The clerk filled a wooden measure twice and emptied the rye flour into Karl Oskar’s sack: “Five dollars’ worth,” he said.
Karl Oskar lifted the sack — it weighed about a hundred pounds, was probably about two bushels. He had hoped to get another twenty-five pounds for his five silver dollars. He tried two English words: “No more?”
The clerk shook his head. “No! This is cheap because of cash.”
Karl Oskar could only comfort himself with the thought that the sack would be easier to carry; he should be able to manage only two bushels. He swung the sack onto his back.
“Too heavy to carry! Have you oxen outside?” asked the clerk.
Karl Oskar heard the word oxen, the clerk must think he had a team outside; he shook his head, “No, no—farväl!” In his confusion, he said good-by to the clerk in Swedish.
Karl Oskar Nilsson started on his way home from Stillwater with a hundred pounds of flour on his back. Now the weather was clear and colder. There was no wind, the snow crunched and squeaked under his booted feet, all indications were for strong frost tonight.
He stopped to pull on his woolen mittens. As always here, the change in weather had come on suddenly; no one could have guessed in the morning that it would freeze before night. He had left his thick wadmal coat at home and wore only his short sheepskin jacket, as it was easier to walk when dressed lightly. Now he regretted not having brought the heavy coat as well.
In the store he had handled the flour sack like a light burden, swinging it onto his back with the greatest of ease. And during the first part of his return walk he was little aware of its weight. But after a few miles the sack began to sag down his back, he felt it against his thighs; time and again he stopped to shove it up onto his shoulder. The sack grew heavier the longer he walked; the flour seemed to increase in weight the farther he got from the store.
He had carried sacks twice as heavy in Sweden, but never such a long distance; the more he thought about it, the more he realized that this was rather a heavy burden for such a long road. Apparently he must pay twice for his flour — first in money, then in bachache.
The crooked sled tracks showed him the way through the forest; here and there on the glittering snow lay fresh ox dung, like dark loaves of bread on a white platter, and here and there were yellow stains from ox urine; axes could be heard at a distance, a logging camp must be close by.
The sack grew heavier, his right boot chafed his heel, the cold increased. But Karl Oskar gave himself no time to sit down and rest, he tramped on; he must not lose time, he hurried his steps to cover the stretch between the end of the logging road and Lake Ki-Chi-Saga before dusk; once at the lake he could follow the shore all the way home, but he had several miles yet to walk through deep wilderness, and he would have trouble finding his way after dark.
The logging road came to an end. From here on he had only his own tracks of the morning to follow. Some snow must have fallen in the forenoon, in places his tracks were filled up.
Mostly he kept his eyes on his own boot prints but he found familiar landmarks — he passed a deserted wigwam; as soon as he reached the brook with the wind-fallen oak trunk over it, he would be close to the lake.
Karl Oskar walked on, his boots crunching in the snow; he struggled with his sack up steep hills, down inclines, he forced his way through thorny thickets, he bent low under trees and branches, with the sack on his back. Dusk fell sooner than he had expected, and he found it more and more difficult to follow the tracks which showed him the way. The frost sharpened, his fingers went numb inside the thick mittens; his boot still chafed his heel, and the sack sagged all the way down to his legs. The sack would not follow him docilely any longer, it crept down below his waist, down the back of his legs, it wanted to get down on the ground. He felt the sack on his shoulders, on his back, against his legs, his knees, in his feet, in his hands.
After a few hours’ walk the flour weighed two hundred pounds — had they given him four bushels instead of two? And he had yet a long way to go — his burden would grow heavier still.
The cloak of darkness spread quickly among the trees, it soon grew so dense that he could not see the marks of his steps from the morning. The snow shone white; otherwise everything in the forest was black, dark as the inside of a barrel with the lid on. No longer did Karl Oskar waste his time in looking for his earlier tracks; he followed his nose, he tried to walk northward; to the north lay the lake, and at the lake lay his home.
But he hadn’t yet come to the brook with the tree trunk over it, and this began to worry him; he had crossed the brook quite a stretch after leaving the lake shore. What had happened to the brook? It was frozen over so he couldn’t hear it.
Now he walked more slowly, plodding along among the trees. In the dark he could not see the low-hanging branches which hindered his path, snatching at the flour sack on his back like so many evil arms. He held on to his burden with stiff, mittened fingers; time and again he tore his face on twigs and thorns, he could not see in front of him. There would be a moon later, the stars already shone brightly, twinkling through the tall treetops. But nothing lighted his way except the snow, and the snow no longer showed him the way by his morning footprints — not even with the stars out.
The wanderer struggled through the dark with the flour on his bent back. But he did not reach a lake, he did not find a brook, and the forest grew thicker around him. He had not brought his watch — he never brought it along on walks in the forest for fear he might lose it — and he did not know how much time he had spent on the homeward trek. But many hours must have elapsed since he had left the logging road; if he had followed the right path he ought to have reached Lake Ki-Chi-Saga long ago.
At each step he hoped to see the forest come to an end, he hoped to see a white field — the snow-covered lake surface. As soon as this happened he would only have to follow a shore line until he reached a newly built log cabin where his wife and children were waiting for him. But instead he seemed to go deeper and deeper into the forest.
He repeated to himself, over and over: If I walk straight ahead, I must come to the lake. I’m walking straight forward, I’m on the right road! But the hours went by and the thick forest around him testified to his mistake.
At last the stiff fingers inside the mittens lost their hold: Karl Oskar let his sack drop onto the snow and sat down on it. The truth had now been forced upon him: he was wandering aimlessly, he did not know in what direction home was — he was lost.
— 3—
He rested a while, sitting on his sack, his legs trembling with fatigue and cold. He was worn out from the many hours’ struggle with the flour: he had weakened sooner than he had expected because his stomach was empty. Hunger smarted his stomach, in his limbs and back was an ache of fatigue, but most terrible was the pain of cold after he had sat a while. The cold embraced his body from head to heel, crept like icy snakes up his legs, penetrated his groin, dug into chest and throat, pinched his ears, nose, and cheeks. But he remained sitting, letting it overtake him; he was forced to rest.