Aino went to see Kyllikki to talk out the fight.
“But you’re still going to do it,” Kyllikki said.
“Yoh,” Aino answered.
Kyllikki nodded. “OK,” she said. “What are you going to wear?”
That was the second agenda.
“Can I borrow your green dress?”
“It’s short.”
“So?”
“You need to shave your legs.”
“Why?” Aino asked.
“It looks better.”
As she watched Kyllikki fill her coffee cup, she was struck by how wonderful it was just to sit with a sister and talk; her body felt happy, as when she was pregnant with Eleanor. Her brothers talked to get things done or to pass on information. She, Kyllikki, Alma—and even Rauha—talked because it was part of who they were. Woman talk could be banal, mean, and vicious, but it could also be like this talk now with Kyllikki, as if nature wanted her to do this, to bind the tribe. Here, in talk over coffee, the roots of family, not the visible leaves and branches, got tended to.
Tending to the details of the poikataloja had changed her. Organizing was still important and she would never quit, but her attitude had changed. It wasn’t more or less important than tending to the roots over coffee.
Men got the hard, physical things done—logging, building dams and roads, moving things that looked impossible to move. She’d always felt vaguely inferior because nature hadn’t designed her to do those things. But after these months of doing “unimportant work,” she’d come to realize that nature designed her for subtler but equally important things—that decisions about finding a new wife for a lonely brother, freeing up young girls for love, bringing together families and neighbors were as important as the things men did. Too many people—men and women both—didn’t see it or even count it. She looked at Kyllikki, who was pouring the coffee. Here was solidarity as fine as any she hoped for with the One Big Union.
Aino went home and thought about it for a few days. Then she shaved her legs and bought a bra that showed off her breasts. She took the train to Olympia two days later, on April 30, 1926. She’d arranged to stay with Kathleen Tierney’s sister. That night, she went to Sylvester Park, which was in the center of town next to the capitol building, to get the feel of the bandstand.
Looking out over the park in the darkness, the cold drizzle on her face, she imagined the crowd and went through the carefully prepared speech, whispering it, making sure that her English was flawless even if her accent wasn’t.
On May Day morning, she washed her hair and carefully put it up. All the younger women were bobbing their hair. She didn’t feel like doing it, despite all the talk about emancipation and ease. She liked her hair long. She carefully ironed Kyllikki’s dress and attached the brooch Jouka gave her when she had Eleanor. She shined her new shoes. She’d bought them wholesale at the Saaris’ store. The two-inch heels made her look taller and her legs longer—important now that legs were showing so much.
Kathleen was scheduled to go on at two in the afternoon, so Aino would have half an hour before she had to yield the bandstand to the Sons of Norway dance competition. She noticed nearly as many women present as men—so different from the old picnics at Tapiola. Ilmari had once said, “Build them houses with feather beds and the women will come.” Companies still had logging camps with bachelor bunkhouses, but the tiny shacks by the railroad tracks had curtains in the windows and there were plenty of feather beds in the cities and towns.
Lots of Finns were present. She couldn’t tell whether they were reds or whites. They were all drinking sima, a lightly fermented and just slightly alcoholic drink made from brown sugar, lemons, and yeast. There was a prayer by a local minister followed by a speech by the mayor, all about Americanization. Then there was a local politician talking about the contributions of American labor and the Finnish and Scandinavian communities.
While listening to the speeches, Aino became increasingly aware of men wearing VFW and American Legion overseas caps starting to assemble in front of the bandstand. Her butterflies grew. The speech before hers, also about Americanization, delivered by the local commander of American Legion Post 3, was met with loud applause and some cheers. Several legionnaires standing by her gave her a look. She felt a tingle of fear, a memory of wheel spokes, billy clubs, boots, and ax handles.
An official came onstage and announced that Kathleen Tierney couldn’t make it and Aino Kaukonen, a veteran of the free-speech fights before the war, was going to say a few words on the Bill of Rights. Aino winced at the reference to free-speech fights. The announcer had intended to set her up as a Wobbly.
She straightened her dress, patted her hair, reset her hat for the tenth time, took off her glasses, and mounted the stairs.
“Go back to Russia, you red bitch,” someone shouted.
“Yeah. Go back where your Bolshevik buddies are creating the workers’ paradise.”
She had heard worse. She glanced around for the cops. She saw six of them, in pairs, nightsticks at their belts. It wasn’t anything like the free-speech fights with dozens of cops and scores of recently deputized citizens encircling the crowds. Still, the mayor had planned for trouble.
She drew herself up straight. She began with the 112 Wobblies imprisoned under the Espionage Act. That number had been 113, but Big Bill Haywood had escaped to Russia.
She continued, “The jury deliberated fifty-five minutes.” She let the shortness sink in. “Judge Landis gave fifteen of the men twenty years in Fort Leavenworth prison; another thirty-three, ten years; the rest up to five years.”
“They should be hung for treason,” someone shouted. “Jail’s too good for ’em.”
Her first instinct was to engage the heckler in debate, but then she kept to the prepared speech and launched into the specific case of the seven Wobblies unjustly imprisoned in Washington.
A legionnaire started singing “God Bless America.” Others joined him, drowning out her words. People who’d been picnicking were joining the crowd. The policemen, their nightsticks at the ready, looked around nervously.
“Please, please.” She raised her hands for quiet. “I have a right to speak.”
The singing grew in volume. Kathleen promised there would be lots of support, but any supporters were by far outnumbered.
Someone threw a chicken bone. She ducked. She stood up again, straight and tall—and alone.
“Please,” she said again, as loud as she could. “Let me speak.” The singing swelled along with laughter. She was providing entertainment. The crowd pushed against the bandstand. It would be only minutes before someone leaped onto the stage.
She saw people at the edge of the crowd looking toward the street. A big deep-burgundy, four-door 1923 Oldsmobile Sports Touring car with black trim, solid burgundy wheels, and black leather seats swerved off the street onto the grass of the park. Suddenly, the crowd grew silent as the Bachelor Boys, all in their uniforms, stepped out of the car. People knew a big expensive car when they saw one, and they knew what kind of men drove such a car, especially if there were five of them in it at the same time.
Aino watched Aksel, Kullervo, Jens Lerback, and Heppu Reinikka wearing their American Legion caps and Yrjö Rautio wearing his VFW cap walk calmly onto the bandstand to stand in a line to her right.
Aksel stepped forward slightly. “Fellow citizens, fellow veterans,” he began. His English was now very good though still lightly accented. “I’m not a speech maker. I only ask you two questions. For what did we fight and for what did many die, if not the right to speak freely?” He paused. “Are men who faced German fire really afraid of words?”
He paused amid a murmur of agreement.
“Let this woman speak. She has fought, more than most, for that right. Not just for herself, but for all of us.”
He turned to the Bachelor Boys, gave a nod of his head toward the steps, and the five men calmly left the bandstand. Aksel didn’t even look at Aino. The five nonchalantly settled on the fenders and running boards of the big Buick to listen. The crowd stopped looking at them and turned to Aino.
Aino took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and finished her speech. At the end, there was loud applause from some, but the majority were silent.
She looked for Aksel, but the big Buick and the Bachelor Boys were already out on the street and pulling away.
When Aino got back to Astoria late the next afternoon, she found a small box and a note on the kitchen table. The note read, “For Miss Sisu.” Inside the box lay a beautiful, dainty lace handkerchief. She couldn’t imagine anyplace in town that would sell such a thing. Aksel must have bought it when he was in France and kept it all this time.