Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

Petrus Olausson quickly took his eyes from the child as if uncomfortably affected.

“Lost your pants, did you, little Harald?” asked the father.

“Mother took them. . she’s patching. .”

“He tore a big hole in his pants,” volunteered Johan.

“Poor boy — has to show all he has. .”

Karl Oskar was holding his youngest son on his right arm; he now picked up his pantless son on his left. Sitting there some of the little one’s nakedness was covered. It seemed as if the sight of the child’s male member had disturbed Petrus Olausson; he no longer looked like a mild “Uncle Petrus.” Did he pay attention to what a four-year-old showed? The child could have gone entirely naked, as far as that was concerned.

“The kids grow awfully fast; they outgrow everything. Hard to keep their behinds covered up.”

Olausson stroked his long beard and said nothing. Karl Oskar felt ashamed before the visitor that his children had to wear rags. They had hardly been able to get any new clothes at all. All four were dressed in outgrown, worn-out garments, patches on patches. After the long winter inside they had been let out in the open again, and now one could see how badly off they were. The bright spring sun revealed everything as threadbare, ragged, torn, shabby.

“I’ve seeded flax — last year, and this year too. The kids will soon have something to cover them.”

“Well, at least they aren’t cold while summer lasts,” commented Olausson, as he threw a look at the father’s own pants, patched over and over again.

Karl Oskar walked ahead to the door with two children in his arms and two at his heels. The door opened from within and Kristina’s head covered with a blue kerchief, appeared.

“You’re late — I almost thought something had happened. .?”

“Yes, Kristina,” said Karl Oskar solemnly. “Something has happened — we have a neighbor now. .”

The Helsinge farmer stepped up and doffed his hat.

“Yes, here comes your neighbor. .”

Perplexed, Kristina remained standing in the door opening. Then she dried her fingers quickly on her apron before she took the guest’s hand. He told her his name and his home parish in Sweden.

“Svensk!!?”

“Still for the most part a Swede, I guess. We’ll be next-door neighbors, Mrs. Nilsson!”

“What a surprise! What a great surprise!”

In her confusion she forgot to ask the visitor to come in. She remained standing on the threshold until Karl Oskar, laughing, wondered if she wanted to keep them out.

Once inside, Kristina welcomed the farmer from Alfta.

“A neighbor! What a welcome visitor!”

Petrus Olausson looked about the cabin with curious eyes, as if to evaluate their belongings.

“Have you made the furnishings yourself, Nilsson?”

“Yeah — a little clumsy. .”

“No! You’re learning from the Americans. Very good! They do things handily.”

Petrus Olausson praised the beds that Karl Oskar had made of split scantlings, fastened to wall and floor; there was something authoritative in his speech and manner, one felt he was a man accustomed to giving advice and commands. There was also a hint of the forty-year-old man talking to the thirty-year-old, but more than their difference in age was the fact that he had been in America four years longer than Karl Oskar.

The Swedish settler had invited Olausson to dinner without knowing what Kristina had to put on the table. She apologized; she had nothing but plain fish soup — boiled catfish. And maple syrup, bread, and milk — not much to offer a guest. It was the time of year when food was scarce: last year’s crops were almost gone and this year’s were still growing.

Karl Oskar remembered they had cooked the last of their potatoes only a few days ago.

“We have a bone of pork left,” said Kristina. “I can make pea soup. But the peas take at least an hour to cook, they’re tough. .”

“Too long,” said Karl Oskar. “We’re hungry. .” But it annoyed him that they had nothing better than fish soup to offer their new neighbor on his first visit.

“I can make mashed turnips for the pork,” said Kristina, thinking over what supplies they had. “We have turnips out in the cellar, they cook quickly.”

Karl Oskar picked up a basket and went to fetch the turnips, accompanied by his guest. He did not want to appear to Olausson as an inexperienced settler; rather, he wanted to show how well he had managed on his claim. He told him that more difficult than obtaining food was protecting it, against heat in summer and frost in winter. To build a cellar of stone as they did in Sweden required an enormous amount of work which he hadn’t had time for yet; he had used another device to protect the vegetables from spoiling. He had dug a ditch for the turnips behind the cabin and covered it with straw and earth. Under such a roof, about ten inches thick, the roots were protected against the coldest winter.

Karl Oskar stopped before a mound and with a wooden fork cleared away the earth and the straw. When he had removed the covering he knelt and bent down over the ditch. The mound had not been opened for a few weeks, and an evil stink filled his nose. An uneasy apprehension came over him. He stuck down his hand and felt for a turnip. He got hold of something soft and slimy. When he lifted his hand into daylight he was holding a dark brown mess with a nasty smell.

“Damn it! The roots are rotten. .”

The older settler stooped down and smelled; he nodded that the turnips were indeed spoiled.

Shamefacedly, Karl Oskar rose. The turnips they had intended to offer their guest for dinner need not be boiled; down there in the ditch the roots were already mashed and prepared, a rotten mess.

“It’s on account of the early heat,” said the guest.

“I forgot to make an air hole,” explained Karl Oskar.

“Your covering is too thick,” said Petrus Olausson authoritatively. “Ten inches is too much — five inches would’ve been about right.”

“Then the turnips would have frozen last winter.”

“Not if you had covered the ditch right. You put on too much; you’re wrong, Nilsson!”

Karl Oskar’s cheeks flushed. He knew a ten-inch cover was required in order to keep the frost out. Only this spring heat had come on so suddenly he hadn’t had time to open an air hole. That was why the turnips had rotted.

With a wad of straw he wiped the mess of rotted roots from his hand. Those damned turnips weren’t worth a single dollar but he had wanted to show his senior countryman how well he preserved his food and kept it from spoiling.

And now, here he stood and received instruction from a master. It was not that he had done something wrong, he had forgotten to do the right thing. It was this that annoyed him.

They walked back to the cabin. Karl Oskar carried the empty basket, vexed and humiliated. Now what would they give their guest? He had seen in Kristina’s eyes that she was anxious to offer the best they had to their first neighbor, but not even she could prepare a meal from nothing.

However, at the door a delicious cooking aroma met them. Kristina had put the frying pan over the fire.

“I won’t bother with mashed turnips, I’ll make pancakes instead, it won’t take so long. .”

She had flour, bacon grease, milk, and sugar, as well as some of the cranberries she had preserved last year. Now they would have cranberries and pancakes for dinner.

“Please sit down, you menfolk! I’ll serve you as I make them.”

The children might be a nuisance; if they smelled the pancakes she was preparing for their guest they wouldn’t leave her any peace. She had given each of them a lump of sugar and told them to stay outside and play.

Karl Oskar’s annoyance disappeared as he inhaled the smell of the frying pancakes.