While we washed and dried, we talked. She asked me all sorts of questions about my family, told me how sorry she was that my father had died (I carefully withheld specific details), and sympathized with my inability to go to school.
“I liked school, too,” she said, speaking very seriously. “You’ll enjoy all of the books the Lappalas have available for you to read.” I had seen the size of the bookcases and had been hopeful I might be able to borrow from them.
Once the dishes were done, I swept the kitchen floor, shook out the rugs, and asked if I were expected to scrub it every night. “Goodness, no,” Grandmother said.
The children were engaged in a spirited game of what they called Chinese checkers. Their attitude made it very clear I was not welcome to join in and so I said, “Good night,” looking longingly toward the bookcases. Reverend and Mrs. Lappala had disappeared into a room behind the living room that Grandmother told me was their office. She settled down on one of the comfortable chairs, took up a stocking she was knitting, and said, “Good night,” too. The children didn’t say a thing.
Oh, dear, I thought as I went up the stairs to my room, I have some work to do there, which turned out to be true as I found out immediately the next morning.
Before I went to bed, however, I took time to adjust myself to my new room and to make it mine. I put down a picture that a traveling photographer had taken of Father with his tanning apron on, Mother all in white with her hair up in a Gibson girl style, and Aini when she was a baby. Two of the Kivimaki children, neither of them dressed up, had been visiting when the photographer was ready, so he just put them into the picture, too, although they look like ragamuffins compared to Mother’s and Aini’s white outfits. It was the only picture I had of our family, and I cherished it.
Next to it I piled my small stack of books with the anthology on top. I had thought of rereading “The Bishop’s Candlesticks” by Victor Hugo before going to bed. The message of that simple man’s belief would help me through the next few days as I adjusted to my new life and as the children adjusted to me.
Then I carefully washed my face and hands, using the water from the pitcher, and the towel that hung above it. It was another lovely and utilitarian piece of furniture—with a door underneath which held a place for the “chamber pot.”
At home we were discouraged from using any inside utensil for doing our “jobs”—even though Mother had bought a special pot with curved edges that was especially for urine. She considered it slovenly even to pee inside and so, regardless of the weather and the time of the day or night, we had to make the trek outside to the “outhouse” which Father had placed inconveniently behind the tanning shed. I think he was trying to keep it out of the way so that his important friends didn’t have to look at it. But they wound up using it too, especially after a long night of drinking. Their vomit added an especially nauseous odor to what smelled awful all the time, in spite of the container of lime Mother kept in a closed pot right by the door. After we had done our jobs, once a week or so, she told us to be sure to throw lime into the hole. “That’ll prevent the worst of the smells,” she insisted. I wasn’t convinced, but I did it anyway because Mother was usually right.
Then I moved the room’s one chair—a pretty pressed-back wooden one with a leather seat—next to the window, leaned my elbow on the sill, and spent some time just looking outside and listening to the birds.
There was a lot of cooing and twittering that night as I supposed the robins and chicadees and cardinals were looking for mates.
That reminded me somehow of the Rahikainen boys. I spent more time thanking my lucky stars I was through with them for once and for all.
Little did I know then that they would re-enter my life at a much later date and in a much kinder guise. At that time I was simply grateful for the fact that our family had been spared the horrors the Haualas had endured (I think I will see those boys’ faces in my nightmares for the rest of my life), that Father had gone (I refused to feel at all guilty for my gratitude), and for the opportunity in front of me if I could just take hold of it and make it my own.
Tomorrow, I vowed, I will start with the children. And with that, I undressed, got into my nightgown, and lay down before I could even open the anthology.
The day had been filled with openings and closings, and I was exhausted by all of it, but happy, too. I snuggled down and let myself drift into sleep. Tomorrow would take care of tomorrow, Mother often said, and as always she proved to be correct.
8: A Week’s Work
Since my room was so far above the kitchen, I didn’t hear the usual grinding of coffee and preparations for the morning. I awakened early to the chorus of birds and so, rather stealthily, I crept downstairs, passing the master bedroom, its door still closed, and the children’s rooms, where I heard stirring but no one getting up.
Certain I would be making breakfast, I greeted Grandmother, who had beaten me to it. She had a bowl of pancake dough right next to her on the stove and had some fresh bacon frying on another burner.
“Good morning,” she greeted me warmly. “We don’t use the dining room table for breakfast unless it’s a special occasion,” she explained. “Everyone comes into the kitchen as they get up and eats at the kitchen table. Usually Milma and Risto first and then later Tellervo and the boys.”
I nodded, beginning to set the table with the china I found in the cupboard and the silverware in a drawer. Obviously there was always a tablecloth on the table, a fresh one this morning, and cloth napkins were lined up on the edge of a long table that still held the remains of her preparations—a bowl, a flour sifter, a can of baking powder, a canister of sugar, and an egg beater.
“Should I put the dirty clothes to soak?” I asked, or since it was a Monday morning, “Do I start the washing in here?”
At home we had usually set the white clothes to boil on the stove the night before with lye soap so by morning all we had to do was transfer them to a rinsing tub, wring the piece out, put them into another rinsing tub, ring that one out, and drop each into a basket to hang outside.
I couldn’t see any washtubs. Nor were there piles of dirty clothes on the floor. Obviously, another method was used here.
I decided I wouldn’t learn anything unless I asked so I did, “What about the clothes washing? Do I start that right away? And where are the washtubs?”
Turning the gas fire off both burners, Grandmother led me outside to a summer kitchen where I had was another wondrous surprise. The Lappalas had one of those new-fangled washing machines!
A generator ran the washer, which Grandmother indicated I was to fill with hot water from faucets that hung against the wall. It was the Chicago Power Washing Machine Mother had been studying in the Sears & Roebuck catalog. The only stumbling block was the cost—$33.25—and that didn’t include the engine that moved it with a pulley, the extra steel tub bench or the “Laced Washing Machine Belt.” We had studied that page longingly, examining the look of the steel base, the corrugated tub, and the separate compartment for bluing. The picture showed a happy woman with short hair in a housedress and apron (presumably the maid) running sheets through the ringer into the basket, ready to be carried outdoors. The only similarity between washing clothes there and washing clothes at home was the knife I used to cut pieces of soap into the hot water. Then in went the white clothes, the washer was set to run, and inside we went again so I could eat my breakfast before I continued.
Grandmother showed me how to fill the washtubs on a stand right next to the washer. The wringer, with which I could get the most soapy water out of the clothes before dropping them into a tub of clean rinsing water was movable, ands so, when it was between the wash tubs, I could use it again to put the clothes into the second tub and again at the end of the second one straight into the basket!
It was such a marvelous invention I was absolutely overcome with excite
ment and gratitude! No more scrub boards for me… at least while I was at the Lappalas. Before I could say Jack Robinson the clothes were on the line, propped up with a forked stick so they got all of the wind. The clothesline poles had been set behind the house in a rather shady spot, and I wanted to give them every opportunity to dry quickly.
In the meantime, I heard Milma and Risto having beakfast and headed upstairs for the children’s rooms to see if they were awake.
When I opened Tellervo’s room, I stood aghast: clothes lay all over the floor—things that had obviously been washed and ironed all mixed up with worn pieces. The bed was unmade, books lay helter skelter, and the closet door was open to a playhouse that also had me transfixed! I had never seen a playhouse quite like that—a replica of a real home with real miniature furniture inside and tiny people, too, but again everything was askew.
This will be my first task, I told myself, and reminded myself that Milma had asked me to help with the children and they obviously needed help.
Tellervo had dressed, leaving her nightgown in a heap on the floor.
I started right in with directions. “Now, Miss Tellervo,” I said firmly, “you are going to have a lesson in how to clean your room.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she answered insolently.
“Yes, I can. I suggest you go downstairs and talk to your mother about the duties she has assigned me.”
She left in a huff but returned somewhat crestfallen a few minutes later.
“I’m to do what you tell me to do,” she capitulated, but not without some angry looks and throwing of clothing.
“First of all, every morning when you get up, the first thing you are to do is to make your bed.” I started it, pulling the sheet up to the top, and motioned her to take the other side. Unwilling though she was, she did as I indicated. Together we turned the sheet top over the blanket, fluffed her pillow, drew the bedspread, a beautifully flowered chenille, up over the pillow, tucked her folded nightgown under the pillow, and tucked the bedspread there, too.
“There, now,” I said, kind of asking her, “doesn’t it look nice?”
“I s’pose,” she answered grudgingly.
Then we took the floor in hand. Holding up each garment, I asked her where it should go. After awhile she got the hang of it, putting the clean clothing in the drawers of her dresser and hanging in her closet, and gathering the dirty clothes into a pile.
“It’s too bad I didn’t have your dirty clothes this morning,” I said. “Now you’ll have to wait a week before you’ll have them clean enough to wear again.”
“But that’s my favorite outfit!” she protested, pulling a sailor-suit middy top and skirt out of the dirty pile.
“That’s too bad,” I said without any noticeable inflection although I wanted to crow! “I only wash clothes on Monday, and this week’s are already on the line. You’ll have to wait until after next Tuesday when I’ll have a chance not only to wash but also to iron that outfit.”
“You’re mean!” she exclaimed.
“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is, not only in this house but in every house I’ve ever known of.” (I crossed my fingers behind my back because my lack of knowledge was one of my weaknesses.)
“How about the books?” I asked. “Which ones are you reading right now?”
They were the Bobbsey Twins series, one I had never heard of.
Grudgingly she answered, “They’re okay if you like that kind of childish writing. I prefer the great works of literature.”
“Like what?” I asked, really intrigued.
“Oh, Silas Marner for one. And Ivanhoe for another,” she said.
I had never heard of either of them, but I wasn’t about to admit it, not then. I just said, “Mmm,” and went on with my sorting. Sure enough, copies of each of those books lay open on the floor next to the window seat, which obviously was her favorite spot to read. It would have been mine, too. Two windows opened with cranks toward the outside, and in front of them, built in, was a cushioned seat, just right for sitting down with a book.
“How fortunate you are to have such a lovely room!” I exclaimed, once we had everything put away neatly, the dresser and end table tops arranged atop their doilies—tuukkis we had called them at home.
On the dresser top below an oval mirror lay her comb and brush and mirror—all matching and made out of celluoid with flowers on the backs. Next to them was a lovely dish of powder—talcum powder—not in a can as ours was at home—but in a pretty dish with a cover that matched the rest of the set.
I had carefully placed both of her two favorite books—one on the window seat and one at the foot of her bed. She had her own bookcase, which was filled with books—some obviously well-read favorites from the time when she was read to when she was little. An anthology called Children’s Literature had been so well-used that the binding was fraying. I longed to open it, but that wasn’t my business.
“After this, I’ll expect the room to look like this when I come to get you for breakfast,” I told her.
“I guess it’s okay,” she admitted. I felt as if I had robbed a bank and gotten away with a fortune!
I followed the same process in the boys’ room although Risto was a tougher combatant than Tellervo had been. He insisted that only half of the room was his; the other half, Danny’s. “He needs to keep his things on his own side.”
It was obvious to me little Daniel would need a great deal of help, probably every morning, before his side of the room was neat and orderly. He loved wooden toys and had a whole assortment—a long train, several trucks, and his own supply of books—especially for little ones, I realized, as I organized them into his own bookcase. There were fairy tales and Aesop’s Fables and the Teeny Weenies and ones I had never heard of but he could press and touch as each page was turned either to make a sound or to enhance his senses.
Risto’s side was as complicated as little Daniel’s was simple. He had a long table on which he was obviously gluing parts of a motorcar together. A jigsaw puzzle was half done on the other side, and he, too, had a pile of books—the Hardy Boys and The Life of George Washington were ones I noticed right away. He strongly objected to having to make his own bed.
“Isn’t that why you were hired?” he jeered at me. “Aren’t you supposed to be the ‘helper’ to everyone?”
His visit downstairs to check with his parents took even less time than Tellervo’s had. They had obviously “sat on him” hard.
I knew he wouldn’t come to like me easily or quickly. I’d have to work hard to earn his trust. But I tried, asking him about the books he liked and the projects he had going. His answers were brief. “Yes.” “No.” “I don’t know.” That was about all I could get out of him that first morning, but I vowed to strive to make him if not to like me at least to respect me.
After breakfast, which was indeed eaten in shifts with the children last, I helped Grandmother freshen up the kitchen. I washed the dishes, swept the floor, shook the rugs, commented on the wonderful gas refrigerator they had so there was no need for me to empty the bottom of an ice chest.
Then I asked Grandmother what I should do next. “What will Milma and Risto expect me to do on Monday other than the washing?”
“I usually dust the living room and dining rooms,” she told me. “Often on Sunday evening there are guests, and there’s picking up to do.”
“I’ll get busy with that,” I said. “Do you wash the furniture every week?”
“No,” she answered. “We just run a polishing rag over everything—even the feet under the dining room table,” she warned me.
By noon I had almost finished the dusting. Grandmother had made sandwiches out of eggs and a dressing she made that was delicious. In between pieces of her homemade bread, it was a feast. And she had made oatmeal cookies for dessert w
hile I was dusting.
“I need to learn how to cook and bake,” I admitted to her as I was finishing my sandwich. Everyone ate out on the porch, including Milma and Risto, who sat in the swing. Glasses of cold, tangy lemonade finished off the lunch, and I felt truly blessed.
“Well, let’s start as soon as you finish dusting,” she told me. “You have to be patient. It’s not something you can learn as easily as you can, for example, dusting.”
And so that afternoon I began my first lesson. She had planned that we would have salmon covered in a puff pastry for dinner. The salmon had been brought to church the day before especially for Risto—Reverend Lappala—by one of his parishioners, and Grandmother wanted to use it as soon as possible. “Fish needs to be cooked right away,” she told me, “or it develops a bad ‘fishy’ taste.”
Making the pastry to cover the fish was an art in itself. Grandmother mixed flour and lard together until they formed small peas. She had me do the same thing in another bowl, mimicking her. After she had added enough water so it held together, she laid out the large breadboard, which she covered with a heavy pastry cloth, and rolled out the dough until it was less then an eighth-inch thick. Then she spread that layer with soft butter, folded it over, and rolled it out again. That time she let me roll it out and spread the butter. I had to be very careful not to break the pastry dough, adding bits of flour to the cloth as needed, but “no more than you absolutely need” Grandmother said.
We repeated that procedure at least eight times before we wrapped it around the salmon, which Risto had fileted to remove the skin. Otherwise it was whole, including the head.
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