The Settlers (16 page)

“. . . and I have in all my days—from my childhood, even until this moment—many and bitter sins committed . . .”

The communion guests knelt on the floor, their hands folded over their breasts, their heads bowed. Married couples knelt side by side, and children next to their parents. It was crowded for the twelve around the table, but no one pushed for space; they pressed their arms close to their bodies, kneeling in a circle around the table. It was intensely warm outside, and with the crowding it began to grow hot inside. Drops of perspiration appeared on foreheads and cheeks. A breath of wind from the door felt blissfully cool. From the outside no more sounds were heard from two-legged or four-legged livestock. But in the midst of the confession, suddenly lusty child laughter reached them from the yard.

“. . . thine holy words I have often neglected and avoided . . .”

Some were behind in their reading, and the young minister repeated the words slowly, so that the stragglers would catch up.

One of the participants needed no one to read the words for him—Danjel Andreasson. He knew the confession word for word, and he knelt there on the floor as if reading to himself, as if he were alone in the cabin. Thousands of times he had repeated these confessional words, both aloud for others and silently for himself, and each syllable was familiar to his tongue.

At a sound from the door, Danjel turned his head. But it was only the wind stirring. Did he expect some other caller? At his last communion, in the old country, he himself had distributed the holy sacrament, and it had taken place in the night, in his own home, because he had been denied the sacrament by the clergy. And while he had been thus occupied, a noise had been heard at the door. He had gone to open it, and in had come the dean and the sheriff, who forcefully had scattered the guests at the Lord’s table. All had been fined or imprisoned, he himself exiled. When he confessed his sins in Sweden he violated law and authority.

Danjel Andreasson was exiled from his homeland, but not from the Kingdom of God.

And now he was here in the new land which the Lord had promised him. He need not now fear any disturbers of the peace. Here no worldly authority would interfere with their gathering. What he heard from the door was only the cool summer wind which blew over the grass and the trees. It was not the noise of a sheriff, not the hard, commanding voice of authority, silencing the voice of conscience in the name of the law, writing ordinances for people’s souls. It was the Lord’s own voice Danjel Andreasson heard in the sounds from outside—it was God’s free wind, blowing hither and yon over the earth of his new homeland.

Kristina was kneeling to the left of her uncle Danjel and to the right of her husband. Karl Oskar got mixed up in his confession, he read haltingly and fell behind. And Kristina herself found that in a few places she had forgotten the words. She caught herself making mistakes.

“. . . I have had lust to evil: I have been vain; I have sought the wicked and sinfull world . . . I have been greedy, covetous, short in compassion, gluttonous . . .”

With tense breath and trembling lips she enumerated all the sins and transgressions she had committed. While repeating the words after the minister, she was overwhelmed by the multitude of her wrongdoings. Contrition overtook her, repentance burned in her breast. But only through repentance could she become worthy of participation in this sacrament. And while she repeated the confession, and her lips moved, she prayed a wordless prayer within her: “O Lord, give me repentance . . . ! Help me repent enough . . . !”

Karl Oskar’s bowed head was close to hers. His face was quite unlike itself today; it was hard and solemn, severe and closed. Had he repented enough, did he repent deeply enough now, was he worthy? She would have liked to whisper to him: You must not confess your sins with your lips only! You must not enumerate them the way you reel off the chores you’ve performed, at the end of each day! You must confess from your heart! You must feel
forced
to do it! Unable to refuse! You must feel your sin burden as so heavy that you’re unable to struggle another step without forgiveness! You must be consumed with hunger for the bread, thirst for the wine, yearning for forgiveness!

“Whosoever eateth of this bread and drinketh from this cup, he receiveth the Lord’s body and blood . . .”

You must repent, Karl Oskar, repent, repent, repent! You who receiveth . . . but I myself . . . ? Do I repent sufficiently . . . ?

“My grievous and many sins press me hard and are like unto a burden too heavy . . .”

Kristina’s limbs began to tremble. Her knees began to shake as she held them bent against the floorboards. For a moment she was on the verge of falling forward. Perhaps her hearts repentance was not complete. Perhaps it was not sufficient to kneel at the Lord’s altar. Perhaps she should bend still lower, feel greater humiliation, throw her face against the ground, lay herself at the Lord’s feet, become dust and ashes under the Creator’s tread . . .

The confession was over. The floorboards began to sway under her.

“Show thy Grace to me, wretched sinner that I am, and receive thy dear son Jesus Christ’s innocent suffering and death as a full payment for all my sins!”

The minister asked, “Do you ask with a repentant heart the forgiveness of your sins?”

Kristina’s reply was a faint whisper only, barely audible to herself, but it was a whisper that shook her whole being: “Yes . . . yes . . . you know it, Lord . . . I’ve prayed to you for this moment. For long, long, I’ve wished it. I’ve waited and wished and prayed. You know how I’ve wished forgiveness through the sacrament. And you have heard my prayer . . . you came to me here in my home—during the night . . . Now I am ready—I am prepared to approach thy table, to be thy guest . . . I come . . .”

She leaned her forehead against the edge of the table so as not to fall. Her surroundings began to blur, she felt so dizzy. She could hear the minister’s voice, but not what he said. She heard psalm-singing, but not the words of the psalm. Human bodies were close to her, but she recognized them no longer. For now she was alone. She was alone in the world with her Savior, who on the cross had paid her sin debt with the blood which flowed from his spike wounds:

Behold, behold, all ye present . . .

How sorely Jesus suffers . . .

The words of the psalm completed the contrition. They cut through her breast, opened it wide, and exposed her repentant heart. Trembling and dizziness were upon her. Now she must submit, become dust; she had a sensation of fainting . . . fainting away . . .

So as Jesu’ suffering was,

No one’s suffering ever was . . .

Then came the sobs which shook her, the first tears, trickling. People around her cried, loudly, steadily; to the right and to the left of her they sobbed and wept. But she did not hear them, she was absorbed in her own tears, surrendered to her own weeping, blissfully unresistible. So overpowering a weeping had not come on her since she was a little child.

And so it took place, while dissolved in tears, kneeling there as if separated from all other people, liberated from all earthly things, as if she were the only human being in the whole creation—thus Kristina, for the first time since her emigration, partook of the Lord’s Holy Supper.

Afterward she felt dazed and exhausted. Her limbs still trembled but it felt good in both body and soul to tremble this way. And on her face, her tears now dried by themselves—now the Savior dried them all from her cheeks. Her breast was still full and tense, her breathing still hot—but it was now only with joy that her heart overflowed.

Kristina had been a guest in her own house. And afterward she felt lighter of heart, more satisfied, than she had ever been since arriving in North America.

NOTE

1
. “The situation had become so serious that the United States and several European countries sent protests to Sweden concerning the persecutions . . .” George M. Stephenson:
The Religious Aspect of Swedish Immigration,
p. 143.

V

MAN AND WOMAN IN THE TERRITORY

—1—

About midsummer the little Swedish colony at Ki-Chi-Saga was increased by two new families; Lars Sjölin and his wife Ellida, a childless couple from Hassela, Helsingland, took land at the lakeside below Petrus Olausson’s claim, across from Nordberg’s Island. They were both in their forties. From Kettilstad in Östergötland came Algot Svensson and his wife Manda, who settled on a piece of land to the west of Duvemåla. They were about the same age as Karl Oskar and Kristina and had five small children. It was further known that several families had come from Småland and were squatting along the southern shores of the lake, and that still more Smålanders were on their way.

Immigrants from three Swedish provinces had found new homes around the big Indian lake. Karl Oskar and Kristina had Helsingland neighbors to the southeast and Östergötland neighbors to the west. Now they speculated where people would come from to claim the still unoccupied piece of land to the north of them.

They became acquainted with their new neighbors from Östergötland at once. Algot Svensson was a kind, small man, rather taciturn, the kind of settler who made little noise. His wife, Manda, on the contrary, was sociable, jolly, ever ready to talk. She related that she came from an old, well-to-do farmer family and that her parents had rejected her for marrying the hired hand on the farm. Manda Svensson had brought with her from Sweden two loom reeds, one of which she now presented to Kristina, who did not own one. The winter before, Karl Oskar had made with great difficulty a primitive loom, but he had been unable to make the reed, and there was no reedmaker among the settlers. Kristina almost jumped with joy at the gift from her neighbor. Through Ulrika’s efforts she had last year obtained a spinning wheel from Stillwater; it had been made for her by the Norwegian, Thomassen, who was both shoemaker and spinning-wheel maker. She had already spun last year’s flax, and with the blessed reed she could weave new clothing for them next winter; no one in the family had any longer an unpatched garment to put on.

Hard winter work awaited Kristina, while Karl Oskar labored most intensely during the warmer seasons. He was working on his threshing barn, which he hoped to have ready when the crops were ripe so that he could flail them under shelter. In years before, the ice had been his threshing floor, and the crops had lain unthreshed until the lake was ready to put down its floor; meanwhile, the pestiferous rats, mice, and other rodents had taken a sizable toll from his rye and barley. By putting up a threshing barn he would save many loaves for his family.

Now he split shakes for the barn roof, cut and worked the timbers for his new main house, dug on the foundation for his cellar, put up fences, mowed and dried grass and put the hay in stacks. All these chores must be done before the crops were ripe, when harvesting would take all his time.

When he was preparing the ground for the winter wheat field his southeast neighbor came and filled his ears with praise of the Indian corn. A word of advice from Petrus Olausson seemed like a command: let the field lie over winter and plant corn next spring!

Olausson had already planted this wonderful grain on his claim, he had begun banking the plants when they were an inch tall, and now they grew an inch a day in this heat. Corn would give up seventy bushels an acre. But he must choose the right kind of seed, the big kind, which gave ten ears to each plant, and three or four hundred kernels to each ear! Several thousand grains from one seed, many thousandfold! Because of sinful man, God had cursed the ground, but over one of the grains he had let flow his blessing—over the Indian corn! And corn was the healthiest and tastiest of foods for people and animals; bread was baked of corn, porridge and soup was cooked from it, pancakes made, a potent drink brewed, sugar distilled; livestock and hogs were fattened on it. Corn bread was the healthiest ever, it had in it some purgative power which gave the body its blessed opening; bread from Indian corn was the best remedy against hard bowels.

It was called lazy-man’s grain because the Indians cultivated it in their small patches, letting their poor women tend it alone. Karl Oskar wondered why God had so richly blessed the heathens’ corn above the grains of Christian people.

Petrus Olausson said that the name lazy-man’s grain did not suit the corn since it did not grow by itself, like hair on a head or nails on toes and fingers; it needed constant attention—weeding, hoeing, banking. But a well-cared-for field of corn at the peak of its growth was the most beautiful sight God had created on this earth.

Until Olausson raised corn none of the Swedes in the valley had tried this grain. They stuck to their old crops and were suspicious of new kinds. For what good could be expected from the Indians’ wretched farming? It was like dealing with the Evil One directly.

But after Karl Oskar had seen his neighbor’s cornfield he decided to plant some himself next year. He was never afraid of new ventures. And why shouldn’t a Christian Swede follow the heathens’ example, if it was good and useful? Why shouldn’t he grow the wild ones’ grain?

If the hot Minnesota summers made the corn grow an inch a day, the humid heat sucked one’s strength. In the evenings Karl Oskar fell asleep, completely worn out. A settler was said to get used to the heat after a few years, but to him it was the same ordeal summer after summer. The heat squeezed and sucked the sweat from his body until he felt completely dried out. The nights were the worst; the heat interfered with breathing and prevented sleep; hot, humid air penetrated his nose and mouth and made breathing heavy and cumbersome. It was as if wet wool wads had been put into his mouth. His lungs worked slowly and laboriously and his heart felt like a heavy invisible lump in his breast.

The cabin became unbearably sultry during the nights, so when Karl Oskar was unable to sleep, he walked outside and lay down on the ground behind the house. Here he had no bedding other than the cool grass, no cover except the dark night sky with the tiny star lights. Stretched out on this grass mattress he would at last go to sleep although only to dream tortuous dreams of choking.