But she looked still more frightened and stared at him as if he might be insane. Perhaps she thought he was making fun of her. He was unable to make himself understood and he had little confidence in Robert after their experience on the street in Stillwater.
However, just as the woman prepared to shut the door, Robert stepped up and said clearly in English: “We want to buy milk.”
She looked searchingly at the English-speaking youth who was beardless, but long haired, and they realized she understood him. He repeated his request a second and a third time, and each time she nodded in comprehension. Then she left them and disappeared into the house, returning in a few moments with a large wooden pail filled almost to the brim with milk.
Both Kristina and Ulrika spoke heartfelt Swedish words of thanks to the woman, and all gathered with their mugs around the milk pail.
Kristina turned to Robert and said: “We have you to thank for this milk!”
At last Robert had shown that he could lend his mouth as a help to all, explain in the foreign language what they wished, and obtain what they needed. This time he had prepared himself welclass="underline" he had repeated the words to himself many times before he used them: We want to buy milk. This was the way he must do it — chew the words many times, as he chewed his food.
Robert grew courageous from his success, and as the kind woman was returning to the cabin he followed her and said: “Respected Sir, how can we reach Taylors Falls?”
He asked Karl Oskar to show her the piece of paper with Anders Månsson’s address. But she did not look at it or answer him — instead she hurried inside and closed the door. When Robert tried to open it he found it bolted. The woman had given them a pail of milk and then she had locked herself in the cabin, without even waiting to be paid! That was peculiar.
The immigrants eagerly emptied the milk pail; the children were given as much milk as they could drink, and there was still plenty for the grownups. The milk was cream-thick, the cows hereabouts must get good grass; all felt refreshed by this unexpected refreshment.
But the American woman had not waited to be paid. She had locked herself in the cabin. She was afraid to let them come inside, this much they understood.
They put the empty pail at the door and waited for her to reappear. Robert was still determined to find out where Anders Månsson lived. And he began to practice a new sentence: I want to expose you this paper with an address. . when suddenly a dog’s bark was heard quite near them, and two men with guns in their hands approached across the clearing.
The men who headed toward them were apparently hunters. They wore broad-brimmed hats and skin jackets on which the fur still clung at the seams. They were unkempt, fully bearded, and were accompanied by two fierce curs whose hair stood on end. As they neared the Swedish immigrants they lifted their guns threateningly. The dogs barked furiously, and the frightened children began to yell.
A commotion of indescribable fear broke out among the travelers at the strangers’ unexpected behavior. The women pressed their children to them and huddled together, the men looked irresolutely from one to the other, feeling for their knives. The strangers acted and spoke roughly, and although the immigrants couldn’t understand their words, they understood their guns: the men ordered them not to move and seemed ready to lay hands on them. Karl Oskar and Jonas Petter fingered their knives — their guns were still in their chests in Stillwater — and wondered what kind of ruffians they had encountered. What did the men want? If they were hunters, they ought to pursue their game and let peaceful folk alone. This Karl Oskar and Jonas Petter told them in Swedish.
A third man was now approaching across the clearing. He was shorter than the other two, but he too had a gun and was dressed like them. His trousers had great patches over the knees. He carried two rabbits by their hind legs, blood dripping from their headless bodies. He looked more threatening than either of the other two hunters.
The unarmed group of men, women, and children was now surrounded by three men with guns, apparently hunters of peaceful human beings. Now they were indeed in danger and they huddled close together like a herd of game, stalked and encircled by hounds. What could they do?
The dogs rushed to the third hunter and licked the blood dripping from his rabbits. Then, suddenly, one of the immigrant women rushed after the dogs, calling in fury at the top of her old voice: “You bastard! Don’t you know how to behave?”
It was Fina-Kajsa, the oldest and most decrepit of the women. She rushed forward in an insane rage as if threatening the ruffian. But suddenly she stopped and stared at the man, and the hunter with the rabbits pushed back his broad-brimmed hat; he too stopped and stared; his chin fell, leaving his mouth open.
Fina-Kajsa took a few steps forward: “Shoot your paltry rabbits, but leave peaceful folk alone! Have you no shame at all, boy? To meet your old mother with a gun!”
The hunter’s chin fell another inch. He dropped his rabbits on the ground.
“Throw down your shooting iron too,” Fina-Kajsa ordered him.
“Mother!”
“I had expected you to greet me like a decent man. And here you and your pack of friends aim guns. . ”
“Mother — I didn’t expect you!”
“I thought I would never get here. But here you see me as I am, Anders my son.”
“Mother — you’re here!”
“I thought America had no end!”
“Where’s Father?”
“He lies on the bottom of the sea.”
“Is Father dead?”
“As dead as the rest on the bottom of the sea! And the grindstone he had brought for you lies there too.”
“Did Father bring me a grindstone?”
“The stones are cheap on Öland. Here is our old iron pot! Here, right in my hand! They broke one leg. . Anders. . if you don’t recognize your mother you at least remember our old pot!”
“Yes, yes! You bring our old gryta! Yes, yes. . Welcome, Mother!”
Mother and son had found each other, and the group around them listened in silence.
— 4—
They had reached Taylors Falls; they were only a short distance from Anders Månsson’s home.
He told them he had been out with his two neighbors to shoot some rabbits for supper. And now they also heard the explanation for the strange behavior of the woman and the other two hunters: The settlers here were afraid of cholera, and all newcomers were met and questioned before they were allowed to enter the settlement. If anyone arrived from a contaminated region he was put into a shed near the falls where he was fumigated with sulphur and tar for a few days before he was let out. Weak people could not stand the ordeal of being smoked like hams, some only lasted a day before fainting. But it was a fact that in this manner they had so far avoided the sickness in Taylors Falls.