Song of Sampo Lake Read online

  OTHER DELL YEARLING BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY

  WINTERING, William Durbin

  THE BROKEN BLADE, William Durbin

  TUCKET’S TRAVELS, Gary Paulsen

  THE HERO, Ron Woods

  FEATHER BOY, Nicky Singer

  MATCHIT, Martha Moore

  TROUBLE DON’T LAST, Shelley Pearsall

  THE TRUE PRINCE, J. B. Cheaney

  EARTHBORN, Sylvia Waugh

  SPARKS, Graham McNamee

  DELL YEARLING BOOKS are designed especially to entertain and enlighten young people. Patricia Reilly Giff, consultant to this series, received her bachelor’s degree from Marymount College and a master’s degree in history from St. John’s University. She holds a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University. She was a teacher and reading consultant for many years, and is the author of numerous books for young readers.

  TO WENDY,

  WHO PROVES HER SISU DAILY

  CHAPTER 1

  THE SOUDAN MINE—SOUDAN, MINNESOTA

  MARCH 1900

  Matti tried to pull back. Too late. The sledgehammer grazed the drill rod, and a spark flashed.

  Father jerked his hand back from the end of the drill, barely avoiding the hammer. “Take it easy there, Matti. Keep your mind on your work.”

  “Sorry, I—”

  “Just watch that hammer,” Father said. His dark eyes shined in the candlelight as he turned the drill rod in the hole and leaned his face away from the end. “Ready?”

  Matti nodded and took a deep breath. He was lucky that he hadn’t broken Father’s wrist. Matti hoisted his hammer waist high and swung again. He hit the drill square, cutting away a fraction of an inch of rock. The iron ore was so hard that it took an hour to bore a hole deep enough for a single stick of dynamite.

  “That’s it,” Father said. “Show us your sisu.” Though Matti was exhausted from his ten-hour shift, he smiled. Sisu was a Finnish word that meant strength, courage, and stubbornness all wrapped into one. It was Father’s answer for every challenge in life.

  “I wonder how Timo’s doing,” Father mused as Matti pounded on the drill. For the last few shifts Matti’s older brother, Timo, had been working in a different part of the mine with Uncle Wilho. Though Father would never say it out loud, Matti knew he meant that if Timo were working with him the drilling would be going a lot faster. Matti couldn’t help that Timo was bigger and stronger than he was. If the mine captain here in Minnesota knew Matti was only fifteen, he never would have hired him.

  At eighteen Timo was grown up. A great talker like Father and an athlete, Timo had won many prizes at school back in Finland. Matti’s little sisters Anna and Kari were twins whom everyone called “cute” and “darling.” That left Matti stuck in between.

  Matti focused his gray eyes on the end of the rod. The steel rang out a sharp note each time the hammer fell. Though he had been working in the iron mine all winter, Matti still couldn’t get used to the smell of spent powder that always hung in the air. The taste burned in the back of his throat, and his head ached.

  In the weak light of their candle, puffs of reddish gray dust trickled from the blast hole.

  “Time to switch?” Father asked.

  As the steel rang, Father recited his favorite lines from the Kalevala. In his school days Father had memorized long sections of the Finnish epic poem. Though Father had the broad shoulders and thick chest of a blacksmith and could swing an eight-pound hammer with one hand, he also had a voice with a mellow, musical lilt. Speaking to the rhythm of his hammer, Father told the tale of his favorite Finnish hero:

  Then the aged Väinämöinen

  Spoke aloud his songs of magic

  And a flower-crowned birch grew upward,

  With its leaves all green and golden

  And its summit arched to heaven …

  As they worked, Father went on to tell of the quest for the Sampo, a magic mill that poured out equal portions of gold and grain and salt. He had shared this poem so many times that Matti knew the words by heart. Yet there was something in the ancient song that helped him forget the dust and the dark of the mine.

  When it was Matti’s turn to drive the steel again, he thought back to a story that Mother had read to the twins in Finland the Christmas before last. It was a new translation of a book about a tight-fisted Englishman who hated to spend even half a penny. He growled “Bah! Humbug” at everyone, and he loved darkness because it was cheap. The longer Matti worked underground, the more he thought that the mine owners had a lot in common with that old candle-saving skinflint Ebenezer Scrooge.

  Matti listened to the drill echo in the red-shadowed cold. Each day Matti was more convinced that it had been a mistake to come to America. When his family left Kuopio, Finland, everyone believed that the trip would be the answer to their prayers. They’d heard that America was a grand and golden place, filled with vast tracts of untilled land waiting to be farmed. Matti never would have imagined himself working in the bone-chilling night of a mine. Though Father’s wages as a tenant farmer back in Finland had been low, at least he and Matti and Timo had worked under the freedom of the open sky.

  Underground there was only a single season of dark and dust and cold. During the deep winter Matti could go a whole week without ever seeing the sun. He rode the mine cage into the bowels of the earth before dawn, and he didn’t come up until after sunset. After spending his days drilling in red dust and candle smoke, he walked home under a sky lit by the flickering bits of blue-white stars. With every step he wished they had never left home.

  Matti would never forget the day his father decided to move to America. They had just finished delivering the landlord’s share of their potato crop on the afternoon that Uncle Wilho’s letter arrived from Minnesota. At first Father read silently. Then his brown eyes flashed. “One hundred sixty acres are free to anyone willing to start a homestead. Just think! A whole quarter section, while we’re struggling to survive on twelve rented acres!” He waved his arms as he always did when he got excited. “Wilho says that if I go to Minnesota first and work with him in the mine I can save enough money to send for the rest of the family.”

  “I’ll not be made an America Widow, Leo Ojala,” Mother said. “America Widow” was the name given to Finnish women who were waiting for their husbands to mail them steamship passage. One woman in their village had been waiting three years for word from her husband.

  “But what if that pig Bobrikov drafts Timo into the Russian army while we’re sitting on our hands?” Father said. Bobrikov was the governor general of Finland who had been appointed by the Russian czar, Nicholas II. Though many people in Kuopio tolerated Russia’s influence over their country Father was convinced that young men would soon be shipped off to fight in foreign wars. “Give them enough time,” he said, “and we’ll all be speaking Russian.”

  Mother shook her head. “As much as I’d like my own farm, I don’t care if Nikolai Bobrikov drafts us all into the army and declares Russian the official language of the Christian world. If this family moves we are moving as one.”

  Now, in the mine, the steady rhythm of Matti’s hammer reminded him of the engine that had pushed their ship across the ocean. Most of the passengers were young men. To them the voyage was a week-long party, and they danced to an accordion and sang and gambled. Timo and Father joined in the fun, but Matti decided to hold his celebrating for their journey’s end.

  The ship reached New York harbor on a gray morning. Matti stood on the deck with the other passengers and searched the horizon for the golden shores of America they’d all been praising in their songs. Suddenly the fog lifted in a breeze, and the Statue of Liberty rose like a sea-stained goddess. Everyone pointed, wav
ed, and hugged one another. A hundred fathers lifted their children high and called out in a dozen languages, “There it is, my son, my daughter, my child.” Father balanced the twins on his shoulders and shouted, “That is a sight you must never forget, Timo.” Matti kept his eyes fixed on the statue, but he thought, Why couldn’t Father call my name for once? Would it cost so much to say, “What do you think of America, Matti?”

  “Matti…” Now, in the mine, it took Matti a moment to realize that Father was talking to him. “Matti, it’s time to charge the blast holes.”

  “Sorry.” Matti’s fingers were stiff as he set down the drill rod and carried over the dynamite. “Should I check with the shift boss?”

  Father nodded. He picked up the sack of blasting caps and the roll of fuse that he stored away from the dynamite for safety’s sake. Then he opened his jackknife. “I’ll trim the fuses while you’re gone.” Since Father didn’t speak English, it was Matti’s job to let the foreman know that they were ready to blast the ore loose. Before Matti started down the drift with his candle set in the wire rim of his helmet, he lit a second one for Father. As he walked between the tram rails he heard a mule bray.

  The Soudan mine was deep and cold. Matti licked his lips and tasted salt, for they were working in the depths of an ancient seabed. The salty taste reminded Matti of the time he had traveled by train to the coast of Finland as a small boy. The Savo railroad had just opened, and Aunt Hilda and Uncle Wilho had come with his family. One afternoon as they walked along the beach, Wilho told him, “A boy like you would be perfect shark bait. You’d be nothing more than a biscuit to a big one.” Aunt Hilda said, “Stop,” but Wilho clapped his hands together to show an imaginary shark’s mouth. “One bite is all it would take,” he said, his white hair blowing back in the wind and his eyes alive with mischief.

  Matti said, “And you’d better watch out for the whales, Uncle. They love to swallow storytellers.”

  As hard as the work was in the mine, at least Matti had Uncle Wilho nearby to cheer him up. Whether they were riding down the shaft in the cage, working as partners on the same contract, or cleaning up in the washhouse known as the dry, Wilho always livened things up. Most of the miners, like Matti’s father, stuck close to their own national group, but Wilho loved to swap lunch pails and trade stories with the other men. “If the mules down here can understand Slovenian and Swedish and English,” he said, “I surely can learn a few words from the other fellows.” Wilho embraced American ways; he had even changed the spelling of his name from the Finnish Vilho to Wilho.

  Matti got the all-clear from the foreman and walked back to Father. Dynamite made Matti nervous. He had heard too many stories of a “hot” fuse setting off a premature blast or a man’s bootlace catching on a rail and tripping him as he headed for safety. Everyone’s worst fear, other than a cave-in, was an accidental explosion. One mistake could be fatal.

  After Father touched off his fuses, he and Matti hurried back to the main shaft for shelter. They crouched and listened. The first deafening crack of dynamite brought a rush of air. The rock underfoot trembled as the charges fired in perfect sequence. Father and Matti both counted on their fingers to make sure each stick exploded. Their candles flickered, and Matti coughed in the thick red dust cloud that rolled out of the drift. “The next crew should have easy loading now,” Father said.

  Matti and Father rode to the surface with a half dozen other miners. When the cage clattered to a stop, Uncle Wilho was waiting under the headframe. “Hey there, Kapteeni” Wilho called. Matti waved. Wilho called him Kapteeni, Finnish for captain, because when Matti was little, Wilho had carved him a small boat that he loved to sail on a pond near his house in Kuopio.

  “Where’s Timo?” Father asked.

  “He went on ahead to the dry,” Wilho said. “Time for a little cleanup, eh, fellows?” Wilho took off his helmet as they walked. Steam rose from his white head, and he wiped his ore-stained cheeks with the back of his hand. Like Matti, Wilho was slender with light blond hair and so tall that his friends called him the stork. When strangers noticed Matti’s and Wilho’s lanky frames and dimpled smiles, they sometimes mistook the two of them for father and son.

  After the men stepped inside and took off their mining clothes, they washed at a long sink. Wilho whistled the whole time he lathered up his arms and chest, but Father grumbled, “This is a poor excuse for a bath.”

  “Get ready for the sauna lecture,” Timo said.

  Father ignored him. “When I get my homestead the first thing I’ll build is a sauna, so I can take a proper bath.”

  “Even before you plant your potatoes?” Wilho splashed water on his face.

  “My potato patch will have to wait,” Father said.

  Matti and Timo both grinned. Father believed that the heat of a sauna could mend both body and spirit, and his favorite saying was “If a sick person can’t be cured by tar, whiskey, or sauna, then they will die.”

  The late-winter sun was low in the sky as they descended the long wooden steps that led from the mine to the town of Soudan. Anna and Kari ran up the street to greet them. They were skinny little blue-eyed blondes with an overload of energy and very different personalities. Anna tended to be careful like Mother, while Kari followed Father’s lead. Uncle Wilho always warned her: “Look before you leap, little lady,” but it did no good. From the time she was a toddler, Kari had tested hot stove lids with her fingers and splashed through puddles in her Sunday dress.

  “How’s my naughty little niece?” Wilho said as Kari held out her hand to carry his lunch pail. Anna took Father’s.

  “I’m not naughty,” Kari said.

  “Then how did you get that frosting on your cheek?”

  “He caught you.” Anna laughed along with Matti and Timo. “She snitched some of Aunt Hilda’s cake.”

  “I think we can keep it a secret”—Wilho knelt down to wipe Kari’s cheek with his handkerchief—“as long as you’ve saved a piece for me.”

  “So how are your English lessons going?” Matti asked the girls, practicing his own English as he carefully pronounced each word.

  But before the girls could reply Father said, “Talk so a man can understand you.”

  “There’re no Finn bosses in that mine for good reason.” Wilho pointed his finger back up the hill. “If a man wants to fit in he’s got to learn how to do things the American way.”

  “The only place I want to be boss is on my own farm,” Father said. “And as soon as I save up enough money to homestead I’ll be done with that mine and its American ways for good. I’ll not give up talking Finn for no man.”

  Father turned to Timo. “How did you do today?”

  While Father and Timo talked, Matti looked out on the town of Soudan. The mining company had forbidden businesses here, out of fear that too many saloons would open, so all the stores and shops were in nearby Tower. Soudan was known as the city of houses. Except for a handful of spacious homes that were reserved for the foremen and timekeepers, the miners’ houses were gray boxes scattered across a treeless hillside.

  When Uncle Wilho had first written a letter about his life in America, Matti imagined a village like Kuopio with sturdy timber homes set above a blue lake. But Soudan had been built without a plan. The houses in the mining location were propped on wooden posts that tilted and heaved when the frost left the ground. Most were owned by the mine and rented to the workers. Even if Uncle Wilho piled hay around the outside of his home to keep out the cold during the winter, once spring came the floors bulged up in the middle and the doors and windows jammed. To add to the ramshackle mood, cows and horses wandered the streets, pigpens crowded the backyards, and garbage was piled high in the alleys.

  “Welcome to America’s golden shores,” Matti whispered to himself as his ore-stained boots crunched on the frozen wooden sidewalk.

  “What’s that?” Father said, too busy listening to Timo to hear Matti.

  “He’s just thinking out loud,” Wilho said, pu
tting his arm around Matti’s shoulders. “If we can hang on just a little longer, we’ll be on our homesteads before you know it.”

  CHAPTER 2

  For supper Aunt Hilda prepared Matti and Wilho’s favorite meal, kalakukko, a special rye-crust pie filled with pork and fish. Mother tended to serve simple dinners of soup and bread, but Aunt Hilda loved to cook fancy meals. Mother and Hilda were identical twins like Matti’s sisters. They were both slender with fair hair and blue eyes, but Mother was shy and deliberate, while Hilda was an outgoing amateur opera singer and actress.

  “Cut me a piece of pie quick, Hildy,” Wilho said as the family took their seats around the table, “before that Matti gets his hands into it.” Matti laughed.

  “Hush and be nice.” Aunt Hilda smiled.

  While Anna and Kari were still saying grace, Wilho took his fork and pretended to reach for the pie.

  “Wilho!” Hilda said. “Set a good example for the youngsters.” Anna and Kari giggled.

  As Mother poured the coffee, Timo asked Father, “Do you think I should take that job on the raise crew?”

  “Does the raise crew lift heavy things?” Kari asked.

  “No,” Timo said. “They cut chutes straight up through solid rock. The foreman says he needs big strong fellows. That’s why he asked me.” Timo held up his arm and flexed it. Show-off, Matti thought. Timo was tall like Uncle Wilho, and bull-strong and stubborn like Father.

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” Mother asked.

  “You can’t beat the wages,” Timo said. “We’d be able to put more money toward our homestead.”

  Matti wondered if Timo should tell Mother the truth. Though the raise crew was paid well, the job was so dangerous that the bosses had trouble convincing men to sign on. The worst part was climbing up the ladders in the dust and dark after a blast, not knowing if all the rocks had been dislodged.

  “If we could get out of that mine sooner, it might be worth it,” Father said.