Song of Sampo Lake

by William Durbin

  Mother noticed a black case and several small cups cut from the tips of cow horns. Beside the case lay two ivory-handled razors. “Why, you’re a kupparimummu!” she exclaimed.

  Mrs. Saari nodded. “My grandmother taught me.”

  Matti recognized the instruments. The kupparimummu or cupping woman back home cured the sick through bloodletting and special poultices. No one went to the doctor without first seeing her.

  Over a cup of coffee Mrs. Saari agreed to sell Mother a pail of milk three times a week. Matti wasn’t paying attention to their conversation until Mother said that in exchange for the milk, Matti would give the Saari boys English lessons after the harvest season.

  “How could you do that?” Matti whispered to Mother as Mrs. Saari led them to the barn.

  “Do what?”

  “Say I could teach English,” Matti said.

  “You’ll do just fine,” she said.

  As Mrs. Saari handed Matti his first pail of milk, Mother said, “Now we’ll see how strong my Matti is.”

  Matti thought Mother was joking at first, but only a short while later the pain in his arms was no laughing matter. The weight was all on one side, and the handle cut into his fingers. Yet he wasn’t about to complain about carrying a milk pail.

  From then on every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday Matti set off for the Saaris’ at dawn. Though it wasn’t fun hauling the heavy pail, the rewards were worth it. Mother used the fresh milk for oatmeal, for her special fish-and-potato soup, and for Father’s favorite rye pudding. She also made squeaky cheese (Kari could eat a whole plate of it) and viilia, a creamy yogurt.

  After a week of stretching his fingers to the breaking point carrying milk pails, Matti decided to use his head. He took a short spruce pole and hewed a flat spot to fit the curve of his shoulder. Then he tied a rope to the end to make a carrying yoke, or as Father teased, “Matti’s horse collar.”

  Father and Matti finished Mother’s dock on the hottest day of the year. Matti’s shirt was plastered with sweat, and his neck itched from sawdust. After they nailed the last plank in place, Father knelt and splashed water on his face. Then he took off his boots and put his feet in the lake.

  Matti stripped to his shorts and took a running start from shore. “Clear the deck,” he yelled. Sprinting past Father, Matti leaped as far as he could. With his knees tucked to his chest, he hollered, “Sisuuuuu” hitting with a splash. Father chuckled when Matti surfaced. The prickling chill of the water shocked Matti’s tiredness away. He tipped back his head and floated. The sun and the blue water reminded him of how it felt to dive into Lake Kallavesi on a hot summer day.

  “We’re coming swimming, too, Matti,” Anna and Kari called. He waved to them. Then he turned and swam parallel to the shore, taking slow, deliberate strokes and breathing deep and easy. For the first time since Wilho’s accident, Matti felt that America wasn’t such a bad place after all. Perhaps there was hope that Sampo Lake might soon feel like a real home.

  “Is the missus home?” A croaking voice interrupted Matti’s thoughts. He looked toward the dock. Black Jack was rowing his boat and doing his best to spoil the peace of a perfect day. Maude eeoowed a greeting to Black Jack from the top of the hill.

  “That would be me.” Mother’s voice was a whisper compared to Black Jack’s. The girls dove behind Mother’s dress.

  Black Jack saluted Mother and said, “Nice to meet you.” Then he reached down and pulled up a dripping stringer of fish. “I wanted to welcome you to Sampo Lake and bring you some supper.” He climbed out of the boat.

  “Why, thank you,” Mother said. As she took the fish, Anna and Kari clutched at her waist and tried to stay hidden.

  “Do I see some young cubs rustling behind those petticoats?” Black Jack called. “Why don’t you little ones come here and say hello to Black Jack?” As he leaned sideways to look at the girls, they squealed and ran to Father.

  Father caught the girls in his arms. Then he said, “How about a cup of coffee, Jack? I’ll kick the pot for us.” When Black Jack agreed, Father walked up to the big iron pot that he always kept simmering on the stove. Then the two of them sat on a log facing the lake and visited.

  When Anna and Kari got over their shyness, they ventured a little closer to Black Jack. With a sly grin Black Jack pointed at one of the twins and said, “You must be Anna?”

  “How did you know I was Anna?” she asked, looking startled.

  “You look exactly like an Anna,” he said.

  “Most people can’t even tell us apart.”

  “Well, people don’t pay proper attention then. You look exactly like an Anna, and that other edition over there”—he pointed his finger at Kari, who was still hiding behind Mother— “looks just like a Mathilda May.”

  Kari shook her head. “I’m Kari,” she said.

  “My apologies, Mistress Kari. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  By the time Black Jack left, the girls got up enough courage to walk him down to his boat and say, “Good afternoon, Mr. Black Jack.”

  As Black Jack rowed off, Matti turned to Father and said, “Did you tell Black Jack Anna’s name?”

  “No.” Father shook his head and glanced toward Mother.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I’ve never met the man before.”

  CHAPTER16

  By the first week in June, Father and Matti had plowed only half the ground they’d hoped to, yet it was time to seed their crops. “If only that Timo had helped more,” Father said. “It’s a thankless son that walks out on his family during planting time.”

  They hadn’t seen Timo for two weeks, and Matti could tell that it pained Father a great deal. Though he used to speak of Timo as his eldest and the carrier of his good name, these days he was more likely to call him “that rascal” or “that ne’er-do-well.”

  Wilho was a pest on the day that they sowed the rye. From the moment Matti filled the canvas shoulder bag, Wilho followed his every move. Since Matti had worked so hard to buy the seed, he didn’t want the crow to eat it all up. As Matti broadcast the rye, Wilho hopped alongside him. Father shooed him away, but Wilho caught the seed in his beak before it even hit the ground. And as Father raked the dirt, Wilho pecked between the tines.

  Father stopped and pointed his rake at Wilho and said, “This isn’t lunchtime, useless.” But he couldn’t help laughing when Wilho flapped up and perched on the rake handle so that he could peer into Matti’s seed bag. “With his taste for rye,” Father said, “I’d wager that crow has some Finnish blood in him.”

  While Matti and Father seeded the fields, Mother and the girls planted a vegetable garden. Mother also did her best to make the sauna into a real home. She hung a curtain over the window and set lace doilies on the table. Every morning she and the girls piled the straw ticks in the corner and swept the floor. Though Matti had been looking forward to the arrival of his family, the sauna was suffocatingly crowded. Father snored like a ripsaw, and the girls were both restless sleepers. Anna often woke up crying from a bad dream, and Kari seldom lay still. After Matti got his face scratched by Kari’s toenails twice in the same night, he decided to sleep with Yrjo in the lean-to.

  Along with the curtains Mother sewed flour-sack dresses for Kari and Anna. Though the girls rarely fought, they got into an argument over the sack material. “I want the Gold Medal label on my dress,” Kari said, having learned that gold and medal were both good things in English.

  “It’s my turn,” Anna pleaded.

  “I wish we could afford some nice gingham,” Mother said, “but for now we have to share.”

  “Why don’t you cut it down the middle and put one word on each dress?” Matti said.

  “Now that’s sensible,” Mother said. “We’ll draw straws to see who’s our gold girl and who’s our medal girl.”

  On Friday afternoon Mother made a shopping list for Matti to take to the store the next morning. Though Matti used his wages as merchandise credit, he always had to spend a l
ittle of Mother’s money too. She wanted only a few groceries and some thread, yet Matti could tell that she was worried. Mother pulled out her coin purse and counted her money. “We could do without the molasses,” she said.

  “Don’t be such a worrier,” Father said. “The berries will soon be ripe for canning, and we’ll have enough potatoes to fill two root cellars when the harvest comes.”

  When Mother handed Matti the list, he could tell that she was still uneasy. Mother might worry too much, but Matti could understand her fears when Father rushed forward so often without thinking.

  When Matti started for the store the next morning, the caterpillars were worse than ever. Matti normally enjoyed his walks, but he decided that he would rather be stuck inside the sauna with his giggling sisters on a rainy day than have to hike through the caterpillar-infested woods. The tops of the birch and popple were wriggling masses of caterpillars. Leaf bits and droppings fell on his cap, and the nearly invisible silk caught on his hands and face. For the last two days, the wind had washed piles of dead worms onto the shore. Matti and the girls had been hauling bucketfuls to the garden for fertilizer, but the stink was still awful. Mother’s little rowan tree was chewed bare.

  Though Matti arrived at the store on time, a homesteader had already parked his wagon out front. Billy was filling his order. “Would you load those things, Matti?” Billy waved toward the goods he’d piled on the counter.

  But when Matti picked up a bolt of cloth and started out the door, Billy hollered, “Hold your horses, lad.”

  Matti stopped and frowned. “What horses?”

  Billy and the farmer nearly split their sides laughing. “That just means stop,” Billy said. “You’ve got the wrong bolt there.”

  All day a steady stream of customers came through the door. The store was so busy that Karl Gustafson gave up his seat on the nail keg and went home because people kept trampling on his toes.

  At closing time Matti cleaned up as usual by sprinkling sawdust on the floor and sweeping it up. When he stepped out the back door to empty his bucket, he was startled to see a bear. Recalling the huge bear that had slobbered over his boots last spring, Matti was about to duck back inside. Then he noticed a cub sitting on the ground, pulling a branch across its lips and licking it off.

  Mrs. Winston opened the back door. “What is it, Matti?”

  When he pointed to the bears, she froze.

  “Just watch,” he whispered, hoping that she wouldn’t scream.

  The bears were feasting on caterpillars. Totally content, they bent down one clump of brush after another and slobbered up great gobs of the fuzzy worms. “Good Lord, Matti,” she said, “is it just me, or do those bears look like they’re smiling?”

  “They’re grinning like picnickers,” he agreed.

  “And so are you.”

  “Father told me that some critter would enjoy eating the things, but I didn’t believe him.”

  “They must chew up hundreds of pounds of those worms.” Mrs. Winston smiled. “I think I’ve finally found some friends in my battle with the caterpillars.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Matti normally didn’t care for cats, but he felt sorry for Yrjo. Every time Yrjo stepped outside, Wilho dove and pecked his head. The only place Yrjo found safety was inside the sauna.

  All that changed one day when Anna and Kari talked Mrs. Saari into giving them a pet rabbit. The floppy-eared creature was as big as a small dog, but the girls were afraid an owl or a fox might get him. So Mother let him stay inside at times. His favorite food was milk. One day when Mother poured some leftover milk into a bowl, the rabbit started drinking alongside Yrjo.

  “Look,” Kari called, “Loppy and Yrjo are friends.” But the minute the rabbit saw the milk was gone, he jumped on top of Yrjo’s back and started kicking the daylights out of him. The cat took off running, and the minute he got out the door, Wilho flew down and pecked him on the head.

  Yrjo finally discovered one place where no one would pester him, underneath Mother’s cookstove. Whether there was wood burning in the firebox or not, he curled up and took a nap.

  One day Mother got tired of setting out buckets in the sauna whenever it rained, and she told Father that it was time to finish the roofing. Since it would have taken too long to split cedar shingles, Father decided to make a temporary roof out of birch bark. Uncle Wilho was the first to teach Matti about birch bark. One spring when Matti was small, Wilho had caught him peeling bark. “The tree will die unless you time it properly,” he scolded.

  Wilho then showed Matti how to study the trees until the bark was ready to release. Father would have taken the hatchet and gotten the bark for Matti, but Wilho was a patient teacher. For several days in a row he watched Matti make a tiny slit down the side of a birch. Each time Wilho shook his head. Finally a thin layer of bark curled back from Matti’s cut, and Wilho smiled. That winter Wilho showed Matti how birch bark could be shaped into a bowl or a berry basket, and how it could be woven into shoes and packsacks that were stronger than canvas and lighter than leather.

  On the day that Father and Matti harvested the bark, birch sap stuck to their hatchet blades and their hands. Even as the sweet scents of earth and sugar lingered in the air, Matti felt a great sadness sweep over him. For with Uncle Wilho gone, spring and the wonder of the white bark leaping free would never be the same.

  Matti’s crow found new ways of getting into trouble. One day when Father and Matti were skidding some firewood, the twins discovered a patch of wild strawberries. Anna asked Father if they could move the plants to the garden.

  Wilho had spent the morning alternately perching on Matti’s shoulder and riding on Maude’s back (Katie, of course, would not permit such a thing). Wilho watched the girls as they dug up the blossoming plants and carried them back to the garden. He then flew over and watched the girls replant the strawberries and water them with buckets they carried from the lake.

  After lunch the girls showed Mother their new project. “We’ll make a fresh strawberry pie as soon as…” Mother stopped and frowned.

  Matti looked up the hill. Wilho had pulled up every one of the strawberry plants and piled them beside the garden. Wilho crowed proudly when he saw everyone walking toward him.

  “Bad bird,” Kari said, but Wilho only cawed louder.

  “He’s getting too smart for his own good,” Father said.

  To keep Wilho from repeating his “helpful” trick while the girls replanted, Matti took him for a walk. Matti followed the trail toward Sampo Creek. Wilho glided ahead, exploring the forest. Then he flew back and landed on Matti’s shoulder.

  Just as Matti was ready to step into the meadow, he heard a whoosh of wings. Wilho let out a screech and dug his claws into Matti’s shoulder. Matti looked up to see the cold, yellow eyes of an owl only inches away. Wilho pumped his wings to escape as the owl hissed and stretched his talons toward Wilho. Bony wings struck the side of Matti’s head, and talons closed on empty air.

  Matti was trembling as he took a deep breath and watched one black tail feather float to the ground.

  “Wilho,” Matti called, softly at first, afraid that he might attract the owl. Then he trotted down the path, calling louder. He saw the flicker of a bird ahead and dashed forward, but it turned out to be a woodpecker.

  Matti walked a long way beyond the creek, calling the whole way. Had the owl circled around and caught Wilho? Matti scanned the trees, but there was no sign of him. When it was nearly dark, Matti turned toward home. Under the shadowy cedars Matti hiked, his mind fixed on the memory of the cold, yellow fire that had burned in the eyes of the owl.

  When Matti was almost within sight of the sauna, he heard a familiar caw. There was Wilho, standing at the edge of the garden with the strawberry plants neatly piled at his feet again.

  CHAPTER 18

  The next Saturday when Matti arrived at the store, he saw a group of lumberjacks gathered in front of Sally’s saloon. They were looking at something in the grass and
laughing.

  A fellow wearing the red-stained clothes of a miner was lying flat on his stomach with his pockets turned inside out. Karl Gustafson prodded the ribs of the sleeping man with the toe of his boot. “Is it alive?”

  “He’s been testing knockout drops,” another man said, laughing.

  “Ya,” his grizzled buddy agreed. “Those boys pitched him right here last night after they picked his pockets clean.”

  Matti was chuckling along with them until he realized that he was staring at his own brother. “Timo!” Matti cried, kneeling down beside him. He rocked Timo’s shoulder and said, “It’s me, Matti.”

  Timo groaned and rolled over onto his side. He smelled like stale beer, and his forehead was plastered with bits of grass. A crushed ant hung from his lip.

  “Matti?” He squinted up.

  “Are you all right?”

  “What happened?” Timo asked. His tongue sounded thick.

  “I’ll be right back,” Matti said, running to the store to get a glass of water and a wet cloth.

  As Matti sponged off Timo’s face, he came to his senses. He groaned, “I’ve been robbed.”

  “How did you get way out here?”

  “Last night I met a couple of fellows in the saloon in Tower,” he said. “They asked me if I wanted to ride out to Sally’s and have a few drinks. The next thing I know, I’m lying here in the grass.” Tears welled up in Timo’s eyes.

  Timo—crying? He’d always been the tough man. Matti had seen him cut his leg open with a scythe and never whimper. “You can earn more money,” Matti said.

  “Money?” Timo looked confused. “The money’s nothing. Matti… It’s Wilho that gets to me. I can’t shake the nightmares. I hear that ledge breaking loose again and again. I see his eyes, so desperate to push me clear.” Timo stopped and wiped his face with his shirtsleeve. “Liquor’s the only thing that shuts it out.”