And what did he know about the children’s lot in the foreign country? Had someone there written him that Anna would become a lady, or that Johan would be a gentleman of leisure?
He hadn’t mentioned, either, that they must separate from their parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends — in short, all those they knew. Had he realized they would come to places where every human being they met was a stranger? They might have to live in communities where people were ill-natured and cruel; they were to live in a land where they would be unable to speak one word of the language, unable to ask a single soul for a drink of water if they needed it; where they might have to die without their tongues being able to cry for help. In such a land they would wander about like changelings, alien and lost. Had he never thought that their life might be lonely and bleak?
If she moved so far away she might never be able to return home; she might never see her nearest and dearest again; never meet parents, brothers and sisters. At once she would lose them all, and even though they lived they would be dead to her; they would be alive and yet dead.
True enough, things had gone backwards for them and they had had bad luck. But it might soon change, they might have a good year, they might have good fortune. At least they had the necessary food each day, and even though — as it looked for the moment — they might have to starve a bit this winter, they would most likely eat so much the better next year. They weren’t dressed in silk and satin, of course, but at least they were able to cover their bodies and keep their children warm. Surely they would gain their sufficiency at home in future as they had in the past, as other people did.
All wise and thoughtful men whose advice he might seek would answer him as she had.
Kristina wanted to remain at home.
— 4—
Through many autumnal evenings, while busy with their respective handiwork before the fire, the husband and wife in Korpamoen exchanged their divergent views on this decision which would determine their future. Karl Oskar held out the prospect of new advantages and possibilities through emigration; Kristina saw only drawbacks. When she came to the end of her objections, she always had this argument to fall back on: “If only someone we know had emigrated before. But none in these parts has ever gone.”
His answer was always the same: “Let us be the first; someone must be first, in everything.”
“And you’re willing to shoulder the responsibility?”
“Yes. Someone must be responsible, in all undertakings.”
She knew her husband by now: he had never relinquished what once he had decided upon, and hitherto he had always had his will, defying her and his parents. But this time he must fall in with her; this time she would not give in; this time he must change his mind.
She spoke to Nils and Märta: they must help her to dissuade Karl Oskar from this dangerous project.
But the parents only felt sorry for their foolhardy son and could give his wife no assistance. Nils said: Ever since Karl Oskar was able to button up his trousers alone in the outhouse, he had never asked advice or help from his parents. He would persist even more stubbornly if his father and mother tried to influence him.
Kristina began to realize that this time more than ever Karl Oskar knew what he wanted. And so did she.
— 5—
After the drought and crop failure came winter now, and famine. The summer had been short, had died in its youth; the winter would last so much longer with its starvation.
The sheriff’s carriage was seen more often on the roads. His errands concerned the poorest farms, and the carriage remained long at the gates. The sheriff’s horses were seldom in their stalls this winter: they were tied to gateposts, waiting for their master, who had much to do inside the houses; the horses were covered by blankets but still cold: they had to wait so long.
“Hurry up and hide your mittens!
The sheriff comes to take each pittance.”
Even before the snow had set in, little children could be seen along the roads, pale, with sunken cheeks, their running noses blue. Once arrived at a farm, they didn’t go to the main entrance; they went to the refuse pile near the kitchen door, where they remained awhile, scratching in the debris, searching. Then they went inside the house but stayed close to the door. The boys bowed, the girls would curtsy. With their forefingers they would try to dry their noses; then they would stand there, in the corner near the door, silent, timid.
They had no errand. They had already brought their message to anyone who looked closely: the mute testimony of hunger.
Parents sent their children begging, ashamed to be seen themselves. To the small ones, begging was no shame. For wretched, starving children begging was a natural occupation, the only one they were able to perform, their only help.
Perhaps some time might elapse before anyone in the house paid notice to the unknown children, huddling in their corner at the door. Perhaps the house folk sat at table; then the children waited until all had eaten, inhaling the smell of food, the savory odor of boiled potatoes, beef soup, fried pork. They stood there watching, their eyes growing big, their nostrils extended. The longer the meal lasted, the bigger grew their nostrils, and sometimes it happened, when they had stood there a long time, smelling the food, that one of them might faint and fall to the floor.
At length they would be spoken to, then they would ask if they might pick up the herring heads and beef bones which they had seen outside on the refuse pile. The bones could be crushed to get the marrow which their mother would boil to soup. And if there was something for the refuse pile in the house, might they have it? It could be used at home. Father and Mother had taught them what to say.
The parents had told them not to ask too much. They must beg for such as the people in the house had no use for themselves; they must not boldly ask for bread. For he who asked least often obtained most. But if they sometimes happened to receive a slice of bread, they would gulp it immediately; Father and Mother must never know.
The children trudged along, sucking their salt herring heads, dragging their bundles of clean-gnawed bones. They went to the next farm, searched the next refuse pile; no one snubbed them when they came inside and asked for herring heads which they saw glittering outside.
The small children were famine’s pure witnesses. No one had the heart to hurl at them the word which adults feared: Shame!
Each one was supposed to beg in the parish where he lived. But those who felt ashamed would rather go to distant parishes, would rather beg from unknown people. The hunger tore and dug in stomach and bowels, but the humiliation of begging dug itself into the crevices of the soul.
Even older persons walked along the roads, big, full-grown men who carried on their backs brooms, brushes, baskets, or wooden vessels which they offered for sale. They pursued an honest calling, no one could accuse them of begging, but if they were told in some house that no trade would take place, they still remained sitting. They kept their errand secret under the burden on their backs but after sitting for a while it would escape: Give me a piece of bread! I’m too weak to go farther. It smarted deep in the soul of many a wanderer before those words escaped. Therefore the pale children were sent upon the roads.
— 6—
Kristina baked famine bread; when the rye flour did not suffice she added chaff, beechnuts, heather seed, and dried berries of the mountain ash. She also tried to grind acorns and mix them in the dough, but such bread caused constipation and the bowels would not move for many days. She boiled an edible porridge from hazelnut kernels, and used it instead of the clear rye porridge which they had to do without this winter. No real nourishment was found, though, in famine food: sprouts, seeds, nuts, and other products from the wastelands did fill the stomach but gave no lasting satisfaction. One left the table because the meal was over, not because one was satisfied. And however much they stretched and added, all the bins and foodboxes would be empty long before the next crop was ripe.