Thus life continued in Korpamoen: Nils and Märta moved into the little spare room where they were to live out their years; Kristina arrived with her dowry chest and took Märta’s place. It was a young farm wife who moved in. But with her own hands she had stitched the bridal cover which she now, the first evening, spread over the nuptial bed. It was the blue of cornflowers, and Märta had said it was nice; Kristina was proud.
Karl Oskar was pleased that his mother and wife could live in harmony; otherwise they might have caused each other great irritation. The contract stated that his mother had the right to cook in the kitchen and bake in the big bake oven; had they been unfriendly they could have been in each other’s way in every corner.
But one day Kristina was discovered by her mother-in-law in the threshing barn, where she was playing in a swing which she had secretly hung from the rafters. Märta excused it and said nothing; Kristina was still a child in her ways, with a desire for play still in her body. It was peculiar, however, that Kristina would want to play with a swing since she had once fallen from one, injuring her knee. Besides, the wild play did not suit a married woman. Luckily no outsider saw her in the barn, hence no rumors spread in the neighborhood.
There was, however, something in regard to Kristina which Nils and Märta did not like: on her mother’s side she was related to descendants of Åke Svensson, the founder of the Åkian sect. Her mother was Åke’s niece. And her uncle, Danjel Andreasson, was owner of Kärragärde, the meeting place for the Åkians in Ljuder. Of course, more than fifty years had elapsed since the instigator of this heresy, the troublemaker from Östergöhl, had died in Danvik’s asylum. As far as was generally known, nothing had survived in Kärragärde of the horrible Åkianist contagion. But the original ill feeling toward the founder had been so deeply rooted among a great many of the parishioners that it still survived — kinfolk of Åke Svensson did not brag about their relationship.
Nils and Märta said nothing to their daughter-in-law, but one day they did broach the question to Karl Oskar: “Do you know your wife is related to Åke of Östergöhl?”
“I’m aware of it — and I defy anyone to hold it against her.”
There was nothing more to be said. Märta and Nils only hoped that Kristina’s kinship with the Åkian founder wasn’t generally known in the village. In Korpamoen it was never mentioned again.
— 4—
Early every weekday morning Nils emerged from the spare room, hobbling along on his crutches, slowly reaching his old workbench outside in the woodshed, where he remained through the day. He cut spokes for wagon wheels, he made rakes, and handles for axes and scythes. He could still use plane and chisel; his hands were in good health, and their dexterity remained. He taught Karl Oskar what he could of this handicraft.
During most of the summer days one could find Nils and his tools outside in the yard, where he sat in the shade of an old maple tree. From there he had a good view over the fields with all the piles of stone which his hands had gathered. His twenty-five farming years had indeed left marks; all the heaps of stone and all the stone fences which he had built remained in their places, and no doubt would long remain.
The invalid was not bitter. His belief was that all things happened according to God’s preordination. It was his conviction that God in the beginning had decided that a stone in his field — on a certain day, at a certain hour — would roll back into its hole. He would miss his foothold and fall, the stone would break his hip joint, and he would ever after crawl about like a wing-broken magpie. It would be presumptuous of him to question the Creator. Nils Jakob’s Son did not burden his brain with questions.
Now his son plowed and sowed the fields which he had cleared. He had fought the stones to the best of his ability; now his son reaped the benefit.
But Karl Oskar worried about debts and interest. If he only had a horse, then he could hire himself out and earn some money hauling timbers. But a one-sixteenth was too small to feed a horse, who chewed several barrels of oats during the winter; he needed three acres more to keep a horse. As it was he had to feed his parents and his wife and himself on seven acres, most of which was poor, sandy soil.
Soon he realized that he must clear more land.
He went out to inspect the unbroken ground belonging to Korpamoen. There were spruce woods and knolls, there were desolate sandy plains with juniper and pine roots, there were low swamplands with moss and cranberries, there were hillocks and tussock-filled meadows. The rest was strewn with stone. He carried an iron bar which he now and then stuck into the ground, and always he heard the same sound: stone. He went through pastures and meadows, through woodlands and moors, and everywhere the same sound: stone, stone, stone. It was a monotonous tune, a sad tune for a man who wanted to clear more acres.
Karl Oskar did not find a tenth of an acre within his boundaries left to clear; his father had done his work well; all arable ground was cultivated. What he now possessed to till and sow was all he would have. Until acres could be stretched and made broader than God created them, there would be no more arable land in Korpamoen.
And because the young farmer couldn’t continue creation where God had left off, he must be satisfied with his seven acres, and all the stones wherever he looked: broken stones, stones in piles, stone fences, stone above ground, stone in the ground, stone, stone, stone. .
King Oskar had ascended the throne of the kingdoms of Sweden and Norway; Karl Oskar Nilsson had become king in a stone kingdom.
— 5—
His first year as a farmer—1845—was a good year. The crops were ample, he was able to pay the mortgage interest on time, and all was well. And in the spring Kristina had given birth to their first child, a daughter, christened Anna after Kristina’s mother.
The second year also they had good crops in Korpamoen, but the harvesting was poor. The rye sprouted in the shocks, and bread baked from the flour was soggy. They sold a calf and half of the pig to help pay interest on the mortgage, and the twenty riksdaler he was short Karl Oskar borrowed from his crippled father: it was money the old one had earned through his handiwork. In the midst of the August harvest Kristina bore a son; he was named Johan after his mother’s father in Duvemåla.
The third year was filled with anxiety. When the meadow hay was cut in July such a heavy rain fell that the swaths were floating in water. When the flood had subsided some of the hay remained, fox-red, rotten and spoiled. It had a musty smell, no nourishment, and the animals refused to eat it. Karl Oskar and Kristina were forced to sell one cow. More bad luck followed: another cow had a stillborn calf, and a sheep went astray in the woods to become food for wild beasts. In the autumn it was discovered that potato rot had spread to their field — when picked, almost every second potato was spoiled; for one filled basket of good, an equally large one had to be discarded, hardly good enough for fodder for the animals. During the following winter more than one day went by without the potato pot over the fire. It was said the potato rot came from foreign countries, where it caused famine.
This year—1847—Karl Oskar went still deeper into debt. He had to borrow money for the whole amount of the mortgage interest. Nils had no more to lend him, and Karl Oskar did not wish to ask his father-in-law in Duvemåla. Kristina thought he should try her uncle, Danjel Andreasson, in Kärragärde, who was fairly well off. He was known as a quiet and kind man, although he was the nephew of the despised Åkian founder — but it would be foolish to pay heed to happenings of fifty years ago. No sooner had Karl Oskar made the request than Danjel gave him fifty riksdaler for the mortgage interest.