Sixteen years later, Alexandra's determination has paid off. After John's death, there are several hard years but Alexandra is determined to keep the land they have & she convinces her brothers to take out a mortgage to buy more land when other farmers, including their neighbours the Linstrums, are selling out. They agree with their father's last wish, that Alexandra will run the farm. Lou & Oscar are good workers but unimaginative. She is calm & sensible, dismissive of the admiration of a passer-by & preoccupied by her father's illness. She comforts her youngest brother, Emil, when his kitten is chased up a pole outside the general store & asks her friend, Carl Linstrum, to rescue it. We first see Alexandra in the role that will become familiar - taking charge of a situation. He leaves the direction of the farm's future to his daughter, Alexandra, a capable young woman who has the vision that is lacking in her two brothers, Lou & Oscar. After several tough years farming on The Divide, struggling against poor crops & bad weather, John is dying. They settled in Nebraska where there were many other European migrant communities - German, Bohemian, Norwegian. John Bergson emigrated from Sweden with his family in the 1870s.
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