Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/241

Rh houses also stood. On our way I asked her about her life, and thus came to hear, but without the least complaint on her part, of its many difficulties. The difficulty of obtaining the help of servants, male and female, is one of the inconveniences and difficulties which the colonists of the West have to encounter. They must either pay for labour at an enormously high rate—and often it is not to be had on any terms—or they must do without it; and if their own powers of labour fail, either through sickness or any other misfortune, then is want the inevitable consequence. There is need of much affection and firm reliance for any one, under such circumstances, to venture on settling down here: but these both lived in the heart of the young Swede, and her eyes sparkled as she spoke of her husband, his kind, good heart, and his vigour both of mind and body. Whilst we were standing beside that quiet lake, garlanded by thick branching trees and underwood, splendid with the colouring of autumn, we heard the husband's voice as he drove the oxen down to water, and soon we saw their huge horns pushing a way through the thick foliage. Our cheerful, well-bred host was now a brisk ox-driver.

After this we betook ourselves to the oldest house of the colony on Pine Lake, where lived Mrs. Bergvall's mother, the Widow Petterson, and who expected us to coffee, and thither we drove, Mr. Lange and I, in our little open carriage, the other Swedish families driving there also, but with oxen. A young Swede, who had married a fat, elderly American widow, was of the company. I saw them going on through the wood, she sitting with her parasol on the carriage, while her young husband drove the oxen. One of Mrs. Petterson's sons, a young man of about twenty, rode before us as a guide through the labyrinths of the wood. Thus we arrived at a log-house, resembling one of the peasant cottages around Årsta, standing upon a green hill, commanding the most beautiful