The steamer had a large crew — bosuns, engineers, stokers, and deckhands. Negroes served in many capacities; those black men with hair like wood shavings prepared the food and served it, loaded the ship, cleaned it, and busied themselves everywhere. The black crewmen were free, but among the passengers in steerage were two Negro slaves shackled in foot chains, because they were said to have wild tempers.
Kristina felt pity for the two black-skinned men sitting there chained together, unable to move. Why were people put in chains and foot irons when they had done no wrong? The slaves’ owner was among the pleasure travelers on the upper deck: Kristina would have liked to ask him to unshackle the poor Negroes, had she been able to speak his language.
Little Johan watched the Negroes for a long time in silence. Then he asked his mother: How long had their faces been so terribly black?
“They have always been that way.”
“Are they black both morning and evening?”
“Yes. Negroes are always black.”
“But, Mother — how can they know when they need to wash themselves?”
“I don’t know. . Quiet, now.”
But the boy insisted: “Tell me, Mother, how do the Negroes know when they are dirty?”
Kristina was unable to give Johan this information. She herself was deeply disturbed by the dirty white passengers in steerage. No Negro could help it that the Lord God had made him black, but when God had given people white skin, then they owed it to their Creator to keep it white. Children and menfolk seemed to crave a little dirt for comfort’s sake, but Kristina demanded more from women. Here she saw womenfolk who were sorely in need of a thorough scrubbing in boiled lye-soap, and their children appeared never to have touched water since they were baptized. Fina-Kajsa, to be sure, wasn’t very clean, and washed herself unwillingly, but compared to these foreign women she stood out as clean as an angel. They were probably too lazy to keep dirt from them; slothfulness bred uncleanliness and uncleanliness bred vermin; among these people they must be careful or they might again become lice infested.
In the hold there were no spittoons, which seemed strange; one would expect to find them in nice places, among cleanly people. The deck soon was awash from the tobacco-chewing menfolk’s spittle, and Kristina had to hold up her skirts as she walked over it; she was horrified to see little children crawling and creeping about on their hands and knees on this bemired floor; only with great effort was she able to keep little Harald away from it.
Washing buckets were set up for the steerage passengers, but the water was never changed. After a score of people had dipped their hands and rinsed their faces in the tubs, the water became as thick and black as though blood sausage had been boiled in it. And the same towel passed from one hand to another — there was only one for this multitude. Perhaps the ship’s command felt: If fifty people have dried themselves on the towel before you, then it’s good enough for you too! But Kristina washed neither herself nor her children in water used by dirty fellow passengers. The very first morning on board she asked their guide for help, and as soon as the steamer touched shore he managed to get her a tub of clean water. Then she used her own towels, which she had brought along and laundered during the voyage.
But in spite of her annoyance at this lack of external cleanliness, Kristina was unable to dislike her fellow passengers. These foreign people — poor, dirty, and badly dressed — appeared so friendly; only kind eyes and smiling faces were turned on her and her children. When strangers spoke to her, Kristina realized they spoke no evil, but rather something kind and cheering, wishing her only well. She felt ashamed that she could not answer them with the same kindness, that she could not make herself understood by them. All she could do was to smile back as broad a friendliness as she could and shake her head for the rest. She longed to enter into conversation with them; she suffered from being unable to do so and felt as though she were doing the strangers a rudeness. Besides, here she could have found honest friends, and these friends she turned away, again and again, through her silence.
Kristina suffered and worried over the lot awaiting her in the new land: to walk like a deaf-mute among other people.
— 2—
It had been agreed that the interpreter Landberg was to accompany the immigrants to Chicago and from there return to New York.
While he still was with his countrymen he tried to advise and inform them about the things they needed to know. Landberg said he had traveled all the great seas, he had seen much of the world, on land and water, but he had found himself most at home in North America. Nowhere had he been less disturbed by the authorities, nowhere had he been so free to make his own decisions, nowhere were people so helpful to each other as here. His deepest needs — freedom to move as he pleased, and sufficient food — he had found in North America. Yes, more freedom and cheaper food than anywhere else on the globe. Just as an example — pork could be bought for three Swedish shillings per pound, pork so tasty and fat that the grease spurted between the jaws while one was eating it. Long Landberg called the North American Republic the Land of Liberty and Fat Pork.
But, he reminded them, they must remember that here, as elsewhere in the world, people were good and evil, industrious and lazy, generous and greedy, honest and crooked. They must be particularly on their guard against two types: the runners, who wanted to rob them, and sectarians, who wished to snare them into their fold. Among the latter he warned them against the Jansonites, who had come earlier from Sweden. Their prophet, Erik Janson, had been a plague to humanity, a torturer of his followers. First he had forbidden marriage in his sect, as childbearing interfered with the women’s work, but when his adherents grumbled at this, he was forced to allow it, and prepared a wedding for fifty couples at one time. But the sectarians were allowed no will of their own; when a married man wished to sleep with his wife, he must announce his wish to the prophet far in advance and obtain his permission. And when the tyrant gave his assent to the bedding, he insisted also that husband and wife must perform it in full view of all the other sectarians. Many hesitated at this. Landberg himself had for a while been a member of this sect, but he had soon left it, with many others, who, like himself were unable to put up with Janson’s demands.
They must also be on the lookout for the Shakers, who served God by making their bodies shake and shiver, nay, even danced and hopped about, singing and howling until, exhausted, they would fall to the ground and faint. The dancing and the shaking themselves into insensibility were supposed to illustrate the ascent into Heaven by the saved ones. These sectarians maintained that the praising and blessing of the Lord should not be confined to the tongue only — the whole body, head, and limbs had the same right to share this joy. (To this point Landberg was inclined to feel there was some reason.)
Another dangerous sect was the Whippers, who exorcised evil spirits by beating each other with scourges until their bodies were a bloody mass. Sometimes the evil spirits might resist the mistreatment and remain in the body until the soul had left it. Yes, these sectarians actually whipped each other to death.
Landberg himself had by now returned to the church of his forebears, the Evangelical-Lutheran religion, and he earnestly begged the Swedish immigrants to remain in the faith of their fathers, to stick to the only right God here in America; they must not allow themselves to be led astray by irreligious and false prophets. He was pleased to see that they had brought along their Bibles and psalmbooks, so that they could hold their own services.