“I have never seen a man so handy in the kitchen,” Kristina said to Ulrika.
“He is the kindest man with the biggest heart I’ve ever met,” replied the Glad One. “Who could ever have guessed he was a priest?”
“Is he married?” Kristina asked.
“He is a bachelor.” Thomassen used the English word.
“I mean — does he have a wife?”
“No. He lives single.” He used the English word single, which Kristina didn’t understand. She thought, however, the minister in Stillwater must not yet have married.
The Norwegian told them that women were scarce in the Territory. Here in Stillwater there was hardly one woman to ten men, and in the countryside maybe one to twenty men. So the men went about as eager as Adam in Paradise before God created Eve.
“You are most welcome! The settlers have been waiting for you!” he told Kristina.
And he looked from one to the other of the three Swedish women. Kristina did not like his eyes; there was lust in them. When he looked at her, she felt as though he were in some way touching her intimately. This she was sure of — she needn’t ask if shoemaker Thomassen was unmarried.
Karl Oskar questioned him concerning the road to Taylors Falls, and he showed the Norwegian the piece of paper he had carefully saved, the address of Fina-Kajsa’s son:
Mister Anders Månsson
Taylors Falls Påst Offis
Minnesota Territory
North-America.
From Thomassen he now learned that Taylors Falls was a small settlement deep in the wilderness to the north. There were only a few settlers there and they would find Månsson without difficulty. Taylors Falls was on the banks of the St. Croix, but no passenger boats went there. The lumber company in Stillwater had cut a road for timber hauling with their ox teams some distance along the river — after that there were trails. They would have to go by foot to reach their destination. He was sure the lumber company could be persuaded to freight their belongings up the river in one of their barges. It was almost thirty miles to Taylors Falls, and if they were good walkers, they might manage it in two days, but the paths were overgrown, and as they had children with them they ought to figure on three days. But they would have no trouble finding their way: if they stayed close to the river, they couldn’t miss it, for Taylors Falls lay right on the bank.
The weather now was pleasantly cool, and as they had already been much delayed it was decided that they should continue on their way immediately. Thirty miles sounded a formidable distance to walk on foot, but counting in Swedish miles it was only five. Often on a Sunday they had walked the distance to Ljuder church and back, which made two Swedish miles. Having sat inactive so long on ships and steamboats, they felt they ought to have rested themselves sufficiently to walk the distance.
They asked the Norwegian if there might be any danger of wild Indians during the walk, but he did not think that the Redskins they might encounter on the road to Taylors Falls would be dangerous, if left alone. There were only Chippewa Indians living in the wilds to the north, and they were a docile and peace-loving tribe. The Sioux, who had their hunting ground to the south and who roamed in great packs through the forest this time of year, were much more fierce and warlike, and the settlers were afraid of them. But he was sure they would not meet any members of that tribe in the region they were to pass through.
The Swedes wondered if shoemaker Thomassen didn’t minimize the dangers. Perhaps he only wanted to allay their fears.
“You may meet Chippewas, but they are friendly to the settlers,” he insisted.
The youngest and the oldest in their group would cause most concern during a long walk — Fina-Kajsa and the babies. Karl Oskar asked Fina-Kajsa if she would be able to go with them; perhaps she had better stay here with the kind minister for the time being.
The old woman flared up in anger: “Who says I’m not able to walk? Who will recognize my son Anders if I don’t come along?”
And she assured them with many oaths that they would never get there if she didn’t go with them to find her son for them; they would never arrive without her aid. They would lose their way in the wilderness, and no one would help them, unless she was with them and brought them to Anders.
So they prepared to get under way. They brought along as much food as they thought would be needed, and clothing and bedding for sleeping in the open; they took their knapsacks and their bundles, as much as they thought they could carry. Pastor Jackson had taken charge of their heavy goods, and he was to send it on the lumber company’s flat barges to Mister Anders Månsson at Taylors Falls.
As the immigrants parted from the goodhearted man who had made his cabin their home for a night and half a day, they were all very sad at not being able to say a single word of thanks in his tongue. None of their honest words of gratitude were comprehensible to him. But all shook him by the hand in such a way that they felt he must understand. And Robert tried to express in English how grateful they were: Pastor Jackson could rely on them to do him a favor in return as soon as they could. This sentence he had not taken from the language book and he was not sure the pastor understood him. Robert was particularly grateful to the Stillwater minister: he was the first American able to understand his English. Pastor Jackson had understood more of his sentences from the language book than anyone else, and of the English words Pastor Jackson spoke, Robert had understood many more than any other American’s. Robert had used a sentence which he had long practiced: Please speak a little more slowly, sir! and after this the minister had spoken more slowly and clearly. Their conversation had progressed almost to his full satisfaction, even though he had been unable to find a chapter, Conversation with a Minister. This American had understood him from the very beginning, ever since his question: Will no one help me?
And they were still all fifteen together as, toward noon, they started northward from the logging camp where the Stillwater Lumber Company dominated everything with its great signs. Thomassen, anxious to talk to the women, accompanied them part of the way, admonishing them to keep close to the river on their right hand; then they could not miss Taylors Falls: “You couldn’t miss it even if you tried to.”
During their long journey, the group from Ljuder had traveled on wheels and keels, they had ridden on flat-wagons and steam wagons, on sailing ships and steamships, on side-wheelers and stern-wheelers. They thought they had used all the vehicles in existence to transport a person from one place to another in this world. But for the last stretch of their long journey they must resort to the means of the old Apostles — the last part of their thousand-mile road they had to walk.
XII. AT HOME IN A FOREIGN FOREST
— 1—
The immigrants had now seen a part of the new continent in its immense expanse; its size was inconceivable to them. Yet during their journey through this vast land they had lacked space in which to move about; in crowded railway wagons and ships’ holds they had been penned up in coops or shut in stalls. The country was large, but the space it had offered for their use had until now been very small. At last they were liberated from the shackles of conveyances: here they had great space around them and nothing but God’s high heaven above them.
They had felt lost in the towns through which they had passed, fumbling, awkward, irresolute. Mingling with great crowds of unknown people, unable to communicate with them, they had felt downhearted, worried, completely bewildered. But here they had at last come back to the earth and its trees, bushes, and grass. The immigrants now walked into a great and foreign forest, into untilled wilderness. But something marvelous happened to them here: For the first time in North America they felt at home in their surroundings.