Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

After a moment’s hesitation he stepped inside Newell’s Hardware Store and negotiated his purchase.

Three weeks before Christmas the Queen arrived secretly at the New Duvemåla settlement. She was secreted in a wooden box, nailed shut, which Karl Oskar smuggled into the woodshed when no one was around. He put the box in a corner and, to be on the safe side, covered it with some old sacks; here she was well hidden.

The Prairie Queen was not to be moved from her hiding place and into the house until Christmas Eve. She was to be a Christmas present for Kristina.

Karl Oskar mused that the Prairie Queen was an excellent name for a cookstove. The Prairie Queen, which had gulped down all of his income from the sale of four great hogs, was made of cast iron and came equipped with four utensils: a roaster, a kettle, a coffeepot, and a frying pan. It had the reputation of being more convenient than any other stove in the world.

In order to prepare food at their hearth, a pot was placed in an iron ring which stood on three legs in the center of the fireplace. Only one pot could be used at a time and care must be taken lest the ring holding it turn over. All their cooking and frying had been done this way until now. But it was not ordained that for all time people should prepare food on a hearth. In America a time of constant invention of new machines and utensils and gadgets had begun. Then the Nilssons had read in Hemlandet that stoves of iron were now for sale, stoves that were not built into the hearth and anchored to the chimney but could be moved like any other piece of furniture. Kristina had wondered what such a cookstove would be like. Now she would see one with her own eyes.

Karl Oskar let Johan and Harald in on the secret of the hidden box in the woodshed. On the morning of Christmas Eve, while Kristina was busy with the milking, the two boys helped their father carry in the heavy iron object and place it in the kitchen on the old hearth, from which the ashes had been swept out. They arranged the four cooking utensils, each one in its proper place on the removable rings and lids of the surface. Karl Oskar broke into the chimney; the iron pipe at the back of the stove was pushed into the hole, and the smoke outlet was ready. Finally he went over the whole stove with a woolen rag, dusting and polishing until the cast iron shone and gleamed.

The Prairie Queen now sat in her proper place in the kitchen. She sat in a queen’s seat, elevated on her throne, lighting up the whole kitchen. As soon as one stepped across the threshold one’s eyes fell on it.

When Kristina returned from the stable she stopped dead and stared at the stove. What in the world was that sitting back there? What had they put on her hearth? Her husband and sons stood silent, winking at each other as she exclaimed. She had noticed earlier that they were snickering about, giggling over some secret doings.

“What in all the world. .? What is that in the fireplace?”

An important guest had come to their house this Christmas, explained Karl Oskar. A queen had come to them in their kitchen. She would always sit there on the hearth, and would help the mistress with her cooking chores.

Kristina walked closer to inspect the Prairie Queen. Her hands stroked the shiny iron, took hold of the pot handles, lifted up the kettle and the coffeepot as if to feel how heavy they were.

“A new cookstove of iron!”

“Of cast iron,” said Karl Oskar.

“Have you bought it. .?”

“Yes, it’s bought and paid for. I’m not in the habit of stealing things.”

“Oh my — what a stove! How pretty it is!”

“The stove is a female, by the way. Called the Prairie Queen. The name is stamped on the front of her.”

Kristina sat down on the pile of wood beside the stove, overwhelmed, while Karl Oskar described the cast-iron stove with a pride that couldn’t have been greater had he himself been the inventor.

Into these holes with doors one put the wood. And here, covered with lids and rings, were the cooking holes. The rings could be removed according to the amount of heat required under the pots and kettles. To keep food warm only, no lids were removed. It was a clever contraption, for sure. And that big door on the side was the baking oven, not for real baking, of course, but for smaller cakes. An explanation of how to use the Prairie Queen came with the stove, in English, unfortunately. On the iron stove food would cook much faster since it held the heat.

“And all these cast-iron utensils come with her,” he added. “Aren’t they fine?”

“They are like the glory of heaven!” She lifted the coffeepot again. “The Americans are so clever. But why do they call it the Prairie Queen?”

Perhaps some settler from England had thought up the name for this superior invention, suggested Karl Oskar. The young queen of England was supposed to be the greatest majesty of all those in the world, thus the name “Queen” for this splendid stove.

“The stove is a beautiful decoration for our home!” said Kristina.

She stood before the shiny, cast-iron Prairie Queen, admiringly and respectfully like a dutiful subject before a majesty of flesh and blood on a silver throne. She could not have been more surprised had a living royal person entered her kitchen this Christmas Eve. But this queen was crowned with four gleaming utensils. What woman in a kitchen could watch that crown without being seized with desire to use it.

“Can you light the stove?” she wondered.

“She’s connected, ready to go. You can begin cooking at once.”

Karl Oskar had cut wood of the right size for the Prairie Queen’s firebox. In no time he had a fire going in the new stove. It smoked a little, but he blamed this on the heavy air and fog they had on this Christmas Eve; it caused a poor draft in the chimney.

When the Prairie Queen was ready, Kristina prepared the first meal on the new stove: the Christmas Eve dinner, the greatest festival meal of the year. It was their third Christmas in the new house, and their seventh in North America.

— 2—

The children were allowed to eat as much as they could of the delicious Christmas food and then they went to sleep in the gable room, sated and tired.

Since last Christmas a new life had come into the house; in February Kristina had borne a boy, christened Frank Aldo Hjalmar. They called him Frank, the first of the children to be given an American name. When they came to their third American-born child it was their new homeland’s turn to be remembered at the baptism, thought Karl Oskar. Now their brood had grown to half a dozen, and of her surviving children, Kristina had given life to three in Sweden and three in America; one half of their children were Swedes, one half Americans. In their home the two peoples were equally strong, half of their children represented the old country, half the new. When Frank was born, Karl Oskar had said: Now it’s just right!

After Frank’s birth Kristina had been so weak physically that it was several months before she could fully resume her chores. And during the recent exhausting Christmas preparations she had felt that her strength had not yet fully come back.

Before the children were sent to bed this Christmas Eve, Karl Oskar had read the Christmas gospel aloud to his family, as was his custom. Now that the parents were alone Kristina read a few psalms from the prayerbook about Christ’s birth, beginning as usual with Luther’s words of greeting and rejoicing on the blessed day. The message of the Savior’s arrival here on earth was comforting to her anew each time she heard it.

By and by their talk turned to worldly things, and, naturally, first of all to the new iron stove.

“Thirty-three dollars!” said Kristina. “What an expense!”