After the end of the war the Country is improving. They are building one railroad after another through Minnesota and we can all ride the Steam Wagon. Good times are promised to us by our Government.
The Astrakhan tree from Kristina’s home bears every fall. You can see it to the right in the Portrait I send of our House, taken by a photographing man from Stellwater. Now you can see how we live, they take portraits much like the object here in America.
My hope is that my thoughts which I have tried to put on Paper will find you and Yours at good health. Hope you don’t forget to write and let me know about My beloved Sister.
Your Devoted Brother
Karl Oskar Nilsson.
Part Three
XX. THE FIRST CHILD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE
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It was Mr. C. A. Persson who had persuaded Karl Oskar to buy it. The storekeeper ordered all kinds of new inventions and displayed them in his shop, and one after another he palmed them off on the settlers. But this one appeared to be a most useful invention. Klas Albert promised to assemble it himself and show how to use it. He brought it one dark fall evening and everyone gathered around the rectangular wooden box.
Karl Oskar wanted to surprise his children and had not mentioned the purchase to them. He acted as if he didn’t know what was in the box.
Mr. Persson broke open the box and displayed an object, the like of which had never been seen before in this house — a brass stand, a foot and a half high, which the storekeeper placed on the table. It stood there quite firmly on its solid, round base.
Marta had already guessed that Father had bought some useful kitchen utensil but she could not figure out what this brass stand could be used for. She could neither cut nor cook with it. It seemed to have no purpose. But it was beautiful, with its greenish tint, perhaps it was meant as a table decoration.
“What kind of knickknack have you brought, Klas Albert?” she asked.
“Wait till I’m ready — then you’ll see something!”
And from the box the Center City merchant drew out several more strange objects: a porcelain globe, a glass pipe a foot long, and at last a kind of flask filled with a transparent fluid. Each object was exceedingly fragile and Klas Albert was most careful in handling them. His audience, standing in a circle around him, realized that the pieces must in some way be put together.
“Wait till I’m ready! Then you’ll understand!”
Mr. Persson opened a lid over an enlargement at the upper end of the brass stand, and into this hole he poured the white fluid from the flask. Then he slowly turned a screw fastened to the stand. No one could guess the purpose of this screw. But it appeared that something was going to happen. And so it did.
Klas Albert struck a match and held it over the brass stand. A flame leaped up from its upper end — the brass stand was burning!
The circle of spectators broke apart; they all stepped back. What was this? Everyone in this house had been instructed to handle fire most carefully; Father had told them to stamp out any flame or spark outside the fireplace. Yet here he stood and smiled while Klas Albert appeared to be trying to set the house on fire!
A tall flame burned lustily at the upper end of the brass stand, but Mr. Persson remained calm. He picked up the glass pipe and placed it around the flame, enclosing it. He then placed the porcelain globe on a ring and turned the screw again. The tall flame withdrew a little and stopped smoking. He kept turning the screw until the flame burned evenly inside the pipe.
A clear, warm light spread through the whole kitchen. The flame in the pipe spread its light to the farthest corner.
And now Karl Oskar said in a solemn voice, “Tonight we have a new light in our house — I have bought a kerosene lamp.”
He was very much pleased with the surprise he could read in his children’s faces. And Klas Albert was even more pleased; he looked as if he had just performed a very difficult magician’s trick.
“How clever you are!” exclaimed Marta. “What do you do to make it light up?”
Eagerly Klas Albert showed the girl how the trick worked: The brass stand formed the foot of the lamp. This enlargement held the fluid that burned — it was called the oil chamber. Into the oil he had stuck some twisted yarn, called the wick, and the other end of the wick came up into the glass pipe. The yarn kept burning because it was soaked in oil and was being fed from the oil chamber. By turning the screw he could change the flame, make it strong or weak, any way he wanted it. The glass pipe protected the flame and the porcelain globe softened the light.
“As simple as that!” said Klas Albert, acting as if it were the easiest thing in the world to make a flame come out of the end of a brass stand.
The kerosene lamp would give as much light as ten tallow candles, he explained. Yet the strangest part was that it would burn indefinitely. When the flame grew weak one only had to pour more oil into the oil chamber.
And they were long to remember that autumn evening when Klas Albert brought the new light to their house. The kerosene lamp brought them more satisfaction and pleasure than any other new invention. The nights were dark at every season; between sunset and bedtime a black wall stood outside the windows, and they needed light. They had made their own candles from sheep tallow, they had also used pitch splinters which they fastened to the walls; and in winter the fire on the hearth gave them light. But candles had to last, pitch splinters burned only a short moment, and the fire must be fed constantly. Candles, splinters, and the fire burned out, but the lamp lasted. One had only to refill the oil chamber. It was an eternal light.
Now the evenings were bright in their house and they could stay up longer at their chores. Each night they stole a little time from the dark.
But the new invention could cause a fire and must be used with utmost care. The fluid could catch fire, the oil chamber might explode. They had read in the papers how people had started house fires when lighting their lamps. Because of this, Karl Oskar at first would let no one but himself handle the lamp or carry it while it burned. But after a time he allowed his two oldest children to attend to it. Johan and Marta were almost of age now, and neither of them was careless. By and by Harald was given the same permission; he was as trustworthy as his older brother and sister. But Frank and Ulrika, the two youngest, were strongly forbidden to touch, move, or try to light the new lamp.
Klas Albert came from time to time to check on the lamp and see that it was taken care of. But no accident happened, and the new invention started no fire in their house. The flame from the oil-soaked wick succeeded the daylight and shone cheerfully through the evenings.
Lamp evenings were something new in the settler families.
It was the great moment of the day when Father lit the lamp. Before, the hearth had been the heart and gathering point of the family, now the kerosene lamp became the family’s central point around which they gathered. It spread a warm, cozy light, at which the father read the paper, the children their lessons, the boys whittled with their knives, the girls knitted or sewed. In this light they could see to thread the smallest needle, and read the finest print. It saved their eyes and prolonged their evenings.
With the new light — which came to their home in the fall of 1868—the settlers could spend more time at useful occupations.
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Ditto Anno 1868 harvested 234 Bussels Corn, 196 Bussels Wheat and 162 Bussels Potatos, All Heaped Measure.