THE BIRCH BARK COTTAGE – A CROFTER’S HOME
"N ä v e r t o r p e t"
A short story by Jan Lindström
translated by Jan Gisslén

It is a cold late summer morning.
- Again, the frost has killed off the barley !
Per stood leaning in the low door opening, holding one hand on the top of the door and the other holding on to the door frame. He stepped inside, closed the door and sat down at the kitchen table.
A dim light came in through the small window panes and fell over the worn kitchen table. Per twisted his rough, callous hands and looked out through the rough window panes. His shirt was worn and frayed. His face was covered with bristles. It was distorted by the pain he felt over the barley harvest that had been lost the same way as in the prior two years.
Mother Anna, his spouse, paced between the table and the stove. She was dressed in a heavy, gray russet skirt dragging on the floor covered with spruce needles and branches. An apron made from flower print fabric and a kerchieff tied on her head was the rest of her dress. She was expecting their fifth child and that could happen just about any day.
- Is it just as bad this year again? she said and looked at her husband, Per Nilsson, the Crofter.
The property where they lived could hardly provide the food required for the day and now they were in a new year of crop failure. The third year in a row. Was this God’s judgment?
The spouse had had a worried expression in her face. She stepped up to the fireplace and stirred in the three legged kettle in which a mush based on water and barley flour was boiling.
The hinges of the door leading to the little chamber off the kitchen creaked. The small sisters Martha and Little-Stina came in. Each of them had a doll in their arms. The dolls were home-made from scraps of fabric. The little girls walked up to their father and poked his leg.
Per turned around and a glimmer of happiness could be seen in his face. He even managed a twisted smile with a mouth full of ragged teeth. After this, he took the small girls and placed them in his lap on the patched pant knees.
- How are the small lasses doing? he asked and looked at his small girls.
- Fine daddy, Little-Stina replied and put her fingers into his bushy sideburns.
Again, the door to the little side chamber opened and the two older children Petter and Hilda emerged, fully dressed and they stepped up to the table.
- You Hilda, can set the table, the mother said without turning around to look at her.
The Mother continued to stir in the kettle. The flour bin in the storage shed was almost empty. What they were to live from during the coming winter was a problem in need of a solution. Should the winter turn out to be both long and severe there would be problems with food. The meager potato harvest, ruined by the frost would hardly be sufficient to feed both people and livestock.
Hilda took out a pitcher for the milk, spoons and some pieces of hard tack bread. A pitcher with skim milk and finally a dish with the warm barley- mush was on the table. The father said a brief grace and they began to eat. They took mush with the spoon from the dish in the middle of the table and milk from the pitcher and ate. They chewed and swallowed the pieces of the hard tack bread without butter.
A pale sun shone from the sky when Per came out after the breakfast. He went to the potato-patch to pick the meager potato harvest. The leaves had turned brown and slimy from the frost. With the hoe, he dug row after row and filled the wooden pails. When filled, he took the pails to the underground cellar where he emptied them into the wooden bins for winter storage. Should the harvest last until Christmas, they would be very lucky and thankful.
In a few hours he had picked the potatoes. Anna tried to pull up the turnips but her enlarged abdomen was a hindrance in what she tried to accomplish. Hilda and Petter had to help her.
During the whole autumn, Per Nelson worked single-handedly to expand and cultivate his small property. The cold draft from the marsh-land did, however, always result in a meager harvest. Had he had money, he would have bought a different parcel of land, but being poor, nothing but the Birch Bark property was within his reach. The name of this property came from that those who had built the cottage, had covered the interior walls with birch bark. Over time, however, the birch bark had been torn off to be used for fire starter and now most of it was gone.
One night at the end of October, the time had come to get the midwife. The children and Per helped her to warm water, but a little later they were told to get out of the chamber. It turned into a long and difficult delivery. The boy, who was born died after a few days and there was deep sorrow in the cottage.
Soon the winter arrived and Per worked in the woods for the big farmer in the village. He labored hard and the pay was meager. He got half of his pay in grain. He was charged for borrowing the farmer’s horse that he used to haul his firewood.
During the winter, a thought had started to grow in Pers mind. In spite of trying to get it out of his head, it always came back. He could not rid himself of the thought It was one of the fellows in the team of lumberjacks that had placed the seed and now it had grown into a pain in his chest. He was going to emigrate to North America –the land that was flowing with milk and honey.
One evening when the cold made the corners of the cottage creak and the children had gone to bed, Per spoke to his spouse. He twisted and turned but finally it came out.
- I have been pondering our situation he told his wife
She looked up at him, wondering what it might be.
- Well, what could it be? she asked
- I am going to emigrate to North America, he said and looked down at the table
- Emigrate –so far away? How can we get the money to do that?
- They have already asked if I am willing to sell our forest. That would be enough for the ticket.
- But America is so far away, Anna said
- Yes it is far away, but we have no other choice.
It became quiet around the table. Soon Per and Anna went to bed. They lay down on the creaking straw mattress. It took a long time before they fell asleep.
After the cold winter evening talk, they decided to leave the meager soil of the Birch Bark cottage land and together with several other families emigrate to North America.
The door of the Birch Bark Cottage opens and a tall person with white hair emerges. He had to bow to get through the opening, but he now stands on the entrance steps to the plain small cottage. He turns to a group of people standing on the plan in front of the cottage.
- I am thankful that I once in my life got the opportunity to see where my grandfather Petter Nelson was born. In 1870 he emigrated with his parents to Minnesota as an eight year old. He often told how poor the conditions were in Sweden. It was a hard storm when they sailed, but all arrived safely. I am the youngest of his grandchildren and we have lived a good life. But here in the Birch Bark Cottage are our roots.

This short story became the start of the Ragunda Emigrant Center.