Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

“What kind of wood do you use for your wooden shoes, Mr. Nilsson?”

Karl Oskar replied that as alder trees did not grow in this valley he used basswood, the American linden tree. It was softer than Swedish linden wood and easy to work. But he had poor tools and was unable to make comfortable, light shoes.

He looked at the newcomer’s ax next to the stump; it had an even broader and thinner blade than his own American felling-ax.

“You can work faster with American tools,” said the owner of the ax. “The Yankees do everything easier. Better take after them.”

He took Karl Oskar for a newcomer here and looked disapprovingly at the Swedish ax he was carrying, with its clumsy head and thick edge. Karl Oskar explained that it was an old split-ax he used for post-making, and added, “From Helsingland, eh? You look like an American to me.”

He need not ask Petrus Olausson his errand here; no one felled trees for the fun of it. Olausson had come to stay.

The sound of timber axes in the forest had brought together two Swedish farmers. They had met as strangers but as soon as they had inspected each other’s axes they felt they had known each other before and were now merely renewing acquaintance. They were both men of peaceful occupation, wielding the tools of peaceful labor. Karl Oskar Nilsson from Ljuder, Småland, and Petrus Olausson from Alfta, Helsingland, sat down on the stump and talked at ease, talked intimately as if for many years they had lived on neighboring homesteads in the same village.

Around the men rose the great, ageless pines, and as far as the eye could see not a human habitation was in sight. It was an unbroken, uninhabited land, these shores of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga.

“Good land,” said the Helsinge farmer. “I aim to settle at this lake.”

“You are welcome,” said Karl Oskar, and he meant it. “Plenty of room, empty of people so far.”

“Yeah, we needn’t push for space.”

Olausson pointed to a hut of branches between two fallen pines, about a gunshot’s distance from where they sat; that was his shanty. He had begun felling timber for his cabin, and as soon as it was ready his wife and children would come. He had come to this country with his family, he told Karl Oskar, in the company of the prophet Erik Janson; that was seven years ago, in 1846. They had been living in Illinois but did not like it on the flat prairie; they wanted to live in wooded country, like their home province Helsingland. Another farmer from Alfta, Johannes Nordberg, had been up looking over Minnesota, and he had come back and told them the country up here was rich growing land and suitable for settling. It was on the advice of his neighbor that Olausson had come here. Nordberg himself would never return — he had died of cholera in Andover last summer.

Karl Oskar had heard that a farmer from Helsingland by the name of Nordberg was at this lake several years ago; he pointed to an island in line with a tongue of land. There were remnants there of a hut in which Nordberg had stayed. In summertime there were hordes of Indians here, and he had probably lived on the isle to be in peace. This first land seeker’s name was linked to the place; it was still called Nordberg’s Island.

“Johannes told the truth,” said his onetime neighbor. “This is a land of plenty.”

Petrus Olausson had picked a good place for himself, with fine timber forest and rich grass meadows. And he told Karl Oskar that several more countrymen were on their way to the St. Croix Valley, attracted by Nordberg’s descriptions.

“Well, the country is getting to be known,” said Karl Oskar. “How did you happen to stake your claim next to mine?”

“I went to the land office and picked it from the map,” he said. “The east part of section 35, township 34, range 20.”

The Helsinge farmer knew how to claim land; he had been in America twice as long as Karl Oskar, who, talking with him, felt like a newcomer beside an older and more experienced settler.

“I think my wife has something cooking — would you like to eat with us?” he asked.

“How far is it to go?”

“Less than a mile. I have the northeast claim.”

“All right. Might as well see your place.”

From the top of a young pine dangled a piece of venison he had intended to fry for his dinner, but it wasn’t very warm today and the meat would keep till tomorrow.

The settlers got up from the stump. The younger man walked ahead and showed the way.

“When did you come and settle here, Nilsson?”

Karl Oskar told him that next Midsummer Eve it would be three years since he and his family had landed in New York, and they had arrived in the Territory the last day of July. In the same year, 1850, he had taken his claim here at the lake.

Without being conscious of it, Karl Oskar walked today in longer strides than usual. He was bringing home news that would gladden Kristina; after three long years of isolation they now had a neighbor.

— 2—

The two men stopped where the path left the shore and turned up the hill to the log cabin. Olausson looked about in all directions: pine forest to the west, oaks, maples, elms, and other leaf trees to the north and east, Lake Ki-Chi-Saga to the south. At their feet lay the broad meadow, partly broken, and a tended field.

“A likely place, I must say! First come gets the best choice!”

And Karl Oskar agreed — he had had good luck when he found this place. He called his settlement Duvemåla (dovecote) after his wife’s home village in Sweden. A most suitable name, thought the Helsinge farmer; here too were so many doves that they obscured the sun.

The children playing outside the cabin had seen their father and came running toward him. They came in a row, according to age: Johan, the oldest, first; next Lill-Marta; after her, Harald; and behind them toddled little Dan, who had walked upright on this earth barely a year; his small, unstable legs still betrayed him so that he fell a couple of times, delaying his run behind his brothers and sister. But he was close to the ground and did not cry when he fell.

Karl Oskar picked up his youngest son and held him gently in his arms. It wasn’t his oldest but rather his youngest child he wanted to show to his visitor; this little tyke was two-and-a-half and the only one of his brats born in America, the only one of his family who was a citizen of this country, he told Olausson. His youngest son was an American, almost the only one among the Swedish settlers in this valley. He had been baptized with the name Danjel but had already lost half of it — they called him Dan, a more suitable name for an American.

The Helsinge farmer patted the little American on the head. The boy, in fright, glared at the stranger.

“I’m Uncle Petrus, and you are Mr. Dan Nilsson. Isn’t that right, boy? You were born here and you can become President of the United States. Neither your father nor I can be President, we’re only immigrants. .”

Karl Oskar laughed, but his youngest son did not rejoice in the great future that opened before him. He began to bawl, loudly and fiercely, and clung to his father’s neck with both arms.

“He’s shy, hasn’t seen any strangers,” said Karl Oskar.

Johan felt neglected and pulled his father by the pant leg: “We saw a snake, Dad!”

“A great big’un!” added Lill-Marta, all out of breath.

“A green-striped adder, Dad!”

“He crawled under the house. .!”

“Well, snake critters will crawl out with the spring heat,” said the visitor. “Better be careful, kids!”

Four-year-old Harald stood with his index finger in his mouth and stared at the strange man who had come home with Father. Harald ran about without pants; the only garment on his little body was an outgrown shirt, so short that it reached only to his navel. Below the shirt hem the boy was naked and his wart-like little limb pointed out naked and unprotected.