Jonas Petter predicted Ulrika would be married before full summer.
Kristina said to Ulrika: “I wonder who will finally get you?”
“I myself don’t bother to wonder,” replied Ulrika, full of confidence. “I leave everything to the Lord’s decision.”
— 2—
Before Elin went to Stillwater and accepted her position with the high American family, she and Robert had studied a chapter from his language book: “Advice for Swedish servant-folk in America.” She must learn to understand the commands of the mistress, otherwise she would perform her duties wrongly and be driven from service the very first day. Together they read the most important sentences concerning her duties, they read them in English, over and over, until the servant-girl-to-be knew them by heart. The instructions began with the first day and went on for the whole week:
Good morning, Missus! I am the new servant girl. — Welcome, change clothes and feel at home! — What time am I expected down in the morning? — You must get up at six o’clock. Clean out the ashes in the stove. Hand me the pot. I’ll show you how to make oatmeal. Empty the slop bucket and tidy the maid’s room. Eat your own breakfast. Leave no food on the dining-room table while you sweep and dust. Wash dishes and pots. Tomorrow is washday. Everything must be ironed Tuesday morning. After dinner on Sunday you may go to church. You must be back at half past nine. Wednesday you must clean upstairs. Now eat your own dinner. .
They went through the whole week of a maid in an upper-class American family.
By now Elin had learned to move her lips less, and she kept her tongue far back in her mouth while speaking English. She had improved greatly since her mother had been teaching her what she picked up in her conversations with American menfolk.
When Elin had served as nursemaid at home in Ljuder, the master had held morning prayers for all the maids and farm help every day. Each one had been required to repeat by heart the verses in the Catechism from Titus, Second Chapter, before they were allowed to eat breakfast: “Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again; not purloining, but shewing all fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.”
Elin thought as an American maid she would now be required to read these verses and she wanted to learn them in English. But Robert told her: The Americans did not require their servants to obey the Catechism. Moreover, no one out here had to obey the authorities, who weren’t put in their place by God. She herself could see from the book that servants were treated justly in America. The master and mistress bade them welcome! They asked servants to feel at home and gave them time off to go to church! Nay, the mistress was even so noble that she told her maid to eat! Both breakfast and dinner! Had anyone in Sweden ever heard a master or a mistress ask a servant to eat?
When Elin accepted the position in Stillwater, Robert stayed at home and waited. He waited for a secret message Elin had promised to send him. And one Saturday, the third week in March, it came: The ice had broken up on the St. Croix River, and in Stillwater they were looking for the first steamer.
The next day, Sunday, Robert walked to Danjel’s and spoke to Arvid. They were ready, they had long been ready, they had been waiting. And when Robert came home in the evening he announced to Karl Oskar: “Tomorrow morning Arvid and I shall walk to Stillwater. We’re taking the steamboat.”
“The steamboat?”
“We shall journey to the gold fields in California.”
“What are you talking about? What do you want to do there?”
“Dig gold, of course.”
“Dig gold?” Karl Oskar thought that Robert had invented some tale to deceive him.
“We decided last fall. We were only waiting for the ice to melt.”
“Are you serious?”
Robert assured him he was in earnest. Karl Oskar began to wonder if Robert and Arvid might have met an American who wanted to lure them away on some adventure; but as he listened to his brother he realized the gold-digging fancies had originated entirely with Robert. The boy had heard rumors about a land of gold far to the west, and he believed all he heard. He lived entirely in his imagination. And even though Arvid was a full-grown man, he was as credulous and gullible as Robert, and equally childish. And these two intended to undertake a long journey in this vast, dangerous country. Karl Oskar could easily see the outcome of such a venture! He must avert his young brother’s fancy.
“You couldn’t manage alone, Robert! You’re too young and too weak as yet.”
“To dig gold isn’t heavy work. It’s easier than grub hoeing!”
“If you found some gold. If your fancies came through. But California lies far away, in the back end of America. How will you get there?”
“We’ll work on the steamboat to St. Louis. Then we can walk the highway. I have a map and I know English. Don’t worry about me, Karl Oskar.”
Arvid was coming to Ki-Chi-Saga to meet Robert the following morning. Danjel had said he would not keep his servant against his will. Arvid had already worked for him a whole year, that was enough for the transportation from Sweden. Danjel was decent about everything, he let Arvid have his free will.
“This will come to a terrible end!” Karl Oskar almost shouted his words at Robert. If his brother had been strong and handy and tough! But Robert was a weak, inexperienced, timid boy. He ran from dead Indians and could hear the whizz of arrows that had never been shot. And his hearing was bad. He was filled with his own imagination; he was possessed by his own fancies. He was walking with open eyes into his own destruction!
Karl Oskar recalled that Robert had been odd as a boy at home: he was at least twelve years old before he stopped running after rainbows, trying to catch them with his hands. Robert was fascinated by the glittering colors and never realized that however far he ran the rainbow remained equally far away. Karl Oskar had never run to catch a rainbow.
It was pure folly for Robert to start out. And Karl Oskar pleaded with him and warned him. He was trying to talk him out of the gold-digging notion, not because he wanted Robert as a helper on the farm — he could take care of himself — it was for Robert’s own sake. He could not with a clear conscience let his younger brother set out on so reckless, danger-fraught a journey. Here in a foreign country he felt in a father’s place toward his brother. Had Robert thought of all the perils he and Arvid might encounter? They must travel through vast stretches of wilderness, they didn’t know the roads, they could easily become lost; they didn’t know people, they could be swindled and cheated; they might even be killed.
“You can’t manage alone! Believe what I say. You’re only eighteen!”
“You were only fourteen what you left home,” retorted Robert.
“That’s true. But that was at home, that was different.”
“When you were fourteen you said to Father: ‘I’ll go! I’ve decided for myself!’ And you left.”