Read Online The Settlers by Vilhelm Moberg - Free Book Online Page B

bespoken a midwife, a Norwegian woman, Miss Skalrud, who had been maid of honor at her wedding. Miss Skalrud usually helped the women of their congregation at childbirth, and she had promised to help the little one through the portal into this world.
    Toward evening Pastor Jackson returned from his journey to Franconia. He carried his bag with books and pamphlets and also a parcel which turned out to contain five pounds of wheat flour and three pounds of fresh butter, his wages for the sermon. In the doorway, he took his wife in his arms and patted her devotedly on the cheek with his big, hairy hand.
    “Ollrika, my dear, forgive me! I’m late. My dearest Ollrika—and we have a dear guest . . . !”
    The pastor welcomed his wife’s good friend warmly. With blessing-like gestures he took Kristina’s hands and smiled at her, the same good, kind smile she remembered.
    Ulrika’s husband had put on weight since Kristina had last seen him. His cheeks had filled out, his pants were tight around the waist, his stomach had begun to protrude. Ulrika had said, “I cook good food for Henry, don’t forget it!”
    The Jacksons spoke to each other in English, and Kristina again was left out. Once more she felt like a deaf-mute, excluded from the company. But Pastor Jackson was not one of those who would laugh at her, he talked to her through his wife. Was everything well with them on the claim, how were the children, had they enough food, was there anything he could help them with? And she replied through Ulrika that all was well at home, that several new neighbors were moving in this summer, beginning with a farmer from Sweden with his wife and three children.
    But after a while it became rather tiresome to speak to another person through a third one. Nor was she sure her own words always were interpreted correctly. Kristina wished dearly that she could use the English language, if for no other reason than to be able to talk to Pastor Jackson directly; he was her true friend. Without understanding a single one of his words she felt the warmth from them in her heart.
    —2—
    Ulrika made a bed on the living room sofa for Kristina. She would leave early next morning on the lumber company’s ox wagon.
    When the sun came up and Kristina had eaten breakfast, she thanked her friend for the hospitality and made ready to pick up her basket of groceries. Ulrika, to her surprise, brought her another basket, new and made of willow. A cloth was spread over it.
    “A small present from the two of us, Kristina!”
    Behind Ulrika stood Pastor Jackson, nodding eagerly as if he understood the Swedish words.
    Mysterious cackling and chirpings could be heard from the basket. Kristina lifted a corner of the cloth and peeked. In the bottom of the basket sat a live brown-and-white speckled hen. But hers was not the only life in the basket: tiny chicks poked their heads through the wings of the mother, the little beaks shining like pink flower buds.
    Kristina cried out joyfully. “Chickens! A hen!”
    “We hope you like them! She’s hatched twelve, a whole dozen!”
    Pastor Jackson smiled his kind smile: “Twelve young chickens!”
    Ulrika said, “Henry is as proud of the chicks as if he himself had hatched them. The hen was given to him by a young couple in Taylors Falls as payment for a marriage service.”
    Kristina choked, weeping with joy. If there was anything she had missed on the claim it was chickens. Now her throat was so full she couldn’t say thank you the way she would have wished; she could only mumble.
    Ulrika gave her a small bag of rice for chicken feed: “Be careful with the basket! The little lives are delicate.”
    Pastor Jackson picked up the grocery basket and Ulrika the basket with the hen and chicks, and the two of them accompanied Kristina to the lumber office at the end of the street. It was almost an hour before the wagon was loaded, but her friends remained with her until the driver was ready to start. When the wheels