Unto a Good Land (8 page)

“Guess, Mother! Father has bought something!”

“Guess what Father bought!”

In one hand Karl Oskar carried a paper bag, in the other their own large pitcher. He held up the bag to Kristina’s nose. “You want to smell something?”

“Look in the bag, Mother!” shouted Johan. “Father has bought sweet milk and wheat bread!”

“Sweet milk and wheat bread!” Lill-Märta repeated after him.

Kristina inhaled a pleasing odor which she had not smelled for a long time. She stuck her hand into the bag and got hold of something soft: fresh, white rolls, wheat rolls!

“Karl Oskar—it isn’t true.”

“Look in the pitcher!”

“Mother! It’s sweet milk!” shouted Johan.

Karl Oskar held up the pitcher, so full of milk that it splashed over.

“Be careful. Don’t lose any,” she warned.

“Now you must eat and drink, Kristina.”

“Karl Oskar, I don’t believe my eyes. How could you buy it?”

“The Finn helped me. Eat and drink now. We have already had some.”

Sweet milk! Fresh milk! When had she last tasted it? Not one drop had they been able to obtain on the ship. It was in their quarters in Karlshamn that she had tasted milk last time; long, long ago, in another world, in the Old World.

Kristina took hold of the pitcher with both hands, carefully; she mustn’t let it splash over. Tears came to her eyes; she had to see what milk looked like, she had forgotten. This milk was yellow-white, thick and rich; no spoon had skimmed off the cream; and it smelled as fresh as if it had just been milked into this pitcher.

Karl Oskar opened the knapsack and took out a tin mug which he filled with milk from the pitcher. “Drink—as much as you are able to. You need it to get well.”

Kristina held the mug. “But the children? Have they had enough?”

No mother could begin to eat and drink before her children had been given food and drink. But Karl Oskar told her that Johan and Lill-Märta had eaten themselves full and drunk until their thirst was quenched back there at the store where he had bought the food.

Kristina drank. She emptied the mug in a few swallows, and Karl Oskar filled it again; she drank until she felt satisfied; never before had she realized that milk could be so good. She herself had sat on the milking stool and pressed out hundreds of gallons of milk from cow udders, she had strained milk for her children morning, noon, and night, she had fattened calves on milk, she had brought up piglets on milk—during her whole life she had never longed for milk until she started on this voyage. Now she accepted the pitcher of milk as a gift from God; she felt she would cry.

She said the milk was cream-rich and good. Then she took a roll from the bag and looked it over; this roll was almost as big as a small loaf at home.

They still had a little left in their food basket. The ship’s fare had been rancid, bitter with salt, smelling of old chests and musty barrels; Kristina still had a taste in her mouth from the dried, hard rye loaves. Toward the end of the voyage there had been worms in the bread, and they had been forced to soak it in water and fry it in pork fat before they could eat it; much of the fare they had been given on the ship had been little better than pig food.

After those hard loaves, how delicious it was to bite into a soft, fresh wheat roll! The rolls looked a little puffy, but she soon saw that they were well filled under the crust. At the very first bite she felt that she was eating festival food.

“They bake mighty fine bread in America,” said Kristina.

“Here they eat wheat bread on weekdays as well as on Sundays,” said Karl Oskar.

“I’ve heard so. Can it be true?”

Kristina was a little skeptical. To her, wheat bread had always been a food for holidays and festival occasions. She used to buy a few pounds of wheat flour for a baking at Christmas, Easter, and Midsummer. Then she counted the loaves and locked them in the bread chest so the children couldn’t eat them unless allowed; such food had to be carefully portioned out, each one getting his share.

“It’s swarming with people here in New York,” she said. “Is there enough wheat bread for all of them?”

Karl Oskar said, that, according to what he saw with his own eyes, there must be plenty of food in this country; in several stores he had seen quantities of wheat loaves, piled high like stacks of firewood at home, and he had seen whole tubs full of sweet milk. He was sure that both she and the children could eat and drink all they needed to regain their strength.

The bundle at Kristina’s side began to move and a sound came from it; Harald had awakened and cried out. The mother picked him up and his cry died as soon as he felt the sweet milk in his mouth. The little one swallowed the unfamiliar drink in silence, he simply kept silent and swallowed: surprise overwhelmed him.

It hurt Kristina’s heart to see how fallen off her children were, how pale their faces, how sunken their cheeks, how blue their lips, how tired and watery their eyes. When she took them in her arms their bodies were light, their arms and legs thin, the flesh on their limbs loose; it was as if muscles and bones had parted from each other. They had dwindled this way from having been kept so long in the dark unhealthy hold below decks. How often had she worried about them when she lay sick, unable to care for them, while all three of them crawled over her in her bed. How often had she reproached herself because of her inability to give them a single bite of fresh food, or a mouthful of sweet milk. How she had longed for the moment when she could walk on shore with Johan, Lill-Märta, and Harald. These poor, pale, skinny children certainly were in need of America’s good sweet milk and fresh wheat rolls.

Johan had been told to guard his father’s coat lying there in the grass, and he said impatiently: “Father, you forget the apple! The apple for Mother!”

From the pocket of his father’s coat he took a shining red apple, almost as big as his own head. The boy handed it proudly to his mother.

“Have you ever seen such a big apple?” said Karl Oskar. “I got it for nothing!”

Near the pier, he told her, they had met a woman carrying a large basket filled with beautiful apples. Johan and Lill-Märta had stopped and looked longingly at the fruit. The woman had spoken to them, but they had not understood a word. Then she gave the children each an apple, which they immediately gulped down. He, too, had received an apple—which he had saved for her.

“Karl Oskar—you’re good. . . .”

She weighed the large apple in her hand; it must weigh almost a pound, she thought; it was the largest one she had ever seen. The children’s eyes were glued to the fruit in their mother’s hand, and Kristina asked Karl Oskar to cut it in four equal pieces, so that all would get even portions. He pulled out his pocketknife and divided the apple carefully; each quarter was as big as a whole apple at home.

And the immigrant family ate and enjoyed their first American fruit, which was full of juice and cooled their mouths.

“Is it a new apple?” exclaimed Kristina when she tasted it.

“Yes, doesn’t it taste like one?”

“I thought it was fruit from last summer.”

“Here in America the apples ripen before Midsummer,” said Karl Oskar.

Yes, the sour-fresh taste in her mouth convinced Kristina. It must be true what Karl Oskar said—she was eating a fruit of the new crop; yet it was only Midsummer.

Midsummer—the holidays had passed, a Midsummer no one had celebrated. Enclosed on the ship, they could not celebrate, they could only talk of the Midsummer holidays in the land they had left.

Just a little more than a stone’s throw from where she sat Kristina could see the pier where the
Charlotta
was still tied up, discharging the rest of her cargo. She recognized the Swedish brig by its familiar flag. After unloading, it would sail back again. The ship would once more have to find her way across the restless, endless water. It had been a bleak and misty spring day when she left the Swedish harbor; perhaps it would be a bleak and misty autumn day before she returned to the same harbor. Then their ship would be at home.
At home
—the thought cut Kristina to the quick, and she chewed more slowly on her piece of apple.

Midsummer at home—Father putting young birches on either side of the door, Mother serving coffee at their finest table, which had been moved out into the yard and placed under the old family maple; Maria and Emma, her sisters, picking lilacs and decorating themselves for the village dance. The house would smell of newly scrubbed floors, smell clean, inside and out, smell of lilac blossoms and flowering birches. And when they gathered around the table under the family maple—the guardian tree of their home—they would all be dressed in their Sunday best, and there would be much fun and much laughter. At home it was always so for Midsummer.

Did they speak this year of one who had been among them before? Did they mention her name—Kristina, who had moved away with Karl Oskar to North America? Did they ask how it was with her this moment, this afternoon, this Midsummer Eve?

She
knew how it was at home, but those at home did not know how it was here.

She had traveled a long road, almost endlessly long; she knew the sea that separated her from her homeland, that incomprehensibly wide water which separated
home
and
here.
She would never again travel that road, never again traverse the sea. So she would never again be with them at home.

Now for the first time she began to think deeply into this:
Never again be with them at home.

The thought suddenly disturbed her profoundly, not less because she could still see the ship, over there in the harbor, the ship that was to turn about, to sail home again. This ship on which she had suffered so horribly, what did it mean to her now? Did she want to go back with it again? Did she want to stay another ten weeks in a pen in the dark hold? No! No! Why was it then that her tears were breaking through? Why? She did not understand it.

Karl Oskar sat down and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with his sleeve; even in the shade the heat was melting.

“We are to board a ship and ride on the river this evening,” he told her.

She was thinking of the road behind them—he was thinking of the way ahead.

“We are late getting started,” he said.

He was afraid they might have arrived too late in the season. No one could have imagined they would sail the sea until Midsummer. He had expected them to reach their place of settling by now and have time to hoe some land, sow some barley, plant some potatoes. What would happen to them next winter if they didn’t get something into the earth before it was too late this year to grow and ripen?

Karl Oskar agreed with what Kristina had said, and it worried him: this town of New York swarmed with people; perhaps the whole country was already filled up. No one in their group had ever seen so many human beings in one place. Great numbers must have come before them, this they could see with their own eyes, and every day new ships arrived, with great new flocks of people. Perhaps they had been deceived, perhaps it was too late, the best land already taken; perhaps America was entirely filled up with new settlers.

But he must not disturb Kristina with these thoughts on their very first day in the new land. He must, rather, try to cheer her up, she was so weak and depressed after her illness. He had just given her a foretaste of the delicacies offered them on entering an American store, and he must assure her that all he had seen and heard so far was promising.

“I think America is a good land. We need have no regrets; that I must write home.”

Kristina swallowed hard and turned her head. Karl Oskar must not see her tears today, their day of landing. And why did she cry, after all? She was on solid ground, she had all her loved ones around her. They were drinking sweet milk and eating fresh white bread—what more did she want?

Karl Oskar continued: For the past three evenings he had been writing a letter to Sweden, and now while they were waiting here in the park he must finish it. He could write on the lid of the America chest, it made a good table, then he could send the letter back with the ship. It would be September before it reached home, it would take from spring until fall before the nearest ones at home would hear anything about their voyage.

Kristina had not spoken for a long while; she had not said a single word since he had told her that American apples ripened before Midsummer. Could that have surprised her so much? He turned and looked at her. Something must have made her sad. But he would not ask her—whatever it was, a question now would only increase her sadness.

He handed her the bag with the bread: “Eat some more, Kristina.”

“It tasted awfully good. If you think there’ll be enough for . . .”

She ate one more white roll. And her first day on American soil was ever after to be a memory of sweet milk and fresh bread—milk and wheat rolls.

IV

A LETTER TO SWEDEN

North America, 26 Day of June, 1850

Dearly Beloved Parents and Sister,

That you may Always be well are my Deep Wishes to you.

I will now let you know about the journey from our Fatherland. We completed it in 10 Weeks and arrived in the town of New York. The Swedish Ship reached the American strand safely on Midsummer Eve.

There was great Joy among us as we beheld the New Land, the Americans are noble folk, letting all foreigners through their Gates, none asked us One word about our Situation, no one is denied Entrance. We were not asked if we were Poor or Rich.

All in our family are with Life and Health. The Sea heaved considerably but we endured the Journey well. I must tell you that Danjel of Kärragärde was stricken by the great Inconvenience that out at Sea He lost his wife Inga-Lena. Her time was up. But it would be too cumbersom to describe our Journey.

New York is a large town and the Houses are large and high. It swarms with People of all kinds of the known World, Black, Brown, and Colored in Skin. But they are People. We are met with kindliness by all.

The Americans are Thin and Pale, they say it comes from the Heat. The air is warmer here than at home.

All strange Phenomena can be seen here—they can not be described in a Letter. They say the Time in North America differs six Hours with the Time in Sweden in such a Way that all Clocks and Watches have been turned back Six Hours. Swedish Paper Money is not allowed to be changed here, except with the Captain on the Ship, but Gold and Silver have their value here the same as at home. Our Swedish money is less in value than American money.

Carry no Sorrow for me, kind Parents. Here we are well taken care of. I left satisfied my Fatherland. If Health and Strength remain with me I shall fairly well take care of Myself and Mine here in North America. When I get something to work on with my Own Hands I shall look well after it, I think it will not be hard to get along here.

On our Arrival we met a Nobel Woman who gave us Apples from her basket. Apples in America are uncommonly large. Many Fruits are offered here but not Planted in Sweden. The Americans eat wheat Bread at nearly every meal and use Good food.

Our dear Children are healthy and well, they talk much of you. Go with Our Greeting to Kristina’s Beloved Parents and Family in Duvemåla, say to them their Daughter has arrived in America with health and Satisfaction.

Our Ships Captain has bespoken a Boat which will freight us deeper into the land. On the enclosed piece of Paper I have written down a Place where we intend to Stop and settle. Will you, Sister Lydia write to your Brother, we wish next time to hear of the changes at Home.

Be kind and let us know the date when this letter arrives in Sweden so that I may figure out how long Time it takes from North America. Do not Pay the Freight for the Letter, then it is more sure to Reach us.

I send my Greetings to all friends and relatives in Our Parish, we are alive and well bodily and Our Souls, Nothing in this world is Wanting Us.

Written down in great haste by your Devoted Son

Karl Oskar Nilsson