The Last Letter Home (24 page)

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.

Karl Oskar started with the shocking at six o’clock to take advantage of the morning coolness. But already after one hour the sun was burning so intensely that perspiration ran over his brows and smarted like salt in his eyes. Regularly he made a visit to the water crock which he had put in the shade of a linden at the edge of the field.

The church bell began to ring again on Thursday morning. In clear weather the little church spire was visible from this slope. Calm as it was now, the sound came clear.

Two men emerged from the forest carrying guns and rucksacks. Karl Oskar recognized them as his neighbors, Jonas Petter and Algot Svensson.

They cut across the field and approached him. He need not ask the men their errand or why they were out so early.

Jonas Petter said, “The settlers have been called—we must all go and fight the Indians.”

Jonas Petter had put on some weight these last years and walked rather heavily. “I never thought I’d have to go out to war at sixty years of age!”

Algot Svensson said, “I’d hoped I would never have to go . . .”

A red flame glowed in Algot’s left eye, which had been torn to pieces by a branch when he was clearing his claim. “But it can’t be helped,” he said. “A one-eyed man might do some good.”

“It’ll help you aim!” said Jonas Petter. “Now you won’t have to close that eye!”

“How near are they?” asked Karl Oskar.

“No one seems to know for sure,” said Jonas Petter, and shouldered his gun.

He went on: Last night the sheriff had called a meeting in Center City, and he and Algot had been there. During the meeting two men had arrived who had walked all the way from Carver County. They said all the settlers in Carver had fled to the forest, leaving cattle and everything behind. People in Hennepin and Nicollet had fled to St. Paul and Fort Snelling. The men had also said that great hordes of fugitives from out west were heading in this direction. Thousands had gathered in St. Peter and Mankato, completely destitute. They camped in the streets and slaughtered oxen or whatever animals they could lay hands on. All roads from the Minnesota Valley were crowded with wagons and cattle.

They had been told at the meeting that Governor Ramsey had sent Colonel Sibley, the ex-governor, against the Indians, leading the soldiers from Fort Snelling. But unfortunately the good soldiers were already in the South, fighting in the Civil War, and only four companies of new volunteers had been available at Fort Snelling. Of these a few hundred men had been sent to relieve Fort Ridgely and New Ulm, which were surrounded by the Sioux. There was a rumor that Little Crow had gathered several thousand redskins and that all of them had guns. If the forts fell, the road would be open to St. Paul, but Colonel Sibley was organizing the defense for all of Minnesota and if he had time he would stop them.

At the meeting last night the Chisago settlers had decided to evacuate the women and children and organize all the men. Across from Nordberg’s Island, at the narrow passage between the shore and cliffs just west of the church, they would gather and build a defense wall. The sheriff would get ammunition and guns from the governor, he thought. The men were to meet at the pass and start digging in the morning.

“I can’t go with you,” said Karl Oskar. “Kristina is sick in bed—she had another miscarriage . . .”

Algot asked how she was getting along and Karl Oskar said there was no change since yesterday.

“Well, of course you can’t leave her,” said Jonas Petter. He had shared many dangers with his fellow emigrant from Ljuder and knew Karl Oskar was not trying to get out of defending his family and home. With his wife seriously ill he had just cause.

“You’ve never shit in your pants from fear, Karl Oskar. But Olausson has already run away with his wife and children. They took off to some island.”

“He shouldn’t have rushed about and scared people the way he did. People'll lose their sense in fright,” said Karl Oskar.

“Who doesn’t love his own family!” said Algot.

“The redskins are awfully cruel,” said Jonas Petter. “I want to kill at least one before they cut me up like a pig.”

Jonas Petter was going to the Norwegian gunsmith in Center City to have the mechanism of his old Swedish muzzle loader fixed. It was still a good gun; he could fell a deer seventy paces away, and an Indian couldn’t have a thicker hide than a buck.

“I wonder what Colonel Sibley is up to,” said Algot.

“If anyone can stop the redskins he can,” said Karl Oskar.

Colonel Henry Sibley had lived among the Sioux for long periods as a government agent. During that time he must have learned some of their tricks, he ought to know their kind of warfare. At the first gubernatorial election his opponents had claimed that Sibley had fathered a number of children with squaws, but the Republicans had never proved this. Nor would it detract from his military qualifications if true.

“Well, then he’ll fight his own brats,” said Jonas Petter. He took out his snuffbox and loaded his nose, puffed and dried from the perspiration. A hell of a heat! he thought. It melted the lead in his fly buttons so he couldn’t keep his horn in.

“If you stay here you must at least get your children to a safe place,” said Algot.

“You think it’s that bad?”

Yes, continued Algot Svensson, he and his neighbor, Johan Kron, were sending their wives and children to Cedar Island. Of all the many islands in the lake this one offered the best protection. Cedar Island was covered with impenetrable thickets and heavy woods, and gunshots couldn’t reach it from either shore. Karl Oskar’s children could join the group when they rowed them over.

Jonas Petter added that he had heard last night that Colonel Sibley, who lived in Mendota, had already on Tuesday sent his family to Fort Snelling. This more than anything else had frightened people in St. Paul.

Now Karl Oskar grew concerned; the former governor did not consider his family safe in Mendota! The officer in charge must know what he was doing.

He made a quick decision: “Yes, the children must get away! You take them with yours, Algot!”

As the men were leaving, Karl Oskar remembered that Danjel Andreasson had gone to see his son in Acton to help him with the harvest. He called after his neighbors: “Are they back at Danjel’s?”

“No, they’re with Sven in Meeker.”

“They must be in the midst of it!”

Jonas Petter stopped still; it struck him that Danjel and his sons and daughter-in-law were indeed in Meeker County, the very place where the Indians had started the uprising.

“You’re right, Karl Oskar. I wonder how they’ll manage . . .”

Jonas Petter’s face had stiffened. Slowly he folded his hands: “O Lord God! O Lord, save Danjel and his . . .”

Jonas Petter was not a pious man; he seldom prayed. But now he was standing with folded hands. And it was not for himself that he called on the Lord God. He prayed a warm, fervent prayer for some people who had been his neighbors, people whom he had been close to for many years, people he wanted to see live, whom he wanted to be with again.

—2—

Music from a black organ:

But today was Thursday, August 21, and the people Jonas Petter prayed for were no longer to be found among the living. They were on one of the hundreds of farms where already all life was extinguished.

This Thursday had been preceded by a Sunday. During their dinner rest on the Sabbath they had been caught unaware. While resting in the shade behind the cabin their minutes ran out and they entered another rest which no one could disturb.

Four days had now gone by, and Danjel Andreasson and his eldest son remained in a field, undisturbed in their new rest. It would be another two days before the soldiers found their bodies.

Only a few paces separated the bodies of father and son. The father was running these paces when he fell. He had seen his son fall and was hurrying to his aid. Thus his life was crowned by his death. The God Danjel confessed sacrificed his only son for humanity’s salvation. Danjel sacrificed himself, his own life, for his eldest son.

But he was an earthly being, he was made of earth, he belonged to the soil of the field that was now his bed. His body was rotting on the ground near his son with whom he had shared the moment of death. Under the hot sun baking the field, their bodies soon were transformed and returned to their home in the earth.