Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Visit to Sweden in 1868–1869—The Object of my Journey—Experiences and Observations During the Same—Difference Between American and Swedish Customs—My Birth-place—Arrival and Visit There—Visit to Christianstad—Visit to Stockholm—The Swedish Parliament—My Return to America—Reflections on and Impressions of the Condition of the Bureaucracy of Sweden
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10S
122.2 Story of an Emigrant.
Now I am ready to die! Farewell! God bless you all!"
after which he breathed his last. The following spring his
family accompanied me to Minnesota.
I decided to spend New Year’s eve with one of my most
intimate boyhood friends, Mr. Nils Bengtson, in the little vi."
lage of Skoglosa, where I was born. Some of the dearest
friends of my parents and a number of my childhood
acquaintances were present there, and on New Year’s day we
attended services together in the old church at onnestad
Mv presence was expected, and the church was crowded with
people who had been friends and neighbors of my parents, or
school and playmates of myself. Even the pastor had chos
en a text applicable to me: "I think of the bygone days,
and of the time that is past." The solemn services made a
deep impression 011 all of us. A day or two later, in
company with some friends I visited the little cottage where I
was born, and where a number of the neighbors had now
gathered to see me. One of my earliest recollections from
childhood was the spruce tree, which, as I mentioned in the
first chapter, was planted in the little garden by my parents.
It was the only tree of its kind for a great distance around.
It had grown to be a foot in diameter, was very beautiful,
and was the pride not only of the present owner of the little
farm, but of the whole neighborhood. After breaking off a
sprig or two of the tree to carry back to my parents, we left
the place early in the evening for Nils Bengtson’s home,
which was about half a mile distant, and where I was still
a guest.
Early the next morning my host awoke me with the news
that the owner of the cottage had arrived before daylight,
anxious to communicate a strange accident. Upon being
admitted he stated that shortly after I left his house in the
evening, a single gust of wind swept bv in great forcc and
broke the spruce tree off with a clean cut a few feet from the
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