Unto a Good Land (21 page)

And as she now sat with her children about her, Kristina thought: “I do not wish to die and leave them!”

She had seen other creatures die: she had seen the animals at the slaughter bench. She had always had a feeling of compassion for them and had tried to avoid being present at the slaughter. But sometimes, when the men had no other help, she had been forced to hold the bucket for the blood. She had seen the dying animals suffer, she had heard their moaning and bellowing as they lay there, chained down, feet tied, and had seen their helpless kicking and struggling as long as they could move. She had often cried over people’s cruelty to innocent creatures who had never done them harm, and she was often aware of her own share in this as she stood at the slaughter trough and received the butchered animal’s blood in her bucket.

As she now heard the victims of cholera she was reminded of the times when she had helped with the slaughter. Now it was human creatures who suffered, and when their agony was over, they were hastily buried in unconsecrated ground in the same way as carcasses of diseased cattle were flung into shallow graves in the wastelands.

God must help her; He was the only one she could turn to. She herself would do all she was able to, and then God must help her.

The youngest one of their group, Danjel’s daughter Eva, who had not yet learned to walk, was suddenly seized by the pestilence one morning.

The child’s face turned blue, her small limbs were contorted with convulsions, her body twisted itself into a round bundle. It seemed as if the arms and legs of the little one had been pulled out of their joints. She cried pitifully, and at times lay still and moaned; she could not describe her pains, but if anyone touched her she screamed. Ulrika gave her all the medicines and pills at hand, but she refused to swallow anything, either dry or fluid. She lay in the vise of cramp, and no one could help her.

After a few hours the child’s moaning died down. She was still, now, as if in deep slumber. Her breathing could still be heard, her heart still beat in her little body, but her breast fluttered up and down so quickly the eye could not follow its movements. Her last sounds were like a little bird’s peep in a bush. In the late afternoon she grew entirely silent.

Eva Maria Emilia, not yet a year old, died in Ulrika’s arms. And Ulrika would not give up the little one after her breathing had stopped. She sat with the dead child in her arms, her weeping shook her whole body. Danjel sat next to her, immobile, his hands folded. He did not weep, he prayed. God had again touched him and he uttered his prayers of thanks for this: he had been too deeply devoted to this his youngest child, and because of this God had taken her away from him. He could not belong to the Lord soul and body while he loved a living creature here on earth. He had idolized little Eva, now the idol was removed, and he thanked his God that He had taken her.

Danjel was beyond human compassion, nor did he seek mortal comfort. It was Ulrika of Västergöhl who was in need of comfort at this moment, she who had been a good foster mother to Danjel’s tender daughter, this daughter who had left the earth before she had learned to walk on it. And Ulrika remained sitting with the dead child in her arms until one of the crewmen came and took the little body away from her, and wrapped it in a piece of gray cloth.

At sunset the bell rang on deck, the prow turned shoreward, the steamer moored at an outjutting cliff. Two men with shovels in their hands went on land, one man carrying a small bundle. A flock of half-grown wild ducklings were disturbed and lifted from among the reeds; they flew noisily in circles over the cliff; they were mallard ducks, with beautiful feathers in changing colors. While dusk fell the men dug a hole behind the cliff. Soon they returned on board with their shovels; only a small grave had been needed this time.

Little Eva’s funeral was over. And while the steamer put out again and darkness quickly fell over land and water, the flock of ducklings, still disturbed, kept crying plaintively as they flew about over the promontory behind which was the newly dug baby grave.

—4—

Their group had now lost one of its members. When, after this, they spoke to each other about the terrible pestilence, there was always in the mind of each: Who will be next?

Ulrika, up till now free from all pains and ailments, began to complain of diarrhea and aches in her legs; she hoped it was only the usual immigrant diarrhea that bothered her; and so it seemed. Karl Oskar suggested that she use the bleeding iron and get rid of some of her blood. Kristina had lost so much blood during her sickness on the
Charlotta
that she did not consider it necessary to be bled, nor did she think they should bleed their children; the little ones were so pale, they probably had no more blood in their bodies than they needed.

Kristina interpreted the smallest discomfort in herself or her children as a sign of the pestilence. All except Danjel kept away from the unhealthy ship’s fare and starved themselves. The grownups went about starving in silence, but the children begged for food. Children could not starve day after day; yet they mustn’t eat the food either. Kristina said they must get fresh food, at least milk, for their offspring; they still had the means with which to buy it.

The silver in Karl Oskar’s skin pouch had melted away during their journey inland, and he had less than a hundred dollars left. Their transportation from Chicago to Minnesota had cost more than he had figured, and they had spent more for food than they had expected. How much would be left on arrival?

One night little Johan was seized with intense vomiting. It continued until green bile came up. Except for pain in his stomach he did not suffer, but Kristina watched in anxiety for the usual sign: the thin limbs twisting in convulsion.

Next morning the steamer made shore at a settlement where firewood for the engine was to be loaded. This stretch of the river flowed through a forest region, and groves of evergreens and leaf-trees grew on either side. A group of bearded, long-haired men met the boat at the pier; they were woodcutters, waiting to load the steamer. These men of the forest had revolvers and knives in their belts and did not look very kind.

A narrow strip of land had been cleared along the river, and behind tall stacks of firewood and piles of lumber a row of houses could be seen. People lived here, so it should be possible to buy food. Kristina entreated Karl Oskar: “Go on shore! Try to get some milk for the little ones.”

Karl Oskar picked up their large tin pitcher and went on shore. Robert had seen a map and he said that this was a town, but to Karl Oskar it seemed no more than an out-of-the-way farm village. Not much building had taken place; there were a few houses on the cleared strip, recently built of green lumber, and a little farther away, near the edge of the forest, he could see some primitive huts, not larger than woodsheds; probably the woodcutters lived there. All the houses seemed to have been hammered together in a hurry. A road had been staked out through the village, and work on it begun, but it looked more like a timber road; it was uneven and full of ruts, winding its course between piles of logs and stumps many feet high. Karl Oskar had noticed these tall stumps in many places: apparently the timbermen in America did not bend their backs but felled the trees while standing upright. This left ugly stumps and wasted lumber.

He looked at the row of houses, trying to find a store where food could be bought. He had made up his mind not to return to his children with an empty pitcher.

The biggest house had a sign painted in yard-high letters on the wall toward the river: BANK. Karl Oskar spelled the word twice to be sure, b, a, n, k. A word from his own language was painted on a house far away in the American wilderness! How could this be? Was it done to help arriving Swedes, unable to understand English? Or was the owner a Swede? Robert was not there to inform him that bank was spelled the same in both languages. Karl Oskar decided to go in and ask the bank master where he could buy some milk and wheat bread.

The door below the sign was locked. Karl Oskar knocked, but no one answered. Not a single person was in sight, neither inside the house nor near it. He walked farther, and through a window noticed some men standing at a counter of packing boxes. Behind the counter were shelves, and he thought perhaps this was a store.

Upon entering he immediately realized his mistake: on the counter stood a keg with a tap in it; a man in a white apron behind the counter was pouring a dark-brown drink from the keg. Karl Oskar recognized it as the American brännvin. The men at the counter were drinking, the shelves were filled with bottles, but there was no sign of food. He had entered a saloon.

He did not want to buy brännvin, he wanted milk. He turned in the door, mumbling something about being in the wrong place. It vexed him that he couldn’t ask where to buy fresh food and milk for his children. It was pitiful the way he had to act—like a suckling, not yet able to speak, unable to ask for food when he was hungry.

But the few words Karl Oskar mumbled as he left the store had an unexpected result. One of the men at the counter followed him through the door and called after him: “Hallo! Are you Swedish?”

Karl Oskar turned quickly. At first he only stared, the Swedish words surprised him so much.

Many Swedes had moved to North America before him, but it was the first time in this country a stranger had spoken to him in his own language.

“You are Swedish, aren’t you?” the man repeated.

The stranger was about his own age and size, somewhat thin, with large hands and feet. He was dressed in a red-striped woolen shirt and well-worn skin trousers, held up by a broad, richly ornamented belt. A wide-brimmed straw hat hung on the back of his head; his cheeks were puffed out as if swollen with a toothache or mumps, but his tobacco-spotted chin and lips divulged the secret of the swollen cheeks: they were filled with tobacco quids. Karl Oskar had seen many Americans dressed similarly and equally tall, gangly, and swollen cheeked; the stranger did not look like a Swede.

“I’m a countryman of yours!” the man said.

“Did you come from Sweden?” Karl Oskar was still dubious.

“Yes! Can’t you hear me speaking Swedish?”

The stranger wasn’t speaking exactly the way Karl Oskar did, but perhaps he had forgotten some of his Swedish. And Karl Oskar was well pleased to have met someone he could converse with.

He pointed to the sign on the building near by: “Are you the Swede who owns the bank?”

The man laughed: “No, I’m sorry. Mr. Stone owns the bank. My name is Larsson. I came from Sweden five years ago.”

Karl Oskar listened carefully—yes, the man must be Swedish.

The stranger smiled, he had dancing brown eyes, lying deep under his forehead, and his grin exposed a row of long, grayish-yellow, pointed teeth, spaced far apart.

“What can I help you with, countryman?” he asked. “I guess you came with the steamboat?”

Karl Oskar told him there was a group of Swedish immigrants on board. He was careful not to mention the cholera, he only stated his errand on shore: “I want to buy some food for our children. They can’t stand the ship’s fare.”

“Oh, yes, I understand. I’ll show you a store.”

“Have they milk and bread?”

“As much as you and your children can eat. Come along, I’ll show you. If you have no money, I’ll pay for it.”

“I can pay for myself,” said Karl Oskar. He wanted to make it clear to the stranger that he could pay for anything he got. He was no beggar, he told Larsson; he had been a farmer at home, all his life he had been able to meet his obligations and he intended to do the same in America.

“But it’s hard here for a new settler,” Larsson said kindly. “We immigrants must stick together, we must help each other.”

Karl Oskar was in need of aid; he needed someone to show him the way to a store; and for once luck seemed to be with him.

“I have a wagon over here. Come along!” said Larsson.

They turned a corner and found Larsson’s horse, harnessed to a kind of gig, a two-wheeler with a double seat and the driver’s seat behind. The vehicle reminded Karl Oskar of similar contraptions in Småland, called “coffee roasters.” Larsson untied the horse and asked Karl Oskar to climb in while he himself mounted the driver’s seat.

“Is it a long way?”

“Only five minutes.”

“I don’t want to miss the boat.”

“The steamer loads here for several hours,” Larsson told him. “You’ll have plenty of time.”

His new acquaintance kept addressing Karl Oskar with the intimate Swedish
thou,
something a stranger in Sweden never would have done, and Karl Oskar found it difficult to be equally familiar.

The gig turned onto the rutty road. The horse was a black, powerful, ragged animal, with dried-up dung clinging to his flanks and legs and a long, uncombed tail. Karl Oskar asked if he were young, and the driver confirmed it: “He’s just been broken in; hard to handle.”

The two-wheeler hopped about and shook on the rough road, though they drove quite slowly. They left the row of houses and, as the road turned away from the river, passed the small huts so much resembling woodsheds. Heavy logs were piled high on either side of the road, the ruts became deeper, the stumps more numerous, and as they passed the last shed, the thick forest lay only a few hundred yards ahead of them.