Unto A Good Land

by Vilhelm Moberg

  He had heard stories of immigrants who in a short time had accumulated immense fortunes but had been unable to handle their riches. Greed had eaten them up or dried them up, or gluttony had made their stomachs swell to abnormal proportions. Some rotted away in unmentionable vices. Money was their destruction. Robert felt a warning in this for himself. Ever since entering the portals of the New World in New York, he had pondered his ambition in America and how best to effectuate it. He would neither become puffed-up and haughty in prosperity, nor would he worry in adversity, like a weakling. He would not wish for everything he saw, he would be satisfied with sufficient possessions, a small fortune, easy to handle; moderate riches would not be dangerous, would not tempt him to destroy himself.

  But all the steerage passengers on the Red Wing, whatever their language, were as poor as he, and all wanted to get rich.

  Robert’s purpose in coming to America was perhaps best expressed in a song which he had heard from the crew’s quarters many evenings. Their voices could be heard from their place of gathering on their own deck, where he could see their half-naked bodies in the semidarkness. At first he had only been able to understand one word of their song—free. But after listening for a few days he could interpret the whole meaning:

  We will be free, we will be free,

  As the wind of the earth and the waves of the sea. . . .

  This was the crew’s song in the evening, it was the song of the wandering river, it was the song of Robert’s aim in America.

  —3—

  From the deck of the Red Wing Robert and Arvid saw a constant change of scenery: the shores, the river itself, the many passing steamers with strange names, logs floating along on the current, pieces of lumber, bushes, trees, boxes, barrels, dead birds. Once they saw a corpse sail by, only part of the head sticking out of the water, a gray-white face and black hair entangled in a mass of green grass and branches; they thought it was the corpse of a woman, floating along with this unusual bridal wreath on her head.

  They watched for new trees and plants along the shores, for Arvid had heard that shirts and pants grew on trees in America, and he wanted to see these trees. Robert said he must have in mind the cotton bush which grew only in the Southern states; they would not see it here.

  Robert was looking for crocodiles; he had read in his book that these monsters inhabited the Mississippi. And one day Arvid pointed out an animal, swimming near the shore, so ugly that the like of it he had never seen before; it must be a crocodile. But the captain assured them that crocodiles didn’t swim this far north, and the ones in the swamplands near the river mouth weren’t really crocodiles, they were alligators.

  One night an immigrant from Scotland, sleeping on the deck, fell into the river. No one missed him until morning. He left a wife and six small children on the boat. A collection was taken up among the passengers for the destitute family, and each one contributed something. In all, more than thirty dollars was collected as comfort and aid to the fatherless family; but the widow and her six children continued to weep just the same.

  Arvid was horrified at the thought of the Scotsman; not only did the poor man lose his life, if his body floated toward the sea, he might be eaten by the gruesome crocodiles. How could he, on the Day of Doom, rise up from the stomach of a crocodile?

  One morning Arvid called to Robert in consternation: “Look over there! The wild critters have come!”

  On a cliff overlooking the river stood a group of strangely immobile figures, all facing the steamer, which passed them at a distance not above a gunshot. Feathers on their heads indicated they were Indians; some had bows in their hands. All watched the steamer intently, its funnels spewing smoke, its wheels rolling along through the water, splashing like large fins. The Indians stood like trees grown out of the rock, petrified by the sight of the steamer.

  Undoubtedly these were wild Indians, Robert said.

  Several times during their journey inland they had seen Indians, but they had been civilized. Now, for the first time, they saw wild Indians, Indians in the bush. And Robert understood that the immigrants were now approaching the vast, unknown, dangerous wilderness, a much larger and much more dangerous wilderness than they had traveled through before.

  “They might shoot arrows at us!” Arvid said, looking for a place to hide.

  But the Indians remained like statues, straight and silent, intently watching the puffing, pushing steamer on the river.

  Suddenly the stillness was broken by the Red Wing’s steam whisde; a piercing sound reverberated across the water, echoing back from the cliffs on shore. The sound cut like a lance in Robert’s ear.

  The Indians answered the whistle with a shriek of terror and disappeared from their cliff as quickly as if swept away by the wind; quicker almost than the eye could see, they had run and hidden behind bushes at the foot of the cliff. The two boys had never seen human beings so swift of foot. The highly entertained passengers on the upper deck laughed heartily.

  Arvid was much surprised: he had heard that the Indians were cruel and horrible as wolves. How could they be dangerous when that litde boat whistle could scare them away? And now he knew what he would do if encountering wild Indians in the forest: he would whistle; then they would scatter like chickens from a hawk.

  Robert thought that perhaps these Indians had never before seen a steamer. At home people said steamers were Satan himself traveling about on water in these latter days, spurting fire and smoke. The heathens out here could hardly be expected to have more sense than Christians in Sweden. Perhaps they thought the steamer was an evil monster risen from the depths of the river. They might be familiar with crocodiles, sea serpents, and other river creatures, but had they ever seen an animal spewing smoke, sparks, and fire? Were they accustomed to roaring river creatures, paddling along with wheel-feet, shrieking like a thousand pigs simultaneously stuck with sharp knives? Robert’s own ears could not stand the sound of the whistle, and Arvid had said that his heart had stopped inside his breast for many minutes when he heard the whisde for the first time. Robert was sure that a sound like the steam whistle had never before been heard on God’s earth.

  And he thought it was an evil deed to let loose the whistle in order to frighten the Indians and entertain the passengers. It was true that the Indians were heathen and unchristian, but there was no need to plague them unnecessarily.

  Robert had read about the Indians shooting with poisoned arrows and killing people with dull wooden spears. He had even heard that they scalped people without sharpening their knives, a thought which made him shudder so that his hair stood on end. Such were the deeds of unchristian people who were neither baptized nor confirmed; heathens knew no better. This would change as soon as they became civilized and Christian. When the missionaries arrived among the Indians and baptized them and gave them the Lord’s Supper, the one-time wild Indians would learn to use their enemies’ breech-loading guns and scalp their victims with sharp knives.

  The captain said: “The Indians are horrible people; they tie their captives to poles and burn them to death; they fry them the way Christian people fry pork.”

  And Robert appreciated this warning. He had now actually glimpsed the natives of this unknown wilderness where he and his group were about to build their homes. They would soon reach their destination; a new, strange life would soon begin. And the life awaiting them began to take shape in his imagination.

  Each day Robert carefully observed the new country, its natives, plants, animals, general appearance. Sometime in the future, when he had leisure and writing implements, he intended to write a description of his surroundings according to his own observations. He possessed a small writing book, once given to him by Schoolmaster Rinaldo, in which he had put down the most unusual happenings so far.

  With the arrival of evening, both river and shores flowed together in that impenetrable darkness of North America, the densest and thickest darkness of all the darknesses God had created. Then Robert could observe n
either land nor water. But sometimes in the evenings or during the nights, flames could be seen from the invisible shores of the Mississippi. They looked like moving torches or tongues of fire; they were fires from Indian camps, glowing, flaming somewhere on land. The Indians were there—they weren’t visible, but they were there, they lurked somewhere in the forest, somewhere in the bottomless darkness—the most horrible people the old Mississippi captain had ever seen.

  And Robert watched these fires with deep apprehension; they indicated to him the presence of the cruel redskins; they were all around him here, they were close. And this very country was to be his home, in the midst of these heathens he would have to live, among Indians he would pass the rest of his life.

  He felt a great fear, and a still greater foreboding.

  —4—

  On the last day of July, 1850, the immigrants from Ljuder stepped ashore in the town of Stillwater, on the St. Croix River, a tributary of the Mississippi, in Washington County, Territory of Minnesota.

  They arrived at a time of year most inconvenient for farmers: the summer was by now so far advanced that it was too late to sow or plant anything. They were peasants who had lost a year’s crops, and they knew what this meant.

  Part Two

  The Settling

  XI

  “WILL NO ONE HELP ME?”

  —1—

  The place smelled of the forest products and forest debris—green, lately milled lumber, pitch, sawdust, boards at seasoning. Along the river ran a fairly broad street covered with pine needles, bark, sawdust, sand—truly a lumber-town street. The riverbank was piled high with boards and logs for blocks, and on the river floated logs in such numbers that the surface seemed one vast, cobbled floor. Both earth and water smelled of pitch and pine. The travelers had arrived in a forest region.

  Karl Oskar and Robert wandered up the street, to where the newly built houses clustered; they walked leisurely, trying to read the shop signs and other inscriptions: Oxen for Sale Cheap for Cash; William Simpson, Druggist; Shoemaker and Watch Repairing; The House That Jack Built. They passed a number of stores where tools and implements of many kinds were displayed in the windows. The largest inscription was painted on the side of a house: Stillwater Lumber Company. They had seen the same sign near the pier as they landed.

  It had been late afternoon when they disembarked from the Red Wing; they must find lodging before nightfall. For two weeks Robert had practiced this one important sentence from his language book: Please show me to a lodging house. He was now completely familiar with every part of this sentence, even though he had not as yet used it. But now two more important and urgent questions confronted the immigrants: How were they to manage with all their belongings? How would they find their way to their place of destination?

  Captain Berger had informed them a few days earlier that the Red Wing would be unable to carry them all the way up river to Taylors Falls. The Mississippi steamers turned back at Stillwater as the St. Croix was not navigable beyond this point for larger craft; the current was too strong and there were several rapids. Consequently, he was forced to land them some distance short of their destination. At the same time Captain Berger had warned them not to remain in this region, which was ravaged by cholera; he had pointed out many places along the river where houses and huts stood empty. Immigrants from his homeland had built them but had already been forced to move—not away from the district, but six feet down into it, to final decay. The survivors in these Norwegian settlements were impoverished, almost starved to death, existing in utmost misery. It was so bad, Captain Berger wasn’t sure which immigrants were better off, those in the ground or those above it.

  Such information was not encouraging to the newcomers, and they had felt downhearted and filled with concern as they left the steamer. Captain Berger had promised to ask someone to help them find their way after landing, but he had fallen ill that morning, and when they landed, he lay in high fever in his cabin; they had not seen him again. And as the Red Wing departed they were left alone on the pier, completely dependent upon themselves in this unknown place. There they sat down among their chests, sacks, bundles, and baskets, without knowing in which direction to go, or how to transport their possessions.

  While the rest of the group remained at the pier to watch over their belongings, Karl Oskar and Robert went to seek information. Besides the question concerning lodgings, Robert had learned two sentences from the chapter entitled “The Journey”: Respected Sir, how can we reach Taylors Falls? Who will take care of our baggage? The name Taylors Falls he had added himself, but he did not know how to pronounce it. He meant to put these questions to someone in the street who looked kind and helpful and seemed to have plenty of time; he was particularly on the lookout for older persons.

  But they met only young people on the street of this new lumber town. And all were in a great hurry, passing them by quickly. Robert hoped to address someone who was walking slowly. But they met no limping old men or women. Few women were in sight on the street. Three times, Robert spoke to older men; each one stopped, shook his head at the questions, and muttered some incomprehensible answer. He spoke to a couple of middle-aged women sitting on the steps in front of a house, but they, too, shook their heads.

  Karl Oskar was growing impatient: “I don’t think they understand you!”

  Robert had asserted that by now his English was so good he could lend his mouth for the use of all, and Karl Oskar was reminded again that he could not always rely on his brother.

  Robert had followed the instructions in his book: Practice the Speech Exercises! Become familiar with the words and phrases most frequently used! He replied to Karl Oskar: The Americans undoubtedly understood what he said. But they spoke their own language so rapidly that he couldn’t understand their answers.

  He tried his questions on a few more passers-by but without success, and then Karl Oskar said they had better go back to the pier.

  Their fellow travelers were still sitting among their possessions, all together, but helpless and at a loss as to what to do next.

  Jonas Petter said it looked as though the inhabitants might be afraid of them; they had been left entirely alone on the pier; did people think a gang of robbers had arrived on the steamer?

  Fina-Kajsa sat with her skirt tucked up, her broken iron pot on her knees. She sighed: “Oh me, oh my! We’ll never get there! Oh me, oh my!”

  All were hungry, and someone suggested opening the food baskets. But Karl Oskar said it would soon be dark, they must find quarters before they did anything else; they couldn’t remain on the pier all night.

  Ulrika spoke up: “That was supposed to be your job, as I recall.”

  “You go and try!” Karl Oskar retorted tartly.

  He was in low spirits and this affected the others. Even the Glad One, who usually encountered trouble with indifference, was now upset and irritable, and as it suddenly began to rain, she poured forth bad language on this new misfortune.

  It was a cloudburst—apparently, all rains in America were cloudbursts. It splashed and thundered over the river, the heavy rain soaked the immigrants’ clothing, it struck like knives, penetrating to their very marrow. After a few minutes they were all as wet as if they had been dipped in the river. The children yelled and refused to be comforted.

  Everyone in the group was hungry, tired, and wet through and through; night was upon them, and they did not know where to find shelter. One after the other they felt despair overtake them. The company from Ljuder had never before during their whole journey felt so helpless, lost, and forsaken.

  Robert went over and over his recent attempt to find his way with the new language—his hopelessly miscarried attempt! It was easy enough to remember and repeat the sentences to himself. But when he wanted to say them to strangers he grew nervous and confused, then he began to stutter, he hemmed and hawed. He couldn’t understand it: not one of the three sentences he had learned had been of any use today. And he began to practice a four
th, which he would repeat until he was successful: Will no one help me?

  —2—

  Henry O. Jackson, Baptist minister in Stillwater, was busy sawing firewood outside his cabin near the river. Only a few steps separated the sawhorse from the water, and he kept his foothold precariously on the sloping ground. Pastor Jackson was a short, rather fat man of about forty, dressed in well-worn brown cotton trousers and a not-too-clean flannel shirt. He worked bareheaded, and tufts of thin hair fluttered in rhythm with the movement of the saw as it dug its way through the dry pine bough on the sawhorse. The handle of his saw, cut from a crooked limb, chafed his hands after a while; the pine log was tough and resistant, the saw teeth, dull from lack of sharpening, rasped slowly through the wood. The work was hard, and after cutting each piece, the minister rested a moment, drying the sweat from his forehead with a great linen handkerchief that hung on a peg of the sawhorse and flapped in the wind like a flag.

  The St. Croix River, separating the new state of Wisconsin from the Minnesota Territory, made a large bend as it flowed by Stillwater. Right here near the town the current was slow, almost imperceptible, and the river expanded into a small lake, on which all the timber floated down from above had been gathered; here on the west bank it would be hauled up and milled. A little farther to the west the ground rose in high hills, and the town of Stillwater had been built between these hills and the river. The community had an advantageous position, protected from winds by the forested hills at its back, and with the river flowing at its feet. Within a short space its population had grown to more than five hundred inhabitants; next to St. Paul, it was at this time the largest settlement in the territory. A year before, Stillwater had been made the county seat of the newly formed Washington County.