However small the flower was, it must be a sippa. In both Sweden and America the hepatica was the first flower to appear in spring, and this was a singular discovery for the settlers. The flower grew near a brook in Minnesota, just as in Småland. In some way it seemed to link the two countries, to bring home closer.
Kristina filled a cracked coffee cup with water and put the little bloom on the window ledge: the first message of spring had come to them.
Once more March shook his cap, but this time it was a wet snowfall, soon turning into heavy rain. For a few days the earth was washed with melting snow. The calls of water birds were heard from the lake: this was the second spring message.
The ground was bare, but ice still covered the St. Croix River. Robert went about in a dream, waiting. During the nights he lay awake in his bed, listening to the changing sounds in his left ear. He could hear one sound that impatiently called him away from here, he could hear the muffled roar of a mighty water which as yet ran under the winter’s icy roof but soon would burst into open daylight and swell in its spring flow; it would bring a vessel with eagle feathers on the bow, a ship to carry him away. Soon he would travel downstream on that great water which was forever wandering on to the sea: Robert was waiting for the Red Wing of St. Louis.
Karl Oskar and Kristina were waiting for the same boat: they were waiting for a letter from Sweden.
A year would soon have passed since they had left the homeland, and as yet they had not heard one word from their parents and families.
Karl Oskar had written a letter to Sweden last summer, and another last fall, and now in spring they waited for an answer. During the fall Robert had written a letter for Kristina to her parents in Duvemåla, and she was now waiting for an answer. When she had learned to read in school, she ought to have asked to be instructed in writing also, then she could now have written herself to her relatives and friends at home. But her father had been of the opinion that a female could make no use of the art of writing — it was always the menfolk who drew up sales contracts, wrote auction records and other important papers. She now deeply regretted having let her father decide for her. But how could she know when going to school as a little girl what she must go through in life? How could she then have imagined that one day she would emigrate to North America? At that time she didn’t even know this land existed! It was only two years ago that she had first heard the name North America.
Karl Oskar was helping Jonas Petter cut fence rails, in order to earn a few dollars to enable him to buy food supplies from Mr. Abbott’s store in Taylors Falls. He also helped his neighbors to break in their newly bought oxen, and to build a wagon of wood with oak trundles for wheels, a replica of Anders Månsson’s ox wagon. Having no team, Karl Oskar needed no wagon, but by helping his neighbors he gathered knowledge that would be useful when he made his own.
Danjel’s first journey with his new team and wagon was when he drove Ulrika and her daughter to Stillwater, where Elin was to seek work. He drove on a new road which the lumber company had cleared through the forest during the past winter. Ulrika returned to the settlement without her daughter, and a few days later she walked to Ki-Chi-Saga and related to Kristina what had taken place on their journey to Stillwater.
Elin had remained in town as maid to an upper-class American family. Pastor Jackson had found her a position with one of the richest men in his congregation, a high lord who ruled the lumber company. Elin was to receive eight dollars a month besides food and lodging, and all she had to do was wash dishes, scrub floors, and do laundry. She would not be called on to do a single outside chore, not even carry in water and wood. This was quite different from Sweden, where the maids had to do the menfolk’s chores as well, and were paid one daler a month. Here not even half as much work was required — yet her wages were twenty times as high! For eight dollars made about twenty daler.
Ulrika praised God Who had helped her and her daughter to America, and next to the Lord she praised Pastor Jackson who had negotiated the position for Elin.
On this visit Ulrika had been able to speak with Pastor Jackson. She had understood about half of the words he said, and he had understood a little more than half of her words. For the rest they had guessed, and nearly always guessed right. The Glad One was quick-witted and learned easily, she had picked up so many English expressions that Kristina was surprised. She herself had learned hardly a single word yet.
But Ulrika was bold and resourceful, she talked to every American she met. She was often spoken to by American menfolk who — as menfolk will — let their eyes rest on an attractive woman. In this way she had opportunity to practice the foreign tongue. Because of her shapely body she learned English faster than women who were spoken to less often. She told Kristina she was already dreaming in English, and in her dreams men spoke whole long sentences in English to her. But it still happened that she dreamed wrong about some words.
Jonas Petter had gossiped that unmarried Ulrika of Västergöhl had a new suitor, Samuel Nöjd, the fur trader from Dalcarlia. Kristina now asked if the gossip were true.
“Yes. Nöjd has proposed.”
“He too! And you have answered him?”
“He got the same answer as Månsson. And the same comfort!”
Ulrika explained: She was just, she treated all her suitors alike. Here in America all people should be treated alike since there weren’t four classes of people as there were in Sweden, but only one class, a human class. Samuel Nöjd had offered her a home in St. Paul, where he intended to open a store for meat — sausages, hams, steaks, and such. He was going to give up his fur trapping. But she had never liked the Dalcarlian, nothing was ever right for him, he complained wherever he lived, complained of the food and houses and people. That was why she had given a new name to the pelt hunter; in Swedish his name meant Samuel Satisfied, she called him Samuel Mis-Nöjd, Samuel Dissatisfied. If she married him, he would soon be dissatisfied and complain of her too. Nor did she think he was a desirable man for bed play. He acted like a man, but he liked to live in dirt, he didn’t keep himself clean, he stank at a yard’s distance. He stank of old slaughter, he smelled of fat, blood, and entrails. All his work had to do with slaughter, skinning animals, tanning their hides. She wouldn’t mind working in his store in St. Paul — she had heard two thousand people lived in that city — and she would willingly sell his meat and sausage and ham at great profit. But she would not in her marriage bed have a husband who stank like an entrail slinger.
No, she would never become Mrs. Samuel Nöjd, she had thanked him and said no to the offer.
“I wonder who your next suitor will be,” said Kristina.
“I’ve had one since Nöjd,” Ulrika reported. “That Norwegian in Stillwater made a try for me.”
Thomassen, the little Norwegian shoemaker whom they had met last summer, had dropped in at Pastor Jackson’s last time she was there. He had asked if she were married, the man obviously meant business. Ulrika had never seen so lustful a man, he was so hot he had to walk stooped over. But he was such a little man, so spindly, she might have trouble finding him in bed. And before he had time to propose she had made it clear to him that she had no desire to become a shoemaker’s wife in Stillwater. If she were to marry any man outside her own countrymen, then he must be an American. There were not many Swedes to choose from in Minnesota, nearly all the unmarried ones had already proposed to her, so she guessed she would be forced to marry an American.
Jonas Petter had said to Kristina that Ulrika of Västergöhl was now the most sought-after woman in the whole St. Croix Valley. And Kristina answered that this was not surprising: Every unmarried man was looking for a wife, and Ulrika had the fortune to be shaped in such a way that she attracted and tempted menfolk. She was good-looking, still young, and looked younger than she was; she had a healthy, blooming appearance, and since arriving in America she had blossomed out in both soul and body. She was capable in all she did, she cooked good food, she was companionable, always in good temper and high spirits. No one had ever seen the Glad One weep. Those who knew her well could not imagine her shedding tears. Who wouldn’t wish such a wife?