The Emigrants Read Online Free PDF Page A

sufficient for the parents’ maintenance. Karl Oskar’s obligation to them was a debt on the farm which he must continue to pay as long as they lived; and Nils was only fifty-one years of age, Märta forty-eight. It was hardly a farm that Karl Oskar had taken over—it was debts to pay, with interest. But debt could be blotted out through work, and so he did not worry: he knew how to work.
    Thus life continued in Korpamoen: Nils and Märta moved into the little spare room where they were to live out their years; Kristina arrived with her dowry chest and took Märta’s place. It was a young farm wife who moved in. But with her own hands she had stitched the bridal cover which she now, the first evening, spread over the nuptial bed. It was the blue of cornflowers, and Märta had said it was nice; Kristina was proud.
    Karl Oskar was pleased that his mother and wife could live in harmony; otherwise they might have caused each other great irritation. The contract stated that his mother had the right to cook in the kitchen and bake in the big bake oven; had they been unfriendly they could have been in each other’s way in every corner.
    But one day Kristina was discovered by her mother-in-law in the threshing barn, where she was playing in a swing which she had secretly hung from the rafters. Märta excused it and said nothing; Kristina was still a child in her ways, with a desire for play still in her body. It was peculiar, however, that Kristina would want to play with a swing since she had once fallen from one, injuring her knee. Besides, the wild play did not suit a married woman. Luckily no outsider saw her in the barn, hence no rumors spread in the neighborhood.
    There was, however, something in regard to Kristina which Nils and Märta did not like: on her mother’s side she was related to descendants of Åke Svensson, the founder of the Åkian sect. Her mother was Åke’s niece. And her uncle, Danjel Andreasson, was owner of Kärragärde, the meeting place for the Åkians in Ljuder. Of course, more than fifty years had elapsed since the instigator of this heresy, the troublemaker from Östergöhl, had died in Danvik’s asylum. As far as was generally known, nothing had survived in Kärragärde of the horrible Åkianist contagion. But the original ill feeling toward the founder had been so deeply rooted among a great many of the parishioners that it still survived—kinfolk of Åke Svensson did not brag about their relationship.
    Nils and Märta said nothing to their daughter-in-law, but one day they did broach the question to Karl Oskar: “Do you know your wife is related to Åke of Östergöhl?”
    “I’m aware of it—and I defy anyone to hold it against her.”
    There was nothing more to be said. Märta and Nils only hoped that Kristina’s kinship with the Åkian founder wasn’t generally known in the village. In Korpamoen it was never mentioned again.
    —4—
    Early every weekday morning Nils emerged from the spare room, hobbling along on his crutches, slowly reaching his old workbench outside in the woodshed, where he remained through the day. He cut spokes for wagon wheels, he made rakes, and handles for axes and scythes. He could still use plane and chisel; his hands were in good health, and their dexterity remained. He taught Karl Oskar what he could of this handicraft.
    During most of the summer days one could find Nils and his tools outside in the yard, where he sat in the shade of an old maple tree. From there he had a good view over the fields with all the piles of stone which his hands had gathered. His twenty-five farming years had indeed left marks; all the heaps of stone and all the stone fences which he had built remained in their places, and no doubt would long remain.
    The invalid was not bitter. His belief was that all things happened according to God’s preordination. It was his conviction that God in the beginning had decided that a stone in his field—on a certain day, at a certain