Ulrika was not as close to him as she was to Kristina. The former parish whore still had many characteristics he found difficult to accept. But over the years he had learned to value her more and more. And regardless of who the person was, no outsider could come to him and dictate whom he could admit to his house and whom he must exclude. They would open their door for whomever they wished.
“No neighbor shall make decisions for us!”
After Kristina had calmed down a little, she began to think she must not be unjust toward her neighbors; surely only the best of intentions had caused them to call today. Uncle Petrus was perfectly honest in his concern for them: his talk to her had been sincere and fatherly.
But Karl Oskar replied, why must people eternally worry about other people’s souls? Why not be satisfied with the care of their own? Olausson was a thrifty and capable settler, and his advice and examples were often worth following. A man like him was needed among the immigrants: he was interested in communal matters and got things started. The only trouble was that he tried to manage people without being asked, and against their will.
“Like Uncle Danjel, he has been punished at home for his Bible explanations,” reminded Kristina.
“Exactly — in Sweden Olausson himself was a sectarian, yet here in America he can’t stand them!”
“It’s very strange; how can he be so intolerant out here?”
Karl Oskar volunteered that Petrus Olausson had become so warmly attached to religious freedom that he no longer allowed it to anyone but himself.
Well, the pleasant neighborliness with the Helsinge family seemed to be over. The Olaussons had been shown the door and were not likely to return. But new neighbors had arrived, and more would come, by and by. The first settlers at Ki-Chi-Saga need no longer live as hermits. However, said Karl Oskar, he would rather live without neighbors than have to fight with them.
For a long time Kristina continued to think about Uncle Petrus, this strange man. In Sweden he had suffered punishment and persecution for his belief, in America he himself persecuted people who believed differently. Could anyone understand this kind of person?
How could people who had sprung from the same Creator and belonged to the same race be so intolerant of each other? It was a shame. Here in these great wild forests a small group of people had settled; they came from the same country and spoke the same language; all of them had to begin life anew, in a new land; they were poor, dependent on themselves, and needed each other’s company; they lived so far apart that the distance between their houses in itself kept them apart. Must they now also close their doors against each other because different churches and different faiths existed in this country? Must they separate even more — and because of religion? Because of Christ’s gospel, which preached that all people were brethren?
Was it impossible to live in unity and enjoy each other because of one’s faith?
If any people in this world needed to live harmoniously it was the small group of Swedish settlers in the St. Croix Valley. It must be God’s intention that they be friends.
IX. HEMLANDET COMES TO THE IMMIGRANTS
— 1—
Early one morning in the first week of May the anticipated increase in the Duvemåla family took place. Kristina escaped the dreaded twin birth; she was delivered of a girl. The evening before, she had sent a message to Ulrika, who had dispatched Miss Skalrud to aid her. The Norwegian midwife arrived at the cabin a couple of hours too late, but remained for a few days while Kristina stayed in bed. Never before had she felt so weak and worn out after a birth.
Shortly before her delivery Pastor Erland Törner had returned from Illinois, and he had now resumed his pastoral duties in the St. Croix Valley, where he traveled from place to place among his countrymen, as he had done the year before. He came one Sunday to Duvemåla and christened Karl Oskar’s and Kristina’s newborn baby; with a minister available they had no excuse for delaying the baptism.
This time the mother alone had chosen the name for the child. The little girl was named Anna Evelina Ulrika, the first two names after Kristina’s own mother — Anna Evelina Andersdotter. But the girl was to be called Ulrika.
By giving her daughter Ulrikas name Kristina had in her own way cleansed her home, which the Olaussons considered unclean and degraded by Mrs. Henry O. Jackson of Stillwater.
The neighbors had said: do not open your door to this woman! She had replied, and let them know where she stood: she welcomed an Ulrika who would be a permanent part of the household.
— 2—
Great things were happening at Ki-Chi-Saga this year. During the spring and summer of 1854 the first great wave of Swedish immigrants washed over the St. Croix Valley. They came in large groups, by the hundreds, and the population of the valley was doubled many times over.
The settlers began to arrive as soon as the ice had melted and the steamboats could ply the river. Already in March and April the first arrivals found their way to the big lake. They had emigrated from Småland, Helsingland, and Östergötland. Larger groups came later in the summer, mostly Smålanders. One group of fourteen families claimed lands along the shores. But a great many of these immigrants settled in the eastern part of the valley, where there were passable roads and more easily accessible claims.
All the claims suitable for farming around Ki-Chi-Saga — the fertile meadows along the lake slopes — were now taken. The newcomers put up their log cabins along bays and sounds, on jutting points and tongues of land. On the surveyor’s map, obtained from the land office, the Chippewa word Ki-Chi-Saga had been changed to Chisago Lake. The metamorphosis of the lake had even reached its name. And the thirty-six squares, or sections, around the lake which had been surveyed for settling were now referred to as Chisago Township on maps and deeds. This in turn was part of a larger square, comprising thirty-six square miles. Each section was divided into four claims; thus the whole district contained 144 homesteads. There was still room for more settlers in Chisago Township.
The newcomers told of an immense emigration from Sweden to come next year. Thousands of people were planning to leave, and it was expected that this horde would head for Minnesota to settle among their countrymen.
So the Indian lake Ki-Chi-Saga was renamed. The heathen water was christened by the white tillers and divided into squares and the name written down on deeds and entered on records. The nomad people were pushed farther and farther away from the forests where they had hunted and the waters where they had fished. Their fires had gone out, their camping sites lay unoccupied.
But on the western shore, high above Ki-Chi-Saga’s surface, the Indian still stood watch, the red-brown sandstone cliff with its image of a savage, still rose like a heaven-high, unconquerable bastion. The Indians immense head was turned to the east; with empty, black, cliff-cave eyes he watched day and night over his old hunting grounds and fishing waters. Each spring his crown of thickets turned green, but with each spring he saw more trespassers arrive. And his eyes remained fixed, as if mirroring an inconsolable sorrow in the dark depth of the cliff. From the east they came, this race of intruders, and the high watchman spied forever in that direction from where the land’s new inhabitants approached in ever increasing numbers.
One race wandered into the land, and the other wandered away. But the Indian at Ki-Chi-Saga remained at his watch, looking in the direction of the rising sun.
— 3—