So much for the clothing. Food for the child the mother has herself. Milk for the child runs slowly as yet, only a few white drops trickling. And Kristina aids the newborn’s blindly seeking mouth, pushes her nipple into blindly seeking lips which do not yet quite know how to hold and close and suck, to receive the mother’s first gift.
All is well, all is over, all is quiet. Now mother and child rest in mutual security.
XIX. THE LETTER TO SWEDEN
North America at Taylors Falls Postofice in
Minnesota Teritory, November 15, Anno 1850
Dearly Beloved Parents,
May all be well with you is my Daily wish.
I will now let you know how Our Journey progressed, we were freighted on Steam wagon to Buffalo and by Steam ship further over large Lakes and Rivers, we had an honest interpreter. On the river boat Danjel Andreasson lost his youngest daughter in that terrible pest the Cholera. The girl could not live through it. But the rest of us are in good health and well fed. Nothing happened on the journey and in August we arrived at our place of settling.
We live here in a Great Broad valley, I have claimed and marked 160 American acres, that is about 130 Swedish acres and I will have delasjon with the payment until the Land is offered for Sale. It is all fertile Soil. We shall clear the Land and can harvest as much Hay as we want. We live at a fair Lake, full of fish and my whole farm is overgrown with Oak, Pine, Sugar Maples, Lindens, Walnuts, Elms and other kinds whose names I do not know.
I have timbered up a good house for us. Danjel and his Family settled near us in the valley, also Jonas Petter. Danjel no longer preaches Åke Svensson’s teaching, nor is he making noise about his religion, he is pious and quiet and is left in peace by Ministers and Sheriffs. Danjel calls his place New Kärragärde.
Our beloved children are in good health and live well, I will also inform you that we have a new little son who made his first entry into this world the seventh of this November, at very daybreak. He is already a sitter as are all who are born here. We shall in time carry him to Baptism but here are ministers of many Religions and we dare not take the Lord’s Supper for fear it is the wrong faith. Here is no Religious Law but all have their free will.
Scarcely any people live in this Valley, rich soil is empty on all sides of us for many miles which is a great shame and Sin. We have no trouble with the indians, the savages are curious about new people but harm no one. They have brown skin and live like cattle without houses or anything. They eat snakes and grasshoppers but the whites drive away the indians as they come.
There is a great difference between Sweden and America in food and clothing. Here people eat substantial fare and wheat bread to every meal. Newcomers get hard bowels from their food but the Americans are honest and helpful to their acquaintances and snub no one if ever so poor. Wooden shoes are not used, it is too simple for the Americans. They honor all work, menfolk milk cows and wash the floor. Both farmers and Ministers perform woman-work without shame. In a town called Stillwater we were given quarters with a priest who did his own chores.
I have nothing of importance to write about. Nothing unusual has happened to us since my last letter. Things go well for us and if health remains with us we shall surely improve our situation even though the country is unknown to us. I don’t complain of anything, Kristina was a little sad in the beginning but she has now forgotten it.
We hope soon to get a letter from you but letters are much delayed on the long way. Winter has begun in the Valley and the mail can not get through because of the ice on the river. I greet you dear parents, also from my wife and children, and Sister Lydia is heartily greeted by her Brother. My Brother Robert will write himself, he fools with writing easier than I. Kristina sends her greetings to her kind parents in Duvemåla. Nothing is lacking her here in our new settlement.
The year is soon over and we are one year nearer Eternity, I hope these lines will find you in good health.
Written down hastily by your devoted son
Karl Oskar Nilsson
Part Three. To Keep Alive Through the Winter
XX. THE INDIAN IN THE TREETOP
— 1—
Some distance west of the creek which emptied into Lake Ki-Chi-Saga a sandstone cliff rose high above the forest pines. The cliff had the copper-brown color of the Indians, and its shape strongly resembled the head of an Indian. Seen from below, a broad, smooth, stone brow could easily be recognized. Under the forehead lay two black eye holes, well protected by the formidable forehead boulders. Between the eyes a protruding cliff indicated a handsome Indian nose. The upper lip was formed by a ledge, and under it opened a broad indentation; this was the mouth, a dark gap. Below the mouth opening was a chin ledge. Even the neck of the Indian could be discerned below the chin and on top of the head grew maple saplings and elderberry bushes which the Indian in summer carried like a green wreath on his head.
This cliff in the forest was visible from afar and served as a landmark. The Swedish settlers at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga soon referred to it as the Indian-head.
In the caves and holes of the rock, animals found protection and hiding places, and those forest creatures which sought refuge in rain and storm within the Indian’s jaws could rest there in comfort. But on the deer path below could be seen great boulders, which from time to time had fallen from the cliff. And near some of these blocks were whitened, disintegrating bones, remnants of animal skeletons; perhaps, as a forest beast had run by below, the Indian had spit out a stone from his mouth and crushed it.
This Indian was of stone, and as dead as a stone, but the white bones indicated that he could be trusted as little as a living Indian.
When Robert passed the Indian-head he trod lightly and stole quickly by, lest a boulder be loosed by his step and come crashing down on him. No one knew when the Indian might hurl a stone at a passer-by, human or beast.
In the beginning, Robert was as much afraid of the Indians as he was curious about them. But as time went by his curiosity increased and his fear diminished. The Indians seemed so friendly that they might in time become a nuisance. They frightened people sometimes with their terrifying appearance, they liked to deck themselves in all kinds of animal parts, but as yet they had done no harm to the Swedish settlers.
Karl Oskar despised the Indians for their laziness and called them useless creatures. Kristina pitied them because they were so thin and lived in such wretched hovels; and both she and Karl Oskar were grateful not to have been created Indians.
No one knew what the copperskins thought of their white neighbors, for no one understood their language. Robert guessed they considered their pale brethren fools to waste their time in work. He had begun to wonder which one of the two peoples could be considered wiser, the whites or the browns, the Christians or the heathens. The Indians were lazy, they did not till the earth, and what work they did was done without effort. He had watched them fell trees: they did not cut down the tree with an ax, they made a fire around it and burned it off at the root. The Christian hewed and labored and sweated before he got his tree down. But the heathen sat and rested and smoked his pipe until the fire burned through and the tree fell by itself, without a single ax blow.
The Indians did not waste their strength in work; they spared their bodies for better use, they saved their strength for enjoyment. At their feasts they danced for three weeks at a stretch — it was just as well they had rested beforehand. But Karl Oskar and the other peasants in Småland had accustomed themselves to tiresome labor and drudgery every day, they would not have been able to dance for even one week, so worn out were they. The heathens wisely economized their body strength so that they were capable of more endurance than the Christians.