She stepped down from the load and walked. She was afraid of being badly shaken; it might injure the child she carried in her. Only ten or eleven weeks remained before she would be in childbed, and she might have a miscarriage if she weren’t careful. She would rather walk than sit on a load that shook like a threshing floor, even though she had begun to be heavy of foot.
The ox wagon crept along the wretched road, squeaking and screeching. The load nearly turned over many times — only through the efforts of the two men was it kept upright. The oxen moved at a snail’s pace, and Kristina walked on one side and kept an eye on her children.
The trail skirted a glen in the depths of the forest, and here stood a strange pole which the Indians had erected. The settlers stopped to let the oxen rest while they inspected it. Karl Oskar and Robert had seen this image before — now they wanted to show it to Kristina. The pole was made from a cedar tree and stood taller than a man. But it did not represent a man — it ended in a snarling wolf’s head.
The wooden image in the midst of the forest seemed to Kristina a phantom, and she was afraid to go near it. Robert guessed it was some kind of god whom the Indians worshiped when they gathered here — remnants of huts were to be seen close by. Kristina knew that heathens lacked knowledge of even the first of God’s Ten Commandments, she knew they worshiped images, but she couldn’t understand how they could worship so horrible an image as this one — a wolf with ravenous jaws. She urged the group to continue their journey: the savages must revere their image; should they happen to arrive and find people gaping at the pole, they might do harm. And since she had seen what horrible idols heathens made unto themselves, she thanked her Creator from the bottom of her heart for letting her be born in a Christian land.
The plodding ox team pushed on sluggishly, step after step, and the wooden wheels rolled along, turning slowly while the axles cried out. Robert said the noise hurt his ears, particularly the injured one. To Kristina, the four wooden wheels sang a song about impoverished wanderers: their long-drawn-out wail was to her a song of their own tribulations, of their eternal struggle, of loneliness in the wilderness. Long had their journey taken, long would it be before they had a home. As slowly as these wheels turned on their axles, keeping up their constant groans of complaint — so slowly would they manage to establish a home.
But Karl Oskar, walking beside the wagon and urging on the team, said many times: “If these were only my oxen and my wagon!”
The complaint of the ungreased wheels did not dishearten him. He was stimulated, in high spirits at being able again to drive a wagon, however much it groaned — but he drove someone else’s team, someone else’s wagon. A settler who owned a team had improved his situation. If this had been his own team and his own wagon, then the squeaking wheels would have been a beautiful tune. If he had been the owner of this team and this wagon, he would be walking along listening to a happy song — a song of persistence, tenacity, and reward — a song of comfort to the ears of a settler.
— 2—
Their newly built road made a circuitous turn to Jonas Petter’s and Danjel’s settlement, lengthening the distance to Lake Ki-Chi-Saga. Karl Oskar had cleared a short cut to his own land which he now followed, thus lessening the distance by one mile. From Taylors Falls to Ki-Chi-Saga the road was now only nine miles.
Therefore, they did not drive by the smaller lake where their companions from Sweden had settled. Kristina knew full well that Karl Oskar had taken his claim farthest away — she had known this a very long time, long before he knew it himself. She had known it before they left Sweden — she had guessed he would search for a settling place as far away as he could within America’s borders.
How far away from people must they now settle down? She thought the road to their new home was long and tedious. But Karl Oskar explained to her, they hadn’t actually driven very far; it was the oxen, they were so slow and lazy that it took a long time to reach the claim. That was all. They could have traveled this road faster by foot.
Kristina asked: Wouldn’t they be there soon?
Karl Oskar answered: Only a little stretch farther.
Some time elapsed, and then she asked again: How much farther?
. . Oh, not very much; they would be there presently. . But when they had driven on some distance, her patience ran out: now she insisted that he must tell her exactly how much of the road was left.
He said he couldn’t tell her exactly, he hadn’t measured the road in yards, feet, and inches. Moreover, they were now supposed to count in American measurements, so he couldn’t compute the distance.
Kristina flared up: “Don’t try to make a fool of me! You’d better figure out that distance!”
He had jested with her about the road length only because she had asked so many times. He said, “Don’t be angry, Kristina. I didn’t mean anything.”
“You might at least have talked it over with me before you went so far away for land!”
“But I had to make the decision alone. You couldn’t have gone with us out here in the woodlands.”
“How far do you intend to drag us? Speak up now!”
“I’ve told you before — I’ve selected the best earth there is hereabouts.”
“But the road to it — it’s eternal.”
Karl Oskar assured her that when she arrived she would forget the tiresome journey to the wonderful land he had chosen. She must have confidence in his choice, she must rely on him here in America as she had done in Sweden.
But she was still vexed: he mustn’t think she would always endure his whims. He never asked anyone’s advice, he always thought he knew best. It was time for him to realize that he was nothing but a poor, wretched, fallible human, he too could make mistakes and wrong decisions.
“But I often ask your advice, Kristina. . ”
“Maybe sometimes. But then you do as you please!”
His wife was touchy in her advanced pregnancy, she was easily upset, but he mustn’t let this affect his temper, he must handle her carefully. She angered him at times, but when he controlled himself, she soon calmed down.
Suddenly he heard a cry from Kristina. He reined in the team with all his might. Little Harald had fallen off the wagon.
Robert picked up the boy before his mother reached him. Luckily the child had fallen into a mass of ferns, so soft that no damage was done. He cried only a few tears, caused more by fright than hurt. But now Kristina climbed onto the load in order to hold Harald in her arms the rest of the way. She was regretting her earlier outbreak: it was as if God had wished to give her a warning by letting her child fall off the wagon.
They now came onto more open, even ground, and Kristina no longer had to “ride a swing.” She looked over the landscape and saw many flowers; the countryside was fair and pleasingly green; she caught herself comparing it with the prettiest parts of her home village, Duvemåla in Algutsboda Parish.
In a moment the wagon rolled slightly down a wide meadow toward a lake. The ground sloped gently, and in no time they had reached the shore. The team came to a stop on an outjutting tongue of land.
Karl Oskar threw the thong across the back of the left ox: they had arrived. According to his watch, it had taken more than five hours to move their load from Taylors Falls. But that was because of the sluggish oxen; a good walker could cover the distance in three hours; their home here was not at the end of the world!
Kristina climbed down from the oxcart and looked about in all directions: this then was the lake with the strange name, Ki-Chi-Saga. The sky-blue water with the sun’s golden glitter on its waves, the overflowing abundance of green growth around the shores, all the blossoms and various grasses in the wild meadow, the many lush leaf-trees, the oaks and the sugar maples, the many birds on the lake and in the air — this was a sight to cheer her. This was a good land.