Vilhelm Moberg - The Emigrants

— 4—

Early every weekday morning Nils emerged from the spare room, hobbling along on his crutches, slowly reaching his old workbench outside in the woodshed, where he remained through the day. He cut spokes for wagon wheels, he made rakes, and handles for axes and scythes. He could still use plane and chisel; his hands were in good health, and their dexterity remained. He taught Karl Oskar what he could of this handicraft.

During most of the summer days one could find Nils and his tools outside in the yard, where he sat in the shade of an old maple tree. From there he had a good view over the fields with all the piles of stone which his hands had gathered. His twenty-five farming years had indeed left marks; all the heaps of stone and all the stone fences which he had built remained in their places, and no doubt would long remain.

The invalid was not bitter. His belief was that all things happened according to God’s preordination. It was his conviction that God in the beginning had decided that a stone in his field — on a certain day, at a certain hour — would roll back into its hole. He would miss his foothold and fall, the stone would break his hip joint, and he would ever after crawl about like a wing-broken magpie. It would be presumptuous of him to question the Creator. Nils Jakob’s Son did not burden his brain with questions.

Now his son plowed and sowed the fields which he had cleared. He had fought the stones to the best of his ability; now his son reaped the benefit.

But Karl Oskar worried about debts and interest. If he only had a horse, then he could hire himself out and earn some money hauling timbers. But a one-sixteenth was too small to feed a horse, who chewed several barrels of oats during the winter; he needed three acres more to keep a horse. As it was he had to feed his parents and his wife and himself on seven acres, most of which was poor, sandy soil.

Soon he realized that he must clear more land.

He went out to inspect the unbroken ground belonging to Korpamoen. There were spruce woods and knolls, there were desolate sandy plains with juniper and pine roots, there were low swamplands with moss and cranberries, there were hillocks and tussock-filled meadows. The rest was strewn with stone. He carried an iron bar which he now and then stuck into the ground, and always he heard the same sound: stone. He went through pastures and meadows, through woodlands and moors, and everywhere the same sound: stone, stone, stone. It was a monotonous tune, a sad tune for a man who wanted to clear more acres.

Karl Oskar did not find a tenth of an acre within his boundaries left to clear; his father had done his work well; all arable ground was cultivated. What he now possessed to till and sow was all he would have. Until acres could be stretched and made broader than God created them, there would be no more arable land in Korpamoen.

And because the young farmer couldn’t continue creation where God had left off, he must be satisfied with his seven acres, and all the stones wherever he looked: broken stones, stones in piles, stone fences, stone above ground, stone in the ground, stone, stone, stone. .

King Oskar had ascended the throne of the kingdoms of Sweden and Norway; Karl Oskar Nilsson had become king in a stone kingdom.

— 5—

His first year as a farmer—1845—was a good year. The crops were ample, he was able to pay the mortgage interest on time, and all was well. And in the spring Kristina had given birth to their first child, a daughter, christened Anna after Kristina’s mother.

The second year also they had good crops in Korpamoen, but the harvesting was poor. The rye sprouted in the shocks, and bread baked from the flour was soggy. They sold a calf and half of the pig to help pay interest on the mortgage, and the twenty riksdaler he was short Karl Oskar borrowed from his crippled father: it was money the old one had earned through his handiwork. In the midst of the August harvest Kristina bore a son; he was named Johan after his mother’s father in Duvemåla.

The third year was filled with anxiety. When the meadow hay was cut in July such a heavy rain fell that the swaths were floating in water. When the flood had subsided some of the hay remained, fox-red, rotten and spoiled. It had a musty smell, no nourishment, and the animals refused to eat it. Karl Oskar and Kristina were forced to sell one cow. More bad luck followed: another cow had a stillborn calf, and a sheep went astray in the woods to become food for wild beasts. In the autumn it was discovered that potato rot had spread to their field — when picked, almost every second potato was spoiled; for one filled basket of good, an equally large one had to be discarded, hardly good enough for fodder for the animals. During the following winter more than one day went by without the potato pot over the fire. It was said the potato rot came from foreign countries, where it caused famine.

This year—1847—Karl Oskar went still deeper into debt. He had to borrow money for the whole amount of the mortgage interest. Nils had no more to lend him, and Karl Oskar did not wish to ask his father-in-law in Duvemåla. Kristina thought he should try her uncle, Danjel Andreasson, in Kärragärde, who was fairly well off. He was known as a quiet and kind man, although he was the nephew of the despised Åkian founder — but it would be foolish to pay heed to happenings of fifty years ago. No sooner had Karl Oskar made the request than Danjel gave him fifty riksdaler for the mortgage interest.

The day before Christmas Eve, that year, Kristina gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The boy was sickly and was given emergency baptism by Dean Brusander; he died within a fortnight. The girl lived and was christened Märta, after Karl Oskar’s mother. She would afterwards be known as Lill-Märta.

After three years in Korpamoen Karl Oskar had now one cow less in the byre and seventy riksdaler more debt than at the time of taking over. And yet during every day of the three years both he and Kristina had worked and drudged to their utmost ability. They had struggled to get ahead, yet it had gone backwards for them. They could not sway the Lord’s weather, nor luck with the animals. Karl Oskar had thought they would be able to get along if they had health and strength to work; now they were aware that man in this world could not succeed through his work alone.

“It’s written, ‘In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread,’” said Nils.

“Aye — nor am I even sure to get bread through work and sweat,” retorted Karl Oskar.

Karl Oskar, as well as his father, knew the story of the Fall from his Biblical history; the dean used to praise him for his quick answers at the yearly examinations.

Karl Oskar had got what he wanted, but it wasn’t good for a person always to have his will. Most people thought he was a man with luck and of good fortune. He had two royal names, given him at baptism and formally recorded. He had the big Nilsa-nose—“Your nose is your greatest heritage,” his father used to say. But what help now were the names of kings and princes? What help now was a nose that extended a little further into the world than another’s? The day still seemed approaching when Sheriff Lönnegren might arrive at the farm and take something in pawn.

During his younger years Karl Oskar had often been teased by other boys about the big nose which distorted his face. He had always answered that it was the best nose he had. And he had believed his parents’ stories about members of the family in generations gone by from whom his nose had been inherited — he had always believed it would bring him good fortune in life. Kristina did not think his nose was ugly; it would have been different in a woman, she thought, but menfolk it suited. She did not believe, however, that his big nose would have anything to do with his success in life. That would be a heathenish thought. Kristina sprang from a religious home, and she knew that God shifted people as He saw fit, according to His inscrutable and wise ways. Since they now suffered adversity in Korpamoen, this was only in accord with God’s will.