The Last Letter Home (10 page)

All thought that Fina-Kajsa’s son had himself jumped into the stream. He could possibly have fallen in while fishing, but he never fished in the St. Croix River, and he could have had no other errand to the rapids.

His body was never found. Undoubtedly it had floated a long way from the place where his hat was stuck between the stones. During the fall rains the strong current might carry a corpse with it to the still greater stream, the Mississippi, which then would take charge and carry it to the big sea.

Anders Månsson had been the first Swedish settler in the St. Croix Valley, but no grave opened for him under the silver maples in the settlers’ cemetery. He himself undertook the one emigration that remained for him.

One single decision had decided his life, the great decision to emigrate, the irrevocable, the irreversible. To him had been put a strong command which he was unable to follow, the first commandment in the emigrants catechism:
Thou shalt not regret Thy emigration!

IV

THE SETTLERS’ HOLY DAYS

—1—

That autumn Karl Oskar cleared and plowed the last of the meadow that had originally stretched from the forest down to the lake. Thus he had turned into a tilled field the entire slope which had at first attracted him and made him select this lakeside for his farm. He had now broken more than thirty acres and no more meadow ground for tilling was available on his claim. And Kristina thought they now had enough without further clearing.

But Karl Oskar liked to sit at the gable window and look out at the oak stand on the out-jutting tongue of land to the east of the house; those mighty, high-breasted oaks with their enormous crowns grew in topsoil at least three feet deep, a ground that was as fertile as his fields. The grove back there called for a tiller as it were; it would add fifteen acres to his field!

Up to now the tiller of these shores by the Indian lake had only needed to put the plow into the ground and turn the turf. It was easy enough to break new fields on even meadowland, it was something else to tackle a heavy oak forest. But those great trees—a mixture of white oak and red oak—kept challenging him: Try to make a field here if you can! Our roots are thick and strong and go deep into the ground—try to pull us from our hold! Here your strength won’t suffice! Come and try!

This oak grove had trees that were four to six feet in diameter. The felling alone would be an immense labor. And afterward the greatest hindrance would remain: the stumps. How could he get rid of them? He pondered this problem at great length. Oak stumps in America were as much of an obstacle to a tiller as stones in Sweden.

How could Karl Oskar conquer these mighty oaks, so securely rooted in the deep soil? Well, his sons were growing up, and becoming stronger; he must wait with this new ground breaking until they could help him. As soon as Johan and Harald could do a full-grown man’s work, they would tackle the oak grove; then the strength of the tiller would be measured against the oaks.

He was also planning for his new buildings. But with the Civil War came dear times. Prices on implements made of iron and steel rose quickly. Everything he needed to buy for his house building grew more expensive. He must wait awhile. He had hauled thick oak logs to the steam mill in Center City, where they had been sawed into planks and boards for the new house; he had a tall pile of timber already. And this year he planned to cut sills and foundation logs.

But the war delayed all activity, all building in this part of the country. There must be an end to destruction and ruination before new undertakings could be started; one could not build a new house while the old was still burning.

—2—

A mile and a half from their farm stood their church, a modest building of rough timbers, deep in the forest. But the church pointed a little wooden spire toward Heaven, indicating it was a God’s house, a Lord’s temple. The Swedish immigrants had sacrificed many days of labor on their church, they had gone in debt for it and had not yet been able fully to pay for it.

Karl Oskar and Kristina went to the timber church every Sunday unless blizzards or other bad weather prevented them. Once in a great while they would stay at home out of pure tiredness and celebrate their day of rest in the home. But the distance between the church and their home was not so great that they could not hear the ringing of the bell which had been hung last year. The bell had cost all of ninety dollars and was paid for by the “nuisance tax”—fines levied against parish members who in one way or another had misbehaved during the service. Petrus Olausson himself, the church warden, had suggested this tax, and he was greatly lauded for it when at last it bought the church a bell. To the poor parish, barely able to support a pastor, ninety dollars was a great sum. First and always, it was cash that the settlers lacked.

Kristina could again hear the ringing of a church bell. On days when a favorable wind carried the sound it seemed quite close to her. But to Kristina’s ears the new bell did not have the thunderous, sacred tones of a real church bell. As a child home in Ljuder, when she heard the bells she would shudder deep in her heart: The sound came from the heavens, like the thunder of the doomsday trumpet. The ringing from on high called to communion or service. But the settlers’ bell here in America had an entirely different tone. It almost sounded like a dinner bell on a farm, calling to an ordinary meal; it was better suited to a weekday than a Sunday. The bell did have a light, quite beautiful tone, but it jingled rather than rang. The sound was pleasing to Kristina’s ears but found no response in her soul.

To her the church bells of Ljuder signified weddings and funerals, peoples union in life and their departure from it, the move into a new home and the move to eternity. On Sundays the bells from the parish church hurled a mighty command to the inhabitants: It was the Sabbath, they must go to church to confess and shed the burden of sins accumulated through the working week, cleanse body and soul. At the first sound of the bell on Sunday morning her father used to say: Now I hear it is Sunday! I feel it is a holy day! Time to wash and change shirts! Those bells instilled piety in the minds of the listeners.

To Sunday belonged also organ music and the singing of psalms. For many years the Chisago people had held their services and sung their hymns without an organ, even though the service sounded empty without the musical instrument—God’s house was a poorhouse. Then last year they had gone into debt to put in an organ that cost a hundred and sixty dollars. Karl Oskar had voted against this purchase, for he felt they couldn’t yet afford it. And when the organ was installed he did not like the sound of it: It must not be a first-class instrument with a sound that was harsh and screeched in his ears and thundered like the roaring of an ox. It could also be that he didn’t understand organ music.

Kristlna had never missed the organ at the services; if the words of the psalms came from a heart in need of God they would reach him without the aid of an organ. She could feel reverence in her heart without the help of steeple, bell, organ, or other worldly instruments.

—3—

The Chisago Lake parish had engaged a new pastor who arrived in October. His name, Johannes Stenius, sounded like a good minister’s name and he was a real minister directly from Sweden. There was a dearth of educated preachers, and for several years the Swedes in the St. Croix Valley had borrowed pastors from other parishes. They were now well pleased to have their own shepherd, ordained in their homeland. Rumors had already reached them that Pastor Stenius was a capable preacher of God’s Word, stringently adhering to the pure Lutheran religion.

At the first wedding the new pastor was to perform in the settlers’ church, the bridegroom was related to Kristina—Danjel’s oldest son Sven, her blood cousin.

Sven Danjelsson was to marry Ragnhild Säter, a young Norwegian girl who had recently come to the St. Croix Valley. Women invariably married shortly after their arrival, usually within a month. In this woman-empty land they had only to choose among the many men who showed up as suitors. And the men had indeed flocked around Ragnhild, who was an unusually attractive girl, and who had refused many before she decided to exchange her Norwegian name for a Swedish one and become Mrs. Danjelsson. Sven had staked a claim and built himself a cabin at Acton in Meeker County, at its western border where land still was plentiful and easy to clear. After the wedding, Danjel’s son and daughter-in-law would live in their new home in Meeker.

Karl Oskar and Kristina were invited to the wedding feast, which was given by Danjel Andreasson, as the brides parents were living in her old home in Norway. A heavy rain fell as they started out for the church in the morning. Kristina took the opportunity to use her new umbrella which Karl Oskar recently had bought for her. It was a fine gift, made of dark blue silk. For the first time in her life she was using an umbrella. In Sweden only upper-class wives had this kind of protection against rain; it was an object for show-off and vanity, not suitable for simple farm folk. Therefore Kristina almost felt like a noble lady today as she mounted the spring wagon and put up her umbrella. But here in America all women used many decorations and ornaments which in Sweden were reserved for upper-class wives. Even settler wives wore rosettes and bows and lace and other glitter on their clothes, and flowers and feathers on top of their heads. Moreover, an umbrella was not only an ornament, it was a protection against rain as well.

And it did rain this day! It literally poured from early morning till late at night on Sven’s and Ragnhild’s wedding day. But rain was a good omen since it promised great riches for the bridal couple.

To the parishioners this wedding in their church was a denial of the common statement that Swedes and Norwegians could not get along in America.

After the ritual Pastor Stenius spoke to the young couple of the appalling increase of evil in the world at this time and warned them against religious seducers and wrong preachers who might seek to lead them astray from their mother church. He also warned against the greatest sins of the day: whoring, drinking, and dancing. The pleasure of dancing was invented by the old creeping Snake; in halls of music and dance the virtue of women met its defeat. Finally, the pastor condemned the excesses of female dress which in these latter days stimulated men’s carnal desires and increased the number of whoring men.

It was not a great company that afterward gathered for the wedding feast at Danjel Andreasson’s farm, and the groom’s father had invited only those countrymen who had come with him from the old parish. He had once paid for the journey of Ulrika of Västergöhl, now the wife of Baptist minister Henry O. Jackson. She had not come to the church—she would not enter Lutheran churches—but she joined the guests at the wedding reception.

Kristina was shy when she met people who spoke only English, which thus put her outside the company. She had been in America almost twelve years now but could hardly speak a word of the language, although she was a citizen of this country. She had gone through the years as if deaf and dumb, as far as the language was concerned. Often she had met Americans who seemed kind and helpful but because of the language barrier she had been unable to enjoy their company. She was beginning to regret that she hadn’t started to learn English from the very first day out here. But she still shuddered at the sound of this tongue, so unseemly and twisted. In trying to use one single word she felt she would sprain her tongue. She was told to bite off her words and put her tongue against her teeth. But this only made a hissing and gurgling sound.

Here at the wedding feast in Danjels house, however, Kristina need not feel apart from the company. But she confided to Ulrika: Each kind of animal had been given only one sound—the dogs in America had the same bark as dogs in Sweden—why had the Creator then given people different tongues so they couldn’t understand each other?

“Punishment for their sins! Because they built the Tower of Babel, you know!” informed Ulrika.

Mrs. Henry O. Jackson was not of the opinion that an immigrant could learn English in school and then speak it fluently. The language must come to one’s tongue of its own free will, of its own whim and fancy, on the spur of the moment.

“I myself, I speak English from inspiration!”

“Well, that’s why you spoke it from the beginning, I guess. So your husband-to-be could understand you?”

“Yes, of course. Henry and I understood each other that way from the very beginning.”

Ulrika considered the day when she was married to Pastor Jackson as the greatest happening of her life. Kristina knew she celebrated that day each year; each fourth of May she put on her old bridal gown and the pastor donned his cutaway.

The two women had withdrawn from the other guests and were sitting in a corner of the room. It was only seldom they had the opportunity to speak to each other in confidence.

Ulrika had mentioned her husband’s name, then she sighed and became silent. She seemed depressed. It was not the first time Kristina had been surprised at her behavior when her marriage to Jackson was spoken of. He was such a patient and good-hearted man, but there must be something here that wasn’t quite right as it should be. Had something happened between the couple lately? It sounded as if Ulrika was burdened by something unsaid—why did she always sigh like that at her husband’s name?

“Henry is very good to me, very good,” she said. “But a woman can be happy in one way and unhappy in another.”

“Unhappy in another? What do you mean?” Kristina’s eyes were wide open.

Ulrika looked about and continued in a low voice: “We’re at a wedding today, that’s why my thoughts go in that other way. I’ll tell you, but it must stay between us of course.”

She pulled out her handkerchief, blew her nose thoroughly, and leaned intimately toward Kristina. Henry and she didn’t fit together in bed any more. She had hoped for a long time that it could be worked out, so they would fit, but as they had shared the marital bed now for ten years, she knew there was no hope of improvement. Henry didn’t handle a woman the right way at the very moment when it counted. She didn’t want to blame him in the least for this, because he hadn’t been trained with women from his youth, and when he got a wife—at a ripe age—he was too old to train. And perhaps a man’s way in bed was something he was born with, something that came naturally, if bedplay were to be excellent.