Kristina could again hear the ringing of a church bell. On days when a favorable wind carried the sound it seemed quite close to her. But to Kristina’s ears the new bell did not have the thunderous, sacred tones of a real church bell. As a child home in Ljuder, when she heard the bells she would shudder deep in her heart: The sound came from the heavens, like the thunder of the doomsday trumpet. The ringing from on high called to communion or service. But the settlers’ bell here in America had an entirely different tone. It almost sounded like a dinner bell on a farm, calling to an ordinary meal; it was better suited to a weekday than a Sunday. The bell did have a light, quite beautiful tone, but it jingled rather than rang. The sound was pleasing to Kristina’s ears but found no response in her soul.
To her the church bells of Ljuder signified weddings and funerals, peoples union in life and their departure from it, the move into a new home and the move to eternity. On Sundays the bells from the parish church hurled a mighty command to the inhabitants: It was the Sabbath, they must go to church to confess and shed the burden of sins accumulated through the working week, cleanse body and soul. At the first sound of the bell on Sunday morning her father used to say: Now I hear it is Sunday! I feel it is a holy day! Time to wash and change shirts! Those bells instilled piety in the minds of the listeners.
To Sunday belonged also organ music and the singing of psalms. For many years the Chisago people had held their services and sung their hymns without an organ, even though the service sounded empty without the musical instrument — God’s house was a poorhouse. Then last year they had gone into debt to put in an organ that cost a hundred and sixty dollars. Karl Oskar had voted against this purchase, for he felt they couldn’t yet afford it. And when the organ was installed he did not like the sound of it: It must not be a first-class instrument with a sound that was harsh and screeched in his ears and thundered like the roaring of an ox. It could also be that he didn’t understand organ music.
Kristlna had never missed the organ at the services; if the words of the psalms came from a heart in need of God they would reach him without the aid of an organ. She could feel reverence in her heart without the help of steeple, bell, organ, or other worldly instruments.
— 3—
The Chisago Lake parish had engaged a new pastor who arrived in October. His name, Johannes Stenius, sounded like a good minister’s name and he was a real minister directly from Sweden. There was a dearth of educated preachers, and for several years the Swedes in the St. Croix Valley had borrowed pastors from other parishes. They were now well pleased to have their own shepherd, ordained in their homeland. Rumors had already reached them that Pastor Stenius was a capable preacher of God’s Word, stringently adhering to the pure Lutheran religion.
At the first wedding the new pastor was to perform in the settlers’ church, the bridegroom was related to Kristina — Danjel’s oldest son Sven, her blood cousin.
Sven Danjelsson was to marry Ragnhild Säter, a young Norwegian girl who had recently come to the St. Croix Valley. Women invariably married shortly after their arrival, usually within a month. In this woman-empty land they had only to choose among the many men who showed up as suitors. And the men had indeed flocked around Ragnhild, who was an unusually attractive girl, and who had refused many before she decided to exchange her Norwegian name for a Swedish one and become Mrs. Danjelsson. Sven had staked a claim and built himself a cabin at Acton in Meeker County, at its western border where land still was plentiful and easy to clear. After the wedding, Danjel’s son and daughter-in-law would live in their new home in Meeker.
Karl Oskar and Kristina were invited to the wedding feast, which was given by Danjel Andreasson, as the brides parents were living in her old home in Norway. A heavy rain fell as they started out for the church in the morning. Kristina took the opportunity to use her new umbrella which Karl Oskar recently had bought for her. It was a fine gift, made of dark blue silk. For the first time in her life she was using an umbrella. In Sweden only upper-class wives had this kind of protection against rain; it was an object for show-off and vanity, not suitable for simple farm folk. Therefore Kristina almost felt like a noble lady today as she mounted the spring wagon and put up her umbrella. But here in America all women used many decorations and ornaments which in Sweden were reserved for upper-class wives. Even settler wives wore rosettes and bows and lace and other glitter on their clothes, and flowers and feathers on top of their heads. Moreover, an umbrella was not only an ornament, it was a protection against rain as well.
And it did rain this day! It literally poured from early morning till late at night on Sven’s and Ragnhild’s wedding day. But rain was a good omen since it promised great riches for the bridal couple.
To the parishioners this wedding in their church was a denial of the common statement that Swedes and Norwegians could not get along in America.
After the ritual Pastor Stenius spoke to the young couple of the appalling increase of evil in the world at this time and warned them against religious seducers and wrong preachers who might seek to lead them astray from their mother church. He also warned against the greatest sins of the day: whoring, drinking, and dancing. The pleasure of dancing was invented by the old creeping Snake; in halls of music and dance the virtue of women met its defeat. Finally, the pastor condemned the excesses of female dress which in these latter days stimulated men’s carnal desires and increased the number of whoring men.
It was not a great company that afterward gathered for the wedding feast at Danjel Andreasson’s farm, and the groom’s father had invited only those countrymen who had come with him from the old parish. He had once paid for the journey of Ulrika of Västergöhl, now the wife of Baptist minister Henry O. Jackson. She had not come to the church — she would not enter Lutheran churches — but she joined the guests at the wedding reception.
Kristina was shy when she met people who spoke only English, which thus put her outside the company. She had been in America almost twelve years now but could hardly speak a word of the language, although she was a citizen of this country. She had gone through the years as if deaf and dumb, as far as the language was concerned. Often she had met Americans who seemed kind and helpful but because of the language barrier she had been unable to enjoy their company. She was beginning to regret that she hadn’t started to learn English from the very first day out here. But she still shuddered at the sound of this tongue, so unseemly and twisted. In trying to use one single word she felt she would sprain her tongue. She was told to bite off her words and put her tongue against her teeth. But this only made a hissing and gurgling sound.
Here at the wedding feast in Danjels house, however, Kristina need not feel apart from the company. But she confided to Ulrika: Each kind of animal had been given only one sound — the dogs in America had the same bark as dogs in Sweden — why had the Creator then given people different tongues so they couldn’t understand each other?