Vilhelm Moberg - Unto A Good Land

He looked at Anders Månsson with disgust and pity: he slept a drunkard’s sleep and nothing would wake him now, nothing but time could stop that rattle in his throat. But his face looked healthy and red; “if you have red cheeks you are far from dead,” the saying was. .

Karl Oskar walked slowly out of the cabin. The drunkard’s mother was still sitting outside; he had nothing to say to her.

But she asked: “Was it something you wanted with Anders?”

“Nothing to speak of. Just wanted to look in as I passed by.”

“He wakes up toward evening.”

“Well. . is that so? Does he often—”

“As often as he has money to buy drinks with.” Old Fina-Kajsa spoke to the air in a low, hollow voice — without reproach or sorrow. “He got started on it when he lived alone.”

“I suppose so.”

“He ailed from lonesomeness.”

“I see.”

Karl Oskar felt embarrassed and ashamed, as though he had surprised her son during some natural but private occupation which concerned no one except himself and which usually is not performed in sight of others.

Fina-Kajsa continued: “Anders says he grew lonesome here. He says it can affect one’s head, to emigrate and grow lonely. . ”

Karl Oskar searched for words of comfort for the old one. But strangely, comforting words were far away when needed. He could not find a single one — he had nothing to say to Fina-Kajsa. He greeted her from Kristina, and then went his way. The old woman remained sitting, her vacant eyes staring over the wilderness forest.

Her son who lay flat-back on his bed had grown lonesome. . hmm. .

Now Karl Oskar knew why Anders Månsson had been unable to improve his circumstances during his years in the Territory — now he knew the secret of Fina-Kajsa’s son.

— 4—

Karl Oskar could now go to Lake Gennesaret and borrow the fifteen cents from his neighbors, but then he would not have time for a second walk back to Mr. Abbott’s store. He must let the letter from Sweden remain in the postoffice drawer for the time being; after all, it was not floating in the lake, Postmaster Abbott had it in safekeeping.

Karl Oskar walked straight back home. Kristina met him in the door: “Did you get the letter? What did it say? Are they well?” Three anxious questions, and she found time for a fourth before her husband had said a word: “Hasn’t the letter come?”

“It has come. But it must be redeemed. It costs fifteen cents.”

“You couldn’t redeem it?”

“No.”

“You walked all the way for nothing?”

“Yes.”

Kristina had been waiting eagerly for his return, she was sure he would bring the letter from Sweden. Now she felt like a child who is chased away from the Christmas tree after waiting long at the door.

A silence fell between husband and wife. And Karl Oskar felt another question coming, but this one his wife need not utter. He said he had not wished to borrow from anyone in Taylors Falls, he was too proud to ask for a loan of fifteen cents; he did not wish to advertise his poverty among all the Swedes in the St. Croix Valley. Their letter was in good hands in the store, they need not worry, no one would take it away from them.

“Did you see the writing on the letter?”

“No, I wasn’t that close.”

“You don’t know who wrote it?”

“No. It could be my father, or it might be yours. One or the other, I guess.”

A few days passed. Spring had come to the valley. The ice on the river had broken up, the steamboat had come with the letter from Sweden; it now lay in a drawer in the post office in Taylors Falls and could be redeemed for fifteen cents. Kristina thought, what luck that the sun and the warmth came to people without having to be redeemed; had they been forced to pay fifteen cents for the spring, the winter would still be with them.

Karl Oskar and Kristina said nothing more about the letter, but their thoughts hovered around it. They could not get it off their minds, they wondered and mused: What was in the letter? A whole year had run away since they had climbed on the wagon for the drive to Karlshamn — how much might have happened in that time! And everything that had happened was written in that letter, and the letter had finally almost reached them, it was only a few miles away, yet as far away as ever. It cost fifteen cents!

Kristina thought it would have been better not to know about the letter. It would have been better if Karl Oskar had kept quiet about it. Now she was wrought up and worried about news from home. It was so close, yet not within her reach.

Karl Oskar was resigned to waiting patiently until the time he could redeem it, and he thought Kristina should do the same. He was busy all day long making his new breaking plow. He was making it entirely of wood, and he must have it ready when the frost left the ground. He had been promised he might borrow his neighbors’ oxen and he was anxious to begin the plowing. A plow was far more important to him than a letter. He talked about it every time he came inside for a meal, it was on his mind early and late. It was the first time he had made a plow, the farmer’s most important implement, and it required clever hands. He cut and carved, he chiseled and dug, he tried various kinds of wood, discarded and began anew, improved and finished each part from day to day. The blade must have the right curve, the pull tree the right turn, the shafts and handles the right angles. The plow body must be light, sensitive to the steering hands of the plower, it must cut its way easily through the sod. He would follow this plow in its furrow for a long time, he would follow it every day until the whole meadow was turned into a field. The new plow would give them the field for their bread to grow in.

But Kristina wished to hear no more of the plow he was making, she wanted to talk of the letter they must redeem.

Karl Oskar was too proud to borrow a mere fifteen cents from his neighbors. If a poor man could afford nothing else, at least he could afford his pride. This was a lesson he had learned in Sweden. But it might be that this lesson was neither good nor useful for an impoverished settler here in the wilderness. He could not live by his pride. And whence would he get the fifteen cents if he did not borrow it from Danjel or Jonas Petter?

A few more days went by and Karl Oskar kept busy at his plow. Then Kristina could wait no longer: Did he intend to get the letter soon? He replied that the letter was in good hands, Mr. Abbott would not give it to anyone else, she must not be impatient, the work on the plow was much more urgent.

Kristina made her own decision: She would go to her uncle and borrow fifteen cents.

Without Karl Oskar’s knowledge she would set out early next morning through the forest to Danjel’s settlement. She would show her stubborn husband that she could redeem the message from Sweden. His pride could not keep her letter from her any longer!

Strangers rarely came to the log house at Lake Ki-Chi-Saga. Occasionally a pelt trader might walk by. But the day Kristina had made her decision a stranger dropped in on them.

He was a man from the lumber company in Stillwater; he had walked through the forest staking out new roads and had lost his way. The stranger arrived at the new settlement as the family was sitting down to the noonday meal and he was asked to share their dinner: Would he be satisfied with their simple food?

Karl Oskar and the American could barely make each other understood, but he seemed a kind man. He thanked them for the dinner and before he left he patted Johan on the head and gave him a coin.

The stranger was hardly outside the door before Kristina turned to the boy and looked at the gift. It was a ten-cent piece.