She was about to explain to Petrus a little further who this woman was, but Ulrika stood up and took the words out of her mouth: “I’m Mrs. Henry Jackson, a good friend of Mrs. Nilsson. I gather you’re one of the new neighbors?”
“That’s right, Mrs. Jackson.”
Petrus Olausson glanced at Ulrika sharply; tall, ample around the waist, she stood there displaying her big belly. The farmer’s eyes roamed over her body; the sight of the pregnant woman seemed to affect him uncomfortably.
He turned to Kristina. Tomorrow, on the Lord’s Day, he had invited a few friends among the Swedes for spiritual conversations in his house; he hoped Kristina and her husband would come for the edification of their souls: “We will have a speak-meeting.”
Kristina wanted to go to Olausson’s, but she hesitated. Ulrika intended to stay over Sunday and she felt she could not leave her.
She put a third cup on the table. “Sit down, Petrus! Have a cup of coffee with us.”
Olausson sat down, and as Kristina filled the plate again, he began to talk to Ulrika. The Swedes out here needed to gather for spiritual communion, he told her. Last fall he had built a big barn, which had plenty of room now that his crops had been threshed. He thought they could use this barn for services until they built themselves a church.
“Barns are fine for sermons,” agreed Ulrika. “But you can’t use them in winter.”
Petrus Olausson said that as the Swedes in the valley still had no church, they could hardly be looked upon as devoted users of God’s Holy Word. A formal service every Sunday and at least two sermons during the week were the least a good Lutheran Christian needed; daily prayers, morning, noon, and evening he took for granted, health permitting.
But Ulrika shook her head. “It’s unreasonable to have services that often! God doesn’t expect it!”
Petrus Olausson looked at her, startled.
Ulrika continued. Yes, she was sure God expected moderation in their devotion. A person should never become excessive in spiritual matters. Her husband preached about ten sermons a week, at different places, and it was all he had the strength to do. His journeys over the bad roads wore him out. And neither God nor his flock had any joy from a tired-out priest who came home so bedraggled that he was unable to say his evening prayers or perform his manly duty to his wife.
Olausson’s mouth had dropped open while Ulrika spoke; now he said, “Are you married to a man of the Church, Mrs. Jackson?”
“Yes, that I am.”
“Well, this is a surprise. .”
“It’s the truth — my husband is a priest.”
“Where does he preach?”
“My husband is serving as priest in the American Baptist Church in Stillwater.”
Petrus Olausson’s eyelids twitched violently as if suddenly he had got something in his eye. His lips moved eagerly; he seemed to have words at the tip of his tongue, but only a grunt came out.
He rose like a jack-in-the-box.
Kristina turned from the fire, the coffeepot in her hand. “Sit down, Petrus. I’ve just warmed the coffee. .”
“Thanks! I care not for coffee today!”
“Please, Petrus!”
“I’ll find Nilsson outside — I just wanted to return his auger. .”
He nodded stiffly to Kristina, picked up his hat, and without another look at Ulrika he stomped out of the cabin.
Greatly disturbed, Kristina looked through the window after her neighbor. “What got into him?”
“The man jumped up as if someone stuck an awl in his ass!” laughed Ulrika.
“But he usually acts so friendly. Did he think my coffee was poisoned?”
“Perhaps it was the looks of me he didn’t like.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m thick. But I told him I was married. I have both Christian and legal right to be thick.”
“Nonsense! He didn’t run away because of that.”
“I’ve known pious Lutheran men who detest a woman who dares show herself while pregnant. They hold her unclean — specially when she’s as big as I am.”
Such an explanation Kristina could not accept; their neighbor was indeed pious and hard in his judgments, but he couldn’t detest a woman because she was pregnant. So she worried to herself about Olausson’s strange behavior.
Ulrika, however, brushed it aside.
“Now I want to tell you my errand,” she said. “I’ve come to ask you and Karl Oskar to a party during the Christmas holidays.”
Kristina clapped her hands in joyful surprise. “I don’t believe it! Are you going to give a party?”
Ever since Ulrika’s marriage she had wanted to give a big party for all the Swedes who had emigrated with her from her old parish. It would be a great pleasure to invite her old countrymen to a feast. In Sweden she had never entertained; she was considered too low at home — who would have come? And one couldn’t have a party without guests. But here in America those she invited would come, here she would have guests. And this Christmas feast would be the first party she had ever given.
“But you aren’t going to have a party before the child comes, are you?” asked Kristina.
“Lord no! It will be a christening at the same time; I want to show off my little priest!” And Ulrika caressed her protruding belly: for her childbed she had bespoken Cora Skalrud whom she greatly trusted. All Norwegians she knew in Stillwater and Marine she valued highly. The Norwegians did not play up to upper-class people the way the Swedes did. They had never had any nobility in their country, Miss Skalrud used to say, but were, all of them, born with nobility: no Norwegian would ever give up his inborn right to haughtiness. So the Norwegians walked with straight backs, even in their homeland. But in Sweden, the ceilings were so low that people had to travel all the way to Minnesota to straighten out their backs.
Kristina understood Ulrika perfectly. For years she must have been thinking of this party, of showing her American home to her countrymen, showing them how well things were with her. It would be the crowning event of her rehabilitation. Kristina promised her dear friend that she and Karl Oskar would be most happy to come to Ulrika’s first party.
— 2—
During a dark night in December, eight days before Christmas, the birth took place. Pastor Jackson had to leave his bed in the middle of the night to fetch Miss Cora Skalrud to help his wife. It was over before dawn. The Norwegian woman had been a midwife for twenty-five years and approached her duties with experienced hands. Ulrika was successfully delivered, without other assistance.
The mother lay quietly in her bed regaining her strength, while Miss Skalrud, a strong, resolute woman, fussed with the newborn child, washed and cared for it. Pastor Jackson waited in the living room, into which he had been pushed unceremoniously by Miss Skalrud, not yet aware that all was over.
The midwife was surprised that the mother had not immediately asked the sex of the child. Now she volunteered to Mrs. Jackson that she had borne a girl.
Ulrika raised herself quickly on her elbow. “What are you saying, woman? Did I hear you right?”
“I said, you’ve borne a little girl. .”
“Do you mean to insist that I. .?”
The mother fell back on her pillow. She lay in silent thought for a minute. It had not crossed her mind — she had known in advance the child would be a male. Then she spoke. “Look again!”
The midwife stared at her; was this woman out of her head? Or why didn’t she believe her words concerning the child’s sex? She replied gruffly; perhaps she hadn’t spoken clearly enough? It was a girl she held in her arms.