Vilhelm Moberg - The Last Letter Home

The farmer picked up the reins and urged his strong team forward which he had followed for years after harrow and plow, wagon and timber sled. Today it was hitched to the heaviest load it had ever pulled, a giant oak which for hundreds of years had stood secure on its roots. Now the old one’s footing had been undermined.

The horses obeyed their master and started to pull, concentrating all their strength until their backs straightened out and their legs and loins sank. Their hooves took hold of the ground, turf and rocks flew about, the animals tramped, moved their legs, stretched their sinews. The hooves dug into the earth. The pull lines were extended until it seemed as if they would break, the horses crouched as if ready to bolt, their backs straightened out, their hindquarters sank down. But they did not move from the spot; they stood where they were, tramped the same place. They were hitched to a load that remained stationary.

The driver of the team kept urging it on. The horses pulled again, their hooves threw up turf. This was their life’s heaviest load.

Now the oak began to tremble from the force pulling in the chains around its trunk. The enormous crown swayed slowly back and forth. The men could see that the oak was beginning to lean. Once it had started to sway, its motion would soon utilize its weight in making it fall.

The team in its place pulled again, the giant trunk was beginning to give, the lines slackened — they were long enough so the tree would not reach the team in its fall.

The farmer and his sons cried out warnings to one another, the calls echoing back and forth:

“Timber!”

“She’s coming!”

“Get away!”

The tree was leaning. A sound like an approaching storm was heard in the air — the tree had started to fall! The giant took one last heavy breath as it sank to the ground. In falling the tree had pulled up its own stump. When the branches hit the earth there was a report like a gunshot. Then the great oak lay still. It had left an empty place in the air above.

The giant was felled, the first one. Five men and two horses had gone to work on the grove — oak after oak fell, each pulling up its roots with its fall. The warning calls sounded: Keep away! She’s coming! And heavy and big she came, roaring through the air, falling with a thud, her roots in the air, her crown crushed. In the place where the tree had grown, a ditch opened, deep as a grave. Each fallen oak left room for a piece of fallow field.

It was the autumn of the great oak destruction; death ravaged the grove. The owner and his four sons cleared ground — the farmer was using all the human strength that had grown up in his house. This work by the father and his sons would complete the clearing of this farm. In the evenings, tired and pleased, they looked at the row of oaks they had felled, quietly laid down their tools, and went home.

For more than twenty years Karl Oskar had cleared wild land in America, hoed, plowed, cut. Now he had started with the last piece. He was nearing the end. When the oak grove had been cleared and tilled his farm would be completed.

— 3—

The clearing went on through the whole autumn. Karl Oskar hoped to be through before snow fell and the ground froze. And the winter was late this year, as if it wanted to aid him in his work.

It was an evening late in November. Only one oak remained, but one of the largest, a giant, almost six feet thick at arm’s height. At the time when this tree was a sapling the farmer’s parents had not yet come into the world, nor his grandparents. And when he himself saw the shore of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga for the first time, the oak had reached its full years. It had remained in its place while he felled thousands of trees around it. Now its turn had come: the autumnal storms had swayed its crown for the last time.

It was this oak the farmer was to remember.

The first blue approach of twilight appeared in the sky. The farmer’s oldest son said it was late, they were tired, and since this last oak was so big and deeply rooted it would be quite a job getting it down. It would be dark before they were through. Couldn’t they leave it till tomorrow?

The farmer replied that since only one single oak remained they would fell it too before they went home. Since it was the last one they must not leave it because of approaching evening. With the felling of this tree they could say they had completed their task. Then they could go home and rest, well satisfied.

He spoke with a father’s authority over his children and the four sons obeyed him. None of them uttered a word of complaint.

They went to work eagerly, stimulated by the thought that they were to fell the last oak. They dug the ditch around the trunk, two boys climbed up and fastened the chain to the top, the chain was linked to the team. The horses too were eager, as if feeling this must be the last load of growing trees.

The father picked up the reins and laid them around his neck. He urged the team, the horses caught a foothold in the ground and pulled until the harnesses creaked. But he did not keep his eyes on the team, rather, his eyes followed the movements of the oak crown that swayed behind him. He was always watchful, never forgetting to call out: Timber!

But tonight it was the sons who called out to the father:

“She’s coming! Get away!”

The giant oak was not so well rooted as they had thought. As soon as the horses pulled it began to rock and lean.

The thud of its fall could be heard almost in the same second as the warning:

“She’s coming! Get away!”

In a wink the father saw the tree coming. He always jumped aside in good time — when he heard the sound in the air he always had time to get away. Now he tried to throw himself aside at the same moment he heard it.

It happened within seconds: The oak was supposed to fall to the right of him, he attempted to run to the left — he who couldn’t run! He couldn’t get his left leg to move fast enough, he stumbled and fell to his knees. He rose again but never reached an upright position; he took no more steps in his flight from the tree. He had the reins around his neck, the horses were restless and pulled him over.

The farmer fell as if his legs had been cut out from under him; over him fell the oak.

It crashed and thundered as its branches broke and splintered. The team came to a stop, the reins coiling behind as they fell from the master’s neck. They had pulled their load, the last one in the grove, their labor was completed, and now they rested.

The roar from the fall died down and silence fell over team and tree, until the sons rushed up and called out: Father!

The last oak of the grove had been felled but under it lay the farmer himself. This mighty tree, waiting here for him while the years had run by — it had been waiting for this November evening when they would fall together.

None of the sons had seen their father stumble and be pulled over by the reins. Now he had vanished; he must be under the fallen tree, the lush branches must be hiding him. They grabbed their axes and started to cut through the branch-work — boughs as big as trunks were separated and rolled away in horrible urgency. The sons were hewing their way to their father. Four axes were swinging and with each cut they were nearing him. Soon they could see his clothing; they saw his boots, heels up; they found his hat, brushed from his head. They worked in silence as they cut their way through the enormous oak. The last branch was like a tree in itself, and it lay across their father’s back; he was pressed under it. In its fall the giant had seized the farmer with one of its strongest arms and pressed him against the ground. He was a prisoner of the oak.

The four sons cut their father free, liberated him from the mighty tree’s grip. They rolled away the heavy limb that pressed his back and stood around him, axes in hand.