The emigrants talked among themselves about sending someone to the captain to ask for more water. But who? No one volunteered. There was respect for the captain among them. Whenever it was mentioned that someone should go to him, invariably the reply was: The captain is asleep now, or, The captain is taking his siesta, he cannot be disturbed. It seemed as if the commander of the ship slept in his cabin the clock around. Yet they all knew he took his siesta only in the afternoons.
As early as on the first day, Karl Oskar had told the second mate the truth about the crowded situation on the ship, and since that time he had been considered a particularly fearless person by his fellow passengers. Several of them now urged him to see the captain about the water. But Karl Oskar flatly refused; he was not going to be used as a shield for others.
Neither Karl Oskar nor Kristina made friends easily. Of all the people in their quarters they were most friendly with Måns Jakob and Fina-Kajsa, the old peasant couple from Öland. Those two were kind and helpful people. Only, thought Kristina, they seemed somewhat dirty — perhaps because she herself was trying so hard to keep clean. She had never seen Måns Jakob wash himself, he always had some water left from his half gallon, and she asked to use this. Yet she thought that more than anyone else, he needed it. His clothes and everything around him he dirtied with snuff spittle and dribble which ran in two horrible rills from the sides of his mouth. And Fina-Kajsa had black cakes of dirt in her ears, and the furrows on her neck were like black ribbons. She must be afraid of losing them, as she didn’t wash them away! Måns Jakob and his wife each carried more Swedish dirt to America than any other passengers on the Charlotta.
Soiled and worn, too, were all the things they carried in their homemade knapsack, made from old, gray sailcloth, fastened at both ends to pieces of one-inch boards. Narrow wooden laths kept the end-pieces apart. The Småland farmers sewed their knapsacks; the Öland farmers apparently hammered theirs together. But all were on the same long journey and in time would become equally experienced travelers.
Måns Jakob kept worrying about the grindstone he was bringing to his son. He was afraid that it might be damaged in the hold, that it might be broken on this long voyage. And how was he to transport it to his son when they landed? Perhaps it might cost too much money in freight to send it on in America. The grindstone weighed heavy on the old Öland peasant as he lay in his bunk and suffered from the sea. He didn’t seem to care so much whether or not he himself arrived in America, if only the grindstone reached its destination whole and sound. The grindstones over there were expensive and poor; his son had written he was unable to sharpen his axes well enough on the American stones.
Since their embarkation Karl Oskar had more often mused over the question: Where would they go once they landed in the town of New York? No one in their company had any idea, not one of those from Ljuder Parish. And he must plan for himself and his family, think about it in advance, arrive ahead of the ship, so to speak. Now he heard the Öland farmer talk about his son, who had taken a homestead in a place called Minnesota.
He asked Måns Jakob: “Is there good farming land in that place?”
“First-class, according to my son. The topsoil is much deeper than at home. My boy has taken one hundred acres.”
“Our boy is able, that’s what he is!” said Fina-Kajsa, with a questioning look at Karl Oskar, as much as to say: Would he be able to clear land?
And while the two narrow rills continued their peaceful course down the chin of the old peasant, he went on: His son had written him that there were such extensive, fertile plains that all the farmers in Småland and on Öland could have their own farms there if they wished to emigrate. The ground only needed to be turned. And the place was healthy: in the summers the air was somewhat humid, but at other seasons it was neither too cold nor too warm — about the same as at home. A likable place for simple folk. In other places in America the emigrants died like flies, they couldn’t stand the foul climate — yes, the climate was evil in some places, wrote his son. He himself was a little afraid of this, he was ailing somewhat in his old age, he had a wicked pain in his heart — that was why he used so much snuff; snuff was supposed to comfort his ailment. The heart — inside him — wanted to stop at times, but it always started again as soon as he took a couple of pinches of snuff. It might stop for long times when he had no snuff at hand. This was very inconvenient. Because of his advanced age he had hesitated about the emigration. He had never moved before in all his days, he was born on his farm at home. But his son had paid for his voyage, and he was anxious to see the broad fields his son owned in North America.
Karl Oskar wondered if that place, Minnesota, might not be the right one for his family to settle in. He asked Robert about the type of soil there, but his brother could not find the name in his description book. There was no such state in the Union, of that he was sure, but he thought maybe the great wilderness around the upper end of the river Mississippi was named thus. This was the biggest and most useful river in the whole world. It had more water than any other river. Its shores were fertile and healthy, covered with forests and meadows, abounding in fish and game and Indians and all that people could need for their existence. On the fair shores of the Mississippi it had happened that a settler in five years had earned a bushel of gold.
“I’m not interested in bushels of gold,” said Karl Oskar. “I asked about the soil.”
But the information sounded favorable. And Karl Oskar kept the name, Minnesota, in the back of his mind. It was easier to remember than any other word because the first half was Minne itself, memory.
— 3—
Kristina was in the galley and had just finished preparing dinner for her family. The women stood in a long row near the door, awaiting their turns to use the stove. As soon as one pot was taken off the fire another was put on. Kristina was looking forward to the day when she could cook and fry over her own fire again, when she could leave a pot standing as long as she pleased. No one could prepare food aright in the rocking cookhouse on the ship, which had to be used by so many. When her peas didn’t get soft fast enough, there was always some woman at her elbow impatiently wondering if she weren’t soon going to remove her kettle. As if she could help it that the old ship’s peas became harder the longer they boiled! And oftentimes the water splashed over and killed the fire. She hadn’t known how well things went for her in those days when she prepared food on a stove where the kettles didn’t dance.
After the meal Kristina picked up her knitting and went on deck, as was her habit in calm weather. Little Harald was asleep in the bunk-pen, and Johan and Lill-Märta were playing up here with other children. Karl Oskar watched to see that they didn’t climb the rail. Lill-Märta had — God be praised — thrown off her cold, and the other two children were hale and hearty.
It was a blessing she had taken along her knitting needles and some balls of woolen yarn — now she had something with which to while away the time on the ship; her hands were not happy when still.
Now, as Kristina sat there knitting, she discovered a small speck on the sock, a grayish yellow something on the white wool. She picked it up between her thumb and forefinger, and placed it in the flat of her hand and looked at it. She sat there and stared at it. She could not be mistaken — the speck moved, the speck moved about in the palm of her hand.