Oh, my, but she is such a good little girl, Mamma says.
And it’s true. There never was a sweeter child than Helmi, except maybe my sister, Amy, but she never got a chance to grow up, which surely don’t seem fair and nobody seems to remember except Me.
Helmi has our old room all to herself while the rest of us are crammed in like oysters in a tin. Mamma says Helmi’s been through a lot and Deserves Some Peace. I want to say that I been through a whole lot, too, and I Deserve My Own Bed, especially considering how loud Wilbert snores.
How long do you think Helmi is going to stay here? I ask Wilbert.
He looks at me and says, Why, what did she do?
She ain’t done nothing. She’s good! She never causes a speck of trouble! Even Pappa thinks she’s sweet as sugar!
His eyes narrow. May, are you jealous?
‘Course I ain’t jealous. She’s just a baby.
Helmi is in bed and we are all sitting in the parlor. Pappa is reading his Finnish-American newspaper and Mamma is knitting socks for Alvin and Ivan.
I ask Mamma, Was I a sweet baby?
Pappa snorts.
You were a little fussy, May Amelia, Mamma says gently.
Pappa says, I used to put you in the barn.
In the barn? I ask. Why?
You never stopped crying. At least that way we got some sleep.
I think she liked the cows, Isaiah says in a dreamy voice.
She still smells like them, Ivan snickers.
You were born irritating, May Amelia, Alvin says.
And you haven’t changed a bit, Ivan adds.
* * *
Helmi starts carrying around a doll with a delicate china face and wearing a blue silk dress.
Where did she get that doll? I ask Mamma, for we have no other girls here, and it’s not mine. My Susannah is a sturdy rag doll who wants to be a pirate.
Mamma looks down and says, It was Amy’s.
Amy? I gasp.
Your father bought it for her when she was born.
But Mamma, I say. How could you give her Amy’s doll?
May Amelia, Helmi has nothing. She lost her mother. She’s in a strange land. Your sister would have wanted her to have some small comfort.
No she wouldn’t have! I say. Amy never even got to hold it!
I’m not going to discuss this anymore, May Amelia, Mamma says.
Pappa goes to Astoria to do business and when he returns he is carrying a package. Usually he gets us children a treat, like candy or maybe an orange. I am so excited I go running up to him.
Did you bring us anything, Pappa? I ask.
He stares down at me but before he can answer little Helmi runs up to him shouting, Faari! Faari!
He kneels down in front of her and she tugs on his beard and squeals with laughter.
Gotcha something, Kukka, he says and opens the package and holds out the prettiest little straw hat I ever did see. It is trimmed with a black velvet ribbon.
Helmi tries it on and spins around in it happily.
Then he pauses and looks at me and digs in his pocket and holds out a handful of lemon drops.
You like these ones, right?
I nod and take them. Thanks, Pappa, I say.
Then my father takes Helmi’s hand and says, Let’s go show Mother how pretty you look, and they walk to the house hand in hand.
The lemon drops taste sour on my tongue.
Mamma is boiling laundry and she says, May Amelia, go play with little Helmi.
But Helmi is no kind of playmate. She isn’t interested in throwing manure patties or climbing trees or fishing. All my life I’ve dreamed of having another little girl to play with, and now that I’ve got one, she’s no fun at all. She wanders around the farm in her pretty new hat and I follow her to where Pappa does his horseshoeing. She picks up an old horseshoe and looks at it.
That’s a horseshoe, I say.
Her face lights up.
Shoe! she says. Shoe!
Then she brings the horseshoe right down on my foot and laughs.
I’m as startled as if I’ve fallen into the Nasel. I look down at my foot and back up at Helmi, who’s laughing likes it’s the funniest thing ever. I know she’s a baby but she just hit me with a horseshoe and she did it on purpose! I don’t even think, I just yank the hat off her head and crush it on the ground under my feet. She starts wailing away, loud enough to scare every cow away.
Wilbert’s walking toward us and he saw the whole thing.
May! Wilbert says. What’d you do that for?
She Hit Me With A Horseshoe!
But she’s a Baby!
It Was A Horseshoe! I say.
When I show Mamma the bloody bruise on my foot, she won’t hear a word against Helmi.
You’re a big girl, May Amelia, she says. You should have moved your foot.
Helmi is standing at the hog pen looking in and she says, Want To Ride!
The boys are always riding the hogs. The hogs can be wild, but then so can my brothers.
Ride! Ride! she pleads.
You want to ride the hogs? I ask.
Yes! Yes! she says and I say, Fine, fine.
I lift her up over the fence and drop her down onto a fat slow hog’s back. She tumbles off the hog and starts wailing away. The poor hogs are so startled by her ruckus that they start snorting and bumping into each other and that just makes Helmi shriek and shriek and shriek. Who knew a little girl could make so much noise?
Be quiet! I yell at her. You’re riling up the hogs!
But she doesn’t listen and just wails louder so I open the door to the pen to get to her but she’s got the hogs so worked up that they rush me and knock me over, too, and take off from the pen in all directions. That’s when everyone except Wendell comes running—Kaarlo Ivan Alvin Isaiah Wilbert Mamma Pappa. Wendell’s just lucky he’s deaf and can’t hear her shrieking her head off.
Kukka! Pappa bellows and leaps into the middle of the pen and grabs up Helmi and passes her to Mamma.
The hogs are loose! Kaarlo shouts.
Mamma rocks Helmi, saying soothingly over and over again äitin tyttö, which means mother’s girl and I feel my heart clench.
What Happened? Pappa demands.
She wanted to ride a hog and then she started hollering and she scared ’em!
Pappa looks like he’s going to explode.
You put her in the pen with the hogs?
I was being nice to her, like Mamma said!
Honestly, girl, You Have No Sense, and he carries Helmi’s trembling body back to the house.
It takes most of the afternoon to round up the hogs, and we don’t find one until the next day. It ran all the way over to Jacob Clayton’s farm and nosed its way into his house and ate a pie.
Helmi’s no worse for the wear after her wild ride, but Pappa is so angry with me he practically turns red every time he sees me. Even Wilbert gives me a look, a Real You’ve Gone And Done It Again May Amelia look, and I know I am well and truly in Trouble. For my punishment, I must empty slop jars in the morning which is where a body goes if they cannot make it to the outhouse during the night.
After church on Sunday, Uncle Niihlo and Jaakko come back to our house for lunch. Helmi won’t go near her father. She sits next to Mamma the whole time, and buries her face in my mother’s skirts.
I think she just needs a little more time, Mamma says to Uncle Niihlo.
Jaakko goes outside and I follow him. We stand on the fence around the hog pen. Jaakko’s cheeks seem fuller. Mamma always said Finland was Starving Country and that she never knew what a full belly was until she came to America.
When is your daddy gonna take Helmi back? I ask him.
I guess when he finds us a new mamma, he says. Got no one else to mind her.
Ain’t no eligible women here in the valley except for Miss McEwing our teacher, I tell him. Why can’t you watch her?
Pappa wants me to start going to the schoolhouse. Says I have to learn Eng
lish or I’ll never fit in.
Nearly everybody speaks Finn, I say.
I just want to go home, he says.
Do You Miss Your Mamma?
He looks down at the ground and then up at me and there is a haunted look in his eyes.
I don’t miss the last time I saw her, he whispers. But I miss every time before that.
The boys are out in the fields and Mamma is in the kitchen. I am taking the slop jars out to the outhouse. When I come back past the garden, there is the little doll, the little doll that was meant for my sister, and it’s lying in the mud where Helmi has left it, its pretty dress ruined and I can’t bear it, I just can’t.
I grab it and jump into the rowboat and go to the Smith Island where my baby sister sleeps forever. I’m gonna hide it where that Helmi will never find it, where she will never ruin it. I sit on Amy’s grave and I show her the doll because she needs to know that there was a doll for her, a doll that some other little girl played with before she even had the chance. She needs to know that she isn’t forgotten now that there’s a pretty girl who is sweet and makes Pappa smile running through the house.
I’ll Never Forget You, I tell her, and the wind blows and I swear for certain sure she whispers back to me.
She says, I Know, May.
I am washing the breakfast dishes the next morning when Helmi runs around the kitchen saying, No Doll! No Doll!
Mamma shakes her head and says, I have no idea where she put that doll. I’ve looked everywhere for it.
It’ll turn up, Pappa says.
I’m done my chores, Mamma, I say. Can I go fishing?
As long as you weed the potato patch, she says.
Sure, sure, I say. I won’t forget the potato patch.
It’s a fine day for fishing and I’ve just set my line in the water to catch some fishies when Berle comes running past me.
Better Pull In Your Line, May Amelia! They’re splashing now!
Okay, I say.
And he keeps right on running past me, shouting Logs-a-coming! Logs-a-coming!
I pull in my line and go back to the house.
Mamma’s in the kitchen darning socks and she looks surprised when I walk in the door.
I thought you were fishing, May Amelia, Mamma says.
They’re releasing the splash dam, I say.
Mamma goes still. Where’s Helmi? she asks.
I shrug. I don’t know.
Mamma runs outside, shouting Helmi! Helmi!
But the little girl doesn’t answer and Mamma runs over to where Pappa is looking at a horse’s hoof.
Jalmer! They’ve released the splash dam! I can’t find Helmi!
My father turns pale and hollers, Boys!
We tear the farm apart, looking for little Helmi. We search everywhere from the cowshed to the hayloft but it’s too late: the logs are already crashing down with the raging water.
Not again, Mamma sobs.
And all I can think is that my sweet sister Amy is lying dead and buried on the Smith Island and I can’t bear it if another little girl is laid in the ground beside her. I run along the river shouting her name.
Helmi! I cry.
The crashing logs are the saddest sound I have ever heard.
Everyone goes back to the house and sits around the kitchen table. Mamma is red-eyed and Pappa has his face in his hands.
I reckon I’ll weed the potato patch now, I say, but no one answers.
I get my bucket and go out to the potato patch and that’s when I see her:
Helmi is curled fast asleep on the soil.
When I walk in the door holding Helmi’s hand, Mamma bursts into tears.
Where did you find her? Isaiah asks.
I didn’t know we planted little girls in the potato patch this year, I say.
The potato patch? Mamma asks.
Pappa looks at me and crinkles his eyes.
May Amelia, he says, you were the best crop we ever put in.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Learning Is Dangerous Here
Rain comes to the valley and still we must go to the schoolhouse. Miss McEwing says even the weather cannot stop learning.
We children pile in the rowboat, and by the time we reach the schoolhouse, we are sopping wet.
I Didn’t Fall In The Water, I say to Miss McEwing when we walk in the door. It Fell On Me.
You weren’t the only one, she says.
Every child in the room is wearing their under-drawers. All the damp clothes are hanging by the potbelly stove, drying.
Take off your wet things and set them by the stove, Miss McEwing says. Hopefully they’ll be dry by the time you go home.
Not much point if you ask me, I say. They’ll just get wet again.
True enough, Miss McEwing says. But that’s the charm of living in Nasel.
A few days later, it rains hard again, and every child is being taught their letters and sums in their under-drawers while their clothes dry by the stove.
This time the rain even gets the best of Miss McEwing. Her pretty hair is plastered to her head and looks like a wet dead animal.
We’re halfway through the first lesson when the school door opens. Jaakko is standing there, his scarf wrapped tight around his neck.
Miss McEwing smiles.
Welcome, she says.
Jaakko hesitates and then walks to the front of the room. He’s carrying a Finn primer.
We have a new pupil joining us today, Miss McEwing announces. His name is Jaakko.
She needn’t have bothered introducing him, seeing as every child in the valley has already heard about The Boy Who Didn’t Die. It is the most exciting thing that’s happened in Nasel since a bear got trapped in the Kitinoja sauna and scared Mrs. Kitinoja half to death.
Miss McEwing takes the Finn primer from Jaakko.
You won’t be needing that here, she tells him and then says slowly, We Only Speak English In This Schoolhouse.
He turns and looks at me blankly.
You Can’t Speak Finn Here, I say to him in Finn.
Every child laughs.
Miss McEwing groans and mutters, Honestly.
Then she hands Jaakko a slate and a piece of chalk.
Jaakko doesn’t speak any English, she says. Who would like to sit next to him and help him?
Not one child raises their hand. Truth be told, some of the boys look a little scared.
Come now children, Miss McEwing says, tapping her foot.
I raise my hand and say, He Can Sit By Me.
Jaakko slides into the desk and looks around in wonder like he’s never seen a schoolroom in his life and believe me there’s nothing interesting about this schoolhouse.
Ain’t you ever been to school before? I ask him.
Sure, Jaakko says. But it’s different here.
What do you mean? I ask.
Well, for one thing, he says, we wear clothes to school back in Finland.
Uncle Aarno says there is no nosier race of people than the Finns and he should know because he delivers the mail. If a letter arrives from Finland, it will be opened and read by every soul in the valley before it reaches the hands of its addressee. Poor Erik Olsen was the last person to find out his wife had a baby.
It turns out that Finn boys are just as bad as their parents because every one of them wants to see Jaakko’s neck. They stare at him while we eat lunch. I am sharing my food—rieska and squeaky cheese—with my cousin. All my uncle sent for him to eat was some salt pork.
Your daddy find anybody to marry yet? I ask.
He said that there’s a pretty girl at the logging camp who cooks for the men, but she’s got religion.
What’s wrong with that? I ask.
He don’t believe in God no more after what happened, Jaakko says. Me neither.
Sure doesn’t seem like God Was Paying Attention, I agree.
How’s Helmi? he asks.
She likes to sleep in the potato patch, I say. How’s Bosie?
Good, he says
. Did you know he can catch fish?
Best fisherdog around, I say.
I heard he had his head chopped off, Nuutti says loudly from across the yard.
You think that scarf’s holding it on? Waino asks.
If you just show them, they’ll leave you alone, I tell Jaakko.
I don’t care what they think, he says.
Those boys are gonna make your life a misery for sure.
He rubs his neck and says, They can’t do anything to me that hasn’t been done worse already.
And I guess he’s right.
Miss McEwing comes to school with the family she boards with, and if the tides are against them, she is late. Which is what must have happened today because when we arrive at the schoolhouse, all the children are standing outside waiting around.
I hate coming here, Berle grumbles.
Better than shoveling manure, I say.
Not much, he says.
My cousin Jaakko is sitting by himself on a big stump. Nuutti walks right up to him with a smirk on his face.
I bet your neck’s not even cut up at all, Nuutti says. I bet you made the whole thing up.
Jaakko just shrugs.
Prove it to us, Nuutti says.
Jaakko is pure Finn. He’s got the emotion of a stone. All he does is blink at Nuutti.
Well? Nuutti asks.
Leave him alone, Nuutti, I say.
Nuutti grabs Jaakko’s scarf and tries to pull it off, but Jaakko twists away.
Why you trying to take off Jaakko’s scarf, Nuutti? Lonny asks. It’s keeping him warm.
But Nuutti keeps tugging at the scarf.
I said leave him alone! I say, and I jump on Nuutti’s back.
And then another boy tries to tear me off and Wilbert leaps in shouting That’s My Sister and Lonny leaps on saying That’s My Neighbor and Berle leaps in saying That’s My May and then boys are piling on and it’s worse than feeding time in a hog pen what with all the snuffling and smacking.
What Is Going On Here? a voice demands, and everyone looks up to see Miss McEwing standing over us.
The boys tumble away, leaving me and Jaakko on the muddy ground. Jaakko’s still got his scarf on his neck, although it’s looking a little worse for the wear.
May Amelia? my teacher demands.
The Trouble with May Amelia Page 6
