We put our little emigrant trunk in father's old cart, and with many tears and the breaking of tender heart-strings we bade farewell to our brothers and sisters. Mother went with us as far as to the churchyard, so that we could say that she had followed us to the grave. When we were a little past the farm called Branslan, I turned to take a final look at our village, Norrback, and I felt as if my heart was being torn from my bosom. When we passed the dear old church, my soul was again stirred to its depths as I recalled that it was here I had been baptized and confirmed and had taken part in the worship, and now I would most likely never see it again.

Looking back to those days, I see the little cabin, often with a sod roof, single room used for domestic purposes, sometimes crowded almost to suffocation by hospitable entertainments to newcomers; or the poor immigrant just landed from a steamer, in his short jacket and other outlandish costume, perhaps seated on a wooden box, with his wife and a large group of children around him, and wondering how he shall be able to raise enough means to get himself ten or twenty miles into the country.