’t fit together in bed any more. She had hoped for a long time that it could be worked out, so they would fit, but as they had shared the marital bed now for ten years, she knew there was no hope of improvement. Henry didn’t handle a woman the right way at the very moment when it counted. She didn’t want to blame him in the least for this, because he hadn’t been trained with women from his youth, and when he got a wife—at a ripe age—he wa
s too old to train. And perhaps a man’s way in bed was something he was born with, something that came naturally, if bedplay were to be excellent.

  Ulrika looked toward the upper end of the table; there on the bench, in today’s seat of honor, sat the young bridal couple. Her eyes lingered a moment on the young Norwegian girl, whose cheeks were rosy-red with health and from blushing, whose eyes, glitteringly clear, never for a moment left the groom.

  Ulrika sighed again in envy and desire: “You see, Kristina, in my marriage I don’t get that bodily bliss a woman craves. The great temptations of my old body have come over me. Desire for sins of the flesh. I have eyed other men . . .”

  Kristina grew disturbed at Ulrika’s confidence: “What are you talking about?! You mean that you—the wife of Pastor Jackson . . . ?”

  “Yes, it’s true—I’ve been tempted to whoring.”

  Kristina made a sudden motion with her hand, as if to silence her. But Ulrika went right on.

  “I had to tell you. It happened last summer. A Norwegian tempted me so I had to . . . You know him, Sigurd Thomassen . . .”

  “The shoemaker in Stillwater? The one who always complains because he doesn’t have a woman?”

  “Exactly! It was he!”

  Kristina remembered the man from Ulrika’s great Christmas party when he had tried to become intimate with her: “I’m a kind man, I don’t wish to do anything wrong with any woman . . .”

  “Did the Norwegian tempt you to adultery?”

  “He wanted the same thing as I.”

  And Ulrika’s ample bosom rose with her deep breathing; in this woman-empty America Thomassen was far from the only one who had tried to seduce her. She had met men who had both the inclination, the lust, and the fresh approach. But the Norwegian was the only one whom she herself had been tempted to satisfy, because he had a gentle heart—he was a good man who had lived single for many years, poor devil. She had many times allowed him to take her around the waist and pat her—oh, quite innocently! But his eyes had always told her what he wanted.

  Then it had happened, one time last summer. She had left a pair of shoes to be resoled, and late one evening she had gone to Sigurd Thomassen’s house to pick them up. He offered to make coffee for her and she thanked him and stayed. They were alone, he had set the table in his bedroom, and while they drank their coffee he complained of how many years it had been since a woman had comforted him in bed. He was pining and yearning, he was almost at his wit’s end. And then she began to wish sometime she could give him this enjoyment he had so long gone without.

  Sometime—and when would be better than at this very moment?

  At first she hadn’t thought anything of it that they sat alone in his bedroom; when she came to fetch her shoes she had only innocent thoughts. But by and by the other thoughts came over her. Sigurd’s bedroom was so small, his bed so large; they could barely move in there without touching the bed. And without realizing how it happened she was suddenly on his bed, while he patted and petted her—they were acting like young lovers. Then the thought came to her: What Henry didn’t have the power to give her, the Norwegian might. A man who had lived single for so long must have saved much for a woman.

  He was ready to turn her over in his bed, and she was ready to be turned over; she could not resist a man’s hands as they stroked her loins and hips, and she grew utterly faint and helpless. At last she herself turned over on her back.

  That was how far it had gone, so close to adultery was she: She herself had turned over.

  Then rescue came. At the very last second help had come.

  She had not noticed that Sigurd had locked the door when she came in, and this was not the act of a gentleman. Now suddenly someone was knocking to get in. He had already begun to undress and didn’t wish to go and open the door. But the hangings were insistent and at last he had to go; two little children had brought a pair of their father’s boots to be resoled. As Sigurd took the boots she could hear the voices of the children and couldn’t resist opening the door just a little to peek at them. There stood two cute little girls with flaxen braids and rosy cheeks and eyes as blue as heaven itself. And as she looked at them she understood at once.

  They were a couple of angels who had knocked on the shoemaker’s door to save her in the moment of her temptation. It was so late in the evening—why would the parents have sent their kids on an errand at this time? It was God himself who had sent them. God’s angels had come to save her.

  And as she looked at them she received the strength to resist the desire that was burning her flesh. Her eyes were opened, and in fright she realized how close to the abyss she was. Only in the very last second had the Lord remembered her.

  As soon as the children were gone she picked up her newly soled shoes and left. Sigurd didn’t want any pay for repairing the shoes but she forced the money on him—he mustn’t get the idea that he could pinch her for pay! She had long ago been redeemed from that sort of life! But she had told him that she forgave him for tempting her so much; he couldn’t help it, she thought, because the evil one used men as his tools when he led women astray.

  “I did no whoring,” Ulrika ended her tale, “but it was pretty close!”

  At first Kristina had listened shocked, then she was moved; no woman except Ulrika would have confided in her thus.

  “God did indeed save you!”

  “Not even a twice-baptized person can help it if she is assailed by temptations. I was overcome by lust, but it was only a sin of weakness—the sins God forgives most easily!”

  Kristina understood that even a married woman might have her weak moments, with the flesh eager to gain the upper hand, but it surprised her that Ulrika for one second could feel tempted by Sigurd Thomassen. She remembered well that when he had approached her he exuded such a strong smell of shoemaker that that alone would be sufficient for a woman to resist him. That rancid, pungent odor of tanned leather her nose could not take; the man who exuded it became repulsive to her. Perhaps Ulrika’s weakness could be explained by the life she had led in the old country.

  Jonas Petter approached them and asked if they had been watching the newly married couple. He had never seen such a well-made bridal pair, he beamed; that girl from Norway was truly a virgin, a delicious fruit to feast his eyes on! A womanly delight for a man! A fragrance of new-baked bread! Danjel’s boy was indeed fortune’s favorite prince! To lie under the bridal blanket with this fresh, untouched maiden! A king or an emperor could dream of no greater delights than those Sven would experience with Ragnhild!

  Ulrika replied that yes, she could understand how his mouth watered, she could see Jonas Petter drool, the old whore-buck, as his eyes devoured the sweet kid he himself couldn’t mount! With old goats the lust grew greater as the strength diminished! She felt indeed sorry for him, poor wretch!

  Jonas Petter was hurt and mumbled to himself; since food was being served, he walked toward the table, where Karl Oskar already had a chair next to the bridal couple.

  Sven had been fourteen years of age when he came with his father to the St. Croix Valley; now he was twenty-five. He was a capable, industrious young man, who had inherited his father’s weak and brooding nature. He had grown into a handsome youth, no disgrace to his beautiful bride.

  Jonas Petter kept his eyes on the bride as he spoke to the groom: “You’ve taken land in Meeker—that’s where the Sioux are; they’re bad.”

  “If you don’t disturb them they won’t annoy the whites,” said Sven.

  “But that tribe has always been warlike and treacherous.”

  “In the old days.”

  “I’ve heard you can never trust them. If I had been in your shoes, Sven, I would have taken a claim closer by. There’s still plenty of land hereabouts.”

  If Jonas Petter had been in Sven’s shoes—you could see from his eyes on Ragnhild what he wanted; the groom knew him well and tried to hide his smile.

  Karl Oskar said he had heard from Mr. Thorn, the sheriff, th
at some of the Sioux to the west were becoming unmanageable because they hadn’t yet received their pay from the government agent; they had been promised money for the land they gave up. The sheriff thought the slave owners in the South were behind it; they were said to have smuggled rifles to them.

  Jonas Petter sat down beside the bride, as close as he could get: “The traders are skinning and cheating the redskins. It’s easy to cheat the Indians, they can’t read and don’t understand numbers.”

  “That’s true,” affirmed Sven Danjelsson, in a reproachful voice. “It’s always rascals and knaves who are sent out to deal with the Indians.”

  “They should send you instead,” said Karl Oskar.

  “I’m going to make friends with the Indians back there,” said Sven. “That’s the right way for a settler to behave!”

  Karl Oskar reminisced. Almost every year they had had some scare-rumor about the Indians being on the warpath, but every time it had been a false alarm. And by now they were probably so weakened that they would be unable to do any harm to the whites.

  The bride pointed to her father-in-law, who stood at the other end of the table. She asked the guests not to say anything to Danjel about the wild Sioux in Meeker County; now that she and Sven were moving there Danjel might unnecessarily worry himself sick about them.

  “I’ll keep my trap shut! Anything Ragnhild asks me I’ll do!” said Jonas Petter. “Even if she asked me to walk on my hands!”

  Sitting there at the bride’s side his thoughts had wandered far away from Indian rumors: He had a story to tell, well suited for a wedding. It was about a farmer and a soldier, a rich farmer in Ljuder who hired the village soldier to make an heir for him and offered his bed for the purpose. He had started this story on many occasions, but always someone had said it didn’t fit just now, and he had been silenced. But today, at this wedding, it seemed most proper.