Their home was now taking on the appearance of a carpenter shop. Karl Oskar spent much time making furniture and tools — chairs, food vessels, snow shovels, hay forks, rakes. He busied himself long after the others had gone to bed. Being handy with wood, he could use it for many purposes; a settler beginning from the very beginning had to use it for almost everything.
He had already worked as lumberman, carpenter, mason, roofer, rope maker — now he attempted a new handicraft: that of shoemaker. Their leather shoes were wearing out and they couldn’t buy new ones; he must make wooden shoes for his family. No alder trees grew in this forest so he decided to use elm; the American elm was softer than the Swedish and easy to work with. But wooden shoes could not be made comfortable and light without years of experience. He had neither experience nor the proper tools; the shoes that came from his hands were clumsy and ill fitting though they could be worn. He made one pair of wooden shoes for each member of his family except the baby, who would not need shoes until he could walk. For his newborn son he made a cradle — a dug-out log which he fastened to rockers.
Then he began to make a table. He had made up his mind to have a fine table, solid and well made, a durable piece of furniture, a table he could ask visitors to sit down to without feeling ashamed. And he worked long and carefully on this piece of furniture. He cut a block from the thickest oak he could find and made a table top; to this he fastened a smaller log for footing. He planed the top until it shone; now they would not get splinters in their fingers when eating. The leg log also caused him great labor, the table must stand evenly on the floor without leaning or limping.
And he took his time with the table, time hung heavily upon him during these winter days and long evenings. And when he rested he got into the habit of fingering the three books they had brought from Sweden: the Bible, the psalmbook, and the almanac. Two thick books and one thin; the thick ones contained spiritual fare, they were the soul’s guide to eternity; the thin book was their guide in this transitory world. Karl Oskar had used the almanac most often, and now in the last month of the year it was badly worn and soiled. Each Sunday he or Kristina read the text in the psalmbook, and each Sunday Karl Oskar also looked in the almanac to determine where they were in the calendar year. He had marked the days of this year which they must remember: April 6, when they left their home; April 14, when they said farewell to their homeland in Karlshamn; June 23, when they arrived in North America; and July 31, when they reached Minnesota Territory. After their arrival here he had put a cross in the almanac on the day they moved into their house, the day when his third son was born, and the day Lady had been taken to the bull at Fischer’s, the German’s.
The year 1850 was nearing its end, and when the old year ended, the almanac too would come to an end. They could not obtain a new Swedish almanac, and they could not read an American one. Karl Oskar wondered how they would manage to keep track of days and weeks and months in the year to come. He must invent some means. To make an almanac that would last a single year was harder than to make a table that would last for generations. But without the almanac he would feel lost in time.
— 2—
Yuletide was near — a strange Yule for Kristina, a Christmas in another world, a Christmas without Yule chores. No pig to butcher, no ale to brew, no great-bake to bake. But they must nevertheless celebrate the holiday and honor the Saviour’s birth like Christian people. She said to Karl Oskar, this year they must not think of the outside — food, drink, and material things. They must celebrate Christmas in their hearts; this year must be a Christmas for their souls.
She scoured the cabin floor until it was shining white, she washed their underclothes in ash lye, so that all could change for the holiday, she hung fresh pine boughs on the walls and decked the cabin inside as best she could. Of a pine top with upright branches Karl Oskar made a five-armed candlestick, an ingenuity which his wife praised greatly. He had promised they would celebrate Christmas at a table, and he kept his promise: on Christmas Eve itself he gave the table the last finishing touches with his plane. He was proud of his handicraft, the first piece of real furniture he had ever made, particularly when, at the final inspection, Kristina said: This sturdy oak table would undoubtedly last so long that not only they themselves but their children and grandchildren as well could eat their meals at it throughout their whole lives.
While they had eaten their meals at the chest lid Karl Oskar had felt like a pauper sitting in a corner of someone else’s house, eating handed-out food. Now, as he put his feet under his own table, his self-confidence increased: Now he had settled down, now he had become his own master in the new land.
They used their new table for the first time at the Christmas Eve dinner. And Kristina too was pleased — to gather for a feast around a table was something quite different from sitting down to a meal at the old chest lid. The five-armed candleholder was put in the center of the table; they had saved only three candles for Christmas, so two arms were left empty, but the three burning candles spread Yule light in their house. They had bought a pound of rice for the Christmas porridge, and with it they used sweet milk. It was their only Christmas dish, but they ate it with a deep sense of holiday spirit. Its smell and taste brought to their minds recollections of this Holy Eve’s celebration at home. Long-ago Christmases now entered their cabin, Christmas Eves with the whole family gathered; and their thoughts lingered on those who at other Yuletides had sat down at table with them. Relatives at home in Sweden tonight seemed more alive than ever, and they spoke of the letter from Sweden which they had been waiting for so long. How much longer before they would hear from parents and relatives? The expected mail from Sweden had not had time to arrive before the river froze and the packets stopped coming for the winter. Now it could not arrive until spring, and that was a long time to wait.
Tonight Karl Oskar remembered his parents as he had seen them that last morning — when he had looked back from the wagon seat for a final glimpse of them as he left the old home: father and mother, looking after the departing ones, standing on the stoop close together, immobile as two statues. To him they would always remain in that position; they could not move or walk away; they stood there, looking after their departing sons; they stood like two dead objects, hewn in stone. His parents could never again resume life in his mind’s eye. Perhaps this was because deep within him he knew he would never again meet them on this earth.
A thought came to him — it remained a thought only, which he would not utter: his father and mother might already be dead and buried, without his knowledge. .
After the meal Kristina opened the Bible and read the second chapter from St. Luke which in her home had always been read by her father on Christmas Eve in commemoration of the Saviour’s birth:
“And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
“And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. . ”
Kristina read the Christmas Gospel for all of them, but after a few verses she felt as though she were reading it for herself only: it concerned her above all, it concerned her more than the listeners. Mary’s delivery in the stable in Bethlehem reminded her of the childbed she had but recently gone through. It seemed that Mary’s time too had come suddenly and unprepared for, even though her days were accomplished: Mary had been on a journey, and perhaps they had been delayed, unable to reach home in time. And Mary had been poor, even more impoverished than she herself. Kristina had borne her child in a human abode, in a well-timbered house — Mary had lain on straw in an animal shelter, in a stall. Kristina had enjoyed the comfort of a kind and helpful midwife, but the Bible said not one word about any help-woman for Mary in the stable. And she wondered whence the Saviour’s mother had obtained the swaddling clothes she wrapped about her child before she placed it in the manger. Had she prepared them in advance and brought them along on the journey to Bethlehem? The Bible was so sparing with details that she often wondered and questioned while reading. She guessed Mary must have had as much concern about the clothing of her first born as she herself had had for her child. Perhaps Mary too had been forced to cut up her petticoat to prepare the swaddling clothes for Jesus.