Some of the others looked confused, but Josie explained: “Minnesota isn’t as far north as Sweden. You’ll find that we have a late twilight, but the sun does set.”
Paul chuckled at Kristin’s wide-eyed bewilderment. “I’m looking forward to the Ost-Kaka pudding with fresh strawberries,” he said.
“Do you remember when Arnie Larson got into the strawberries?” Ida asked, and soon everyone was telling stories about previous midsummer festivals, from the time a duck chased a large cricket into Herr Johnson’s tuba to the time two-year-old Clara toddled into the lake and five people jumped in to rescue her.
On the drive back to their farm Mamma spoke with excitement about Midsommarfest, impressed with the fact that so many guests came from the twin cities that Fru Sandquist had organized a handicraft booth. For the coming festival Mamma had already agreed to help with the serving of the bountiful dinner and to bring a large pan of Ost-Kaka.
“Kristin,” she said, “I volunteered you to help serve, too. And Linnart—I told them you’d either help set up or take down the tables.”
Instead of teasing Mamma with good humor, Pappa surprised Kristin by asking, “How much will this festival cost us?”
Mamma was surprised, too. “Why, whatever it takes to make the Ost-Kaka—a gallon of whole milk, besides the cup of cream and four eggs and—” She broke off. “Why do you ask?”
“The expense of living here is much higher than I had anticipated,” Pappa answered. “The parcel of land is large, and the livestock was also fairly costly. I do not want to worry you, but we will not have a crop of wheat or corn this summer to give us much savings.”
“What are you saying?” Mamma asked.
“Let me put it this way. Johan has plowed the land for your kitchen garden and a sizable section for our potato crop, and I will no longer have need of his services.”
“Oh!” Kristin cried before she thought, and she nearly dropped the books Pastor Holcomb had given her. Mamma shot her a questioning look, so Kristin added meekly, “Johan is hardworking and so helpful we’ll miss him.”
“You’ll see him each Sunday at church,” Mamma said calmly, but one eyebrow was still raised.
Pappa went on as though he hadn’t heard their conversation. “I am going to require a little extra from both of you,” he said. “We will have the cheese and butter you can make from our cows, some of which can be traded for coffee and salt, but we’ll need cash in order to purchase the seed for our first wheat crop and for our expenses until the crop is ready to harvest and sell. I have been told that the lumber mills will be hiring full-time in the late fall, after the winter wheat has been planted, and for now I can hire out for short delivery jobs for a Scandia mill that needs its lumber carted to customers in this part of Minnesota.”
Mamma sat up stiffly. “You’ll be away from home? For long periods of time?”
“Only a few days at a time, no longer than a week,” Pappa answered. “This is where the two of you come in. I will not always be on hand to take care of the animals or the potato crop. It means extra work for all of us. I’m sorry it must be this way, but there seems to be no other answer.”
“I understand,” Mamma murmured.
Kristin said, “Pappa, you know I’m good with animals, and with the land as well.”
Pappa nodded, but he kept his eyes straight ahead, and there was a tightness in his voice. “I was sure I would have support from both of you,” he told them.
Mamma spoke barely above a whisper, and she gripped her hands together so tightly that her knuckles were white knobs in her pale skin. “When … when will all this take place?”
“Not for another few weeks,” Pappa said. He glanced down at Mamma and tried to smile. “I’ll make sure the repairs on the barn are finished, the potato crop has made a good start, and all is in order before I leave.”
For a few moments no one spoke. “Pappa, I’ll catch plenty of fish,” Kristin finally said. “And with brook trout or lake bass to add to the vegetables from Mamma’s garden, we won’t have a thing to worry about. We may even have fish to sell.”
Pappa frowned down at Kristin. “There will be no selling of fish. I will catch as many fish as possible for you and your mother,” he said. “Your mother can salt them to preserve them.”
“Why can’t I catch the fish while you are away?” Kristin demanded. “Or at least go with you and help you catch them?”
“Kristin,” Mamma said, “remember that you are a young lady.”
“Pappa and I used to go fishing often.”
“When you were a child. You are no longer a child. Fishing is not a proper pastime for a young lady.”
Kristin squirmed angrily on the hard wagon seat. “Why is it all right for a young lady to fork down hay in the barn and feed the chickens, but it’s not all right if she goes fishing?”
Pappa broke into the conversation, his voice firm. “There will be no more discussion about what you will do or not do, Kristin. Your thinking is like that of a child.”
“When I was a child, I was allowed to think.”
“I said that is enough. Don’t make things more difficult for us.”
Kristin glanced from her father to her mother and saw that Mamma was close to tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. Seeking outside work must have been terribly hard for her father to have to do, and it was obvious that Mamma was already dreading his absences. “I’ll try to do everything I can to help,” she assured them. “I promise.”
“Thank you,” Mamma murmured, taking Kristin’s hand.
“Your best is what I expect of you,” Pappa said.
For a few minutes everyone was silent. Then Mamma whispered, “This is all the fault of the spöken in that house. I knew they would bring us bad luck.”
Kristin clung to Mamma’s hand the rest of the ride home.
CHAPTER SIX
WITHOUT Johan’s help Pappa’s workload increased, and he often fell asleep in his chair in the parlor soon after he had eaten dinner. He showed Kristin where to graze the cows and how to clean the barn, even though helping with these chores had been an early part of her memories.
“Let me help you now before you go away,” she begged, but her father—his face dark with embarrassment—was adamant.
“Until now I’ve been able to afford to hire extra help when it was needed, so that my wife could devote all her time to woman’s work. I regret that you will have to do chores more suited to men while I am away.”
“Why should chores be divided into men’s work and women’s work? Why can’t men and women work together until a job is done?”
Pappa sighed. “Why must you challenge everything, Kristin?”
“It’s not a challenge. It’s just an idea that makes sense to me.”
“To you perhaps, but to no one else.” He rested his hands on her shoulders, and she could see the worry in his eyes. “Please forget these silly ideas of yours and be a good and dutiful daughter to your mother.”
“I do try to be a good daughter.”
“Being a good daughter is being obedient. Follow your mother’s good example.”
Kristin sighed as she answered, “All right, Pappa,” but she thought, I can’t be a copy of my mother, but I can’t be a copy of my father, either. Who can I be?
How she wished she could talk to Rebekah and Rose to share her thoughts and problems with them—as she had on the ship. Rebekah had been a little apprehensive about her future in New York City, wondering what her life was going to be; and Rose had needed reassurance as she left the train she shared with Kristin’s family to Chicago to meet her father and older brothers she hadn’t seen in four years. Neither Rebekah nor Rose had known, any more than she, how they’d fit in to this new country or what would be expected of them. But both of them had definite dreams. Rebekah longed to become a teacher and Rose would work to help reunite the family. Kristin stopped and tried to think exactly what her dream was.
Before Kristin went to bed, she wrote t
o both friends, wishing Rose a very happy birthday. She was already eager to receive her friends’ letters back. The United States was such a big country. Her friends seemed far away.
In the evenings Kristin studied the lesson books Pastor Holcomb had given her, but she soon put them aside. It was well and good to teach the younger children the basics of their Lutheran religion, but if she was going to teach the lessons in English, then she’d have to familiarize them with the language first.
After services on Sunday, Pastor Holcomb led Kristin into one of the rooms of the parsonage, which had been turned into a Sunday school. She could hear lessons going on in other rooms as she smiled at the dozen youngsters, who smiled back at her. Pastor Holcomb introduced Kristin and admonished the children to behave themselves and learn well before he left her with them.
Kristin immediately said, “We are going to learn about our religion in the English language. How many of you speak English?”
The children stared back at her with wide eyes, and not a single hand was raised.
“Very well,” she said, “I am going to say in English, ‘My name is Kristin Swensen.’ I want you to say the words with your own name. Are you ready?”
A few heads nodded. Kristin repeated the English words, then pointed at a boy seated in front of her. “You say it,” she told him.
He stumbled over the first word, but managed to repeat it, adding his name.
“Very good!” Kristin exclaimed. She went to the next child and the next, until all the children had spoken the words correctly.
“Let’s play a game,” she said. “We’ll stand in a circle and say ‘My name is’ in English, then call out our own names.”
The children eagerly jumped to their feet and shouted the words and names at the tops of their lungs.
The door opened, and a stern-faced woman poked her head into the room. “Are you having a discipline problem?” she asked Kristin.
“Oh, no,” Kristin said.
“Do not let the little children get out of hand,” the woman said. “The noise is distracting to others.”
“I’m sorry,” Kristin told her. “It won’t happen again.”
As soon as the woman disappeared, shutting the door firmly behind her, Kristin said to the children, “Let’s go outside. Choose a partner and hold hands and promise me you’ll all stay together and won’t wander away.” As the children giggled and pushed, trying to get in line, Kristin held a finger to her lips. “And be very, very quiet!”
The air was warm and fresh as Kristin led her students out the back garden of the parsonage and across the green, grassy hill. She held out leaves and spoke their names in English. The children recited the words trees and lake and grass until they sprawled in a circle, laughing over hair and nose and chin and ears.
“Everything comes from God,” Kristin told them, and she recited the first lines of a prayer every Swedish child learned when first able to talk: “Gud som haver barnen kär, se till mig som liten är.” Translating the words into English, she had them recite after her, “God who loves the children, watch over me, who am little.”
It was not long before the children could recite the entire prayer in English. “Good for you!” Kristin cried. She gathered them into a squirming, wiggling hug, laughing as she fell backward onto the grass, some of the children on top of her.
“What is this?”
The deep, stern voice shook Kristin as well as the children, and they scrambled to their feet. Kristin brushed grass from her skirt and said to Pastor Holcomb, “It’s such a pretty day, we moved our lesson out-of-doors.”
His piercing gaze moved from Kristin to one of the boys near him. “What did you learn in this lesson?” he asked.
The boy, pale with fright, pointed to his face and answered in English, “Chin, ears, nose.”
“What!”
Kristin hurried to explain. “I taught them to pray in English. Listen, please, and they’ll say a prayer for you.”
“No! I do not wish to hear them pray in English, and neither will their parents. Where is the instruction book I gave you?”
“I studied it,” Kristin answered, wishing that her heart would stop pounding. “And I’ll teach the material, but I want to teach the children in English. That way they can learn both their religion and the language of this country.”
“That is not what I requested that you do,” he said, his scowl so deep that his eyebrows met in the middle of his forehead.
“But I—”
“You will take the children back indoors and return them to their parents. I will find another teacher for them before next Sunday.”
“I’d like to teach them. I’ll follow your lesson plan.”
Pastor Holcomb shook his head. “I will find another teacher,” he repeated.
There was nothing left for Kristin to do but to take the children back to their parents. Then she told her mother and father what had happened—it was better than if they heard it first from Pastor Holcomb.
“It’s not fair,” Kristin complained. “I did nothing wrong, but he wouldn’t give me a second chance.”
“The children’s parents want them to learn their religion, not how to speak English,” Mamma said. “In a way I am glad to know that our pastor is a strict disciplinarian. I’ve been somewhere afraid that the church in the United States is more lax than it is in Sweden.”
Kristin tried not to see the disappointment in her father’s eyes. “But I would have taught the children both English and religion,” she said.
“You were not asked to teach both,” Pappa told her.
Kristin sighed. “Why do the people here cling to the past? They chose to live in this country, didn’t they?”
“Many of them had no choice. They came for economic reasons,” Pappa said, “just as long ago my great-grandfather emigrated from Norway to Sweden.”
“But they’re here. So why don’t they try to adapt to it?”
Mamma answered, “There is too much that is new. Our comfort is in our own familiar language and our dreams of the past.”
“Dreams shouldn’t be of the past,” Kristin told her. “Dreams are supposed to be about the future.”
“Maybe, if you are very young,” Mamma said. She took Kristin’s hand and enclosed it in both of her own.
Kristin gulped down the hard, burning lump that threatened to close her throat. She and her parents had emigrated to the United States because Pappa had decided they would, and Kristin had decided she would make the best of it. But now it seemed she might not be permitted even to do that.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A few days later Pappa left for a hauling job that would take him away from home for three days. “We can use the pay,” he said, yet Kristin saw his reluctance to leave as he turned on the wagon seat and gave them a last, longing glance before driving around the bend and out of sight.
“Well,” Mamma said as she smoothed down her apron. “There’s much to be done, so we had better get to work.” Kristin heard the tears behind the words, and she patted her mother’s arm.
“I can do Pappa’s work as well as my own,” Kristin told her. “I used to love to help him with the outdoor chores. He’s already milked the cows and sent them out to pasture, so I’ll start by cleaning out the barn.”
“You’d better wear your father’s boots,” Mamma said.
Kristin looked down at her long, full skirt. “What good are boots? It’s my skirt that’s going to sweep through the manure.”
Mamma’s forehead puckered. “I hadn’t thought of that. We will just launder the dress when you’re through with the work.”
“I’ll have to clean the barn every day,” Kristin complained. “No matter how hard we scrub that dress, I’d never want to put it on again.” She tried to look nonchalant as she said, “I’ll borrow Pappa’s clothes.”
Momma’s eyebrows rose. “That would not be proper.”
“Is this the time to worry about what is proper?”
�
�The people here will not approve.”
“It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. Mamma, no one will see me but you. I promise. I’ll wear Pappa’s clothes only for the dirty work.”
Mamma sighed and said, “I have no more strength to argue about it. Wear your father’s work clothes if you wish, but remember your promise.”
Kristin kissed her mother lightly on the cheek. She collected some pins from Mamma’s sewing basket, then ran out to the barn, where she donned her father’s big boots, overalls, and work shirt, all of which smelled of sweat mingled with the stink of animals and manure.
She rolled up the pants legs, tucking them into the overlarge boots, and pinned up the sleeves of the shirt. Treading carefully, the boots flopping as she walked, Kristin picked up the long fork and set to work, tossing the heavy mixture of urine-soaked straw and manure onto a pile outside the back door of the barn. In the spring the pile—which would have grown considerably by then—would be forked again, this time into a fertilizer spreader, and be distributed over the planted fields.
Kristin pitched down fresh straw from the loft, surveyed the now-tidy barn, and headed for the privy. She dumped the contents of the chamber pots into the pit and sprinkled in a little lime. She scrubbed the pots, and then, using a stubby straw broom, she scoured the seat and floor of the privy with water thick with melted lye soap. Thankful that the dirtiest and smelliest of the jobs were over, Kristin took off her father’s work clothes and hung them in place inside the barn. Gingerly she pulled on her dress and ran back to the house, where a filled pitcher and bowl rested on a bench. She scrubbed her arms, face, and hands with the cold water and a lump of lye soap, then rubbed them dry with the towel that hung on a nearby peg.
Automatically she lugged the pan of soapy water to the kitchen garden and dumped it. The soapsuds would keep away the bugs.
Kristin still had fresh water to pump and carry to the house; split wood to pile next to the huge iron stove in the kitchen; kerosene lanterns throughout the house to collect, clean, and refill; the chickens to feed. In addition, Mamma had used the hand-cranked separator to divide the cream from the milk, and it had to be taken apart and scrubbed free of the cheesy film that coated it.
Ellis Island: Three Novels Page 31
