Vilhelm Moberg - Unto A Good Land

Now he must have the whole explanation: She was not dissatisfied with their new home, or their new country. She felt as he did: They would improve themselves and find security here, if health remained and they managed to struggle through a few hard years. But one country could not be like another country. America could never become Sweden to her. She could never bring here what she missed from childhood and youth in the homeland. She was only twenty-six, and when she thought of all the coming years out here, all the years left of her life, this unexplainable pain stole over her and kept her awake. Only lately had she understood what it meant to move for life. It was something for a soul to ponder. And so at last, this evening, she had prayed for help from the Almighty’s arm — wouldn’t He stretch it out. . Yes, that was all.

“Kristina—”

He had not let go her hand, now he held on to it so tightly that it hurt her: he held on as though someone were trying to snatch her out of their bed, to take her away from his side. But he said nothing now.

She asked: “Karl Oskar — don’t you ever feel a longing for your old home?”

“Maybe. At times. Now and then. . ”

Yes, he must admit, a longing came over him too. It seemed to come over all emigrants at times. But he always drove it away at once. He was afraid it might burden his mind. He needed his strength for other matters. He needed all his strength to improve their lives out here. He was careful, he couldn’t spend his strength pondering over what he had left forever. Just the other day, he had seen how dangerous it could be to dig oneself down in thoughts and musings — he had seen a man lying on a bed of wretchedness. .

Yes, she knew it well: What she worried over could never change. All her musing and thoughts were of no avail, served no purpose. .

“But I can’t help it, Karl Oskar!”

“No, I guess not.” He rose. “I’ll fetch something for you.”

He stepped onto the floor, and she could hear him as he walked barefoot toward the fireplace corner. She heard him stir in the Swedish chest. What was he fetching for her? Drops? Did he think the Four Kinds of Drops or Hoffman’s Heart-Aiding Drops would help her? There was hardly a spoonful left in either bottle, although she had used them sparingly.

Karl Oskar came silently back to the bed, he had something in his hand which he gave his wife. It was not drops, it was a pair of tiny, worn-out, broken shoes, a child’s shoes.

She accepted them in bewilderment, she recognized them in bewilderment. “Anna’s old shoes.”

“Yes. They help me to remember. If I sometimes feel downhearted a little. .”

“You mean—?”

“Perhaps the shoes can help you too.”

“Karl Oskar!” Her voice grew thick again.

“Do you remember the winter the child died? You do, don’t you?”

“Yes. It was the winter when I agreed — to the emigration. I have almost regretted it at times. But I still agree. I don’t blame you a bit, Karl Oskar. You remember what I said that night on the ship?”

He remembered well, he remembered nothing better: She had said she had nothing to reproach him for, nothing to forgive him for. They were the best of friends. He could remember nothing more clearly than that. For that was the night when he thought she would die.

That time it had been she who had taken his hand and kept it firmly in hers. And there between them on the quilt had lain the old shoes, made by the village shoemaker in their home parish, made for their child’s feet — made for Anna, who had time to wear out only one pair of shoes while she lived on earth. And now they had the shoes here in America, still aiding them — they reminded the parents of what they had gone through in the homeland: Because of hunger the little girl’s life had been so short she had never needed more than one pair of shoes.

Karl Oskar said: Here in Minnesota was their home, here their home would remain. Here they had their children and all they owned, all that belonged to them in this world. In Sweden they owned not even a wooden spoon any longer, in Sweden they were homeless. This was their home.

And if Kristina still felt that she was away, then he would help her all he could to make away become home to her: “There is something I’ve long had in mind to tell you,” he said. “One day our children will thank us for emigrating to America.”

“You think that? You believe so?”

“I feel it. I know it.”

“Maybe. But who knows?”

“I know it’s true. I’m sure, Kristina. Our children will thank their parents for bringing them to this country when they were little.”

“But no one can know.”

Karl Oskar persisted: Every time he looked at this countryside and realized how much it could give to them, he felt assured of this: The children would be grateful to their parents. She must think ahead, of their children, and their children’s children in time, of all the generations after them. All the ones who came after would feel and think and say that she had done right when she moved from Sweden to North America.

On that thought he himself often lingered, it was a great help to him when his struggles at times seemed heavy and endless. It gave him renewed strength when he slackened. Couldn’t the same thought comfort her when she was depressed, longing for home?

“You may be right, Karl Oskar,” she said. “But we know nothing of the day we haven’t seen.”

There was one more matter Karl Oskar had thought over and which he now wanted to discuss with his wife: It was high time they gave a name to their home.

They had lived here an autumn and a winter and soon spring would be over. They ought to name their homestead now that they were settled and would never move away. That day last fall when they had moved in she had said that the place here with the lake reminded her of Duvemåla, that it was almost as beautiful as her home village. He had thought about this many times. They could name their home after her childhood home in Algutsboda Parish. And since he had heard her talk tonight, he was even more confirmed in that thought: They must name their home in the new land Duvemåla. How did she like that? What did she think of moving the name of her parental home over here?

“I — you must know I like it!”

Kristina was overjoyed. Now she took hold of his hand and held it tightly. It was a good idea, this name for their home. She would never have thought of it herself — the name of her own village!

“Duvemåla. . we don’t live at Ki-Chi-Saga any longer, we live in Duvemåla. How lovely it sounds.” Her voice was clear, no longer thick and uncertain.

“That settles the name, then,” said Karl Oskar, with the intonation of a minister at baptism.

Kristina thought, from now on she would live in Duvemåla. And she would again try to make herself believe she was at home here.

So the first home on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga in Minnesota Territory was named, and the name was given late of an evening in spring as the couple who had built it lay awake in their bed and talked. They talked long to each other; the wife confessed her childish longing and spoke of the light spring nights at home, of the rosebush and the Astrachan tree and the gooseberry bushes and all the things that came to her mind at this time of evening.

It was nearly midnight, and they still lay awake. Karl Oskar said, now they must sleep. If they didn’t go to sleep soon, they would wake up tired next morning. And the morrow would bring heavy work — he himself would begin the most important task of the next years: the wooden plow he had made with his own hands, with great difficulty, was at last finished, and the ox team was waiting for him at his neighbor’s on Lake Gennesaret. Tomorrow he would begin to plow the meadow, the earth that was to become their good and bearing and nourishing field.