Until We Reach Home

"Mama says it's only for a short time," Dagmar said.

  "And then what happens?" Kirsten asked. The girl shrugged.

  "I have the feeling that Aunt Hilma doesn't want us," Kirsten whispered, as she and Elin lay side-by-side in one of the beds. "She's probably going to make us pay back the money for our tickets, too."

  "Well, that's only fair," Elin replied, although she didn't know how they would ever be able to do that.

  "What are we going to do now, Elin?"

  "I have no idea."

  "WE LOOK LIKE a family of ducks heading to the pond," Kirsten said as she and her sisters followed Uncle Lars and his brood of children to church on Sunday. Walking through the busy city streets was very different from walking through forestland and past neighboring farms back home. The city was exciting, but Kirsten missed the stillness of the forest, where the silence was so deep she could almost hear the trees breathe. She and Tor had often stood in wonder, gazing up at the towering firs and sensing that the trees were living things, creations of God.

  As always, thinking about Tor brought an ache to her stomach. Sunday had been the one day she was certain to see him, even if they hadn't been able to meet during the week.

  "Don't lag behind, Kirsten," Elin called. "You're going to make us late."

  She looked up and realized that everyone was walking faster than she was, her steps slowed by her memories.

  Kirsten passed a row of shops, their colorful wares displayed behind huge glass windows. Aunt Hilma and Uncle Lars had hurried past the windows as if it were a sin to even think about buying and selling on Sunday, but Kirsten lagged behind again, wishing she could go inside. It took her a moment to realize that she was able to read all of the signs, even though she was in America now. Everything had been written in Swedish, as if an entire Swedish town had been plucked up by its roots and transplanted here. But Chicago's Swedish neighborhood was much bigger and more modern than their village at home had been. Streetcars rolled past on the main thoroughfare. Rich people, dressed in their Sunday best, hurried to church in fine carriages.

  Elfin grabbed Kirsten's arm, pulling her forward again. "Come on. We'd better keep up or Aunt Hilma is going to be upset."

  "So? Everything we do irritates her anyway, so what's the difference?"

  "Please, Kirsten. Can't you do what Sofia says and turn the other cheek? It is Sunday, you know."

  "Oh, I suppose so." She would hurry, but she wouldn't stop looking in the windows.

  "These stores certainly are different from Magnusson's store back home, aren't they?" she asked Elfin. "Instead of carrying a little bit of everything, there are stores just for groceries and some for clothing, and I saw one that had nothing but jewelry."

  Elfin nodded in reply. She'd seemed distracted and worried ever since they'd arrived in Chicago. Kirsten had been worried, too, especially when she remembered that she was carrying a baby. What would Tor think when he read her letter? What would he do? She wished she would hear from him.

  "How long does it take for a letter to get to Sweden?" she asked Elfin.

  "Well, our ship took two weeks to cross the ocean and that was just from England to New York."

  Kirsten groaned. That meant that the soonest she would hear back from Tor would be a month! That was much too long.

  "What's wrong?" Elfin asked.

  "I miss Nils. I wish we would hear from him, don't you?" She hadn't lied; she did miss her brother.

  They turned the corner and there was the church. It resembled the rich older sister of the one back home-grander and more elaborately dressed. Inside, the people who had gathered for worship looked so familiar with their light hair and fair skin that Kirsten almost expected to meet someone she knew from her village. The minister conducted the service in Swedish. The songs and hymnbooks were in Swedish, too. To be among so many people, all talking her language, made Kirsten feel as though she had never left home.

  "We could live here and do everything in our language and never have to learn English at all," she whispered to Sofia.

  "But I really want to learn English," she said.

  "Are you still hoping that man from Ellis Island will find you?"

  "I'm not hoping," Sofia said. "I know he will."

  Sofia was going to have her heart broken. Kirsten longed to warn her to be careful, to explain to her that what looked like love sometimes could be deceiving. But if someone had warned her about Tor, Kirsten doubted she would have listened.

  On the way home, Kirsten caught up with Uncle Lars and walked beside him. "What's that terrible smell? Does Chicago always smell this way?" She had noticed the odor the moment she'd arrived in the cityand she'd also noticed that her pregnancy made her more sensitive to smells, touching off bouts of nausea.

  "It's the stockyards," Lars explained. "Cattle and hogs get shipped here from all over the Midwest to be slaughtered. There is a huge meat packing company here, too, and tanning the hides adds to the stench."

  "So the smell never goes away?"

  "You'll get used to it," he said with a shrug. "I did."

  Aunt Hilma had begun preparations for their huge Sunday dinner on Saturday night and had left her hired girl home to watch over the meal during the Sunday service. Hilma pounced on Inge the moment she walked through the door, peppering her with questions, lifting lids, and peering into the oven.

  "You didn't let the potatoes burn, did you? Have you been watching the fire? Is the meat overcooked? Did you press the butter?"

  Kirsten and her sisters hurried to change their clothes so they could go to work in the kitchen. Aunt Hilma seemed grateful but didn't offer any thanks. Perhaps she considered their labor as payment for their room and board.

  Everyone sat down to a good meal. Kirsten and her sisters ate in the kitchen with the children once again. But the food was so good and it reminded Kirsten so much of home that she didn't care where they ate it-although her curiosity tempted her to peek into the dining room whenever she had a chance in order to get a look at the mysterious boarders.

  "Where do all the boarders come from?" she asked her uncle when the meal ended. "Are they all Swedish?"

  "Ja, they are. Some are men with families back home in Sweden, trying to earn enough to send for them. Others are single men. We don't know most of them very well, which is why Hilma thinks you should stay in the kitchen. We don't know their character."

  "How did they find jobs here? I mean... suppose Nils were to come over, for instance." Kirsten asked about her brother, but she was thinking of Tor. "Could he find work?"

  "I suppose he could-"

  "If someone paid his fare," Hilma added firmly.

  Kirsten would write to Tor right away and tell him about the boardinghouse and the young men with good jobs and their new life in America, where everyone in the neighborhood spoke Swedish. She would plead with him to come, writing letter after letter to him every single day, until he was forced to answer her.

  Sunday was a day of rest, when no work was done. In the afternoon, Kirsten walked with her cousins and sisters to a pleasant little park to spend some time outdoors. The park's few trees, planted in orderly rows, reminded her of domesticated lap dogs compared to the wild, untamed forests back home. But it reassured Kirsten to know that Chicago did have trees.

  They returned home to a light supper of cold leftovers. Afterward, she could tell by the tense glances that passed between her aunt and uncle, and the fact that they had sent the children upstairs to their rooms, that something was going on. She didn't know what, but it was obvious that Hilma wanted Lars to speak to her and her sisters. Kirsten waited, certain it was bad news, feeling sick inside.

  "I wanted to spend a few days visiting with you girls," Uncle Lars said, "but I think that tomorrow I'd better arrange for tickets to Wisconsin for the three of you."

  "Tickets for ... what?" Elin asked. She wore a brave smile, as if she hoped the tickets might be to a play or a concert or something fun. Kirsten's first thought was that they would have to tr
avel again.

  "Train tickets," Uncle Lars said, as if it pained him to say it. "Wisconsin is a state north of here, where there is wonderful farmland, and the weather is very much like home."

  "I don't understand," Elin said. "Why are we going there? Don't you live here?"

  His cheeks reddened a bit, and Kirsten saw him cast a worried glance at Hilma. She stood listening with her arms crossed.

  "You must understand," he said, "that I didn't have the money for your passage to America-especially for all three of you. You see how my family lives, how difficult it is to make ends meet. But I have a friend who is homesteading up in Wisconsin with a larger group of Swedes. They have their farms all set up and some houses built, and it's turning into a very nice little community. He happened to mention that the young men outnumbered the women up there and he asked if I knew any girls who could come up and become their wives."

  "No . . ." Kirsten whispered. For a moment, she thought her heart had stopped beating. She glanced at her sisters and saw that all the color had drained from Elin's face. Sofia sat very still, her mouth open in shock.

  "I told these young men about the three of you and how desperate you were to come to America. So they pooled their money together to buy your tickets. The men had planned to come down and meet you themselves, but when you were delayed, they had to stay home. They're right in the middle of spring planting now, so of course they can't get away. You'll have to go up there to meet them."

  Kirsten finally found her voice. "You mean they expect us to marry them-in return for our tickets?"

  "You said you wanted to start all over again. And I know that the life you'll have up there will be very much like home."

  "You sold us?" Elin asked.

  "Come, now, what did you expect?" Hilma asked. "You begged us to help you come to America. We have all of your letters if you've forgotten how you pleaded with us. You said you were desperate to leave. That you would do anything to come to America. What did you expect? As you can see, we have no money to spare for tickets."

  "You sold us," Elin repeated.

  "Not at all," Uncle Lars said. "These young men are starting a wonderful new life. They have land-forty, sixty, a hundred acres and more. More land than we could ever dream of owning back home. And they want the same things you girls want-a home of your own, a family. They are good, decent, hardworking men."

  Kirsten saw the look of panic in Sofia's eyes-as if the house were on fire and she wanted to run out of it. Kirsten wondered if she had the same look on her face. Sofia was in love with the man she had met on the island, just as Kirsten was in love with Tor. Neither one of them wanted to marry a stranger.

  "Can we have some time to think about this?" Kirsten asked. She knew it would take time for her letters to reach Tor and for him to make arrangements to come to America. She had to stall until she heard from him.

  "We can't afford to feed the three of you," Hilma said. "We have five children of our own."

  "But we don't even know what these men are like," Elin said. "Suppose we don't like them-or they don't like us?"

  "Oh, you'll have a choice," Lars explained. "There are five young men, you see, and only three of you. Once you arrive, you will have time to get to know each other and then everyone can decide who is compatible and so forth. The three fortunate bachelors have agreed to pay back the two who are left out."

  Kirsten felt numb. Her sisters looked shocked, as well. No one seemed capable of voicing her outrage. Besides, there didn't seem to be any way out of this arrangement.

  "The day begins before sunrise," Hilma announced, "so we all need to get to bed." She must have timed this discussion so that she wouldn't have to deal with all of their questions.

  "Yes, let's sleep on it," Lars said, "and we can talk some more tomorrow."

  Kirsten wondered how in the world she was supposed to fall asleep. They said good-night and went upstairs to their room, but after the lights were turned out, Kirsten and her sisters all gathered on the same bed, tenting the covers over their heads and whispering so their cousins wouldn't hear them.

  "I'm so sorry," Elfin said. She hadn't cried in front of Uncle Lars, but now the tears poured down her cheeks. "Writing to him was a huge mistake. I don't know what we're going to do, but I wouldn't blame either of you if you hate me. I just wanted to leave home so badly because-"

  She stopped. Kirsten didn't ask her to finish. She understood Elin's secret and reached for her hand.

  "It's not your fault, Elfin. Uncle Lars wasn't honest with us. He should have told us the truth right from the start. I don't blame you for this."

  "And neither do I," Sofia added. "He should have told us the truth and given us a choice."

  Elfin wiped her cheeks with the hem of her nightgown. "I don't know what to do. It's obvious that we can't stay here-Aunt Hilma doesn't want us and there's no room."

  "It's true. We aren't really welcome here," Sofia said. "I wouldn't want to stay very long."

  "I promised you that we would stay together and that we'd have a home again, and I've let both of you down."

  Kirsten pulled Elfin into her arms. "Listen, we don't blame you. It's not your fault. We'll figure a way out of this mess together."

  "But I don't know what to do," Elfin said again. "We can't live here. Do you think we should go up there and see what those men are like? What the village is like? Maybe it is the home we're looking for.... Oh, I just don't know! And it isn't up to me to decide, anyway. I'm willing to do whatever the two of you want to do."

  Kirsten knew her pregnancy was another complication to this decision that Elin wasn't aware of, but she couldn't bring herself to confess. What she'd done with Tor was disgraceful.

  But what if Tor wouldn't marry her, even after he learned about the baby? If she knew for certain that he wasn't coming, then the best thing to do would be to go to Wisconsin and marry one of the men right away so he would think the baby was his. But Kirsten didn't know how she could bear to make a vow before God to live with a strange man for the rest of her life when she still loved Tor.

  Tor deserved to know that he had fathered a child. She had to give him a chance to do the right thing and marry her. If only she would hear from him. If only it was safe to send him a telegram. Kirsten was trying to think of how to reply to Elin when Sofia spoke first.

  "I don't want to get married right now. I'm not even seventeen yet. And when I do get married, I want to choose the man myself. I want to marry someone I love. Please don't make me live in the middle of nowhere and marry a stranger."

  "This has turned out to be a disaster," Elin said. "I was so hopeful when we left home. We were going to have a new life in a big new land where the streets were paved with gold."

  "And I thought we would be ladies of leisure with servants of our own," Kirsten said, trying to lighten the mood. Neither sister saw any humor in the situation.

  "Uncle Lars didn't tell me the truth," Elin said. "If he had ... I'm so sorry. I'll let the two of you decide. If you don't want to go-"

  "I don't," Sofia said.

  Kirsten had to stay in Chicago until she heard from Tor. How would his letters ever reach her if she moved that far away? But how long could she stall before everyone noticed that she was pregnant?

  "I don't want to go, either," she finally said. "But now what should we do? There isn't enough room for us here. And we owe money to those men for our tickets to America."

  "Maybe we could try to find jobs here in the city," Sofia said, "and pay them their money back. Aunt Hilma pays Inge to help her; maybe we can get a job like hers."

  "Inge sleeps on a bed behind the stove," Kirsten said, "like a dog. And Aunt Hilma treats her like one, too."

  "How can we get jobs?" Elin asked. "We don't even speak English. Besides, I don't like living in the city. I would prefer to work on a farm that was like home."

  "I think Sofia is right," Kirsten said. "If we could just get jobs here in Chicago and earn some money, maybe by the time we p
aid the money back we would be more familiar with America. We'd have a better idea what to do next."

  "I know one thing we need to do," Sofia said. "We need to pray and ask God to help us." Kirsten and Elin both stared at her. "Remember how Mama used to pray whenever she needed help with something?" Sofia continued. "When I was alone on Ellis Island, I was so scared that all I could do was pray and pray. I asked God to help me-and He did. He sent a friend to keep me company and show me God's promises in the Bible. I also prayed that both of you would get better, and you did."

  "You're right," Elin said. "We should pray."

  "How?" Kirsten asked. "Out loud ... or what? I'm not very good at praying."

  "It doesn't have to be out loud," Sofia said. "We can pray on our own, by ourselves. But we need to ask God what to do. He can help us find jobs."

  Kirsten climbed back into her own bed and lay down beneath the covers. She closed her eyes and tried to pray. The minister had done all of the praying in church, so the only prayer she knew was the Lord's Prayer. She decided to try it.

  She got as far as Give us this day our daily bread ... and realized that it was a genuine plea. They needed God to take care of them and provide for them. Aunt Hilma resented every morsel of food they ate. But when she got to Lead us not into temptation, Kirsten's eyes filled with tears. She had fallen into temptation and had sinned. Having Tor's baby was a huge sin in God's eyes.

  She rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. She couldn't pray. She had no right to ask God for anything. Instead, she cried herself to sleep.

  In the morning they helped Aunt Hilma with the cooking and washing. Once the boarders left for work, Hilma allowed the three of them to go into the front of the house to clean and sweep. Kirsten was dusting the stair balusters when a man in a uniform brought the mail right to the front door and pushed it through a narrow slot. Aunt Hilma swooped up the letters before Kirsten could descend the stairs.

  "I'm expecting a letter from Sweden," she told her aunt once again. "I gave everybody back home this address."

  "Well, there is nothing here for you," she replied as she sifted through the letters.