The children peeked in through the kitchen door while Karl Oskar and Kristina sat eating with the minister. To the three oldest he had been their teacher and they had great respect for him; they were unusually silent and well behaved as long as this caller was in the house.
In the beginning Pastor Törner had acted as teacher for the Swedish children as well as minister for the congregation, but after great effort the parish had last year managed to get a teacher from Sweden, a Mr. Johnson — he was quite particular that they call him Mister. He had brought good recommendations from previous positions in the new country, but childless parents had not been anxious to share the burden of the salary for the new teacher — which would indeed have been unjust — and thus the parents of the schoolchildren alone paid him. The teacher was remunerated according to the number of children he taught, receiving one dollar a month for each child. A room had been prepared for him in the school building and he was also given free firewood. The parish contributed ten bushels of rye flour a year, and thus he had his bread free.
Besides instruction in the Christian Lutheran religion, Swedish, and English, the settlers’ children were taught writing, arithmetic, history, and geography, and Mr. Johnson had proved to be a competent teacher; he had graduated from high institutions in Sweden. But after he had been here for some time it was discovered that he drank. According to the children he sometimes told funny stories to them during school hours instead of going on with the lesson. Once he had danced in the school, jumped about, and sung for the children, and it had definitely not been psalms he had sung, either. He had apparently been drunk. Some parents had become greatly disturbed and insisted the parish must get rid of Mr. Johnson. Other parents would rather have a drunkard than no teacher at all. At Karl Oskar’s suggestion the parish council had deferred the question. Now he wished to ask Pastor Törner’s opinion.
“Should we keep the schoolmaster?”
Mr. Johnson did drink in excess, said the pastor, but there was no evidence that his lamentable weakness had made him neglect his duties. During this first year he had taught the children well. They would probably not be able to find a teacher of Johnson’s ability to replace him. The salary was not high enough to attract a graduate teacher from Sweden. As long as the teacher’s drinking did not hurt the children, Pastor Törner thought they ought to keep him on.
The Swedish teacher was no longer a young man, and the pastor had spoken seriously to him and made him promise not to take any whiskey until after school hours. Then he would have a whole night to sober up before his next day of teaching. He hoped Mr. Johnson would keep his promise.
For his three children of school age — Johan, Marta, and Harald — Karl Oskar paid the teacher three dollars a month. Next spring when Dan — their first little American — began school, Karl Oskar would have to pay four dollars a month.
He said that Mr. Johnson had a good head, but it was too bad he spent his salary for drinks, which undermined and ruined a person, body and soul. Among the settlers they had an example to warn them: Anders Månsson of Taylors Falls. He had several times this last summer come drunk to church.
Yet Pastor Törner felt that less drinking took place among the Chisago settlers than in other new settlements. And concerning morality, during his time among them only two illegitimate children had been born, both of whom had been begotten in other Swedish settlements.
Pastor Törner praised the delicious goose several times, and Kristina guessed that God himself must have directed the bird in front of Karl Oskar’s gun yesterday to give her this opportunity to treat their pastor to a farewell dinner.
After the meal, coffee was served, and Pastor Törner distributed gifts to each one of the six children. Happiest of all was Harald, who received a Swedish book—First Reader for Beginners—which the pastor had sent for from the old country. The pastor had instructed Harald for a few months and he remembered what a good head the boy had.
“He reads Swedish like a minister!” said the mother proudly. “As soon as he has read a piece once he can repeat it by heart!”
The father added that they had sent for the Little Catechism from Hemlandet and the boy had learned it by heart in a few evenings. And when he found anything printed in English he read it as well as an American.
Pastor Törner looked from Harald to Karl Oskar.
“Of all your children, this one particularly takes after his father.”
“You mean he has my nose!” smiled the settler.
“His nose is assuredly the most apparent likeness!”
Harald was the only one among the children who had inherited the Nilsa-nose, this enormous rutabaga that disfigured Karl Oskar’s face. But there was a belief in the family that its bearer would have luck in life. When the children teased Harald because of his nose, Karl Oskar would comfort him by saying: “Remember that your father’s nose was the best luck he ever had!”
And now the father said to the pastor that he hoped Harald would propagate this rutabaga in his own children, and to their children and children’s children, so that the big nose, a hundred years from now, might decorate a great many American faces as a living memorial to the Nilsa family. In that way, perhaps, he would set his mark on America.
— 2—
The new-timbered Swedish church had been built in the spacious oak grove on the peninsula opposite Nordberg’s Island, a mile and a half from Karl Oskar’s place. From the center of the roof a steeple had been raised whose ever-narrowing timbers rose upward fully thirty feet toward the sky. The builders had gone to a great deal of trouble with this spire, the timbers carefully hewn and planed, but now, seen from the ground, it looked as if it were made of ordinary fence posts. Thirty feet seemed to diminish into a puny distance up there; it was but a snail’s pace on the road to the firmament vaulting so high above their new church. From the ground, thirty feet seemed like a pitiful attempt at a steeple. But none of the builders had raised a church before, none had put up a spire over a Lord’s house. And God must realize that these were awkward builders who had raised his church at the old Indian lake, and therefore God must be forbearing. But in any case this was the first Lutheran church in the St. Croix Valley, and even if the steeple rose only thirty feet into the air it pointed the way to the Lord’s heaven.
Even though services were being conducted in the new church it was far from finished inside. There were only a few pews and most of the participants must stand during the sermons; church bell and organ were missing, for the parish was short of cash. Concerning the color of the exterior paint for the building, a long-drawn-out argument had arisen among the parishioners.
Three different groups each wanted a different color for the new Swedish church. The first group wanted the church washed red to remind them of Christ’s blood and wounds which had redeemed Man from eternal condemnation and effected atonement with God. The second group wanted to see the temple walls green as grass, the color of sweet hope, leading their thoughts to the eternal joy of heaven, helping them to find comfort in the Father. Finally, the third group wanted to paint the church white, the color of purity, innocence, and angels’ wings. This would always remind them of Christ’s saying: Even though your sins be blood-red they shall be washed as white as snow.
For a year and a half the arguments had gone on among the reds, greens, and whites. Many stormy meetings were held, long speeches and heated arguments were heard. Pastor Törner regretted this disunity but he himself took no definite stand. He tried to calm the stirred-up emotions by pointing out that their salvation in no way was dependent on the color of their church. In the end the third group gained a majority, mainly because the parish business manager, Petrus Olausson, was the leader of that group. Consequently the new church had been painted white.