The Settlers (22 page)

Kristina confided to her guest that she, too, was pregnant again.

Ulrika looked at her compassionately. “I thought you looked kind of pale-faced. But you have such a big household and so much to care for; you should really go barren and empty for a few years.”

It was a nuisance to protect and look after babies out here during the winter, said Kristina. She would never forget all the trouble she had with Dan the first winter. But this time she would bear in May, just the right time for a birth; the little one would come into the world in summer and warmth.

Ulrika looked about the cabin. “It won’t be easy for you with five brats in this little log hut. With five kids to care for you need space to turn around.”

“This is our last winter in the cabin. Karl Oskar has promised to have the new house ready by next fall.”

Kristina only worried, she told her friend, because his plans called for so large a house she was afraid he wouldn’t be able to raise it. It was to be two stories, with rooms both upstairs and downstairs. Everything he undertook was on such a large scale. She could never persuade him to be moderate.

“But he is an extra fine man!” said Ulrika with conviction. “He can use his hands and do everything for himself.”

She added that she had heard how he had managed in the blizzard and saved both Johan’s and his own life by killing the ox while the storm was at its height. The Swedes in the valley were talking about nothing else, and Karl Oskar was said to be both able and ingenious. Ulrika herself knew from earlier experience that he was neither a weakling nor at a loss as to what to do.

“I’m only afraid it’s going to his head,” said Kristina.

Karl Oskar was fearless and undismayed, and never gave up; he insisted it always paid to fight back however hopeless things looked. But he was getting so that he thought he could depend entirely on himself. And to tell the truth, however well he had managed during the blizzard, the saving of the boy was God’s miracle. He himself had frostbitten ears and cheeks, but Johan had not a frozen spot on him, and this was a miracle. What would Karl Oskar have done if the blizzard had continued to rage? Then he couldn’t have got to the boy in time and Johan would have frozen to death inside the ox belly. And that was just what Kristina had told Karl Oskar.

He had insisted that a person in danger had no time to spend on prayers but must try all the tricks he could think of to help himself. Waiting for someone else to do it would bring no result. And Kristina feared that his saving of Johan in the blizzard had had a bad influence on him; he called it his own doing, and this was arrogance. He was getting so big-headed that he relied more on himself than on God.

“Well, it seems at times the Lord wants people to help him a little when he performs his miracles,” said Ulrika.

Karl Oskar was after all one hell of a good man, no one could deny that, she insisted. And he made children one after another; for this he needed no one’s help, either. But this was one activity he ought to curtail. If he rested occasionally from his male duties it would be good for Kristina. But she guessed a man couldn’t hold back what he didn’t hold in his hand.

Someone else was stamping off snow outside, this time the heavy stampings of a man. Petrus Olausson entered the cabin. In his hand he held an enormous auger. He shook hands with Kristina, and looked questioningly at Ulrika. Kristina introduced them. “This is Ulrika from Stillwater, who has come for a visit.”

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.

But Ulrika knew that Miss Skalrud’s eyesight was poor. She had of course held the child too far away from her eyes. Besides, it was still quite dark outside, and their only light was the pale flame of a tallow candle; the midwife was obviously wrong.

“Take the candle and peek closer!”

This was an insult to Cora Skalrud’s professional pride. She replied that in her life she had helped more than a thousand children through the portals of this world—who would know the difference between male and female better than she?

Ulrika sat up in bed. “But you are shortsighted, Skalrud! And you are a stubborn woman because you are Norwegian. Give me the brat and the stump of tallow and let me look for myself!”

Without reply the midwife held the newborn child close to the mothers face and let the candle shine on the wriggling little body. Ulrika looked herself.

“Well, what do you say now?”

Ulrika said nothing. She had sunk down into her bed again.

This child could not become a minister. No woman could be consecrated for pastoral duties.

The midwife remained at the bedside, the child in her arms, reproaching Ulrika. She should be proud to have given life to such an unusually well-shaped girl. Why did she act as if she were disappointed and annoyed? Miss Skalrud had assisted at the births of creatures born blind as kittens, ill-shaped, hare-lipped, one-handed, one-legged, noseless, or crippled changelings. In such cases she could understand if the mother were unhappy and complained. If she had put any such monster in Ulrika’s arms there would have been cause for wailing!

The words rang true to the mother and she asked for the girl. Miss Skalrud was right—she was a beautiful child, a wonderful little bundle. The baby was amazingly well made, perfect in every way.

“Yet a thief for a father!”

“What’s that?”

“And a whore for a mother!”

“Have you lost your mind, woman?”

The midwife was greatly disturbed. She went in to Pastor Jackson to tell him that his wife was successfully delivered, but she added: “Your wife is out of her head. I’m afraid she has childbed fever.”

Pastor Jackson became greatly upset. He immediately sent for Dr. Christoffer Caldwell, a contractor, carpenter, and blacksmith in the town, but first and foremost a capable doctor. He examined Ulrika and pronounced her a woman with the strength of a horse; never had he seen a woman so fully recuperated one hour after a birth.

Ulrika had no childbed fever. After a few days she was up, attending to her usual chores. And when one evening the Baptist congregation offered a prayer of thanks for Mr. and Mrs. Jackson’s newborn child, the pastor expressed his gratitude to the Lord.

But now, at the big Christmas party which Ulrika intended to give, there would be something amiss. She had planned to step forward with a boy-child on her arm and say to her guests: Look at this little one! He will be a man of the Church! He will stand in his surplice before the altar! He will climb the pulpit in full regalia! He shall be as important a man as Dean Brusander back in Ljuder, Sweden. And she who has carried this Lord’s servant in her womb for nine months is Ulrika of Västergöhl, the old parish whore from Ljuder, who at home was denied the holy sacrament and forbidden the Lord’s house. She is the one who stands before you now in her glory—the mother of a priest!