Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - III. The Arrival of my Father and Brother—Journey to Illinois—Work on a Railroad—The Ague—Doctor Ober—Religious Impressions—The Arrival of my Mother, Sister and her Husband—A Burning Railroad Train—We go to Minnesota—Our Experience as Wood Choppers and Pioneers
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IS 4.2 Story of an Emigrant.
go out to the barn and fill their baskets with freshly-laid
eggs, 110 matter how big the basket. Beef and pork had
scarcely any value, and anybody could go into a cornfield
that fall and gather a crop 011 half shares.
There was much religious interest among the Swedes in
Illinois at that time. The Methodists and Lutherans were
already building churches, and held services side by side
in many of the towns and settlements, although they
numbered only a few families yet. I remember distinctly one
Sunday attending service in a Methodist church listening to
an eloquent preacher, taking for his text "The Broad and
the Narrow Ways." He depicted both in glowing language,
and wound up with the following words, pronounced in a
broad (Swedish) dialect: "My dear brethren, I have now
shown you the two ways, and you may take which ever you
like; that is all the same to me."
My father had taken with him only just enough money to
pay his way, although he had by no means exhausted his
resources in Sweden, for he had prudently decided to spend
at least a year in seeing the country and making himself
familiar with its institutions, customs, manner of tilling the
soil, etc. At this time he was a strong man, at the age of
fifty. In order to obtain steady work, we two, and a few
others of our company, hired a man in Galesburg to take us
to Rock River, where a bridge for the Chicago & Rock Island
Railroad was being built. We all got work, and had to take
hold of the spade and the shovel. The wages in those days
for railroad laborers were from seventy-five cents to one
dollar per day. I received only seventy-five cents, out of
which my board was to be paid, which, however, was very
cheap, one dollar and a half per week only. A Swede by the
name of Hoffman kept aboarding house for thirty-four of us,
and all would have been well except for the ague. No man
remained there many days without getting the "shakes;" I
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