Here no one cared what he did, nor need he care what others did. Here he could move as he pleased, with his body and with his soul. Nowhere could he be freer than here. Here a farmer ruled himself — though in return, a demand was put on him that might scare many away: he must take care of himself — he must survive with only the help of his hands.
But a man unable to improve his situation, with such generous freedom, such fertile soil — such a man was good for nothing in the world.
XVI. AT HOME ON LAKE KI–CHI-SAGA
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The homesteader’s ax cut its way through the land — through trunk and timber, through beam and board, through shingle and shake, through branch and bramble. Clearing, splitting, shaping, it cut its way. There was the felling ax with the long handle and the thin blade, eating its way through the heart of the tree, leaving the stump heads even and smooth. There was the dressing ax with the short handle and the broad blade, shaving trunks and timbers while the chips flew in all directions; there was the splitting ax with the heavy hammer and the thick blade, forcing its blunt nose into the wood, splitting logs into planks and scantlings. Then there was the short, light, hand ax, clearing the thickets, brambles, and bushes. Narrow axes and broad, thin and thick, light and heavy. From early morning to late evening the echo of the axes sounded over the shores of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga — a new sound, the sound of peaceful builders in the wilderness.
With the ax as foremost tool — with the ax first, with the ax last — the new home was raised.
Karl Oskar and Kristina had chosen the site for their log house among some large sugar maples at the edge of the forest on the upper meadow, the distance of a long gunshot from the lake shore. Here their home would be protected by the forest on three sides, while the fourth overlooked the bay of the lake. Their house was to be twenty feet long and twelve feet wide, and placed the same way as farmhouses in Sweden: the gables to east and west, the long sides to north and south. The back of the house would then be toward the forest and the cold north winds, while the front opened on the lake and the warm south sun.
Karl Oskar had promised to help Danjel and Jonas Petter, and they in turn would help him raise his house the second week in October. The green, peeled logs were too heavy for two men to handle; three or four would be needed. But Karl Oskar alone prepared all the timbers and laid a footing for his house. For the foundation, he selected the thickest pines he had cut, and with the aid of Anders Månsson’s oxen, dragged the clumsy logs to the building site. For floor boards he used young linden trees which he split in two, to be laid with the flat side upward. He hewed and smoothed the edges of these to make them fit as tight as possible, in order to avoid big cracks in the floor. For roof boards he cut straight elms — there were enough trees to choose from in the forest, and he selected what he thought most suitable for each need. Oak logs would have lasted longer for house timbers, but they were hard to work with, and pine would last long enough. He had no intention of living in this house of peeled logs for all eternity.
He cut sod for the roofing — sod was used for roofing at home in Småland, and it took less time than to split shakes. Kristina said she was afraid the sod might not withstand the violent rains here — the earth might blow away in the merciless winds. Karl Oskar replied that he would put on shakes next summer if the roof did not withstand the weather. She must not worry, he would see to it that they did not sleep under a leaking roof.
He had to buy odds and ends for the building and carry them on his back from Taylors Falls. He bought everything in Mr. Abbott’s store, except sash, which he ordered from Stillwater. Everything of iron was absurdly expensive; he paid a full dollar for a pair of hinges for the door. And the price of nails was equally high. But wood could substitute for iron in many instances, and he made pegs of ash — in Sweden used for rake teeth and handle wedges — to take the place of nails. Without cash, he was forced to be inventive. Each time he had to buy something he searched his mind: Couldn’t he make it with his own hands?
October — the almanac’s slaughter month — had arrived, but the only slaughter which took place at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga was the occasional killing of rabbits and deer. The days sped by, the weeks flew, only one month remained of the autumnal season of grace, with its mild weather, permitting them to live in the shanty. Winter was fast approaching, and Karl Oskar had promised his wife their new log house would be ready to move into in good time before her childbed.
The third week in November, Kristina’s forty weeks would be up, if she had counted aright. It seemed to her as though this pregnancy had lasted longer than any of the previous ones; she had been through so much during this tedious year, her twenty-fifth. She had gone through the usual period of expectancy during a hard journey, carrying the child within her from Sweden to the new land. Perhaps this was why she felt the period had been longer this time than any of the others. And now she was as big as the time she had carried the twins; she wondered if she would again give birth to two lives. As things were with them at the moment, twins would be inconvenient; she had not even had time to prepare swaddling clothes for one baby.
Her movements became more cumbersome every day, every day she felt heavier. She could walk only short distances; her chores were confined to the shanty and its immediate vicinity. But she never let her children entirely out of sight. At home she had let them run free, but here she never knew what kind of snakes might hide in the thick, tall grass; what kind of biting, stinging, flying creatures infested the air. All around the cabin she saw hordes of creeping, crawling little animals she had never found at home, and as yet she could not distinguish between the dangerous ones and the harmless. In the meadow, the men had killed snakes with yellow and silver-gray stripes; these vipers lifted their egg-shaped heads from the ground, open mouthed, their blood-red stingers protruding exactly like those of the poisonous snakes at home. She tried to keep the children where the grass had been mowed and where they could watch where they stepped. A few times the children had been frightened by a gray, furry animal the size of a dog, with thick legs and a short tail, which they thought was a lynx or small wolf. Large, fat, gray-brown squirrels called gophers played around the shanty in great numbers, their heads sticking up everywhere in the grass; one could hardly avoid stepping on them, and they looked as if they might bite; they frightened the children, but they were harmless. There were flying squirrels, too, with skin stretched between their legs. They flew about in the trees, waving their long tails like sails. They came and ate out of one’s hand, like tame animals; the children liked them.
The little creature who made the persistent screeching sound had at last been discovered, and they had been told its name — cricket. It was gray-brown, smaller than a grasshopper, and difficult to see on the ground; its wings were so small it couldn’t fly but jumped about like a grasshopper. This small thing screeched loudly all night through, and because of its noise they called it “the screechhopper.” If a cricket happened to get into the shanty at night, Kristina had to find it and kill it before she could get a wink’s sleep.
However small an animal might be in America, it always caused trouble. But the rodents, devouring Kristina’s food, were the greatest nuisance of all. Rats and ratlike vermin were everywhere, running in and out of their holes, hiding underground. Kristina found it did little good to hide food in a hole in the ground, she still found rat dirt in it, and her heart ached when she had to throw away rat-eaten pieces of food. If only they could get hold of a cat to catch the rats. But Karl Oskar had no idea where they might find one. In Taylors Falls, he had seen only one cat; probably cats were as expensive as other animals; perhaps a cat would cost five dollars, like a hen. It would be a long time before they would have all the domestic animals they needed.