Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

“I believe you are a wizard, Kristina!”

She piled the pancakes in a bowl and even the Helsinge farmer looked pleased and appreciative.

“This is party fare, Mrs. Nilsson! Swedish food and Swedish cooking!”

Karl Oskar was pulling up his chair, ready to sit down at table, when Petrus Olausson, behind his chair, bent his head, folded his hands, and said grace in a loud voice:

We do sit down in Jesu name,

We eat and drink upon God’s word,

God to honor, us to aid,

We eat our food in Jesu name.

Kristina, busy with her pancakes, repeated the prayer with him. She was deeply conscious of the fact that nowadays they almost always forgot to say grace. And, as parents, Karl Oskar and she ought to set a good and godly example for their children. But the settlers had begun to forget their old Swedish table prayers. Only Danjel Andreasson, her uncle, never missed saying grace. And she had told Karl Oskar that they acted like hogs rushing up to the trough to still their hunger. To forget, in this manner, the giver of all good things was un-Christian, beastly. The difference between animals and people was only this: the dumb beasts couldn’t read.

But their new neighbor prayed over the food with a voice like a minister. He must be a religious man.

When she had finished at the stove, Kristina sat down at the table where the men were doing great honor to her pancakes. The guest told her that he intended to settle down in the neighborhood with his wife and three children.

“I never thought anyone would want to live this far away,” she said.

“Well, this is rich earth, and the lake has plenty of fish.”

Karl Oskar was eager to confirm that the earth was indeed rewarding. Last year he had planted four bushels of potatoes and had received forty-eight-and-a-half bushels in yield — almost thirteen to one. And rye and barley gave good returns: the seeds were barely out of his hand before they began to swell and grow and shoot up blades in great abundance. One could spread sawdust on this earth and it would almost grow.

Kristina thought however fine the earth was, it could never take the place of people. However great its yield, it did not help against the loneliness out here.

“We are not only seeking our living in America,” Petrus Olausson went on. “We are seeking freedom in spiritual things.”

He explained that he and his wife had turned their backs on the false and dangerous Swedish Church and had followed the Bible’s clear words and truths. After this they had been so persecuted and plagued by the clergy and the authorities of the home village that they had been forced to emigrate. They had followed Erik Janson of Biskopskulla and his group to Bishop Hill, Illinois, where they were to build the New Jerusalem on the prairie. But once in America, Janson had set himself even above God and had earned the contempt of all sensible men. After enduring Janson’s tyranny for three years, Olausson had left the prophet of Bishop Hill, the year before this despot was murdered. He had gone to Andover and joined a free Lutheran church.

Petrus Olausson helped himself to a few more pancakes.

“Have you broken out of the Swedish State Church, Nilsson?”

Karl Oskar explained that he and his family had emigrated of their own free will; they had not been banished, nor had they fled as criminals. But an uncle of Kristina’s and an unmarried woman in their group had been exiled by the court for heresy.

The rugged Helsinge farmer raised his bearded chin. In Sweden he had been fined two hundred daler silver because he had read a chapter from the Bible in his own house. In Helsingland and Dalecarlia many persons had been imprisoned for reading the Bible in groups. Holy Writ, the key to eternal salvation, was that dangerous for the wretched Swedish people. But here in America he could read the Bible from cover to cover, whenever and wherever he wanted, without punishment.

“Every evening in my prayer I thank the Lord God for my new homeland,” he said emphatically. “Sweden has been ruined by her iniquitous authorities.”

A scratching sound was heard at the window behind the guest’s chair; Johan hung outside on the window sill and stared through the glass at the people eating inside. He had barely managed to climb that high and his eyes grew large at the sight of the pancakes; his mouth moved as if he too were chewing. Lill-Marta’s flaxen curls could be glimpsed below the window — she was not tall enough to look through.

“Our young’uns smell the pancakes,” said Karl Oskar.

“Only curious,” said Kristina. “I just fed them. .” The mother shook her hand windowward: how could they be so rude, looking at guests eating! The boy’s face and the girl’s curls disappeared immediately. Kristina looked uncomfortably at her guest; would he think her children didn’t have enough to eat? But he must see by their bodies that they weren’t starved. She herself never ate her fill until she knew they had sufficient. Well, perhaps a few pancakes would be left which she could give them afterward.

Petrus Olausson had returned to worldly matters and asked his host how they had managed to make a living and feed themselves on their claim for three years.

Karl Oskar replied that the first winter had been the hardest, as they had not harvested any crops that year. Then it had happened that they went hungry on occasion. But as soon as spring and warmth came, and the lake broke up and they could fish, it had become better. And during the summer they had picked wild berries and other fruit in the forest and then there was no need to starve. That fall they had harvested their first crops and got so much from the field they had had all the potatoes and bread they needed for the second winter. As they gradually broke more land their worries about food diminished. During the second and third winter they had been bothered mostly by the cold; this cabin did not give sufficient protection. For the children’s sake they had kept a fire going night and day through the coldest periods. The last winter had been so bad that the blizzards had almost turned the cabin over.

He had not figured on living in this log hut more than two or three winters; he had already laid out the framework for a more solid house. But he doubted the new house would be finished this summer. They would have to live in the cabin a fourth winter.

Kristina added that the weather was never moderate in this country, too hard one way or another. The summers were too warm, the winters too cold. It should have been spring or fall all year round, for springs and autumns were mild and good seasons. But all American weather was immoderate; the heat was hotter, the cold colder, the rain wetter, and the wind blew worse than in Sweden. And it was the same with the animals, big and little ones. Snakes were more poisonous, the rats more ferocious, the grasshoppers did more damage, the mosquitoes were bigger, and the ants angrier than at home. The wild animals in America seemed to have been created to plague humans.

“The Indians are more dangerous than the animals,” said Olausson.

Kristina thought the brown people hereabouts had behaved very peacefully. During the winters Indians had come to warm themselves at their fire and she had given them food and treated them as friends. She tried to pretend she wasn’t afraid of the wild ones, and they had never hurt her, but she was scared to death of them. They could have killed her a hundred times but she relied on God’s protection. A few times they had heard rumors of Indian attacks, but nothing had happened here so far.

“The Chippewas are friendly,” said their guest. “Some of the other tribes will steal and murder and rape the wives of the settlers.”

Kristina had finished eating; she was looking thoughtfully in front of her.