Why should I speak of the ceaseless care, the suffering, and the hard
toil, which made the first few months of Brita’s life on this continent
a mere continued struggle for existence? They are familiar to every
emigrant who has come here with a brave heart and an empty purse.
Suffice it to say that at the end of the second month, she succeeded in
obtaining service as milkmaid with a family in the neighborhood of
New York. With the linguistic talent peculiar to her people, she
soon learned the English language and even spoke it well. From her
countrymen, she kept as far away as possible, not for her own sake,
but for that of her boy; for he was to grow great and strong, and the
knowledge of his birth might shatter his strength and break his courage.
For the same reason she also exchanged her picturesque Norse costume for
that of the people among whom she was living. She went commonly by the
name of Mrs. Brita, which pronounced in the English way, sounded very
much like Mrs. Bright, and this at last became the name by which she was
known in the neighborhood.
Thus five years passed; then there was a great rage for emigrating to
the far West, and Brita, with many others, started for Chicago. There
she arrived in the year 1852, and took up her lodgings with an Irish
widow, who was living in a little cottage in what was then termed the
outskirts of the city. Those who saw her in those days, going about the
lumber-yards and doing a man’s work, would hardly have recognized in her
the merry Glitter-Brita, who in times of old trod the spring-dance so
gayly in the well-lighted halls of the Blakstad mansion. And, indeed,
she was sadly changed! Her features had become sharper, and the firm
lines about her mouth expressed severity, almost sternness. Her clear
blue eyes seemed to have grown larger, and their glance betrayed secret,
ever-watchful care. Only her yellow hair had resisted the force of time
and sorrow; for it still fell in rich and wavy folds over a smooth white
forehead. She was, indeed, half ashamed of it, and often took pains to
force it into a sober, matronly hood. Only at nights, when she sat alone
talking with her boy, she would allow it to escape from its prison; and
he would laugh and play with it, and in his child’s way even wonder at
the contrast between her stern face and her youthful maidenly tresses.
This Thomas, her son, was a strange child. He had a Norseman’s taste for
the fabulous and fantastic, and although he never heard a tale of Necken
or the Hulder, he would often startle his mother by the most fanciful
combinations of imagined events, and by bolder personifications than
ever sprung from the legendary soil of the Norseland. She always took
care to check him whenever he indulged in these imaginary flights, and
he at last came to look upon them as something wrong and sinful. The
boy, as he grew up, often strikingly reminded her of her father,
as, indeed, he seemed to have inherited more from her own than from
Halvard’s race. Only the bright flaxen hair and his square, somewhat
clumsy stature might have told him to be the latter’s child. He had a
hot temper, and often distressed his mother by his stubbornness; and
then there would come a great burst of repentance afterwards, which
distressed her still more. For she was afraid it might be a sign of
weakness. “And strong he must be,” said she to herself, “strong enough
to overcome all resistance, and to conquer a great name for himself,
strong enough to bless a mother who brought him into the world
nameless.”
Strange to say, much as she loved this child, she seldom caressed him.
It was a penance she had imposed upon herself to atone for her guilt.
Only at times, when she had been sitting up late, and her eyes would
fall, as it were, by accident upon the little face on the pillow,
with the sweet unconsciousness of sleep resting upon it like a soft,
invisible veil, would she suddenly throw herself down over him, kiss
him, and whisper tender names in his ear, while her tears fell hot and
fast on his yellow hair and his rosy countenance. Then the child would
dream that he was sailing aloft over shining forests, and that his
mother, beaming with all the beauty of her lost youth, flew before him,
showering golden flowers on his path. These were the happiest moments of
Brita’s joyless life, and even these were not unmixed with bitterness;
for into the midst of her joy would steal a shy anxious thought which
was the more terrible because it came so stealthily, so soft-footed
and unbidden. Had not this child been given her as a punishment for her
guilt? Had she then a right to turn God’s scourge into a blessing? Did
she give to God “that which belongeth unto God,” as long as all her
hopes, her thoughts, and her whole being revolved about this one earthly
thing, her son, the child of her sorrow? She was not a nature to shrink
from grave questions; no, she met them boldly, when once they were
there, wrestled fiercely with them, was defeated, and again with a
martyr’s zeal rose to renew the combat. God had Himself sent her this
perplexing doubt and it was her duty to bear His burden. Thus ran
Brita’s reasoning. In the mean while the years slipped by, and great
changes were wrought in the world about her.
The few hundred dollars which Brita had been able to save, during the
first three years of her stay in Chicago, she had invested in a piece of
land. In the mean while the city had grown, and in the year 1859 she was
offered five thousand dollars for her lot; this offer she accepted and
again bought a small piece of property at a short distance from the
city. The boy had since his eighth year attended the public school, and
had made astonishing progress. Every day when school was out, she would
meet him at the gate, take him by the hand and lead him home. If any
of the other boys dared to make sport of her, or to tease him for his
dependence upon her, it was sure to cost that boy a black eye{.} He soon
succeeded in establishing himself in the respect of his school-mates,
for he was the strongest boy of his own age, and ever ready to protect
and defend the weak and defenseless. When Thomas Bright (for that was
the name by which he was known) was fifteen years old he was offered
a position as clerk in the office of a lumber-merchant, and with his
mother’s consent he accepted it. He was a fine young lad now, large and
well-knit, and with a clear earnest countenance. In the evening he would
bring home books to read, and as it had always been Brita’s habit to
interest herself in whatever interested him, she soon found herself
studying and discussing with him things which had in former years been
far beyond the horizon of her mind. She had at his request reluctantly
given up her work in the lumber-yards, and now spent her days at home,
busying herself with sewing and reading and such other things as women
find to fill up a vacant hour.
One evening, when Thomas was in his nineteenth year, he returned
from his office with a graver face than usual. His mother’s quick eye
immediately saw that something had agitated him, but she forbore to ask.
“Mother,” said he at last, “who is my father? Is he dead or alive?”
“God is your father, my son,” answered she, tremblingly. “If you love
me, ask me no more.”
“I do love you, mother,” he said, and gave her a grave look, in which
she thought she detected a mingling of tenderness and reproach. “And it
shall be as you have said.”
It was the first time she had had reason to blush before him, and
her emotion came near overwhelming her; but with a violent effort she
stifled it, and remained outwardly calm. He began pacing up and down the
floor with his head bent and his hands on his back. It suddenly occurred
to her that he was a grown man, and that she could no longer hold the
same relation to him as his supporter and protector. “Alas,” thought
she, “if God will but let me remain his mother, I shall bless and thank
Him.”
It was the first time this subject had been broached, and it gave rise
to many a doubt and many a question in the anxious mother’s mind. Had
she been right in concealing from him that which he might justly claim
to know? What had been her motive in keeping him ignorant of his origin
and of the land of his birth? She had wished him to grow to the strength
of manhood, unconscious of guilt, so that he might bear his head
upright, and look the world fearlessly in the face. And still, had there
not in all this been a lurking thought of herself, a fear of losing his
love, a desire to stand pure and perfect in his eye? She hardly dared
to answer these questions, for, alas, she knew not that even our purest
motives are but poorly able to bear a searching scrutiny. She began to
suspect that her whole course with her son had been wrong from the very
beginning. Why had she not told him the stern truth, even if he should
despise her for it, even if she should have to stand a blushing culprit
in his presence? Often, when she heard his footsteps in the hall, as
he returned from the work of the day, she would man herself up and the
words hovered upon her lips: “Son, thou art a bastard born, a child of
guilt, and thy mother is an outcast upon the earth.” But when she met
those calm blue eyes of his, saw the unsuspecting frankness of his
manner and the hopefulness with which he looked to the future, her
womanly heart shrank from its duty, and she hastened out of the room,
threw herself on her bed, and wept. Fiercely she wrestled with God in
prayer, until she thought that even God had deserted her. Thus months
passed and years, and the constant care and anxiety began to affect her
health. She grew pale and nervous, and the slightest noise would annoy
her. In the mean while, her manner toward the young man had become
strangely altered, and he soon noticed it, although he forbore to speak.
She was scrupulously mindful of his comfort, anxiously anticipated his
wants, and observed toward him an ever vigilant consideration, as if he
had been her master instead of her son.
When Thomas was twenty-two years of age, he was offered a partnership in
his employer’s business, and with every year his prospects brightened.
The sale of his mother’s property brought him a very handsome little
fortune, which enabled him to build a fine and comfortable house in one
of the best portions of the city. Thus their outward circumstances were
greatly improved, and of comfort and luxury Brita had all and more than
she had ever desired; but her health was broken down, and the physicians
declared that a year of foreign travel and a continued residence in
Italy might possibly restore her. At last, Thomas, too, began to urge
her, until she finally yielded. It was on a bright morning in May that
they both started for New York, and three days later they took the boat
for Europe. What countries they were to visit they had hardly decided,
but after a brief stay in England we find them again on a steamer bound
for Norway.