Song of Sampo Lake

by William Durbin

  On the first day of the new year, the Ojalas got a surprise visitor. Mother had just set out the soup bowls for lunch when Matti heard the mules braying up at the barn. He looked outside and saw Black Jack stumping up the road with a big pack on his shoulders. He had a little ski attached to his peg leg, and he was using a walking stick to keep his balance.

  Black Jack banged on the door with his stick, and as soon as it swung open, he kicked off his ski and stomped inside. “It looks like I got here just in time for lunch,” he said, wiping his dripping nose with the back of his hand and slipping off his pack.

  “You’re welcome of course,” Mother said, “but we only have a little bread and soup.” She was even more startled than Matti was.

  “That soup is a blamed sight more appealing than the whiskey and cigars I dined on last night.” He was already taking off his wool coat, which was so dirty that the plaid pattern had nearly disappeared. “But before I start on the soup, I need to heat up your Christmas presents,” he said. “Sorry they’re a week late, but I was tied up in camp until yesterday.”

  Matti’s first fear was that he’d brought them a jar of stew, but he reached into his pack and pulled out a pot for melting tin.

  “Hooray!” the girls shouted. It was an old New Year’s custom back in Finland to drop molten tin into water and tell fortunes from the cast shapes. “If Matti can find us a pail of water,” he said, “I’ll get my smelter ready.”

  Black Jack lifted up a stove lid and fit his smelting pot into the opening. As the tin heated, Black Jack had some soup. He talked so much that he spilled more on his beard than he got in his mouth. But between slurps he told them about his lumber camp, which was much closer than Father’s, and explained that he had come home to pick up an adjusting tool for his violin.

  Anna’s and Kari’s eyes got big when the time came for Black Jack to trickle the molten tin into the water bucket. After a sharp hiss Black Jack fished out the first piece of still-warm metal. Holding it to the light, Black Jack studied the shadow it cast on the wall. “Look,” he said, turning to Kari, “it’s a spring tulip, just risen from the ground. That shape tells me you will be a graceful dancer one day.” Next he cast a form for Anna, which took the shape of a long, needle-like object. According to Black Jack, that meant she would become a talented seamstress.

  Once he finished with the girls, he said, “Now for Matti and the missus.” Matti was disappointed when his casting fragmented into many tiny pieces, until Jack said, “That signals you will be a rich man with many pieces of money.” Mother’s bit of molten metal formed into a solid glob, which Black Jack called “a perfect image of a grain sack and a symbol of a rich harvest soon to come.” Then when he noticed a second smaller piece hanging from the corner of the casting, he said, “And here is a strong sign that there will be a grandchild coming along very soon. Does Mutti Boy have a little girlfriend that he’s been keeping from his mother?” Anna and Kari laughed and laughed.

  When Black Jack got ready to leave, Kari whispered to Matti, “Anna and I feel bad that we don’t have a present for Mr. Black Jack.”

  “Why don’t you sing him one of our songs?” Matti said.

  Black Jack grinned as the girls sang about the half-blind tailor who got into trouble for using the wrong colored thread, stitching pant legs shut, and sewing buttons on backward. The last verse told how the tailor became famous when the king’s jester hired him to sew a costume that was envied by all the jesters in the land. Jack clapped his hands and said, “Bravo!”

  As Black Jack shouldered his pack, Matti warned him that he’d used his cabin for shelter during the storm and accidentally left his spittoon in a snowbank. Black Jack said, “That’s good of you to help with my housecleaning.”

  * * *

  By January Matti was tired of being stuck inside with the chatter of the girls and the incessant click of their knitting needles. To pass the time he tried weaving a knapsack from birch bark, but it turned out so lopsided that Kari said, “Your sack looks tired, Matti.”

  A deep cold descended from the north. On his way to the barn the air burned Matti’s nostrils and stung his eyes. During the endless black nights, the stars glimmered like white points of ice while the lake buckled and moaned. Sometimes the ice made a sad, far-off rumbling, and other times it cracked like cannon fire. One night Anna said, “It sounds like ghosts crying under the ice.” Though Matti smiled, it scared him to think of how close Anna had come to being an ice-trapped spirit herself.

  An even louder cracking came from the drying sauna logs. They split in the night as if they had been struck by a gigantic axe blade. The first time it happened, both girls sat up in their sleep and cried out.

  The walk to the Saaris’ was bitter cold, but Matti’s teaching sessions were a welcome break from the monotony. Mrs. Saari had bought five slates for Christmas, so everyone could practice their spelling. Soon even Ukko could print his letters.

  To Matti it felt as if winter were never going to end. When Father went off to the logging camp in the fall, Matti had looked forward to a break from his poems and old sayings. Yet now he longed for Father’s tales. The girls begged Matti to tell stories, but even when he tried “The Great Ox of Suomi,” the girls barely squealed when he told about the seven boatloads of blood.

  The stars burning above Sampo Lake on black nights made Matti long for Kuopio. Back home smoke plumes rose from the school, the granite church, the market, and the dark red houses in his neighborhood, painting the evening sky with wisps of gray. Here the single smoke trail of their chimney, pressed down by the cold, trailed flat across the treetops until it vanished in the dark.

  But the saddest news of the winter came from Billy Winston. One morning Matti arrived at the store to find the door unlocked. He stepped into the familiar scents of leather, coffee beans, and spices, but no one was around. Matti stoked up the stove and waited on two customers before he heard someone stirring in the back.

  “She’s gone” was all Billy said as he walked up to the counter. Billy stunk of whiskey and looked as if he’d slept in his clothes. For the first time Matti understood what his Mother meant when she’d spoken of Billy’s eyes showing his love for Clara. This morning Billy’s eyes were dead and empty. “She told me she couldn’t stand the cold and the loneliness another minute,” Billy continued, blinking at the glass display case. “Next thing I knew she was on the train to St. Paul.”

  “I’m sorry,” Matti said, searching for something more to say.

  “I should’ve seen it coming,” Billy said. “But there was no stopping her once she made up her mind.”

  Nothing could heal Billy’s broken heart. One part of Matti wasn’t surprised. He knew that Clara Winston didn’t fit into Billy’s world. Yet Matti had hoped that she would learn to love the wilderness and want to stay.

  Folks soon found out what had happened, and their glum faces made it all the worse. What Billy needed was normal talk to ease him into his life without Clara. But everyone was so unnaturally quiet that he was reminded of his sadness all day long.

  Once Karl Gustafson did speak his mind and said, “That woman was way too uppity, if you ask me. Good riddance to her.”

  “Well, I ain’t asking,” Billy shouted, grabbing him by the shirt, “and you got no business telling—”

  “Okay, okay,” Karl muttered, shocked by a side of Billy that he’d never seen. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  When February came, Matti decided to break the monotony of cabin life. On the Tuesday before Lent back in Kuopio, the townspeople held a sliding festival called Laskiainen. A contest challenged all the young men and women to see who could slide the farthest down Puijo. The girls went to bed early the night before because, according to custom, the one who made the longest slide in the morning won a spray of flax for her linen weaving.

  Once the girls’ race was done, the hill was open to everyone. To make the course more challenging, no one was allowed to use a sled or skis (unless two boys
stood up on one pair together). Anything else was allowed: sheets of birch bark, blocks of ice, barrel staves, and fir boughs. Lunch was served after the morning sliding, and later on there was a sleigh ride and a dance.

  The part of the holiday that everyone enjoyed most was the whip sled, so Matti decided to build one for Anna and Kari. The next morning, as soon as the girls had finished their breakfast, he said, “Who wants to help me chop a hole in the ice?”

  “Are we going fishing?” Anna asked. “My hands get too cold.”

  “No,” Matti said.

  “Or fetching water to wash clothes?” Kari said.

  “No,” Matti said. “Put on your coats, and you’ll see.”

  When they stepped outside, Mrs. Saari and her boys were arriving, just as Matti had planned. Tapio was carrying a long spruce pole.

  “What’s going on?” Anna and Kari asked together.

  “You’ll see,” Matti said. When he picked up a log and carried it to the lake, the girls cheered. “A whip sled,” they cried. “Matti’s building a whip sled.”

  Tapio and Matti chopped a hole in the ice and set the upright log in place. While they waited for the log to freeze, everyone helped shovel a circle clear of snow. Next Matti bored one hole through the spruce pole and another hole into the top of the upright log. Then Ahti whittled a wooden pin, which they drove into the log, allowing the pole to rotate. Finally they tied a short rope to the smaller end of the pole.

  “Me first,” Anna called. Sitting on a sheet of birch bark, she tucked her knees under her chin and held on tight to the rope. “Faster,” she yelled as Matti pushed against the fat end of the pole. The birch bark made a loud scraping sound as Anna sped across the ice. “Faster, faster,” she squealed as her scarf lifted off her shoulders and her hair blew out from under her cap. She finally let go of the rope and skidded into a snowbank. As Anna rolled over laughing in the snow, Kari shouted, “My turn.”

  After Kari was done, the boys each took a turn. Then the boys and girls tried it in pairs. When two of them let go of the rope, they spun in a complete circle before they slid into the snowbank. Even Mother and Mrs. Saari took a short ride. Both of them giggled like young girls. It felt good to hear Mother laugh again.

  The twins urged Matti to give the sled a try. “You’ll never move me,” Matti said, planting his weight on the bark and taking up the rope.

  Tapio put his shoulder to the pole, and Mother and Mrs. Saari stepped forward to help. “Push,” Tapio urged. “Push harder.”

  At first Matti barely moved. “I told you I was too heavy.”

  But as Tapio and the women put their full weight behind the pole, the birch bark went faster and faster. Soon Matti was flying across the ice.

  “Ptrui,” Matti yelled.

  “Speak English,” Ukko called from the side.

  “Whoa!” Matti hollered. “Whoa!”

  When Matti let go of the rope, his weight made him hit the snowbank so hard that he nearly disappeared.

  Matti lay perfectly still. He waited until the twins and Ukko came to see if he was all right. Then he jumped up and chased them all the way back to the sauna.

  CHAPTER 31

  In early March the weather suddenly turned warm. The wind shifted to the south, and for two days the snowbanks melted. It was so warm one afternoon that Matti split kindling without wearing his coat. Anna asked, “Will it be summer again soon?”

  “No,” Matti said. “We have a good bit of winter yet to come.”

  “But it’s so sunny.”

  “Just wait,” he said.

  By the weekend the wind had shifted to the north, and the temperature had fallen to below zero. After the hard freeze the snow crust allowed Matti to ski without following the trails.

  Though the conditions were perfect for skiing, they were deadly to the deer. One evening after Matti fed and watered the mules, he saw a deer run onto the lake near the creek. Steam was blowing out his nose and rising off his back. As he bounded forward, his front legs suddenly broke through the crust.

  Yipping and snarling, a pack of wolves dashed out of the cedars in close pursuit. The deer scrambled to his feet and pulled away. But just when it looked as if he would escape, his hooves broke through the crust again.

  Matti ran in and got the rifle. “What’s wrong?” Mother asked.

  “Wolves” was all he said as he slipped a handful of shells into his pocket and stepped outside. Before Matti could raise his rifle, a wolf grabbed onto the rear leg of the deer. Matti aimed at the shoulder of the wolf, but just as he was about to squeeze the trigger, the lead wolf lunged for the deer’s throat.

  It was too late now. Instead of firing at the wolf, Matti raised his rifle and shot into the air. The wolves turned toward him and stared. One snout was red with blood. They looked ready to charge. Matti levered another shell into the chamber, but before he snapped the action shut, the pack was loping for the far shore.

  The deer was barely alive when Matti reached it. The snow was pink with blood. The deer’s breath was raspy, and his eyes were half-glazed. Matti ended his suffering.

  Though his family could make use of the meat, Matti hated to see any animal die like this. On firmer ground the deer could have easily escaped. It reminded Matti of a spring evening when he was a little boy, when he and Uncle Wilho had seen an owl kill a rabbit. The snow had melted early that year, leaving the rabbit half-white and an easy target. Matti had cried when he heard the rabbit’s terrible shriek. Though Wilho had tried to ex-plain how nature sometimes played cruel tricks on her creatures, it had taken Matti a long while to get over his sadness.

  When business was poor at the store the following Saturday, Matti had an idea. “Is this your slowest season?” he asked Billy.

  “Generally,” Billy said. He’d been talking in one-word sentences since Clara left.

  “So if you were ever going to take a vacation, this would be the perfect time?”

  “What are you driving at?”

  “I was just thinking,” Matti said. “I’d be willing to look after the store if you ever wanted to take a trip down to St. Paul.”

  “So you’re gonna stick your nose in like every Tom, Dick, and Harry in this country.” Billy was so angry that Matti was afraid he was going to throttle him the way he’d grabbed Karl the other day. Then Billy stopped. “I’m sorry, Matti. I know you mean well.” Billy paused. “I told you how I met Clara, didn’t I?”

  Matti nodded.

  “I really thought things were going well between us.” Billy stood silent for a moment. “I haven’t been to St. Paul in a long time. Just maybe I should give it a try.”

  For the next week Matti was up two hours before dawn to carry wood and water before he left to tend the store. Matti was proud that Billy trusted him to run things, but the supposedly slow time turned out to be busier than ever. On his first day alone two gold prospectors stopped by on their way to Rainy Lake City and bought a month’s provisions. And several homesteaders chose the same day to stock their larders. By the time Matti had swept the floor and straightened the shelves at the end of the day, he had to ski home in the moonlight.

  Billy returned from his trip alone. All he said was, “Clara’s folks weren’t gracious but they weren’t mean neither.”

  The following afternoon Matti was bent over the woodpile, filling his arms, when a voice behind him said, “Do you need some help?” The English was so heavily accented that he could barely understand the words, but the voice was familiar.

  Matti turned. “Father! Since when do you speak English?”

  “I’ve been practicing since Christmas. There’s only one other Finn in our camp, and he’s half-deaf and toothless, so I got tired of talking to myself.” Father paused and switched back to Finnish. “The truth is, you and your uncle were right. If we’re going to live in America, we’d better learn to talk American. But never in the sauna, of course.”

  “Of course,” Matti said.

  As Father bent to help Matti with
a load of wood, he admired the woodpile. “It sure is a relief for me to know that Mother and the girls have a good man to look out for them.”

  “So what brings you home so soon?” Matti asked.

  “We’ve caught up on our contracts,” Father said, “and the boss gave me a few days off to catch up on my own logging.”

  “What logging?” Matti asked.

  “The logging we need to do to get our house built. If we fell the cabin logs when the ground is still frozen, they’ll skid easy. Then you can get them peeled while I’m finishing up at the lumber camp, and we’ll have the walls up before planting time.”

  Matti shook his head. Father was ever the optimist.

  For the next three days they were up at dawn and felling pine trees. The morning after Father returned to his logging camp, Matti began skidding the logs. Hurrying in case a warm spell turned the trails to mud, he worked as fast as Maude and Katie’s strength would allow.

  Since the mules were out of shape from the winter, they needed to rest more often than usual. But Matti could tell that they were excited to be in the harness. Whenever he stopped to let them “blow” and catch their breath, Katie pawed the ground and looked over her shoulder as if to ask, “Isn’t it time to get back to work?”

  “Don’t you worry, Miss Katie,” Matti called, “you’ll have lots of chances to pay us back for all that hay you’ve eaten this winter.” Though Matti had often teased Father for talking to his mules, he found himself carrying on long one-sided conversations in the solitude of the woods. The mules seemed to perk up and listen as if they understood every single word he was saying.

  Once the logs were landed up the hill from the sauna, Matti began peeling them. The bark sheared off the balsam in long sheets, but the red pine was more stubborn.

  Mother was so anxious to have a proper house that she insisted on helping. Matti was impressed with how easily she handled the drawknife. However, when Anna and Kari tried to peel a log, they could barely make a scratch. Finally by standing on opposite sides of the log and pulling the drawknife together, they peeled off a small strip of bark. “Look, Matti,” Kari and Anna said, “we’re logging.”