And Kristina sat up, the better to keep an eye on her family belongings. There stood their chest — five feet long and three high — reinforced with broad iron bands which had held it together unharmed across the Atlantic; only one corner of the lid was scraped a little. On the front of the chest glowed the letters, still red, painted there before departure: Home-owner Karl Oskar Nilsson, North America.
And there stood their sacks and their food basket. The small bundle next to Kristina moved at times, it was alive — in it slept little Harald, the baby. Karl Oskar had gone back to the ship to pick up something forgotten and he had the two other children with him.
From where she sat among the trees Kristina could see the harbor and the long row of ships at the piers. Right in front of her was a tall, yellow-green house with a round tower which it carried like a crown. The house was built on an islet, and people went to it across a bridge. High up on the wall over the entrance there was something written in tall black letters, visible from where she sat: CASTLE GARDEN. It was, of course, the name of the house, whatever it might mean. In front of the round house on the same isle there was a smaller and lower house, one wall of which was almost covered by an inscription: LABOR EXCHANGE; the name of that house was painted in the largest letters she had ever seen.
They put names on the houses in America. And the incomprehensible writing she saw reminded her that she was now in a land where she understood not the smallest word of what people said; they might speak into her very ears, yet she wouldn’t hear them; she might talk, and they would not hear her. From the first moment here in America she suffered from two defects — deafness and dumbness; she must go about among strangers a deaf-mute.
It was gentry she saw walking about there near the big house with the tower; the women had umbrellas like the ladies at home in Sweden. But it wasn’t raining, it was entirely clear, the sun shone in a cloudless sky. Why did the women carry umbrellas today? Perhaps they had brought them along for show.
Yes, the sun was shining, there was an unmerciful heat in America. The air was oppressive and she breathed with difficulty; she had the sensation of inhaling pungent steam while bending over a pot of boiling water. But her happiness in being on the earth again was so great that it almost obliterated the discomfort of the American heat. On the ship she had believed that she never more would get out into God’s clear daylight; she had felt she would end her life enclosed in the dark hold; she had thought she would never again see a patch of grass or a green leaf. But now she lay here on the green earth in the sun. She could just as easily, like poor Inga-Lena, have been lying on the bottom of the ocean, her body lowered for monsters of the deep to devour. But she had been saved from them, she and her loved ones — what else mattered?
To go out on the ocean in a fragile ship with three small children — she felt it had been to tempt the Lord God. In a long and fervent prayer she thanked her Father in Heaven Who in His mercy had let them reach solid ground in health.
She almost felt as if she had been dead and awakened to life again, as if a miracle had happened to her. How wonderfully still everything about her seemed! The joy of lying here on the peaceful, quiet earth could only be fully appreciated by one who had long lived in a constantly moving and heaving bed, one who had been tossed about on high, restless billows. At last she was liberated from the ship’s swing which had thrown her up and down, she was free from the dizzy journeys to the top of the waves and into their valleys. She had always loved to play with a swing but never again would she be tempted by the swing of the sea; with this she was sated for life. Never again would she desire to see this terrifying ocean, never again would her feet leave solid ground.
She felt thirsty, her tongue was parched, and her appetite was returning now that she was on land; she must eat well now that she had one more life to feed.
She put her hand against her abdomen: again she could feel the stirring within her. Many days had passed since the last time she felt the child move, and she had begun to wonder if it still could be alive. It would not have seemed strange to her had it died, so ill and weak she had been from seasickness and scurvy. A joy filled her as she now felt it stir: once having conceived a child, she wished to bear it alive; a stillborn child was a shame and God’s chastisement — the woman was not worthy to carry into the world the life He had created within her.
When was it due? She counted the months on her fingers: she had conceived it sometime in the middle of February — March, April, May, June — she was already in her fifth month. July, August, September, October, November — her childbed would be sometime in the middle of November.
About half the time left until she was in childbed. Would they have a bed by then, a bed in which she could bear her child?
The child was alive. A life that had traveled free across the ocean had come into the land. It stirred and moved in its hidden nest, stronger than the mother had felt it before. Not only had she herself come to life again, the child within her seemed to have gained new life, now that she had carried it into the New World.
— 3—
“Are you asleep, Kristina?”
She had dozed off. Karl Oskar stood by her side, wiping his sweaty face with his jacket sleeve.
“What a heat! They can fry bacon on the roofs here!” He took off his wadmal coat and threw it on the ground. Johan and Lill-Märta came rushing to their mother.
“Guess, Mother! Father has bought something!”
“Guess what Father bought!”
In one hand Karl Oskar carried a paper bag, in the other their own large pitcher. He held up the bag to Kristina’s nose. “You want to smell something?”
“Look in the bag, Mother!” shouted Johan. “Father has bought sweet milk and wheat bread!”
“Sweet milk and wheat bread!” Lill-Märta repeated after him.
Kristina inhaled a pleasing odor which she had not smelled for a long time. She stuck her hand into the bag and got hold of something soft: fresh, white rolls, wheat rolls!
“Karl Oskar — it isn’t true.”
“Look in the pitcher!”
“Mother! It’s sweet milk!” shouted Johan.
Karl Oskar held up the pitcher, so full of milk that it splashed over.
“Be careful. Don’t lose any,” she warned.
“Now you must eat and drink, Kristina.”
“Karl Oskar, I don’t believe my eyes. How could you buy it?”
“The Finn helped me. Eat and drink now. We have already had some.”
Sweet milk! Fresh milk! When had she last tasted it? Not one drop had they been able to obtain on the ship. It was in their quarters in Karlshamn that she had tasted milk last time; long, long ago, in another world, in the Old World.
Kristina took hold of the pitcher with both hands, carefully; she mustn’t let it splash over. Tears came to her eyes; she had to see what milk looked like, she had forgotten. This milk was yellow-white, thick and rich; no spoon had skimmed off the cream; and it smelled as fresh as if it had just been milked into this pitcher.
Karl Oskar opened the knapsack and took out a tin mug which he filled with milk from the pitcher. “Drink — as much as you are able to. You need it to get well.”
Kristina held the mug. “But the children? Have they had enough?”