Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - A Day Among the Swedes at Pine Lake, 1850
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Northern aspect; it was cold, and without that
splendid glow of coloring which is so general in
American sunsets.
Returning to the log house, we spent the
evening—twenty-one Swedes altogether—in games,
songs, and dancing, exactly as if in Sweden. I had,
during the whole time of my journey to the West,
been conning over in my mind a speech which I
would make to my countrymen in the West; I
thought how I would bear to them a salutation
from their mother country and exhort them to
create a new Sweden in that new land! I thought
that I would remind them of all that is great
and beautiful in the Old Country, in memory,
in thought, in manners and customs; I wished to
awaken in their souls the inspiration of a New
Scandinavia. I had often myself been deeply
affected by the thoughts and the words which I
intended to make use of. But now, when I was at
the very place where I longed to be, and thought
about my speech, I could not make it. Nor did I
make it at all. I felt myself happy in being with
my countrymen, happy to find them so agreeable
and so Swedish still in the midst of a foreign land.
But I felt more disposed for merriment than
solemnity. I therefore, instead of making my
speech, read to the company that little story by
Hans Christian Andersen called “The Pine-Tree,”
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