Kristina had prepared a venison dinner; she had peeled the potatoes before boiling them, as was the custom at parties at home. She had boiled a whole kettle of cranberries; these berries were now ripening in great quantities in the bogs hereabouts, and they had a pleasing sour-fresh taste. To a housewarming the guests were supposed to bring gifts of food, and Ulrika had cooked the moving-in porridge, made of rice; she came with a large earthen bowl full of it. Jonas Petter had brought a keg of American brännvin. There were not as many dishes or as much of everything as was customary at housewarmings in Sweden, but all felt that they were sitting down to a great feast.
Karl Oskar and Kristina had invited their guests before they had a table; the food was served on top of their Swedish chest, around which they all sat down. Their guests said they too were still using their chest lids for food boards.
Ulrika had not been stingy when she cooked the housewarming porridge, it was sugar-sweet and won praise from all; before they knew it they had reached the bottom of the earthen bowl. As a young girl, Ulrika had occasionally worked as cook’s helper at Kråkesjö manor; she had learned cooking well and was handy at both stove and oven, when she had anything to cook with.
Today, for once, the settlers felt entitled to many dishes at the same meal, and they ate steadily and solemnly. At last the coffeepot was taken down from its hook over the fire, and a delicious odor of coffee spread through the cabin. Robert proudly showed the coffee grinder he had made for Kristina: he had hollowed out a stone to make a mortar with another stone for pestle, to crush the coffee beans. He had seen the Indians use such mills — their coffee now was ground Indian-wise.
All ate to their full satisfaction, and when Ulrika wanted to rise, the chair clung to her behind. She had eaten so much that she couldn’t get out of the chair, she blamed Karl Oskar who had made the seat too narrow for a grown woman; he ought to be old enough to know that women were broader across the behind than men; God had created them that way in order to make them lie steady on their backs those times when they obeyed His commandment to increase and replenish the earth.
Jonas Petter poured the American brännvin, and all drank — even the children were given a few drops each. Anders Månsson said the whisky was stronger than Swedish brännvin; at first it burned the tongue a little, but later it felt good in the stomach. Some people had a hard time getting accustomed to the taste of whisky, some had to keep at it persistently, it might take years; he himself had already become accustomed to it. The whisky was made from Indian corn, “Lazyman’s Grain” as it was called. He had planted this corn for the first time last spring.
“At home the brännvin is white, why is it brown here?” Kristina asked.
“They haven’t strained it carefully,” said Ulrika. “There’s mash in it.”
Jonas Petter had his own opinion: “It’s the color of cow piss but it tastes mighty good!”
Kristina and Ulrika both thought Swedish brännvin was sweeter and milder; this tasted pungent. But old Fina-Kajsa liked American brännvin better then Swedish: “Brännvin should be felt in the throat! It mustn’t slip down like communion wine!”
Anders Månsson’s mother had changed much since she had found her son; at times she sat silently by herself, staring straight ahead for hours, hardly hearing if she were spoken to. At other times she seemed to have lost her memory. Believing herself still on the journey, she kept mumbling, downhearted and confused: “Oh me, oh my! We’ll never get there! Oh me, oh my!”
She could forget everything around her to such an extent that she wasn’t aware she had reached her son three months ago. The long journey seemed to have been too much for her head. But at other times she pulled herself together and worked all day long like a young woman, running her son’s house and cooking for him the delicious Öland dumplings which he had been without so long in America. Since he now could get the dumplings here, Anders Månsson said, there was nothing left in Sweden to go back to.
After their feast, the settlers grouped themselves around the hearth where a great fire of dry pine boughs was burning. And sitting there, to let the “food die in the stomach,” they began to talk of Sweden and of people in their home community: It was now the servants’ “Free Week” at home, all crops were in, the potatoes picked, the fields plowed. The bread for the winter was in the bins, the cattle in the byre. Those at home lived in an old and settled land, they had their food for the winter. And they could not help but compare their own situation: they were farmers without crops, without grain bins, without pork barrels, without livestock. And ahead of them lay the earth’s long resting season, when the ground gave nothing.
But Sweden had already begun to fade into the vague distance; it seemed far away in time and space. Heaven seemed closer than Sweden. Their old homes had taken on an aspect of unreality, as does everything at a great distance.
They began speaking of the loneliness of the great wilderness, and Jonas Petter said: “Is there one among us who regrets the emigration?”
The question caught them unaware, and a spell of silence fell over the group. A puzzling question had been asked — a poser — which required a great deal of thought before they could answer it; it was like a riddle to be solved. Do I regret my emigration? It was an intrusive question, forcing itself upon them, knocking at each one’s closed door: a demand to open and show what was hidden inside.
Ulrika was the first to answer. She stared at Jonas Petter, almost in fury: “Regret it! Are you making fun of me? Should I regret having moved to a country where I’m accepted as a human being? I’d rather be chopped to sausage filling than go back to Sweden!”
“It was to be,” Danjel Andreasson said. “We were chosen to move here. We shall harbor neither regret nor fear.”
“I regret one thing!” spoke up Karl Oskar. “I regret I didn’t emigrate six years ago, when I first came of age.”
“You are not yet of age — your Guardian still lives in Heaven,” Danjel said. “His will has been done.”
“But the Lord’s servant — the dean — advised against my emigration.”
“Then it was an evil spirit that spake through him,” Danjel retorted calmly.
“Well — I’m here! And no one can get me away from here! As surely as I sit on this chopping block!” Karl Oskar spoke with great emphasis.
He was settled now, he and his family had moved into their house, furnished with sturdy beds and seats he had made. Beginning this very day, he felt settled and at home in North America.
Jonas Petter said: Life in the wilderness had its drawbacks, but things would improve by and by, as they improved themselves. It had been well for them to travel about and see how great the earth was, how vast its seas and countries. At home, people thought Sweden made up the whole world; that was why folk there were so conceited.
“They should read geography books,” interrupted Robert.
“That they should, instead of poking their noses into everyone else’s business,” agreed Jonas Petter. If anyone hiccoughed in Sweden, folk picked it up and ran with it until it was heard throughout the whole county. His father knew an old morning hymn which all should follow:
Peaceful walk and do thy bit,
Obey thy Lord, on others spit!
This psalm Jonas Petter’s father used to sing every morning before he began his day, and if they obeyed it, they would be happy through all their days, and at last pass to the beyond in contentment.
Judging from the replies to Jonas Petter’s question, no one regretted his emigration. And the settlers began to talk of work to be finished before winter set in. Karl Oskar intended to dig a well before the frost got into the earth; he had not been able to find a spring in the vicinity, they had been using brook water, which didn’t seem to hurt them; it was running water, but it wasn’t quite clear in color or taste.