Unto a Good Land (42 page)

Karl Oskar noticed something moving, something furry, with black, shining, drenched hair. And he saw a streak of dark-red blood.

The birth-giving wife clung convulsively to her husband, seeking his embrace in her deepest agony. Severe, slow tremblings shook her body, not unlike those moments when her body was joined with his—and from moments of lust had grown moments of agony.

While the mates this time embraced, their child came into the world.

A hair-covered crown appeared, a brow, a nose, a chin—the face of a human being: Ulrika held in her hands a living, kicking, red-skinned little creature.

But the newcomer was still tied to his mother.

“The navel cord!” Ulrika called out. “Where did I put the wool shears?”

For safety’s sake she had rinsed Kristina’s wool shears in warm water in advance; they had seemed a little dirty and rusty, and one was supposed to wash everything that touched the mother’s body during childbirth. Oh, yes, now she remembered—she had laid the shears to dry near the fire.

“On the hearth! Hand me the wool shears, Karl Oskar!”

With the old, rusty wool shears Ulrika cut the blood-red cord which still united mother and child.

Then she made that most important inspection of the newborn: “He is shaped like his father. It’s a boy!”

Kristina had given life to a son, a sturdy boy. His skin was bright red, he fluttered his arms and legs, and let out his first complaining sounds. From the warm mother-womb the child had helterskelter arrived in a cold, alien world. The mother’s cries had died down, the child’s began.

Ulrika wrapped the newborn in the towel Danjel had sent with her: “A hell of a big chunk! Hold him and feel, Karl Oskar!”

She handed the child to the father; they had no steelyard here, but she guessed he weighed at least twelve pounds. Ulrika herself had borne one that weighed thirteen and a half. She knew; the poor woman who had to squeeze out such a lump did not have an easy time. Ulrika had prayed to God to save her—an unmarried woman—from bearing such big brats; the Lord ought to reserve that honor for married women, it was easier for them to increase mankind with sturdy plants. And the Lord had gracefully heard her prayer—He had taken the child to Him before he was three months old.

Thus for the first time Karl Oskar had been present at childbed—at the birth of his third son—his fourth, counting the twin who had died.

Yes, Ulrika was right, his son weighed enough. But he lacked everything else in this world: they hadn’t a piece of cloth to swaddle him in; his little son was wrapped at birth in a borrowed towel.

Ulrika warmed some bath water for the newborn, then she held him in the pot and splashed water over his body while he yelled. And her eyes took in the child with satisfaction all the while—she felt as if he had been her own handiwork.

She said: “The boy was made in Sweden, but we must pray God this will have no ill effect on him.”

Kristina had lain quiet after her delivery. Now she asked Karl Oskar to put on the coffeepot.

She had put aside a few handfuls of coffee beans for her childbed; Ulrika had neither drunk nor eaten since her arrival last evening, they must now treat her to coffee.

“Haven’t you got anything stronger, Karl Oskar?” Ulrika asked. “Kristina must have her delivery schnapps. She has earned it this evil night.”

The delivery schnapps was part of the ritual, Karl Oskar remembered; he had given it to Kristina at her previous childbeds. And this time she needed it more than ever. There were a few swallows left in the keg of American brännvin Jonas Petter had brought to the housewarming.

“I think you could stand a drink yourself,” Ulrika said to Karl Oskar.

She finished washing the baby and handed him to the impatient mother. Meanwhile Karl Oskar prepared the coffee and served it on top of an oak-stump chair at Kristina’s bedside. He offered a mug to Ulrika, and the three of them enjoyed the warming drink. The whisky in the keg was also divided three ways—to the mother, the midwife, and the child’s father. And the father drank as much as the two women together, and he could not remember that brännvin had ever tasted so good as this morning.

While the birth had taken place inside the log house, a new day had dawned outside. It was a frosty November morning with a clear sun shining from a cloudless sky over the white, silver-strewn grass on the shore of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga.

The newly arrived Swedes in the St. Croix Valley had increased their number by one—the first one to be a citizen in their new country.

XVIII

MOTHER AND CHILD

The child is handed to the mother—it had left her and it has come back.

All is over, all is quiet, all is well.

Kristina lies with her newborn son at her breast. She lies calm and silent, she is delivered, she has changed worlds, she is in the newly delivered woman’s blissful world. It is the Glad One—the public whore of the home parish—her intimate friend, who has delivered her. But it is the child—in leaving her womb—who has delivered her from the agony; the child is her joy, and her joy is back with her, is here at her breast.

Mother and child are with each other.

The mother tries to help the child’s groping lips find a hold on her breast. The child feels with its mouth aimlessly, rubs its nose like a kitten; how wonderfully soft is its nose against the mother’s breast; as yet it seeks blindly. But when the nipple presses in between its lips, its mouth closes around it; the child sucks awkwardly and slowly. Gradually the movements of the tiny lips grow stronger—it answers her with its lips: it answers the mother’s tenderness and at the same time satisfies its own desires.

The mother lies joyful and content. The newborn has relieved her of all her old concerns, as he himself now has become all her concern. Now it is he who causes her anxiety: she hasn’t a single garment ready to swaddle his naked body, not even a piece of cloth, not the smallest rag. What can she use for swaddling clothes?

A child could not arrive in a poorer home than this, where nothing is ready for it, it could not be given to a poorer mother. Wretched creature! Arriving stark naked, to such impoverished parents, in a log house in the wilderness, in a foreign land! Wretched little creature. . . .

But a child could never come to a happier mother than Kristina, and therefore its security is the greatest in the world.

At her breast lies a little human seedling, entrusted to her in its helplessness and defenselessness. It depends on her if it shall grow up or wither down, if it shall live or die. And at this thought a tenderness grows inside her heart, so strong that tears come to her eyes. But they are not tears of sorrow, they are only the proof of a mother’s strong, sure feeling for her newborn child.

When God gave her this child in her poverty, He showed that He could trust her. And if the Creator trusted her, then she could wholeheartedly trust Him in return. From this conviction springs the sense of security and comfort which the child instills in the mother.

Poor little one—happy little one! Why does she worry? Why is she concerned about him? She
has
something fine to swaddle him in! Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She should have remembered at once: her white petticoat, the one she never uses, because it is a piece of finery. Her petticoat of thick, fine linen, woven by herself, her bridal petticoat! As yet she has used it only once—at her wedding. And for what can she use it here in the forest? Here she’ll never go to weddings, here she’ll never be so much dressed up as to need such a petticoat. She can cut it to pieces and sew diapers from it; it is large, voluminous, it will make many diapers. And she must use it because she has nothing else. But isn’t it the best thing she could ever find for protection of her child, that delicate little body, with its soft, tender skin? Her own bridal petticoat!

How happy the woman who can cut up her best petticoat for her child.

So much for the clothing. Food for the child the mother has herself. Milk for the child runs slowly as yet, only a few white drops trickling. And Kristina aids the newborn’s blindly seeking mouth, pushes her nipple into blindly seeking lips which do not yet quite know how to hold and close and suck, to receive the mother’s first gift.

All is well, all is over, all is quiet. Now mother and child rest in mutual security.

XIX

THE LETTER TO SWEDEN

North America at Taylors Falls Postofice in

Minnesota Teritory, November 15, Anno 1850

Dearly Beloved Parents,

May all be well with you is my Daily wish.

I will now let you know how Our Journey progressed, we were freighted on Steam wagon to Buffalo and by Steam ship further over large Lakes and Rivers, we had an honest interpreter. On the river boat Danjel Andreasson lost his youngest daughter in that terrible pest the Cholera. The girl could not live through it. But the rest of us are in good health and well fed. Nothing happened on the journey and in August we arrived at our place of settling.

We live here in a Great Broad valley, I have claimed and marked 160 American acres, that is about 130 Swedish acres and I will have
delasjon
with the payment until the Land is offered for Sale. It is all fertile Soil. We shall clear the Land and can harvest as much Hay as we want. We live at a fair Lake, full of fish and my whole farm is overgrown with Oak, Pine, Sugar Maples, Lindens, Walnuts, Elms and other kinds whose names I do not know.

I have timbered up a good house for us. Danjel and his Family settled near us in the valley, also Jonas Petter. Danjel no longer preaches Åke Svensson’s teaching, nor is he making noise about his religion, he is pious and quiet and is left in peace by Ministers and Sheriffs. Danjel calls his place New Kärragärde.

Our beloved children are in good health and live well, I will also inform you that we have a new little son who made his first entry into this world the seventh of this November, at very daybreak. He is already a
sitter
as are all who are born here. We shall in time carry him to Baptism but here are ministers of many Religions and we dare not take the Lord’s Supper for fear it is the wrong faith. Here is no Religious Law but all have their free will.

Scarcely any people live in this Valley, rich soil is empty on all sides of us for many miles which is a great shame and Sin. We have no trouble with the indians, the savages are curious about new people but harm no one. They have brown skin and live like cattle without houses or anything. They eat snakes and grasshoppers but the whites drive away the indians as they come.

There is a great difference between Sweden and America in food and clothing. Here people eat substantial fare and wheat bread to every meal. Newcomers get hard bowels from their food but the Americans are honest and helpful to their acquaintances and snub no one if ever so poor. Wooden shoes are not used, it is too simple for the Americans. They honor all work, menfolk milk cows and wash the floor. Both farmers and Ministers perform woman-work without shame. In a town called Stillwater we were given quarters with a priest who did his own chores.

I have nothing of importance to write about. Nothing unusual has happened to us since my last letter. Things go well for us and if health remains with us we shall surely improve our situation even though the country is unknown to us. I don’t complain of anything, Kristina was a little sad in the beginning but she has now forgotten it.

We hope soon to get a letter from you but letters are much delayed on the long way. Winter has begun in the Valley and the mail can not get through because of the ice on the river. I greet you dear parents, also from my wife and children, and Sister Lydia is heartily greeted by her Brother. My Brother Robert will write himself, he fools with writing easier than I. Kristina sends her greetings to her kind parents in Duvemåla. Nothing is lacking her here in our new settlement.

The year is soon over and we are one year nearer Eternity, I hope these lines will find you in good health.

Written down hastily by your devoted son

Karl Oskar Nilsson

Part Three

To Keep Alive

Through the Winter

XX

THE INDIAN IN THE TREETOP

—1—

Some distance west of the creek which emptied into Lake Ki-Chi-Saga a sandstone cliff rose high above the forest pines. The cliff had the copper-brown color of the Indians, and its shape strongly resembled the head of an Indian. Seen from below, a broad, smooth, stone brow could easily be recognized. Under the forehead lay two black eye holes, well protected by the formidable forehead boulders. Between the eyes a protruding cliff indicated a handsome Indian nose. The upper lip was formed by a ledge, and under it opened a broad indentation; this was the mouth, a dark gap. Below the mouth opening was a chin ledge. Even the neck of the Indian could be discerned below the chin and on top of the head grew maple saplings and elderberry bushes which the Indian in summer carried like a green wreath on his head.

This cliff in the forest was visible from afar and served as a landmark. The Swedish settlers at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga soon referred to it as the Indian-head.

In the caves and holes of the rock, animals found protection and hiding places, and those forest creatures which sought refuge in rain and storm within the Indian’s jaws could rest there in comfort. But on the deer path below could be seen great boulders, which from time to time had fallen from the cliff. And near some of these blocks were whitened, disintegrating bones, remnants of animal skeletons; perhaps, as a forest beast had run by below, the Indian had spit out a stone from his mouth and crushed it.

This Indian was of stone, and as dead as a stone, but the white bones indicated that he could be trusted as little as a living Indian.

When Robert passed the Indian-head he trod lightly and stole quickly by, lest a boulder be loosed by his step and come crashing down on him. No one knew when the Indian might hurl a stone at a passer-by, human or beast.

In the beginning, Robert was as much afraid of the Indians as he was curious about them. But as time went by his curiosity increased and his fear diminished. The Indians seemed so friendly that they might in time become a nuisance. They frightened people sometimes with their terrifying appearance, they liked to deck themselves in all kinds of animal parts, but as yet they had done no harm to the Swedish settlers.

Karl Oskar despised the Indians for their laziness and called them useless creatures. Kristina pitied them because they were so thin and lived in such wretched hovels; and both she and Karl Oskar were grateful not to have been created Indians.

No one knew what the copperskins thought of their white neighbors, for no one understood their language. Robert guessed they considered their pale brethren fools to waste their time in work. He had begun to wonder which one of the two peoples could be considered wiser, the whites or the browns, the Christians or the heathens. The Indians were lazy, they did not till the earth, and what work they did was done without effort. He had watched them fell trees: they did not cut down the tree with an ax, they made a fire around it and burned it off at the root. The Christian hewed and labored and sweated before he got his tree down. But the heathen sat and rested and smoked his pipe until the fire burned through and the tree fell by itself, without a single ax blow.

The Indians did not waste their strength in work; they spared their bodies for better use, they saved their strength for enjoyment. At their feasts they danced for three weeks at a stretch—it was just as well they had rested beforehand. But Karl Oskar and the other peasants in Småland had accustomed themselves to tiresome labor and drudgery every day, they would not have been able to dance for even one week, so worn out were they. The heathens wisely economized their body strength so that they were capable of more endurance than the Christians.

The Indians were vain, they decorated themselves with buffalo horns, they greased their hair with bear fat, they smeared red clay over their faces. At times they painted their whole bodies so red they resembled blood-stained butchers; in such things they were childish. But in other ways they were so clever one might take them for magicians; their bows were simple and useless looking—only a piece of skin stretched between the two ends of a broken-off branch—yet their arrows killed game in its tracks; Robert had once seen an Indian shoot a big buck with his bow and arrow. The brownskins’ flint arrows were short, but they sharpened them against a peculiar stone called Indian-stone until their points grew so sharp they would penetrate hide and flesh and shatter bone.

The Indians were childish in another way—they believed dead people could eat and drink; they carried food and drink to the graves of their relatives.

But in one way they were much wiser than the whites: they did not hoe the earth.

Robert had once seen the picture of an Indian girl in a book; she was so beautiful he would have liked to make her his wife, could he have found her. But the young women he had seen here among the Chippewas were almost all ugly: they had short legs, clumsy bodies, broad, square faces with thick noses. The older women had such rough skin that they were almost repulsive. Yet white menfolk were said to desire Indian women. Samuel Nöjd, the fur trapper, had related that in the old days there were French trappers so burning with lust they couldn’t pass a female in the forest. They had raped every Indian woman they encountered, however ugly or old she might be. And this caused them no more concern than shooting an animal.

However, Nöjd said, the trappers had grown less eager to attack Indian women after the Sioux had taken a gruesome revenge on one white man. They had tied him to a pole, and for a whole night they sharpened their knives in front of him, now and then calling out to him: “You may live until our knives are sharp!” At intervals they tested their knives by cutting off a piece of his skin. At daybreak the knives were sharp—and the trapper insane. Then the Indians stuck their well-honed knives into his breast, cutting loose his heart, as slowly as they could, and the man lived a long while with his heart dangling outside him like a big red blossom. This had taken place near the Indian cliff. Later the savages had buried the trapper in the cave called the mouth of the Indian-head. Every day at dawn the trapper’s agonized cries could still be heard, Samuel Nöjd concluded.

The Sioux, who from time to time roamed through these regions, were much more cruel than the Chippewas. But Robert did not avoid the Indians because of their cruelty or their heathenish ways; rather, he admired and esteemed them for their wisdom and their easy way of living. Had he himself been given brown skin instead of white, he would not have been forced either to cut timber in the forest or grub hoe the earth.

—2—

The night frost grew sharper; each morning the meadow resembled a field of glittering white lilies. An intense storm had in a single day shaken the leaves from the trees, carrying them into the air like clouds of driven snow; afterward the surface of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga shone golden yellow with all the floating leaves from the naked forest on its shores. After the storm came the cold, and land and water were soon frozen hard. On the lake the mirror-clear ice crust thickened each night, and in the ground the frost dug deeper, not to release its hold until spring.

No one could work frozen ground, and Robert put away his grub hoe for the winter. He must now help his brother cut fence rails; in the spring Karl Oskar would fence the part of his land he intended to cultivate, and thousands of rails were needed.

Robert and Arvid visited each other every Sunday; either Robert would walk over to the settlement at Lake Gennesaret, or Arvid would come to Ki-Chi-Saga. Usually they went down to the lake shore, where they made a fire; here the two friends from Sweden could sit undisturbed in intimate talk.

Robert had told Arvid when he first decided to leave his Swedish service and emigrate to North America. Now he again had a secret of a similar nature, and Arvid was the only one he confided in. One frosty Sunday, as they sat feeding their fire on the lake shore, he began: “Can you keep your mouth shut?”

“I never say anything. You can rely on me.”

“I carry a great secret—no one knows it; I’m going to run away from here as soon as I can.”

Arvid was astonished: “What’s that you say? You want to leave your brother?”

“Karl Oskar is not my master.”

“I thought you two brothers would stay together.”

“I shall travel far away and dig gold.”

“Dig up gold? The hell you will! And you haven’t told anyone?”

“Such a plan must be kept secret.”

Robert explained: It wasn’t that his brother treated him badly, Karl Oskar neither kicked nor hit him; but the work was no different from the drudgery he had endured while a hired hand in Sweden; it was equally depressing and heavy; the days dragged along with the same monotony. He could not stand it much longer, he had never wanted to be a day laborer, he knew a shorter way to riches, and here in America no one could stop him from traveling wherever he wished.

“Do you know where the gold lies?” Arvid asked.

“Yes. In California. Farthest away to the west.”

“Is California a—a broad land?”

“Broader than Minnesota.”

“Do you know the exact place? I mean, where the gold lies?”

“No. I’ll have to look and ask my way, I guess.”

“Is the gold spread all over? Or is it in one place?”

“It’s spread all over.”

Arvid thought about this for a while, then he said: Gold was supposed to glitter, it should be easy to see it, if one looked sharp. But if California was bigger than Minnesota, and if the gold was spread all over that broad country, then Robert might have a troublesome, long-drawn-out journey before he found it; he would have to walk over the whole country and look everywhere.

Robert realized that Arvid did not know anything about the gold land; he had only heard the name. He must explain to his friend about that country, since he wished to share his plans for the future with Arvid.

And so Robert began a simple explanation of California. He told Arvid all he had read and heard, besides much he had neither read nor heard but which he knew must be so, without exactly knowing how he knew it. And perhaps the things he knew in this way were the most important.

In California the valuable metal called gold was almost as common as wood in Minnesota. Gold was used for all kinds of tools, implements, and furniture, because it was cheaper than iron or wood. Rich people used gold chamber pots. The gold grew in that country on fields called gold fields. It grew quite near the surface. Only a light hoe was needed to reach it, not a heavy ten-pound grub hoe such as he labored with here. In some places no hoe at all was required—there were those who had dug up as much as fifty thousand dollars’ worth of gold with a tablespoon. The only tool needed was a wooden bowl in which to wash the gold to remove the dirt. And if you couldn’t afford a bowl, you might wash the gold in your hat; an old, worn-out hat was all one needed to gather a fortune. And when the gold had been washed clean of earth and other dirt, until it shone and glittered according to its nature, one had only to put it in a skin pouch and carry it to the bank, and then return to withdraw the interest each month. All gold pickers with good sense did this; the others squandered their gold in gambling dens, or ruined themselves with whores.

One needn’t pick up a great deal of gold in order to get rich. About a hundred pounds would be right, or as much as one could carry on one’s back; about two bushels would be right.

“How big might the gold clods be?” Arvid asked.

“They are of different weights.”

The gold grew in pieces of all sizes, from about half a pound to twenty-five pounds weight, Robert explained. There were chunks as large as a human head, while others were tiny as dove eggs. There was also a still smaller kind, about the size of hazelnuts, and these lumps were most prevalent and easiest to find. But they were such a nuisance to pick that he did not intend to bother with them; for himself he would choose the larger chunks, then he wouldn’t have to bend his back too often; by picking the twenty-five-pound pieces one could save one’s strength in the gold fields.

Nor would Robert gather such a great fortune that it would be a burden to him. He wanted a medium-sized fortune that would be easy to look after and not bring him eternal damnation; he did not intend to build himself a castle, or buy expensive riding horses, or marry some extravagant woman with a desire for diamonds and pearls. He only wished to gain enough of a fortune to live for the rest of his life without drudgery, or labor, or masters.

Robert wanted to weigh up for himself a hundred pounds of the California gold; then he would return completely satisfied. Perhaps he might even return to Sweden and buy himself a manor house. He had heard of two farm hands from Småland who had dug gold in California and then returned home and bought great estates. They had each brought home a sack of gold, which they had exchanged for Swedish coin. But Robert thought he would be satisfied with a smaller estate, about two hundred acres or so; the larger ones required too much attention and could easily become a burden to their owners. Robert would get himself an overseer; and he would pay his hands well—a thousand daler a year, and they would be let off work at six o’clock, Saturdays at five.

“You are good to them,” said Arvid.

“Having served as farm hand myself I know what they deserve,” said Robert modestly.