Our Only May Amelia: Chapters 4–8

He is always sullen and angry at everyone.

He is teaching me spelling in English because he says mine is wretched and do I want to spend my whole life being able to write only in Finnish?

Maybe they really left him with us because of his spiteful nature. He’s not nice to anyone, not me or Wilbert or Ivan or Alvin or Wendell or Isaiah.

Uncle Aarno’s house is very big and has the only full-round verandah in the valley.

At lunchtime Uncle Aarno brings out some oyster fritters and hätälepä, Finnish quick bread.

He gives us big glasses of clabbered milk, and pours himself some home brew.

It’s a good opportunity, Kaarlo says belligerently.

We’re the only kin you have left in this world.

She’s making them bring her heavy old rug, which looks like rats have been chewing on it, her own china, a big old bureau, a mirror, a night table, a washstand, pictures of her and Grandfather, and a small chair that she calls her settee.

She’s making them bring her heavy old rug, which looks like rats have been chewing on it, her own china, a big old bureau, a mirror, a night table, a washstand, pictures of her and Grandfather, and a small chair that she calls her settee.

Every child knows that the nuns beat the children with switches and make them sleep in cold beds and eat only gruel.

Well I see that you won’t listen to good sense so I suppose I must take it upon myself to school May Amelia in how to behave, Grandmother Patience says ominously.

You are an ill-mannered slovenly girl.

And you dress like a street urchin, Grandmother Patience says.

Mamma said she was making a new quilt for us on account of ours being threadbare but that it would be spring before she’d be finished.

It seems like everyone is conspiring to make me a Proper Young Lady.

Well, that’s quite exciting May but do you think your family’s going to want a young lady like you traipsing all over the world?

But May Amelia, Miss McEwing says, Proper Young Ladies don’t go gallivanting around the world on ships.

Why everyone knows that Young Ladies must stay home all the time, and do embroidery and keep clean.

When it is time for the splash dam to be released, a whistle sounds and the dam is opened—the water floods out, and the logs with it. It can be real treacherous.

The boys had to milk the cows and then walk all the way to the Finnish Hall for the dance on account of the Nasel being plumb full of logs.

Lonny’s cousin Thymei has cranberry bogs and he sells cranberries back east where they are very popular.

The Widow Mariah is real notorious in these parts because she’s the only woman who owns a tavern.

She is hysterical for sure and her hair has fallen all around her head and she is saying Mayamelia Mayamelia Fetch Your Mamma, Mayamelia Fetch Alma Ohmylord.

Jane speaks real good Finnish. She’s been trying to teach me the Chinook jargon but I am not a very good pupil.

The Nasel, usually so clean and clear, looks dark and cloudy from the dredging and I cannot imagine being on the bottom, like Mary O’Casey, on the bottom where it is black forever.

The mamma bear starts growling low in her throat and then I hear a shot and the mamma bear and her cubs turn tail and run. It’s not the spirits at all—it’s a whole posse!

I have heard that bears are real good climbers too but this one doesn’t seem much inclined to doing it.

He nods curtly and leaves.

I learned how to be a real good milker on Old Liz. She’s lame and can’t stand on her leg to kick out, so she’s a safe one to milk. She went lame on account of breaking her leg running when she heard the steamboat whistle late one night.