ON THE BORDER OF UTTER DARKNESS 249
THE POWER OF EVIL IN HIGH PLACES 295
THE GLORY OF THE LORD 354
THE GREAT PLAIN DRINKS THE BLOOD OF CHRISTIAN 424
MEN AND IS SATISFIED
FOREWORD
In offering this novel to the English-reading public, I feel the need
of an explanation. Book I of _Giants In The Earth_ was published in
Norway (Aschehoug & Co.) as a separate volume, in October, 1924; Book
II, one year later.
I am aware of the slight similarity existing between Johan Bojer’s _The
Emigrants_ and certain portions of the First Book of my novel; and lest
the reader should consider me guilty of having plagiarized him, I find
it necessary to offer the information that _The Land-Taking_ was in
the hands of the Norwegian book dealers a little better than one month
before Bojer’s book appeared. In a letter to me, dated January 11,
1925, Mr. Bojer writes: “It certainly was fortunate for me that I got
my book finished when I did. Had it appeared much later, I should have
been accused of having plagiarized you.”
The work of translating this novel has been a difficult task. The
idiom of the characters offered serious problems. These settlers came
from Nordland, Norway; and though the novel is written in the literary
language of Norway, the speech of the characters themselves naturally
had to be strongly colored by their native dialect; otherwise their
utterances would have sounded stilted and untrue. To get these people
to reveal clearly and effectively their psychology in English speech
seemed at times impossible; for the idioms of a dialect are well-nigh
untranslatable. A liberal use of footnotes was unavoidable.
If the old saying, that many cooks spoil the broth, is true, then
surely the English text cannot be of much account; for many have
worked at it. The following friends have helped with the translation:
Mr. Ansten Anstensen, Columbia University; Miss Ruth Lima, Concordia
College, Moorhead, Minnesota; Dr. Nils Flaten, Miss Nora Solum,
Prof. Olav Lee, Miss Esther Gulbrandsen—all four of whom are fellow
teachers in St. Olaf College; and Atty. John Heitmann, Duluth,
Minnesota. I feel also greatly indebted to Dr. and Mrs. Clarence
Berdahl, University of Illinois, for their many valuable suggestions
and corrections. What I asked of these friends was a literal
translation. They complied so willingly and so cheerfully. I take this
opportunity to thank them all!
But most of all do I owe gratitude to my friend Lincoln Colcord,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, who unified and literally rewrote the English
text. As I got the translation from the others, I would wrestle with
it for a while, and then send it on to him. When he had finished a
division he and I would come together to work it over, he reading
the manuscript aloud, I checking with the text of the original. How
intensely we struggled with words and sentences! It would happen
frequently that several pages had to be rewritten. But he never tired.
His has been a real _labor amoris_. Were it not for his constant
encouragement and for his inimitable willingness to help, this novel
would most likely never have seen the light of day in an English
translation.
O. E. Rölvaag.
St. Olaf College,
Northfield, Minnesota,
_July 15, 1927._
INTRODUCTION
I
It is a unique experience, all things considered, to have this novel
by O. E. Rölvaag, so palpably European in its art and atmosphere, so
distinctly American in everything it deals with. Translations from
European authors have always been received with serious consideration
in the United States; in Rölvaag we have a European author of our
own—one who writes in America, about America, whose only aim is to tell
of the contributions of his people to American life; and who yet must
be translated for us out of a foreign tongue. I think I am right in
stating that this is the first instance of the kind in the history of
American letters.
There are certain points of technique and construction which show
at a glance that the author of this book is not a native American.
Rölvaag is primarily interested in psychology, in the unfolding of
character; the native American writer is primarily interested in
plot and incident. Rölvaag is preoccupied with the human cost of
empire building, rather than with its glamour and romance. His chief
character, Beret, is a failure in terms of pioneer life; he aims to
reveal a deeper side of the problem, by showing the distress of one who
could not take root in new soil. Beret’s homesickness is the dominant
_motif_ of the tale. Even Per Hansa, the natural-born pioneer, must
give his life before the spirit of the prairie is appeased. This
treatment reflects something of the gloomy fatalism of the Norse mind;
but it also runs close to the grim reality of pioneering, a place the
bravest art would want to occupy. _Giants In The Earth_ never turns
aside from the march of its sustained and inevitable tragedy. The story
is told almost baldly at times, but with an unerring choice of simple
human detail. When we lay it down we have gained a new insight
into the founding of America.
II
Ole Edvart Rölvaag was born April 22, 1876, in a small settlement on
the island of Dönna, in the district of Helgeland, just south of where
the Arctic Circle cuts the coast of Norway. The place is far up in the
Nordland. Strictly speaking, the settlement has no name; the cove where
it lies is called _Rölvaag_ on the map, but it is merely an outskirt of
one of the voting precincts on the island. Rölvaag, it will be seen,
took his place name after coming to America; he has explained this
practice in a footnote in the present work. His father’s Christian name
was Peder, and in Norway he would have been Pedersen; his own sons, in
turn, would have been Olsen. The name is pronounced with umlauted _ö_
rolled a little, as in _world_; the last syllable, _aag_, is like the
first syllable in _auger_.
All the people in this settlement were fishermen. In summer they fished
in small open boats, coming home every night; in winter they went in
larger boats, carrying crews of from four to six men, to the historic
fishing grounds off the Lofoten Islands, where the Maelstrom runs and
the coast stretches away to North Cape and beyond. It was a life full
of hardship and danger, with sorrow and poverty standing close at hand.
The midnight sun shone on them for a season; during the winter they
had the long darkness. The island of Dönna is a barren rock covered
with gorse and heather—hardly a tree in sight. It looks like a bit of
the coast of Labrador. An opening between low ledges of granite marks
the cove named _Rölvaag_; at the head of the cove the houses of the
settlement stand out stark and unprotected against the sky line. Behind
them loom the iron mountains of the coast. A gloomy, desolate scene—a
perilous stronghold on the fringe of the Arctic night. There Rölvaag’s
forebears had lived, going out to the fisheries, since time immemorial.
His father, who is still alive, is the image of a New England
sea captain. The family must have been a remarkable one. An uncle,
his father’s brother, had broken away from the fishing life and made
himself a teacher of prominence in a neighbouring locality. An older
brother had the mind of a scholar; but something happened—he went on
with the fishing, and died long ago. There was a brilliant sister,
also, who died young. These two evidently overshadowed Rölvaag while he
was growing up; his case as a child seemed hopeless—he could not learn.
Nevertheless, he had a little schooling, mostly of a semireligious
nature. The school lay seven miles away, across the rocks and moors;
that gave him a fourteen-mile walk for his daily education. He went
to school nine weeks a year, for seven years. This ended at the age
of fourteen, when his father finally told him that he was not worth
educating. That was all the schooling he had in Norway.
Once during the period of childhood he was walking in the dusk with his
mother; they had been gathering kelp on the rocks which they boiled
and fed to the cattle; and now they were on their way home. His mother
took him by the hand and asked him what he wanted to be when he grew
up. “I want to be a poet,” he told her. This was the only time he ever
revealed himself to a member of his family. He remembers the quiet
chuckle with which his mother received the news; she did not take
him to task, nor try to show him how absurd it was, but she couldn’t
restrain a kindly chuckle as they went along the rock path together.
That winter they had only potatoes and salt herring to eat, three times
a day; his mother divided the potatoes carefully, for there were barely
enough to go around.
In place of education was the reading—for this was a reading family.
The precinct had a good library, furnished by the state. Rölvaag had
learned to read after a long struggle, and his head was always in
a book. The first novel he ever read was Cooper’s _The Last of the
Mohicans_ in the Norwegian. All of Cooper’s novels followed, and the
novels of Dickens and Captain Marryat and Bulwer-Lytton. Then
came the works of Ingemann, the Danish historical novelist; the works
of Zakarias Topelius, the great Swedish romanticist; the works of
the German, Paul Heyse; and the complete works of their own great
novelists, especially Björnson and Jonas Lie. For miscellaneous reading
there were such things as the tales of Jules Verne and H. Rider
Haggard and Alexandre Dumas, Carlyle’s _The French Revolution_, and
Stanley’s _Across the Dark Continent_. Neither did they lack the usual
assortment of dime novels and shilling-shockers, in paper covers. The
list could be extended indefinitely; the parallel with the reading of
the better-class American boy of a generation ago is little short of
astonishing.
This reading, promiscuous but intensive, lasted through the period of
his youth. Once it was rumoured that at a certain village, fourteen
miles away, a copy of _Ivanhoe_ could be obtained; Rölvaag set out on
foot to get it, and was gone two days on the journey. There is another
incident, slight but deeply revealing, which shows the promise wrapped
up in the husk of boyhood. In a moment of exaltation he decided to
write a novel of his own. He may have been eleven or twelve when this
creative impulse seized him. All one afternoon he spent in his bedroom
writing; with infinite labour he had completed as many as five pages
of the novel. Then his elder brother, who shared the room with him,
came in—the brilliant brother of whom he stood in awe. “What are you
doing there?” asked the brother. “Nothing,” Rölvaag answered, hastily
trying to conceal the fruits of his first literary effort. “Let me
see it!”—the brother had quickly sensed what was going on. “I won’t!”
And so the battle had started—a terrific struggle that nearly wrecked
the room, in the course of which the five pages were torn to shreds.
But the brother had not seen a word of them. Rölvaag never attempted
literary composition again until he was completing his education in
America, fifteen years afterward.
Awhile later we find him reading Cooper and Marryat aloud to the
fishermen at Lofoten, during the winter lay-up; there was a
splendid library at this remote station, too, maintained by the state
for the use of the fishing fleet. By this time Rölvaag had become a
fisherman himself, like everyone else in the community. He went on his
first trip to the Lofoten fishing grounds at the age of fifteen. In
all, he fished five years, until he had just passed twenty. Every year
he was growing more discontented. In the winter of 1893 a terrible
storm devastated the fishing fleet, taking tragic toll among his
friends and fellow fishermen. The boat he sailed in escaped only by a
miracle. This experience killed his first romantic love of the fishing
life; he sat down then and wrote to an uncle in South Dakota, asking
him for a ticket to the United States. Not that he felt any particular
call to go to America; he only thought of getting away. He longed
for the unknown and untried—for something secret and inexpressible.
Vaguely, stubbornly, he wanted the chance to fulfil himself before
he died. But the uncle, doubtless influenced by Rölvaag’s family
reputation, refused to help him; and the fishing life went on.
Two more years passed, years of deepening revolt—when suddenly the
uncle in South Dakota changed his mind. One day a ticket for America
arrived. The way of escape was at hand.
Then a dramatic thing happened. All the fishermen went to the summer
fair at the market town of Björn. At this fair, boats were exposed for
sale, the finest fishing craft in all Norway. Rölvaag’s master sought
him out and took him down among the boats. His admiration for this
master was extravagant; he speaks of him to-day as a sea king, the
greatest human being he has ever known. The man led him directly to
the best boat hauled out on the beach. They stood admiring her. He led
him aft, under her stern, where they could see her beautiful lines. He
patted her side as he spoke. He said: “If you will send back the ticket
to your uncle, I will buy this boat for you. You shall command her; and
when she has paid for herself she shall be yours.”
The offer swept him off his feet. Never, he affirms, can he hope
to attain in life again a sensation of such complete and triumphant
success as came to him at that moment. A new boat, the backing of the
man he admired and loved above all others, a place at the top of his
profession at the age of twenty, a chance to reign supreme in his
little world. And yet, nothing beyond—it meant that this was all. To
live and die a fisherman. No other worlds—the vague, beautiful worlds
beyond the horizon. “I will have to think it over,” was his answer. He
turned away, went up on a hillside above the town, and sat there alone
all the afternoon.
This young man of twenty sitting on a hillside on the coast of Norway,
wrestling with his immense problem, takes on the stature of a figure
from the sagas. Which way will he make up his mind? “It was a fine,
clear day in Nordland,” he tells me, speaking of the incident thirty
years afterward. A fine, clear day—he could see a long way across the
water. But not the shape of his own destiny. The life he knew was
calling him with a thousand voices. How could he have heard the hail
of things not yet seen? Where did he get the strength to make his
momentous decision? He came down from the hillside at last, and found
his master. “I am sorry,” he said, “but I cannot accept your offer. I
am going to America.”
III
Rölvaag himself has told about the journey in his first book,
_Amerika-Breve_ (Letters from America), published in 1912, a work which
is largely autobiographical and which struck home in a personal way
to his Norwegian-American readers. He landed in New York in August of
1896. He was not even aware that he would require money for food during
the railway trip; in his pocket were an American dime and a copper
piece from Norway. For three days and nights, from New York to South
Dakota, he lived on a single loaf of bread; the dime went for tobacco
somewhere along the vast stretches unfolding before him Through an
error in calculation his uncle failed to meet him at the country
station where he finally disembarked. He had no word of English with
which to ask his way. The prairie spread on every hand; the sun was
going down. He walked half the night, without food or water, until at
last he found Norwegians who could direct him, reached his uncle’s
farm, and received a warm welcome.
Then began three years of farming. At the end of that time he knew
that he did not like it; this was not the life for him. He had saved a
little money, but had picked up only a smattering of English. A friend
kept urging him to go to school. But his father’s verdict, which so
far had ruled his life, still had power over him; he firmly believed
that it would be of no use, that he was not worth educating. Instead
he went to Sioux City, Iowa, and tried to find work there—factory
work, a chance to tend bar in a saloon, a job of washing dishes in a
restaurant. But nothing offered; he was forced to return to the farm.
He had now reached another crossroads in his life; a flat alternative
faced him—farming or schooling. As the lesser of two evils, he entered
Augustana College, a grammar or preparatory school in Canton, South
Dakota, in the fall of 1899. At that time he was twenty-three years old.
Once at school, the fierce desire for knowledge, so long restrained,
took him by storm. In a short while he discovered the cruel wrong that
had been done him. His mind was mature and receptive; he was able to
learn with amazing ease; in general reading, in grasp of life and
strength of purpose, he was far in advance of his fellow students. He
graduated from Augustana in the spring of 1901; that fall he entered
St. Olaf College, with forty dollars in his pocket. In four years he
had worked his way through St. Olaf, graduating with honours in 1905,
at the age of twenty-eight. On the promise of a faculty position at
his _alma mater_, he borrowed five hundred dollars and sent himself
for a year to the University of Oslo in Norway. Returning from this
post-graduate work in 1906, he took up his teaching at St. Olaf
College, where he has been ever since. Professor Rölvaag now
occupies the chair of Norwegian literature at that institution.
IV
I have mentioned the _Amerika-Breve_, published in 1912. There is an
earlier work, still in manuscript—a novel written during his senior
year at St. Olaf College. In all, Rölvaag has published six novels,
two readers for class use, a couple of handbooks on Norwegian grammar
and declamation, and one volume of essays. In 1914 appeared his
second book, _Paa Glemte Veie_ (_The Forgotten Path_), a relatively
unimportant product. Then came the war, which threw consternation into
all creative work. Rölvaag walked the hills of southern Minnesota, his
mind a blank, facing the downfall of civilization, seeing the death of
those fine things of life which he had striven so hard to attain. It
was during the war period that he compiled his readers and handbooks,
for the publishing board of the Norwegian-American Lutheran Church.
He had married in 1908. In 1920 a tragedy occurred in his family—one of
his children was drowned under terrible circumstances. This seems to
have shaken him out of the war inertia and stirred his creative life
again. That year he wrote and published his first strong novel, _To
Tullinger_ (_Two Fools_), the story of a rough, uncultivated couple,
incapable of refinement, who gain success in America and develop
the hoarding instinct to a fantastic degree. This book, too, made a
sensation among Norwegian-Americans.
Then, in 1922, came _Laengselens Baat_ (_The Ship of Longing_), which
seems to have been Rölvaag’s most introspective and poetical effort up
to the present time. It is the study of a sensitive, artistic youth who
comes to America from Norway full of dreams and ideals, expecting to
find all that his soul longs for; he does not find it, with the result
that his life goes down in disaster. Needless to say, this book was not
popular with his Norwegian-American audience. The truth-teller of
_To Tullinger_ was now going a little too far.
All of these works were written and published in Norwegian. They were
brought out under the imprint of the Augsburg Publishing House, of
Minneapolis, and circulated only among those Norwegian-Americans who
had retained the language of the old country. The reason why none of
them had reached publication in Norway is characteristic. In 1912
the manuscript of _Amerika-Breve_ had been submitted to Norwegian
publishers. They had returned a favourable and even enthusiastic
opinion, but had insisted on certain changes in the text. These
changes Rölvaag had refused to concede, feeling that they marred the
artistic unity of his work. In anger and disappointment, he had at once
published with the local house; and with each successive volume the
feeling of artistic umbrage had persisted—it had not seemed worth while
to try to reach the larger field.
But in the spring of 1923, an item appeared in the Norwegian press
to the effect that the great novelist Johan Bojer was about to visit
the United States, for the purpose of collecting material on the
Norwegian-American immigration. He proposed to write an epic novel on
the movement. This news excited Rölvaag tremendously; he felt that the
inner truth of the Norwegian-American immigration could be written only
by one who had experienced the transplanting of life, who shared the
psychology of the settlers. His artistic ambition was up in arms; this
was his own field.
He immediately obtained a year’s leave of absence from St. Olaf
College, and set to work. The first few sections of _Giants In The
Earth_ were written in a cabin in the north woods of Minnesota. Then he
felt the need of visiting South Dakota again, to gather fresh material.
In midwinter of that year he went abroad, locating temporarily in a
cheap immigrant hotel in London, where he worked on the novel steadily.
When spring opened in 1924, he went to Norway. There he met Bojer,
visiting him at his country home. Bojer was delighted to learn that
Rölvaag, of whom he had heard a great deal, was also working on
a novel of the Norwegian-American settlement; the two men exchanged
ideas generously. “How do you see the problem?” Rölvaag asked. The
answer showed him that Bojer saw it from the viewpoint of Norway, not
of America; to him it was mainly a problem of emigration. This greatly
relieved Rölvaag’s mind, for there was no real conflict; he set to work
with renewed energy, and soon finished the first book of _Giants In The
Earth_.
In the meanwhile it had been placed with Norwegian publishers—the
same firm, by the way, which had lost _Amerika-Breve_ twelve years
before. It appeared in the latter part of 1924, under the title _I
De Dage_ (_In Those Days_), a month in advance of Bojer’s _Vor Egen
Stamme_ (_Our Own Tribe_), better known to us by its English title of
_The Emigrants_. A year later the second book of the present volume
was brought out, under the title _Riket Grundlaegges_ (_Founding the
Kingdom_).
In Norway these two books have run through many editions; they have
been hailed on every hand as something new in Norwegian literature.
Swedish and Finnish editions will be published in 1927. Arrangements
are being made for a German translation, and the book will probably
be off the press in Germany soon after it has appeared in the United
States. Rölvaag’s vigorous, idiomatic style (which, incidentally, has
been the despair of those who have worked over the English translation)
is an outstanding topic of recent Scandinavian criticism. The eminent
Danish critic, Jörgen Bukdahl, for instance, in his latest work, _Det
Skjulte Norge_ (_The Latent Norway_), devotes a whole chapter to
Rölvaag and his novels of pioneering in South Dakota. A new name has
been added to the literary firmament of Norway.
V
Does Rölvaag’s work belong legitimately to Norwegian or to American
literature? The problem has unusual and interesting features. The
volume before us deals with American life, and with one of the most
characteristically American episodes in our history. It opens on the
western plains; its material is altogether American. Yet it was written
in Norwegian, and gained its first recognition in Norway. Whatever
we may decide, it has already become a part of Norwegian literature.
Rölvaag’s art seems mainly European; Rölvaag himself, as I have said,
is typically American. His life and future are bound up in the New
World; yet he will continue to write in a foreign language. Had he been
born in America, would his art have been the same? It seems unlikely.
On the other hand, had he remained in Norway—had he accepted the boat
that fine, clear day in Nordland—how would his art have fared?
But such speculation, after all, is merely idle; these things do
not matter. It has not yet been determined, even, what America is,
or whether she herself is strictly American. And any sincere art is
international. Given the artist, our chief interest lies in trying
to fathom the sources of his art, and to recognize its sustaining
impulses. What were the forces which have now projected into American
letters a realist of the first quality writing in a foreign language a
new tale of the founding of America? It is obvious that these forces
must have been highly complex and that they will continue to be so
throughout his working life; but beyond that we cannot safely go. The
rest is a matter of opinion. When I have asked Rölvaag the simple
question, Did Norway or America teach you to write? he has invariably
thrown up his hands.
The same speculation, in different measure, applies to a considerable
quantity of Norwegian-American literary production which as yet our
criticism knows nothing about. The Norwegians are a book-loving people;
no set of adverse conditions can for long restrain them from expressing
themselves in literary form. Here in the Northwest, during the last
thirty or forty years, they have built up a distinctive literature,
written and published in the Norwegian language, but concerned wholly
with American life. Until quite recently, in fact, the region
supported a Norwegian fiction magazine.
There are the five substantial novels of Simon Johnson, for instance,
with many short stories by the same author. There are the romantic
novels of H. A. Foss; and the poetry, short stories, novels, and
travelogues of Peer Strömme. There are the polemical and poetical works
of O. A. Buslett, obscure and fantastic. There are the three novels
and four collections of short stories by the able writer, Waldemar
Ager. There is the lyric poetry of Julius B. Baumann and O. S. Sneve,
the collected works of both of whom have now been brought out. There
are the amazing Biblical dramas of the farmer-poet Jon Norstog—huge
tomes with the titles of _Moses_, and _Israel_, and _Saul_, set up by
his own hand and published from his own printing press, in a shanty
on the prairies of North Dakota—works that reveal the flash of genius
now and then, as I am told. Do all these serious efforts belong to
Norwegian or to American literature? Their day is nearly done; the
present generation of Norse stock has another native language. But it
would be of value to have some of this early Norwegian-American product
translated into English, to enrich our literature by a pure stream
flowing out of the American environment—a stream which, for the general
public, lies frozen in the ice of a foreign tongue.
Lincoln Colcord.
Minneapolis, Minnesota,
_January, 1927._
_Book I_
THE LAND-TAKING
I. Toward the Sunset
I
Bright, clear sky over a plain so wide that the rim of the heavens cut
down on it around the entire horizon.... Bright, clear sky, to-day,
to-morrow, and for all time to come.
... And sun! And still more sun! It set the heavens afire every
morning; it grew with the day to quivering golden light—then softened
into all the shades of red and purple as evening fell.... Pure colour
everywhere. A gust of wind, sweeping across the plain, threw into life
waves of yellow and blue and green. Now and then a dead black wave
would race over the scene ... a cloud’s gliding shadow ... now and
then....
It was late afternoon. A small caravan was pushing its way through
the tall grass. The track that it left behind was like the wake of a
boat—except that instead of widening out astern it closed in again.
“Tish-ah!” said the grass.... “Tish-ah, tish-ah!” ... Never had it said
anything else—never would it say anything else. It bent resiliently
under the trampling feet; it did not break, but it complained aloud
every time—for nothing like this had ever happened to it before....
“Tish-ah, tish-ah!” it cried, and rose up in surprise to look at this
rough, hard thing that had crushed it to the ground so rudely, and then
moved on.
A stocky, broad-shouldered man walked at the head of the caravan. He
seemed shorter than he really was, because of the tall grass around him
and the broad-brimmed hat of coarse straw which he wore. A few steps
behind him followed a boy of about nine years of age. The boy’s blond
hair was clearly marked against his brown, sunburnt neck; but the
man’s hair and neck were of exactly the same shade of brown. From the
looks of these two, and still more from their gait, it was easy to
guess that here walked father and son.
Behind them a team of oxen jogged along; the oxen were drawing a
vehicle which once upon a time might have been a wagon, but which now,
on account of its many and grave infirmities, ought long since to have
been consigned to the scrap heap—exactly the place, in point of fact,
where the man had picked it up. Over the wagon box long willow saplings
had been bent, in the form of arches in a church chancel—six of them
in all. On these arches, and tied down to the body on each side, were
spread first of all two handwoven blankets, that might well have
adorned the walls of some manor house in the olden times; on top of
the blankets were thrown two sheepskin robes, with the wool side down,
which were used for bed-coverings at night. The rear of the wagon was
stowed full of numberless articles, all the way up to the top. A large
immigrant chest at the bottom of the pile, very long and high, devoured
a big share of the space; around and above it were piled household
utensils, tools, implements, and all their clothing.
Hitched to this wagon and trailing behind was another vehicle, homemade
and very curious-looking, so solidly and quaintly constructed that it
might easily have won a place in any museum. Indeed, it appeared strong
enough to stand all the jolting from the Atlantic to the Pacific....
It, too, was a wagon, after a fashion; at least, it had been intended
for such. The wheels were made from pieces of plank fitting roughly
together; the box, considerably wider than that of the first wagon, was
also loaded full of provisions and household gear, covered over with
canvas and lashed down securely. Both wagons creaked and groaned loudly
every time they bounced over a tussock or hove out of a hollow....
“Squeak, squeak!” said the one.... “Squeak, squeak!” answered the
other.... The strident sound broke the silence of centuries.
A short distance behind the wagons followed a brindle cow. The
caravan moved so slowly that she occasionally had time to stop and
snatch a few mouthfuls, though there was never a chance for many at
a time. But what little she got in this way she sorely needed. She
had been jogging along all day, swinging and switching her tail, the
rudder of the caravan. Soon it would be night, and then her part of the
work would come—to furnish milk for the evening porridge, for all the
company up ahead.
Across the front end of the box of the first wagon lay a rough piece
of plank. On the right side of this plank sat a woman with a white
kerchief over her head, driving the oxen. Against her thigh rested the
blond head of a little girl, who was stretched out on the plank and
sleeping sweetly. Now and then the hand of the mother moved across the
child’s face to chase away the mosquitoes, which had begun to gather as
the sun lowered. On the left side of the plank, beyond the girl, sat a
boy about seven years old—a well-grown lad, his skin deeply tanned, a
certain clever, watchful gleam in his eyes. With hands folded over one
knee, he looked straight ahead.
This was the caravan of Per Hansa, who with his family and all his
earthly possessions was moving west from Fillmore County, Minnesota,
to Dakota Territory. There he intended to take up land and build
himself a home; he was going to do something remarkable out there,
which should become known far and wide. No lack of opportunity in that
country, he had been told!... Per Hansa himself strode ahead and laid
out the course; the boy Ole, or _Olamand_, followed closely after, and
explored it. Beret, the wife, drove the oxen and took care of little
Anna Marie, pet-named _And-Ongen_ (which means “The Duckling”), who was
usually bubbling over with happiness. Hans Kristian, whose everyday
name was _Store-Hans_ (meaning “Big Hans,” to distinguish him from
his godfather, who was also named Hans, but who, of course, was three
times his size), sat there on the wagon, and saw to it that everyone
attended to business.... The cow Rosie trailed behind, swinging and
switching her tail, following the caravan farther and farther yet into
the endless vista of the plain.
“Tish-ah, tish-ah!” cried the grass.... “Tish-ah, tish-ah!” ...
II
The caravan seemed a miserably frail and Lilliputian thing as it crept
over the boundless prairie toward the sky line. Of road or trail there
lay not a trace ahead; as soon as the grass had straightened up again
behind, no one could have told the direction from which it had come
or whither it was bound. The whole train—Per Hansa with his wife and
children, the oxen, the wagons, the cow, and all—might just as well
have dropped down out of the sky. Nor was it at all impossible to
imagine that they were trying to get back there again; their course
was always the same—straight toward the west, straight toward the sky
line....
Poverty-stricken, unspeakably forlorn, the caravan creaked along,
advancing at a snail’s pace, deeper and deeper into a bluish-green
infinity—on and on, and always farther on.... It steered for Sunset
Land!...
For more than three weeks now, and well into the fourth, this caravan
had been crawling across the plain.... Early in the journey it had
passed through Blue Earth; it had left Chain Lakes behind; and one
fine day it had crept into Jackson, on the Des Moines River. But that
seemed ages ago.... From Jackson, after a short lay-up, it had pushed
on westward—always westward—to Worthington, then to Rock River.... A
little west of Rock River, Per Hansa had lost the trail completely.
Since then he had not been able to find it again; at this moment he
literally did not know where he was, nor how to get to the place he
had to reach. But Split Rock Creek must lie out there somewhere in the
sun; if he could only find that landmark, he could pick his way still
farther without much trouble.... Strange that he hadn’t reached Split
Rock Creek before this time! According to his directions, he should
have been there two or three days ago; but he hadn’t seen anything
that even looked like the place.... Oh, my God! If something didn’t
turn up soon!... My God!...
The wagons creaked and groaned. Per Hansa’s eyes wandered over the
plain. His bearded face swung constantly from side to side as he
examined every inch of ground from the northeast to the southwest.
At times he gave his whole attention to that part of the plain lying
between him and the western sky line; with head bent forward and eyes
fixed and searching, he would sniff the air, like an animal trying to
find the scent. Every now and then he glanced at an old silver watch
which he carried in his left hand; but his gaze would quickly wander
off again, to take up its fruitless search of the empty horizon.
It was now nearing six o’clock. Since three in the afternoon he had
been certain of his course; at that time he had taken his bearings
by means of his watch and the sun.... Out here one had to get one’s
cross-bearings from the very day itself—then trust to luck....
For a long while the little company had been silent. Per Hansa turned
halfway around, and without slackening his pace spoke to the boy
walking behind.
“Go back and drive for a while now, Ola[1].... You must talk to mother,
too, so that it won’t be so lonesome for her. And be sure to keep as
sharp a lookout as you can.”
[1] In most dialects of Norway the name Ole becomes Ola when spoken.
“I’m not tired yet!” said the boy, loath to leave the van.
“Go back, anyway! Maybe you’re not, but I can feel it beginning to tell
on me. We’ll have to start cooking the porridge pretty soon.... You go
back, and hold her on the sun for a while longer.”
“Do you think we’ll catch up with them to-night, Dad?” The boy was
still undecided.
“Good Lord, no! They’ve got too long a start on us.... Look sharp, now!
If you happen to see anything suspicious, sing out!” ... Per Hansa
glanced again at his watch, turned forward, and strode steadily onward.
Ole said no more; he stepped out of the track and stood there
waiting till the train came up. Then Store-Hans jumped down nimbly,
while the other climbed up and took his seat.
“Have you seen anything?” the mother asked in an anxious voice.
“Why, no ... not yet,” answered the boy, evasively.
“I wonder if we shall ever see them again,” she said, as if speaking to
herself, and looked down at the ground. “This seems to be taking us to
the end of the world ... beyond the end of the world!”
Store-Hans, who was still walking beside the wagon, heard what she said
and looked up at her. The buoyancy of childhood shone in his brown
face.... Too bad that mother should be so scared!...
“Yes, Mother, but when we’re both steering for the sun, we’ll both land
in the same place, won’t we?... The sun is a sure guide, you know!”
These were the very words which he had heard his father use the night
before; now he repeated them. To Store-Hans the truth of them seemed as
clear as the sun itself; in the first place, because dad had said it,
and then because it sounded so reasonable.
He hurried up alongside his father and laid his hand in his—he always
felt safer thus.
The two walked on side by side. Now and then the boy stole a glance
at the face beside him, which was as stern and fixed as the prairie
on which they were walking. He was anxious to talk, but couldn’t find
anything to say that sounded grown-up enough; and so he kept quiet. At
last, however, the silence grew too heavy for him to bear. He tried to
say indifferently, just like his father:
“When I’m a man and have horses, I’m going to make a road over these
plains, and ... and put up some posts for people to follow. Don’t you
think that’ll be a good idea?”
A slight chuckle came from the bearded face set toward the sun.
“Sure thing, Store-Hans—you’ll manage that all right.... I might
find time to help you an hour or two, now and then.”
The boy knew by his father’s voice that he was in a talkative mood.
This made him so glad, that he forgot himself and did something that
his mother always objected to; he began to whistle, and tried to take
just as long strides as his father. But he could only make the grass
say: “Swish-sh, swish-sh!”
On and on they went, farther out toward Sunset Land—farther into the
deep glow of the evening.
The mother had taken little Anna up in her lap and was now leaning
backward as much as she could; it gave such relief to her tired
muscles. The caresses of the child and her lively chatter made her
forget for a moment care and anxiety, and that vague sense of the
unknown which bore in on them so strongly from all directions.... Ole
sat there and drove like a full-grown man; by some means or other he
managed to get more speed out of the oxen than the mother had done—she
noticed this herself. His eyes were searching the prairie far and near.
Out on the sky line the huge plain now began to swell and rise, almost
as if an abscess were forming under the skin of the earth. Although
this elevation lay somewhat out of his course, Per Hansa swung over and
held straight toward the highest part of it.
The afternoon breeze lulled, and finally dropped off altogether. The
sun, whose golden lustre had faded imperceptibly into a reddish hue,
shone now with a dull light, yet strong and clear; in a short while,
deeper tones of violet began to creep across the red. The great ball
grew enormous; it retreated farther and farther into the empty reaches
of the western sky; then it sank suddenly.... The spell of evening
quickly crowded in and laid hold of them all; the oxen wagged their
ears; Rosie lifted her voice in a long moo, which died out slowly in
the great stillness. At the moment when the sun closed his eye, the
vastness of the plain seemed to rise up on every hand—and suddenly the
landscape had grown desolate; something bleak and cold had come into
the silence, filling it with terror.... Behind them, along the
way they had come, the plain lay dark green and lifeless, under the
gathering shadow of the dim, purple sky.
Ole sat motionless at his mother’s side. The falling of evening had
made such a deep impression on him that his throat felt dry; he wanted
to express some of the emotions that overwhelmed him, but only choked
when he tried.
“Did you ever see anything so beautiful!” he whispered at last, and
gave a heavy sigh.... Low down in the northwest, above the little hill,
a few fleecy clouds hovered, betokening fair weather; now they were
fringed with shining gold, which glowed with a mellow light. As if they
had no weight, they floated lightly there....
The mother drew herself forward to an upright position. She still held
the child in her lap. Per Hansa and Store-Hans were walking in the dusk
far up ahead. For the last two days Per had kept well in advance of the
caravan all the time; she thought she knew the reason why.
“Per,” she called out, wearily, “aren’t we going to stop soon?”
“Pretty soon.” ... He did not slacken his pace.
She shifted the child over into the other arm and began to weep
silently. Ole saw it, but pretended not to notice, though he had to
swallow big lumps that were forcing themselves up in his throat; he
kept his eyes resolutely fixed on the scene ahead.
“Dad,” he shouted after a while, “I see a wood over there to the
westward!”
“You do, do you? A great fellow you are! Store-Hans and I have seen
that for a long time now.”
“Whereabouts is it?” whispered Store-Hans, eagerly.
“It begins down there on the slope to the left, and then goes around on
the other side,” said his father. “Anyway, it doesn’t seem to be much
of a wood.”
“D’you think they are there?”
“Not on your life! But we’re keeping the right course, anyhow.”
“Have the others been this way?”
“Of course they have—somewhere near, at any rate. There’s supposed
to be a creek around here, by the name of Split Rock Creek, or whatever
they call it in English.”
“Are there any people here, do you think?”
“People? Good Lord, no! There isn’t a soul around these parts.”
The sombre blue haze was now closing rapidly in on the caravan. One
sensed the night near at hand; it breathed a chill as it came.
At last Per Hansa halted. “Well, I suppose we can’t drive any farther
to-day. We and the animals would both drop pretty soon.” With these
words he faced the oxen, held his arms straight out like the horizontal
beam of a cross, shouted a long-drawn “Whoa!”—and then the creaking
stopped for that day.
III
The preparations for the night were soon made; each had his own task
and was now well used to it. Store-Hans brought the wood; it lay
strapped under the hind wagon and consisted of small logs and dry
branches from the last thicket they had passed.
Ole got the fireplace ready. From the last wagon he brought out two
iron rods, cleft in one end; these he drove into the ground and then
went back to the wagon for a third rod, which he laid across the other
two. It was also his duty to see that there was water enough in the
keg, no matter where they happened to stop; for the rest of it, he was
on hand to help his mother.
The father tended to the cattle. First he lifted the yoke off the oxen
and turned them loose; then he milked Rosie and let her go also. After
that he made up a bed for the whole family under the wagon.
While the mother waited for the pot to boil she set the table. She
spread a home-woven blanket on the ground, laid a spoon for each one on
it, placed a couple of bowls for the milk, and fetched the dishes for
the porridge. Meanwhile she had to keep an eye on And-Ongen, who
was toddling about in the grass near by. The child stumbled, laughed,
lay there a moment chattering to herself, then got up, only to trip on
her skirt and tumble headlong again. Her prattling laughter rang on the
evening air. Now and then the voice of the mother would mingle with it,
warning the child not to stray too far.
Store-Hans was the first to get through with his task; he stood around
awhile, but, finding nothing more to do, he strolled off westward. He
was itching to know how far it was to the hill out there; it would be
great fun to see what things looked like on the other side!... Now he
started off in that direction. Perhaps he might come across the others?
They surely must be somewhere. Just think, if he could only find them!
He would yell and rush in on them like an Indian—and then they would be
scared out of their senses!... He had gone quite far before he paused
to look back. When he did so the sight sent a shiver over him; the
wagons had shrunk to two small specks, away off on the floor of a huge,
dusky room.... I’d better hurry at once, he thought; mother will surely
have the porridge ready by this time! His legs had already adopted the
idea of their own accord. But thoughts of his mother and the porridge
didn’t quite bring him all the feeling of safety he needed; he hunted
through his mind for a few strains of a hymn, and sang them over and
over in a high-pitched, breaking voice, until he had no more breath
left to sing with.... He didn’t feel entirely safe until the wagons had
begun to assume their natural size once more.
The mother called to them that supper was ready. On the blanket stood
two dishes of porridge—a large dish for the father and the two boys, a
smaller one for the mother and And-Ongen. The evening milk was divided
between two bowls, and set before them; Rosie, poor thing, was not
giving much these days! The father said that he didn’t care for milk
this evening, either; it had a tangy taste, he thought; and he drank
water with his porridge. But when Ole also began to complain of the
tangy taste and asked for water, the father grew stern and ordered
him to go ahead and get that drop of milk down as quick as he could!
There was nothing else on the table but milk and porridge.
Suddenly Ole and Store-Hans flared up in a quarrel; one blamed the
other for eating too close to the edge, where the porridge was coolest.
The father paused in his meal, listening to them a moment, then
chuckled to himself. Taking his spoon and cutting three lines through
the crust of the porridge, he quickly settled the matter between them.
“There you are! Here, Store-Hans, is your land; now take it and be
satisfied. Ola, who is the biggest, gets another forty.... Shut up your
mouths, now, and eat!” Per Hansa himself got the smallest share that
evening.
Aside from this outbreak it was quiet at the table. A spell of silence
lay upon them and they were not able to throw it off.... As soon as the
father had eaten he licked his spoon carefully, wiped it off on his
shirt sleeve, and threw it on the blanket. The boys did likewise as
they finished; but And-Ongen wanted to tuck her spoon in her dress and
keep it there till morning.
They sat around in the same silence after they were done. Then she who
was the smallest of them repeated in a tiny voice:
“Thanks to Thee, Our Lord and Maker....
“Now I want to go to sleep in your lap!” she said, after the Amen. She
climbed up into her mother’s lap and threw her arms around her neck.
“Oh, how quickly it grows dark out here!” the mother murmured.
Per Hansa gave a care-free shrug of his shoulders. “Well,” he said,
dryly, “the sooner the day’s over, the sooner the next day comes!”
But now something seemed to be brewing back there over the prairie
whence they had come. Up from the horizon swelled a supernatural
light—a glow of pale yellow and transparent green, mingled with strange
touches of red and gold. It spread upward as they watched; the colors
deepened; the glow grew stronger, like the witching light of a fen
fire.
All sat silently gazing. It was And-Ongen, hanging around her mother’s
neck, who first found her voice.
“Oh, look!... She is coming up again!”
In solemn grandeur the moon swung up above the plain. She had been with
them many nights now; but each time she seemed as wonderful a sight
as ever. To-night a hush fell on their spirits as they watched her
rise—just as the scene had hushed them the evening before, far away to
the eastward somewhere on the plain. The silvery beams grew stronger;
the first pale fen fire began to shimmer and spread; slowly the light
mellowed into a mist of green and yellow and blue. And-Ongen exclaimed
that the moon was much bigger to-night; but it had seemed bigger the
night before also. Store-Hans again solemnly told her the reason for
it—that the moon had to grow, just as she did! This seemed to her quite
logical; she turned to her mother and asked whether the moon had milk
and porridge every evening, too.
Per Hansa had been sitting on the tongue of the wagon, smoking his
pipe. Now he got up, knocked out the ashes carefully, put his pipe in
his pocket, and wound up his watch. These duties done, he gave the
order to turn in for the night.
A little while later they all lay under the quilts, gazing off into the
opalescent glow. When the mother thought that the children had gone to
sleep she asked, soberly:
“Do you suppose we’ll ever find the others again?”
“Oh yes—I’m sure of it ... if they haven’t sunk through the ground!”
This was all Per Hansa said. He yawned once or twice, long and heavily,
as if he were very sleepy, and turned away from her.
... After that she said no more, either.
IV
Truth to tell, Per Hansa was not a bit sleepy. For a long while he lay
wide awake, staring into the night. Although the evening had grown
cool, sweat started out on his body from time to time, as thoughts
which he could not banish persisted in his mind.
He had good reason to sweat, at all the things he was forced to lie
there and remember. Nor was it only to-night that these heavy thoughts
came to trouble him; it had been just the same all through the day,
and last night, too, and the night before. And now, the moment he had
lain down, they had seized upon him with renewed strength; he recalled
keenly all the scruples and misgivings that had obsessed his wife
before they had started out on this long journey—both those which
had been spoken and those which had been left unsaid. The latter had
been the worst; they had seemed to grow deeper and more tragic as he
had kept prying into them in his clumsy way.... But she wasn’t a bit
stupid, that wife of his! As a matter of fact, she had more sense than
most people. Indeed she had!
... No, it wasn’t a pleasant situation for Per Hansa, by any means.
He had not seen a happy moment, day or night, since the mishap had
struck them on the second afternoon this side of Jackson. There the
first wagon had got stuck in a mud hole; in pulling it out they had
wrecked it so hopelessly that he had been forced to put back to Jackson
for repairs. Under the circumstances, it had seemed to him utterly
senseless to hold up all the rest of the company four days. He simply
wouldn’t listen to their waiting for him; for they had houses to build
and fields to break, if they were to get anything into the ground this
season. They must go on without him; he’d come along all right, in his
own good time.... So they had given him full instructions about the
course he was to follow and the halting places where he was to stop for
the night; it had all seemed so simple to him at the time. Then they
had started on together—Tönseten, who knew the way, and Hans Olsa, and
the two Solum boys. They all had horses and strong new wagons. They
travelled fast, those fellows!...
If he only had paid some attention to Hans Olsa, who for a long while
had insisted on waiting for him. But he had overruled all their
objections; it was entirely his own doing that Hans Olsa and the others
had gone on, leaving him behind.
But he soon had learned that it wasn’t so easy. Hadn’t he lost his way
altogether the other day, in the midst of a fog and drizzling rain?
Until late in the afternoon that day he hadn’t had the faintest idea
what direction he was taking. It had been after this experience that he
had formed the habit of keeping so far ahead of the caravan. He simply
couldn’t endure listening to her constant questions—questions which he
found himself unable to answer....
The only thing he felt sure of was that he wasn’t on the right track;
otherwise he would have come across the traces of their camps. It
was getting to be a matter of life and death to him to find the
trail—and find it soon.... A devil of a jaunt it would be to the
Pacific Ocean—the wagon would never hold out _that_ long!... Oh yes,
he realized it all too well—a matter of life and death. There weren’t
many supplies left in the wagon. He had depended on his old comrade and
Lofot-man,[2] Hans Olsa, for everything.
[2] A companion on the winter fishing grounds at the Lofoten Islands.
Per Hansa heaved a deep sigh; it came out before he could stop it....
Huh!—it was an easy matter enough for Hans Olsa! He had ample means,
and could start out on a big scale from the beginning; he had a wife
in whose heart there wasn’t a speck of fear!... The Lord only knew
where they were now—whether they were east or west of him! And they had
Tönseten, too, and his wife Kjersti,[3] both of them used to America.
Why, they could talk the language and everything....
[3] The combination _kj_ in this name is pronounced like _ch_ in
_church_; the final _i_ has the sound of _y_ in _godly_.
And then there were the Solum boys, who had actually been born in this
country.... Indeed, east or west, it made no difference to them where
they lay that night.
But here was he, the newcomer, who owned nothing and knew nothing,
groping about with his dear ones in the endless wilderness!... Beret
had taken such a dislike to this journey, too—although in many ways
she was the more sensible of the two.... Well, he certainly had fixed
up a nice mess for himself, and no mistake!
He wondered why he had ever left Fillmore County; as he lay there
thinking it over, he couldn’t understand what had prompted him to do
such a thing. He could easily have found a job there and stayed until
his wife got up from childbed; then he could have moved west next
spring. This had been what she had wanted, though she had never said it
in so many words.
The quilt had grown oppressively heavy; he threw it aside.... How long
it took her to go to sleep to-night! Why wouldn’t she try to get as
much rest as possible? Surely she knew that it would be another tough
day to-morrow?...
... Just so that confounded wagon didn’t go to pieces again!...
V
The night wore on. The children slept quietly and peacefully. The
mother also seemed to have found rest at last. Per Hansa thought that
she was sound asleep; he began to move slowly away from her. He threw
his hand over on the quilt between them as if making a motion in his
sleep.... No, she didn’t stir; he lay quiet for a while, then moved
again. In so doing his hand happened to fall on that of Store-Hans;
it was so chubby and round, that hand, so healthy and warm, and quite
firm for the hand of only a child. Per Hansa lay still for a long time,
holding the boy’s hand with a desperate earnestness.... Slowly the
troublesome thoughts seemed to lighten and lift; his courage ebbed back
again; surely everything would come out all right in the end!
Little by little he slipped the quilt off, crept out of bed as quietly
as a mouse, got into his trousers, and pulled on his shoes.
Outside, the misty sheen of the moonlight shimmered so brightly
that it blinded him. Near at hand, the prairie was bathed in a flood
of tarnished green; farther off the faint blue tones began to appear,
merging gradually into the purple dimness that shrouded all the horizon.
Per Hansa looked for the North Star, found it, turned about until he
had it over his right shoulder; then he glanced at his watch, took a
few steps, hesitated, and looked back as if taking a bearing of the
wagons and the star. The next moment he faced about resolutely, and
hurried off westward.
It felt good to be moving again; he almost broke into a trot. There
were the oxen, busily grazing; they needed to get their fill all right,
poor devils!... Rosie lay closer to the wagons; his eyes had passed
over her at first, a dark spot in the vague, deceptive light. The cow
must have noticed the shadow gliding along so swiftly; she gave a long
moo.... This enraged Per Hansa; he broke into a run and got out of her
sight as quickly as he could, for fear she would moo again.... If she
only hadn’t waked Beret!
He set his course toward the point where he thought the crest of the
ridge must lie. Now and then he stopped and looked around, to find out
if he could still see the wagons. When he had lost them at last, and
they were wholly swallowed up in the night, he gave an involuntary
gasp—but clenched his teeth and went on.
The ridge lay farther off than he had thought. He had walked for a
solid hour before he finally reached what he felt to be the highest
point; he reckoned that he must be at least four miles from camp....
There he fell to examining the ground carefully; but first of all he
looked at his watch again, and then at the North Star and the moon,
trying to fix the bearings of the camp in his mind.
On the other side of the ridge the lay of the land seemed to be
different; the slope was a little steeper; a thick underbrush covered
it; through the tall bushes the moonlight shimmered strangely....
Per Hansa felt no fear, but every sense within him was alert. First
he searched the northerly slope of the hill, beyond the edge of the
thicket, stooping over as he went, his eyes scanning every foot of the
ground. When he had found no trace of what he was looking for, he
came back to the same starting point and searched an equal distance in
the opposite direction; but he discovered nothing on this tack, either.
Now he began to walk along the edge of the thicket, in and out,
crisscrossing the line in every direction; he pushed his way into each
little grassless opening, and kicked over the earth there, before he
went on. Sweat was running off him in streams. A quarter of an hour
went by; he was still searching frantically.... All at once, right
at the edge of the woods, he struck a piece of level ground with a
larger clearing on it; in the middle of this clearing lay a wide, round
patch in the grass. Per Hansa threw himself down on his knees, like a
miser who has found a costly treasure; he bent over and sniffed the
ground. His blood throbbed; his hands shook as he dug.... Yes, he was
right—here there had been a fire! It couldn’t have been many days ago,
either; the smell of the ashes was still fresh.... His eyes had grown
so moist and dim that he had to wipe them.... But he wasn’t crying—no,
not yet!...
He began to crawl around on all fours, farther and farther down the
slope. Suddenly he stopped, sat up on his haunches, and held something
in his hand that he was examining closely....
“I’ll be damned if it isn’t fresh horse dung!” ... His voice rang
with a great joy. He tried the stuff between his fingers—crumbled it,
sniffed at it ... there was no doubting the fact any longer.
Now he got up, walking erectly with a confident step, like a man who
has just made a lucky strike, and began to search along the whole
slope.... He might as well go ahead and find the ford to-night; then he
wouldn’t be delayed by hunting for it in the morning. The underbrush
thickened as he made his way down the slope.... Here, then, was Split
Rock Creek; and here they had camped, as Tönseten had said they
would!...
Once he had reached the edge of the creek, it did not take him long to
find the ford that the others had used; the ruts still stood there
plainly, as fresh and deep as if they had been made that very day. For
a while he paused at the edge of the water, and looked about him....
Had they chosen the best crossing, after all? The bank of the creek on
the other side formed a bend; the brink looked pretty steep. At last
he waded out into the water, with his shoes still on.... Oh, well, the
grade wasn’t so steep that the oxen couldn’t easily make it; there
would be a bad jolt here at the edge, but after that they would have an
even slope up the bank.... Stepping out on the opposite shore, he stood
as if rooted to the ground.
... “What in the devil...!”
Per Hansa bent over and picked up the object that lay before him; he
held it out in the moonlight, turned it over and over in his hands,
smelled of it ... then took a bite.
... “By God! if it isn’t one of Hans Olsa’s dried mutton legs!”
He straightened himself up and gazed with deep thankfulness into the
quivering bluish-green haze that glowed all around him.... “Yes, that’s
the way it goes, when people have more than they can take care of!”
... He stuck the mutton leg under his arm; whistling a love ballad of
Nordland, which seemed to have come into his mind unconsciously, he
crossed the creek again.
On the way back he took his own time. Nothing mattered now; the night
was fair and mild; his aching weariness was gone; he felt refreshed
and strengthened. His wife and children were sleeping safe and sound;
of food they still had supplies for a couple of weeks; and now he had
found the trail again and could be certain of it all the way to Sioux
Falls.... That wretched wagon was the only difficulty; it would have to
hang together for a few days more!...
When he drew near enough to the wagons to make them out clearly in the
moonlight, he slackened his pace, and a shiver passed over him.
Wasn’t some one sitting there on the wagon tongue? Surely that was a
human form?
In growing apprehension, he hurried on.
“Good Heavens, Beret! What are you doing out here in the middle
of the night?” His voice was full of alarm, yet softened by his great
concern for her.
“It felt so awful to lie there alone, after you had gone.... I could
hardly breathe ... so I got up.”
The words came with difficulty; he realized that her voice was hoarse
with weeping; he had to pull himself sharply together in order to keep
his own tears back.
“Were you awake, Beret?... You shouldn’t lie awake that way in the
night!” he said, reproachfully.
“How can I sleep?... You lie there tossing back and forth, and say
nothing!... You might have told me. I know very well what’s the matter!”
Suddenly she could stand it no longer. She ran over to him, flung her
arms around his neck, and leaned close against him. The dam of her
pent-up tears broke in a flood of emotion; she wept long and bitterly.
“Now calm yourself, dear.... You must calm yourself, Beret-girl!” ...
He had put his arm lovingly around her, but found it hard to speak....
“Don’t you see that I’ve got one of Hans Olsa’s dried mutton legs under
my arm?” ...
... That night Per Hansa was good to his wife.
II. Home-founding
I
On the side of a hill, which sloped gently away toward the southeast
and followed with many windings a creek that wormed its way across the
prairie, stood Hans Olsa, laying turf. He was building a sod house. The
walls had now risen breast-high; in its half-finished condition, the
structure resembled more a bulwark against some enemy than anything
intended to be a human habitation. And the great heaps of cut sod,
piled up in each corner, might well have been the stores of ammunition
for defence of the stronghold.
For a man of his strength and massive build, his motions were unusually
quick and agile; but he worked by fits and starts to-day. At times he
stopped altogether; in these pauses he would straighten himself up and
draw his sleeve with a quick stroke across his troubled face; with each
stroke the sleeve would come away damper; and standing so, he would fix
his gaze intently on the prairie to the eastward. His eyes had wandered
so often now over the stretch of land lying before them, that they were
familiar with every tussock and hollow.... No—nothing in sight yet!...
He would resume his task, as if to make up for lost time, and work hard
for a spell; only to forget himself once more, pause involuntarily, and
stand inert and abstracted, gazing off into the distance.
Beyond the house a tent had been pitched; a wagon was drawn up close
beside it. On the ground outside of the tent stood a stove, a couple
of chairs, and a few other rough articles of furniture. A stout,
healthy-looking woman, whose face radiated an air of simple wisdom and
kindliness, was busy preparing the midday meal. She sang to herself as
she worked. A ten-year-old girl, addressed by the woman as Sofie, was
helping her. Now and then the girl would take up the tune and join in
the singing.
Less than a quarter of a mile away, in a southeasterly direction, a
finished sod house rose on the slope of the hill. Smoke was winding up
from it at this moment. This house, which had been built the previous
fall, belonged to Syvert Tönseten.
Some distance north from the place where Hans Olsa had located, two
other sod houses were under construction; but a hillock lay between,
so that he could not see them from where he stood. There the two Solum
boys had driven down their stakes and had begun building. Tönseten’s
completed house, and the other three half-finished ones, marked the
beginning of the settlement on Spring Creek.
The woman who had been bustling about preparing the meal, now called
to her husband that dinner was ready—he must come at once! He answered
her, straightened up for the hundredth time, wiped his hands on his
trousers, and stood for a moment gazing off eastward.... No use to
look—not a soul in sight yet!... He sighed heavily, and walked with
slow steps toward the tent, his eyes on the ground.
It was light and airy inside the tent, but stifling hot, because of the
unobstructed sunlight beating down upon it. Two beds were ranged along
the wall, both of them homemade; a big emigrant chest stood at the
head of each. Nails had been driven into the centre pole of the tent,
on which hung clothing; higher up a crosspiece, securely fastened, was
likewise hung with clothes. Two of the walls were lined with furniture;
on these pieces the dishes were displayed, all neatly arranged.
A large basin of water stood on a chair just inside the tent door. Hans
Olsa washed his face and hands; then he came out and sat down on
the ground, where his wife had spread the table. It was so much cooler
outside. The meal was all ready; both mother and daughter had been
waiting for him.
“I suppose you haven’t seen any signs of them yet?” his wife asked at
last.
“No—nothing at all!”
“Can you imagine what has become of them?”
“The Lord forgive us—if I only knew!”
Her husband looked so anxious that she asked no more questions. Out
of her kind heart rose a hopeful, “Don’t worry, they’ll get here all
right!” ... But in spite of the cheerfulness of the words, she could
not give them that ring of buoyant confidence which she would have
liked to show.
... “Of course!” said the girl with a laugh. “Store-Hans and Ola have
two good pairs of eyes. Leave it to them—they’ll find us!”
The father gave her a stern glance; he didn’t tell her in words to
stop her foolish chatter—but she said no more. Without speaking once,
he ate his dinner. As soon as he had finished, he tossed his spoon on
the blanket, thanked them for the food, got up gloomily, and went back
to the hal-fcompleted wall. There he sat down awhile, as if lost in
thought ... gazing eastward. His large, rugged features were drawn and
furrowed with anxiety.... “God Almighty!” he sighed, and folded his big
hands. “What can have become of Per Hansa?”
His wife was watching him closely as he sat there on the wall. By and
by she told her daughter to finish washing the dishes, and started to
go over where he was. When he saw her coming, he tried to begin working
as if there were nothing on his mind.
“Hans,” she said, quickly, when she had reached his side, “I think you
ought to go out and look for them!”
He waited until he had got a strip of sod in place before he answered:
“Easier said than done ... when we haven’t the faintest idea where to
look ... on such stretches of prairie!”
“Yes, I know; but it would make us all feel better, anyway ... as
if we were doing something.”
Hans Olsa laid another strip of turf; then he stopped, let his hands
fall to his sides, and began thinking aloud as he gazed off into the
distance....
“I know this much—you don’t often find a smarter fellow than Per
Hansa.... That’s what makes it so queer! I don’t suppose he’s able to
get much speed out of his oxen; but one thing I’m certain of—he has
been hurrying as fast as he could. And we surely didn’t come along very
fast ... but now it’s the fifth day since we arrived here! If he made
use of these bright moonlight nights, as he probably did, I begin to be
afraid that he’s gone on west of us somewhere, instead of being still
to the eastward.... It’s certainly no child’s play to start looking for
him!”
Hans Olsa slumped down on the wall, the picture of dejection. His wife
quickly found a place beside him. Together they sat there in silence.
The same fear that she felt him struggling with, a fear thrown into
sharp relief by the things he had just been saying, had long since
gripped her heart also.
“I feel so sorry for Beret, poor thing ... and the children. You must
remember, though, that he couldn’t go very fast on account of her
condition.... I think she is with child again!” She paused. “I dreamed
about them last night ... a bad dream....”
Her husband glanced sidewise at her. “We mustn’t pay attention to such
things. A bad dream is a good sign, anyway—that’s what my mother always
said.... But I suppose I’ll never forgive myself for not waiting for
him.” He got up heavily and laid another strip of turf. “He’s always
been like that, Per Hansa; he never would take help from any man. But
this time he’s carried it a little too far!”
His wife made no answer. She was watching a short stout man with a
reddish beard who had started up the slope from the direction of the
house to the south of them. He had cheeks like two rosy apples, a quick
step, and eyes that flitted all about; he was noted among them for
his glib tongue and the flood of his conversation. With hands stuck
into the waistband of his trousers, and elbows out akimbo, the man
looked half as broad again as he really was.
“Here comes Tönseten,” said the woman. “Why don’t you talk it over with
him? I really think you ought to go out and look for them.”
“Seen anything of them yet, Hans Olsa?” asked the man, without further
greeting, as soon as he arrived.... “Well, well! this looks fine! Ha,
ha! It’s a warm house, you know, that’s built by the aid of a woman’s
hand.”
Hans Olsa wheeled on him. “You haven’t caught sight of them yourself,
Syvert, have you?”
“Caught sight of them? Why, man alive, that’s just what I’ve come up
here to tell you! I’ve had them in sight for over an hour now. Seems
to me you ought to be able to see them easy enough—you who carry your
eyes so high up in the air!... Good Lord! it won’t be long before they
arrive here, at the rate they’re coming!”
“What’s that you say?” the others burst out with one voice.... “Where
are they?” ...
“I reckon Per Hansa must have got off his course a little. Maybe the
oxen didn’t steer well, or maybe he didn’t figure the current right....
Look to the westward, neighbours! Look over there about west-northwest,
and you’ll see him plain enough.... No need to worry. That fellow never
would drown in such shallow water as this!... I wonder, now, how far
west he’s really been?”
Hans Olsa and his wife faced around in the direction that Tönseten had
indicated. Sure enough, out of the west a little caravan was crawling
up toward them on the prairie.
“Can that be them?... I really believe it is!” said Hans Olsa in a half
whisper, as if hardly daring yet to give vent to his joy.
“_Of course_ it is!” cried his wife, excitedly.... “Thank God!”
“Not the least doubt of it,” Tönseten assured them. “You might as
well go and put your coffeepot on the stove, Mother Sörrina![4]
That Kjersti of mine is coming over pretty soon; she’ll probably have
something good tucked under her apron.... In half an hour we’ll have
the lost sheep back in the fold!”
[4] The name properly is Sörine, with the accent on the second
syllable; but in the dialect of Helgeland it is pronounced Sörrina,
with the accent on the first. These people all came from the district
of Helgeland, in Norway.
“Yes! Heavens and earth, Sörrina!” cried Hans Olsa, “fetch out the best
you’ve got!... Per, Per, is it really you, old boy?... But why are you
coming from the west, I’d like to know?”
Tönseten coughed, and gave the woman a sly wink.
“Look here, Mother Sörrina,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “won’t
you be good enough, please, to take a peek at Hans Olsa’s Sunday
bottle?... Not that _I_ want anything to drink, you understand—I should
say not. Good Lord, no! But think of that poor woman out there, who
has been suffering all this time without a drop! And I’d be willing to
bet that Per Hansa wouldn’t object to having his stomach warmed up a
little, too!”
At that they burst out laughing, from mingled joy and relief; but
Tönseten’s laughter at his own joke was the loudest of all.... Work was
resumed at once; Syvert began to carry the sods for Hans Olsa to lay
up, while Mother Sörrina went off in a happy frame of mind, to make her
preparations for the reception of the wanderers.
Before the half hour allotted by Tönseten had passed, the caravan came
slowly crawling up the slope. Per Hansa still strode in the van, with
Store-Hans at his side; Ole walked abreast of the oxen, driving them
with the goad. Beret and And-Ongen sat in the wagon. Rosie came jogging
along behind at her own gait; she gave a loud, prolonged “moo-o-o-o” as
she discovered the other animals across the prairie.
Both families stood ready to receive them; Hans Olsa and Sörine,
Tönseten and his Kjersti, all watching intently the movements of the
approaching company; but the girl couldn’t possess her patience
any longer, and ran down to meet the new arrivals. She took Store-Hans
by the hand and fell in beside him; the first question she asked was
whether he hadn’t been terribly scared at night?...
As the slope of the hill grew steeper, the oxen had to bend to the yoke.
“Hey, there, folks!” shouted Per Hansa, boisterously. “Don’t be
standing around loafing, now! It’s only the middle of the afternoon.
Haven’t you got anything to do around here?”
“Coffee time, coffee time, Per Hansa ... ha, ha, ha!” Tönseten was
bubbling over with good spirits. “We thought we might as well wait a
little while for you, you know.”
... “You’ve found us at last!” said Hans Olsa, with a deep, happy
chuckle.... He didn’t seem able to let go of Per Hansa’s hand.
“Found you? Why, devil take it, it’s no trick to follow a course out
here! You just have to keep on steering straight ahead. And you had
marked the trail pretty well, all the way along. I found plenty of
traces of you.... I guess we stood a little too far to the westward,
between Sioux Falls and here; that’s how it happened.... So this is the
place, is it?... The pastures of Goshen in the land of Egypt—eh?”
“Just so, just so!” cried Tönseten, nodding and laughing. “Pastures
of Goshen—right you are! That’s exactly what we are going to call the
place—_Goshen_—if only you haven’t sailed in to mix things up for us!”
...
Beret and the child had now got down from the wagon; the other two
women hovered around her, drawing her toward the tent. But she hung
back for a moment; she wanted to stop and look around.
... Was this the place?... _Here!..._ Could it be possible?... She
stole a glance at the others, at the half-completed hut, then turned
to look more closely at the group standing around her; and suddenly it
struck her that _here something was about to go wrong_.... For several
days she had sensed this same feeling; she could not seem to tear
herself loose from the grip of it.... A great lump kept coming up
in her throat; she swallowed hard to keep it back, and forced herself
to look calm. Surely, surely, she mustn’t give way to her tears now, in
the midst of all this joy....
Then she followed the other two women into the tent; seeing a chair,
she sank down in it, as if her strength had gone!
Sörine was patting her on the shoulder.... “Come, get your things off,
Beret. You ought to loosen up your clothes, you know. Just throw this
dress of mine around you.... Here’s the water to wash yourself in. Let
down your hair, and take your time about it.... Don’t mind Kjersti and
me being around.”
After they had bustled about for a little while the others left her.
The moment they had gone she jumped up and crossed the tent, to look
out of the door.... How will human beings be able to endure this
place? she thought. Why, there isn’t even a thing that one can _hide
behind_!... Her sensitive, rather beautiful face was full of blank
dismay; she turned away from the door and began to loosen her dress;
then her eyes fell on the centre pole with its crosspiece, hung with
clothes, and she stood a moment irresolute, gazing at it in startled
fright.... It looked like the giants she had read about as a child; for
a long while she was unable to banish the picture from her mind.
Outside the tent, Ole stood with his hand resting on one of the oxen.
He was disgusted; the older people seemed to have clean forgotten his
existence. They never would get done talking—when he, too, might have
had a word to put in!...
“Hadn’t we better unhitch the oxen, Dad?”
“Yes, yes—that’s right, Ola. We might as well camp down here for the
night, since we’ve run across some folks we used to know.... How about
it, you fellows?” He turned to the other two. “I suppose there’s a
little more land left around here, isn’t there, after you’ve got
through?”
“_Land_? Good God! Per Hansa, what are you talking about? Take whatever
you please, from here to the Pacific Ocean!” Tönseten’s enthusiasm
got so far away with him that he had to pull one of his hands out of
his waistband and make a sweeping circle with it in the air.
“You must take a look around as soon as you can,” Hans Olsa said, “and
see if you find anything better that meets your fancy. In the meanwhile
I’ve put down a stake for you on the quarter section that lies north
of mine. We’ll go over and have a look at it pretty soon. Sam Solum
wanted it, but I told him he’d better leave it till you came.... You
see, you would be next to the creek there; and then you and I would
be the nearest neighbours, just as we’ve always planned. It makes no
particular difference to Sam; he can take the quarter alongside his
brother’s.”
Per Hansa drew a deep breath, as if filling himself with life’s great
goodness.... Here Hans Olsa had been worrying about him, and with
kindly forethought had arranged everything to his advantage!... “Well,
well, we’ll have to settle all that later, Hans Olsa. For the present,
I can only say that I’m deeply thankful to you!... Unhitch the beasts,
there, Ola!... And now, if you folks have got anything handy, to either
eat or drink, I’ll accept it with pleasure.”
... “Or _both_, Per Hansa!” put in Tönseten, excitedly.
“Yes, both, Syvert. I won’t refuse!”
Soon they were all gathered around a white cloth which Mother Sörine
had spread on the ground. On one side of it lay a whole leg of dried
mutton; on the other a large heap of _flatbröd_, with cheese, bread,
and butter; in the centre of the cloth stood a large bowl of sweet
milk, and from the direction of the stove the breeze wafted to them a
pleasant odour of fried bacon and strong coffee. Mother Sörine herself
took charge of the ceremony, bringing the food and urging them all
to sit down. The stocky figure of Per Hansa rocked back and forth in
blissful delight as he squatted there with his legs crossed under him.
“Come, Sörrina, sit down!” he cried. “I guess we’ve fallen in with
gentlefolks, by the looks of things around here.... I suppose you
think you’re old Pharaoh himself—eh, Hans Olsa?”
“Who do you call me, then?” inquired Tönseten.
“You, Syvert? Well, now, I really don’t know what to say. Of
course you’d like to be His Majesty’s butler, but you mustn’t be
encouraged—remember what happened to that poor fellow!... I think we’d
better make you the baker—it might be safer, all around. What’s your
idea, Hans Olsa?”
By this time they were all laughing together.
In the midst of the jollification came Sörine, carrying a plate with
a large bottle and a dram glass[5] on it.... “Here, take this off my
hands, Hans Olsa—you will know what to do with it!”
[5] This bottle and glass would have been old family pieces from
Norway, the bottle shaped something like an hourglass, with a
contraction in the middle to be grasped by the hand.
Tönseten fairly bubbled over in his admiration for her:
“Oh, you sweet Sörrina-girl!—you’re dearer to my heart than a hundred
women!... What a blessing it must be, to have a wife like that!”
“Stop your foolishness!” said Kjersti, but her voice didn’t sound too
severe.
For a long while they continued to sit around the cloth, chatting,
eating, and drinking, and thoroughly enjoying themselves. Hans Olsa
seemed like a different man from the one who had eaten here at noon.
His loud voice led the cheerful talk; his ponderous bulk was always the
centre of the merriment; it seemed as if he would never tire of gazing
into that bearded, roguish face of Per Hansa’s.
Once, as Per Hansa was slicing off a piece of mutton, he regarded the
cut thoughtfully, and asked:
“I suppose you brought all your supplies through safe enough?”
“Oh, sure,” answered Hans Olsa, innocently. “We had no trouble at
all—didn’t lose anything; that is, except for the leg that we left
behind somewhere, east on the prairie. But that’s hardly worth
mentioning.”
Per Hansa paused with the piece of meat halfway to his mouth, and
looked at Sörine with an expression of deep concern:
“The devil you say! Did you lose one of your legs...?”
Mother Sörine laughed heartily at him. “Oh no—not quite so bad as
that.... But a leg of mutton might come in handy later on, I’ll tell
you; there aren’t too many of them to be had around here.”
Per Hansa chewed away on the meat and looked very serious. At last he
said:
“That’s always the way with folks who have more of the world’s goods
than they can take care.... But I’ll promise you one thing, Sörrina: if
I can get my old blunderbuss to work, you’re going to have your lost
leg back again.... How about it, fellows? Have you seen any game that’s
fit to eat out here?”
III
They sat on until the first blue haze of evening began to spread
eastward over the plain. The talk had now drifted to questions of a
more serious nature, mostly concerned with how they should manage
things out here; of their immediate prospects; of what the future might
hold in store for them; of land and crops, and of the new kingdom which
they were about to found.... No one put the thought into words, but
they all felt it strongly; now they had gone back to the very beginning
of things....
As the evening shadows deepened the conversation gradually died away
into silence. A peculiar mood came drifting in with the dusk. It seemed
to float on the evening breeze, to issue forth out of the heart of the
untamed nature round about them; it lurked in the very vastness and
endlessness surrounding them on every hand; it even seemed to rise like
an impalpable mist out of the ground on which they sat.
This mood brought vague premonitions to them, difficult to
interpret.... No telling what might happen out here ... for almost
anything _could_ happen!...
They were so far from the world ... cut off from the haunts of their
fellow beings ... so terribly far!...
The faces that gazed into one another were sober now, as silence
claimed the little company; but lines of strength and determination on
nearly every countenance told of an inward resolve to keep the mood of
depression from gaining full control.
Per Hansa was the first to rouse himself and throw off the spell. He
jumped up with nervous energy; a shiver passed over him, as if he were
having a chill.
“What is it—are you cold?” asked his wife. She had instinctively sensed
his mood as she looked at him—and loved him better for it. Until that
moment, she had supposed that she herself was the only one who felt
this peculiar influence.
“Such crazy talk!” he burst out. “I believe we’ve all lost our senses,
every last one of us! Here we sit around celebrating in broad daylight,
in the middle of summer, as if it was the Christmas holidays!... Come
on, woman, let’s go over to our new home!”
Everyone got up.
“You must do exactly as you please about it, Per Hansa,” spoke up
Hans Olsa with an apologetic air. “Don’t feel that you must take this
quarter if you don’t like it. But as far as I can see, it’s as good
a piece of land as you could find anywhere around—every square foot
of it plowland, except the hill over there. Plenty of water for both
man and beast.... As for my part, if I can only sit here between you
and Syvert, I certainly won’t be kicking about my neighbours.... But
I don’t want you to feel that you have to take this quarter on my
account, you understand.... If you do take it, though, we must get one
of the Solum boys to go down to Sioux Falls with you the first thing
to-morrow, so that you can file your claim. You’ll have to do that in
any case, you know, whichever quarter you take.... There’s likely to
be a lot of people moving into this region before the snow flies;
we five oughtn’t to part company or let anyone get in between us....
You’ve heard my best advice, anyway.”
“Now, that’s the talk!” Tönseten chimed in, briskly. “And considering
the size of the head it comes from, it isn’t half bad, either. You’re
damned well right, Hans Olsa. Before the snow flies you’re going to
see such a multitude swarming around these parts, that the thundering
place won’t be fit to live in! Remember what I say, boys, in times to
come—bear it in mind that those were Syvert’s very words!... You’ve
got to go straight to Sioux Falls to-morrow morning, Per Hansa, and no
two ways about it! If one of the Solum boys can’t go along to do the
talking for you, why, I shall have to buckle down to the job myself.”
Once more Per Hansa’s heart filled with a deep sense of peace and
contentment as he realized how matters were being smoothed out for him.
They seemed to move of their own accord, but he knew better.... Was
he really to own it? Was it really to become his possession, this big
stretch of fine land that spread here before him? Was he really to have
his friends for neighbours, both to the north and to the south—folks
who cared for him and wanted to help him out in every way?...
He was still chuckling with the rare pleasure of it as he asked, “You
haven’t discovered any signs of life since you came?”
“Devil, no!” Tönseten assured him. “Neither Israelites nor Canaanites!
I was the first one to find this place, you know.... But there’s no
telling how soon the drift will loosen, the way folks were talking
back East last winter. And now the land office for this whole section
of country has been moved to Sioux Falls, too. That means business;
the government, you may be certain, has good reason for doing such a
thing.” Tönseten spoke with all the importance of a man who has inside
knowledge.
Per Hansa looked at him, and a bantering tone came into his voice:
“I see it clearly, Syvert—it would never do to keep you around here
as a mere baker! We’ll have to promote you to a higher office, right
away.... Now, boys, I’m going over to see this empire that you two have
set aside for me. Ola, you hitch up the oxen again and bring the wagons
along.”
With these commands he walked rapidly away; the others had almost to
run in order to keep up with him. Strong emotions surged through him as
he strode on....
“It lies high,” he observed after a while, when they had looked all the
plowland over.... “There must be a fine view from the top of that hill.”
They were bending their steps in this direction, and soon had reached
the highest point. It seemed so spacious and beautiful to stand high
above the prairie and look around, especially now, when the shades
of evening were falling.... Suddenly Per Hansa began to step more
cautiously; he sniffed the air like an animal; in a moment he stopped
beside a small depression in the ground, and stood gazing at it
intently for quite a while; then he said, quietly:
“There are people buried here.... That is a grave!”
“Oh no, Per Hansa! It can’t be possible.”
“No doubt about it,” he said in the same subdued but positive tone.
Tönseten and Hans Olsa were so astonished that they could hardly credit
the fact; they came over at once to where Per Hansa stood, and gazed
down into the hollow.
Hans Olsa bent over and picked up a small stone that his eyes had
lighted on; he turned it around in his hand several times.... “That’s
a queer-looking piece of stone! I almost believe people have shaped it
for some use.... Here, see what you make of it, Syvert.”
Tönseten’s ruddy face grew sober and thoughtful as he examined the
object.
“By thunder! It certainly looks as if the Indians had been here!... Now
isn’t that rotten luck?” ...
“I’m afraid so,” said Per Hansa, with a vigorous nod. Then he added,
sharply, “But we needn’t shout the fact from the house-tops, you
know!... It takes so very little to scare some folks around here.”
He waited no longer but walked hastily down the hill; at the foot he
called to Ole, telling him not to drive any farther; but first he
turned to Hans Olsa to find out whether they were well across the line
between the two quarters.
“No use in building farther away from you than is absolutely
necessary,” he said. “It’s going to be lonesome for the women-folks at
times.” ...
... Awhile later, Tönseten was dragging his way homeward. For reasons
that he wouldn’t admit even to himself, he walked a good deal heavier
now than when he had climbed the slope that afternoon.
Per Hansa returned with his other neighbour to the wagons, where Beret
and the children were waiting. Again he inquired about the line between
the two quarters; then asked Beret and Hans Olsa to help pick the
best building place; his words, though few and soberly spoken, had in
them an unmistakable ring of determination.... This vast stretch of
beautiful land was to be his—yes, _his_—and no ghost of a dead Indian
would drive him away!... His heart began to expand with a mighty
exaltation. An emotion he had never felt before filled him and made
him walk erect.... “Good God!” he panted. “This kingdom is going to be
_mine_!”
IV
Early the next morning Per Hansa and one of the Solum boys set out on
the fifty-two-mile journey to Sioux Falls, where Per Hansa filed an
application for the quarter-section of land which lay to the north
of Hans Olsa’s. To confirm the application, he received a temporary
deed to the land. The deed was made out in the name of _Peder Benjamin
Hansen_; it contained a description of the land, the conditions which
he agreed to fulfil in order to become the owner, and the date, _June
6, 1873_.
Sörine wanted Beret and the children to stay with her during the
two days that her husband would be away; but she refused the offer with
thanks. If they were to get ready a home for the summer, she said, she
would have to take hold of matters right away.
... “For the summer?” exclaimed the other woman, showing her
astonishment. “What about the winter, then?”
Beret saw that she had uttered a thought which she ought to have kept
to herself; she evaded the question as best she could.
During the first day, both she and the boys found so much to do that
they hardly took time to eat. They unloaded both the wagons, set up the
stove, and carried out the table. Then Beret arranged their bedroom in
the larger wagon. With all the things taken out it was quite roomy in
there; it made a tidy bedroom when everything had been put in order.
The boys thought this work great fun, and she herself found some
relief in it for her troubled mind. But something vague and intangible
hovering in the air would not allow her to be wholly at ease; she had
to stop often and look about, or stand erect and listen.... Was that
a sound she heard?... All the while, the thought that had struck her
yesterday when she had first got down from the wagon, stood vividly
before her mind: here there was nothing even to hide behind!... When
the room was finished, and a blanket had been hung up to serve as a
door, she seemed a little less conscious of this feeling. But back in
the recesses of her mind it still was there....
After they had milked the cow, eaten their evening porridge, and talked
awhile to the oxen, she took the boys and And-Ongen and strolled away
from camp. With a common impulse, they went toward the hill; when
they had reached the summit, Beret sat down and let her gaze wander
aimlessly around.... In a certain sense, she had to admit to herself,
it was lovely up here. The broad expanse stretching away endlessly in
every direction, seemed almost like the ocean—especially now, when
darkness was falling. It reminded her strongly of the sea, and yet it
was very different.... This formless prairie had no heart that
beat, no waves that sang, no soul that could be touched ... or cared....
The infinitude surrounding her on every hand might not have been so
oppressive, might even have brought her a measure of peace, if it had
not been for the deep silence, which lay heavier here than in a church.
Indeed, what was there to break it? She had passed beyond the outposts
of civilization; the nearest dwelling places of men were far away. Here
no warbling of birds rose on the air, no buzzing of insects sounded;[6]
even the wind had died away; the waving blades of grass that trembled
to the faintest breath now stood erect and quiet, as if listening,
in the great hush of the evening.... All along the way, coming out,
she had noticed this strange thing: the stillness had grown deeper,
the silence more depressing, the farther west they journeyed; it must
have been over two weeks now since she had heard a bird sing! Had they
travelled into some nameless, abandoned region? Could no living thing
exist out here, in the empty, desolate, endless wastes of green and
blue?... How _could_ existence go on, she thought, desperately? If
life is to thrive and endure, it must at least have something to hide
behind!...
[6] Original settlers are agreed that there was neither bird nor insect
life on the prairie, with the exception of mosquitoes, the first year
that they came.
The children were playing boisterously a little way off. What a
terrible noise they made! But she had better let them keep on with
their play, as long as they were happy.... She sat perfectly quiet,
thinking of the long, oh, so interminably long march that they would
have to make, back to the place where human beings dwelt. It would be
small hardship for her, of course, sitting in the wagon; but she pitied
Per Hansa and the boys—and then the poor oxen!... He certainly would
soon find out for himself that a home for men and women and children
could never be established in this wilderness.... And how could she
bring new life into the world out here!...
Slowly her thoughts began to centre on her husband; they grew warm
and tender as they dwelt on him. She trembled as they came....
But only for a brief while. As her eyes darted nervously here and
there, flitting from object to object and trying to pierce the purple
dimness that was steadily closing in, a sense of desolation so profound
settled upon her that she seemed unable to think at all. It would not
do to gaze any longer at the terror out there, where everything was
turning to grim and awful darkness.... She threw herself back in the
grass and looked up into the heavens. But darkness and infinitude lay
there, also—the sense of utter desolation still remained.... Suddenly,
for the first time, she realized the full extent of her loneliness,
the dreadful nature of the fate that had overtaken her. Lying there on
her back, and staring up into the quiet sky across which the shadows
of night were imperceptibly creeping, she went over in her mind every
step of their wanderings, every mile of the distance they had travelled
since they had left home....
First they had boarded the boat at Sandnessjöen.... This boat had
carried them southward along the coast.... In Namsos there had been a
large ship with many white sails, that had taken her, with her dear
ones, and sailed away—that had carried them off relentlessly, farther
and farther from the land they knew. In this ship they had sailed for
weeks; the weeks had even grown into months; they had seemed to be
crossing an ocean which had no end.... There had been something almost
laughable in this blind course, steadily fixed on the sunset! When head
winds came, they beat up against them; before sweeping fair breezes
they scudded along; but always they were westering!...
... At last they had landed in Quebec. There she had walked about the
streets, confused and bewildered by a jargon of unintelligible sounds
that did not seem like the speech of people.... Was this the Promised
Land? Ah no—it was only the beginning of the real journey.... Then
something within her had risen up in revolt: I will go no farther!...
... But they had kept on, just the same—had pushed steadily
westward, over plains, through deserts, into towns, and out of them
again.... One fine day they had stood in Detroit, Michigan. This wasn’t
the place, either, it seemed.... Move on!... Once more she had felt
the spirit of revolt rising to shout aloud: I will go no farther!...
But it had been as if a resistless flood had torn them loose from
their foundations and was carrying them helplessly along on its
current—flinging them here and there, hurling them madly onward, with
no known destination ahead.
Farther and farther onward ... always west.... For a brief while there
had been a chance to relax once more; they had travelled on water
again, and she could hear the familiar splash of waves against the
ship’s side. This language she knew of old, and did not fear; it had
lessened the torture of that section of the journey for her, though
they had been subjected to much ill-treatment and there had been a
great deal of bullying and brawling on board.
At last the day had arrived when they had landed in Milwaukee. But here
they were only to make a new start—to take another plunge into the
unknown.... Farther, and always farther.... The relentless current kept
whirling them along.... Was it bound nowhere, then?... Did it have no
end?...
In the course of time they had come jogging into a place called Prairie
du Chien.... Had that been in Wisconsin, or some other place named
after savages?... It made no difference—they had gone on. They had
floundered along to Lansing, in Iowa.... Onward again. Finally they
had reached Fillmore County, in Minnesota.... But even that wasn’t the
place, it seemed!...
... Now she was lying here on a little green hillock, surrounded by
the open, endless prairie, far off in a spot from which no road led
back!... It seemed to her that she had lived many lives already, in
each one of which she had done nothing but wander and wander, always
straying farther away from the home that was dear to her.
She sat up at last, heaved a deep sigh, and glanced around as if
waking from a dream.... The unusual blending of the gentle and forceful
in her features seemed to be thrown into relief by the scene in which
she sat and the twilight hovering about her, as a beautiful picture is
enhanced by a well-chosen frame.