The Emigrants (19 page)

She asked first: “Are you making fun of me?”

What was she to think? Here he sat and suddenly announced that he intended to sell his farm, and all he owned. Then with his whole family—a wife and three children and a fourth not yet born—he would move away; not to another village or parish, nor to another place in this country, or to any country on this continent. But to a new continent! He might just as well have stretched it a little further, it would have made no difference to her had he announced that he intended to move them all to the moon; he must be jesting with her.

But as he continued to talk, she realized he spoke in earnest. This new idea was exactly like Karl Oskar, like no one else. He never let well enough alone, he was not satisfied with what others considered sufficient. He was never satisfied with anything in this world; he reached for the impossible, the little-known. He had told her once before he would sell Korpamoen; then he wanted to be a timberman. Another time it had been a horse trader, and again, enlistment as a soldier. And when he decided to move, of course nothing less than North America would do—the other end of the world! If he had been satisfied with less he would not have been Karl Oskar.

But now Kristina must answer with innermost sincerity and let him know what she felt in her heart. So they talked, and exchanged their opinions, evening after evening, while the crackling fire alone interrupted their conversation and at times was even louder than they.

Why did Karl Oskar want to move?

For four years now they had lived in Korpamoen, and today they were several hundred riksdaler poorer than when they started. Four years they had spilled the strength of their youth here, to no purpose. If they remained they would have to continue struggling and slaving until they could move neither hand nor foot, until they finally sat there, worn out, worked out, limp and broken. No one would then thank them for having ruined themselves for no earthly good. They could mirror themselves in his father, who sat crippled in his room. In this place they had nothing more to look forward to than the reserved room; it would be ready for them one day, when they were able-bodied no more, and from then on they would sit there, like his father and mother now, and reproach themselves all through their old age; health and strength would be gone, but from all the work through all the years they would have naught to show but the reserved room with its meager bread.

However much they struggled and toiled, they could never improve their situation here in Korpamoen.

He didn’t know much about conditions in the United States, but he did know that once there he would be given, for next to nothing, fertile, stone-free soil which was now only waiting for the plowshare. Things which he had no money to purchase here could be obtained for very little in North America. They were both of them strong and healthy and accustomed to hard work, and that was all that they need bring along: their ability to work; it was all America asked of them. Perhaps they must face as much drudgery as here, but they would do it in another spirit, with another hope, another joy. Because the great difference between the two countries was this:
In America they could improve their lot through their own work.

He for his part was weary of the struggle which led nowhere. Nonetheless he could continue his work with a happy heart if he believed he could improve the situation for himself and his. People liked to fight for a goal, at least while still young, as they both were. What else was there to live for? But one day their children would be grown and shifting for themselves, and what sort of future awaited them here? One child would inherit the farm, but what about the others? They would have to work as hired farmhands or become squatters. No third choice existed. There were already so many hired hands that they competed in offering their services to farmers; there were too many cottagers already, soon every opening in the forest would have its rotten, rickety shack with the black earth for floor. The people in these huts seldom had meat with their bread—and many days no bread. Karl Oskar and Kristina did not want their children to become hired farmhands or crofters; but they could do nothing better for them unless they took them from this impoverished place. If they felt responsibility for their children, they must move away.

On one point all information from North America agreed: the people had in every way more liberty in that country. The four classes were long ago abolished there, they had no king who sat on a throne and drew a high salary. The people themselves elected a President who could be thrown from office if they didn’t like him. They had no high officials who annoyed the people, no sheriff who came and took the farmers’ belongings. And at the community meeting everyone spoke as freely as his neighbor, for all had equal rights.

If he now sold his farm with everything on it, chattels and kine included, Karl Oskar would have enough money to pay the transportation for all of them with some small part left over for the settling in the new country.

He had long turned it over in his mind, thought about it, weighed arguments for and against, but this conviction remained with him: a farm couple still in their youth, hale and hearty, could undertake nothing wiser than to emigrate to the United States of America.

Why Kristina wanted to remain at home:

Karl Oskar had drawn a beautiful and sanguine picture. If Kristina could believe it all as he painted it for her, she would not for one moment hesitate to follow him.

But she was afraid it might turn out to be a wild-goose chase. Her husband believed all he heard and saw about America. But who could guarantee its truth? What did they have to rely on? Who had promised them tillable soil in the United States? Those who ruled over there had not written him a letter or given him a promise. He had no deed to a piece of land that would await them on arrival. One taking such a journey needed written words and agreements before starting.

They had never met a single person who had been to North America; they knew of no one who had set foot in that country, no one who could tell them what the land was like. If a reliable human being who had seen the country with his own eyes had advised emigration, that would be different. In the printed words of newspapers and books she had no confidence.

If moving to North America was so advisable for young farm folk, then there must be some who had already done so. But they knew no such folk. He could not mention the name of a single farmer—young or old—who had emigrated with wife and children; the wisdom of such a move existed only in his head.

He had also forgotten to mention the fact that they must sail on a fragile ship across the ocean; he had said nothing about the dangerous voyage. How often had they heard about ships wrecked and sunk? No one knew if they would ever reach America alive. Even if exposing themselves to all these dangers were advisable, had they the right to venture the lives of their children on a voyage which wasn’t necessary, which they weren’t forced to undertake? The children were too young to consult, and perhaps they would rather remain at home, even as squatters, than be pulled down into the depth of the ocean; perhaps it were better to earn one’s bread as a farmhand, and live, than to be a corpse on the bottom of the sea, eaten by whales and other sea-faring monsters.

Karl Oskar wanted to emigrate because he felt responsibility for his children; Kristina wanted to remain at home for the same reason.

And what did he know about the children’s lot in the foreign country? Had someone there written him that Anna would become a lady, or that Johan would be a gentleman of leisure?

He hadn’t mentioned, either, that they must separate from their parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends—in short, all those they knew. Had he realized they would come to places where every human being they met was a stranger? They might have to live in communities where people were ill-natured and cruel; they were to live in a land where they would be unable to speak one word of the language, unable to ask a single soul for a drink of water if they needed it; where they might have to die without their tongues being able to cry for help. In such a land they would wander about like changelings, alien and lost. Had he never thought that their life might be lonely and bleak?

If she moved so far away she might never be able to return home; she might never see her nearest and dearest again; never meet parents, brothers and sisters. At once she would lose them all, and even though they lived they would be dead to her; they would be alive and yet dead.

True enough, things had gone backwards for them and they had had bad luck. But it might soon change, they might have a good year, they might have good fortune. At least they had the necessary food each day, and even though—as it looked for the moment—they might have to starve a bit this winter, they would most likely eat so much the better next year. They weren’t dressed in silk and satin, of course, but at least they were able to cover their bodies and keep their children warm. Surely they would gain their sufficiency at home in future as they had in the past, as other people did.

All wise and thoughtful men whose advice he might seek would answer him as she had.

Kristina wanted to remain at home.

—4—

Through many autumnal evenings, while busy with their respective handiwork before the fire, the husband and wife in Korpamoen exchanged their divergent views on this decision which would determine their future. Karl Oskar held out the prospect of new advantages and possibilities through emigration; Kristina saw only drawbacks. When she came to the end of her objections, she always had this argument to fall back on: “If only someone we know had emigrated before. But none in these parts has ever gone.”

His answer was always the same: “Let us be the first; someone must be first, in everything.”

“And you’re willing to shoulder the responsibility?”

“Yes. Someone must be responsible, in all undertakings.”

She knew her husband by now: he had never relinquished what once he had decided upon, and hitherto he had always had his will, defying her and his parents. But this time he must fall in with her; this time she would not give in; this time
he
must change his mind.

She spoke to Nils and Märta: they must help her to dissuade Karl Oskar from this dangerous project.

But the parents only felt sorry for their foolhardy son and could give his wife no assistance. Nils said: Ever since Karl Oskar was able to button up his trousers alone in the outhouse, he had never asked advice or help from his parents. He would persist even more stubbornly if his father and mother tried to influence him.

Kristina began to realize that this time more than ever Karl Oskar knew what he wanted. And so did she.

—5—

After the drought and crop failure came winter now, and famine. The summer had been short, had died in its youth; the winter would last so much longer with its starvation.

The sheriff’s carriage was seen more often on the roads. His errands concerned the poorest farms, and the carriage remained long at the gates. The sheriff’s horses were seldom in their stalls this winter: they were tied to gateposts, waiting for their master, who had much to do inside the houses; the horses were covered by blankets but still cold: they had to wait so long.

“Hurry up and hide your mittens!

The sheriff comes to take each pittance.”

Even before the snow had set in, little children could be seen along the roads, pale, with sunken cheeks, their running noses blue. Once arrived at a farm, they didn’t go to the main entrance; they went to the refuse pile near the kitchen door, where they remained awhile, scratching in the debris, searching. Then they went inside the house but stayed close to the door. The boys bowed, the girls would curtsy. With their forefingers they would try to dry their noses; then they would stand there, in the corner near the door, silent, timid.

They had no errand. They had already brought their message to anyone who looked closely: the mute testimony of hunger.

Parents sent their children begging, ashamed to be seen themselves. To the small ones, begging was no shame. For wretched, starving children begging was a natural occupation, the only one they were able to perform, their only help.

Perhaps some time might elapse before anyone in the house paid notice to the unknown children, huddling in their corner at the door. Perhaps the house folk sat at table; then the children waited until all had eaten, inhaling the smell of food, the savory odor of boiled potatoes, beef soup, fried pork. They stood there watching, their eyes growing big, their nostrils extended. The longer the meal lasted, the bigger grew their nostrils, and sometimes it happened, when they had stood there a long time, smelling the food, that one of them might faint and fall to the floor.

At length they would be spoken to, then they would ask if they might pick up the herring heads and beef bones which they had seen outside on the refuse pile. The bones could be crushed to get the marrow which their mother would boil to soup. And if there was something for the refuse pile in the house, might they have it? It could be used at home. Father and Mother had taught them what to say.

The parents had told them not to ask too much. They must beg for such as the people in the house had no use for themselves; they must not boldly ask for bread. For he who asked least often obtained most. But if they sometimes happened to receive a slice of bread, they would gulp it immediately; Father and Mother must never know.

The children trudged along, sucking their salt herring heads, dragging their bundles of clean-gnawed bones. They went to the next farm, searched the next refuse pile; no one snubbed them when they came inside and asked for herring heads which they saw glittering outside.

The small children were famine’s pure witnesses. No one had the heart to hurl at them the word which adults feared: Shame!

Each one was supposed to beg in the parish where he lived. But those who felt ashamed would rather go to distant parishes, would rather beg from unknown people. The hunger tore and dug in stomach and bowels, but the humiliation of begging dug itself into the crevices of the soul.