The Last Letter Home (29 page)

I was in Stellwater with a load of potatoes that day. In all places of labor the tools were laid down and each one went to his home. Stores and Houses were draped in black, and many flags on half mast to show the sorrow. Much Lamentation was heard in the streets. Old men cried like Babies.

For here nothing is like in Sweden, people are not ordered to Mourn when the Head of the Nation passes but all happens of free Will. Our President was called the country’s Father and we mourn him like a Father in the Flesh. He fought for the Right of the Poor, He made the Black free from Slavery, unchained their chains. The People had entrusted their government to Him. His portrait hangs in many houses for all to see. A man worthy of Honor is honored in Our Republic.

Father Abe’s murderer is Taken, shot through the head, for he did not wish to be taken in Life. Old Honest Abe will be brought to his home village in Springfield and will be buried there. His Corpse will be brought 1,300 miles and People will meet up and gather along the Whole way to say Farewell.

This might be of small interest to My sister in Sweden, but it has just happened and my mind is full of it. The Indian savages in Minnesota made an uproar and started a cruel war. But afterwards the Indians were told to keep 20 miles away from any house or white settlement. Now we are safe from the reds.

I want to tell you about my family now since Kristina left us. Her death I have not gotten over and don’t think I will in Life. But otherwise all is well with us, I have had good luck in worldy matters, I have now 3 horses and one colt and 10 cows not counting young ones. Last year I fatted 18 Pigs. I sold most of the Pork, but since the war, prices are low. 20 acres of my claim still lies in wilderness but my Sons will help me break it. My six children are all well and full of Life. My oldest daughter takes care of my house, she is 18. And my good boys will be of great help. The youngest goes to school and is learning English fast.

After the end of the war the Country is improving. They are building one railroad after another through Minnesota and we can all ride the Steam Wagon. Good times are promised to us by our Government.

The Astrakhan tree from Kristina’s home bears every fall. You can see it to the right in the Portrait I send of our House, taken by a photographing man from Stellwater. Now you can see how we live, they take portraits much like the object here in America.

My hope is that my thoughts which I have tried to put on Paper will find you and Yours at good health. Hope you don’t forget to write and let me know about My beloved Sister.

Your Devoted Brother

Karl Oskar Nilsson.

Part Three

XX

THE FIRST CHILD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE

—1—

It was Mr. C. A. Persson who had persuaded Karl Oskar to buy it. The storekeeper ordered all kinds of new inventions and displayed them in his shop, and one after another he palmed them off on the settlers. But this one appeared to be a most useful invention. Klas Albert promised to assemble it himself and show how to use it. He brought it one dark fall evening and everyone gathered around the rectangular wooden box.

Karl Oskar wanted to surprise his children and had not mentioned the purchase to them. He acted as if he didn’t know what was in the box.

Mr. Persson broke open the box and displayed an object, the like of which had never been seen before in this house—a brass stand, a foot and a half high, which the storekeeper placed on the table. It stood there quite firmly on its solid, round base.

Marta had already guessed that Father had bought some useful kitchen utensil but she could not figure out what this brass stand could be used for. She could neither cut nor cook with it. It seemed to have no purpose. But it was beautiful, with its greenish tint, perhaps it was meant as a table decoration.

“What kind of knickknack have you brought, Klas Albert?” she asked.

“Wait till I’m ready—then you’ll see something!”

And from the box the Center City merchant drew out several more strange objects: a porcelain globe, a glass pipe a foot long, and at last a kind of flask filled with a transparent fluid. Each object was exceedingly fragile and Klas Albert was most careful in handling them. His audience, standing in a circle around him, realized that the pieces must in some way be put together.

“Wait till I’m ready! Then you’ll understand!”

Mr. Persson opened a lid over an enlargement at the upper end of the brass stand, and into this hole he poured the white fluid from the flask. Then he slowly turned a screw fastened to the stand. No one could guess the purpose of this screw. But it appeared that something was going to happen. And so it did.

Klas Albert struck a match and held it over the brass stand. A flame leaped up from its upper end—the brass stand was burning!

The circle of spectators broke apart; they all stepped back. What was this? Everyone in this house had been instructed to handle fire most carefully; Father had told them to stamp out any flame or spark outside the fireplace. Yet here he stood and smiled while Klas Albert appeared to be trying to set the house on fire!

A tall flame burned lustily at the upper end of the brass stand, but Mr. Persson remained calm. He picked up the glass pipe and placed it around the flame, enclosing it. He then placed the porcelain globe on a ring and turned the screw again. The tall flame withdrew a little and stopped smoking. He kept turning the screw until the flame burned evenly inside the pipe.

A clear, warm light spread through the whole kitchen. The flame in the pipe spread its light to the farthest corner.

And now Karl Oskar said in a solemn voice, “Tonight we have a new light in our house—I have bought a kerosene lamp.”

He was very much pleased with the surprise he could read in his children’s faces. And Klas Albert was even more pleased; he looked as if he had just performed a very difficult magician’s trick.

“How clever you are!” exclaimed Marta. “What do you do to make it light up?”

Eagerly Klas Albert showed the girl how the trick worked: The brass stand formed the foot of the lamp. This enlargement held the fluid that burned—it was called the oil chamber. Into the oil he had stuck some twisted yarn, called the wick, and the other end of the wick came up into the glass pipe. The yarn kept burning because it was soaked in oil and was being fed from the oil chamber. By turning the screw he could change the flame, make it strong or weak, any way he wanted it. The glass pipe protected the flame and the porcelain globe softened the light.

“As simple as that!” said Klas Albert, acting as if it were the easiest thing in the world to make a flame come out of the end of a brass stand.

The kerosene lamp would give as much light as ten tallow candles, he explained. Yet the strangest part was that it would burn indefinitely. When the flame grew weak one only had to pour more oil into the oil chamber.

And they were long to remember that autumn evening when Klas Albert brought the new light to their house. The kerosene lamp brought them more satisfaction and pleasure than any other new invention. The nights were dark at every season; between sunset and bedtime a black wall stood outside the windows, and they needed light. They had made their own candles from sheep tallow, they had also used pitch splinters which they fastened to the walls; and in winter the fire on the hearth gave them light. But candles had to last, pitch splinters burned only a short moment, and the fire must be fed constantly. Candles, splinters, and the fire burned out, but the lamp lasted. One had only to refill the oil chamber. It was an eternal light.

Now the evenings were bright in their house and they could stay up longer at their chores. Each night they stole a little time from the dark.

But the new invention could cause a fire and must be used with utmost care. The fluid could catch fire, the oil chamber might explode. They had read in the papers how people had started house fires when lighting their lamps. Because of this, Karl Oskar at first would let no one but himself handle the lamp or carry it while it burned. But after a time he allowed his two oldest children to attend to it. Johan and Marta were almost of age now, and neither of them was careless. By and by Harald was given the same permission; he was as trustworthy as his older brother and sister. But Frank and Ulrika, the two youngest, were strongly forbidden to touch, move, or try to light the new lamp.

Klas Albert came from time to time to check on the lamp and see that it was taken care of. But no accident happened, and the new invention started no fire in their house. The flame from the oil-soaked wick succeeded the daylight and shone cheerfully through the evenings.

Lamp evenings were something new in the settler families.

It was the great moment of the day when Father lit the lamp. Before, the hearth had been the heart and gathering point of the family, now the kerosene lamp became the family’s central point around which they gathered. It spread a warm, cozy light, at which the father read the paper, the children their lessons, the boys whittled with their knives, the girls knitted or sewed. In this light they could see to thread the smallest needle, and read the finest print. It saved their eyes and prolonged their evenings.

With the new light—which came to their home in the fall of 1868—the settlers could spend more time at useful occupations.

—2—

Ditto Anno 1868 harvested 234 Bussels Corn, 196 Bussels Wheat and 162 Bussels Potatos, All Heaped Measure.

These were the largest harvest figures Karl Oskar Nilsson had written down in his old almanac. But while he in America harvested his biggest crops, his old home parish in Sweden suffered the greatest crop failure in over a hundred years.

In
Hemlandet
—whose printing office now had been moved to Chicago—he read about the ravaging famine in the old country: The summer had been the driest in memory throughout Småland. No rain had fallen from the moment the seeds were planted until the crops were cut, and there had been no comforting night dew. Barley grew to only five inches and could not be mowed with a scythe but had to be pulled up by the roots. Fields and meadows lay burned black, and brooks and springs had gone dry. People stole grain from each other by cutting the heads from the sheaves out in the fields. And after the summer’s severe crop failure, all things edible for man and beast were gathered against the winter: Hazel tops, heather seed, pine needles, white moss were ground together and mixed with the flour for baking. Porridge was cooked from barley chaff, lingon twigs, heather tops, salt, and water; also thistles, dandelion roots, and the leaves from beech and linden trees. Heather was cut for animal fodder and instead of oats, shavings and sawdust were mixed for the cows. The very poorest walked in the fields and picked up the bones that had been spread with the dung the year before; these they crushed and ground and mixed with the flour for bread.

This winter, hunger would be a guest at practically every home in Småland. Each week the bells tolled for people who had starved to death or died from diseases contracted because of hunger.

In issue after issue
Hemlandet
told of the suffering and misery in Småland. Karl Oskar understood how things were at home without difficulty. How many times hadn’t he himself left the table hungry! Now remembrance came to him of the great famine in the summer and winter of ’48—twenty years ago. Kristina had ground acorns and put them into the bread—his throat had been sore and swollen from the rough food and he had suffered with constipation the whole winter. Begging children had come in droves asking if they could pick up herring heads and other refuse from the scrap pile outside. That was the winter when little Anna had eaten herself to death on barley porridge. After that happened Kristina had changed her mind and promised to go with him to North America.

But this time, it appeared, the homeland had been stricken by a still more severe famine. According to the paper, the suffering grew as the winter progressed. The farmers on the smaller homesteads became paupers. The sheriff in Linneryd had within two months foreclosed three hundred farms in his district. Many children died at birth because the famished mothers had no milk to give.

The parishes were listed in famine groups, from one to four, according to their need. Karl Oskar read that Ljuder was listed in group two.

Hunger was ravishing his home parish while he sat here with his bins filled to the ceiling. He read about the barley on the Småland fields, too short to be cut, while his crops had grown taller than ever. In the old country they ate bread from white moss, while in his house they ate rich wheat bread with plenty of butter, as much as they wanted. In their old country was famine, in their new overabundance.

Karl Oskar thought again and again of this great difference, and an idea ripened in him.

One winter evening as he was reading
Hemlandet
by the light of the kerosene lamp, a knock was heard on the door. A visitor had come; Klas Albert greeted them heartily, in high spirits. The Center City shopkeeper had been a frequent guest in this house of late although there was no need for him to look after the lamp any more.

Karl Oskar, looking up from the paper, said, “It’s bad at home, Klas Albert. They’re starving to death this winter.”

“I’ve read it too,” said Klas Albert. “Ljuder is now in the second famine group.”

“I can’t help thinking about it . . .”

“I didn’t think you cared for the old country?”

“Not a shit for the useless dogs at the top. But I feel sorry for the poor, good people.”

Klas Albert thought they probably had enough food for everyone in the old country, but the Swedes had not yet learned that food supplies could be transported from one end of the country to the other if need be.

“The government won’t be bothered to do anything, of course,” said Karl Oskar.

What were they doing in Sweden to alleviate hunger? He had seen a piece in
Hemlandet
and he read it to Klas Albert: