“Johan should be here with the doctor soon. .”
“Don’t worry, Karl Oskar. I’ll get well.”
Her voice was clear. She asked for water, her fever-thirst could not be quenched. He picked up the pitcher on the table beside her bed and filled it from the pail in the kitchen. He held his wife’s head in one hand as he lifted the water glass to her mouth. The sick one drank in long swallows.
She had not taken any food today as yet, and he asked if she would like anything to eat. No, she felt as full as if she had come from a feast. And her lips formed a smile as she said it.
His face was rigid with suppressed anxiety.
“I’ve had a new lost journey. Too bad. I was sure I would be allowed to keep it this time.”
Kristina had for a second time borne death.
“Don’t think about that. As long as you get well again. .”
“I’ll get well again. I know.”
She wanted to say something more between two short breaths but she was interrupted by a sound from outside. A bell was chiming. The gable window stood open; today the wind was favorable and carried the sound of the little church bell strong and clear.
Kristina lifted her head from the pillow and listened. “Is that the church bell? In the middle of the week?”
“It sounds like it.”
“Why?”
“I wonder.”
Olausson had said they would ring the bell, to warn the settlers.
Karl Oskar said, “Perhaps they’re ringing for someone. . someone who is. .” One word was missing in that sentence, but he could not let it across his lips.
The ringing of the bell from the settlers’ wood church went on. It was a holiday sound and it was disturbing because it was heard on a weekday.
“Don’t worry,” said Kristina. “Remember what I told you.”
“I remember. I know.”
But what did he know? What could he be sure of?
God ruled their lives and everything on earth. But Karl Oskar was not sure a person could trust God. He could not believe as his wife did. Kristina had given herself into the Lord’s hands. Was she right in doing so?
They would now be finding out. Soon they would know: Was God to be trusted?
— 3—
Just as twilight began to fall Johan returned from Stillwater. And Karl Oskar choked as he looked at the wagon; the boy was alone. He must have driven at bolting speed. The team was in a cloud of perspiration. The driver had not spared the animals. Johan jumped off the wagon and explained that Dr. Farnley had not been at home. A sign on the door announced that he had gone to Wisconsin for an indefinite stay. An old man next door had said that Farnley had taken off because there was an alarm about the Indians. Many frightened people in Stillwater had today crossed the St. Croix into Wisconsin. Miss Skalrud too was not at home. Johan had gone to Pastor Jackson’s house to ask about her, but no one there knew where she was. Perhaps she had run away with the others. He had talked to a servant girl who said that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson were in Chicago for a Baptist congress.
Then Johan had gone to the other doctor, Cristoffer Caldwell, the one who called himself Physician and Housebuilder, Carpenter & Blacksmith, according to the sign on his door. But Caldwell was as plump as a fatted pig and could hardly walk. He had said he wasn’t well himself and was not able to go on long journeys to sick people in the wilderness. But if Johan would tell him what ailed the sick one he would send medicine. And Johan had explained about his mother as best he could. Dr. Caldwell had mixed a bottle of medicine which cost four dollars. He said himself it was rather expensive but it always healed the sick. With this medicine he had got many settler wives on their feet after miscarriages and childbed fever. He assured Johan it would help Mrs. Nilsson. And the doctor was drinking from a whiskey bottle all the time he mixed the medicine! Perhaps he used whiskey for his own ailment?
All Johan had brought with him from Stillwater was a fat-bellied flask which contained a brown-yellow syrupy fluid. That flask was now the only help they had but Johan explained that the doctor had said it was a sure remedy against childbed fever.
Karl Oskar poured a tablespoon of Dr. Caldwell’s medicine for his wife. It was strong; one could smell it a long way off. It looked like syrup as it flowed into the spoon. He coaxed the sick one to swallow all of it.
“What a nasty taste,” she said with a grimace. For a moment it seemed as if she would throw up the medicine.
“It chokes me!”
“Try to keep it down, dear!”
He gave her a lump of sugar to take away the nasty taste.
He had a lot of trouble because of her, she said. But she didn’t feel any pain any more; she was only tired and wanted to sleep. She would like so to get her fill of sleep for once.
— 4—
Marta had done the milking and prepared the supper, and Karl Oskar sat down to table with his six children, four sons and two daughters. Each one had his given place at the table. The father had the oldest son on his right and the oldest daughter on his left. The two smallest, Frank and Ulrika, still ate standing up.
Johan and Marta, the two oldest, understood and knew what had happened to Mother. They also remembered it had happened once before. Johan was tensely serious and silent, while Marta had cried several times today. But none of the children could understand what was the matter with Father. Since early in the morning he had hardly spoken to any one of them and did not reply when spoken to. At table he ate only a couple of slices of bread and drank a little milk. When he rose from supper he told the children to be quiet when they moved around the house so they wouldn’t waken Mother in case she slept.
Frank and Ulrika had recently begun the fall term in the Center City school and after supper they read their lessons, competing with each other in their reading. Frank had a piece containing one- and two-syllable words to memorize and Ulrika a piece with several longer words.
Frank read his piece carelessly and with great speed.
“Lords without virtue are like lanterns without light. A wound never heals well enough to hide the scar. Poor and rich are alike to death. If you want the kernel you must crush the nut. Better bow than hit your head on the door lintel. Mistakes of others make no law. Trust in God makes the nation safe. Better a good death than an evil life.”
The boy babbled on so loudly that the father had to admonish him; he went outside and sat on the stoop to read.
But Ulrika obeyed her father and read slowly and in a low voice. She was two years older than her brother and had been given a little more difficult lesson.
“For all the good my parents have given me I have not been able to give them any good in return. Nor have they done this to reap payment for their concern. They ask nothing from me except that I be a good child. This is their greatest joy and reward. I will love them with all my heart; I will constantly show them my gratitude. May I never sadden them with recalcitrance and disobedience. When they grow old I will take care of them in their old age.”
The monotonous voices of the children reading their lessons was the only sound heard in the house.
The children went to bed, but Karl Oskar did not undress this evening; he would stay up. He sat down beside Kristina’s bed where she lay in a deep fever-doze. As soon as she woke up she asked for water, and he also gave her the brown-yellow medicine, forcing the spoon between her lips. She swallowed only reluctantly. Later in the night she grew delirious and talked of high billows she was afraid of, as if she were on a ship sailing across the ocean.
The bell-ringing in the church tower continued intermittently until late at night. Kristina no longer heard it and had stopped asking what it meant. And Karl Oskar himself listened to the sound without realizing that it was an alarm bell. For long periods he forgot what the ringing meant. Everything he had heard today about approaching, bloodthirsty Indian hordes was suppressed in his mind by what was happening in his own house. What was going on in this room occupied him and ruled him.