“The ground is easy to break,” Karl Oskar said. “There isn’t any finer!”
He hoped she would forget the long road and feel better as she saw the place where they would build their new home.
“You’ve found a nice place, Karl Oskar. It looks almost as nice as home in Duvemåla.”
Kristina had compared the shores of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga with the village where she was born and had grown up; it was the highest praise she could give. Looking at Karl Oskar she knew he had expected more, probably he had expected her, on seeing the land, to break out in loud praise and grateful joy as if they had arrived in the Garden of Eden. But all the while the thought would not leave her that here they must live like hermits in the midst of savages and wild beasts.
Karl Oskar pushed the whip handle into the ground and said the topsoil was as deep as the whip handle was long. He had measured all over — it was the same everywhere.
“Such pretty flowers in the meadow,” she said.
She saw things above ground, while Karl Oskar was anxious to impress her with what was under the surface; the growth came from below, down in the black mold which they couldn’t see, down there would grow the bread.
“There are only flowers and weeds now,” he said. “Bread will grow here from now on. You can rely on that, Kristina!”
This was Karl Oskar’s promise for the future, an earnest and binding promise to wife and children: here the earth would give life’s sustenance to them all, and his was the responsibility of breaking the land whence it would come.
The ox wagon with their possessions had come to a stop in front of the newly built board shed, and Karl Oskar and Robert began to unload; soon they were struggling with the heavy America chest. Kristina stood at the open door which hung there on its willow hinges; the children hovered around her.
She knew now how people lived out here when they began with the earth from the very beginning. Like Anders Månsson’s old mother, she too had taken his house for a meadow barn at first sight; it was so exactly like those rickety sheds on moors and meadows at home in which the summer hay was harvested. At first, she had been unable to accept that it was a farmer’s house and home. But at least it had been a solid house, built of logs. Here she stood in front of a still smaller hut, roughly thrown together of unfinished boards; this could not even be called a barn, it looked more like a tool house or a woodshed.
But then — what had she expected? Kristina looked at the shanty Karl Oskar had built for them; she realized her husband had done the best he could with a few boards, as yet she couldn’t expect anything better. Seeing how people lived out here, it would have been impossible to ask for anything better, to insist on a more comfortable house. No one could conjure forth a real home in a few days; she must be satisfied with a hut.
Karl Oskar looked at his wife, anxiously wondering what she might say about his cabin. Deep down he was a little ashamed not to be offering her a better home in the new country. They had traveled such a long way to come here — and at last they stood in front of a small board shed, hurriedly nailed together in a few days. She might not think it much of an achievement; even though he had prepared her in advance, he was afraid she might be disappointed:
“It’s only a shanty, as they call it here,” he said.
The very sound of the English word emphasized to Karl Oskar better than anything he could say in Swedish that this was a makeshift. He added, “The shanty will give us protection until the house is ready.”
“It’ll do as long as the weather is decent,” said Kristina, and felt the walls. “You put it up fast,” she added.
Karl Oskar had done carpentry work as a youth, helping his father, but he did not consider himself proficient. He could have built himself a hut of twigs and branches and saved the cost of the boards, but it would have been too wretched, he thought; and then the mosquitoes, they would have come in everywhere through the brush; boards were more of a protection in every way.
Now he was pleased Kristina had found no fault with his cabin; it was the first house he had made all by himself, however it had turned out. He himself knew how poor it was. But she had said not one belittling word about the shanty, however clumsy or crooked or warped it was. She had only praised him for his handiness and speed.
He said that in the beginning they must live like crofters, without flooring in their house, it couldn’t be helped. But see all the land they had! They might live like cotters but they had better and larger fields than the biggest farmer in Ljuder; they had reason to be well satisfied.
“And next time, Kristina, just wait and see! Next time we shall timber a real house! A real home! Just wait and see. . ”
And he waved his hands in the direction of the pine stand across the meadow where the lumber still stood — couldn’t she just see their sturdy, well-timbered house! Back there grew the walls for it, it was rooted, it wouldn’t run away from them, it was well anchored in their own ground — no one could take their future home away from them!
Karl Oskar had moved in as a squatter, a man possessing the land without having to pay for it as yet. A squatter was a man staying close to the ground, and he too would need to stay close to the ground in the beginning; but not for long! No longer than he absolutely had to! He guessed Anders Månsson had squatted so long on his land that it had made him stoop-shouldered. Karl Oskar would be careful to avoid this; he had decided, if health and strength remained his, that only a short time would elapse before he would begin to rise, rise up to his full stature; on his own land he could rise to a man’s stature, to the proud independence of a free farmer.
So far, he had always kept his resolutions; as far as it depended on him, this one would be kept also.
For a time they would have to live in a board shed, without windows, without fireplace, the black earth for their floor. As Kristina now entered her new home she had to stoop to get through the door. Here they were now moving in with all their possessions, her children were already playing about in the hay inside, the hay for beds which all of them would sleep on; the children had great fun digging holes in the hay, tumbling about, screaming and laughing. They were already at home, acting as if they had lived here all their lives.
Johan called out to his mother, in jubilation: “Now we live in a house, Mother! Our house in America!”
Yes, she answered the boy, they were now living in a house, at last in their own house; no longer need they crowd in among others, they could at last be their own masters, do as they pleased in their own home. From today on they had a home of their own to live in. And for this they must be grateful to God.
But deep inside her Kristina was also grateful for something else: that no one at home, neither her parents, nor her sisters, nor any other person from the old country need ever see this shanty, her first home in North America.
XV. . . TO SURVIVE WITH THE HELP OF HIS HANDS
— 1—
In the wilderness at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga in Minnesota Territory Karl Oskar and Kristina were to begin again as tillers of the soil; they must begin their lives anew.
During the journey their hands had rested. Often they had wished to have something to do. Now all at once the settler’s innumerable chores crowded upon them; all were important, but all were not equally important; all could not be performed at one time, some must be put off. To find shelter, warmth, and food for the winter at hand — these were the most urgent tasks and took precedence over all others.