Ellis Island: Three Novels

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  He pulled his hands away from hers and got to his feet, sidestepping around her.

  “Johan!” Kristin cried. Tears burned her cheeks, and she tried to brush them away with the back of one hand. “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt about me? Why didn’t you come to me yourself?”

  But Johan didn’t answer. He left the parlor, following the direction his father had taken.

  Kristin reached for her Dala-horse and hugged it closely as she pillowed her head on the chair, the upholstery still warm from Johan’s body. She heard the Olsens leave, and in a short while her parents reentered the house.

  Pappa didn’t say a word. He stomped up the stairs to his bedroom, but Mamma dropped into the nearest parlor chair and wiped her reddened eyes with a handkerchief she’d pulled from her sleeve.

  Her voice was heavy with tears as she said, “Even in rural Sweden some girls resist family custom and want to choose the men they marry. I can understand this. But here in the United States, we are struggling to exist. Herr Olsen is a prosperous farmer who could be a big help to your father, and Johan is as fine a young man as you’re ever likely to meet.”

  “I know he is,” Kristin answered, “but I don’t love him.”

  “You gave us the impression that you like him.”

  “I do like him. I like him very much, but that’s the difference. I like him. I don’t love him.”

  “Of course you don’t. Not yet. Love isn’t a fragile buttercup whose petals open overnight. Love grows as you learn more about each other and care more about each other. It becomes richer and deeper as you share both happiness and problems together.”

  “Mamma, you can’t say that every marriage is like that.”

  “No,” Mamma said. She blew her nose loudly before she could continue. “But our marriage is, and we believed that your marriage to Johan could be just as happy. Your father and I want only happiness for you. A young woman should have a husband to take care of her.”

  “Mamma! I can take care of myself!”

  “So you think, but you know nothing about what life is like for a spinster—especially one without brothers who could care for her. I was afraid you had little opportunity to make a good marriage in Leksand, and I hoped that in a new country, in a new place—”

  Kristin interrupted. “You told me yourself I was too young to marry.”

  “You are, for now, but the agreement was for a marriage after you are eighteen.”

  “Pappa talked you into it. You’d agree with anything he’d say.”

  “Your father is the head of our family. I respect his opinions.”

  Kristin groaned. “And you don’t understand my opinions.”

  “Apparently not,” Mamma said. “And there is something else I don’t understand. Where are you going to get the money to travel to Minneapolis to live? And once you’re there, how are you going to earn enough money to support yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” Kristin said honestly. She didn’t have a cent of her own. Kristin wouldn’t even be able to pay the train fare to get to Minneapolis to hear Anna Shaw’s lecture. Independence carried a price. What was she going to do?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SATURDAY Kristin begged her parents to stay home and miss the Midsommarfest.

  “There is nothing I would like better to do,” Pappa said, “but on Sundays we have always gone to church. Tomorrow we will also go to church.”

  At least he was speaking to her. All morning he had avoided her as much as possible. Mamma had mumbled references to the spöken who had brought them such bad luck, and breakfast had been a miserable, silent affair.

  “Then could we just go to church and leave immediately after?” Kristin asked.

  Mamma, who was busy sliding pans of bread from the oven, spoke up. “Do you think you can hide from everyone in Great Rock Lake? Perhaps Fru Olsen kept her thoughts and feelings about you to herself. We don’t know. But whether the people in the community know or not, we must go about our business as though nothing has happened.”

  Kristin shuddered, well aware of how the smallest bit of gossip grew and spread in rural areas, where anything the slightest bit out of the ordinary became intensely interesting news.

  Mamma continued, “We have no choice. We must put in an appearance at Midsommarfest and behave with as much good grace as possible.”

  “If you and Pappa want to go, that’s fine,” Kristin said, “but I’d like to stay home.”

  “No,” Pappa said. “You will come with us.”

  “Why can’t I make this decision for myself?”

  “Because you are a child.”

  “I’m seventeen. I’m not a child.”

  “You have behaved like a child—a very spoiled and rude child.”

  “Because I want to think for myself?”

  He ignored her question and announced, “We will all go to the Midsommarfest. We’ll put on brave faces and do our best to add to the enjoyment of the day.”

  Kristin clutched at his sleeve. “Please, Pappa … I don’t want to see Johan and his family. Not now. Not yet.” She could see the pain in his eyes as they met hers, and guilt made her feel ill. “I didn’t mean to hurt them or hurt you and Mamma. If only you hadn’t tried to surprise me.…”

  “I was following the tradition of finding a suitable husband for you. I expected you to respect my good judgment.”

  “As I did, and my mother before me, and her mother before her,” Mamma put in.

  “That was in Sweden,” Kristin protested. “The United States is different. Here there are more choices, more ways of doing things.”

  Neither parent answered her. Mamma simply said, “Come, Kristin. Help me by washing the strawberries for the Ost-Kaka.”

  Early Sunday morning, as soon as the animals had been cared for and a light breakfast eaten, Kristin and her parents dressed in the bright festival costumes they had brought from Sweden.

  Pappa wore dark blue knee britches and a sleeveless, striped blue-and-green vest that buttoned to the collar with two rows of gold buttons. The sleeves of his white shirt were full, caught into snug cuffs at the wrist, and his collar was stiff and pointed. Polished black shoes, knit white stockings, and a flat blue velvet cap completed his costume.

  Mamma’s skirt was black, and her long-sleeved, crisply ironed shirt and apron were white, but the scarf over her shoulders, pinned in front with a small gold circle, was bright red, as were her small cap and her hose.

  Kristin waited for the routine that always followed. Mamma would tell Pappa how handsome he looked; then she’d twirl and prance past him, a coquettish look in her eyes, while he’d remark that she was the most beautiful woman in Leksand.

  But they were no longer in Leksand. They were in the United States, and things were different in the United States, no matter how hard the people here clung to the ways they’d known in Sweden.

  Kristin’s parents didn’t tease or compliment each other, and neither of them gave their usual enthusiastic approval to her navy-blue skirt with the red piping at the hem and the red vest she wore over her white shirt. Instead they solemnly loaded the wagon with the food they’d be taking to the Midsommarfest. “Bring the jar of strawberries and hurry,” Mamma said to Kristin. “We don’t want to be late.”

  When they arrived at the church, which was draped in garlands of green foliage, Kristin could see a maypole rising from the meadow. She loved to join in the maypole folk dance, holding a bright ribbon, twisting in and out among the other dancers to make a pattern down the pole. Today … no. Today, as far as she was concerned, there would be no maypole.

  As Kristin walked into the church behind her mother, she felt that every eye was on her. She had planned to stay calm and detached, but she couldn’t, and the blush that burned her cheeks gave her away.

  Pastor Holcomb’s sermon was mercifully short, which suited Kristin, because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep her mind on what he was saying. In less than an hour and a half church servi
ces were over, and the younger children raced toward the meadow where the games would be held.

  The countryside was much like that in Sweden, the bandstand, the church, the games area—they were all the same—but the people, who had arrived in great numbers, were not. The festival costumes in the Dalarna Province had always been much the same, but the people in Great Rock Lake had come from many parts of Sweden, and their clothing was surprisingly different.

  Mrs. Lundgren, plump and happy, wore a plain white shirt and apron over a flowered skirt that stopped at least four inches above her ankles to show stockings as bright blue as the shawl around her shoulders. Josie’s red-and-green apron was topped with a laced red corset around her midriff, and she wore a garland of flowers around her head. Fru Dalquist was dressed somberly in black and white, with a pale tan-striped apron and shawl, but her husband was resplendent in a bright red vest worn over his full-sleeved shirt and dark blue knee pants. Thick white stockings, a striped string tie, and a navy-blue beret completed his costume. Most of the women wore caps—either small and flowered or tidy and lacy. Only a few had bedecked themselves with flower circlets instead.

  The colors of the costumes were vibrant and cheerful, but Kristin felt anything but cheerful. She should have realized that Midsommarfest in the United States would not be like the Midsommarfest she had always known in which her neighbors and friends dressed much the same, the celebration was regional, and the gold of the summer sky ceased for only the held breath of a moment.

  Kristin, standing close by her mother, who was talking with Fru Dalquist, searched the crowd for Johan. Although his parents were on hand, in conversation with Pastor Holcomb, Johan was nowhere in sight.

  Feeling worse by the minute and needing a friend to talk to, Kristin looked for Jenny and finally saw her across the way with her parents. Jenny glanced over, caught Kristin’s eye, and sent her a quick, surreptitious wave before turning back to her parents.

  Jenny knows, Kristin thought with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. If Jenny knew, then it must be common knowledge in the community of Great Rock Lake that Kristin had refused a prenuptial agreement with Johan. What had she done to Johan? And to his parents and hers?

  Angrily she thought, It’s not all my fault. What did my parents do to me?

  The games for the younger children began, and Kristin had to smile, in spite of the way she felt, at the tangle of boys who tried to hurry too fast in the three-legged race.

  Six musicians filed into the small bandstand and tuned up their instruments. Besides the usual band instruments, one of the men held a Swedish nyckelharpa. Bowed like a violin, its strings were shortened by keys rather than by fingers. Kristin was eager for the music to begin. Maybe it would distract her from the misery that was causing a hard, undissolvable knot in her stomach.

  The program of folk music began with a lively tune for children, “Ro, Ro till Fiskeskär.” As some of the young ones sang along in Swedish, Kristin mentally translated the words into English: “Row, row to the fishing rocks.”

  The song brought back bittersweet memories of when she was twelve and snippy Mai Holder had sung it loudly, taunting Kristin in front of her classmates for acting like a rowdy boy instead of a proper girl. She had rubbed Mai’s face into the dust, knowing there would be scoldings and discipline from both her teacher and her parents, but she didn’t care. Hearing Mai squawl as she spit dirt from her mouth was worth whatever punishment came next.

  Bountiful platters and bowls of food were set up on long trencher tables, and Kristin was called to help her mother and some of the other women serve. The church had been packed with visitors from other areas, and they enthusiastically sampled the dishes the women of Great Rock Lake had made. The people she knew who passed through the serving line smiled and spoke politely to Kristin, but she could sense their reserve.

  The most difficult moment arrived when Herr and Fru Olsen came through the line with their children. As Mamma forked slices of spiced ham onto their plates, Kristin adding spoonsful of boiled parsley potatoes, she couldn’t keep from asking Fru Olsen, “Where is Johan?”

  Fru Olsen stopped in the middle of separating Carl and Arnold, who were snatching from each other’s plate, and answered briefly, “He wouldn’t come.” She hurried down the line, herding her children with her.

  Soon Jenny and her parents came through the line. Jenny waited until her mother was busy scolding her father for taking too many meatballs and whispered to Kristin, “I have to talk to you. Meet me in the graveyard after dinner.”

  What an appropriate place, Kristin thought wryly. She needed a graveyard for her dreams.

  Mamma put a hand on Kristin’s shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze. “The crowd is thinning,” she said. “Fill a plate and join your friends if you wish. Or join your father. He’s eating with the Lundgrens. Tell him I’ll be along soon.”

  Kristin nodded and slipped away from the serving table, but she didn’t take a plate. She wasn’t hungry. She’d never be hungry again. She wandered in the direction of the cemetery and found a cool place in the shade of one of the tall tombstones. Hugging her legs and resting her chin on her knees, Kristin waited for Jenny to come.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SHE didn’t have long to wait. Jenny flopped down on the grass beside Kristin, her short, striped shawl askew, and asked bluntly, “What happened? I thought you liked Johan.”

  “I do like him,” Kristin said.

  “Well, then?”

  Kristin put her hands to her head, which had begun to ache. “This isn’t Sweden. It’s the United States. I should have the freedom to make my own choice, not have my father decide for me whom I should marry.”

  “There are lots of girls who would choose Johan if they had the chance. I can’t understand why you wouldn’t.”

  “I want to go to the city. I want to work for women’s right to vote.”

  “Is it that important to you?”

  “It’s important, yes. But it’s even more important to me to have my father respect the fact that in this country I can be independent. I want him to believe that I can think for myself and make my own decisions.”

  “So that’s the reason you did what you did. You turned down Johan to teach your father a lesson.”

  “No! That’s not true!”

  As tears blurred Kristin’s vision, Jenny pressed a clean handkerchief into her hand. “I’m sorry,” Jenny said. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. All this is none of my business, and I shouldn’t have said anything. I just hate to see you make a mistake.”

  “It’s all right,” Kristin answered. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” She wiped her eyes and tried to smile. Jenny couldn’t be right. She hadn’t wanted to teach Pappa a lesson … or had she? No! She hadn’t!

  “Of course we’re friends,” Jenny said, “no matter what. That’s really what I came here to tell you.” She struggled to her feet and smoothed down her festival skirt and apron. “The band’s tuning up again, and they’re going to start the circle games for the people our age. Want to come?”

  “Not yet,” Kristin said. “You go on without me. Paul will be looking for you.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  “Of course.” Kristin attempted another smile. “I’ll see you later.”

  She was glad when Jenny left and she could think about what her friend had said. How could Jenny have been so mistaken? She had no wish to punish her father or Johan or anyone.

  Johan … she desperately needed to talk to Johan. It would be a long walk to his farm, but she didn’t mind. His parents would be at the festival for the rest of the day, and he’d be alone, so she’d have a chance to try to make up for the hurt she’d caused him.

  Kristin hurried through the group, the noise of the band keeping her from having to do anything more than smile and nod at the people she passed. Her parents were so busy chatting with the Lindens and the Petersons that they hadn’t seen her pass by. She had reached a bend in the road
and was nearly out of sight of the group when she heard someone call her name. She whirled around to see Sigrid striding toward her.

  “Where are you going?” Sigrid called. “Surely you aren’t leaving already?”

  What Kristin wanted to do concerned only Johan. “I need to get away for a little while,” she answered.

  Sigrid gave a wry smile. “You’re suffering from public opinion,” she said. “If only we could get such strong public opinion for women’s suffrage, Congress would quickly change the law; but people are more interested in their neighbors’ business than in what they could do to make the world a better place.”

  At the moment Kristin didn’t want to talk about suffrage. Since Sigrid obviously knew what had happened, Kristin wished she’d tell her she had done the right thing and had made the right choice, but instead Sigrid pulled a folded sheet of paper from the drawstring bag she carried and said, “The date is set. Anna Shaw will speak in one of the university auditoriums on Thursday, July tenth. I hope you and your mother will come and hear her. Remember, you have an invitation to stay with me.”

  Kristin took the flier from Sigrid, but she didn’t look at it. Disappointment was a dull ache in her chest as she said, “We won’t be able to go. It’s hard making ends meet right now, and there isn’t enough money to spend for train fare.”

  Sigrid smiled. “There’s no problem with the transportation. You can ride with my sister and brother-in-law. On July ninth they’re taking a wagonload of handmade quilts to Minneapolis to exhibit at an arts fair and will return home on July twelfth. Fortunately the date for the fair coincides with the lecture, because I’ve insisted that Olga attend with me, and she actually agreed.” She giggled and put a finger to her lips. “But Otto’s not to know about it—until after they’ve arrived in Minneapolis!”

  Kristin began to feel hopeful. If she could get Mamma to agree … “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll let Fru Dalquist know if I—we can go.”