But now the slave states had inveigled each other to attack the Union. The flag had been shot down! What could the President do now? What must they all do? The one attacked must defend himself.
Johan was standing beside the harrow, keyed up, waiting eagerly and with apprehension: “Do you think, Father, the rebels are coming all the way up here?”
No, his father didn’t think so; the boy mustn’t be afraid. The Southern rebels would never come as far north as Minnesota. Long before they got halfway they would be killed on the battlefields. And he told his boy to go on home and finish cleaning out the sheep pen, a chore he had started in the morning. He must tell Harald to help him, there was great hurry, the sheep manure was to be spread on the oat field before seeding.
Johan looked disappointed but obeyed reluctantly. He had expected his father to unharness the team and come home and forget about the sheep pen. He had in some way expected a reward for bringing the message of war. It was unfair, on a day like this, to have to shovel sheep dung.
A swarm of mosquitoes buzzed around the horses and bit them in the groins; the animals stamped with their hind legs, rattling the harnesses. Karl Oskar remained sitting, squinting at the sun, his thoughts disturbed, pondering. War! Never could a war have started at a more inopportune moment. But whatever happened, he must plant the spring wheat today. A new crop must grow; people would need bread next year also.
He resumed harrowing but row after row with each furrow he was pursued by the question: How many men in America must now leave their daily chores and go to war? He did not stop harrowing until the dinner hour. Kristina, his wife, had already set the table as he entered the kitchen, and he sat down to eat with his family.
Johan repeated to his mother and brothers and sisters what he had read on the poster in Center City. This last year in school he had learned English quite well and could read it almost fluently.
Kristina listened with great calm. A change had come over her these last years; nothing disturbed or frightened her.
“War is punishment for our sins,” she said. “We can only ask God to have mercy on us.”
Karl Oskar said, “Those armies of the South can do us no harm up here. They’ll never get here!”
“I mean: May God have mercy on the people in the South and the people in the North!”
He protested that the rich slave owners in the South had started the war. They alone were to blame, and they alone ought to suffer. If one were attacked by a criminal must he suffer the same punishment as the attacker?
“Punishment belongs to God,” explained Kristina. “A Christian is not allowed to go out and kill.”
“Isn’t he allowed to kill a murderer and criminal?”
“No. He mustn’t kill any human being.”
“But I’ve the right to defend myself. A murderer must blame himself if he gets killed!”
“If someone is killed, is it therefore necessary to kill others?” Kristina replied. “Can it help the dead one if other people die?”
Karl Oskar and Kristina had had many discussions about the South and the North and could not agree. Now he replied, as he had done many times before: If one couldn’t defend oneself against an attacker, no person in the world could live in peace in his home. And the slave states had attacked because the presidential election last fall hadn’t gone the way they wanted.
“They want to govern themselves, as we do,” she said. “Why can’t they?”
“It ruins the Union,” he explained. “The rebels have broken the laws of the Union.”
“But the people of the South don’t like them. They don’t want to obey the same laws as we. Why must they? Why must they be forced to obey?”
Karl Oskar could not make Kristina understand that the slave power in the South was criminal. Hadn’t they not long ago read in their paper Hemlandet about the Souths plan to murder President Abraham Lincoln, the most honest man in North America? The slave owners had conspired to prevent him from occupying his office. For a long time they had planned this deed, and hired the assassins. When Father Abe was to ride the steam wagon to the government house in Washington, the murderers were to turn over the wagon and crush him against the rails. Such was their intent; he was never to reach the presidential chair alive. Praise be God, the conspiracy was discovered in time, Abe was warned, and guards were posted along the whole line of the railroad and he arrived unharmed in Washington. This fully proved that the slave powers instigated murders. And murderers could not be endured in this country.
Kristina looked at him across the table: “And now they must go to war, the men. .?”
It was half a question, but he did not reply this time; he looked down at his plate.
She had something more to say to him but she couldn’t quite get it out now — there was one more question she would have liked to ask him: Are you going?
The next morning, Tuesday, Karl Oskar drove single-horsed to Center City to do jury duty. He tied his horse and walked up the steps to the meetinghouse, which also served as courthouse, where he met Mr. Thorn, the Chisago County sheriff, a tall, well-built man. The sheriff said there would be no sitting of the court today because war had broken out.
Mr. Thorn was a Scotchman. Karl Oskar knew him as an honest and capable person and he had helped elect him sheriff. In Sweden the farmers were never allowed to elect their sheriff; there they must accept whoever the Crown sent them, however badly he might treat them. A Crown sheriff in Sweden was a puffed-up, vain person, a magistrate wearing gold-plated buttons and uniform cap, who cursed and ruled. He threatened and frightened and no one dared do anything but obey. Mr. Thorn on the contrary was a helpful, kind man who neither ruled nor swore at people. And if he had done so he would not have lasted long in his office. There was a great difference between a sheriff in Sweden and a sheriff in America; here the settlers were his equals.
“Old Abe has called for troops,” said Mr. Thorn.
He showed the Swedish settler a big placard nailed to the meetinghouse wall. Yesterday Abraham Lincoln, the President of the Union, had sent this proclamation to all the Northern states; this poster concerned each and every citizen.
Karl Oskar began to spell his way through the poster. He understood most of the English, and what he didn’t understand the sheriff explained to him.
Southern rebels had conspired to get possession of fortresses and war matériel from the Union. The laws of the nation must be enforced and therefore the booty must be recaptured. Lincoln, in his capacity as President, urged all loyal citizens to hasten to the defense of the Union. He asked for 75,000 men to enlist immediately.
The tall Scotchman already knew Lincoln’s proclamation by heart. He spoke with great feeling — those scoundrels in the slave states had besmirched the flag, they had shot at the thirty-two stars in the Union flag. The thirty-second and last star was that of Minnesota. These Southern bandits in shooting at their flag thus, had actually fired at the people of this very county; it was as if they had tried to murder him, Karl Oskar, his friends, and fellow settlers.
Mr. Thorn had his duties as sheriff and because of this, sadly enough, he was forced to stay at home. Otherwise he would already have hearkened to Old Abe’s call and enlisted. As he said this he glanced at the Swede beside him in a way that could not be misunderstood.
Twice Karl Oskar read through the presidential proclamation very carefully while he barely listened to the sheriff. Mr. Thorn kept fingering his badge of office as he poured out his bitterness over the insult to the flag; such an insult could be washed off only in blood.
Karl Oskar untied the halter chain and harnessed his horse to the wagon. He made some purchases in Klas Albert’s store where today the customers elbowed each other. Then he drove back home again; with no court he had nothing more to do in Center City.