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The Grand Story
by Sarah Grade 8

"Elizabeth!" my grandmother scolded me as I once again began to ask a question.
"But weren't you scared? Leaving your home and your family? I would think you would have been terrified," I insisted on asking my question.
"Yes, I was scared, but if you don't listen to the rest of my story you will never find out the wonderful ending," replied my grandmother.
"OK, I'll be quite," I hushed myself.

I was living in a small town right outside of Stockholm in Sweden. It was a tiny town called Nynäshamn. Every day I worked on my father's farm. My job was to milk the cows, collect the eggs from the chickens and feed the hogs. I also did most of the cooking because my mother was pregnant, again. I had four brothers and one sister. My brothers were Bjorn, Sven, Olaf, and Hans. My sister was Sophie. My name at that time was Lily Sandal. My father was very tired and upset at this time. My brothers were reaching the age where they should be getting a piece of the farm and my time would come soon too, but he had so little land as it was we could barely live off of the small bundle of crops we got each year. That was the time when I decided to go to America, the great land of promise. My mother was furious. She thought I should stay where I was, where I was safe, but I knew I had to go. America was calling me. One evening in early March, I told Sven I was leaving for America in five days time. He insisted that he come with me, saying if he left there would be more land for his older brothers. Sven was only 15, two years younger than me. Since Sven obviously was not going to let me go without him, I agreed to bring him along. But then Sven asked me what we would do for money. I said I would bring my life savings, which was thirty-five dollars. He agreed and we arranged to be packed by 11 o'clock the next night.
The next night we were both awake at 12 o'clock. I grabbed my bag and went to the kitchen. I gathered a few things we could eat on the way to Stockholm. We would get on a ship from there and go to Germany. Then we could get a ship to America. Sven and I left right then. We did not leave our parents any notes except for "Sorry." I felt bad to leave them like this, but that was just the way it had to happen. Sven opened the door softly and I ran out, hoping to be in Stockholm by sunrise.
It seemed to take them forever but finally we were in the city. We made our way to the docks. I saw a boat that was undocking right then and ran up to an officer to ask him when the next boat to Hamburg was. "Excuse me, sir," I started.
"May I help you young lady?" he replied.
"Yes, I was wondering when the next passage to Hamburg was and how much that passage costs," I continued.
"Well, there is a cargo ship that is leaving in two days and that will only cost you two dollars," he suggested.
"That would be terrific. Where can I buy tickets?" I questioned.
"Well, there are really no tickets, but you can just tell the captain that I gave you permission to go. You can pay him to take you," he continued, "in the meantime I can give you a place to stay."
"Thank you very much! Do you know if I could work to get a little money in today and tomorrow?" I was worried about money. I had only planned to go by myself on this trip.
"Well, if you work for me, both you and your brother, I can give you those tickets for free. But you must be really ready to work." He could see I didn't have much money.
"Thank you, sir! I assure you, we are ready to work," I sped through my words ready to start already. He began giving orders to both my brother and me. We worked as hard as we could, hoping he would be satisfied with our work. We carried cargo to and from carriages and helped dock one of the biggest ships I've ever seen. That night we went to the officer's house and slept in the attic. The next day we did the same thing. The officer fed us for a dollar for the two days and said it would also suffice as enough of a payment to the ship if he gave them a bit of that money. Finally the day came when we were to leave. I thanked the officer very much for helping us so much, and with that we boarded the ship.
We told the captain what we had done that we deserved passage on the boat. He laughed at our long story and welcomed us to his tiny ship, the S.S. Skagerak. Thanking the captain, Sven and I hurried down a corridor searching for a room we could take. All of the rooms with tiny cots in them were taken but there was another room with supplies that seemed all right to sleep in for the evening. Sven immediately plopped onto the floor, curled up and went to sleep even though it was four in the afternoon. I decided to go to sleep too. I was very tired from all the work we had done to get onto this ship.
The next time I woke up Sven wasn't in the room. I stood up, stretched, and headed out of the room, making my way to the deck. I opened a door to outside and was hit by a wave of see air. I inhaled it, treasuring the familiar smell. I saw Sven, leaning over the bow searching the water for something. I ran up to him and pulled him back onto the ship. "Don't lean so far over!" I yelled. But then I raced him to the edge again and I got the better spot for leaning over. It looked like I was flying gracefully over the water. The sound tingled my ears as I looked for any signs of land on the horizon. I saw a small island, not too far away. I decided to play a game with Sven. We could hide from each other and see who could find the other faster. I ran over and hid in a coil of rope. I could feel the mist coming from the edge of the boat. Sven ran around and soon looked in on me. I grabbed his neck and pulled him into the eddy of air. It was so quiet and peaceful. You could hear the roaring sea in the distance although it was only a few feet away. We spent the rest of our three days on the ship in a familiar fashion, relaxing and playing. We ate as little as we could, knowing the need for food would grow larger soon.
When we reached Hamburg we tried to find another official that spoke in our language. Finally we talked to an official and told him we needed to go to the ticket booth. He pointed us to a small hut a little ways away. There were tons of people gathered around it. We headed over to the hut and got into one of the shorter lines. When we finally reached the ticket salesman he couldn't understand us.
"Two tickets for America, please," I asked. The salesman just looked at me.
"He can't understand us Lily," Sven pointed out blankly.
"OK, I'll get the point across," I replied as I held out two fingers and said, "Two" again.
The Official nodded and replied, "Wohin?"
"He wants to know where to Lily," Sven pointed out once again, having obviously more experience with foreign languages.
"America." I replied. The official shrugged so I pointed at a picture of America that had an offer on it."
"Dreißig," The officer told me as he wrote a big 30 on a piece of paper. I understood and started to hand him that money.
"But Lily! We'll only have four dollars left then. How will we survive in America?" Sven panicked.
"Don't worry Sven." I comforted him as I handed the ship official the money. "We'll find someway. And anyway, we can't survive if we don't get there first."
"OK," Sven finally agreed. I got two small slips of paper from the ship official and headed off with Sven. The piece of papers said we were leaving for America in one day. Where were we to stay for the evening? I headed towards the docks again. Maybe we could stay on the boat one more night. We found it casting off, heading back to Sweden, back home. But, now Sweden wasn't my home. America was going to be my home. Sven and I sat down on the dock. The only thing we could do was wait. We didn't speak German so we wouldn't be able to get a room, let alone give the money. I heard a family joining together again, although I could not understand what they were saying.
"Mama! Ach! Ich liebe dich!" a small girl exclaimed.
"Oh, Angelika. Ich liebe dich auch!" the mother replied. "Hast du die Reise gern gehabt?"
"Sie war super!" The little girl practically squealed as they continued off. I sat watching them, wondering if I would ever find myself a husband. My father had been pressuring me to marry the merchant's son, but I hated that boy. He was so bigheaded. I sat and pondered for the rest of the day. Sven was doing the same. When night came we decided we could sleep under the docks. It would be fairly dry and wouldn't cost anything. We clamored down the steep bank to where there was a small strip of shore under the dock. I lay down, closest to the water, knowing it may rise in the night and that I would wake up faster should my hand get wet. The night went well and we woke to the sound of a large boat coming in. It was the biggest sailboat I had ever seen. The masts soared above us and the sails billowed in the wind. I guessed this was the boat to America. The sailors yelled to one another as one of them scampered up the mast. I ran over to one of the gangplanks and showed my ticket to a nearby sailor. He was surprised to see a girl and a boy so young sailing to America by themselves, but he nodded and showed us to where we could stay. I marveled at the ship; it was so amazing. We went down a few steep steps and the sailor pointed to a small trap door in the floor. I lent down and open the door a foot. Immediately a powerful stench filled the hallway. A sailor handed me a lamp and ran off, covering his nose.
"That smells awful!" Sven complained. "Are we supposed to sleep down there?"
"It's not that bad." I wrinkled my nose as I said the phrase.
"Not that bad? It smells like Mom's old Everything Surprise burnt to a crisp!" Sven commented. I laughed at the joke at Mom's Everything Surprise. We thought that the way she made it was to put any bit of food she could find into a big pot. It was disgusting but sometimes it was the only thing we could find to eat. We poked out heads into the room with the lamp and found almost every single bed already taken! We climbed down into the small room and found one bed not taken. We placed our possessions on it except for our food, which we carried with us.
"Let's go look on the on the deck," I suggested. So we opened the hatch again and headed out. Once on the deck, we found all of the sailors were too busy to notice us, so we crept to a large coil of ropes on the deck. We climbed in and savored the sweet smell and the quiet. We stayed there for the rest of the day until it got dark and then we headed back down into steerage. We found our bed taken by two small children. I asked them if we could share the bed with them and they nodded, obviously very frightened. I sat down and Sven took a spot on a trunk. I leaned against the wall and shut my eyes as tight as I could, trying to go to sleep. Finally I drifted into a restless sleep, but at least I slept, though many that night never slept. I woke up early and left Sven a note that I was going up to the coil of ropes but before I could place it in his hand he awoke and joined me on my way up to the deck. We snuck out and crawled into the coil of rope. It was a few moments before I noticed we had cast off during the night. We were on our way. We spent the day on the deck in our own little coil. Suddenly right over out heads I heard a friendly voice.
"I thought I heard a few stowaways. Glad to see you haven't been noticed yet," a sailor smiled in on us.
"Why would it be bad if we were noticed, sir?" I asked of the handsome young man.
"Well, all steerage is supposed to stay down in their cabin," the sailor told me.
"In that stink pit?" Sven almost yelled.
"SVEN! Sorry, he's a little young," I apologized as I gave Sven the that-was really-really-rude look. "My name is Lily Sandell, and this is Sven my YOUNGER brother."
"And I'm Brian. Born in America and became a sailor. I have learned many languages roughly and luckily for you, Swedish is one of my fluent ones," explained Brian.
"Nice to meet you Brian," I said. He had beautiful brown hair and bright blue eyes. He had a scar from his right cheekbone to the bottom of his chin. Sven and I went down to steerage and I slept well that night, dreaming of days with Brian on this ship when the weather was beautiful. But I woke up that morning feeling very seasick. I left Sven a note, and ran up to the deck. I left what food I had had in the past few days floating on the surface of the ocean. Brian came over behind me and suddenly spoke to me.
"Are you all right?" Brian asked.
"Yes, I'll be fine. It's just a little seasickness. Nothing to fret over," I replied as I tried to hold back the other day's lunch.
"Wow, a girl who knows why she's throwing up," he chuckled, "impressive."
"Well, it's either that or I'm pregnant," I joked without much of a sense of humor.
"What?" Brian looked surprised.
"Don't worry, I'm not. I don't even have a husband yet. That's one of the reasons I left Sweden. My father was pressuring me into marriage," I explained.
"Oh, so that's where you're from. Well, I guess I should have figured it out. You speaking Swedish and all," he continued as he leaned over the side, watching the other days lunch fall to the sea. "You sure you're going to be OK?"
"Mmmm, hmmm," I mumbled.
"OK, well do you want to talk about our lives or should I just leave you to loosing lunches," he joked again. Brian had a wonderful sense of humor; he just did not use it at exactly the right times.
"I'd love to talk," I decided I could always rush over to the side in an emergency. Brian didn't seem to mind. So for the rest of the day we talked about our lives except for when I made emergency runs to the rails or when Brian was asked to do something. He and I talked forever. And we never had a problem with the weather until one day when it was really stormy. The boat rocked back and forth and the waves crashed on the deck. Sven and I stay inside that day. Everyone in steerage had thrown up and the floor was covered in slime. I had taken refuge on a trunk in the corner and Sven sat on a bed next to me, comforting small kids. He had a strong stomach and wouldn't get sick so he comforted the two youngest kids in the steerage cabin. Their names were Rachel and Michael. Both were about five and couldn't talk yet. Or at least they didn't speak Swedish but Sven sang them songs and played hand games, and most of the time they didn't seem too upset.
But after the storm faded I woke one day to find Sven lying on the floor of the cabin, and he was covered in small dots. I picked him up and rushed out of the steerage cabin letting the trap door slam behind me, which I normally didn't do, but this was an emergency, and I had a feeling it might be worse than rushing him the to railing. When I reached the deck Brian immediately ran over but stepped away when he saw Sven. Brian was scared. I was too.
"Get him to the infirmary, he has small pox." I rushed him to the infirmary and the doctor quickly ignored his first patient to tend with Sven. Brian started to talk to the doctor in English, but quickly the only thing on his face was a frown. He took me outside and looked down at his feet.
"What's the matter? What is wrong with Brian?" I asked hurriedly. I wanted to turn Brian upside down and shake the words out of him.
"I was right. Your brother has small pox. And there's nothing we can do. All we can do is make sure he's comfortable. And hope for a peaceful death," Brian said sorrowfully. My hand began to shake like it did right before I cried. Suddenly my knees gave way and I lay on the floor crying. Why had I agreed to bring Sven along with me? I should have left him at home. He should never have come. Brian sat down beside me and comforted me. I cried forever. Sven couldn't die, he just couldn't.

"Grandma?" Elizabeth's lip was quivering. "Is this story true?"
"You will find out soon enough dear," I answered.

Later that week Sven died. He had been sleeping and dreaming of home. I cried even more when they slid his body over the rail and into the sea. It had already happened twice on the ship, once because a baby had been stillborn. The poor tiny thing had been lowered into the sea by two of the sailors. The other time was because Rachel had died. She had gotten small pox two days after Sven had shown his first symptoms, but she had only lasted two days after she had gotten hers. She was so frail and weak. Michael had not gotten sick yet. For the next three weeks I spent my time solely with Brian. He taught me a few phrases of English and I helped him with some of his chores. Occasionally he would let me go up the mast with him. All of the other sailors laughed at Brian. They called him the sailor in love with a steerage girl. We laughed with them and a week before we docked at Ellis Island, Brian proposed to me. I immediately took the offer. I had been in love with him for a long time. Now I was going to be Mrs. Brian MacLean.
When we reached Ellis Island we went inside together. With him at my side I felt no fear and he could help me with any big English words. We waited in a line for what seemed like days until we finally reached the booth. A man started speaking very fast to me but I took a deep breath and answered the questions one by one.
"Where did you live?"
"Sweden," I answered.
"How do you plan to live in America?"
"Learn English from my fiancé. And then I will manage a business with him."
Then the official addressed Brian. "Is this your fiancé?"
"Yes," Brian proudly stated.
"And you plan to teach her fluent English? You have done a very nice preparing her for this by the way," congratulated the official.
"Yes, and thank you."
"You may go," the official said. It went that way the entire day. I answered questions and then they would ask Brian if that was true, until we reached the health station. I had to tell them about my brother's small pox. Both Brian and I knew I was going to be detained.
"Your brother had small pox on the boat and died?" the official questioned me.
"Yes," I answered reluctantly.
"You must stay here for four weeks. You may stay in that room there. That young child has ringworm. See how her hair has fallen out. You may not want to touch her head but she would like some company," continued the official.
"May I stay with her?" asked Brian. I told him not to sleep in the room but to visit me and the official showed Brian a separate room away from everyone else where he could stay. I sat down on the bed next to the young girl.
"What is your name?" I asked.
"Briana," she replied softly.
"Is there anything I can do for your ringworm?" I asked again.
"You could tie that scarf on my head so my baldness doesn't show. But you shouldn't touch my head," Briana said solemnly.
"I'll get rubber gloves so I can," I replied.
"Thank you..." Briana searched for my name.
"You can call me Mrs. MacLean," I replied happily.

"That really was a true story, Grandma! And Brian is Grandpa!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "I didn't know all those things about you."
"Not many people do, Elizabeth."
"But what happened in the end?" Elizabeth searched for an answer.
"After staying in the infirmary for the four weeks, Brian and I moved to Wilmington, Delaware and there we have been ever since," I replied.
"That's so romantic!" Elizabeth exclaimed, "And mushy!"
"I know, Elizabeth, I know. Now go to bed, before your mother and father get home."

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