The Last Letter Home (16 page)

Their moments together confirmed to her that they desired each other as much as in youth, that they were still in love.

But from now on it would be forbidden to them to be together. She had asked him what he thought of it and he hadn’t answered, for he felt she knew. No words were needed in this matter.

“Karl Oskar—I’m thinking about something . . .”

“Yes

“Do you believe the Lord God has inflicted this upon us?”

Her question surprised him. He himself would never have thought of it. “What do you think?”

“I doubt it. We only know what the doctor in Stillwater said. Why would God begrudge us being together?”

“But we must follow what the doctor said . . .”

“He is only a human being like the rest of us.”

“We must obey him anyway.”

“But how can he know if I can stand a childbed or not? Someone else is the all-knowing.”

Karl Oskar rose slowly from his wife’s bed: “We must do only one thing: See to it that you get well and strong again! And now we must go to bed, tonight as always.”

So at last they went to rest in their house, in the same room, in separate beds, at opposite sides of the room.

During their marriage of almost twenty years they had shared the day’s labor and the night’s rest. From this day on they were banished from each other during the night; their living together as man and woman was finished.

—3—

A settler wife’s evening prayer:

. . .
dear God and Creator! Tonight as all nights I surrender to your mercy before I go to sleep. I’ve been to a medical man today and sought aid for my pain, but you must not think that I trust him more than you, my Lord. He is only a frail human, like myself, and he can do nothing if he doesn’t get his knowledge from the Almighty. You alone rule! If you bless the doctor’s medicine then only will it heal me.

You mustn’t think, dear God, that his words frightened me in any way. Who knows if I ever will be strong enough to bear another child? You are the only one to know if the next childbed will be my death or not. I’ll come to my end when it’s your will that I shall.

You know how much Karl Oskar and I have loved each other since youth. You know we have been together in sickness and lust. Can it be your will that we must not know each other from now on? Not be together as married people after this? Can you mean that we must stay apart all the time we have left?

Dear God! You know that we, according to your commandments, have kept our conjugal promises and through all the years lived harmoniously and in compassion. My husband has never desired anyone else and I just as little. Karl Oskar has never looked at another woman and I never at a man. Therefore, forgive us if we feel that we should be together as before during the time we have left together here in this world.

Is it only a human whim that we must live apart? I ask your opinion. You will let me know what the actual truth is. If this is a trial from you, then I’ll accept it in humility. I’m only a simple, unschooled woman, but I seek your hand when I’m in doubt and need your advice.

And I pray you, dear God, as always: The children, especially Frank and Ulrika, are so tender still; don’t make my little ones motherless before they have grown bigger.

Bless and keep all of us who sleep in our beds this night in the whole wide world! Amen!

VIII

THE LETTER FROM SWEDEN

Åkerby, Ljuder Parish,

February 19, Anno 1862.

Dear Brother Karl Oskar Nilsson,

Health and Blessing

I will sit down and write a few Lines to tell you that our Mother is dead, which happened the 3rd inst. She left this Life and entered Eternity at half past seven in the Evening of said date. The years of her Life were 67, 2 Months and a few Days. Our Mothers death-suffering was short, as She came to her End by a sudden Stroke. The day before we had found her on the Ground, her senses gone; she remained unconscious until She died the following Evening.

A few days before Christmas our Mother received the Money you had sent her in a draft of Five dollars. We got the money at the Bank in Växjö, it amounted to 18 riksdaler Swedish money. Mother asked to thank you heartily. The last Time I spoke to her before she died she told me not to forget to Write to you in North America and thank you for the great Christmas Gift. Our Mother was buried the 9th inst. we had a quiet Funeral. Auction and Settlement we have also had after her, everything belonging to the Estate carefully noted down as it was at the Hour of Death. The papers will go to Court and then we two surviving heirs will divide the Balance. Your share will be sent to you.

Both our beloved Parents are now gone from Time. It is not in our Power to stop the Guest called death. When a relative lies on Bier we may mirror Ourselves each time and see what shall happen to us.

Forgive my poor writing, I can not put my thoughts on Paper. But we hope to hear from you and forget not your Sister in Sweden. We are only the two of us left now. We had once a happy childhood home and we must not forget each other in this Life.

Best Wishes Brother,

Written Down by your devoted Sister

Lydia Karlsson.

Part Two

The Astrakhan Apples

Are Ripe

IX

THE RIVER OR THE FONT?

—1—

The Swedish immigrants in the St. Croix Valley had become divided in religious matters. In recent years Baptist and Methodist congregations had been established, and many other sects were proselytizing among the Lutherans. Most numerous were the Baptists, whose revivalist Fredrik Nilsson was very active among his countrymen. The Lutheran ministers considered him the most dangerous sectarian in Minnesota.

Fredrik Nilsson had been a seaman and had sailed the seven seas. Already in 1851 he had been exiled from Sweden for preaching immersion. He had sought asylum in North America and settled in Waconia in Carver County, where he had founded a Baptist congregation and built a church. From there he spread the new teaching to other Swedish settlements. His countrymen were disturbed to hear that he had been banished from Sweden because of his faith, and this made it easier for him to gain converts. Nilsson came to St. Paul to preach and on one single day he baptized thirty-seven Swedes in the Mississippi River. Then he traveled to Taylors Falls and preached, founded a Baptist congregation, and immersed twenty-two persons in the St. Croix River.

But when it was rumored that Fredrik Nilsson would come and preach to the Lutherans at Chisago Lake, their pastor issued an order from the pulpit: No home must be opened to this uncouth, unschooled sailor who was not ordained as a church official! No member of their parish must open his house to this false teacher who was trying to gain a foothold in their community!

Johannes Stenius, the new pastor, was more rigid against sectarians than had been his predecessors. He considered it a shepherd’s first duty to fight irreligion and guard his entrusted flock against dispersal. In almost every sermon, he warned his listeners against the lost souls who were allowed to roam this country at will. He bitterly deplored the lawmakers of North America who, with entirely wrong ideas concerning spiritual freedom, had failed to safeguard the only true and right religion, the Lutheran. In Sweden Lutheranism was protected by the police authorities, but in America it was completely unguarded, so that simple and uneducated people were an easy prey. In Sweden false prophets were exiled or jailed on bread and water, but here they were honored and considered more important than those consecrated by God to preach his Holy Word.

This dart thus hurled against the Baptist preacher Fredrik Nilsson by the Lutheran minister had a result quite contrary to the one intended. At least ten different people offered him a room in which to preach. And he came to Center City and preached from Luke 2:7: “. . . because there was no room for them in the inn . . .” After the sermon a Baptist congregation was established among the Chisago people and twenty-four were baptized in the waters of the lake.

Great excitement followed in the Lutheran congregation; some twenty members, after hearing Nilsson preach, left the church and were baptized, and others wavered in their Lutheran faith. Women especially were open to the former sailor’s preaching. And Pastor Stenius issued still stronger warnings from his pulpit: His flock must consider its eternal welfare and not be blinded by the Baptist will-o’-the-wisp; women, with their inherited ignorance, were more easily a prey to this convert-maker. Each time a woman was led astray, Pastor Stenius could hear the angels cry in heaven and the devils roar with joyous laughter in hell.

Then, in one sermon, he issued a stern order to all married men to watch their wives and prevent them from being ensnared in sectarianism. This irritated many of the women: How much must they take from the pulpit? Great disputes started in the congregation. Karl Oskar Nilsson spoke out to their new pastor: He had recently come from Sweden and they realized he did not understand the temper among the settlers; here in America they no longer obeyed orders from the clergy. The pastor had no authority over them; he was their servant. He did not decide what they should do, he was not their master, it wasn’t like the old country. They had no wish for a new church power, they were glad to be rid of the old.

Pastor Stenius replied haughtily that he was not employed as the congregation’s servant; in his office he obeyed only God.

A few settlers were angered because the pastor had called them Sabbath breakers when they harvested their crop on a Sunday. No sensible person could harbor such exaggerated ideas about God’s protection that they could leave their dry crops in the fields when they saw rain coming. They appreciated the pastor’s zeal, but the shepherd’s care must not force them to lose their livelihood. Even in good things, many felt, their new pastor overdid it.

The congregation was now threatened with a serious disruption. And some said the pastor himself had caused this.

—2—

After the visit to Dr. Farnley in Stillwater Karl Oskar saw to it that Kristina followed the doctors orders. She took her medicine, avoided the heaviest chores, and lay down to rest for a time each day. Already after a few weeks she began to feel stronger. The bleedings diminished and soon stopped entirely, while her appetite and strength returned. And when the sun again began to feel warm after the coldest winter they had ever experienced, she quickened for every day. Never had she been so glad to hear the first dripping from the eaves, never had she felt such joy at seeing the first blades of grass sprouting, never had a spring brought her such fresh renewal.

One day in Easter week when she was busy with spring cleaning, Manda Svensson came to call.

Kristina had not seen their neighbor woman for many weeks and had wondered about this.

Manda had completely changed. Her eyes were wild and roaming and her mind disturbed: “I don’t know what to do! Can you help me, Kristina?”

Manda had helped them many times during the winter. Today she herself needed help.

“What in all the world . . . ? What is the matter?”

“Trouble in my soul.”

“In your soul . . . ?”

Kristina stopped still with the broom in her hand. Manda had always been neat and clean, but today she looked dirty and sloppy, her hair hung in strings down her cheeks.

“Kristina!” It came like a wail. “I doubt the Lutherans have got it right. If I should die I’m afraid I’ll be lost.”

Now Kristina could guess what had happened; her neighbor had listened to Fredrik Nilsson, who said that a person must experience a new baptism in order to earn salvation. And Manda had felt that every word he said was true and right. Immersion seemed to her the only, the glorious, the true religion. She had started to doubt and worry. Should she leave their church and be baptized? For several weeks she had been unable to sleep nights, she only turned and twisted and suffered.

“What does Algot think?”

“He doesn’t want to go through another baptism. He wants to remain a Lutheran.”

“That isn’t good. A couple should not separate in religion.”

“Exactly what Algot says! I want to become a Baptist and he wants to remain a Lutheran. Who must give in?” And she looked expectantly, questioningly at Kristina.

“Have you talked to our pastor?”

“Yes, but he only condemns me. He calls Nilsson a false prophet, a seducer who should be put in jail. But he is really a martyr, like St. Stephen.”

What Kristina heard depressed her. Must difference in religion now part married couples also, whom God had joined together?

“Pastor Stenius doesn’t leave us in peace a moment, he wants so to baptize our little son.”

Algot and Manda had a boy about six months old. He should have been christened long ago but it had been delayed because of the intense cold when babies couldn’t be taken outside. And since the mother had begun to doubt the Lutheran tenets, she didn’t want her son baptized in that faith. But Pastor Stenius gave her no peace. She actually had to hide the child from him.

“You mean he wants to christen him by force?” asked Kristina in surprise.

“The pastor says it is his duty to christen the child. He would rather see a mother throw her offspring right into a fire than leave it to the Anabaptists.”

“But he can’t christen him against the will of the parents?”

“It’s his duty as pastor, he says.”

And Manda told how Pastor Stenius, the day before, in the company of Mr. and Mrs. Olausson had come to their house; empowered by his office he was going to baptize their heathen child. Olausson and his wife, known as upright Christians, were to be the witnesses. Algot was out in the forest and she was alone at home. The pastor walked out into the kitchen and took down her fine soup tureen from its shelf, the one with blue flowers and leaves. Then he had ordered her to put on a kettle of pure water and when it was lukewarm pour it into the soup bowl which he wanted to use as a font. The Olaussons aided the minister and tried to frighten her: God’s doom would be upon her if the child were lost because she refused to have it baptized.