He said that food was cheap in America
and that a man could earn nearly ten times as much there as in Sweden.
There seemed to be no end to his money." Sickness came, with only black
bread and a sort of potato soup or gruel for food, and at last it was
decided that the older brother was to go to America. The first letter
from him contained this: "I have work with a farmer who pays me
sixty-four kroner[10] a month and my board. I send you twenty kroner,
and will try to send that every month. This is a good country. All about
me are Swedes, who have taken farms and are getting rich. They eat white
bread and plenty of meat. One farmer, a Swede, made more than 25,000
kroner on his crop last year. The people here do not work such long
hours as in Sweden, but they work much harder, and they have a great
deal of machinery, so that the crop one farmer gathers will fill two big
barns."
[Sidenote: An Irish Woman]
An Irish cook, one of "sivin childher," had a sister Tilly, who
emigrated to Philadelphia, started as a greenhorn at $2 a week, learned
to cook and bake and wash, all American fashion, and before a year was
gone had money enough laid up to send for the teller of the story.
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