His befuddled mind cleared: He had gone to sleep on his sack in the snow. But the cold had bitten him badly, and he had shouted himself awake. He jumped to his feet, violently, as if attacked by a swarm of hornets; he was like a madman — he jumped about, kicking, stamping the ground. He flailed his arms, slapped his hands and face, beat his body with his fists. For several minutes he pummeled himself — and his blood pumped faster, his body heat was returning.
He must have dozed off for a little while; he might never have awakened! How could he have lain down this bitterly cold night? How could he have forgotten to guard against the treacherous temptation of rest?
He could not have been asleep long, yet he had had time to dream evil dreams, listen to many voices; they had told him things he probably had thought to himself, when alone; and all the while he had felt the smarting cold, burning his skin like firebrands. Thank God, he had not lost sensation — he was not frostbitten yet. But a few moments more, in that hole in the snow. . The ice-cold shroud of frost-death was down there — it would soon have soothed his pains, would soon have made him slumber forever!
But he was still alive. He loosened his stiff joints, he forced his body to move again. And once more he swung the flour sack onto his back. Fury boiled within him as he made ready to carry it farther; he gained strength from his seething anger, from adversity’s bitterness. Many times before he had enjoyed the gift of strength from vexation, and this time it was more welcome than ever. Who said he wasn’t able? Those spiteful neighbors in Sweden, how they would enjoy his misfortunes if they knew! He could just hear them say: Karl Oskar couldn’t succeed! What did we tell you?
He was enraged. In a wild frenzy he began to kick the big stump that had tripped him. His feet felt like icicles in his boots. But suddenly he stopped and stood stilclass="underline" Who could have felled a great tree here in the wilderness? The stump was fresh and cut by an ax!
He dropped his sack, bent down, brushed away the snow and examined the stump carefully. It was a low stump, not cut by a straight-standing American. This stump was cut by a Swede! He recognized the stump—he had felled this tree himself. It was the great oak he had cut down here, their food table! And that oak had grown on a knoll close behind their house — only a few hundred yards from home. .
Now he would find his way; he was practically there.
But Karl Oskar walked the remaining distance slowly. He was exhausted; and he must have carried the sack much farther than fifteen miles, for he was approaching his house from the wrong direction! He could see the yellow light from a window greeting him between the trunks of the sugar maples. There stood his house, a fire burning on the hearth. With infinite slowness he dragged his feet the last steps. The sack’s weight had increased again, this last stretch.
In a low voice Karl Oskar called Kristina’s name. He heard her pull the bolt on the inside of the door. With great effort he managed to lift his feet over the high threshold and dump the sack onto the floor. He put down his burden for the last time, with a dull thud. And then he slumped down on a stump chair near the fire, limp, jointless, weak; he dropped a full sack on the floor and sank into the chair like a discarded, empty sack.
“You’re late,” said Kristina. “I’ve been worried about you.”
“It was a long way.”
“I guess so. And cold tonight. Did it bother you?”
“A little. The last stretch.”
“You should have taken your other coat.”
“But it was so mild when I left.”
He was thawing out near the fire. He wondered how his feet had fared — perhaps his toes were frostbitten. He must go out and get a shovelful of snow, then he would melt some fat and rub his limbs, first with snow, then with fat.
Kristina had already opened the sack. She dipped into it for some flour which she strained between her fingers: “Good rye flour! You must have almost three bushels.”
“Thereabouts, I guess.”
“You had enough to carry!”
“About right for me.”
“Now we’ll have bread till spring. And we’ve been promised potatoes.”
She related how Danjel had come to visit today and offered to lend them a bushel of potatoes, Jonas Petter too had promised them a bushel; they could pay back in the fall when they harvested their own.
“That’s well,” Karl Oskar said. “They are kind.”
“It’s hardest for us,” Kristina said. “We’re the poorest. Danjel wondered if we would survive the winter.”
“We shall manage!”
Karl Oskar had taken off his boots and socks and sat with his bare feet near the fire: his toes itched and burned, feeling was returning. There was a spell of silence, and he thought: It could have happened that the next letter to reach Ljuder Parish, probably written by Danjel, would have said Karl Oskar Nilsson from Korpamoen had frozen to death in the forest a short distance from his house. One cold night February last. His body was found on a sack of flour which he had carried on his back from the store, many Swedish miles away. The exhausted man hadn’t been able to reach home, he had lain down to rest in the severe cold, on his sack, had fallen asleep, and had never awakened.
But this piece of news would not reach Sweden now. It would not gladden those hearts who had predicted ill for him out here. What had happened to him this winter night in the wilderness would not happen again. Bread was necessary for life, but one mustn’t give life to get it.
Kristina was putting food on the table for her husband; she would set the dough before they went to bed and she would get up early to heat the oven. .
Johan awakened in his bed in the corner; he yelled with delight as he saw his father sitting at the hearth: “Father is back!”
He jumped out of bed and ran to sit on Karl Oskar’s knee: “Father has brought flour! Mother can bake bread!”
Karl Oskar sat silent, stroking his son’s head clumsily with his frost-stiff fingers.
“You must be hungry, Karl Oskar,” Kristina said. “It’s all ready for you.”
He sat down to his supper, and he ate quietly but he was satisfied in his silence; tomorrow the missing loaf of bread would again be in its place on their table.
XXIII. THE LETTER FROM SWEDEN
— 1—
This was the longest of all winters for the settlers; they counted the days and waited for spring.
March had his cap full of snow, shaking it over the earth in a final blizzard. But after the snowstorm came mild weather with a south wind blowing day after day. The snow carpet thinned, the lake ice soon lay blueish bare. The night frost was still with them, but the sun warmed the air in daytime; no longer need they keep the hearth fire alive through the night.
One day Johan came rushing in from the meadow, calling out loudly before he reached the threshold. What had happened? In his hand the boy held a little flower, pulled up by its roots.
“Look Mother! A sippa! I’ve found a spring sippa!”
He had found the flower near the brook. All in the cabin crowded around to see it. It was a spindly little flower, hardly three inches tall, with liver-brown leaves and a blue crown on a thin stem. Below the crown was a circle of heart-shaped green leaves. It must be a sippa, but it was the smallest one any of them had ever seen. Kristina said the Swedish sippa had a wider crown, and this flower had no smell. Karl Oskar and Robert could not remember how it was with the sippas at home in that respect, but she insisted they had a fragrance: all flowers in the homeland were fragrant.