This the man could explain: a person’s prayers were heard only when asking for something good and useful. And it was good for neither her nor him that they slept in different beds. Why should they lie apart and suffer in two separate beds when they could enjoy themselves together in one bed? So now they could both see what God’s finger was pointing at: two miserable creatures in an empty wilderness; she missed a man, he a woman, and their Creator had taken pity on them and had brought them together for comfort and joy.
So the woman stayed with the man, and in his bed nothing was left undone during the night.
Next evening he in turn went to her, only to meet a horrible disappointment. She would no longer give herself to him. She was deeply repentant and had decided never to repeat what had taken place the night before. And now she wanted, she insisted, yes, she demanded, that he should help her carry out her decision. She wanted him to join her in prayer for strength for both of them — first and foremost for her — to withstand in future their unclean thoughts and desires.
The man was greatly disturbed at this demand. He realized what great danger they might be in — the danger of their prayer being heard. Perhaps not so much when it came to strength for himself; he didn’t anticipate any change there. But he knew what could happen to a woman’s strength. Women were always on and off, back and forth, in between.
He made excuses: people must not pray for things that weren’t good for them. And it wasn’t good for them with separate beds. And too persistent and stubborn prayers were against the Almighty’s will.
But the woman refused to budge. He was a fellow criminal in a sin she had committed last night, it was his duty to help her stand fast. If he refused she would no longer remain in his house.
Thus he was forced to comply. He prayed with her, although without great fervor. The words came from his lips rather than from his heart, which was secretly sad over them.
Time passed; they lived apart as before. Neither one of them referred to that single good night when they had shared one bed. As far as the woman was concerned she seemed to have stricken it from her memory, and the man sensed it would not be wise to remind her of it.
Then one evening after he had gone to bed his door opened — the woman had come to him again. All her prayers had been in vain, her great weakness was upon her again, she could not resist it.
The man offered her all the comfort he was capable of. And that night too they left nothing undone on his couch.
Again the woman regretted her act and her weakness and insisted it would not be repeated. And he said nothing, only waited in patience. Now he knew she would be back in his bed again, as indeed she was after the expected delay.
By and by a regular order was established in their lives, with two bed communions a week. This satisfied the man. And to the woman the in-between-time of repentance was indispensable. She admitted that repentance to her was a bliss she could not do without. For the peace of her soul she needed the assurance that her sin was forgiven each time.
Luckily, she had passed a woman’s fertile years so they need not fear a pregnancy. Their bed play need never be known. People would have censored them severely if they were discovered. But only their Creator knew how things were between them, and they relied on his silence.
Thus everything turned out well with the man and the woman. They had both found the peace they sought in the New World, and the woman could besides enjoy the sweet repentance she felt after each new fall.
Thus this man and this woman lived happily together, and if they weren’t dead yet, they were probably still alive, concluded Jonas Petter.
Karl Oskar looked askance at the storyteller after he had finished his tale. He remembered a Sunday morning last winter when he had happened to have an errand at Jonas Petter’s house. He had knocked on the door but no one had opened it. Perhaps they had already gone out. To make sure he had looked in through the window and had seen Jonas Petter and Swedish Anna sound asleep in the bed under the window.
Karl Oskar had turned away and walked over to Danjel’s to visit for an hour. When he returned Jonas Petter was outside the house, inspecting the window.
So Jonas Petter had told this story to make it clear that he relied on the silence of the man who had seen him with Swedish Anna. Only Karl Oskar and the Creator were in the know.
Anders Månsson, however, had listened with the expression of one hearing a wonderful fairy tale. Jonas Petter’s stories struck him as being completely unreal, but he always listened intently and asked for more.
“That’s a good story, Jonas Petter! How can you make up such yarns?”
It was time for the men to resume their work on the roof in the humid heat of the Minnesota summer. As they began to nail down the shakes again, Månsson said, “There’s a small part of truth in that story — that part about the men-folks’ loneliness out here. It’s like a hot iron right through the heart, this terrifying loneliness in Minnesota Territory.”
The storyteller kept his silence. And the third roofer thought that never to a living being, not even to his wife, would he betray what he knew of the man and the woman who had been brought to share their bed through loneliness in the St. Croix Valley.
VI. STARKODDER THE OX
— 1—
To plant and to seed, to harvest and to thresh, that was the order of the chores from spring to fall, the cycle of labor, year in, year out. Karl Oskar Nilsson had cut, harvested, and threshed his third crop from the clearing. His old Swedish almanac contained blank pages between the months, intended for a farmer’s notations; on these he had written down his harvests in America:
Anno 1851 I harvested 18 bussels
Rye, 11 bussels Barley and 32 bussels
potatoes, all ample measure;
Ditto 1852 harvested 24 bussels Rye,
16 and a half bussels Barley and 48
bussels potatoes, ditto measure.
Now he continued on the same page — between the harvest month of August and the autumn month of September:
Ditto 1853 I harvested 38 bussels
Rye, 26 bussels Barley and 69 bussels
potatoes, ditto measure;
He was getting along on his claim; his third crop was more than double his first.
What he missed more than anything was a team of his own. For three whole years he and Kristina had been their own beasts of burden. How much hadn’t they carried and dragged during that time! They had carried home all their necessities, trudged long roads with heavy loads. From Taylors Falls to Ki-Chi-Saga, they had carried their burdens in their hands, in their arms, on their shoulders, on their backs. They had trudged and shuffled along, and lugged and carried and pulled, until their backs were bent and their arms stretched beyond their normal length. Out here they had indeed undertaken labor which in Sweden was relegated to animals.