“An excellent bed for me!” said the young pastor.
But Kristina would not give in: they could not allow a man of the Church to sleep on the floor, in the fireplace corner, as beggars and hoboes did at home. They could not remain in their own bed and send God’s anointed to the shame-corner. It would be degrading to the Church; they would commit a grave sin. No, their best bed, their own, must be given to the guest. And she spread a clean sheet on it.
Their guest explained that he really was not a churchman, since he no longer held a position in the Church, but as their bed was offered him with a good heart he would accept.
And Pastor Törner undressed and lay down in the settler couple’s bed, where he fell into a deep sleep within a few minutes.
“Poor man,” said Kristina. “He was completely worn out.”
And so they themselves again went to bed. This time they lay on the hay mattress, in the chimney corner, while the minister from Sweden snored heavily in their bed. Karl Oskar still wondered about him; he had given up a good position in the homeland and was wandering here through the wilderness, without food or shelter. Otherwise, his talk and general behavior seemed to indicate that he had his senses intact.
Kristina felt a blessed assurance in her heart; a stranger had come to them in the night and promised her the Lord’s Supper. One night in early spring she had in her anxiety directed a question to the Almighty: What should they do about their sins here in their isolation? What must they do to save their souls?
Tonight she had been given an answer.
— 3—
Before Pastor Törner awakened the following morning, Kristina had found thread and a needle and mended the torn places in his coat and the hole in the seat of his pants. To have a minister walk about with pants that had a hole in the behind was a disgrace to the Church which she must at once erase. Then she brushed and cleaned his muddy clothes.
When the pastor awoke and put on his suit he hardly recognized it. He praised Kristina: “Give a woman a needle and thread and as much cloth as she needs and she can turn herself into a queen and her home into a palace!”
Kristina smiled. She was walking about in such old rags it would be a long time before she looked like a queen. But it would be a shame if a woman with a needle and thread couldn’t baste together a few holes in a garment.
After breakfast Pastor Törner made ready to continue on his way. He opened his black leather bag, which contained a flask of communion wine, a small sack of communion bread, a couple of white, newly starched minister’s collars, and a dozen small jars of a remedy for fever and chills. This was quinine and the price for each jar was seventy-five cents. In his bag the pastor carried remedies for both soul and body.
Another minister from Sweden, Pastor Hasselquist in Galesburg, Illinois, had come across the medicine and sent it along by Pastor Törner for those Swedish settlements where fevers and chills constantly plagued the people. Pastor Hasselquist had also hoped his colleague might earn a little by selling the medicine. But the settlers had little cash, and most of the time he had to leave the jars without payment. Many of them needed quinine for their bodies as much as they needed communion wine for their souls. He presented Kristina with a jar of the remedy as a small reward for bed and board.
He promised to return within a short time and set the date for the communion in their house. But first he wanted to call on the other Swedish settlers in the St. Croix Valley.
Karl Oskar walked a bit on the road with Pastor Törner to show him the way to their nearest neighbor, Petrus Olausson from Helsingland.
Gradually it stopped raining, and in the late morning the sun came out. Kristina picked up the mattress she and Karl Oskar had slept on; the cover seemed moist to her, perhaps it had got wet when Karl Oskar went to fetch the hay, and she wanted to dry it. She carried the mattress to the barn and emptied it near the door. She had barely finished when she let out a piercing scream. Something that looked like a dry tree branch had come out of the mattress with the hay, but she had paid scant attention to it; now she saw that it was a wriggling, living thing she had shaken out.
Karl Oskar, who was just returning, was near the stoop when he heard his wife’s cries from the barn. He ran to her as fast as he could.
“A snake! Karl Oskar, a snake!”
Kristina shrieked as if someone had stuck a knife into her. She stood with the empty mattress cover in her hands, staring at the hay wads inside the door.
“What happened? Have you hurt yourself?”
She pointed in front of her: “That thing. . it was in the mattress. . in the hay. .!”
Karl Oskar, standing beside her, saw in the hay a snake, extended to its full length. It was light gray with brown stripes and thick rings on its tail. A rattler!
The sight of the reptile had frightened Kristina so, she was unable to move from the spot. Karl Oskar grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. “Get out of his reach! He might strike!”
He pushed her still farther away, while he looked for something to kill it with. “Be careful! The snake might throw himself at you!”
As yet he had never killed a rattler. He had seen such snakes, curled up in low places, but none had attacked him and he had not disturbed them. They were not so easy to dispatch as the snakes in Sweden which only crawled on the ground. Rattlers were more dangerous — they could raise themselves on their tails and throw themselves at a person as fast as an arrow from a bow. But this evil thing must not escape; if it crawled under the barn they would live in eternal fear of it.
Under the oak at the side of the barn was a pile of fence posts. He grabbed one, and took down the scythe which hung in the tree. He held the scythe in front of him in his left hand and the post in his right. Thus armed he stole slowly, with bent back, toward the reptile at the barn door.
The rattler was still lying quite still in the hay; it seemed drowsy in the sun.
“Karl Oskar! Don’t go so close! Be careful!”
It was Kristina’s turn to urge caution. She had found a rake which she held in front of her; couldn’t she help him kill the nasty creature?
Karl Oskar was a few steps from the snake when the animal raised its head. Its tongue, red and shining like a flower pistil, shot out of its jaws — the reptile was showing its stingers where death lurked. And now the rattling sound was heard from the tail rings — the warning signal; the rattler had begun to coil to throw itself against its enemy.
Karl Oskar jumped at the same time as the reptile; he threw himself forward at the very last second. With the scythe he met the snake halfway, pressed the back of the scythe against the snake, and pushed it to the ground. But the wriggling monster fought wildly and furiously, twisting and turning itself under the pressure, throwing its head back and forth until the scythe steel tinkled. The tongue’s red pistil shot forth, it hissed and sizzled like a boiling kettle. Against the soft hay the flexible snake body with its sinuous motions struggled to get away from the scythe-hold.
Now the monstrous creature raised its head against the barn sill, and this gave Karl Oskar an opportunity to use his second implement; with a few heavy blows of the post he crushed the rattlers’ head against the sill.
“The Lord is protecting you, Karl Oskar! You risked your life!”
Kristina stood behind him, the rake in her hand, her lips blue-white, every limb trembling.
“Don’t be afraid! I’ve killed him now!”
Karl Oskar lifted the rattler with the point of the scythe; the crushed head hung limp. Then he stretched out the snake on the ground to its full length. The first rattler he had killed was also the biggest one he had seen. It was over five feet long and had seven rattles. He had heard that this kind of snake got its first rattle at the age of three and from then on one each year; this one must be an old devil.