Stories of Erskine Caldwell (2 page)

Jim and Mrs. Frost both were right about there being Swedes all over the place. God-helping, there were Swedes all over the country, near about all over the whole town of East Joloppi, for what I could see out of the window. They were as thick around the barn and pump and the woodpile as if they had been a nest of yellow-headed bumblebees strewn over the countryside. There were Swedes everywhere a man could see, and the ones that couldn’t be seen could be heard yelling their heads off inside the yellow clapboarded house across the road. There wasn’t any mistake about there being Swedes there, either; because I’ve never yet seen a man who mistakes a Swede or a Finn for an American. Once you see a Finn or a Swede you know, God-helping, that he is a Swede or a Finn, and not a Portuguese or an American.

There was a Swede everywhere a man could look. Some of them were little Swedes, and women Swedes, to be sure; but little Swedes, in the end, and women Swedes too, near about, grow up as big as any of them. When you come right down to it, there’s no sense in counting out the little Swedes and the women Swedes.

Out in the road in front of their house were seven-eight autos and trucks loaded down with furniture and household goods. All around, everything was Swedes. The Swedes were yelling and shouting at one another, the little Swedes and the women Swedes just as loud as the big Swedes, and it looked like none of them knew what all the shouting and yelling was for, and when they found out, they didn’t give a damn about it. That was because all of them were Swedes. It didn’t make any difference what a Swede was yelling about; just as long as he had leave to open his mouth, he was tickled to death about it.

I have never seen the like of so much yelling and shouting anywhere else before; but down here in the State of Maine, in the down-country on the Bay, there’s no sense in being taken back at the sights to be seen, because anything on God’s green earth is likely and liable to happen between day and night, and the other way around, too.

Now, you take the Finns; there’s any God’s number of them around in the woods, where you least expect to see them, logging and such. When a Finn crew breaks a woods camp, it looks like there’s a Finn for every tree in the whole State, but you don’t see them going around making the noise that Swedes do, with all their yelling and shouting and shooting off guns. Finns are quiet about their hell-raising. The Portuguese are quiet, too; you see them tramping around, minding their own business, and working hard on a river dam or something, but you never hear them shouting and yelling and shooting off guns at five-six of a Sunday morning. There’s no known likeness to the noise that a houseful of Swedes can make when they get to yelling and shouting at one another early in the forenoon.

I was standing there all that time, looking out the window at the Swedes across the road, when Jim came into the kitchen with an armful of wood and threw it into the wood box behind the range.

“Good God, Stan,” Jim said, “the Swedes are everywhere you can look outdoors. They’re not going to get that armful of wood, anyway, though.”

Mrs. Frost came to the door and stood looking like she didn’t know it was her business to cook breakfast for Jim and me. I made a fire in the range and put on a pan of water to boil for the coffee. Jim kept running to the window to look out, and there wasn’t much use in expecting Mrs. Frost to start cooking unless somebody set her to it, in the shape she was in, with all the Swedes around the place. She was so upset, it was a downright pity to look at her. But Jim and me had to eat, and I went and took her by the arm and brought her to the range and left her standing there so close she would get burned if she didn’t stir around and make breakfast.

“Good God, Stan,” Jim said, “those Swedes are into everything. They’re in the barn, and in the pasture running the cows, and I don’t know what else they’ve been into since I looked last. They’ll take the tools and the horses and cows, and the cedar posts, too, if we don’t get out there and put everything under lock and key.”

“Now, hold on, Jim,” I said, looking out the window. “Them you see are little Swedes out there, and they’re not going to make off with anything of yours and Mrs. Frost’s. The big Swedes are busy carrying in furniture and household goods. Those Swedes aren’t going to tamper with anything of yours and Mrs. Frost’s. They’re people just like us. They don’t go around stealing everything in sight. Now, let’s just sit here by the window and watch them while Mrs. Frost is getting breakfast ready.”

“Good God, Stan, they’re Swedes,” Jim said, “and they’re moving into the house across the road. I’ve got to put everything under lock and key before —”

“Hold on, Jim,” I told him. “It’s their house they’re moving into. God-helping, they’re not moving into your and Jim’s house, are they, Mrs. Frost?”

“Jim,” Mrs. Frost said, shaking her finger at him and looking at me wild-eyed and sort of flustered-like, “Jim, don’t you sit there and let Stanley stop you from saving the stock and tools. Stanley doesn’t know the Swedes like we do. Stanley came down here from the Back Kingdom, and he doesn’t know anything about Swedes.”

Mrs. Frost was partly right, because I’ve never seen the things in my whole life that I’ve seen down here near the Bay; but there wasn’t any sense in Americans like Jim and Mrs. Frost being scared of Swedes. I’ve seen enough Finns and Portuguese in my time in the Back Kingdom, up in the intervale, to know that Americans are no different from the others.

“Now, you hold on a while, Jim,” I said. “Swedes are no different than Finns. Finns don’t go around stealing another man’s stock and tools. Up in the Back Kingdom the Finns are the finest kind of neighbors.”

“That may be so up in the Back Kingdom, Stan,” Jim said, “but Swedes down here near the Bay are nothing like anything that’s ever been before or since. Those Swedes over there across the road work in a pulp mill over to Waterville three-four years, and when they’ve got enough money saved up, or when they lose it all, as the case may be, they all move back here to East Joloppi on this farm of theirs for two-three years at a time. That’s what they do. And they’ve been doing it for the past thirty-forty years, ever since I can remember, and they haven’t changed none in all that time. I can recall the first time they came to East Joloppi; they built that house across the road then, and if you’ve ever seen a sight like Swedes building a house in a hurry, you haven’t got much else to live for. Why! Stan, those Swedes built that house in four-five days — just like that! I’ve never seen the equal of it. Of course now, Stan, it’s the damnedest-looking house a man ever saw, because it’s not a farmhouse, and it’s not a city house, and it’s no kind of a house an American would erect. Why! Those Swedes threw that house together in four-five days — just like that! But whoever saw a house like that before, with three stories to it, and only six rooms in the whole building! And painted yellow, too; Good God, Stan, white is the only color to paint a house, and those Swedes went and painted it yellow. Then on top of that, they went and painted the barn red. And of all of the shouting and yelling, at all times of the day and night, a man never saw or heard before. Those Swedes acted like they were purely crazy for the whole of four-five days, and they were, and they still are. But what gets me is the painting of it yellow, and the making of it three stories high, with only six rooms in the whole building. Nobody but Swedes would go and do a thing like that; an American would have built a farmhouse, here in the country, resting square on the ground, with one story, maybe a story and a half, and then painted it lead-white. But Good God, Stan, those fool Swedes had to put up three stories, to hold six rooms, and then went and painted the building yellow.”

“Swedes are a little queer, sometimes,” I said. “But Finns and Portuguese are too, Jim. And Americans sometimes —”

“A little queer!” Jim said. “Why! Good God, Stan, the Swedes are the queerest people on the earth, if that’s the right word for them. You don’t know Swedes, Stan. This is the first time you’ve ever seen those Swedes across the road, and that’s why you don’t know what they’re like after being shut up in a pulpwood mill over to Waterville for four-five years. They’re purely wild, I tell you, Stan. They don’t stop for anything they set their heads on. If you was to walk out there now and tell them to move their autos and trucks off of the town road so the travelers could get past without having to drive around through the brush, they’d tear you apart, they’re that wild, after being shut up in the pulp mill over to Waterville these three-four, maybe four-five, years.”

“Finns get that way, too,” I tried to tell Jim. “After Finns have been shut up in a woods camp all winter, they make a lot of noise when they get out. Everybody who has to stay close to the job for three-four years likes to act free when he gets out from under the job. Now, Jim, you take the Portuguese —”

“Don’t you sit there, Jim, and let Stanley keep you from putting the tools away,” Mrs. Frost said. “Stanley doesn’t know the Swedes like we do. He’s lived up in the Back Kingdom most of his life, tucked away in the intervale, and he’s never seen Swedes —”

“Good God, Stan,” Jim said, standing up, he was that nervous and upset, “the Swedes are overrunning the whole country. I’ll bet there are more Swedes in the town of East Joloppi than there are in the rest of the country. Everybody knows there’s more Swedes in the State of Maine than there are in the old country. Why! Jim, they take to this state like potato bugs take to —”

“Don’t you sit there and let Stanley keep you back, Jim,” Mrs. Frost put in again. “Stanley doesn’t know the Swedes like we do. Stanley’s lived up there in the Back Kingdom most of his life.”

Just then one of the big Swedes started yelling at some of the little Swedes and women Swedes. I’ll swear, those big Swedes sounded like a pastureful of hoarse bulls, near the end of May, mad about the black flies. God-helping, they yelled like they were fixing to kill all the little Swedes and women Swedes they could get their hands on. It didn’t amount to anything, though; because the little Swedes and the women Swedes yelled right back at them just like they had been big Swedes too. The little Swedes and women Swedes couldn’t yell hoarse bull bass, but it was close enough to it to make a man who’s lived most of his life up in the Back Kingdom, in the intervale, think that the whole town of East Joloppi was full of big Swedes.

Jim was all for getting out after the tools and stock right away, but I pulled him back to the table. I wasn’t going to let Jim and Mrs. Frost set me to doing tasks and chores before breakfast and the regular time. Forty dollars a month isn’t much to pay a man for ten-eleven hours’ work a day, including Sundays, when the stock has to be attended to like any other day, and I set myself that I wasn’t going to work twelve-thirteen hours a day by them, even if I was practically one of the Frosts myself, except in name, by that time.

“Now, hold on awhile, Jim,” I said. “Let’s just sit here by the window and watch them carry their furniture and household goods inside while Mrs. Frost’s getting the cooking ready to eat. If they start taking off any of you and Mrs. Frost’s things, we can see them just as good from here by the window as we could out there in the yard and road.”

“Now, Jim, I’m telling you,” Mrs. Frost said, shaking all over, and not even trying to cook us a meal, “don’t you sit there and let Stanley keep you from saving the stock and tools. Stanley doesn’t know the Swedes like we do. He thinks they’re like everybody else.”

Jim wasn’t for staying in the house when all of his tools were lying around in the yard, and while his cows were in the pasture unprotected, but he saw how it would be better to wait where we could hurry up Mrs. Frost with the cooking, if we were ever going to eat breakfast that forenoon. She was so excited and nervous about the Swedes moving back to East Joloppi from the pulp mill in Waterville that she hadn’t got the beans and brown bread fully heated from the night before, and we had to sit and eat them cold.

We were sitting there by the window eating the cold beans and brown bread, and watching the Swedes, when two of the little Swedes started running across Jim and Mrs. Frost’s lawn. They were chasing one of their big yellow tomcats they had brought with them from Waterville. The yellow tom was as large as an eight-months collie puppy, and he ran like he was on fire and didn’t know how to put it out. His great big bushy tail stuck straight up in the air behind him, like a flag, and he was leaping over the lawn like a devilish calf, newborn.

Jim and Mrs. Frost saw the little Swedes and the big yellow tomcat at the same time I did.

“Good God,” Jim shouted, raising himself part out of the chair. “Here they come now!”

“Hold on now, Jim,” I said, pulling him back to the table. “They’re only chasing one of their tomcats. They’re not after taking anything that belongs to you and Mrs. Frost. Let’s just sit here and finish eating the beans, and watch them out the window.”

“My crown in heaven!” Mrs. Frost cried out, running to the window and looking through. “Those Swedes are going to kill every plant on the place. They’ll dig up all the bulbs and pull up all the vines in the flower bed.”

“Now you just sit and calm yourself, Mrs. Frost,” I told her. “Those little Swedes are just chasing a tomcat. They’re not after doing hurt to your flowers.”

The big Swedes were unloading the autos and trucks and carrying the furniture and household goods into their three-story yellow clapboarded house. None of them was paying any attention to the little Swedes chasing the yellow tom over Jim and Mrs. Frost’s lawn.

Just then the kitchen door burst open, and the two little Swedes stood there looking at us, panting and blowing their heads off.

Mrs. Frost took one look at them, and then she let out a yell, but the kids didn’t notice her at all. “Hey,” one of them shouted, “come out here and help us get the cat. He climbed up in one of your trees.”

By that time, Mrs. Frost was all for slamming the door in their faces, but I pushed in front of her and went out into the yard with them. Jim came right behind me, after he had finished calming Mrs. Frost, and telling her we wouldn’t let the Swedes come and carry out her furniture and household goods.