Here was his secret help; through this book he had obtained all the information he needed.
When Robert worked on the dunghill with his manure fork, when he carried his scythe at harvest-time, when he stood in the hayrick or chopped straw in the barn, when he sat here in the room and looked out through the window — always his thoughts carried him across the sea. And little by little another land arose on the other shore. Like a flower which sprouts in black soil, puts forth buds and opens its crown, so that land grew in his imagination. By now he had crossed the ocean and become familiar with the land beyond: America.
There were two worlds — nature’s world and the Bible’s world, this world and the coming world. But this world was again divided into two parts: an old and a new. His home was in the Old World, in the world that was frail, worn-out, and full of years. Its people were worn-out, decrepit, old and weak and finished. In their ancient villages time stood still; in their old moss-grown cottages nothing happened which had not happened before; the children obeyed their parents and imitated them, and did the same thing again which their parents had done before them. The Old World could not go on for many years more; it would not be long before it tumbled and fell with all the decrepit people who lived there.
But far away, on the other side of the globe, there was a New World, recently discovered, recently settled. The New World was young and fresh, and full of splendor and riches beyond imagination. And those who had emigrated and settled there were young and swift and nimble people whose whole lives lay ahead of them. The New World was populated by the most daring and the most intelligent people from the Old World: by those who had left their lords and masters behind them. It was populated by all those who wanted to be free, who did not want to serve under masters. To the New World all those emigrated who at home were poor and oppressed, all those who were harrassed and suffering, the destitute and those full of sorrow, the hunted ones and those full of despair.
The one who was not satisfied with his lot in the Old World moved to the New World. America was the right land for Robert — and for Arvid!
— 4—
When Rinaldo had held his school at Nybacken in the spring, Robert had asked him if he knew of some book with a truthful description of North America. The schoolmaster said he had recently seen such a book advertised in the newspaper Barometern for forty-eight shillings — one riksdaler — including postage. Rinaldo ordered the book for Robert, and advanced him the price until such time as the boy should receive his pay. The schoolmaster helped him willingly: Robert was his only pupil who read books of his own free will.
Robert had since — in his room during the summer nights — read the Description of the United States of North America three times over from cover to cover. It was written for simple uneducated folk who intended to emigrate to the New World. And it assured readers, even on the first page, that it was a true description: it said that to the innocent and the ignorant much of the contents might seem unbelievable, exaggerated, fabulous, but all was clear, clean, beautiful truth. Nothing was changed, added, or fabricated; all was set down in honesty.
Robert knew the most important chapters by heart, or almost by heart, and now Arvid could get all the information he wanted about the New World. The little farmhand related the facts, and the big one listened. There were in Sweden people of the ruling classes who spread lies about the United States of America. They said that the country was fit only for scamps. The lieutenant in Kråkesjö had sent over Fredrik of Kvarntorpet, who was ill-liked in the parish (only Fredrik had turned back at Gothenburg). The lieutenant had maintained that mostly bandits, rascals, thieves, and other evil people lived in America. But this was a lie. The Americans were honest and upright in their doings and dealings, they were neat and clean in their homes and in their appearance, they were brave, generous, helpful, and moral. Of course, among them was an occasional evildoer. It was also a lie that America was so unbearably hot that only Indians, Negroes, and the heathen could endure the climate. People from the Old World could breathe the air, eat the food, and drink the water; no one suffocated or was poisoned. In the most healthy places the Indians lived to so ripe an age that they didn’t die in the same way as people did here at home: they dried up and shrank in their old age, and became so light that they blew away and disappeared into the air. But what the masters kept secret was that the people of the New World were not divided into gentry and ordinary folk, as was the case in the kingdom of Sweden. In America no one had precedence over anyone else, for all were equals. Emperors and kings were forbidden; the Americans tolerated no masters; one need neither bow nor curtsy, because there was no one to bow or curtsy to. And no false pride existed among Americans; no one was looked down upon or snubbed because he had dirty or mean employment. All work was considered equally important; a farmer who owned a thousand acres of farmland worked himself all day with his hired men. When had anyone ever seen the lieutenant at Kråkesjö go into the field with his men and spread manure? And he was the owner of barely a hundred and thirty acres! In America there was no servant law or earnest money, and hired men and maids could leave their service whenever they wanted without punishment. Nor need they slave as here from early to late: in North America no one worked longer than twelve hours a day.
The money was called dollars, and one dollar equaled two or three riksdaler — maybe more. A good farmhand could earn as much as a hundred and twenty-five dollars a year, and that was more than three hundred riksdaler. Arvid worked here in Nybacken for forty riksdaler a year and a suit of wadmal. If one counted the wadmal at ten riksdaler, one still earned more in one year in America than in six years at Aron’s. And the food was seven times better. The Americans had good solid fare: all people ate pork and white bread every day, and Sundays they had double portions of pork to the bread. Salt herring was forbidden as food. The cattle in America were better fed than the servants in Sweden. The fare Aron in Nybacken gave to his servants would be rejected by the pigs in America, for they were very particular. A pig in the New World lived as well as a count in Sweden.
Robert related what he remembered from the book, the words came pouring from his lips, and perhaps, in his enthusiasm, he added a little here and deducted a little there, but it evened out so that the truth about the United States of America did not suffer from it.
And he carried his comrade away so that Arvid trembled at the revelations. Now and then he put in his “No! No! God! God Almighty! The devil it is! Christ in hell!” and other expressions which he daily carried on his lips and which meant nothing in particular. Arvid had never read a description of heaven, since he could not read, and he had never heard the dean describe it from the pulpit, either, for the dean only spoke of happenings in hell; but if only half the contents of Robert’s book were true, and the other half a lie, then the book must describe a heaven on earth.
But Arvid asked about other things, as for example the wild heathen, Indians who flayed people on the head with their knives and were unfriendly toward Christians. There was nothing in the book about Indians’ scalping people, said Robert. Arvid then wondered if the wild animals in North America were dangerous. Were there any angry snakes there? He had always been afraid of crawling animals, never daring to kill a snake, and avoiding small quadrupeds. Robert admitted that in America great wild animals did live, and they could kill people, and were consequently a little annoying. The fiercest beast was the gray bear, who attacked all who tried to take his life. But if you lay down on the ground and pretended you were dead, the bear would leave you in peace. There were also lions and tigers and wolves there, but they had a natural fear of people and attacked only if wounded or frightened. There were poisonous rattlesnakes but they rattled and made a noise when they crawled in the woods and could be heard at great distances, so it was easy to run away from them. America had also some irritating small creatures, grasshoppers, blowflies, cankerworms on the fruit trees and others, but they were unable to kill people. The grasshoppers ate only crops, they were quite satisfied with this. No, no one need be afraid to live in America on account of wild animals.