- The narrator tells us some more about the Bergson homestead. Not exactly home sweet home, here—John Bergson, the father of Alexandra andEmil, has been toiling away in this wasteland for 11 years, without much to show for it. Plain and simple, the prairie land is "unfriendly to man" (1.2.2).
- Old man Bergson is on his deathbed, recounting all the hardships he's experienced in Nebraska. Only 46 years old and having just recently paid off his debts, his life is about to end. Like the rest of the farmers on the prairie, John's not a farmer by trade, but had a different job back in the Old World. He used to work in a shipyard. These aren't people who know a whole lot about farming, and let's face it: the prairie is no place for amateurs.
- John thinks about his daughter, Alexandra, and his two older sons, Lou and Oscar. Alexandra is the one who knows what's up on the farm, the one he's always been able to count on; she's smart. His two boys are hardworking, but dim-witted.
- Alexandra reminds him of his own father, a shipbuilder in Stockholm. He was a smart man who amassed a fortune in his lifetime, before squandering it all on his much younger, second wife.
- Then again, John would prefer to have a son who reflected some of his father's qualities. But he is happy to know that Alexandra will continue his hard work.
- John calls for his daughter in Swedish. He tells her in so many words that all the responsibility for the farm will fall on her when he's gone. He tells her never to abandon the land, no matter how bad things get.
- Lou and Oscar come in to see their father, too. John tells them to avoid fighting with each other and to listen to their sister, the eldest child. He tells them that the land will be divided fairly, according to the law, when they decide to marry.
- Finally, he tells them to hire a man to work the fields, so Alexandra can tend to her butter and eggs. And he tells them not to begrudge their mother her garden and fruit trees, which she plants to remind herself of the old country.
- The narrator turns to John Bergson's wife. Mrs. Bergson is lower class than her husband, John. She's a "corpulent woman, heavy and placid," who longs for Sweden, having never forgiven her husband for bringing her all the way to Nebraska. She insisted on living in a log house, instead of the sod houses most of their neighbors built.
- She tends to look down on other women, while they think she's proud. When she's not thinking about the homeland, she's preserving and pickling everything she can find.