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a funny looking bundle on a very crooked pole;
the birds of the prairie were unaccustomed to such attention
 

      An old man was busy down by the barn putting up a Christmas sheaf, a big bundle of wheat tied to a cottonwood branch.
      “Nothing but foolishment, that’s all,” he murmured to himself, “but ma wants it that way an’ it don’t cost nothing, an’ it’s the old Swede fashion an’ I got nothing else to do. . .” and when he finally got through with his puttering, while he had his barn gable richly adorned with a funny looking bundle on a very crooked pole, it was hard telling whether the venture would prove a scarecrow, or the boon intended. The birds of the prairie were unaccustomed to such attention, and the sparrows in the yard had all they could eat together with the chickens; but it had been the custom in the old country, and Christmas was not complete without it.

— Gustaf Nathanael Malm, “Peace and Good Will,” the Prize Christmas Story in The American-Scandinavian Review vol. 4 (January-February 1916) : 9-16
U Michigan copy/scan (via google books) : link

A nice story about Swedish parents (Lars and Karin Anderson), whose son Luther has fallen in love with an Scotch-Irish girl (Mary McLean, who at least is not Catholic!). The parents come around to the idea, with the help of a pastor’s sermon, and fickle weather in the form of an early first storm of the season.

—

Gustaf Nathanael Malm (1869-1928), writer, artist,
see “Gustaf Nathaniel Malm, Lindsborg’s Swedish Renaissance Man” (and various linked pages) at Swedes : The Way They Were : link (accessed 20250201)
 

1 February 2025