O. E. Rölvaag, the author of the following selection, grew up in a
Norwegian fishing village, but at the age of twenty he emigrated to
America and worked for his uncle on a Dakota farm. Later he worked his
way through St. Olaf College and eventually became a professor of
Norwegian literature at his alma mater. His excellent novel, _Giants in
the Earth_, from which the following pages are taken, describes the life
of Norwegian farmers in the Dakota Territory. As the novel opens,
several Norwegian families are taking up homesteads. Before they make
their first crops and can afford real houses, they have to live in sod
houses, which are really cellars dug in the prairie and roofed over with
sod.
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 defense 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 today. 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.... [_The
spaced periods in this selection do not indicate omitted material but
are the author’s own punctuation._] 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!”
They are waiting for Per Hansa and his family, whose wagon broke down,
to reach the homestead site. The Hansas arrive soon, and the next
selection describes them the day after, as the father goes to town to
register his claim and the mother wonders fearfully what the future
holds for them on the empty, lonely prairie.
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 [_Hans Olsa’s wife_] 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 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; 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!...
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.