Until We Reach Home (26 page)

“Yes, yes . . . It was a terrible thing to do. Terrible.”

“He had stopped living long before he stopped breathing, so it seemed inevitable that he would finally choose to end his own life, but I still wasn’t prepared for it. He left the cottage one morning without saying good-bye and walked straight out onto the lake, even though the ice was too thin. Everyone in town knew it wasn’t an accident. Papa knew how to test the ice better than anyone did. He taught all of us how to listen for exactly the right sound. He wouldn’t have made a mistake. He simply didn’t want to live any longer. People in town said it was a sin and a disgrace, and the minister wouldn’t let us bury him in the church cemetery beside Mama.”

“And the villagers didn’t want us to marry their sons,” Kirsten added. Elin looked at her in surprise, wondering if there was more to her words than she was saying.

“Now, listen,” Uncle Lars said. “There is no reason at all to tell the people here in our community how your father died. Your parents are both gone. That’s all they need to know.”

“I understand.” There were a lot of other things that no one ever needed to know. Elin cleared her throat. She felt as though she were walking on thin ice herself as she prepared to tell the next part of her story.

“We all hoped that things would be better once Uncle Sven and Aunt Karin moved in to help with the farm, but things got worse. Sven and Nils fought all the time, until Nils finally left. He’s the one who should inherit the farm, but he said he was sick of it and he was never coming back. He’s never written to tell us where he is. I loved our home and I never imagined leaving it, but after Uncle Sven took over, it didn’t feel like our home anymore. For one thing, our cottage was too small for everyone.”

“And for another thing,” Kirsten added, “Aunt Karin made us do all the work while she gave all the orders.”

“I promised Mama before she died that I would take care of Kirsten and Sofia, and I intend to keep that promise. I had to do something . . . so I decided to write to you. I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful we are that you brought us all here.”

“Yes . . . well . . . but you see—”

“It’s time to call it a night,” Aunt Hilma interrupted. “The workday begins very early around here, and the children need their sleep. I’m sure you girls are tired, too, after your long trip.”

Elin felt a ripple of fear, wondering what Uncle Lars had been about to say and why Aunt Hilma had interrupted him. It was obvious that unless some changes were made, there wasn’t room for Elin and her sisters to live here as part of the family.

“We will talk more on Sunday,” Uncle Lars said, “when we have a day of rest. I’m sorry that your bedroom is so crowded—”

“I already explained that we can’t afford to turn away any of our boarders in order to make room,” Hilma said.

Elin felt like an orphan all over again as she trudged up the stairs to their room. She felt even worse when she saw that her two little cousins, Anna and Dagmar, had to sleep on pallets on the floor after giving up their beds.

“This isn’t fair,” she told them. “Maybe we can take turns sleeping in the beds.”

“Mama says it’s only for a short time,” Dagmar said.

“And then what happens?” Kirsten asked. The girl shrugged.

“I have the feeling that Aunt Hilma doesn’t want us,” Kirsten whispered, as she and Elin lay side-by-side in one of the beds. “She’s probably going to make us pay back the money for our tickets, too.”

“Well, that’s only fair,” Elin replied, although she didn’t know how they would ever be able to do that.

“What are we going to do now, Elin?”

“I have no idea.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“W
E LOOK LIKE
a family of ducks heading to the pond,” Kirsten said as she and her sisters followed Uncle Lars and his brood of children to church on Sunday. Walking through the busy city streets was very different from walking through forestland and past neighboring farms back home. The city was exciting, but Kirsten missed the stillness of the forest, where the silence was so deep she could almost hear the trees breathe. She and Tor had often stood in wonder, gazing up at the towering firs and sensing that the trees were living things, creations of God.

As always, thinking about Tor brought an ache to her stomach. Sunday had been the one day she was certain to see him, even if they hadn’t been able to meet during the week.

“Don’t lag behind, Kirsten,” Elin called. “You’re going to make us late.”

She looked up and realized that everyone was walking faster than she was, her steps slowed by her memories.

Kirsten passed a row of shops, their colorful wares displayed behind huge glass windows. Aunt Hilma and Uncle Lars had hurried past the windows as if it were a sin to even think about buying and selling on Sunday, but Kirsten lagged behind again, wishing she could go inside. It took her a moment to realize that she was able to read all of the signs, even though she was in America now. Everything had been written in Swedish, as if an entire Swedish town had been plucked up by its roots and transplanted here. But Chicago’s Swedish neighborhood was much bigger and more modern than their village at home had been. Streetcars rolled past on the main thoroughfare. Rich people, dressed in their Sunday best, hurried to church in fine carriages.

Elin grabbed Kirsten’s arm, pulling her forward again. “Come on. We’d better keep up or Aunt Hilma is going to be upset.”

“So? Everything we do irritates her anyway, so what’s the difference?”

“Please, Kirsten. Can’t you do what Sofia says and turn the other cheek? It is Sunday, you know.”

“Oh, I suppose so.” She would hurry, but she wouldn’t stop looking in the windows.

“These stores certainly are different from Magnusson’s store back home, aren’t they?” she asked Elin. “Instead of carrying a little bit of everything, there are stores just for groceries and some for clothing, and I saw one that had nothing but jewelry.”

Elin nodded in reply. She’d seemed distracted and worried ever since they’d arrived in Chicago. Kirsten had been worried, too, especially when she remembered that she was carrying a baby. What would Tor think when he read her letter? What would he do? She wished she would hear from him.

“How long does it take for a letter to get to Sweden?” she asked Elin.

“Well, our ship took two weeks to cross the ocean and that was just from England to New York.”

Kirsten groaned. That meant that the soonest she would hear back from Tor would be a month! That was much too long.

“What’s wrong?” Elin asked.

“I miss Nils. I wish we would hear from him, don’t you?” She hadn’t lied; she did miss her brother.

They turned the corner and there was the church. It resembled the rich older sister of the one back home—grander and more elaborately dressed. Inside, the people who had gathered for worship looked so familiar with their light hair and fair skin that Kirsten almost expected to meet someone she knew from her village. The minister conducted the service in Swedish. The songs and hymnbooks were in Swedish, too. To be among so many people, all talking her language, made Kirsten feel as though she had never left home.

“We could live here and do everything in our language and never have to learn English at all,” she whispered to Sofia.

“But I really want to learn English,” she said.

“Are you still hoping that man from Ellis Island will find you?”

“I’m not hoping,” Sofia said. “I know he will.”

Sofia was going to have her heart broken. Kirsten longed to warn her to be careful, to explain to her that what looked like love sometimes could be deceiving. But if someone had warned her about Tor, Kirsten doubted she would have listened.

On the way home, Kirsten caught up with Uncle Lars and walked beside him. “What’s that terrible smell? Does Chicago always smell this way?” She had noticed the odor the moment she’d arrived in the city—and she’d also noticed that her pregnancy made her more sensitive to smells, touching off bouts of nausea.

“It’s the stockyards,” Lars explained. “Cattle and hogs get shipped here from all over the Midwest to be slaughtered. There is a huge meat packing company here, too, and tanning the hides adds to the stench.”

“So the smell never goes away?”

“You’ll get used to it,” he said with a shrug. “I did.”

Aunt Hilma had begun preparations for their huge Sunday dinner on Saturday night and had left her hired girl home to watch over the meal during the Sunday service. Hilma pounced on Inge the moment she walked through the door, peppering her with questions, lifting lids, and peering into the oven.

“You didn’t let the potatoes burn, did you? Have you been watching the fire? Is the meat overcooked? Did you press the butter?”

Kirsten and her sisters hurried to change their clothes so they could go to work in the kitchen. Aunt Hilma seemed grateful but didn’t offer any thanks. Perhaps she considered their labor as payment for their room and board.

Everyone sat down to a good meal. Kirsten and her sisters ate in the kitchen with the children once again. But the food was so good and it reminded Kirsten so much of home that she didn’t care where they ate it—although her curiosity tempted her to peek into the dining room whenever she had a chance in order to get a look at the mysterious boarders.

“Where do all the boarders come from?” she asked her uncle when the meal ended. “Are they all Swedish?”

“
Ja
, they are. Some are men with families back home in Sweden, trying to earn enough to send for them. Others are single men. We don’t know most of them very well, which is why Hilma thinks you should stay in the kitchen. We don’t know their character.”

“How did they find jobs here? I mean . . . suppose Nils were to come over, for instance.” Kirsten asked about her brother, but she was thinking of Tor. “Could he find work?”

“I suppose he could—”

“If someone paid his fare,” Hilma added firmly.

Kirsten would write to Tor right away and tell him about the boardinghouse and the young men with good jobs and their new life in America, where everyone in the neighborhood spoke Swedish. She would plead with him to come, writing letter after letter to him every single day, until he was forced to answer her.

Sunday was a day of rest, when no work was done. In the afternoon, Kirsten walked with her cousins and sisters to a pleasant little park to spend some time outdoors. The park’s few trees, planted in orderly rows, reminded her of domesticated lap dogs compared to the wild, untamed forests back home. But it reassured Kirsten to know that Chicago did have trees.

They returned home to a light supper of cold leftovers. Afterward, she could tell by the tense glances that passed between her aunt and uncle, and the fact that they had sent the children upstairs to their rooms, that something was going on. She didn’t know what, but it was obvious that Hilma wanted Lars to speak to her and her sisters. Kirsten waited, certain it was bad news, feeling sick inside.

“I wanted to spend a few days visiting with you girls,” Uncle Lars said, “but I think that tomorrow I’d better arrange for tickets to Wisconsin for the three of you.”

“Tickets for . . . what?” Elin asked. She wore a brave smile, as if she hoped the tickets might be to a play or a concert or something fun. Kirsten’s first thought was that they would have to travel again.

“Train tickets,” Uncle Lars said, as if it pained him to say it. “Wisconsin is a state north of here, where there is wonderful farmland, and the weather is very much like home.”

“I don’t understand,” Elin said. “Why are we going there? Don’t you live here?”

His cheeks reddened a bit, and Kirsten saw him cast a worried glance at Hilma. She stood listening with her arms crossed.

“You must understand,” he said, “that I didn’t have the money for your passage to America—especially for all three of you. You see how my family lives, how difficult it is to make ends meet. But I have a friend who is homesteading up in Wisconsin with a larger group of Swedes. They have their farms all set up and some houses built, and it’s turning into a very nice little community. He happened to mention that the young men outnumbered the women up there and he asked if I knew any girls who could come up and become their wives.”

“No . . .” Kirsten whispered. For a moment, she thought her heart had stopped beating. She glanced at her sisters and saw that all the color had drained from Elin’s face. Sofia sat very still, her mouth open in shock.

“I told these young men about the three of you and how desperate you were to come to America. So they pooled their money together to buy your tickets. The men had planned to come down and meet you themselves, but when you were delayed, they had to stay home. They’re right in the middle of spring planting now, so of course they can’t get away. You’ll have to go up there to meet them.”

Kirsten finally found her voice. “You mean they expect us to
marry
them—in return for our
tickets
?”

“You said you wanted to start all over again. And I know that the life you’ll have up there will be very much like home.”

“You
sold
us?” Elin asked.

“Come, now, what did you expect?” Hilma asked. “You begged us to help you come to America. We have all of your letters if you’ve forgotten how you pleaded with us. You said you were desperate to leave. That you would do anything to come to America. What did you expect? As you can see, we have no money to spare for tickets.”

“You sold us,” Elin repeated.

“Not at all,” Uncle Lars said. “These young men are starting a wonderful new life. They have land—forty, sixty, a hundred acres and more. More land than we could ever dream of owning back home. And they want the same things you girls want—a home of your own, a family. They are good, decent, hardworking men.”

Kirsten saw the look of panic in Sofia’s eyes—as if the house were on fire and she wanted to run out of it. Kirsten wondered if she had the same look on her face. Sofia was in love with the man she had met on the island, just as Kirsten was in love with Tor. Neither one of them wanted to marry a stranger.