As soon as the news spread of the arrival of guests at Anders Månsson’s, the two other Swedes in the settlement came to visit the immigrants from their homeland. Samuel Nöjd, the fur hunter, was a friendly, talkative man of about fifty, but he mixed so many English words with the Swedish that they understood only half of what he said. He had been in North America more than ten years, he had moved from place to place, and soon he would move away from this river valley: desirable fur-bearing animals were getting scarce hereabouts. He advised his countrymen to take land on the prairies instead of here.
Swedish Anna was in her forties, a buxom woman with big arms and a voluminous bosom. She was the picture of health, capable and unafraid, as a woman cooking for men in a logging camp should be. She showed also a tender, motherly side: she was much concerned over the small Swedish children and was surprised that the babies could have survived the long journey in such good health. Swedish Anna was a widow who had emigrated alone from Östergötland; Samuel Nöjd came from Dalecarlia.
Counting the new arrivals, there were now immigrants from four Swedish provinces in this valley; and the Smålanders, of course, were in the majority.
The newcomers were eager for information and at every opportunity questioned those who had arrived earlier: How was life for settlers in this St. Croix Valley, and how should they go about the business of getting settled? Anders Månsson, himself a homesteader, could best advise them; but he was a man of few words; much probing was required to learn anything from him. This much they discovered: The Territory was almost as large as all of Sweden, yet hardly more than two hundred settlers had taken up land and begun tilling it. Most of these lived to the south in Washington County. The Territory was as yet surveyed only along the rivers. To the west and southwest the whole country was still unsurveyed and unclaimed — it lay there free and open to the first claimant.
There was indeed space for all, land in abundance. But many of the inhabitants of the river valley took land only for the timber, said Anders Månsson. They did not clear fields, they cut down the forest and sold the lumber for a high profit. They left the soil untouched and grew rich from the forest. Most of the newcomers had only one desire: to get rich quickly.
The farmers from Ljuder said they had not come for that purpose. They were merely seeking to earn a living, they intended to break land, build houses, settle down: they had come to live on their land as settlers of this country, where they hoped in time to better their condition.
But they must begin from the very beginning and find everything a farmer needed, ground and house, chattel and cattle. And they were filled with concern at learning how much livestock cost: a cow, thirty dollars, a yoke of oxen, one hundred dollars. Hogs and poultry also fetched sky-high prices; Anders Månsson had only recently bought a laying hen in St. Paul for five dollars, but she had died of loneliness, and so he was unable to treat them to eggs. The exorbitant prices were explained in this way: domestic animals were also immigrants into the Territory, and as rare as the settlers themselves.
One evening, as all were gathered together in Anders Månsson’s cabin, Karl Oskar asked his advice: What should a man in his predicament do? He had sold his farm in Sweden, but most of the money had been spent on the journey, and he was now practically a pauper. He had only ninety dollars left in cash. A farmer needed first of all a team of oxen, and he didn’t even have enough money for that! And how could he buy land with the small sum he had left?
“You don’t pay for the land before it’s put on the market,” Anders Månsson explained. “To begin with, you must sit down on the claim as a squatter.”
And he explained what the word squatter meant — a settler who built his house on land that had not yet been surveyed or sold. That was why he needn’t pay anything for the claim to begin with. Later, when the land had been surveyed, the government would put it up at auction and he would have priority because he had been there first. Anyone wanting to take a claim as squatter need only locate and mark the place he wanted and report it to the land office in Stillwater. Then he could remain in security on the land until it was offered for public sale. It might be several years before he need begin paying for the land.
This arrangement sounded generous to Swedish peasant ears — no one could ask for better conditions.
“I came here as a squatter myself,” said Fina-Kajsa’s son. “To squat means to sit on one’s haunches.”
“Skvatter. . skvatter. .” Karl Oskar attempted to pronounce the word, but its sound had something degrading in it, it sounded like a reproach to his poverty. “Yes, I guess I too must be such a one. An impoverished farmer, arriving in America. .”
The other two farmers were better off than he; Danjel had four hundred dollars left from the sale of his farm Kärragärde, and Jonas Petter had about two hundred and fifty dollars left of his traveling money. Karl Oskar had the least for a new start. But Anders Månsson advised all three to take squatters’ claims on unsurveyed land, then they could use their cash for livestock and implements. Each settler could claim a hundred and sixty acres, the American acre being a little less than the Swedish acre.
Karl Oskar thought: The manor at Kråkesjö at home had only seventy-five acres of tilled fields. If all the land he could take here were tillable, he would have fields for two manors!
Anders Månsson also told them the price they would have to pay when the land went on sale: one dollar and twenty-five cents for each acre. This sounded like a most reasonable price for such rich and fertile land as they had seen on their walk from Stillwater. A farmer would undoubtedly be able to manage and prosper here as soon as he got started.
Anders Månsson continued: All products from the fields commanded high prices: bread, butter, pork, milk, eggs, cheese. Consequently, broken ground was highly valuable. If they were able to clear and plant the fields, and hold on to them, they would soon be well off. He himself had experienced great adversity during the four years after his arrival; the first summer his crop had suffered from drought, the second year a forest fire had spread to his fields and part of his rye had burned while in the shocks; last year it was the grasshoppers, which appeared in such swarms that they darkened the sun and left nothing but bare ground behind them. Each fifth year was a hopper year, when every green blade was eaten, and last summer they had even devoured his jacket and the scythe handle which he happened to leave in the field; he could only be grateful they hadn’t eaten him too.
Karl Oskar had closely inspected Månsson’s fields and he did not think the Ölander was an industrious farmer; he had suffered adversity, yes — but why hadn’t he broken more land in four years? All he had to do was to plow this stone-free ground. Nor had he built a threshing barn as yet, in spite of all the lumber around him. Månsson threshed his crops in wintertime on the ice of the small lake. But that was a poor way to handle grain. Karl Oskar thought something must be wrong with Fina-Kajsa’s son, he seemed to lack energy and an enterprising spirit.
“The first years are hard ones for settlers,” Anders Månsson assured them. He continued: There were no roads anywhere out here in the wilderness, and it was not until last year that he had been able to buy a yoke of oxen in St. Paul. Before he got the team his chores had been endless; he himself had carried or pulled everything that had to be moved. A settler without a team had to use his own back, be his own beast of burden.
Fina-Kajsa looked searchingly at her son: “You’ve grown hunchbacked here in America, Anders. Have you carried something that was too heavy?”