The Emigrants (20 page)

Even older persons walked along the roads, big, full-grown men who carried on their backs brooms, brushes, baskets, or wooden vessels which they offered for sale. They pursued an honest calling, no one could accuse them of begging, but if they were told in some house that no trade would take place, they still remained sitting. They kept their errand secret under the burden on their backs but after sitting for a while it would escape: Give me a piece of bread! I’m too weak to go farther. It smarted deep in the soul of many a wanderer before those words escaped. Therefore the pale children were sent upon the roads.

—6—

Kristina baked famine bread; when the rye flour did not suffice she added chaff, beechnuts, heather seed, and dried berries of the mountain ash. She also tried to grind acorns and mix them in the dough, but such bread caused constipation and the bowels would not move for many days. She boiled an edible porridge from hazelnut kernels, and used it instead of the clear rye porridge which they had to do without this winter. No real nourishment was found, though, in famine food: sprouts, seeds, nuts, and other products from the wastelands did fill the stomach but gave no lasting satisfaction. One left the table because the meal was over, not because one was satisfied. And however much they stretched and added, all the bins and foodboxes would be empty long before the next crop was ripe.

In the middle of the winter the time was up for Kristina, and she bore a son. They were now eight people in Korpamoen.

Owing to the meager fare this winter the mother had not sufficient milk for the newborn; her breasts were dry long before he was satisfied, and a suckling could not stand the bitter milk from their starved cows. This was a bad winter for a new arrival into the world. Kristina must now choose the most nourishing pieces for herself, in order to give milk to the little one. But the other children needed food too; she noticed that Anna, the eldest, had fallen off and grown very thin. Kristina felt as if she stole food from three of her children to give to the fourth.

The newborn was to be given the name Anders Harald, and was to be called Harald. But whom should they ask to carry him at the baptism? When Kristina wished as godparents her relatives in Kärragärde, Danjel and Inga-Lena, this caused great consternation in Nils and Märta: Danjel was preaching the heresy of Åke Svensson, and the dean had excluded him from the Lord’s Supper because of his unlawful Bible explanations. This impious man was not to carry their grandchild to his baptism.

Kärragärde had once more a bad reputation. Kristina did not understand how her uncle could take loose, bad people into his home, but she had known Danjel since she was a little girl, and he had always been good to her. Nor had he done harm to any other person; she knew of no man more kind than he. So she thought that the dean had done him a great injustice: only the greatest sinners were excluded from the Lord’s Supper table. Ulrika of Västergöhl had long been forbidden the body and blood of Christ, and it was only right that one who for gain lay on her back with any man should be forbidden to kneel with honest people at the altar. But Uncle Danjel had neither whored nor murdered, neither defrauded nor stolen. In Ljuder Parish there were many much greater sinners who enjoyed the holy sacraments. He was mistaken in spiritual things, but he did not deserve to be pointed out and avoided as a robber and evildoer. Kristina wanted to show all people that she considered her uncle an honest man—and therefore she wished to invite him to be godfather to her newborn son.

Märta asked: Was she prepared to leave her innocent child to be carried to baptism by a man possessed of the Evil Spirit? Was she willing to hand over her own offspring to the devil?

Danjel had said that he no longer accepted interest on money which he lent, and from this Karl Oskar deduced his wits were failing; the peasant of Kärragärde had been stricken by a disturbance of his senses when he embraced Åke’s teachings. But no one should be punished because of illness, even though it were illness of the mind. The dean therefore had no right to exclude Danjel from gatherings of Christian people, and give a bad name to his home, for anyone who passed through the gate of his farm, now, was almost considered eternally lost. It was foolish of Danjel to gather whores and drunkards into his house, but God would hardly punish him because he fed and protected paupers.

Karl Oskar agreed with Kristina; they would show the dean what they thought of Danjel, and invite him to godfather their little one. Karl Oskar himself bore the invitation to Kärragärde.

He returned home disappointed; Danjel had said he was excluded from christenings as well as communion; he could be neither godfather nor witness to a baptism in the church; he was forbidden to carry their child to its christening.

Kristina was downcast, but Karl Oskar was angry at the dean who prevented them from choosing godparents for their own child. He felt a strong desire to go and tell the dean that he interfered too much. But Brusander was his pastor, and for the sake of one’s salvation one should not be on bad terms with one’s spiritual guide. This much, though, he was sure of: in North America, no minister had power to prevent any person from carrying a child to Christian baptism.

Instead, they now asked their neighbors in Hästebäck, Jonas Petter and his wife Brita-Stafva, to be godparents for little Harald. No one else was invited to the christening ale, except Karl Oskar’s sister Lydia, who served as maid in Kråkesjö.

Nor was there much from which to prepare a feast this winter. Kristina cooked the christening porridge from some barley grains which she had hidden away in a small sack for this very day, and she had also a little butter and sugar to put into the porringer. Her three children stood around her as she poured out the pot. It was a long time since the little ones had seen such food in the house, food with such odor. Kristina poured the porridge into a large earthen bowl, not to be touched until the godparents returned from church with the newly christened one; she put the bowl in the cellar to cool off.

Karl Oskar and Kristina attended to the chores in the byre while Jonas Petter and Brita-Stafva were at church. The children were alone inside.

When the parents came in again they missed Anna. They started to look for her, inside and outside the house, but they were unable to find her. Nils and Märta did not know where she had gone; she was four years old, and able to go alone to the neighbors, but she never left the farm without permission.

Karl Oskar was greatly disturbed; what could have happened to the child? She was as dear to him as his own eyes, his constant comrade at work, keeping him company everywhere. Only today he had promised to take her to the shoemaker and have her feet measured for a pair of shoes; her old ones were entirely worn out. This she could not have forgotten; so much the stranger that she had disappeared shortly before they were to leave.

They looked in vain for the child in the wood lot, and the father was about to go to the neighbors to inquire when Kristina came running and said that Anna was in the cellar; she had passed by, had heard a faint crying, and had opened the door.

Anna lay stretched out on the floor of the cellar. She cried as if with pain. Next to her on the floor stood the earthen bowl which Kristina had put there a few hours earlier to cool off; at that time it was filled to the brim with barley porridge, now only about a third was left.

The little girl was carried inside the house and put to bed. Tearfully, she asked her parents’ forgiveness for what she had done. She had been unable to forget the bowl of porridge which she had seen and smelled in the kitchen; she was so hungry for the porridge. She had seen her mother put it away in the cellar; she could not resist her desire to steal down there and look at it. At first she had only wished to smell it, then she had wanted to taste it a little—so little that no one would notice. She found a spoon and began to eat. And once she had started eating, she was unable to stop. Never had she tasted anything so delicious; the more she ate, the more she wanted; each spoonful tasted better—she could not stop until most of the porridge was gone. Then she became afraid, she dared not go back into the house, she dared not show herself after her disobedience. She remained in the cellar, and after a while she was seized by fierce pain in her stomach.

Anna had eaten herself sick on the barley porridge; it was too strong a fare for her after the famine food of the winter. Her stomach swelled up like a drum, firm and expanded. She let out piercing shrieks as the pain increased.

Berta of Idemo was sent for. She was accustomed to relieve stomachache with the heat from woolen clothes, and now she laid a thick bandage of warmed woolen stockings around the waist of the child. She also wished to administer mare’s milk for internal relief, and Lydia ran to Kråkesjö, where a mare had recently foaled; she returned with a quart of milk from the mare and Anna was made to drink this.

But nothing eased the suffering of the child. Berta said the barley grains had swelled in the bowels of the little girl to twice their original size, thus causing something to burst. She could not take responsibility for healing such damage.

Anna cried loudly and asked someone to help as the pain grew agonizing. Again and again she asked her parents’ forgiveness for having disobeyed: she had known that no one should touch the porridge before evening when the guests returned.

During the night she became delirious at intervals. Berta said that if she didn’t improve before morning, God might fetch the child home; she wanted to prepare the parents to the best of her ability.

Anna heard her words and said she did not wish God to fetch her home; she wanted to remain here. She was wise for her years, she used to ask many strange questions which the grownups couldn’t answer. As her suffering increased she called her father to help her; she wanted to get up and go with him to the cobbler for the measurements of the shoes she had been promised. Her cries could be heard out into the byre, where the cows answered with their bellowing, thinking someone was on his way to feed them.

Early in the morning the child died in her agony.

Anyone who spoke to Karl Oskar during the next few days got no answer. Nor did a second or third attempt help much. At length, he might answer with a question, showing that he had heard nothing at all.

Nils asked if he should go out and make a coffin for Anna. This time Karl Oskar heard, and answered at once: The coffin for his dead child he wished to make himself; nothing else could be thought of.

He went out to the work shed where he kept a pile of well-sawed spruce boards; there was more than enough lumber for a coffin. Nor would many boards be required for a coffin to enclose Anna’s little shrunken body. The father began to examine the pile, he wanted to choose straight, fine, knot-free boards, clear and without bark. But he discarded every one his hands touched; all were either crooked or warped, or outside boards, or knotty. He picked up one plank after another, inspected it, and threw it aside; it was impossible to find a single one in the pile that he could use, that would make a coffin good enough for Anna.

After a while he tired of searching for good boards and remained sitting on the chopping block, doing nothing. He sat there and listened to the child who had only lately spoken to him: “It hurts to die, Father. I don’t want God to fetch me if it is so painful; I want to stay home. Couldn’t I stay home, even though I ate the porridge? I’ll never again taste anything without permission—please, let me stay home! You’re so big and strong, Father, can’t you protect me so God won’t take me? Oh, Father, if you only knew how it hurts! Why doesn’t anyone help me? I am so little. Would you like to die, Father? Do you want God to come and get you?”

As long as the father could still hear calls for help from his dead child, the living ones around him would receive no answer; he did not hear them.

In the evening Nils asked his son how he was getting along with the coffin. Karl Oskar answered he was still choosing boards.

The following day, also, no sounds of hammer and plane were heard from the woodshed. Karl Oskar’s only explanation was that he was looking for boards.

On the third day, when it still remained silent in the shed, Nils hobbled out on his crutches and sat down at the workbench. He then made the coffin for the dead one while Karl Oskar looked on.

When the work was finished the son said: “It’s not good enough.”

Now, Nils in his life had made more than one hundred coffins, and all who had ordered them had been satisfied—not one had ever been discarded. For the first time he had completed work that was not accepted, that was discarded by his own son: he had used one board with a big ugly knot, another was cut crookedly, and here a nail stuck out. Was Anna, his little girl, to rest on sharp nails? Karl Oskar found many faults with the coffin his father had made; he took an ax and smashed it to pieces.

Nils was hurt, his eldest son once and for all was an impossible person; nothing suited him. Now Karl Oskar must make the coffin himself. At last he found some straight, knot-free boards, which he accepted; he carried them to the workbench, where he remained through the night; in the morning the coffin was ready.

It was a father’s labor, done during a lonely night of sorrow, in the dim light from the lantern out in the woodshed. Those who saw the coffin perhaps didn’t understand. Perhaps, indeed, there was no difference between this coffin and the broken, discarded one. But this one was made by a father’s careful hands, it was nailed together by fingers which still were reaching out for something lost.

God gave to two parents a child to love and care for, and when they had had time to grow attached to the little one, deeply, then He took her back. Had they committed some sin to deserve this? What evil had Karl Oskar done that he must make this coffin?

During the same week, christening and grave ale were held in Korpamoen. Karl Oskar carried his child’s coffin in his arms to the grave, where the dean filled his shovel with earth and said that Anna would now be like the earth on that shovel, and would not live again until awakened on the last day.