Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

Robert’s own reticence was at fault, but concerning his illusory fortune, he had convinced them he had acted in good faith and had believed the useless bills were worth their face value. And it was good, at least, to know that he hadn’t wanted to cheat them but had himself been cheated. Karl Oskar had later thrown the whole bundle of bills into the fire, and as he did so he had felt an intense hatred for the notes: these bills had been printed and circulated to destroy people. Because of these damned bills he had abused his brother! He had wished the wildcat money had feelings; he wanted it to suffer in the flames as it burned to ashes.

What had happened on Arvid’s and Robert’s California journey would now never be clear to them. The gold seekers’ own mouths were closed for eternity. Arvid’s watch, which they had found in Robert’s pocket after his death, had been sent to the boy’s father, the cotter Petter of Kråkesjö. Karl Oskar had enclosed a letter saying Arvid had perished in North America, in an unknown way, in an unknown place, and that no one knew his grave. The father received back the inheritance he gave his son at the emigration; the patrimony returned to its source in Sweden.

On Christmas Eve they always thought of their relatives, both living and dead. Kristina remembered that already a year and a half had passed since Robert was buried on the beautiful hill near the lakeside. But he was far from forgotten; Kristina often mentioned his name, and she did so tonight.

“My brother — I never understood him,” said Karl Oskar. “I wonder if he ever would have found peace in this world had he lived.”

“Robert was already finished with life,” replied Kristina. “He was reconciled to his fate.”

She had several times told her husband about the talk she had had with Robert under the sugar maples on the Friday when Karl Oskar was in Stillwater; it had been her last talk alone with Robert. Now she repeated it again to her husband, and he wondered how she could remember Robert’s words in such detail after so long a time. She explained that his words had had a special meaning after he was dead, and she had thought of them so much because they were uttered at a time when he had only a few days left of life. She had been talking at the time to one who had already completed his life span.

“Do you suppose he knew he didn’t have much time left?”

It was not the first time he had asked this question, and she replied now as before. Robert was sure to have felt that his life would not be long. But his words could sometimes be interpreted one way, then again another way. He had also said that he didn’t suffer from any disease except the old earache he had had since his farm service in Sweden. And when Hemlandet had printed a notice seeking a young man to learn printing, he had asked her if he oughtn’t to reply to the advertisement. Then he had sounded in good health, with no expectation of imminent death.

Karl Oskar nodded: Robert had been a master of secret, always talking in riddles.

“I suspect he had consumption,” said Kristina.

“Probably so.”

“But Robert wasn’t afraid of death. He was unreachable, he said.”

“Unreachable? There again he spoke in riddles!”

“It’s no riddle — I understand what he meant.”

“You do?” Karl Oskar raised his eyebrows and looked at his wife in surprise. “What do you suppose he meant?”

This time Kristina was slow in answering, and when she spoke her voice had changed; it was tense and restrained. In vain she tried to suppress a tremble.

“He was through his. We have ours ahead of us, we do.”

Karl Oskar’s eyes still rested on her inquisitively; he did not understand.

“I just said Robert was reconciled to his lot in life,” she resumed. “We are not.”

What is this all about? he asked himself. A few words by Robert, a year and a half ago, she had taken so seriously that time and again she came back to them and repeated them. What did it mean? He began to suspect that she was keeping something from him.

“What is it we must be reconciled with, Kristina?”

Now she quickly turned her eyes away as if she were found out. She seemed to feel she had said too much and was now regretting it. She replied that she didn’t want to talk about it tonight. It was time to go to bed. It was awfully late, she was quite worn out this Christmas Eve.

How deeply Robert’s statement concerning his fate had affected her she did not divulge to Karl Oskar. It concerned her own life, the lot of the emigrant. And each new day posed this question to her: How would she manage her lot in life?

— 3—

Beginning on Christmas Eve 1856, Kristina had a good and faithful assistant in her kitchen. On the Prairie Queen she was able to prepare food for the large family in half the time it previously had taken her. After a few months with the new stove Kristina could not believe she had been able to manage her household without it for so many years. The new invention saved her so much work it became the most useful object in the house.

Kristina loved her stove as if it had been a living being. She looked after it carefully, dusted it every day, and polished away spots and grease and soot. The Prairie Queen always sat shining clean in its elevated place, an enduring, elegant decoration for their home. And it was the first object a caller’s eyes would light upon when entering the kitchen. She always received her homage: what a beautiful stove!

The only name they used for it was the Queen: Have you fired the Queen? Has the Queen burned down? Did you empty the Queen’s ashes? The potato pot is boiling over on the Queen! Get some wood for the Queen! And they were proud they had a stove they could speak of as royalty, even though it was their servant.

Karl Oskar said that of course an Englishman must have named it; an American would have called it Mrs. President of the Prairie. But he himself was a man who insisted the real truth be known in his house.

“You, Kristina, you are the queen in our kitchen!”

To this she laughed heartily, her hands and face sooty. Pastor Törner had once said something similar when she mended the seat of his pants; he had said that with thread and needle and nothing else she could turn herself into a queen and their house into a palace. But she had never before heard a man use such fair and poetic speech to his own wife.

Karl Oskar insisted. No one but she reigned in their house. While he had his domain outside, she was the absolute ruler inside their timbered walls; he made the decisions in stable and barns, in forest and field. And neither one ever interfered in the other’s rule. In this way their power had always been divided, both in Sweden and America, and it suited him well, and he hoped it suited her too.

The fine stove was queen in name only — Kristina was a queen in reality. She stood faithfully at her stove, she kept her house in order, she managed to make new clothes for all of them and kept their clothing clean. She milked their cows, churned butter, made cheese, spun and spooled yarn, wove and sewed, and during the rush seasons she helped Karl Oskar in the fields with sowing, mowing, and harvesting.

But every day she fought her fatigue. Each day there came a moment when she was tempted to give in to it and suddenly drop what she had in hand, when in the midst of a chore she wanted to lie down on her back and do nothing except this: only rest quietly. How rest tempted her — she longed to taste the wonderful rest! She forced herself to go on; this must be done! It was her work, her duty and no one else’s. No one in the whole world would do it for her. If she didn’t do it, it remained undone. There was no recourse, no grace. It was necessary, and what was necessary a person always managed.