They could obtain fresh water from the ship’s supply once a day, half a gallon each for drinking and washing; they must economize on water. They themselves must keep the hold clean, and every morning remove vomit and other dirt. Water would not be issued before the hold was cleaned; that would help them to remember this chore. Sick people could obtain medicine: drops, pills, balsam, and such from the ship’s medicine chest. And if they needed to buy something during the voyage, goods were sold from the slop chest which the captain had charge of. Among supplies available at a fair price were soft soap, combs, brushes, Bibles, hymnbooks, snuff, chewing tobacco, knives, games, playing cards.
The passengers were admonished to handle fire with the strictest care. Below deck it was forbidden to smoke, or to carry or use unprotected lights. In general, it was the duty of everyone to obey the rules and orders of the ship’s command. All must realize the necessity for order on shipboard during a long voyage, for their own protection and safety. The law of the sea was in effect, and the captain would punish those who did not obey instructions.
The emigrants listened in silence and awe to the second mate. Some wondered what sort of punishment was to be meted out according to the sea law — was there an altogether different law at sea?
Near the foremast stood Inga-Lena and Danjel Andreasson. The wife held her husband’s hand and looked inquiringly around the deck. “Danjel — where might it be, that which he spoke of — windward?”
“I don’t know, beloved wife.”
“The place — where one is not allowed to throw anything? One must know where it is. I don’t wish to do anything that is forbidden.”
The old sailmaker standing near by explained to the peasants: “The mate meant that nothing must be thrown into the sea against the wind. Then it would blow right back onto the deck again.”
“Goodness gracious!” exclaimed Inga-Lena. “That much sense anyone must have, without orders. I thought windward was a special place on the ship.”
The second mate took out his wooden betsman and weighed the provisions, dividing them among the emigrants waiting around him.
Danjel Andreasson folded his hands. “God is feeding us for the first time on board ship.”
There were many kinds of provisions which the Lord God now offered through the mate: ship’s bread and ship’s biscuits, salt pork, salt beef, butter, rice, barley grains, peas, salt herring, flour, sugar, syrup, mustard, salt and pepper. The emigrants crowded around the mate, they brought crocks and pans and vessels of all kinds in which to store their portions. Some couldn’t find containers, and tied their herrings, or peas, or salt pork, in towels or aprons. Others received their allotment with their bare hands.
The mate repeated: “Remember, now — economize, good people!”
His was a chore which required patience and skill. The smaller portions caused him endless figuring. Only pork and bread were allotted in sufficient quantity to enable him to figure in whole pounds; for the rest he had to count in ounces on his betsman: six ounces of butter, six ounces of sugar, thirteen of flour, four of salt, four of coffee, half an ounce of mustard, and a tenth of an ounce of pepper. And the vinegar too was measured, two ounces for each passenger. It was degrading work for a mate, to stand here and weigh and count and divide; and the second mate on the ocean-sailer Charlotta thought, as he stood arguing and weighing and measuring and counting ounces: This is a job for a shop clerk, not for a deep-sea sailor.
It took several hours before the provisions were distributed and the second mate could throw aside his betsman and measuring vessels. He sighed in relief: now it was done for a week. All had received their week’s rations; but of course, as always with these peasants, they didn’t have enough containers. A couple of women had received their flour in shawls, and the barley grains and peas in turned-up petticoats. However, they were never finicky, these passengers to North America.
Soon the smell of frying pork and boiling peas in the galley permeated the whole ship, but it would be long before each had his turn at the galley stove, and while waiting for the prepared meal the herrings and bread and such were taken out and eaten.
Arvid and Robert stood in the stern, each chewing on a ship’s biscuit, hard as a stone chip. Arvid broke one of his front teeth on the very first bite; after that he was more careful, crushing the biscuit with his hands and eating the small pieces. He had often eaten month-old bread in Nybacken, but never had he broken a tooth on it. He thought if it was to continue this way, he would be toothless before reaching America.
It was growing dusk. The water around them darkened, rigging and sails were shrouded in mist as if the clouds had descended upon the ship. Their world seemed to shrink, no other ships were in sight, and their little sailing vessel seemed alone and lost on the darkening sea, with land no longer visible.
Robert shivered. It was a horrible depth there under the ship’s bottom — and here he stood on a pile of old, half-rotten planks. He was inside a sour old wooden bucket which was intended to carry him across these depths; he felt infinitely helpless. Into the youth from firm land crept fear that bit and tortured him like a multitude of ants: the seafarers’ life was precarious, it was not like life on land.
Perhaps it would be best after all to crawl down below and hide himself tonight in the dark bowels of the ship.
— 3—
Kristina stood by the place where she and the children were to sleep, this bunk or bed-pen nailed together of roughly hewn odds and ends of boards. She had placed her mattress on the floor of the hold and spread her quilt, her bridal cover, over it. On top of the bunk stood the big willow basket, their food box — they had found no other place for it. And in this bunk tumbled and tussled the children; there was no other place for them, either. The bunk was their only room, and in it was gathered everything.
Kristina had slept the first night in the family bunk. The compartment was too small for her and the children — even without Karl Oskar. Almost every time she had been about to go to sleep, a child’s knee or foot had poked her in the stomach or face and awakened her anew. She had lain there like a setting hen, unable to find space under her wings for her brood. In between she was kept awake by noise from the other passengers, and by the many sounds of the ship. So she had dozed uneasily and started awake through the whole night, and when she arose in the morning she was more tired than she had been the night before.
In the family compartment more than thirty people lived, men, women, and children, jammed together in one room that was no larger than Kristina’s own room in Korpamoen. As soon as she stepped out of her bed she bumped into someone. And Kristina was shy in the presence of all these strangers crowding around her. All she did must be done in full view of these people. How was she to suckle little Harald? She felt uncomfortable opening her blouse to expose her breasts in the presence of strangers; she did not like to suckle her baby while other wives’ husbands looked on. She was shy even in the presence of Karl Oskar, her own husband. It was dreadful that she had to dress and undress among all these unknown folk.