Free Unto a Good Land by Vilhelm Moberg Page A

cut; moreover, there were so many swine in America, no one cared much if an occasional litter were lost. All garbage and sweepings were thrown into the streets, and the swine kept the town clean, he added. Here slops were lying in piles, and some of the houses they passed smelled as though more slops were being prepared inside.
    But the street smell of pigsties was familiar to the two youths from Swedish peasant communities. In Sweden or North America, in Ljuder Parish or New York City, they could find no noticeable difference in the smell of swine dung.
    From time to time the Finn stopped and peered into windows as though he were looking for some particular place. Arvid and Robert stopped also, but as far as they could judge, every house was a shop, and every entrance had something written over the door in large, gilded letters.
    At last the Finn stopped in front of a small house, not much bigger than a shed; it could be a shop, but there were no shop articles in the window. The Finn pointed to a placard nailed to the door:
    NOTICE!
    This shop is closed in honor of the King of Kings,
    Who will appear about the twentieth of October.
    Get ready, friends, to crown Him Lord of All.
    “Now we’re near the place I’m looking for,” said the Finn. “This same notice was on the door last fall when I was here.”
    Robert, who had begun to learn English from his book during the voyage, tried to read the notice on the door. He recognized some of the words but could not understand their meaning; he wanted to ask the Finn, but Arvid took the question from him: “What do the words say?”
    The Finn explained: It had been predicted that the Day of Doom would take place in New York during October last year, and the owner of the shop had closed in advance to honor Christ on His return. The King of Kings had not appeared, but the shop still remained closed; perhaps the owner had starved to death by now.
    There was another notice a little lower on the door, and the Finn bent down to read it: Muslin for Ascension Robes. Muslin to meet the King of Kings. 20 cents a yard.
    The boys wanted to know what this notice said.
    “Oh, just that the storekeeper sold wedding gowns for Christ’s brides,” said the Finn.
    And now the Finn must attend to the captain’s errands. He told the boys to find their way back to the ship alone; it was not difficult, only turn right about and then to the left. And if they wanted to go to the end of the street, they could do so. Broadway was about three miles long and ran right through Manhattan. They would not lose their way if they stayed on Broadway.
    The Finn nodded good-by and they saw him enter a saloon with the name Joe’s Tavern on the window; it was next door to the little shop which had been closed for the arrival of the King of Kings.
    —2—
    Arvid and Robert continued alone up Broadway. It was only today that they had been released from their long imprisonment. A feeling of unaccustomed freedom filled them now that they were free to move unhindered on solid ground. Boldly they decided to walk to the street’s very end, however far it stretched. Then they would turn straight about and walk back to the harbor and their fellow passengers.
    And so they continued along the most beautiful street in the world; they stopped and looked at the tall houses, they examined inscriptions over doors: Store, Steak House, Coffeehouse, Lodging House, Brown’s Store, Drugstore. They tried to interpret the inscriptions and guessed at their meaning. Could this be a tavern? Was that a hawker’s shop? Or an apothecary? The word store in particular impressed them, it appeared on one building after another. At last Arvid espied a small house, which he thought must be an outhouse, and he pointed for Robert to look, and laughed: “Look at that one! They call that a store too!”
    “They must be bragging,” said Robert. But he did not mind this exaggeration; it was always true that the smaller you were the more you