Read Online The Settlers by Vilhelm Moberg - Free Book Online

them continue their journey the following morning. And to think that one of the women in their group had become his wife!
    “You have been given a kind and good husband, Ulrika.”
    “Yes, Henry is gentle. He never uses a woman for a slave.”
    “But how could you and he understand each other in the beginning, before you learned English?”
    “Well,” said Ulrika, “a man and a woman always find a way if they like each other. We made signs and pointed and used our hands in the beginning.”
    She handed Kristina the plate with the buttercakes to be dunked in their coffee. American men were easy for an experienced woman to handle; they were so quick to offer marriage. Four men had proposed and offered her their name before Henry came along. Good, upright, American men.
    “Ulrika,” said Kristina reflectively, “before the marriage I guess you told your husband the truth about your life in Sweden, and he holds nothing against you, according to what you say?”
    “No. And I hold nothing against him.”
    “Against him? Do you mean that he too—the pastor . . . ?”
    “Yes, he led a wretched life; sinful like mine.”
    “That I wouldn’t have thought,” said Kristina, greatly surprised.
    “I told you once, ‘Henry is nothing but a great sinner forgiven by God. We’re alike, he and I!’ Don’t you remember that?”
    Kristina remembered. But she had understood this to mean that Pastor Jackson had been born in sin, like all people.
    “Oh no! In his old body he lived in deep sin! One was no better than the other, Henry and I!” Ulrika held her cup firmly and looked steadily at Kristina. “Henry used to steal. The same as I whored. Those two actions even up.”
    Kristina opened her mouth quickly. She closed it again without speaking.
    Ulrika continued: “Henry was in prison in England. For stealing.”
    He had had the same unhappy childhood in England as she had had in Sweden. She had lost her parents when four, he when three years of age. She was sold at auction to the lowest bidder, to be brought up, Henry had been put in a foundling home. Her foster father had raped her and taught her whoring, in the orphanage Henry had learned to steal. He stole food to satisfy his hunger. At the age of fourteen he had escaped from the home and continued to steal his food until he was caught and put in prison for three years. When he was released he had signed up on a ship to America. In New York he had lived among thieves and whores until he met a Baptist minister who converted him. He was baptized and given help to study for the ministry. For fifteen years now he had been a pastor.
    Kristina listened, confused and embarrassed, and at first without taking much store in what she heard. But Ulrika couldn’t have made up all these tales.
    “Henry is an old thief—I’m an old whore. We’re two of a kind and very happy together!”
    Kristina thought Ulrika would feel hurt if she now tried to excuse her and her husband: “All that is now passed, all of it,” she stammered.
    “Yes, Henry and I have been immersed and live now in new bodies. We’re forgiven by God. We’re reborn. Our hearts are cleansed.”
    “I’ll never forget your husband’s kindness when we landed here. I couldn’t believe he was a churchman. He was so kind and helpful.”
    Pastor Jackson of Stillwater was as different from the church officials at home as his rough-timbered church across the yard was different from Ljuder’s stone church.
    “Henry has suffered,” said Ulrika. “People who have suffered are kind to other people.”
    Jackson was a nobler and stronger Christian than she, and she wanted to make that clear. He was a help to her when the temptation of her old body came upon her. She couldn’t pretend to be better than she was. The old serpent tempted her; at times she could feel him tickle her weak flesh.
    When she married Jackson, no man had been in bed with her for four long years. It was not easy for her to hold herself until