The sack — that damned flour sack! Here. . here it is, under. . how soft it is. Rye flour is the best pillow. With a whole sack of rye flour. . sustain life until spring. . not die this winter. Where is the loaf? Why isn’t it on the table?
“Mother! Bake some bread!”
Now Father is speaking sternly, shaking his crutch: What kind of fool are you, Karl Oskar? Why do you wander about here in the forest with such a sack of flour on your back? You have a team of oxen in Korpamoen, why don’t you drive to the mill, like other farmers? Sit up and ride, the way sensible people do, rest on your flour sack the whole way. Wouldn’t that be better than carrying flour miles through the forest? No one can call you a wise farmer, Karl Oskar! Here you struggle like a wretched crofter! You have no sense about providing food for your family. A hell of a fool is what you are! Never satisfied at home, hmm — you must emigrate. . People should see you now, lying in a snowdrift! What would they say? No — don’t show yourself to anyone, Karl Oskar. Crawl into the snow, hide yourself in the drift! Hide well. Let no one in the whole parish see you. .
“Be careful of your nose in this cold,” Kristina says. She is concerned, she is a good wife. She is thinking of his nose because Jonas Petter’s became frostbitten. But she means: Be careful of your life! Watch out against freezing to death. Don’t stop too long. Don’t lie down in the snow, whatever you do — don’t lie down in the snow! I’m going to bake, this evening, as soon as you get home. I need the flour. .
“You’ve come at last!” she says. “Then I’ll set the dough, knead it tonight. We’ll heat the oven tomorrow morning, rake out the coals, put in the bread; you made a good oven for me, even though it doesn’t give quite enough top-heat. . A hundred pounds, two bushels, three bushels? It’ll last till spring. But the sack! Where is the sack? Did you forget the sack? You come home without flour?”
“The sack lies back there in the woods, but I know where I hid it — I buried it in the snow. How could I do anything so silly? I must go back at once and find it.”
“Go at once and get the sack. Hurry, Karl Oskar! Hurry before it’s too late!”
“It’s already too late for you,” says Father, and now he leans on both of his crutches; now he is a helpless cripple again, a wizened, dried-up old man. And he complains: “It’s too late, Karl Oskar. You won’t have time, you won’t find the sack, you’ve lost it! How could you forget the sack in the snow, far out in the woods? Don’t you know your children are in it? Don’t you know they are all bundled up in there? How could you take your children to North America and carry them in a sack on your back? You must have known that such a burden would be too heavy. You must have realized you could never get home. That long road. . I told you you couldn’t manage. And then you dropped them in the snow. Now it’s too late to find them. They must be frozen to death, starved to death by now. . Didn’t I tell you things would go ill with you in North America? But you wouldn’t listen to my warning, you wouldn’t listen to your parents. You were always stubborn and headstrong.”
No! No! He must defend himself, he must tell Father the truth: It was because of the children he had emigrated — above all for their sake. He had brought his wife and three children with him, but he had also brought with him a pair of worn-out little shoes that had belonged to a fourth child. Didn’t Father remember Anna? She died. She was hungry too long. Of her he had only the little shoes left, and he had taken them with him from Korpamoen; they would always remind him of his child, they would make him remember the hunger that snatched her away from him. Father must know, he must remember: the famine year, the famine bread, the poor beggars, all those who starved to death? If not, he would show Father Anna’s shoes. They are here in the sack! I put them into the sack. There isn’t another thing in the sack. .
When he lost his little girl he had been in despair. Father must remember how he had searched for knot-free boards for the coffin. It was lowered into the earth, but her shoes were left. At times he picks them up, holds them in his hands: her small feet have been in them, her little feet have romped about in them, she has taken many steps in them, up and down, a thousand times. Anna’s feet. . Father, it hurts to die. Don’t let God come and take me! I want to stay here with you. . No, it mustn’t happen again, it mustn’t happen to his other children, he must take them away from the tormenting hunger — out here. And now he is here with his sack; and it has grown heavier and heavier, until he has fallen with it. He is crawling on his knees in the snow, with the burden on his back. But it’s burning hot in the snow, it smarts, smarts. .
And his own father is also here in America — he hasn’t written a letter, although he learned to write while sitting inside as a cripple. He has come here himself and speaks severe words to his eldest son: “I warned you, your mother warned you, friends and neighbors warned you. But you had to do it. You were self-willed, stubborn, listened to no one. Therefore things went as they did; now you lie here. . You dragged away my children, my grandchildren. Where are your own children? Where do you keep them? Have you taken care of them? Have you found them yet? Do you remember the place where you buried them in the snow? Be careful of your nose in this cold!”
Father will buy flour, Mother will bake bread. . Where is the bread?. . It’s my son! But you are my son. And things have come to pass as you wanted them to. Karl Oskar, are you looking for bread on your own table? You’re as stubborn as your nose is long. You couldn’t rest until you got to North America. You wanted to get here to fetch that sack of flour, to wander about with the sack. . It wasn’t much to travel so far for — not much for one who wanted to improve things for himself. . But I told you it was a long way to travel, that you never would find your way, wouldn’t be able to carry it all the distance, it’s too heavy. . and what a cold night! Not even a beggar would be out in this weather. .
I’ll succeed! I’ll improve myself! And Karl Oskar swings the sack onto his back again and waves good-by to his father and mother, who stand on the stoop looking after him. He walks lightly with his burden, through the narrow gate, onto the road, and then he looks back: Father and Mother stand there. He calls to them but they do not answer. They remain standing on the stoop, deaf, dumb, lame. Never more in his life will they move. They will remain standing there for ever, looking after him, the son who walked out through the gate, who emigrated. For all time they will stand there; they do not hear when he calls, but he must tell them, he must call louder: “It wasn’t because I was stubborn and wouldn’t listen to you, nor was I dissatisfied. That you must remember! I didn’t emigrate because of this, do you hear me, Father and Mother? I didn’t want to make any more coffins. No coffins for my little ones. Remember that! That was why I emigrated.”
But Father and Mother do not listen, they do not hear. And they cannot move. They are only wooden images, put up by the Indians. The red eyes staring at him aren’t human eyes; the Indians have put animal heads on Father’s and Mother’s bodies! They have cut off the heads of his parents and have replaced them with wolf heads! That’s why they stand immobile without hearing him when he shouts at them: “Can you hear me?”
He shouts and yells, he has to, he can no longer endure the intense smarting from the fire, he shrieks as he lies there among the scorching firebrands of the bitter-cold snow. .
— 5—
Karl Oskar Nilsson sat up and felt his face with his hand: Where was he? Was he at home with his father, defending his emigration? Or had his father come here? Was he in two countries at the same time? Wasn’t he walking homeward with a—the sack!