Until We Reach Home

  "This is amazing," Kirsten said.

  Elfin heard the same awe in her voice that she was feeling. "I never imagined that America would be like this."

  "It's very different from home," Sofia said. "There are hardly any trees. And the ones I do see aren't very tall."

  "I think that's because most of the city burned down about twenty-five years ago," Elfin said. "Uncle Lars told me all about it in his letters. Chicago's trees haven't had time to grow as tall as the ones in Sweden."

  "Are we near the ocean?" Sofia asked.

  "No, but Uncle Lars says that the city is built near a big lake-so big that you can't see the other side of it."

  "I hope it has fish in it, and that they're good to eat," Kirsten said. "I've missed eating fresh fish like we always had back home."

  "Me, too," Sofia said. "The food on Ellis Island wasn't very good."

  "At least it was free," Kirsten said.

  Eventually, the wagon carried them away from the busy center of the city. They began to see fewer and fewer tall buildings and more and more homes. The driver turned off the main thoroughfare and onto a side street, then made a few more turns until they were on a street filled with large two-story houses. They stood all in a row, side by side, with barely any land between them. Elfin checked the address on the envelope in her hand and compared the number with the ones painted on the houses. When the driver drew to a halt, the two numbers matched.

  "Are we there?" Kirsten asked.

  "I think that's it." Elfin pointed to the house. "The numbers are the same."

  "Oh my!" Sofia said. "You could fit four cottages like ours back home inside of it."

  "It's bigger than our barn," Kirsten added.

  "Now you're exaggerating," Elfin said. But Uncle Lars' house did look very large after what they were used to in Sweden. It stood two stories tall with a castlelike tower, a wide front porch, and lots of large windows. A sign in Swedish hung on the porch railing: Boardinghouse. Rooms for Rent.

  "Are you sure this is it?" Kirsten asked.

  Elfin checked the house number again. "I'm pretty sure...."

  "Let's go see." Kirsten jumped down and led the way up the front steps while the driver unloaded their trunk, carrying it on his shoulder.

  Elfin knocked on the door. Nothing happened. She knocked a second time. She was preparing to knock again when a woman finally opened it. She looked hot and sweaty and red-faced, with her sleeves rolled up and her hair falling loose from its pins. And she looked very annoyed at them for bothering her.

  "Are you Hilma Larson?" Elin asked.

  "Yes, but we only accept gentlemen boarders," she said in Swedish. "No women. I'm sorry-"

  "No, wait!" Kirsten said before she could close the door. "We're your nieces-the Carlson sisters, from Sweden."

  Aunt Hilma frowned. "How did you end up here?"

  "We hired a wagon from the train station."

  Elin's hopes for a warm welcome faded quickly as their aunt continued to scowl at them. For an embarrassingly long moment, Aunt Hilma couldn't seem to find her voice. Elfin turned to the driver, who still balanced the trunk on his shoulder, and nodded to him that this was indeed the right address. He set the trunk down on the porch, tipped his hat to them, and returned to his wagon.

  "Lars will be surprised to see you, that's for certain," Hilma said. She remained in the doorway, glaring at them.

  "Didn't he get our telegram?" Elfin asked. "We sent one two days ago telling him when we would arrive."

  "Oh, he got it, alright. But he can't take time off from work whenever he feels like it, you know."

  "Yes, of course. We understand." Elfin forced herself to smile, battling her disappointment at this ungracious reception.

  "He won't be home until suppertime."

  Kirsten sat down on their trunk and crossed her arms. "Should we wait out here on the porch until then?" Elin could tell by her tone of voice that she was annoyed, too-and hinting that they had yet to be invited inside.

  "You could have left the trunk at the station until later," Hilma said. "And you probably paid way too much for that wagon. They'll cheat you every time if they know you can't speak English. But never mind. Come in."

  "Finally," Kirsten mumbled, sliding off the trunk. Elfin elbowed her in the ribs in warning. Sofia and Kirsten hefted the crate and followed their aunt through the door.

  The home was very clean and orderly inside, with polished wooden floors in the front hallway and a graceful staircase leading to the second floor. Elfin glimpsed a comfortable parlor on the right with a fireplace and soft, cushioned chairs, and a dining room on the left with a long wooden table. There were too many chairs gathered around it to count as Hilma herded them quickly down the hallway toward the rear of the house.

  "Did any mail arrive for me?" Kirsten asked as they passed a hall table with several letters laid out on top. "I'm expecting a letter from Sweden any day, and I gave them this address."

  "There have been no letters," Hilma said. "You can take your trunk upstairs, I suppose. I'll show you where you'll be sleeping." But she bypassed the wide front staircase and rushed them through a swinging door into the kitchen.

  "What's wrong with the other stairs?" Kirsten grumbled as she and Sofia strained to carry the trunk.

  "Shh ..." Elfin whispered. "Let's not get off on the wrong foot with her."

  "Too late," Kirsten said.

  As soon as they entered the kitchen, Elfin understood why Aunt Hilma had been so sweaty and red-faced. It was as warm as a steam bath, the windows so foggy she couldn't see outside. A sweating girl who was about the same age as Sofia was kneading a lump of bread dough on the kitchen table. She looked as wilted as a bowl of butter in August. Mist was billowing from a line of pots boiling on the cast-iron range. Elfin smelled turnips cooking and her stomach growled in hunger.

  "You'll need to use this back door from now on," Aunt Hilma said, pointing to it. "The front door and the parlor are for boarders only. Follow me up these steps, girls."

  They were narrow and steep, boxed in with paneled walls on both sides. Aunt Hilma's lips pursed and a worried frown creased her face as she watched the three of them wrestle the trunk up the stairs behind her.

  "Careful, girls! Will it fit? Don't scuff my walls."

  She led them to a room that was tinier than their attic bedroom back home-only now they would have to share it with Aunt Hilma's two daughters. "I know it's crowded," Hilma said, "but it's only for a short time, after all."

  "A short time?" Kirsten asked. "And then what happens?"

  "We take in boarders to make ends meet, but the boarders are all men. And we have five children, you know."

  "Yes, I know, but-"

  Elfin poked Kirsten in the ribs again to shut her up. "Thank you for taking us in, Aunt Hilma," she said. "We are very grateful."

  "There's hot water in the kitchen boiler if you want to freshen up. But you'll have to come down and get it and carry it upstairs yourselves. I have a meal to prepare."

  "We will. Thank you," Elfin said.

  As soon as she was gone, Kirsten opened her arms wide to Sofia and pantomimed the greeting they all had been expecting, smiling and saying, "Valkommen, my dears! It's so wonderful to see you! Oh, but you must be tired and thirsty.... Can I fix you a cool drink? A little bite to eat?"

  "Kirsten, shhh. What if she hears you?"

  "Good. I hope she does. Maybe she'll realize how rude she was just now."

  "What did she mean when she said we won't be here for very long?" Sofia asked.

  "I honestly don't know-but I suppose she'll tell us when she's good and ready. Let's wash up and see if we can help with supper."

  "Oh yes! Let's help her!" Kirsten said. "After all, she went to all this trouble to kill the fattened calf for us."

  "Be nice, Kirsten."

  "Why?"

  "It's called `turning the other cheek,"' Sofia said. Elfin looked at her in surprise. It was something their mother would have said.
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  "You mean, like this?" Kirsten asked, pantomiming again. "Here you are, Aunt Hilma. That was a nice slap you gave us the first time-now slap us on the other cheek. See if you can hit us harder this time." But in the end, Kirsten joined Elin and Sofia as they washed in the basin of water they hauled upstairs from the kitchen, then changed into work clothes to help their aunt with the evening meal.

  "What can we do to help you, Aunt Hilma?" Elfin asked her.

  "Do you know how to knead bread? Help Inge with that dough before she makes a mess of it. The table needs to be set and the potatoes peeled. Can you manage that?"

  "Yes, I'm sure we can."

  "Go outside and get more firewood," she told Inge. The girl hadn't been introduced to them, but Elfin assumed she was a hired girl, not Hilma's daughter-at least she hoped she wasn't.

  Later that afternoon, the Larson children arrived home from school: three boys, Carl, Gustave, and Waldemar, and two daughters, Anna and Dagmar. Aunt Hilma didn't seem to have time to tell their ages or make elaborate introductions, but Elin guessed the oldest to be about fourteen, the youngest eight or nine.

  "These are your cousins from Sweden," Hilma said. The children nodded shyly and disappeared upstairs to change out of their school clothes. When they returned, they went to work immediately on their chores.

  As the supper hour neared, Elfin heard the front door opening and closing and the sound of men's boots clomping up and down the stairs as the boarders arrived home from work. But the kitchen door separating the boarders from the family remained firmly closed. Just when the dinner preparations seemed to reach a frenetic pace, Uncle Lars arrived home from his job as a bricklayer, tired and dusty. He stopped short the moment he stepped through the back door and saw the three of them in the kitchen, a look of surprise on his face-but also a smile.

  "Well, for goodness' sakes! You must be my sister's girls."

  "Yes, Uncle Lars. I'm Elfin and this is Kirsten and Sofia." Elfin didn't go forward to greet him. He was too sweaty and dirty to offer them a hug-and Elfin would have been too wary to accept one, even if he had. But at least he had greeted them with a huge grin.

  "Your telegram said you would arrive today," Lars said. "I was going to go pick you up at the station as soon as I got cleaned up. Well, never mind. Here you are. Vdlkommen!"

  He resembled their brother, Nils, but with a sandy, brushlike mustache and darker hair. Unlike his wife, he seemed very happy to see them-but Uncle Sven had been friendly, too. Elfin pushed away a flood of memories. "Thank you, Uncle Lars. And thank you for paying our way and for taking us in, and-" She had to stop or risk dissolving in tears.

  "I could only imagine you as the children I knew in Sweden," Lars said, "But of course I knew you would be all grown up. You look like your mother, Elfin. In fact, you gave me a start when I first saw you. I thought for a moment that you were her."

  "Save your talking for later," Hilma said. "Dinner is nearly ready, and you need to get cleaned up, Lars. And you'd better not let the girls eat in there with the boarders. There isn't enough room, and besides, some of them can be pretty rough."

  Elfin managed to peek into the dining room as Hilma pushed through the door with bowls of turnips and potatoes. Elfin could see the men gathering around the table and hear snatches of conversation in Swedish. She didn't realize how hungry she had been for food from home until she'd smelled it cooking. She and her sisters crowded around the kitchen table to eat with their young cousins, who all seemed too shy to speak.

  "Are your school lessons in English or Swedish?" Kirsten asked the oldest boy.

  "A little of both."

  "I want to learn to speak English," Sofia said to one of the little girls beside her. "Will you help me learn?" The girl nodded shyly.

  Elfin was still trying to get used to the change in Sofia. She didn't understand how it had happened, but she was grateful for it.

  After supper, they helped Inge clear the table and wash all of the dishes and cooking pots while Aunt Hilma tended to the children. The kitchen was finally cooling off, and it seemed to be the place where the family lived, allowing the boarders to occupy the other rooms. Uncle Lars settled into his chair near the back door with a sigh and propped up his feet.

  "We are so grateful to you for sending the tickets to us, Uncle Lars," Elfin began as she helped dry a stack of dinner plates. She had already sensed a lot of tension between Aunt Hilma and Uncle Lars, and she guessed that they had not been in agreement about helping her and her sisters come to America. She wanted to explain their situation to him and let him know that he had made the right decision.

  "Things fell apart back home after Mama died. We tried our best to hold everything together, but it was very hard. For one thing, Papa left us."

  "Left you? Where did he go?"

  "Well, he still lived in the cottage with us, but it was as if he had buried his heart in the ground with Mama. He simply stopped living. If the cows got fed and milked, it was because Kirsten and I milked them. If the potatoes got planted, it was because Nils decided it was time to plow and plant. We wouldn't have had enough wood to last through the winter if Nils hadn't hauled it all home and chopped it. Papa spoke so seldom that at times we wondered if he even remembered how to talk."

  "She was a wonderful woman, your mother," Lars said with a sigh. "I have no doubt that he missed her."

  "We kept things going as best we could, hoping and praying that Papa's grief would thaw when spring arrived, but it never did. Pieces of our life began tumbling down around us like boulders. For every step forward we made-a new litter of hogs, a good season of rainfall-we seemed to take three steps backward. The roof leaked. Foxes killed half of our chickens. A late spring frost destroyed the apple blossoms. Life became very hard, and we couldn't keep up with everything.

  "Mama always made sure that we attended church every Sunday, but Papa wouldn't go with us anymore, and Nils didn't want to overwork the horses, and we couldn't walk that far to the village and back every week. The journey was too cold in the winter, the roads too wet in the spring, our legs too weary in the summer after working so hard. I know this sounds like a pile of excuses, Uncle Lars, but you have to understand how hard everything was for us after Mama died." To Elin, it had seemed as though God was punishing them for something, but she didn't know what they had done.

  "Then Papa decided to join Mama in the grave," she continued. "I-I think I told you in my letters what he did."

  "Yes, yes . . . It was a terrible thing to do. Terrible."

  "He had stopped living long before he stopped breathing, so it seemed inevitable that he would finally choose to end his own life, but I still wasn't prepared for it. He left the cottage one morning without saying good-bye and walked straight out onto the lake, even though the ice was too thin. Everyone in town knew it wasn't an accident. Papa knew how to test the ice better than anyone did. He taught all of us how to listen for exactly the right sound. He wouldn't have made a mistake. He simply didn't want to live any longer. People in town said it was a sin and a disgrace, and the minister wouldn't let us bury him in the church cemetery beside Mama."

  "And the villagers didn't want us to marry their sons," Kirsten added. Elfin looked at her in surprise, wondering if there was more to her words than she was saying.

  "Now, listen," Uncle Lars said. "There is no reason at all to tell the people here in our community how your father died. Your parents are both gone. That's all they need to know."

  "I understand." There were a lot of other things that no one ever needed to know. Elfin cleared her throat. She felt as though she were walking on thin ice herself as she prepared to tell the next part of her story.

  "We all hoped that things would be better once Uncle Sven and Aunt Karin moved in to help with the farm, but things got worse. Sven and Nils fought all the time, until Nils finally left. He's the one who should inherit the farm, but he said he was sick of it and he was never coming back. He's never written to tell us where he is. I loved our h
ome and I never imagined leaving it, but after Uncle Sven took over, it didn't feel like our home anymore. For one thing, our cottage was too small for everyone."

  "And for another thing," Kirsten added, "Aunt Karin made us do all the work while she gave all the orders."

  "I promised Mama before she died that I would take care of Kirsten and Sofia, and I intend to keep that promise. I had to do something.. . so I decided to write to you. I can't even begin to tell you how grateful we are that you brought us all here."

  "Yes ... well ... but you see-"

  "It's time to call it a night," Aunt Hilma interrupted. "The workday begins very early around here, and the children need their sleep. I'm sure you girls are tired, too, after your long trip."

  Elfin felt a ripple of fear, wondering what Uncle Lars had been about to say and why Aunt Hilma had interrupted him. It was obvious that unless some changes were made, there wasn't room for Elfin and her sisters to live here as part of the family.

  "We will talk more on Sunday," Uncle Lars said, "when we have a day of rest. I'm sorry that your bedroom is so crowded-"

  "I already explained that we can't afford to turn away any of our boarders in order to make room," Hilma said.

  Elfin felt like an orphan all over again as she trudged up the stairs to their room. She felt even worse when she saw that her two little cousins, Anna and Dagmar, had to sleep on pallets on the floor after giving up their beds.

  "This isn't fair," she told them. "Maybe we can take turns sleeping in the beds."