Grantville Gazette 36 gg-36

by Paula Goodlett

  Kaapo put the side job aside, "Making a stop."

  Ari looked puzzled. "A stop for what?"

  "Sanna and I bought one of those new chests of drawers they're making in the furniture shop." The wood shop was designed to make exportable furniture, after it met the domestic needs. So far, exporting furniture looked like it would be a long time coming. "Now she's expecting. Buying a cradle is out. Back home I would borrow one or make one, but there's no one to borrow from here and I don't have the tools, so we'll make do with one of the drawers. I just want to make sure it doesn't open all the way and fall out or shut with the baby in it. So I'm making a stop to keep it mostly open."

  "Oh," Ari said, while getting back to work. “If you can afford a chest of drawers, why can’t you afford a cradle?”

  “That’s the point. We couldn’t afford the chest. I bought it on time. When I brought it home, Sanna hit the roof. I wanted to go ahead and get a cradle too. But Sanna absolutely forbade it. She doesn’t like being in debt. She’s right. We can get by without it.”

  Kaapo thought it odd when Ari didn't complain about the side job.

  ****

  The next day Ari asked, "Do you want a part-time job?"

  "How many hours and doing what?"

  "The shipper who runs his boats up the coast making deliveries and picking up fish has one boat coming in every afternoon. After work I help unload. One of his regulars just got a job in the boatyard. So he can use another man. I told him you would come."

  "How long does it take?"

  "Depends on what he has. Barrels of fish heads, and salted or dried fish roll off pretty easy. The front of the boat lowers like a ramp. Boxes of fresh fish have to be carried off. It's the loading for the next morning which can take longer. The expediter has it ready, but you never know what you'll be putting on."

  Kaapo said, "Give me some idea. I don't want to work another nine hours."

  Ari laughed. "I don't want to either. Rarely less than two or more than four hours. The worst of the job is loading the fish heads for the glue shop on the wagon. The rest of the barrels get rolled into the warehouse. The boxes of fresh fish get put on another wagon for the store, but they are so light, it's easy."

  "I'll have to stop home and tell Sanna."

  ****

  Winter passed. The ice melted. Ships came for some of the pipe in the warehouse, along with paper, plywood and cut lumber. Some of the pipe went in the ground once it thawed and dried out. Summer also passed, as summers do.

  September saw them taking a turn sanding and waxing bowls.

  "I hate making bowls," Ari complained. "They do not sell!"

  Kaapo replied, "If the countess wants us to make bowls she cannot sell, what does it matter? It all pays the same. Even if she is losing money on it, it is all the same."

  "The difference is that making pipe is a job fit for a man and it makes money, not like making bowls. If the countess isn't making money, how long can she keep it up?"

  Kaapo laughed. "Just as long as she wants. Do you have any idea how much she's making off of everything else? Did you know they were looking for something to do with the sawdust they weren't using to make garden soil so now they are going to cut ice, store it for the summer and ship it out packed in sawdust."

  "That is the dumbest thing I ever heard. Who is going to buy ice?"

  "The Ayrabs in Ayraby."

  "I don't care if it is packed in sawdust. It will melt before it gets there."

  "They don't think so. They're building a big ice house and another dock."

  "I still think it's dumb."

  The foreman came around. "Kaapo, they want you at the clinic. Your wife's water broke and she's in labor."

  Kaapo left so fast that Ari and the foreman laughed.

  When Kaapo arrived at the clinic the baby rested in Sanna's arms. The delivery had been quick and incredibly easy, especially for a first pregnancy. Sanna looked fine as she smiled and cooed at the tiny, wrinkled, red baby.

  Kaapo, being concerned, asked, "Is he all right?"

  "Don't be silly, Kaapo, and he is a she. She's beautiful. This is what all babies look like when they first come out."

  They named their daughter Klara.

  ****

  That evening Ari stopped by Kaapo and Sanna's apartment. He knocked on the door, and when Kaapo opened it Ari said, "Help me get this inside before it gets rained on." The "this" he needed help with was a new cradle from the furniture shop.

  Kaapo looked at it. Before he could say anything Ari complained, "I just couldn't stand the idea of your kid sleeping in an open drawer. Don't worry. It's a gift. If you feel bad about accepting it, you can plan on loaning it out when you're through with it."

  The next week he knocked on the door with a half bolt of good linen cloth. "You will need some more diapers."

  Sanna invited him in and he spent a half-hour making faces and odd noises over the cradle.

  ****

  "Kaapo," Sanna asked as they walked home from church on a day when the sun bounced and sparkled off of the fresh November snow, "why don't you invite Ari to dinner next Sunday? I know one of the girls who works the bag line who would make him the perfect wife. The way he loves our daughter, he will make a truly good husband and father."

  "Sanna . . ." Kaapo breathed deeply before he continued. "I am sure when Ari is interested in getting married, he can find his own bag girl."

  "Nonsense. He's just shy."

  This caused Kaapo to snort. "Shy? Ari? Are we talking about the same man?"

  "Yes, he's shy. Now you listen to me, Kaapo. Ari will be much happier when he is married and has children of his own. You ask him to Sunday dinner."

  On Monday, near the end of the shift, Kaapo screwed his courage up and broached a topic he was not completely comfortable with. "Ari, Sanna told me to ask you to come to our house after church for dinner this Sunday."

  Ari seemed to sense Kaapo's discomfort. "Sure. Why not?"

  "Why not? Because. She is going to invite one of her friends from when she worked the bag line. She's trying to match you up with a wife, Ari. That's why not."

  "Oh. Yes. I see your point. Still, if Sanna asked I don't see how I can say no. I don't want to get her mad at me."

  When he came to dinner, he brought a fine sheepskin to line the cradle with. "It's to keep the little one warm," he said. "She's such a small thing she can't make enough heat to be happy."

  ****

  "Did you hear?" Kaapo asked Ari. "They have a warehouse full of sawdust and now they're going to turn some of it into charcoal and press it into little bricks."

  "That's even dumber than sending ice to Africa."

  ****

  Early in July Kaapo came home to find his home in a mess. "What is going on?" he asked, looking around.

  "A building supervisor stopped by this morning and asked when it would be all right for them to do some work on the apartment. I said any time and he said, 'how about today.' Since there are now three of us, they are putting a loft over part of the washroom."

  "We can't put a cradle up in a loft."

  "No, but Klara won't be a baby forever. They're looking to the future."

  ****

  The seasons turned. October claimed its turn on the calendar's front page.

  "Kaapo, you look like someone just kic-" Ari stopped in mid-word. "What's wrong?"

  "The baby has the measles. The clinic says to keep her warm and feed her often and to get a wet nurse if Sanna can't feed her enough to keep her wetting her diapers. They said there is nothing else they can do. But she's not keeping anything down. The nurse said it doesn't look good."

  "Damn it!" Ari said. "It's not fair. She's just a year old. I thought with the sewer system and running water, the kids weren't suppose to get sick."

  Kaapo shrugged.

  For the next three days, Ari worked without uttering a word beyond those absolutely needed to do the job. Tears ran down his quiet face at the funeral.

  All
the next week, after the funeral, Ari said only what had to be said, and truth be told not even half of that. Kaapo began to find it oppressive. The following week the silence continued until Kaapo broke down and screamed. "Damn it, Ari, say something. You're scaring the life out of me."

  At the sound of someone screaming, the foreman came running, expecting to find either an accident or a fight, either one being bad news. When he got there he found both men working away in complete silence with tears running down their faces. There was no blood and they were still working, so it wasn't an accident. There were no red patches which would be bruises later. Ari could have twisted Kaapo into knots as easily as he lifted a two inch pipe over his head, so it wasn't a fight. "What's going on? Is everything all right?" the foreman demanded.

  At first neither man said a word. Then Ari started to a shake exactly like a man who was swallowing too much grief.

  "We'll work it out," Kaapo said. "It just needs some time."

  The foreman looked at the blank in the jigs. "Listen, offload this one and get out of here. You're already over quota for the day. Go get drunk and come back tomorrow, ready to work without screaming at each other." The foreman looked at Ari. "Forget finishing this one. I'll do it. Just get him out of here and go get him drunk."

  Kaapo led Ari out of the shop. The man had his eyes closed and his jaw clamped.

  In the nearest tavern, Ari poured his first beer down his throat almost as fast as you could say the words. Kaapo pushed his beer across the table and it followed the first one just as quickly. The barmaid saw the first empty, and knowing the symptoms, had two more beers there about the time there was a second empty mug on the table. This time Ari gulped a solid portion of his beer but did not guzzle it all in one lift.

  When the mug was sitting on the table Ari said, "I had a wife." Tears ran down his face. "We had three children. Each died before their first birthday. Then Anna died giving birth to the fourth child." Both men were crying again. "It's not fair," Ari said quietly. "Anna was a sweet little thing. All of the children had her eyes and looked like they would have my size. The first three were boys, the fourth a girl." Ari kept talking about his wife and children as tears streamed down his face. "When the girl died a few days after I lost her mother, I walked away, leaving everything I had for my family to split up. I walked for three months. When my money ran out, I found work or walked hungry." Tears started to dry up. "When I tried to get a job on a boat to work my way across the sea, the captain said no, but he would give me a ride to where I could find a good job if I agreed to pay him later. What he wanted was three times what the passage normally costs. I didn't care. When we got here he took me to a tavern and introduced me to Aappo and told him I was a good worker and I was looking for a job." Ari chuckled a bit. "How he knew I was a good worker, I have no idea. But he didn't care if I had an Orthodox name instead of a Lutheran one and so I might be Rus. Aappo didn't care, either. I think giving me a job was the captain calling in a favor Aappo owed him. Anyway, Aappo walked me over to the mill and turned me over to the office there, and here I am." The tears had pretty much stopped flowing.

  "Then the priest threw a fit when he learned my name. Aristarkhos is Orthodox, after all. If I have an Orthodox name then I might be Rus. I'm not. But I might be, and people around here have no use for Russians. I'm from LakeLadoga, and we're Karelian. The priest, no, the pastor, made sure I knew my catechism. I think he was more concerned about making sure I was paying my tithes." At this both Ari and Kaapo laughed.

  "Well, that's how I got here. What's your story?" Ari asked.

  "The farm had a bad harvest. There wasn't enough food to see us all through the winter. Sanna wanted to come work the bag line. We left my half of the farm in my brother's care and keeping, and came here. Sanna went to work on the bag line until I got on at the mill. We were only going to stay through the winter. Now it looks like we will never go back except to visit."

  The barmaid kept the beers coming right up to the time they left for three hours. When they came back after offloading and loading a boat, she kept the beers coming until she decided they had had enough and cut them off.

  The next day the two of them showed up at work with hangovers. The foreman looked at them and nodded. He pulled them off of their regular job and sent them to sand and wax bowls. It was a boring, miserable, job which was sometimes used as punishment. Or you might end up on the detail if your partner didn't show up. But, in this case, it was easier to check on the work when it was done than to risk having someone hurt around the powered machinery.

  ****

  The seasons changed yet again. One Saturday Kaapo said, "Sanna wants you to come to Sunday dinner tomorrow."

  "She does? Is she playing matchmaker again?" Ari asked.

  "I think the word is 'still.' Yeah, she will have a bag girl there to balance the table. But the real reason is she's pregnant and she wants you to stand godfather to the child."

  Ari got quiet. "Yes, I can do that."

  "Well, she wants to ask you so I didn't tell you about it. Okay?"

  "Yes."

  ****

  When dinner was over Ari offered to walk Anna, the bag girl friend of Sanna's who was there to balance the table, back to the dorms.

  "Well, that's a first," Kaapo said. "Ari never walked home with any of the other girls you set him up with. Maybe, after what-four or five tries-just maybe you got it right this time."

  "Kaapo, I gave up. Anna is completely wrong for Ari. I just invited her to dinner because she is a friend."

  "Well, it looks like he likes your friend."

  ****

  The next day, when the tool head bit the wood and started to eat its way to the end, Kaapo, asked Ari, “How did the walk to the dorms go?”

  “Fine. We’re having dinner at the diner tomorrow.”

  “So you like Anna.”

  “She’s sweet, she’s got a solid head on her shoulders. She wants a family and would like to go back to farming, just like I would. But when she stops and thinks about it, the long hours, the backbreaking work, the weather and all the other things that can go wrong, she changes her mind, just like I do. We’ve got it good here, Kaapo.”

  “That we do, Ari. That we do.”

  ****

  “So,” Kaapo asked, “How was dinner at the diner?”

  “Anna likes pizza. So do I, but not like she does.”

  “And?”

  “I brought the topic of marriage up. After all, I’ve got a good job and better prospects. It would get us both out of the dorms. We’d have to wait to get married until more married housing is finished, but so far we’re just talking about it. It seems strange talking to her about it. Back home, I knew who I was going to marry from when I first knew what marriage was. If I hadn’t left when my wife died, I know exactly who I would have married next. But here I’ve got to ask and she might say no. It’s not at all like asking her father.”

  ****

  "Kaapo, I've been thinking," Ari said one day out of the blue.

  "Yeah?" Kaapo asked, only half-listening, which was pretty much the only way to work with Ari.

  "Anything over a four-inch pipe they make out of a dozen wooden staves held together with iron hoops like a barrel."

  "Yes."

  "Kaapo, the sky is falling?"

  "Yes."

  "Kaapo!"

  The sharpness of the tone caught Kaapo's attention. He looked up and made eye contact. "Yes?"

  "You're not listening. I said, I've been thinking."

  "Did it hurt?" Kaapo asked.

  "No," Ari replied, "but if I have to start this over one more time, I promise it is going to hurt you more than it hurts me. Why aren't they boring out the six-inch pipe instead of making it out of staves and hoops?'

  "Because," Kaapo said, "if they did, it would be a ten-inch exterior diameter. No one would want to work with a log that size the same way we work the two- and four-inch pipes. You would want a block and tackle."

 
"I'd do it."

  "No ordinary, sane, person would." Kaapo said.

  "You would."

  "I would? Why would I?"

  "Because it would pay more?" Ari reasoned.

  "Okay. But, there would be a lot of waste, boring it out to six inches. Why would they?"

  "For the same reason they bore four-inch pipe instead of making it out of staves."

  "Why's that?" Kaapo asked.

  Ari shrugged. "I don't know. Save on iron strapping maybe? Leaks less, maybe? I've never asked. But if it is better for four-inch, why isn't it better for six-inch?"

  "Hm." Kaapo did not have answer. "I don't know, either. So, write it up and put it in the suggestion box."

  "You know I can't write," Ari complained.

  "So? Do what I did. Sign up for the classes and learn."

  "The classes are in Finnish. I mostly use the German I picked up from the aunt who raised me. My uncle brought her with him when he came back from running off to be a soldier. You write it up for us," Ari said.

  "For us? It's your idea. Your bonus, if it works."

  "I could use the bonus to set up housekeeping with Anna. But I still can’t write. If you write it up, it's our idea."

  ****

  Two weeks later Ari and Kaapo were told, "If you fellows want to try running six-inch pipe through a boring machine, the company has decided to let you try, since they already have the tooling for it to run the joints."

  Ari started to ask something but the foreman cut him off. "Yes, Ari they will pay a premium."

  A week later a smiling foreman facetiously asked if they wanted to try their hand at running eight-inch pipe.

  Kaapo, not realizing the man was joking, looked at the foreman, cross-eyed in disbelief.

  Ari looked at the foreman and said, "I don't think so. First, you'd have to build a special rig for it. These stays were made to hold the cradles for two- and four-inch pipes. They are too high to center an eight-inch bore. The stays which aren't too high, aren't set up for stock ten feet long. I don't know if these stays would hold up to the weight and stress of boring an eight-inch bore. So if you do it, you would have to have new, special-built stays. Second, we had to get the mechanic to put a smaller drive wheel on the overhead shaft to slow things down.