Where did it now belong, his old, worn-out, useless body? It would arrive at this place, that much was certain. Beside his wife’s grave he had reserved enough space for his own resting place; here he would be buried. He was sitting on his own grave. His body would rot and disintegrate beside Kristina’s, in the same earth where she had turned to dust. At least this much was sure: Here they would both meet. That much he knew: The wide silver maple would shade them both. And then nothing more could happen to him either.
Down at the lake the surf played against the cliffs, sank down, and returned. It had done so as long as this water had existed, and would do so as long as it would exist. And this motion without ending was to him like generations growing up and dying. What was the purpose of this repetition — to come and go, to live and die? Why must this happen? Of what use was it?
Like the fading smoke of a dying fire, so seemed to him his days gone by, the good as well as the bad. His body had stiffened in old age’s cold, was withering like the leaves in autumn. Perhaps at last the leaf resigned itself to falling. But it bothered him that he must leave this life without knowing its purpose. In that way it was a disappointment to die.
Karl Oskar sat beside his wife’s grave for a couple of hours. When at last he rose to return home it seemed to him the cross on the grave had started to lean a little. He looked closer; indeed, it was leaning. It was almost twenty-five years since he had put it up, and in that time the ground might change and sink a little. No post in the earth would remain exactly in the same position for that length of time.
He took hold of the cross with both hands. It wasn’t leaning much, only a few inches, but it looked bad on a grave. After he had straightened it he took a few steps back and looked. As far as his eyes could see, the cross stood straight now. Next time he came to the cemetery he would bring a spade and put some support against it.
A last searching look over the grave, then he turned and walked up the path. He took one long step with his healthy leg and two short with the other; he limped back the same way he had come.
The fourth and last of the men who had selected this place returned to live the life still remaining to him.
Charles O. Nelson, the old farmer in the old house, was in his bed while the slow drip of the seconds and the minutes filled his roomy bowl of pain, his long hour of ache. It was persistent today, the auger. He turned a little, tried another position, first on the right side, then on the left; he lay with his legs pulled up, with his legs stretched out. It was the same however he turned and tried, today it made no difference.
Through his window he looked at the big field of wheat in shocks; beyond, toward the forest, they had planted corn which stood tall and straight. The crops he saw from his window would make many loaves of bread, would feed many hungry people. Those crops would not have grown there if he hadn’t lived. Crops would continue to grow out of the earth after he had been buried in it. It was his hands that had changed this piece of ground, and as he thought of all the crops that would be harvested after he was gone, he was well pleased.
But there was little honor in breaking land and tilling fields. Honor was reserved for those who wielded the sword, the gun, or the cannon — not for a man using ax and plow, the implements of peaceful labor. Felling trees and turning turf was for simple folk, but a dirty occupation for lords and masters.
The old man looked out on the farm he had wrested from the wilderness: He had not been able to accomplish fully what he had set out to do. The big main house, the crown of his work, he had not been able to build. He had used some of the lumber for a coffin, and after that he couldn’t build anything more. The boys had put up the house instead. His workday had been cut short, he had been carried home by his sons on a litter of oak branches, and they had finished the work. There must be others besides him who had been forced to stop too early.
At the gable near his window grew an apple tree, an Astrakhan tree, which blossomed every spring and bore fruit every fall. It was an old tree now but still youthfully green, a pride to the old house with its laden boughs and abundance of fruit. Now at the end of summer the fruit was ripe; the ground under the tree was covered with big, yellow-white apples, their skin transparently clear.
Fallen Astrakhan apples didn’t keep long, he must hurry and gather them. Tomorrow morning he would find a basket and pick them. It was quite remarkable all the fruit that came from that tree, year after year, and now it must be quite old. It was a tree that had grown from a seed from Sweden which blossomed and bore fruit at the Nelson Settlement.
Sweden, the old homeland — well. Perhaps he should have taken one of the new steamers and gone over to see it once more while he still was able to move about. Now it was too late. There was nothing to do about that. Old Charles O. Nelson had to be satisfied with his map of Ljuder.
Here he found all the roads he once had walked. Here ran the county road from Åkerby to the neighboring village of Algutsboda. That road he had walked many times that spring and summer when he had courted Kristina Johansdotter in Duvemåla.
It was a good distance from Korpamoen to Duvemåla, a whole Swedish mile, almost six of the American miles. But he had walked with light steps and never thought of the distance. One spring and summer he had walked that road twice a week: Saturday evening to Duvemåla, Sunday morning back to Korpamoen. His fingers followed the red line across the map. He would never lose his way on that road; he knew it better than any road he had ever walked. There was Sjubonale — the Seven-Farmers village — with an old-fashioned gate made of birch wattles. When he had passed that gate he was almost there, the next farm was Duvemåla. He did not go all the way to the house, he must not be seen by anyone on the farm. He must wait under the huge mountain ash if he should be first. But he knew in advance he never had to wait: In the lingering twilight he could see her light-blue shawl at the garden gate from a long distance.
The old people hadn’t gone to bed yet, it was too early to go with her to her room. They walked down the meadow, through a birch grove; at this time of day they never met anyone here. They walked with their arms around each other but they did not say much. What she wanted to know he had already said many times, and what he wanted to know she had said as often. Yet it happened that they repeated it, not to help each other remember, but only because they wanted to hear it again.
Tonight it was light in the Duvemåla meadows; they could see the lilies of the valley under the birches, where the birds still chirped — they were always noisiest right after sunset in May. They walked all the way to the edge of the bog, and then they walked back to the house and now it was silent. They stole in through the kitchen without a sound, she leading him by the hand to her room, now and then stopping to put her fingers on her lips and whispering: Quiet!
Then he lay down on the bed beside her, both with their clothes on: they were engaged and one could sleep with one’s fiancée on “promise and honor.” But their hands caressed and petted, a girl’s fingers stroked the youths neck, the youth found the girl’s braids. Sometimes they trembled as they caressed and their breathing became faster.
They kissed until they were tired and out of breath. But they knew how far their caresses could go, and no further. They must not get closer before the wedding night. She was a virgin and would remain so until they were married. His honor demanded that he leave her intact, and hers that she be left so.