With people heading home, Hillström came quietly beside her and said in a low voice, “You want to get some air?” She nodded and put her empty coffee cup on the rough boards of the trestle table at the side of the hall. She felt people watching her leave with Joseph Hillström. She felt guilty. What if Jouka found out? She also felt the excitement of doing something risqué.
They walked on a trail worn by mill workers along the banks of the Skookumchuck River.
“The place is humming,” Hillström said.
“Full employment,” Aino agreed. “Lots of potential members, but less incentive to join.”
“Surely, even fully employed men want higher wages and better working conditions.”
“Sure, they want that. But what will they fight for?” She paused. “Honor and dignity rule men and work,” she went on. “Money is secondary.” Ideas were tumbling together in her mind. “Honor keeps them at their jobs, supporting their families, showing their courage. Honor makes it hard to organize. In fact, working under horrible conditions increases their honor.”
Hillström chuckled, nodding his head.
“At some point, however, living without dignity and respect will overcome honor. We organize to give them dignity. With the red card, a man holds his dignity in his hands. The red card tells the world: ‘Respect me. I am not a slave. I am not a machine.’”
Hillström took her hand. “My rebel girl, you’re not only beautiful, you’re a deep thinker.” She felt herself blushing in the dark.
They walked side by side, hips and shoulders often touching.
He stopped and faced her. “Where are you spending the night?”
She felt a quiver of excitement and danger. “At the hall.”
“On the floor,” Hillström stated.
She nodded.
“Why not stay with me at Michael Tierney’s? You’ll sleep a lot better than on a cold floor. There’s a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
He’d given her an excuse, but she couldn’t quite give in to herself without some sign of resistance. “I don’t want to impose.”
Hillström smiled. “You’re worried about what your husband will think,” he said.
“Yes, a little.”
“You believe in all that marriage stuff?”
He’d given her another argument, one her pride didn’t allow her to counter. How could she admit that she wasn’t a modern socialist woman? “Of course not.” She saw him smile. “It’s just that Jouka does. It’ll hurt his feelings.”
“If he ever finds out.” He let that hang in the air. “Look, Tierney’s married, with two kids. His wife, Kathleen, will be there the whole time. Her brother Jack’s staying there, too. The Tierney place is a well-known roost for all of us IWW organizers.”
She said yes.
On waking, even before she opened her eyes, she breathed in the wonderful smell of him, the pungent odor of his skin, the soft remains of yesterday’s hair tonic. She kept her eyes shut, lying on her side, her back to his side of the bed, reliving the jumble of images—him singing, the crowd looking at her, the women curious about her and him, the long river walk, the quick trip to the hall to pick up her valise, walking outside to him, his gentle but assured hands unlacing her. She rolled over to snuggle in close to him.
He wasn’t there.
She saw his valise and heard sounds from the bathroom. The feeling of sleepy contentment was replaced by a feeling of loss—and guilt.
He came into the bedroom in his undershirt, suspenders hanging down from the waist of his trousers. He’d just finished shaving.
“Where are you going?”
“South. I’m at Eugene tonight, then Roseburg, then Klamath Falls. Big sawmills.”
“When are you coming back?”
He looked at her and smiled. “Not soon enough, I assure you.”
“No, really, when are you coming back?” She realized she was sounding needy and switched to a more businesslike tone. “I thought you were going to be here helping with the organizing.”
“Nope. I’ll leave that in your very capable”—he walked over to the bed and took both her hands in his—“and beautiful hands.” He then went back to packing his bag. She sat on the edge of the bed, unable to speak.
She threw herself into organizing, up early in the morning at the house and back later at night to sleep in the same bedroom. Tierney’s wife, Kathleen, made breakfast for Aino; her husband, Michael; her brother, Jack Kerwin; and her two young children. When her husband went off to his sawmill job, Aino and Jack left with him. Jack focused on loggers, so because of the distances he would often not make it home at night. Even though Aino focused on closer sawmill workers, she would often come in after the family was asleep. She always found supper left in the warming cabinets along the top of the woodstove, slow heat radiating gently from embers in the firebox.
During the day, she would stand just outside the property of sawmills, catching workers as they went to their shifts or, better, when they were leaving, as that gave her more time. Mill owners called the sheriff to eject her several times and she had to scramble to an obviously public place where she had a right to be and where, in full view of others, she’d be less likely to be beaten. The sheriff would leave her with a warning. The next day, she’d be back at the edge of the mill property, preaching her gospel of dignity. She helped put together pamphlets, giving her ideas to people who could write English. She then carried the material from the printers to the hall. She went to barbershops, only to be run out by irate barbers. She stood by saloon doors, only to be threatened by bouncers. The police got to know her. Sometimes they would simply say hello and talk. Sometimes they would tell her to get her red ass out of town before they threw her into jail for vagrancy. One day, they did throw her into jail charging vagrancy, but the city attorney, a man named Polly Grimm, said to release her. He didn’t like Wobblies, but the law was the law. She had a right to speak her mind in public places and if she had a place to live, she was no vagrant. This outraged the wife of a prominent lawyer. The woman beat Aino with an umbrella, shouting that she was a disgrace to women, un-American, and should go back to Finland along with all the other reds ruining the country. She was propositioned by drunk, or not so drunk, loggers and mill hands and occasional upstanding citizens of Centralia. Once a woman asked if it was true Wobbly women had their ovaries removed so they could make love without the fear of getting pregnant. Aino replied she’d gladly lift her skirts so the woman could take a closer look and see that she had no scars. The woman hurriedly left.
The work was hard, but it was paying off and not just in Centralia. By the end of June over fifty lumber camps in Washington State were on strike, around five thousand loggers. It seemed that they were at a turning point. She decided to stay longer than the three weeks she’d told Jouka.
Two weeks later Hillström returned, bringing the embarrassing question of sharing the room.
“They’re already calling me a red whore,” Aino said to him as he stood just inside the door.
He took her in his arms. “Sticks and stones,” he said.
She wriggled free. “Easy for you to say.”
“Are you still mad about me leaving?” he asked, as if it were inconceivable.
“You could’ve told me before.”
“And what? We wouldn’t have made love then? Aino, I leave all the time. I go places.” He smiled warmly at her. “Aino, I’m organizing. I’m doing the work. Just like you.”
“You should’ve told me,” she said, somewhat mollified.
He took both her hands. She let him. “Come on. I’ll sleep in the hall. We’re comrades, aren’t we? We must support each other, not fight.”
She wanted to ask him to stay—but she knew that this would hurt the cause more than anything else she could do. “OK, friends,” she said.
“Comrades,” he replied, just as Kathleen Tierney entered the living room.
He picked up his bag and cheerfully said goodbye to Kathleen, who
shut the door and leaned against it, looking at Aino until one of the children ran into the room and broke the uncertain spell.
The police began patrolling around the IWW hall, showing up at rallies and speeches in greater numbers. Aino felt an ominous chill watching them silently watch the crowd. As the audiences grew, the police added more deputies.
“I say let’s have it out,” Hillström said. It was close to eleven at night and the leaders had returned to the new hall after a well-attended rally. “Let’s show them we’re an international union, a force to be reckoned with.”
There were murmurs of assent.
“We shouldn’t be pushing so hard,” Aino said. “At some point the deputies wade in with ax handles, and people get scared and tear up their cards.”
“We’ve all faced ax handles,” Michael Tierney said.
“I’m not afraid for ax handles,” Aino said. “If you weren’t a man, I show you my scars.”
That got a laugh.
“Weeks of recruiting work will be wasted because workers afraid of cops using ax handles.”
Murmurs of assent arose for her side as well.
“A big rally gets us in the papers,” Hillström said. “We’ll sign up new members from Canada to Mexico.”
“Joe’s right,” Tierney said. “We let people know Joe’s going to be speaking and singing and we can draw a really big crowd.”
“Big crowd of cops,” Aino said.
“Come on, Aino. It’s just what we want. We’ll be in newspapers all over the country.”
“And capitalist newspapers making us look like crazy dangerous people, scaring everyone. Making recruiting harder.”
The image of Voitto passionately arguing his case before the raid came unbidden. She tried to focus, struggling with the images and the English.
“We recruit here already over three hundred. They recruit others. In a year, we have every worker in Washington on our side. Then we have power. Then we shut down entire lumber industry. Direct action! Not newspaper stories.”
“Theory,” Hillström said dismissively.
“Yes. Like the laws of Newton,” Aino shot back.
“OK, OK,” Tierney said. “We’ll put it to a vote.”
Aino knew she would lose. She did.
Pamphlets were printed and distributed. Signs posted. Aino traveled by train and walked miles on dirt roads to logging camps and mills, restaurants and saloons, barbershops and tobacco stores, advertising the rally. But advertising reaches everyone.
On the day of the big rally, Aino noticed burly men coming in on trains and going to the police station. Mill workers and loggers came into town as well, going to the saloons, getting drinks before the night’s entertainment.
She watched the happy jostling crowd with a sinking heart. Most of them were here for the spectacle. She recognized many that she’d talked to and hadn’t convinced to carry the red card.
After brief introductory speeches, Hillström mounted the platform to applause and cheering. He asked for quiet and began one of his great speeches, cutting through the fog of befuddled sociology and economics that held them in thrall. He got cheers. He got laughs. He led a few songs. Organize. Show these capitalists and their captive politicians and police what real power is. Join the Industrial Workers of the World. Get dignity, get a fair deal, and lose your chains. A cheer arose.
Then someone threw a bottle at one of the cops.
A whistle shrilled three times and the surrounding line of police and deputies stormed into the crowd, batons and ax handles flailing. People tried to defend themselves or get away. Women screamed. Men went to the ground, both police and Wobblies, and both were kicked as they lay there by other policemen or workers. Hillström ran off the stage toward the hall. Aino raced after him, but someone tripped her and she went down. A man stomped on her below her right shoulder, making her gasp with pain and briefly lose her vision. She struggled to her feet, petticoat and skirt wet with mud, her hair loose and falling over her shoulders. Fighting her way through the crowd toward the hall, she reached its doors. Men with pistols were standing guard there. She rushed past them, looking for Hillström. He was gone.
She left the hall several hours later, her blouse showing a patch of blood, her back aching. Jack Kerwin offered to walk with her to his sister’s house. He had coagulated blood in his hair and on his face and walked with a limp.
They moved through the area where the rally had been held. The platform stood empty. On the ground were letters, flyers, food, lost hats, even a shoe—and torn-up and trampled red cards. No one would risk going to jail with one of those in a pocket. Months of recruiting, lying in the mud.
Furious and frustrated, her back throbbing, Aino sat at the kitchen table as Kathleen carefully tended to her brother’s head wound and her husband’s cuts and bruises. Kathleen moved quietly between the water heating on the stove and her brother and husband. She occasionally looked at Aino, who was staring at her coffee mug saying little. Once their eyes met. Kathleen looked down at the bloody rag in her hand and then back at Aino, her eyes sad. “I heard Hillström hopped a freight.”
Aino held her gaze momentarily. She looked down at the floor, murmured, “Yoh,” and walked from the room out into the night.
Off to the northwest there was still a faint hint of light from where the sun moved beneath the northern horizon. She’d spent six weeks away from Jouka doing what she’d done to end up where she was. Now she had to go back and face him.
12
When Aino returned from Centralia in mid-August, Jouka was working. All he said when he came home was: “You’re back.” He said nothing about Centralia and Aino wanted nothing said.
By the end of September the heady feeling from the strikes of spring and summer was gone. The lumber market was turning down. Owners were less motivated to settle. When strikes were called, the IWW organizers found it difficult to get men for the picket lines. Too many of the loggers, itinerant and single, simply moved.
On the second Sunday of Advent, December 7, 1913, the family gathered at Ilmahenki. Ilmari had lit the candle of hope on the Advent wreath the Sunday before and was now lighting the wreath’s second candle. “Today we light the Bethlehem candle of preparation for the celebration of the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ,” he said softly. As the candle came alive, it lit his usually solemn face, which, like that of a child, was filled with wonder at the miracle of fire and the hope of returning light.
Aino looked at Jouka, whose blue eyes reflected the candle flames, and then at the faces of her family, shining out of the darkness. Even the little children were grave and thoughtful, watching the wavering candlelight grow stronger. She saw little Helmi’s eyes stray over to the warming cupboards above the stove, which concealed a pie Rauha had made using apples from the cellar dug into the hill on the other side of the sauna.
Aino thought about her parents and snowy Christmases back in Finland. She thought of her father, dying who knows where, like many who had gone forward alone, so the rest could follow better off than before.
She said softly, “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord … Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low.”
“And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,” Ilmari continued. “And all flesh shall see it together.” He smiled at her. “You still remember your catechism.”
“It was beaten into me,” Aino said with a laugh. “Literally.”
Her brothers laughed. No one who failed to get the lesson right escaped Pastor Jarvi’s loving hand.
Matti managed to say through a biscuit in his mouth, “So, Isaiah was a Wobbly?”
Aino and the others laughed. “Well, at least a Marxist,” she quipped back at him. “He prophesied the coming classless society.” This begat more chuckles. She loved them all.
After the meal—the dishes washed and dried, everyone drowsy—Aino put on her coat and scarf and grabbed the galvanized bucket of kitche
n scraps, saying she was going to the compost pile. After turning the compost to oxygenate it, she walked to the river. She watched the roiling water, in full flood after the fall and winter rain, remembering lighting the Advent candles and the glow on her mother’s and father’s faces that Christmas before they lost her brother and sisters; remembering kissing Voitto in the falling snow; thinking of Hillström, of Aksel. Maybe Aksel and Lempi? Huttula was close to forty when he died. She was twenty-four and childless. Do you defeat death by giving birth? Would a child fill this emptiness? Was that just another delusion?
She turned the compost pail upside down and sat on it, tucking her skirt tight against her ankles. She wondered if Vasutäti was sitting alone in front of her little shelter. She must have been married when she was younger. Ilmari had told her Vasutäti lost all her children to measles. So much for the bearing of children as the answer to death.
Aino picked up a stick and threw it awkwardly from her sitting position into the dark river where it was whisked downstream and lost in the churning current. On its way to the ocean, she thought. You die. You’re buried. You leak horrible liquids and it all ends up in the ocean. We’re small sticks torn from the tree of humanity by the storms of winter. She wished she had Ilmari’s faith. Delusions, she thought. She laughed out loud with no mirth.
She stood and looked at the glow from Ilmari’s house in the late-afternoon gray. Why was she always outside, looking in? It would be dark in an hour and a half. Jouka had brought their lantern, so the seven-mile walk to Camp Three wouldn’t be quite so frightening. The forest still scared her. To Jouka, Matti, and the others like them, it held no mystery at all. They just turned it into logs.
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