Unto A Good Land

by Vilhelm Moberg

  But he realized that the Charlotta’s old carpenter was much excited by the happening.

  Long Landberg, the apostate, continued: Erik Janson was the worst scoundrel ever to tramp the ground of North America. Landberg had seen him daily during many months and he knew the prophet’s creed. Janson called himself the new Christ and had chosen as his apostles twelve befuddled louts whom he kept in attendance, like a tyrant king. Indeed, he had been a cruel tyrant to his followers, plaguing them enough to make angels weep, if there were tears in heaven. No doctor was called for the sick; when one of the disciples lay at death’s door, unable to move toe or finger, Janson ordered him to rise up and be healthy, and if the sick one could not, Janson condemned him for sin and lack of faith. Janson, of course, was free from sin and righteous in all ways.

  Once, Landberg had defended some poor sick sectarians against this tyranny, with the result that Janson had seized everything he owned, including most of his clothes. Without means, he had been unable to bring suit against the prophet. Janson had said that he was equal with God. . . . Well, the fact was, humanity could thank the man who had shot Wheat-flour Jesus; through this splendid deed he had freed North America from a beast. Janson, a raw, presumptuous peasant boor! Yes, said Landberg, he even looked like the Evil One, his teeth were like tusks, no doubt he was possessed by an evil spirit and had been sent into the world by the devil.

  Captain Lorentz, when he had transported some of Janson’s followers, had heard them speak of their leader as a Heavenly Light, lit for them in the dark heathen land of Sweden. They had been honest in their faith; to them he had been the returned Christ. And now, after his murder, they would undoubtedly say that, like Christ, he had sealed his religion and faith with his blood.

  Was Erik Janson sent by God or by the devil? Perhaps by neither; who could tell? One had to be satisfied that God Himself knew.

  Now Lorentz asked his former carpenter how things were with these sectarians; how were they getting along in that vast prairie land of Illinois where he had heard they were settled?

  “Janson said he founded a new Jerusalem,” Landberg retorted with derision. “But the fact is, he founded a new hell.”

  It was true that the community which Janson had built and named Bishop Hill, after his home parish Biskopskulla, had been called Bishop Hell by the Americans, and letters so addressed had reached their destination. But the Janson followers, Landberg admitted, were fine, industrious farmers; they had greatly improved their situation; no longer did they live like beasts in earth huts, but had built themselves houses of bricks, which they made. Nor were bricks the only things they made: though in Sweden they had been temperance people, in Bishop Hill they had built a still, operated by steam and capable of making three hundred gallons of brännvin a day. When they got drunk, they blamed this on the Holy Ghost “filling them,” as they called it.

  Last spring the sectarians had sent a group of their men to California to dig for gold in the name of God. Even two of their apostles had been sent. Could anyone imagine Saint Peter or Saint Paul digging for gold? But Janson did not seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; he was said to have grown so rich that he had the tusks pulled out of his evil mouth and replaced by pure gold. Could a mortal here on earth descend to lower depths of vanity and conceit?

  Landberg continued: The people in Bishop Hill believed Erik Janson would rise from the dead in the same manner as his predecessor, Christ. They went about their chores now, making their brick, distilling their brännvin, while waiting for their master’s return. Jesus arose on the third day, but six weeks had already elapsed since Janson was shot, and nothing had been heard from him so far as anyone knew.

  And this much Landberg said he wished to add: Should Wheat-flour Jesus return to the American continent alive, there were many who would be glad to shoot him a second time.

  Captain Lorentz thought to himself, Janson had undoubtedly been in many ways a fine man. But he realized how important it was for Landberg to give vent to his feelings, so he had not interrupted him. Now he returned to their business at hand: “Now you must again help me unload my human cargo.”

  “Gladly, Captain. I am free at present.”

  Landberg was pleased to get a new commission; his income had been poor lately, since no emigrant ship had arrived from Sweden for some time. For a while he had helped English captains. But most immigrants this year were German or Irish. If only he had known German, then his income would have been better. It was hard this year to earn an honest living, he told the captain. The swindlers and the runners were as fast as ever, but an honest agent was recognized by all captains: a thin man!

  “And tall as a mast,” added Captain Lorentz.

  “Precisely, Captain! And how large is the cargo this time?”

  “Seventy. Most of them are going inland.”

  “Fine. The immigrant transfer, Isaac Newton, runs now every second day up the Hudson to Albany.”

  The two men began to go over the list of passengers and their destinations. While so occupied, Landberg remembered that he had a message to the captain from a well-known countryman: The Methodist pastor, Olof Hedström, on the Bethel Ship here in the harbor, sent his greeting and intended to pay a call the following morning.

  “Hmm. So Pastor Hedström is still preaching on his old ship. Tell him he is welcome. A fine fellow; he might help the people a great deal.”

  Through fortunate circumstances, the Swedish Methodists in New York had been permitted to unrig an old ship and turn it into a church. Lorentz had been on board the Bethel Ship after she had been converted into a God’s House and he had liked it there. Now that the Charlotta was beginning to rot, perhaps some other sect might buy his ship and make a church of her, here in New York Harbor. He mused that it might mark great progress for Christianity if all old, worn-out ships, those nests of sin, could be stripped of their rigging and turned into churches.

  Pastor Hedström undoubtedly was coming to invite the immigrants to a sermon and Holy Communion aboard his Bethel Ship. And Lorentz thought he must ask the minister to make it clear to the passengers that he belonged to the Methodist religion before he gave them the Sacrament. After the Charlotta’s previous voyage, some of the Lutheran immigrants had received the Lord’s Supper on the Bethel Ship, and only later had it been made fully clear to them that they had been given the Sacrament by a sectarian minister, a teacher of heresy. They had been thrown into great anguish and fear of eternal judgment; they had prayed to God that He might let them throw up the false tokens of grace, but their prayers had not been heard. Yes, even the souls of the emigrants were the responsibility of the captain of an emigrant ship.

  “Yes, my old carpenter—three days from now you’ll get another load of Swedish farmers for the North American Republic.”

  And on June 26, early in the morning, when the three-day quarantine was over, the brig Charlotta of Karlshamn could at last discharge her living cargo on the pier near Castle Garden in New York Harbor.

  NOTE

  1. Not until 1855 was an official reception station for immigrants opened at Castle Garden.

  II

  BATTERY PARK

  After seventy days at sea, the seekers of new homes were again on solid ground—though the restlessness of the Atlantic Ocean remained a while within them. As they set foot once more on the trustworthy, immovable earth, they were well satisfied to part with those great masses of water which the Creator on the Third Day had called Sea, and they blessed in their hearts that dry part which He had called Earth. They gave thanks to the Lord God Who in His mercy had helped the brittle planks to carry them over the terrifying depths to the longed-for harbor.

  On an outjutting tongue of land in the East River stood Castle Garden, the old fort, now transformed into an amusement place, and near by, separated from the river piers by a broad walk, Battery Park spread its greenery. This piece of wooded land so near the harbor resounded daily with heavy peasant tramping and foreign tongues. The
Old World people, having passed through the portals of the New World, found here their first resting place on American soil. Battery Park was to the immigrants a cool and shaded grove on their day of landing.

  Here they sat down and refreshed themselves in the comforting shade of spreading elms and linden trees, here rested side by side men, women, children, and aged ones, surrounded by their possessions—chests, baskets, bags, and bundles, filled with essential belongings. As many knapsacks and bundles as they had been able to carry they had clutched in their hands when walking down the gangplank, holding them so tight that their knuckles whitened, and their cheeks reddened with fear lest hustling foreigners snatch their belongings from them. Never during the whole journey would they leave these important possessions out of sight, these inseparable bed companions during the transport across the ocean.

  Rough, broad-shouldered peasants, their faces marked by all the seasons of the year, stood here with hands behind their backs, their eyes appraising the new land. On their bodies hung heavy wadmal clothes, wrinkled and baggy. (These woolen garments—such splendid protection against the bitter cold of the North Sea—were now drenched with sweat and a burden to their wearers on America’s sunny shores.) There was a constrained lust for action in these men’s hard muscles and sinews; their bodies were power restrained. Crowded in narrow ship’s space for many weeks, their hands had had no chores to perform. They had arrived on a new continent anxious to resume accustomed duties, their hands eager to hold the familiar ox thongs and plow handles. Their hands possessed much knowledge, acquired from childhood, inherited through centuries. When now again they stood on solid ground, they felt the lust for work spring up after the painful time of inactivity. But yet a while must their forced rest last, yet a while must they carry their hands behind their backs.

  Mothers sat leaning against tree trunks in the park, feeding their babies from the breast; the women emptied their scrawny breasts without filling the stomachs of their babies. The milk gave out long before the babies’ hunger, and the little ones cried and fretted, irritated by the heat and discomfort of the heavy woolen garments in which they were bundled. And the mothers rocked their children on their knees—mother-love’s cradle, the softest and most comfortable cradle on earth—and tried to lull them to sleep. But the babies whimpered, they wanted to stay awake; now that their eyes saw for the first time the land their parents had chosen for them, it seemed as if they wanted to take in everything; this was the land where they were to grow up, the land that was to be their home.

  A five-year-old boy, wrapped in a coat that hung to his ankles, sat on his haunches in the grass, chewing a crust of rye bread, a coarse, dark loaf; spots of mildew testified to the fact that this bread had not been baked yesterday, nor on this continent; it came from an old oven in a hidden, stony part of Europe. The boy chewed ravenously and swallowed with determination; the bread in his hand disappeared until only a few crumbs were left; these he tossed into his mouth. The loaf was finished but his hunger remained, and the child looked questioningly at his empty hand: Why did food end before hunger? Mother said: “It is the last loaf I have, the last one from home; now you will never get any more bread from home.” And the boy pondered this . . . Why no more bread from home?

  In Battery Park the immigrants took stock of their food baskets; they counted their loaves of bread and scraped away the mildew; many were those who ate their last slice in confidence that the soil of the new country would feed them from now on.

  An even stream of people moved along the river road which separated Battery Park from Castle Garden: these were the inhabitants of New York, the people who lived in the greatest city of North America. Here walked leisurely men in tall, black hats, dressed in tail coats and tight-fitting trousers which enclosed their legs almost like cloth skin. Here walked women in bonnets and tightly laced waists from which hung skirts of generous proportions, reaching the ground. Others had skirts spread out like birds’ beautiful tail feathers, and of all colors: red, white, green, and gold; checkered skirts, polka-dotted and striped. Over their heads the women held parasols in bright colors, like small-paned canopies of heaven. The men carried Spanish canes.

  The walkers paid no attention to the people camping in Battery Park. The appearance of immigrants under the trees in the park was neither new nor unusual—they saw immigrants almost every day when walking along the river. Shiploads of immigrants arrived daily and would continue to arrive; the people landed, waited in Battery Park for inland transportation, moved on and were gone. A new group arrived in their place—new people gathered here constantly, waiting under the trees. This was the endless train of aliens, outsiders; the immigrants were one of the permanent sights for promenading New Yorkers; they would always be there, they were part of the park, they belonged to it, like the leaves on the trees and the grass on the ground. The immigrants, it seemed, would always wait there, under the trees in Battery Park.

  The immigrants came from places where they knew everyone and were known; they had seldom seen a stranger. Now they had arrived in a land where everyone was a stranger; the inhabitants of New York were a new and strange sight to the immigrants. The people in the park looked at the stream of people on the road: the newly arrived looked at those who were established here; these were the Americans, settled, comfortable, having found their place in the new land, able to move unhindered, walking in security, free of worries, and able to speak to any one they met. The immigrants were strayed wanderers, seeking a place to live and work; the others had found what they were seeking; the homeless observed those who had homes.

  The home seekers stopped a moment in Battery Park, alien, confused, bewildered, insecure. They were overtaken by surprise at their first meeting with the unknown country. But they were to participate in the breaking of the land and the changing of the character of the country they had just entered, these waiting here in the cool grove on the East River.

  III

  MILK AND WHITE BREAD

  —1—

  The day they left Sweden the emigrants from Ljuder Parish had counted sixteen in their group. For one of them a watery grave had opened during the voyage, but as Fina-Kajsa from Öland had joined their company, they were still sixteen when they gathered together on the American shore in Battery Park.

  Danjel Andreasson of Kärragärde sat by himself, a little to the side of the others, next to his America chest. He was reading in his psalmbook, his head was bent down, and his bushy, brown beard swept the book, open at Hymn 344—”At the Death of a Mate.” A dried flower, a reseda, lay as bookmark between the leaves; it had grown in the flower bed at home, cared for and tended by his wife. The page with the psalm was badly worn from much use.

  O Death, why hast thou snatched away

  My bosom Love from me?

  In sorrow and despair I pray,

  But comfort flees from me. . . .

  Danjel Andreasson had arrived in the new land to which the Lord had guided him with four motherless little children. He had lost Inga-Lena, his dear wife and earthly helpmate; the Lord had stricken him and trampled on him; he was now only a wretched human worm, wriggling under the heel of the Lord.

  He had searched his inner self and arrived at a new understanding: he had sinned the sin of self-righteousness. In his presumption he had considered himself better than others and had believed that his sins once and for all had been washed away and tied up in Christ’s napkin cloth that bound His head at burial. He had held himself righteous, unable to sin any more. But on the ship, as he had lain in all his wretchedness covered with his vomit, listening to the tempest and feeling the depths below him, he had learned that he had been found wanting in the eyes of the Lord.

  In his vanity he had believed that when he reached the harbor he would be able to praise God in the foreign language; in his conceit he had considered himself an equal of Christ’s apostles who were visited by the Holy Ghost on the first Whitsuntide, and he had thought that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit would take
place in him so that he would be able to use the American tongue. His Creator had already given him a speaking tongue, and this in itself was so great a miracle that it was presumptuous to expect God to give him the ability to use this tongue for all languages.

  Sitting here now, he heard the buzz of this foreign language which he had expected his ears to understand and his tongue to imitate. But his ears recognized no sounds and his tongue remained dumb. The words of the language he heard did not reach him, he could not use them in his mouth. No outpouring of the Spirit filled him, no cloven tongues appeared, no visions were seen. He could not prophesy in the new language; his ears were closed and his tongue lame.

  Danjel Andreasson entered North America a mute and lost stranger among all other strangers in this multitude of people, races, and tribes here gathered. Once, in Babel, the Lord had confused human language so that men could not understand one another; because each was a sinner, his tongue was capable of his native language only. And because Danjel had thought himself righteous, the Holy Ghost had failed him in the new land; he was not worthy of spiritual outpouring.

  Danjel was stricken to the earth, God had chastised him, left him naked in all his frailty and faults. He beheld one vision only, a terrifying one: Man was smaller than the worm, because he was the food for worms—he, Danjel Andreasson of Kärragärde, was food for crawling creatures of the earth.

  Once he had conceived this picture of himself, he ceased to explain God’s word to his fellow travelers on the ship; how could he explain Holy Writ when he hadn’t rightly understood it? How could he advise and admonish others when he himself had committed the grossest of sins? How could he be a spiritual guide for others if he were unable to guide his own soul?