Saturday morning, Reder reached the camp before dawn. He fired up the locomotive boiler himself and as soon as he had a little steam up, he laid on the whistle, long steady blasts, then climbed on top of the cab. Loggers stumbled out of their bunkhouses, looking at him in the half light.
“Goddamnit,” he shouted, his voice small against the hills and surrounding forest, but clearly heard. “I’ll get your straw and give you your bull cook. Now get to work or I’ll fire every one of you.”
The loggers looked at one another and smiled. They disappeared back into the bunkhouses and came out with their boots on. Aino and the other flunkies were already in the dining hall, preparing a very meager breakfast of pancakes without butter and beans that they’d put on to simmer the night before. In half an hour Reder Logging was back in production.
The girls slammed through the Saturday evening cleanup in record time. The henhouse hummed with discussions about what ribbon, hat, or bracelet to wear. There were never discussions about choice of clothes; the girls had only one good dress or skirt.
The dance that night was in Tapiola, upstairs in Higgins’s warehouse. Higgins had rigged a canvas screen for privacy for the women that closed off a space carved out of the goods on the main floor, the front of which served as the general store. Although more than half the people didn’t work for Reder, an air of celebration stirred in the building, marking a small victory for working people.
Aino basked in the muted glory.
When the band took a break, Jouka set down his violin and reached into a sack sitting next to the accordion player’s chair. He nodded to the band and they played a brief flourish. The hubbub died. “Aino Koski, please come up here,” he said. Aino felt her heart thump and she hesitated, looking around her.
Lempi gave her a gentle shove, “Go on,” she said. “You’re going to like it.” Then she added, “I already know what it is.”
Aino didn’t have time to process exactly what the last remark was intended to convey, but she made her way to where the band had set up.
When she reached Jouka, he pulled out a little doll made from clean straw that arrived on the train that afternoon. He’d put a little apron on the figure and a tiny head scarf. The loggers cheered and then laughed and kidded Aino when she blushed so deeply it could be seen clear across the room. She wanted to kiss Jouka but simply said, “Kiitos.” Thank you.
The loggers called out, “Speech, speech!” She looked over the people pushed up behind those forming a small space in the dance floor around Aino and the band. She could see Ilmari and Matti by the stairway, their faces glowing with pride. She saw Ullakko over by the wall, next to his children, two of them asleep on the floor. The older children clapped their hands, proud to know her, but when she saw Ullakko’s look, she quickly turned to those immediately in front of her, aware of Jouka, violin in hand, standing just behind her right shoulder.
Although unprepared, she spoke. “First, again, thank you for the doll.” She held it above her head and shouted, “Clean straw!” Everyone clapped and some cheered. She continued in Finnish. “But this is just the beginning.” She realized it seemed someone else was talking. “Yes, we have won a small victory for the workingman, but we must not let this divert us from our main goal, our final victory. No more will we stand alone, beaten down to slave wages, alone, slave hours, alone, and slave working conditions, alone.” Applause, though not general, interrupted her. “When Karl Marx said the workingman has nothing to lose but his chains, he was right, because we have been given nothing and we have nothing. But the chains, the chains, fellow workers, are of our own making. It is our dumb acceptance of ‘the way things are.’” She was suddenly swept away with her own rhetoric, launching into an impassioned appeal to throw off the combined chains of private ownership, the fairy tales told by church and government to keep them in their places and in fear. She finished with a rousing, “Two for ten!” meaning two dollars for a ten-hour day.
She waited for the applause. About a quarter of the crowd clapped, some even cheered, but many, including her brothers, looked embarrassed.
Jouka moved next to her, his hand on her shoulder, and addressed the crowd. “Now, we celebrate the victory we have won. No more talk about work. We’re here to dance.” He turned to the band. “‘Skaters’ Waltz’ in G.” He played the two-bar intro and the band took it away. People began to waltz, forming a flowing circle under the rafters and split-cedar shakes of the roof. Aino became aware of being alone between the band and the dancers. Suddenly, Aksel appeared, holding his hand out in invitation. She glanced at Jouka who, violin under his chin, nodded just enough, urging her to dance. She took Aksel’s hand and moved into the flowing gyre, aware that everyone she loved wanted her to keep quiet.
The waltz over, Jouka left the bandstand and joined her and Aksel. He made a polite nod to Aksel and said, “Mind if I have the next one?” She saw Aksel’s eyes flicker slightly in disappointment, but he graciously nodded back and walked away. She stared up at Jouka. He had never looked so handsome. The band started and they were dancing. She knew all the girls would trade months of bad shifts to be dancing with Jouka, but he had chosen her. He had given her the doll in recognition of what she’d done, the most important thing she’d done in her life. She focused on his face, aware that she couldn’t stop smiling. He had chosen her.
She walked back to Reder’s Camp with Lempi and two other girls from the henhouse. All of them had Sunday shifts in a few hours. Matti and Jouka walked ahead of them and two other loggers behind them in case of a cougar or bear. She felt a letdown. Somehow the speech had turned people from celebrating their victory to focusing on her being a radical. Two women had asked her how many IWW membership cards she’d handed out, and she didn’t get the impression they thought she was doing God’s work.
A quiet, insidious voice told her she’d pushed a little too fast. The speech was right, but it was made at the wrong time. Another lesson in politics learned the hard way.
She wrapped her coat around her and moved closer to Lempi and the others. She focused on Jouka’s back, realizing she hadn’t thought about Voitto the entire night. She smiled, listening to Jouka in his cups, entertaining them all by singing songs in three languages, his lone voice echoing through the dark trees shrouded in the mists of madrugada.