Unto a Good Land by Vilhelm Moberg Read Free Book Online Page B

drank until she felt satisfied; never before had she realized that milk could be so good. She herself had sat on the milking stool and pressed out hundreds of gallons of milk from cow udders, she had strained milk for her children morning, noon, and night, she had fattened calves on milk, she had brought up piglets on milk—during her whole life she had never longed for milk until she started on this voyage. Now she accepted the pitcher of milk as a gift from God; she felt she would cry.
    She said the milk was cream-rich and good. Then she took a roll from the bag and looked it over; this roll was almost as big as a small loaf at home.
    They still had a little left in their food basket. The ship’s fare had been rancid, bitter with salt, smelling of old chests and musty barrels; Kristina still had a taste in her mouth from the dried, hard rye loaves. Toward the end of the voyage there had been worms in the bread, and they had been forced to soak it in water and fry it in pork fat before they could eat it; much of the fare they had been given on the ship had been little better than pig food.
    After those hard loaves, how delicious it was to bite into a soft, fresh wheat roll! The rolls looked a little puffy, but she soon saw that they were well filled under the crust. At the very first bite she felt that she was eating festival food.
    “They bake mighty fine bread in America,” said Kristina.
    “Here they eat wheat bread on weekdays as well as on Sundays,” said Karl Oskar.
    “I’ve heard so. Can it be true?”
    Kristina was a little skeptical. To her, wheat bread had always been a food for holidays and festival occasions. She used to buy a few pounds of wheat flour for a baking at Christmas, Easter, and Midsummer. Then she counted the loaves and locked them in the bread chest so the children couldn’t eat them unless allowed; such food had to be carefully portioned out, each one getting his share.
    “It’s swarming with people here in New York,” she said. “Is there enough wheat bread for all of them?”
    Karl Oskar said, that, according to what he saw with his own eyes, there must be plenty of food in this country; in several stores he had seen quantities of wheat loaves, piled high like stacks of firewood at home, and he had seen whole tubs full of sweet milk. He was sure that both she and the children could eat and drink all they needed to regain their strength.
    The bundle at Kristina’s side began to move and a sound came from it; Harald had awakened and cried out. The mother picked him up and his cry died as soon as he felt the sweet milk in his mouth. The little one swallowed the unfamiliar drink in silence, he simply kept silent and swallowed: surprise overwhelmed him.
    It hurt Kristina’s heart to see how fallen off her children were, how pale their faces, how sunken their cheeks, how blue their lips, how tired and watery their eyes. When she took them in her arms their bodies were light, their arms and legs thin, the flesh on their limbs loose; it was as if muscles and bones had parted from each other. They had dwindled this way from having been kept so long in the dark unhealthy hold below decks. How often had she worried about them when she lay sick, unable to care for them, while all three of them crawled over her in her bed. How often had she reproached herself because of her inability to give them a single bite of fresh food, or a mouthful of sweet milk. How she had longed for the moment when she could walk on shore with Johan, Lill-Märta, and Harald. These poor, pale, skinny children certainly were in need of America’s good sweet milk and fresh wheat rolls.
    Johan had been told to guard his father’s coat lying there in the grass, and he said impatiently: “Father, you forget the apple! The apple for Mother!”
    From the pocket of his father’s coat he took a shining red apple, almost as big as his own head. The boy handed it proudly to his mother.
    “Have you ever seen such a big