Free Northern Lights by Tim O’Brien Page A

not arrive.
    The Germans came later. The Germans came late enough to see that their future was not in the land. Instead they opened taverns and a hardware store and an implement shop, taking the Swedes’ money, extending credit, turning the bundle of tiny farms into a hamlet. Within a few years it became a predominantly German village, both in numbers and power, but theSwedes still remained vital to the tight circle of economics, because without them there was no need for German shops. Old World rivalries persisted, and Perry heard the story often: In 1863 a meeting was convened to choose the village’s soldiers for the war against slavery. No one understood the war, but everyone wanted to fight it. They hadn’t heard how many were dying. At the meeting it was decided that only a few could go, and after hours of haggling the number was fixed at fourteen, a quarter of the able-bodied men. The Germans, citing their new predominance, insisted on supplying ten of the fourteen. The Swedes wanted the war party split equally, arguing that they’d been the first to settle the forest, that they had eight more corpses in the cemetery, and that their farming sustained the small community. In short, Perry’s father had explained with relish, in short they were arguing about the right to die. “Well,” the old man said, telling the story, “the Germans threatened to foreclose on two mortgages. Herb Wolff’s great-grandfather was one of the bastards. Anyhow, the Swedes told them to go to hell, threatening to take their corn and trade into Two Harbors. So the krauts threatened to close down their shops. And the Swedes threatened to boycott the shops. And the krauts threatened no more credit. On and on. Well, next thing you know there’s a scuffle and somebody knocks over a lamp and the meeting hall catches fire, threatening a forest fire, threatening everything. And that, if you see the point, that was the final threat.”
    “Yes,” Perry had said.
    “And what’s the point?”
    “A big forest fire. The end of the whole village.”
    “Exactly,” the old man had crowed, opening his Bible. “The end of everything. The end of the world.” His voice rang like an old bell.
    In the end, a single young Swede went to the war and foughtwith the Minnesota First at Gettysburg. He was buried in the Swedish half of the cemetery, solidifying the Scandinavians’ grasp on the land, another root sunk deep in. For reprisal, the Germans convened a secret meeting and voted to change the name of the place from Rabisholm to New Köln. The Swedes simply ignored the vote, and until 1887 the village had two names and the matter was taken quite for granted.
    In 1887, the timber companies moved in.
    They built their sawmill on Dunkle Creek and named the place Sawmill Landing.
    It became a logging town—a town now and not a village. Simple frame houses went up, each identical to the next with their wide porches and crawl spaces and stone fireplaces and upstairs bedrooms. It became a company town. Using the sawmill as a hub, the timber companies laid the streets like spokes into the forest, seven spokes that radiated into the timberlands, and as the forest was cut and gutted, the spokes were simply extended and the town expanded. Each spoke was given a name: Acorn Street, Larry’s Lane, Moose Street, Apple Street, Broken Axle Road, Sawmill Street and Mainstreet.
    For nearly thirty years the logging companies ran the town, and the population climbed over a thousand. A school was built. And a jail and a town hall. The timber companies tarred Main-street and cut a highway out to North Shore Drive. An undertaker set up shop. A railroad spur was laid, a depot was built, new wells were dug, a water tower went up. The timber companies built a pulp mill and a planing mill, changed Ole Borg Day to Paul Bunyan Day, and, indirectly through the labors of their wage earners, paid for the construction of Damascus Lutheran Church. “That,” Perry’s father had